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      Trump Turns to His Personal Lawyers to Stock Top Ranks of Justice Dept.

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      For more than two years, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s lawyers did the job they were hired to do, defending him against a barrage of criminal charges with an aggressive strategy of confrontation and delay.But in working for Mr. Trump, they also used the tools of their trade — their legal briefs and courtroom hearings — to advance a political message that ultimately helped their client get back into the White House.Now, after fighting for Mr. Trump in case after case that they helped turn into a form of political theater, some of those lawyers are being rewarded again for their work. Mr. Trump has said he intends to nominate them to high-ranking posts in the Justice Department, which he has made clear he wants to operate as a legal arm of the White House rather than with the quasi-independence that has been the post-Watergate norm.After the president-elect’s announcement this week that he wants Matt Gaetz, the controversial former Florida congressman and a longtime ally, to be his attorney general, he named Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, two experienced former federal prosecutors who took the lead in defending Mr. Trump at his state trial in Manhattan and against two federal indictments, to fill the No. 2 and No. 3 positions in the department.A third lawyer, D. John Sauer, who was the Missouri solicitor general and oversaw Mr. Trump’s appellate battles, was chosen to represent the department in front of the Supreme Court as the U.S. solicitor general.Another lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., who defended several people in Mr. Trump’s orbit and helped in the process of vetting his vice-presidential pick, has also been mentioned for a top legal job, though it remains unclear if he will actually receive a role.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

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      Judge John Hodgman on Humorous Bathroom Signs

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      If you make the request funny, can you tell your guests how to use your toilet?Anonymous writes: At my mother’s suggestion/command, my brothers and I have always peed sitting down, to minimize splashing. I continue that practice, and I would like my guests to as well. I want to hang a humorous sign in the bathroom instructing guests to sit down, but my wife says that it would be rude.I think you can ask this of your own close family, but your brothers are already in the good-boy club. Otherwise, I agree with your wife. It may seem strange that it’s OK, for example, to require your guests to take their shoes off but impolite to ask them not to pee all over your floor. But the gracious host presumes innocence. A guest might inadvertently step in mud, but it’s infantilizing to suggest — even via jokey sign — that they can’t handle their own waste without Mother’s special training. If a guest misses the target from time to time, that’s the cost of inviting other bodies into your world, and you owe them the grace of not reminding them how gross we all are during a nice dinner. More

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      Activists Sent to Prison for Pouring Powder Over Case Holding U.S. Constitution

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      One climate activist was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the other to two years. They said that they had meant to draw attention to climate change.Two climate activists who dumped red powder over the display case that holds the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives Museum in February were each sentenced this week to more than a year in prison.Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday sentenced one activist, Jackson Green, 27, of Utah, to 18 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release.On Friday, Judge Jackson sentenced the other activist, Donald Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, to two years in prison with two years of supervised release.They must pay $58,607.59 in restitution to the National Archives, according to court records.In an episode that was captured on video, Mr. Green and Mr. Zepeda poured powder over the display case in the rotunda of the National Archives Museum on Feb. 14 in what prosecutors described as a “stunt” that was meant to draw attention to climate change.The two men also poured powder over themselves and stood in the rotunda, calling for solutions to climate change.The Constitution was not damaged, according to the National Archives Museum, which said that the powder was made of pigment and cornstarch.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

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      A Whole New Ballgame

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      What soccer, a recent foray into coaching and years of writing this newsletter taught our columnist about the game, and himself.A few weeks ago, the soccer team that occupies rather more of my thoughts than is healthy had a problem. Well, strictly speaking, it had several. One was that all of the players, including my son, were under the age of 7, which it turns out is something of a tactical limitation. Another was that I had been roped into being one of the coaches.More urgently, though, we kept conceding goals. Avoidable goals. Silly goals. Goals wrapped up in gift paper and presented to the opposition, accompanied by a heartfelt card.Technically, when children start playing formal soccer in England — at the age of 6 — the games are not competitive. There is no league table. The results are not even recorded. That arrangement is not quite the same, though, as nobody knowing what the results are. And it was apparent, to anyone who could count, that our results were not good.It was at this point that I hatched a plan to limit the damage. It seemed to me quite a good plan. We had spent two years encouraging the children to play soccer the way it is meant to be played. They pass out from the back. They take a touch. They rely on their technique to avert danger. They express themselves.But it had become very clear, very quickly, that this approach had not really survived first contact with reality. We were conceding goals in great bucket-loads because we kept creating problems for ourselves: dribbling across our own box, passing aimlessly into the middle of a congested field, turning not into space but into trouble. We kept losing games. And while winning or losing was not supposed to matter, we worried that, sooner or later, the children would start losing enthusiasm.What we needed, I thought, was just a dash of the ancient wisdom that had been passed down to me, when I was taking my first tentative steps in soccer. Geoff — my first and only youth coach, whose son took all the free kicks and corners — had given us two instructions, and only two: Play the way you are facing and, if in doubt, boot it out.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

