Elections

As the pandemic-fueled campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California heads into its last week, its lead proponent said he has been sidelined with the coronavirus.Orrin Heatlie, 52, a retired Republican sheriff’s sergeant from Yolo County, said he was at home recovering from a bout of the coronavirus on Tuesday.“Thought I was immune as I’ve had it before,” Mr. Heatlie said in a text message, adding that he is unvaccinated. “Then spent 13 hours in a warm truck traveling back from Wyoming with a friend who came down with it on the trip.”The pandemic has played a major role in fueling the recall, which had been regarded as a long shot when Mr. Heatlie and a small group of grass-roots Tea Party activists began circulating petitions in 2019.Their initial complaint with the governor arose from his stances on the death penalty and immigration, which they disagreed with. But when Mr. Newsom initiated stay-at-home orders, classroom closures and other health restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, recall supporters added those upheavals to their list of grievances against him.In November, a judge granted them an extension to continue circulating petitions because Mr. Newsom’s health orders had made it harder to gather signatures. That extension allowed Mr. Heatlie’s group to gather the nearly 1.5 million signatures required to bring the proposed recall to a vote — an effort that was helped along when a maskless Mr. Newsom was seen dining at an exclusive restaurant with friends, after he had asked Californians to stay home to avoid spreading the virus.Throughout the campaign, the recall supporters have blasted the governor’s mandates to get vaccinated, socially distance and wear face masks. Mr. Heatlie said his wife, who is vaccinated, had caught the virus from him.The acknowledgment came as coronavirus cases, which are surging in other parts of the country, have plateaued in California, which now has some of the nation’s highest vaccination rates. This week, Mr. Newsom, ahead in the polls, released a new ad warning Californians that Republicans backing the recall will “eliminate vaccine mandates,” and endanger the state’s recovery. More

LOS ANGELES — The political power of Latinos has never been stronger in California.They are the largest ethnic group in the state and make up roughly 30 percent of registered voters. They have propelled Democratic victories in California for decades, helping the party win supermajorities in both houses of the State Legislature, where Latino senators and Assembly members hold powerful positions and pass some of the most immigrant-friendly legislation in the country.But as Gov. Gavin Newsom tries to prevail in a recall election in a matter of days, the very Latino voters he is relying on appear to be disengaged and ambivalent about the prospect of his being ousted from office.In 2018, exit polls showed Mr. Newsom with support from roughly two-thirds of all Latinos. Now, polling suggests Latinos are almost evenly split on the recall. And so far, just 15 percent of all registered Latino voters have mailed in their ballots, compared with 29 percent of white voters, according to Political Data Inc., a Sacramento-based research group.For many Latino voters, the mixed feelings stem from a continued struggle with the pandemic, as they face higher infection and death rates, as well as unemployment. For others, there is a deep disconnect with the Democratic Party and Mr. Newsom himself, a multimillionaire Napa Valley winery owner whom they view as aloof and distant.Interviews with Latino voters, strategists and advocates throughout the state reveal a frustration among Hispanics that Mr. Newsom has never tapped into. The pandemic has further entrenched inequality statewide and deepened the anger over the pervasive class divide Mr. Newsom’s wealth only highlights.Karla Ramirez, 43, a Democrat who lives in Downey, a heavily Latino suburb southeast of Los Angeles, said she believed that Mr. Newsom had generally handled the pandemic well. But Ms. Ramirez, who owns a commercial cleaning business with her husband, said she planned to sit out the race and did not have the wherewithal to pay attention to state politics with the virus still raging. Her 9-year-old daughter and her husband both tested positive for Covid-19 and have been recovering from mild symptoms.All registered voters received ballots by mail and have the option of either mailing them in, dropping them off at ballot boxes or voting in person from now until Election Day on Sept. 14. Voting by mail is no longer an option for Ms. Ramirez.“I got my ballot, and I tossed it in the trash. I don’t feel I’d be fair,” Ms. Ramirez said. “I’m busy making sure my kids get back to school and get vaccinated.”Karla Ramirez, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, said she did not plan to vote in the recall election. Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesWith just one week to go before ballot boxes close, public polling suggests that Mr. Newsom will remain in office. But many see his struggle with Hispanic voters as a troubling warning sign for Democrats both in the state and nationally, a glimpse of the consequences for failing to deeply engage with a vital political force whose allegiance is up for grabs. Democrats fretted after the 2020 presidential election, when many Hispanic voters in Florida, Texas and other parts of the country swung toward President Donald J. Trump. But the problem is potentially even more consequential in a state where Latinos make up nearly a third of the electorate.“The real issue is that Governor Newsom has not engendered enthusiasm among Latino voters,” said Thomas A. Saenz, the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who has been involved in California politics for decades. “That is part of why he is threatened. They have not been motivated by his policies and his practices, and he has utterly failed to address the Latino community as a Latino community and acknowledge its importance in the state.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Newsom’s campaign aides deny that they have failed to engage or listen to Latino voters. Aides point to his expansion of Medi-Cal to residents above the age of 50, including undocumented immigrants, and a lengthy moratorium on evictions during the pandemic as two key policies they say have helped thousands of Latinos in California. His campaign has repeatedly boasted of appointing Alex Padilla to the U.S. Senate, making him the first Latino from the state to serve in that body.Nathan Click, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom’s campaign, said the governor’s strategy in reaching out to Latino voters had been essentially unchanged. All along, Mr. Click said, the campaign viewed Latinos — and young Latinos in particular — as difficult but essential to reach.“We’ve known since Day 1 that voters who vote in presidential years but don’t vote in midterm elections and really don’t vote in special elections are the No. 1 target for all of our efforts,” he said.A generation ago, Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that would have barred undocumented immigrants from receiving most public services, gained widespread support among California Republicans, including Gov. Pete Wilson. The anti-immigrant measure largely drove Latino voters away from the Republican Party and into the embrace of Democrats, who have publicly credited the ballot measure as central to their rise to power.But many Latino voters are too young to remember the battle over Proposition 187 in the early 1990s and do not feel any particular loyalty to Democrats. For all the talk of Latino political potential in California, no governor in recent memory has effectively rallied Latinos to become staunch supporters.Mr. Newsom spoke to former farmworkers at a clinic in Fresno last month. Eric Paul Zamora/The Fresno Bee, via Associated Press“We haven’t adequately made the case for a long enough period of time that things are different and better, especially for young Latinos,” said Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat who represents a heavily Latino and working-class area of San Diego in the State Assembly. “It’s as if doing no harm to Latinos has become enough for a lot of Democratic politicians.”The recall is also coming as many are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. Latinos in California were far more likely to contract and die from the virus than were white residents. The unemployment rate among Latinos remains above 10 percent, and many Latino small-business owners have lost significant income in the last year and a half.Frank Oropeza, 27, a barber in Montebello, just east of Los Angeles, said he had voted for President Biden last year and considered himself a Democrat. But he said he had given little thought to how to vote in the recall. He said he had been torn, reading posts on social media from fellow barbers and hair stylists who were in favor of recalling Mr. Newsom, who twice shut down their businesses, and from others who viewed things differently.“I’m so easily swayed,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like, ‘Close your eyes and throw a dart.’”Mr. Oropeza said that he understood the need for some pandemic restrictions. But he was frustrated that barbers and hair stylists had been required to stop working for a second time, even after they had implemented precautions such as universal masking.The criticism is one Mr. Newsom’s opponents have jumped on, using the argument to try to persuade more Latinos to vote in favor of the recall.“Many of those small businesses that closed forever are owned by Black and brown people,” Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host who has become the Republican front-runner in a crowded field of recall candidates, told reporters last week.At the virtual news conference, Mr. Elder appeared alongside Gloria Romero, a Democrat and former state lawmaker who is now a vocal advocate for charter schools. She was featured prominently in a recent Spanish advertisement the Elder campaign sent to Latino voters via text.