Elections

The Tea Party is over. Cultural issues seem to animate G.O.P. voters.“On Beyond Zebra!” is among the Dr. Seuss books that will no longer be published, a fact many Republicans are aware of. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesTo Understand Why Republicans Are Divided on the Debt Ceiling, Consider Dr. SeussOne of my favorite polling nuggets from the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency wasn’t about Afghanistan or inflation or classified documents.It was about Dr. Seuss.In early March 2021, a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that more Republicans said they had heard “a lot” about the news that the Seuss estate had decided to stop selling six books it deemed had offensive imagery than about the $1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package enacted into the law that very week.The result was a vivid marker of how much the Republican Party had changed over the Trump era. Just a dozen years earlier, a much smaller stimulus package sparked the Tea Party movement that helped propel Republicans to a landslide victory in the 2010 midterm election. But in 2021 the right was so consumed by the purported cancellation of Dr. Seuss that it could barely muster any outrage about big government spending.Whether issues like “On Beyond Zebra!” still arouse Republicans more than the national debt takes on renewed importance this year, as Washington seems to be hurtling toward another debt ceiling crisis. The answer will shape whether Republicans can unify around a debt ceiling fight, as they did a decade ago, or whether a fractious party will struggle to play a convincing game of chicken — with uncertain consequences.Unfortunately, our trusty Seuss-o-meter for gauging Republican interest in fiscal policy isn’t readily available today. But heading into the year, there were very few signs that the debt had reclaimed its Obama-era position at the top of the list of conservative policy priorities.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

Emily Elconin for The New York TimesIn Michigan, which has an open seat, Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat who comfortably won re-election in November, is also taking steps toward a possible Senate run in 2024. Her moves include forming a national campaign team and meeting with leaders across the state, a person close to the congresswoman confirmed last week. More

Also, violence is flaring in Israel and the West Bank.People gathered in protests across the country after the footage was released.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesU.S. grapples with another police beatingThe release of a video on Friday showing five officers with the Memphis Police Department pummeling and pepper-spraying Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, prompted horror and disgust from law enforcement officials, lawmakers and other people across the U.S.The officers, according to the video, escalated their use of physical force and gave conflicting orders. It does not appear that Nichols fought back during the beating. At one point, he yelled out for his mother. Once medics were on the scene, they stood by for more than 16 minutes without administering treatment.Nichols had been stopped for what the police originally said was reckless driving. He died three days later, and an independent autopsy found that he “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.”The City of Memphis released the video a day after the officers were charged with second-degree murder and other felonies. The five officers are all Black, a fact that has shifted the national conversation toward police culture itself. Many argue that the police system and its tactics foster racism and violence more than the racial identity of any particular officer does.Response: The country has grappled repeatedly with high-profile cases of Black men and women being killed by police officers. The relatively swift release of the footage reflects a national shift about how police investigate and talk about those cases.Fallout: On Saturday, the Memphis Police Department announced that it had disbanded the controversial unit in which the five officers had worked.Tyre Nichols: A skateboarder and nonconformist, Nichols cut his own path from California to Tennessee.In January alone, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed, including five children. So have seven Israelis.Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesViolence flares in Israel, the West BankA series of raids and attacks since Thursday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem have left more than 20 people dead. Yesterday, an 18-year-old Palestinian man was fatally shot outside an Israeli settlement.Israel’s new far-right government has been in power for only a month. But on its watch, Israelis and Palestinians have already experienced one of the most violent phases, outside a full-scale war, in years. Nine Palestinians were shot dead on Thursday morning, in the deadliest Israeli raid in at least a half-decade. Yesterday, a tenth person died. On Friday, a Palestinian gunman killed seven people outside a synagogue in Jerusalem, the deadliest attack on civilians in the city since 2008. On Saturday, an attacker who the police said was 13 years old shot and injured two Israelis near a settlement in East Jerusalem.In response, Israel’s government on Saturday said it planned to expedite gun licenses for Israeli citizens, reinforce military and police units to carry out more arrests of Palestinians