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      ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Plays and Movies

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      While “Hamlet” is the Shakespeare play with the most Broadway productions, “Romeo and Juliet,” whose 36th revival is currently on Broadway, has had a more pervasive influence over popular culture. Its enduring, ever-adaptable theme of lovers from warring families pops up repeatedly in films, songs, cartoons and skit shows. See if you spot the references. More

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      Gaza War Strains Europe’s Efforts at Social Cohesion

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      Institutions meant to promote civility, from soccer to song, have come under severe stress from rising antisemitism and anti-immigrant politics.The various institutions of postwar Europe were intended to keep the peace, bring warring peoples together and build a sense of continental attachment and even loyalty. From the growth of the European Union itself to other, softer organizations, dealing with culture or sports, the hope has always been to keep national passions within safe, larger limits.But growing antisemitism, increased migration and more extremist, anti-immigrant parties have led to backlash and divisions rather than comity. The long war in Gaza has only exacerbated these conflicts and their intensity, especially among young Muslims and others who feel outraged by Israeli bombings and by the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, a large proportion of them women and children.Those tensions were on full display in the recent violence surrounding a soccer match between an Israeli and a Dutch team in Amsterdam, where the authorities are investigating what they call antisemitic attacks on Israeli fans, as well as incendiary actions by both sides. Amsterdam is far from the only example of the divisions in Europe over the Gaza war and of the challenges they present to European governments.The normally amusing Eurovision Song Contest, which was held this year in Malmo, Sweden, a city with a significant Muslim population, was marred by pro-Palestinian protests against Eden Golan, a contestant from Israel, which participates as a full member.The original lyrics to her song, “October Rain,” in commemoration of the 1,200 Israelis who died from the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel’s response in Gaza, were rejected by organizers for their political nature, so were altered to be less specific. Her performance was met with booing and jeering from some in the audience, but she did receive a wave of votes from online spectators, pushing her to fifth place.It was hardly the demonstration of togetherness in art and silliness that organizers have always intended.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

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      Leonids Meteor Shower: When and How to Watch Its Peak

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      The event produces some of the year’s fastest meteors, although the nearly full moon may make them challenging to spot.Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with your naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.The latest observable meteor shower will be the Leonids, which have been active since at least Nov. 6 and are forecast to continue through Nov. 30. They reach their peak Nov. 16 to 17, or Saturday night into Sunday morning.Meteors from the Leonids can be spotted in the constellation Leo, and they will be visible from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The Leonids produce some of the fastest meteors each year, at 44 miles per second, with bright, long tails. But this year, spotting them may be difficult during the peak because of the nearly full moon.To get a hint at when to watch, you can use a meter that relies on data from the Global Meteor Network showing when real-time fireball activity levels increase in the coming days.Where meteor showers come fromThere is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.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

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      A $190 Soap Dispenser Has Become the Hit Product at Gem Home

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      The ceramic vessel made by a former fashion designer has become the hit product at a new shop in Downtown Manhattan.The soap dispenser could have looked like anything.Most important to Flynn McGarry was to have a stylish vessel in keeping with the aesthetic of Gem Home, his new store and cafe in Manhattan. Its customers can nibble on lentils and slabs of parsnip cake at communal farm tables lit by tapered candles or browse shelves bearing a tight selection of comestibles and products like antique cutlery, cloth napkins and glass tumblers imported from Britain.“My biggest thing was not just selling glass bottles of soap,” said Mr. McGarry, 25, a chef since his teenage years whom Vogue has called the Justin Bieber of food.He went with a ceramic dispenser produced by hand in small batches and made in saturated colors and abstract shapes. Each is filled with a quince-scented soap from Ffern, a luxury fragrance company in Britain, and comes with a refill. A 10-ounce dispenser costs $190, and a 12-ounce version costs $210.Since Gem Home opened in NoLIta three weeks ago, it has sold 24 dispensers, an average of one a day. (The product is currently sold out; new stock is expected this weekend.)“I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be able to keep them on the shelves for more than 25 minutes,” Mr. McGarry said. “They’re not cheap,” he added. But the dispensers have seemed to resonate with people willing to pay a premium for objects aimed at “elevating the most mundane elements of life,” as he put it.Created by Shane Gabier, a fashion designer turned ceramic artist, the dispensers are an offshoot of a version he made for the bathroom at Gem Home, which is attached to a wall to prevent people from stealing it. Mr. Gabier is also making a wall soap dispenser for the bathroom at Gem Wine, Mr. McGarry’s wine bar on the Lower East Side.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