“This is about sending a message about how the Democratic Party has largely abandoned Latinos,” Ms. Romero said. “We’ve been taken for granted.”Latino voters are a force in every part of the state and represent a wide spectrum of political views. While college-educated liberals in urban centers are part of the Democratic core base, working-class moderates in the suburbs of the Inland Empire and Silicon Valley are essential to winning statewide. And in Orange County, the Central Valley and the far northern reaches of the state, religious voters and libertarians have helped elect Republicans in key congressional districts.And there are signs that Republicans are having some success courting support from Hispanic voters, including first-time voters.“I am tired of the way things are,” said Ruben Sanchez, 43, a construction worker who lives in Simi Valley, a conservative stronghold north of Los Angeles. Mr. Sanchez, who attends an Evangelical church, said that he had cast his first ballot in 2020 and voted for Mr. Trump largely because of his religious beliefs and that he planned to vote for Mr. Elder in the recall. “This governor and this state are not for working people, for people who care about this country.”Officials with Mr. Newsom’s campaign have promised a blitz targeting Latino voters in the final days before the election. Last week, the Newsom campaign released an advertisement featuring Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the former presidential candidate who became so popular among many young Latinos in California that some refer to him as Tío Bernie, meaning Uncle Bernie.During the Democratic presidential primary, the Sanders campaign focused much of its outreach on Latino voters from the beginning, opening campaign offices in heavily Latino neighborhoods and releasing videos meant to be passed around on social media. The efforts were widely credited as a kind of playbook for effectively reaching Latino voters, and some Democrats have criticized the Newsom campaign for not doing more to replicate them.Beyond outreach, Mr. Sanders appealed to many young Latino voters in large part because of his ideology, calling for Medicare for all, forgiving of student loans and sweeping bills to combat climate change.“Latinos still have some core frustrations that Bernie was speaking to that have not been resolved,” said Rafael Navar, who was the California state director for the Sanders campaign. “We’ve had high death rates, high unemployment and massive inequality.”Despite the skepticism over Mr. Newsom, many Hispanic voters say they are fearful of what would happen if a Republican were to take office. Yet even as they are repelled by the Republican brand of politics, some liberal voters do not call themselves enthusiastic Democrats. Party loyalty, they said, is not as important to them as supporting a candidate who will address their concerns more directly.Ernesto Ruvalcaba, 27, a mapping specialist who lives in Los Angeles, said that while he had cast his ballot against the recall because Mr. Newsom was “getting the job done,” he remained dissatisfied.“Things he did, he could’ve done better,” Mr. Ruvalcaba said. “The parties are just really old — both of them. They just need to break up.” More

Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old candidate for the Green Party, is likely to have a say in Germany’s next government, no matter who wins this month’s election.BOCHUM, Germany — The woman who wants to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel strode onto the stage in sneakers and a leather jacket, behind her the steel skeleton of a disused coal mining tower, before her a sea of expectant faces. The warm-up act, a guy with an Elvis quiff draped in a rainbow flag, sang “Imagine.”Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party candidate for chancellor, is asking Germans to do just that. To imagine a country powered entirely by renewable energy. To imagine a relatively unknown and untested 40-year-old as their next chancellor. To imagine her party, which has never before run Germany, leading the government after next month’s election.“This election is not just about what happens in the next four years, it’s about our future,” Ms. Baerbock told the crowd, taking her case to a traditional coal region that closed its last mine three years ago.