and conduct operations aimed at seizing Palestinians’ weapons.What’s next: Analysts fear that Israeli policies are likely to inflame an already volatile situation, our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, reports. Rising frustration and violence among young Palestinians are also contributing to a combustible situation.The missing capsule came from a Rio Tinto mine.Jorge Guerrero/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA missing radioactive capsule in AustraliaAuthorities in Western Australia are searching for a dangerously radioactive capsule. It’s smaller than a penny and could be anywhere along a vast desert highway.The device, part of a sensor used in mining, is believed to have fallen off a truck that drove from a Rio Tinto mine in Western Australia’s remote north to Perth, the state capital. The 870-mile trip (1,400 kilometers) took several days. The search involves the use of radiation detectors. “What we are not doing is trying to find a tiny little device by eyesight,” an official said.If you spot it: Stay at least five meters away. The capsule contains cesium-137. An hour of exposure at about a meter away equals having had 10 X-rays. Prolonged contact can cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness and cancer.THE LATEST NEWSThe Australian OpenNovak Djokovic beat Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in straight sets.Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNovak Djokovic won the men’s singles title at the Australian Open, a year after he refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus and missed the tournament. It’s the 10th time he has won the tournament, and his 22nd Grand Slam title.Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus won the women’s singles title. She beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.Asia PacificA bus in Pakistan fell into a ravine and caught fire, killing at least 40 people.Floods in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, killed at least four people, the BBC reports, after the area suffered its worst recorded downpour.China’s oil and gas consumption fell in 2022 for the first time in decades.Most Australians under 35 support moving the date of Australia Day from Jan. 26.Asia is cold. Blame the polar vortex.The War in UkraineUkraine’s military said its soldiers had repelled Russian attacks on villages near the eastern city of Bakhmut.The Kremlin outlawed Meduza, a leading independent news site based in Latvia.The Czech Republic decisively elected Petr Pavel, a retired senior NATO general, as its president, cementing its position as a supporter of Ukraine.U.S. officials overseeing aid insist that Ukraine is tackling corruption after the recent dismissal of top officials.Two men facing Russia’s draft used a fishing boat to seek asylum in the U.S.Around the WorldPeru’s government is portraying demonstrators as pawns for nefarious interests.Marco Garro for The New York TimesProtests are growing in Lima, led largely by Indigenous, rural and poorer Peruvians who are calling on the president to resign.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain fired Nadhim Zahawi, the chair of the Conservative Party, over his tax affairs.Donald Trump held his first public events after formally opening his comeback bid for the White House.The Netherlands and Japan will join the U.S. in banning some shipments of their chip technology to China.A Morning ReadPeople with Gallic inclinations. Or, perhaps, people under the influence of French civilization.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesThe Associated Press caused a brouhaha when it offered a style tip: “We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled.” That didn’t sit well with the French. (What else would we call them, “people of Frenchness”?) “In fact, the French rather like being stereotyped as the French,” our Paris bureau chief writes. “They undergo Frenchness with considerable relish.”ARTS AND IDEASFuture cringeOne day we’ll look back on the early 2020s and wonder: What were we thinking? The Times asked more than 30 people from academia, the media, the arts and beyond to weigh in on what they think will one day make us cringe.Their responses include: the monarchy, plastic bottles, selfies and gender-reveal parties. Also, the pandemic and our responses to it, and using the word “journey” to describe anything other than a perilous trek.Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired magazine, gave my favorite answer, which includes: “Eating dead animals. Not being able to have two spouses at once. Fearing human clones. (They are serial twins.) Wrapping food in plastic. Thinking you needed permission to visit another country.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York TimesPeanut butter-glazed salmon is fast and fun.What to Watch“Poker Face,” starring Natasha Lyonne, just might be the best detective show in 50 years.What to Listen toSam Smith’s fourth album, “Gloria,” includes bold, danceable tracks.The News QuizHow closely did you follow last week’s headlines?Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Doctors’ org. (three letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The Times is on TikTok. Check us out @nytimes.Start your week with this narrated long read about threats to the Amazon. “The Daily” is about Iran’s protests.We’d like your feedback. You can reach us at [email protected]. More

Petr Pavel, a political novice, defeated Andrej Babis, a populist business tycoon and former prime minister, in the first of several important European elections this year.The Czech Republic on Saturday elected Petr Pavel, a retired senior NATO general and political novice, as president, according to nearly complete results, with voters decisively rejecting the rival candidacy of a populist billionaire and cementing the country’s position as a robust supporter of Ukraine.Mr. Pavel, a former chief of the general staff of the Czech Army and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, defeated the tycoon Andrej Babis, a pugnacious former prime minister who had sought to cast his opponent in Saturday’s runoff vote as a warmonger intent on dragging Czech soldiers into the conflict in Ukraine.Mr. Babis’s tactics copied those of a close former ally, Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orban, who won a landside victory last April after falsely claiming that his main rival wanted to send Hungarian troops to fight Russia in Ukraine.But that argument flopped for Mr. Babis in the Czech Republic, which has far more diverse media outlets than Hungary, where Mr. Orban’s governing Fidesz party and its business allies have a tight grip on television and most other sources of information.With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, the tally gave Mr. Pavel a decisive victory: 58 percent to 42 percent. Two weeks ago, in the first round of voting, Mr. Pavel and Mr. Babis finished neck and neck.The Czech presidency is largely ceremonial, but the incumbent, Milos Zeman, who was barred from running by term limits, stretched its limited powers to try to tilt Czech foreign policy toward Russia and China and loosen the Central European country’s moorings in the West.Mr. Zeman, who last year dropped his previously pro-Kremlin views, did not upset the Czech government’s strong support for Ukraine, which has included sending tanks and other military hardware, but his reputation for heavy drinking and disruptive eccentricity has often raised questions abroad over the Czech Republic’s direction.Taking a swipe at Mr. Zeman’s decade-long tenure, Mr. Pavel on Saturday declared the election’s outcome a “victory for the values that we share — truth, respect, humility.”“I will make sure these values return to Prague Castle,” he added, referring to the seat of the Czech presidency.Neither Mr. Pavel nor Mr. Babis shares Mr. Zeman’s eastward leanings, but their race represented a stark clash in political styles — between low-key pragmatism and rambunctious populism.Andrej Babis arriving on Monday at a campaign event in Brno, Czech Republic. Mr. Babis was defeated by Mr. Pavel. Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockOtto Eibl, the head of the political science department at Masaryk University in the Czech city of Brno, said Mr. Pavel’s victory “could be a moment of calming and perhaps a step toward improving the political culture in the country.”“But,” Mr. Eibl continued, “it will depend on how Babis handles his defeat — whether he continues to add fuel to the fire, or acknowledges the victory” of his rival.Speaking on Saturday at his party’s headquarters in Prague, Mr. Babis conceded defeat, but he showed no sign of bowing out of politics. He said the result showed that he had strong support and could win the next parliamentary election in 2025.Mr. Pavel, a former paratrooper widely known as “the general,” campaigned on the slogan, “Leading with experience and calm in difficult times.” Mr. Babis, who was recently acquitted of fraud charges relating to European Union funding, fanned fears of war spreading to the Czech Republic, claiming that “the general does not believe in peace.”The clash between the two men made the vote — the first in a series of important elections this year in Eastern and Central Europe — a significant test of whether Europe’s once rising populist tide has crested.Despite the Czech president’s limited formal powers, the post carries great symbolic weight. This year’s election, with a first round of voting featuring eight candidates, stirred even more interest than usual, with more than 70 percent of voters casting ballots in Saturday’s runoff, the highest turnout in a Czech election.That populism continues to be a force was shown last year by Mr. Orban’s landslide victory in Hungary, but its fortunes elsewhere have been mixed. It suffered a big setback in the Czech Republic in October 2021 when Mr. Babis lost his post as prime minister after a broad alliance of centrist and leftist parties won a parliamentary election. Elections last year in Slovenia delivered another blow, with voters ousting Janez Jansa, a far-right admirer of Donald J. Trump and a close ally of Mr. Orban.But anti-establishment populism could gain ground in elections this year in Slovakia, whose centrist government collapsed in December, opening the way for a possible return to power by Robert Fico, a belligerent former prime minister tainted by corruption and other scandals.The key test, however, will be an election this fall in Poland, the region’s most populous country, which has been governed since 2015 by the deeply conservative and nationalist Law and Justice party.Barbora Petrova More