“We need change to preserve what we love and cherish,” she said in this not necessarily hostile, but skeptical, territory. “Change requires courage, and change is on the ballot on Sept. 26.”Just how much change Germans really want after 16 years of Ms. Merkel remains to be seen. The chancellor made herself indispensable by navigating innumerable crises — financial, migrant, populist and pandemic — and solidifying Germany’s leadership on the continent. Other candidates are competing to see who can be most like her.Ms. Baerbock, by contrast, aims to shake up the status quo. She is challenging Germans to deal with the crises that Ms. Merkel has left largely unattended: decarbonizing the powerful automobile sector; weaning the country off coal; rethinking trade relationships with strategic competitors like China and Russia.It is not always an easy sell. In an unusually close race, there is still an outside chance that the Greens will catch up with Germany’s two incumbent parties. But even if they do not, there is almost no combination of parties imaginable in the next coalition government that does not include them. That makes Ms. Baerbock, her ideas and her party of central importance to Germany’s future. But Germans are still getting to know her.“This election is not just about what happens in the next four years, it’s about our future,” Ms. Baerbock said during her election tour.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesA crowd gathered to listen to Ms. Baerbock in Duisburg, in western Germany.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesA competitive trampolinist in her youth who became a lawmaker at 32 and has two young daughters, Ms. Baerbock bolted onto Germany’s national political scene only three years ago when she was elected one of the Greens’ two leaders. “Annalena Who?” one newspaper asked at the time.After being nominated in April as the Greens’ first-ever chancellor candidate, Ms. Baerbock briefly surged past her rivals in Germany’s long-dominant parties: Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democrats, and Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats, who now leads the race.But she fell behind after stumbling repeatedly. Rivals accused Ms. Baerbock of plagiarism after revelations that she had failed to attribute certain passages in a recently published book. Imprecise labeling of some of her memberships led to headlines about her padding her résumé.More recently, she and her party failed to seize on the deadly floods that killed more than 180 people in western Germany to energize her campaign, even as the catastrophe catapulted climate change — the Greens’ flagship issue — to the top of the political agenda.Hoping to reset her campaign, Ms. Baerbock, traveling in a bright green double-decker bus covered in solar panels, is taking her pitch to German voters in 45 cities and towns across the country.Ms. Baerbock in the campaign bus with her social media and logistics team.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesIt was no coincidence that her first stop was the industrial heartland of Germany, in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, which was badly hit by floods this summer and is run by Mr. Laschet, who has been criticized for mismanaging the disaster.“Climate change isn’t something that’s happening far away in other countries, climate change is with us here and now,” Ms. Baerbock told a crowd of a few hundred students, workers and young parents with their children in Bochum.“Rich people will always be able to buy their way out, but most people can’t,” she said. “That’s why climate change and social justice are two sides of the same coin for me.”Leaving the stage with her microphone, Ms. Baerbock then mingled with the audience and took questions on any range of topics — managing schools during the pandemic, cybersecurity — and apologized for her early missteps.“Yes, we’ve made mistakes, and I’m annoyed at myself,” she said. “But I know where I want to go.”Germany’s two traditional mainstream parties have seen their support shrink in recent years, while the Green Party has more than doubled its own.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesIf there is one thing that sets Ms. Baerbock apart from her rivals, it is this relative openness and youthful confidence combined with a bold vision. She is the next generation of a Green Party that has come a long way since its founding as a radical “anti-party party” four decades ago.In those early days, opposition, not governing, was the aim.For Ms. Baerbock, “governing is radical.”Her party’s evolution from a fringe protest movement to a serious contender to power in many ways reflects her own biography.Born in 1980, she is as old as her party. When she was a toddler, her parents took her to anti-NATO protests. By the time she joined the Greens as a student in 2005, the party had completed its first stint in government as the junior partner of the Social Democrats. By now, many voters have come to see the Greens as a party that has matured while remaining true to its principles. It is pro-environment, pro-Europe and unapologetically pro-immigration. Ms. Baerbock joined the Greens as a student in 2005.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesMs. Baerbock proposes spending 50 billion euros, about $59 billion, in green investments each year for a decade to bankroll Germany’s transformation to a carbon-neutral economy — and paying for it by scrapping the country’s strict balanced budget rule.She would raise taxes on top earners and put tariffs on imports that are not carbon neutral. She envisions solar panels on every rooftop, a world-class electric car industry, a higher minimum wage and climate subsidies for those with low incomes. She wants to team up with the United States to get tough on China and Russia.She is also committed to Germany’s growing diversity — the only candidate who has spoken of the country’s moral responsibility to take in some Afghan refugees, beyond those who helped Western troops. Ms. Baerbock’s ambitions to break taboos at home and abroad — and her rise as a serious challenger of the status quo — is catching voters’ attention as the election nears.It has also made her a target of online disinformation campaigns from the far right and others. A fake nude picture of her has circulated with the caption, “I needed the money.” Fake quotes have her saying she wants to ban all pets to minimize carbon emissions.Ms. Baerbock’s enemies in the mainstream conservative media have not held back either, exploiting every stumble she has made.Many of those who heard her speak in Bochum recently said they were impressed by her confident delivery (she spoke without notes) and willingness to engage with voters in front of rolling cameras.A supporter surprised Ms. Baerbock by offering her a heart-shaped balloon in Hildesheim, in northern Germany.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times“She focused on issues and not emotions,” said Katharina Münch, a retired teacher. “She seems really solid.” Others were concerned about her young age and lack of experience.“What has she done to run for chancellor?” said Frank Neuer, 29, a sales clerk who had stopped by on his way to work. “I mean, it’s like me running for chancellor.”Political observers say the attacks against Ms. Baerbock have been disproportionate and revealing of a deeper phenomenon. Despite having a female chancellor for almost two decades, women still face tougher scrutiny and sometimes outright sexism in German politics.“My candidacy polarizes in a way that wasn’t imaginable for many women of my age,” Ms. Baerbock said, sitting in a bright wood-paneled cabin on the top level of her campaign bus between stops.“In some ways, what I’ve experienced is similar to what happened in the U.S. when Hillary Clinton ran,” she added. “I stand for renewal, the others stand for the status quo, and of course, those who have an interest in the status quo see my candidacy as a declaration of war.”Bochum was among the stops on Ms. Baerbock’s campaign swing.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesWhen Ms. Merkel first ran for office in 2005, at 51, she was routinely described as Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s “girl” and received not just endless commentary on her haircut, but relentless questions about her competence and readiness for office. Even allies in her own party dismissed her as an interim leader at the time.Ms. Baerbock’s answer to such challenges is not to hide her youth or motherhood, but rather to lean into them.“It’s up to me as a mother, up to us as a society, up to us adults to be prepared for the questions of our children: Did you act?” she said. “Did we do everything to secure the climate and with it the freedom of our children?”Ms. Baerbock talking with a group of young women at the end of a campaign day in Duisburg.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesChristopher F. Schuetze More

Una ofensiva contra la oposición por parte del presidente Daniel Ortega ha dejado a los nicaragüenses con una duda: ¿quién sigue?MANAGUA — Las noches eran lo más difícil.Desde el momento en que Medardo Mairena decidió postularse a la presidencia, un desafío directo al líder autoritario de Nicaragua, él tuvo la certeza de que el aparato de seguridad en algún momento lo alcanzaría.A lo largo del verano, Mairena observó cómo desaparecían otros líderes de la oposición. Uno por uno, fueron sacados a rastras de sus casas en medio de una represión nacional orquestada por el presidente Daniel Ortega en contra de la disidencia. La cruzada de este último por asegurarse un cuarto periodo sumergió a la nación centroamericana en un estado de temor generalizado.Desde junio, la policía ha encarcelado o puesto en arresto domiciliario a siete candidatos a las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre, así como a decenas de activistas políticos y líderes de la sociedad civil, lo cual ha dejado a Ortega desprovisto de un contendiente creíble en la boleta y ha convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado policial.A Mairena mismo se le prohibió salir de Managua. Las patrullas de la policía apostadas afuera de su casa ahuyentaron a casi todas las visitas, incluso a su familia.Durante el día, Mairena se mantenía ocupado, haciendo campaña por Zoom y monitoreando anuncios en la radio oficial en busca de pistas de la creciente represión. Sin embargo, de noche se quedaba despierto, con el oído atento a las sirenas, seguro de que tarde o temprano la policía iba a llegar y él desaparecería en una celda.