At two events on Saturday, Donald J. Trump is embracing more traditional campaigning as he struggles to maintain support for his third White House bid.COLUMBIA, S.C. — Donald J. Trump campaigned during his first presidential race in a distinctly audacious style, giving free helicopter rides to children at the Iowa State Fair and using his Trump-branded 757 jetliner as an event backdrop.He rolled out a second campaign in equally unusual fashion, filing re-election paperwork on the same day as his inauguration and holding 10 signature mega-rallies before the end of his first year in office.For his third campaign, it’s back to basics — for the first time.More than two months after formally opening his White House comeback bid, the 76-year-old former president will hold his first two public events on Saturday. Both are the type of textbook campaign stops he mostly skipped in his first two runs for office.In New Hampshire, Mr. Trump will speak in a high school auditorium in Salem, where he will address an annual state party meeting. In South Carolina, where he has previously attracted thousands to rallies, Mr. Trump will introduce his state leadership team at the State Capitol, an extraordinary setting for a politician known for upsetting the establishment and taking direct aim at longstanding public institutions.Mr. Trump’s attempt to drape himself with the typical trappings of a traditional campaign is an unspoken acknowledgment that he begins the race in one of the most politically vulnerable positions of his public life. He remains the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, yet the solidity of his support seems increasingly in doubt.Longtime donors have been reluctant to recommit. Leaders in the Republican National Committee are openly encouraging other candidates to run. Voters rejected the handpicked candidates he vowed would win Republicans control of the Senate, but whose losses instead left the chamber in Democratic hands.“There’s no question former President Trump has lost some people — independents, some people in his base — so he’s got to come out of the gate slowly,” said Jim Renacci, a former Ohio congressman and a Trump acolyte. “He’s got to work to get them back.”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Presidential Race: Interviews with members of the Republican National Committee point to a desire for an alternative nominee to former President Donald J. Trump to emerge from a competitive primary.A Campaign Launch: Representative Adam B. Schiff, who led the first impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, announced that he would seek the Senate seat long held by Dianne Feinstein.2023’s Most Unusual Race: The election for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America this year.Anti-Transgender Push: Republican state lawmakers are pushing more sweeping anti-transgender bills than ever before, including bans on transition care for young adults up to 26.Mr. Renacci provided one of Mr. Trump’s earliest endorsements in the 2016 campaign. But he said he was waiting to see how the rest of the Republican field took shape before deciding on whom to back for the 2024 nomination.Since announcing his campaign in November, Mr. Trump has spent much of the past two months out of the public eye. He has spoken at private events, worked behind the scenes to help House Speaker Kevin McCarthy win his leadership position and maintained an aggressive schedule on the golf course. And he has been busy doing something that’s yet another sign he’s eager to embrace a new tack: policy videos.Supporters waiting for Mr. Trump to speak in Ohio in November.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOver the past six weeks on his social media platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump has been posting videos about his policy positions, including plans to protect Social Security and Medicare and ban Chinese nationals from owning U.S. farmland or telecommunications, energy, technology or medical supply companies. The videos, in which the former president speaks directly to the camera, are aimed at reassuring supporters that he’s focused on topics other than his 2020 defeat, an issue that flopped with midterm voters.One of the key trouble spots for him has been in attracting top-dollar backing. Mr. Trump has largely relied on small online donations but has shed support from some deep-pocketed donors and has struggled to secure commitments from others.In recent weeks, two longtime Republican financiers — Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder, and Miriam Adelson, a physician and philanthropist and the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate — have not committed to matching their previous financial support for his campaigns, according to people familiar with the discussions who insisted on anonymity to speak about private conversations.A spokesman for Ms. Adelson said she was planning to sit out the Republican primary.Still, Mr. Trump maintains his perch as the most powerful Republican. An Emerson College poll this week showed Mr. Trump with support from 55 percent of primary voters, nearly twice as much as his closest competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in a hypothetical matchup. The same poll showed Mr. Trump in a statistical tie against President Biden in a potential rematch next year.