“Lo primero que me pregunto en la mañana es ¿cuándo van a venir por mí?”, comentó Mairena, un activista defensor de los derechos de los agricultores, en una entrevista telefónica realizada a finales de junio. “Es una vida en zozobra constante”.Su turno llegó días después de la llamada. Unos agentes fuertemente armados allanaron su casa y se lo llevaron la noche del 5 de julio.No se supo nada de él hasta el miércoles, cuando se les permitió una visita breve a sus familiares, quienes comentaron que lo encontraron demacrado y enfermo, completamente desconectado del mundo exterior.Parientes de los candidatos presidenciales visitaron este verano la cárcel de Managua en donde se les retenía.Inti Ocón para The New York TimesQuienes critican el gobierno aseguran que la imprevisibilidad y rapidez de la ola de arrestos han convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado más represivo del que fue durante los primeros años de la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza, quien fue derrocado en 1979 por el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional que encabezaban Ortega y varios otros comandantes. Los sandinistas gobernaron el país hasta que en 1990 perdieron en unas elecciones democráticas y cedieron el poder. En 2007, Ortega regresó a la presidencia.Tras 14 años en el poder, Ortega, impopular y cada vez más aislado de la sociedad nicaragüense en su residencia privada, parece determinado a evitar toda competencia electoral verdadera. Los cinco candidatos presidenciales que siguen en la boleta con él son políticos poco conocidos que tienen una historia de colaboración con el gobierno. Pocas personas en Nicaragua los consideran desafíos genuinos para Ortega.La represión, la cual se ha extendido hacia los críticos de todos los ámbitos sociales, no ha perdonado a ningún disidente político, sin importar sus circunstancias personales o vínculos históricos con Ortega.Entre las víctimas de persecución se encuentran un banquero millonario y un guerrillero marxista, un general condecorado y una activista poco conocida de la provincia, líderes estudiantiles e intelectuales septuagenarios. Ningún detractor del gobierno se siente a salvo de las repentinas redadas nocturnas, de las cuales su constancia ha sido la única certeza, comentaron en entrevistas más de 30 nicaragüenses afectados por la represión.“Todos están en la lista”, mencionó un empresario nicaragüense, cuyo hogar fue registrado por la policía; habló bajo la condición de permanecer en el anonimato por temor a las represalias. “Nada más estás intentando saber qué tan alto o tan abajo está tu nombre, basándote en la última detención”.La ola de represión y temores de violencia política ha empujado a miles de nicaragüenses a huir del país, lo cual amenaza con empeorar una crisis de migración masiva en una época en la que el gobierno del presidente estadounidense, Joe Biden, ya tiene dificultades al enfrentar cifras récord de inmigrantes que intentan cruzar la frontera sur.La cantidad de nicaragüenses que han detenido los guardias fronterizos de Estados Unidos ha estallado desde la represión: un total de casi 21.000 personas cruzaron en junio y julio, en comparación con menos de 300 en los mismos meses del año pasado, de acuerdo con el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional. Durante esos meses, otros 10.000 nicaragüenses han cruzado al sur hacia el país vecino de Costa Rica, según la agencia migratoria costarricense.Una iglesia en Masaya, en la que periodistas y civiles fueron atacados por integrantes del partido gobernante en julioInti Ocón para The New York TimesEl éxodo ha incluido a ricos y pobres por igual, provocado tanto por los temores de la escalada de violencia como por la preocupación de la acechante crisis económica en un país que se dirige a paso constante hacia el aislamiento internacional.En los últimos meses, decenas de destacados empresarios nicaragüenses han huido con sigilo hacia Miami y paralizado sus inversiones en el país, según entrevistas con varios empresarios que no quisieron ser citados por temor a represalias. Y se espera que la mayoría de los bancos internacionales de desarrollo, cuyos préstamos han apoyado la economía nicaragüense en años recientes, dejen de entregar nuevos fondos después de las elecciones, las cuales Estados Unidos ha señalado que es poco probable que reconozca en su forma actual.Algunos nicaragüenses se han marchado por temor a un regreso a la violencia callejera que traumatizó al país en 2018, cuando paramilitares favorables al gobierno y fuerzas policiales interrumpieron las protestas de la oposición y mataron a más de 300 personas.“Tengo miedo de que venga otra masacre”, dijo Jeaneth Herrera, quien vende pan de elote tradicional en las calles de Managua. Sus ventas se han desplomado en meses recientes pues, dijo, la incertidumbre política ha elevado los precios de alimentos. “Yo no veo futuro aquí”.Los hombres y mujeres detenidos, algunos de los cuales ocuparon altos cargos sandinistas, han sido acusados de crímenes que van desde la conspiración hasta el lavado de dinero y el homicidio, imputaciones que, según familiares y asociados, son falsas. La mayoría pasó semanas o meses en la cárcel antes de tener contacto alguno con sus parientes o abogados.Varias de las personas arrestadas son septuagenarias y tienen problemas de salud. Según los familiares, compartieron la cárcel con otros presos y no tuvieron acceso a doctores independientes ni a que sus parientes les entregaran medicamentos.Un general sandinista retirado, Hugo Torres, fue arrestado a pesar de que había dirigido un ataque que le ayudó a Ortega a escapar de la cárcel de Somoza en la década de 1970, con el cual es probable que le haya salvado la vida. El exministro sandinista Víctor Hugo Tinoco fue detenido y la policía registró su casa durante horas enfrente de su hija, Cristian Tinoco, quien tiene cáncer terminal.Cristian Tinoco, hija de Hugo Tinoco, exviceministro de Exteriores, en la habitación de su padre, tras un operativo policial en junioInti Ocón para The New York TimesLa policía también irrumpió de noche en la casa del candidato presidencial Miguel Mora y lo sacó a rastras frente a su hijo Miguel, quien tiene parálisis cerebral, dijo la esposa de Mora, Verónica Chávez.“Esa noche repetía ‘¿Dónde está papá?’”, mencionó Chávez. “Parecía que estábamos en un corto de terror”.Los casos en contra de los prisioneros políticos se llevan en cortes cerradas sin la participación de asesores legales. Esto ha significado que los parientes y la ciudadanía desconocen qué evidencia se ha presentado, lo que agrava el clima de temor.Quienes intentaron documentar el proceso legal —familiares, abogados, periodistas— dicen que fueron amenazados o enfrentaron acusaciones similares y, en algunos casos, se vieron obligados a huir del país o esconderse. Un abogado de uno de los candidatos encarcelados fue arrestado a fines del mes pasado por ser miembro de un partido de oposición.“Nadie de nadie sabe de qué les están acusando, qué exactamente está en los casos”, dijo Boanerges Fornos, abogado nicaragüense que representaba a algunos de los políticos detenidos antes de huir del país en junio. “Hay una destrucción sistemática del aparato de información no oficial. Al régimen le gusta operar en la oscuridad”.Luego de desmantelar a los partidos de oposición y encarcelar a sus candidatos, el gobierno dirigió sus ataques a otros con puntos de vista independientes: el clero, los periodistas, abogados e incluso los médicos. En las últimas semanas, el gobierno ha dicho que los obispos católicos de Nicaragua son “hijos del demonio”, amenazaron a los médicos que dieron la alarma sobre una nueva ola de COVID-19 y tomaron las instalaciones del mayor diario del país, La Prensa.La incertidumbre detrás de los arrestos aparentemente arbitrarios ha hecho que la situación sea más difícil de soportar para los familiares de las víctimas.Verónica Chávez, periodista y esposa del candidato detenido Miguel Mora, en su casa de Managua.Inti Ocón para The New York Times“Ya tienen listo su tablero de ajedrez y uno solo es un peón”, dijo Uriel Quintanilla, un músico nicaragüense cuyo hermano, Alex Hernández, es un activista de oposición que fue detenido recientemente.Desde entonces, dijo Quintanilla, no ha tenido noticias de su hermano ni de los cargos que se le imputan.“El jaque mate en tu contra ya está planeado, nada más no sabes cuándo te va a llegar”.Alex Villegas colaboró con este reportaje desde San José, Costa Rica.Anatoly Kurmanaev es un corresponsal con sede en Ciudad de México desde donde cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Antes de integrarse a la corresponsalía de México en 2021, pasó ocho años reportando desde Caracas sobre Venezuela y la región vecina. @akurmanaev More

A crackdown on opposition by President Daniel Ortega leaves Nicaraguans to wonder: Who is next?MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The nights were the hardest.From the moment Medardo Mairena decided to run for president, in direct challenge to Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader, he was certain the security apparatus would eventually come for him.Over the summer, he watched as other opposition leaders disappeared. One by one, they were dragged from their homes amid a nationwide crackdown on dissent by the president, Daniel Ortega, whose quest to secure a fourth term had plunged the Central American nation into a state of pervasive fear.Since June, the police have jailed or put under house arrest seven candidates for November’s presidential election and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders, leaving Mr. Ortega running on a ballot devoid of any credible challenger and turning Nicaragua into a police state.Mr. Mairena himself was banned from leaving Managua. Police patrols outside his house had scared away nearly all visitors, even his family.During the day, Mr. Mairena kept busy, campaigning over Zoom and scanning official radio announcements for clues to the growing repression. But at night he lay awake, listening for sirens, certain that sooner or later the police would come and he would disappear into a prison cell.