“The campaign is firing on all cylinders and continues to build up an operation that will be unmatched,” Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “President Trump’s significant lead in poll after poll shows that there is no other candidate who can even come close to matching the enthusiasm and excitement of him returning to the White House.”In November and December, Mr. Trump’s standing among Republicans dipped in public opinion polls after his failure to help deliver the “red wave” he had promised voters in the midterm elections and after he had dinner with Kanye West, who has been denounced for making antisemitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and prominent young white supremacist.Mr. Trump was stunned by the criticism over the dinner, particularly that from close advisers, according to people familiar with the conversations.The biggest risk to Mr. Trump’s campaign may not be political so much as legal: the five criminal and civil investigations targeting both his conduct before he was a candidate in 2016 and his efforts to thwart the peaceful transfer of power after he lost in November 2020.But Mr. Trump must also reassure Republicans that he can win over general election voters.Republicans have struggled through three disappointing election cycles with Mr. Trump as the face of the party — a situation the party has been unwilling to confront, or even fully examine.Wavering support from some of the nation’s evangelical leaders — whose congregants provided crucial backing to Mr. Trump in his ascent to the White House — has raised the possibility of a tectonic shift in Republican politics.Mr. Trump at a Miami rally in November.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMany members of the Republican National Committee — activists who shape the party’s direction, including many who won seats during the Trump administration — have been unwilling to support the former president’s third bid. Interviews with 59 of the R.N.C.’s 168 members revealed dozens who said Mr. Trump should not be the party’s nominee, who preferred a big field or who declined to state their position on the former president. Only four of those 59 offered unabashed endorsements of his third campaign.And in South Carolina on Saturday, Mr. Trump’s leadership team will be without two of the state’s most prominent politicians: former Gov. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott.Ms. Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, is weighing her own Republican presidential campaign.Mr. Scott, the keynote speaker at Mr. Trump’s last presidential nominating convention, has asked allies in the state to hold off endorsing the former president while he similarly considers a potential national campaign, according to two Republicans familiar with the conversations.Jane Brady, a Republican National Committee member from Delaware, said Mr. Trump’s pugilistic personality had long been a distraction from his policies, which, generally, much of the party supports.“Some people look past that, and some people don’t,” she said.Mr. Renacci listed several reasons he wasn’t ready to support Mr. Trump’s presidential bid. The former lawmaker said the party needed “a new face” and also acknowledged that he was stung that Mr. Trump had not done more to help his 2022 primary campaign against Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio.“Former President Trump was a great candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016,” Mr. Renacci said. “But at this stage of the game, we need to look at who the candidates are and see if there is someone who cannot only take us in a new direction but also not split the American people in the process.”Reid J. Epstein More

The bureau tried to court Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate, as an informant. Instead, one of its own top agents may have ended up working for him.The Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to recruit Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian billionaire, as an informant around 2014, hoping he might shed light on organized crime and, later, possible interference in the presidential election.A decade later, Mr. Deripaska may have turned the tables on the F.B.I.: Prosecutors say the oligarch recruited one of the bureau’s top spy catchers, just as he entered retirement, to carry out work that they say violated U.S. sanctions.The charges unsealed this week against Charles McGonigal — who ran the counterintelligence unit at the bureau’s New York field office and investigated Russian oligarchs, including Mr. Deripaska, according to the indictment — showed the extent of the oligarch’s reach into the highest levels of U.S. power.There is no indication in the Manhattan indictment that Mr. McGonigal was working for Mr. Deripaska while still employed by the F.B.I. Still, the case — and a parallel indictment in Washington that charged Mr. McGonigal with receiving at least $225,000 in secret payments from a former employee of an Albanian intelligence service while still at the agency — has raised questions about how compromised he may have been.Mr. Deripaska, an aluminum magnate, had been on the radar of U.S. authorities for years and remains under sanctions. He was known to be an ally of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. The Treasury Department had reported that he had ties to organized crime.“Deripaska is a well-known man to anybody who follows Russia,” said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and a former State Department official who helped craft sanctions against Russia. “I wouldn’t have accepted a luncheon invitation from the guy,” he added.The implications of the allegations against Mr. McGonigal are alarming, Mr. Fried said. “In a broader sense, it does seem to suggest that the corrupting influence of the Russian oligarchs, the money, is real.”In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mr. Deripaska, Larisa Belyaeva, said that he did not hire Mr. McGonigal for any purpose and that he had never been close to Mr. Putin. A lawyer for Mr. McGonigal declined to comment.For years, Mr. Deripaska, 55, has employed a small army of lobbyists, lawyers, consultants and fixers to protect his business and personal interests and smooth his access to Western countries.In recent months, though, federal prosecutors in New York have charged several of those representatives in indictments that accuse them of a range of sanctions violations.Mr. Deripaska was himself indicted last fall, with authorities saying he schemed to have his girlfriend give birth to their child in the United States. At the time, American authorities said he had not been arrested and was considered a fugitive.Mr. Deripaska became rich by prevailing over rivals and partners in the 1990s, when well-connected Russians competed for control over state resources in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. He earned a reputation for being ruthless and litigious.He also made connections to powerful figures, particularly in Britain. He spent years trying to buy respect and credibility in the United States, London and elsewhere — hosting parties at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, hiring former senior U.S. officials as lobbyists and courting powerful British political figures.He had worked in the past with the U.S. government, including on a failed effort to rescue an F.B.I. agent who had been captured in Iran, for which Mr. Deripaska spent as much as $25 million of his own money.Still, successive administrations in Washington sought to limit his ability to travel to the United States, despite personal intercessions from Mr. Putin. The F.B.I. searched multimillion-dollar homes linked to Mr. Deripaska in 2021 as part of the investigation into whether he had violated the sanctions imposed on him.Mr. Deripaska came to broader public attention in the United States around the 2016 election, because he had employed Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, as an adviser.From roughly 2014 to 2016, the F.B.I. tried to court Mr. Deripaska as a potential informant, seeking information on Russian organized crime and on possible Russian aid to Mr. Trump’s campaign, The New York Times reported in 2018. At one point, The Times reported, agents appeared at Mr. Deripaska’s home in New York and pressed him about Mr. Manafort and whether he had served as a link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. (He told them the theory was “preposterous.”)According to the indictment, in 2018, Mr. McGonigal reviewed a “then-classified list of oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin” who were being considered for sanctions.“Since at least 2016, Russia has been a central counterintelligence focus of the F.B.I. and U.S. government,” said Brandon L. Van Grack, a lawyer in private practice who was a prosecutor for Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. “This former agent was as acutely aware of that concern as anyone at the F.B.I.”In April 2018, the Trump administration announced sanctions on seven oligarchs and companies they owned or controlled as punishment for Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the 2014 annexation of Crimea and other acts.Mr. Deripaska and his company, Rusal, were among them. In its announcement of the sanctions, U.S. Treasury officials cited Mr. Deripaska’s connections to a senior Russian official and his work in Russia’s energy sector. The authorities said he had been investigated for money laundering and had been accused of threatening business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official and taking part in extortion and racketeering. They also cited allegations that Mr. Deripaska had bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman and had links to Russian organized crime.Mr. Deripaska denied the allegations, which his allies have said were punishment for refusing to cooperate with U.S. authorities. (In 2019, the Trump administration lifted sanctions against Mr. Deripaska’s companies under an agreement intended to reduce his control and ownership, though a confidential document showed the deal may have been less punitive than advertised.)For Mr. Deripaska, the sanctions represented not just an existential threat to his business, but a rejection of the cosmopolitan power broker image he had long sought to project in the West.Mr. Deripaska fought back, seeking to undo the sanctions or lessen their potentially lethal effect on his businesses. The Times reported in late 2018 that a secret lobbying effort by his team of lawyers, consultants, bankers and well-connected allies had made “substantial headway,” including winning postponements on the sanctions.“One of the risks and hazards of sanctioning wealthy people is they are better positioned to fight back,” said Carlton Greene, a sanctions and international money laundering expert.It is not clear from the indictment how Mr. McGonigal got onto Mr. Deripaska’s radar.According to the indictment against Mr. McGonigal, while he was still working for the bureau in 2018, Sergey Shestakov — a former Soviet and Russian diplomat and translator who was also charged in the case — introduced Mr. McGonigal by email to an employee of Mr. Deripaska. That person was identified in the charges as Agent-1 and described as a former Soviet and Russian Federation diplomat.Mr. Shestakov asked Mr. McGonigal to help Agent-1’s daughter, a college student, get an internship with the New York Police Department in counterterrorism, intelligence gathering or “international liaisoning,” according to the indictment. Mr. McGonigal told an F.B.I. subordinate that he wanted to recruit Agent-1, whom he described as a Russian intelligence officer, the indictment says.The indictment says Mr. McGonigal agreed to help the daughter, and with help from a contact at the Police Department he secured a meeting for her with a police sergeant.In 2019, after his retirement, Mr. McGonigal introduced Mr. Deripaska’s agent to an international law firm in Manhattan to help Mr. Deripaska have the sanctions removed, according to the indictment. During the negotiations, McGonigal met with Mr. Deripaska in London and Vienna, prosecutors said. When Mr. Deripaska signed with the firm, it brought on Mr. McGonigal as a consultant and investigator.In the spring of 2021, Agent-1 began negotiating with Mr. McGonigal to work directly for Mr. Deripaska, without the law firm. He wanted Mr. McGonigal to investigate a business rival, according to the indictment.Between August and November 2021, prosecutors say, Mr. Deripaska made payments to Mr. Shestakov and Mr. McGonigal from a Russian bank through accounts in Cyprus and New Jersey. In October of that year, F.B.I. agents searched homes linked to Mr. Deripaska in New York City and Washington.On Nov. 21, 2021, F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Shestakov’s and Mr. McGonigal’s electronic devices. More

Capitol rioter who assaulted Brian Sicknick gets near-seven year sentence Julian Khater pleaded guilty to using chemical spray to attack the Capitol police officer who died on 7 January A man who admitted using chemical spray to assault Brian Sicknick on January 6, a day before the Capitol police officer died, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in a Washington court on Friday.US jury convicts man pictured with feet on Pelosi’s desk during Capitol attackRead moreJulian Khater, 33, from Pennsylvania, was also fined $10,000.The judge, Thomas F Hogan, told Khater: “There are officers who lost their lives, there’s officers who committed suicide after this, there’s officers who can’t go back to work. Your actions … are inexcusable.”Sicknick’s death, at 42, is one of nine now linked to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump attempting to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.Later that month, Sicknick’s body lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Two months after that, the Washington DC medical examiner ruled that the officer died from natural causes after suffering two strokes.But in March 2022, Khater pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon. He faced a maximum sentence of 20 years. Prosecutors asked for seven and a half. Khater has already served 22 months of his 80-month tariff.A friend of Khater, George Tanios, 41 and from West Virginia, admitted buying bear deterrent and chemical spray and giving some to Khater. Charged with walking on restricted grounds at the Capitol, he faced six months in prison. He also faced sentencing on Friday.Nearly 1,000 people have been charged over the Capitol attack and more than 300 sentenced. The longest sentence yet, of 10 years, went to Thomas Webster, a retired police officer from New York who attacked officers with a flagpole.The House January 6 committee recommended four criminal charges against Trump, for inciting the riot. The Department of Justice has not acted.Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza, has filed a $10m wrongful death lawsuit against Khater, Tanios and Trump.In court filings before sentencing, the assistant US attorney Gilead Light said Khater was “visibly incensed” at the Capitol on January 6, and used pepper spray against police for half a minute.“Khater’s tone of voice and his facial expressions … betray his emotion, his anger and his loss of control,” Gilead said. “He [was] incensed at having been personally sprayed by police chemical spray while standing on the front line of a riot, as if he had been an innocent victim.”Attorneys for Khater sought to blame Trump, writing: “A climate of mass hysteria, fueled by the dissemination of misinformation about the 2020 election, originating at the highest level, gave rise to a visceral powder keg waiting to ignited.”But Gladys Sicknick, the officer’s mother, said Khater was “centre stage in our recurring nightmare” and “the reason Brian is dead”.“Lawlessness, misplaced loyalty and hate killed my son,” she said. “I hope you are haunted by your crimes behind bars. Whatever jail time you receive is not enough.”In court on Friday, as around 50 uniformed Capitol police officers looked on, Khater said he wished he “could take it all back”. Rebuked by the judge for not apologising to any officer he assaulted, he said he had been advised not to do so, due to the wrongful death lawsuit.Officer Sicknick’s brother, Kenneth Sicknick, said that when Khater was released, he would “still be younger than Brian was when he died”.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS crimeWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

Tyre Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, has called for justice after her son’s death prompted murder charges against police officers in the latest instance of alleged police brutality in the US. Nichols died three days after a confrontation with five police officers during a traffic stop on 7 January. His mother told reporters he called out for her in his time of need, adding: ‘It’s funny, you know, he always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this is how, this is what he meant.’

Biden speaks with Tyre Nichols’s parents ahead of video release – latest updates More