“The first thing I ask myself in the morning is, when are they coming for me?” Mr. Mairena, a farmers’ rights activist, said in a telephone interview in late June. “It’s a life in constant dread.”His turn came just days after the call. Heavily armed officers raided his home and took him away late on July 5.He had not been heard from until last Wednesday, when relatives were allowed one brief visit. They said they found him emaciated and sick, completely disconnected from the outside world.Relatives of arrested presidential candidates visiting the jail in Managua where they were being held earlier this summer.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesGovernment critics say the unpredictability and speed of the wave of arrests have turned Nicaragua into a more repressive state than it was during the early years of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinista Revolutionary Movement led by Mr. Ortega and several other commanders. The Sandinistas governed the country until losing democratic elections and ceding power in 1990. In 2007, Mr. Ortega returned as president.After 14 years in power, unpopular and increasingly isolated from Nicaraguan society in his gated compound, Mr. Ortega appears intent on avoiding any real electoral competition. The five presidential candidates still on the ballot with him are little-known politicians with a history of collaboration with the government. Few in Nicaragua consider them genuine challenges to Mr. Ortega.The crackdown, which has extended to critics from any social realm, has spared no political dissidents, no matter their personal circumstances or historical ties to Mr. Ortega.The victims of persecution have included a millionaire banker and a Marxist guerrilla, a decorated general and a little-known provincial activist, student leaders and septuagenarian intellectuals. No government detractors feel safe from the sudden night raids, whose only certainty has been their constancy, more than 30 Nicaraguans affected by the crackdown said in interviews.“Everyone is on the list,” said one Nicaraguan businessman, whose family home was raided by the police and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “You’re just trying to figure out how high or low your name is on it, based on the latest arrest.”The wave of repression and fears of political violence have pushed thousands of Nicaraguans to flee the country in recent months, threatening to worsen a mass migration crisis at a time when the Biden administration is already struggling with record numbers of immigrants trying to cross the southern border.The number of Nicaraguans encountered by U.S. border guards has exploded since the crackdown, with a total of almost 21,000 crossing in June and July, compared with fewer than 300 in the same months last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. About 10,000 more Nicaraguans have crossed south into neighboring Costa Rica in the same months, according to the country’s migration agency.A church in Masaya, where journalists and civilians were attacked by members of the governing party in July.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe exodus has included the rich as well as the poor and is driven as much by fears of escalating violence as by concerns over a looming economic crisis in a country heading steadily toward international isolation.Dozens of prominent Nicaraguan businessmen have quietly left for Miami in recent months, halting their investments in the country, according to interviews with several entrepreneurs who did not want to be quoted for fear of reprisals. And most international development banks, whose loans have propped up the Nicaraguan economy in recent years, are expected to stop disbursing new funds following the elections, which the United States has said it is unlikely to recognize in their current form.Some Nicaraguans have left out of fear of a return of the street violence that traumatized the country in 2018, when pro-government paramilitaries and police forces broke up opposition protests, killing more than 300.“I’m scared that another massacre is coming,” said Jeaneth Herrera, who sells traditional cornbread on the streets of Managua. Her sales have fallen sharply in recent months, she said, as political uncertainty has pushed up food prices. “I don’t see a future here.”The detained men and women, some of them top former Sandinistas, have been charged with crimes ranging from conspiracy to money laundering and murder, accusations their families and associates say are trumped up. Most spent weeks, or months, in jail before any communication with relatives or lawyers.Several of those arrested are in their 70s and have health problems. They were put in the same jail as other prisoners, relatives said, and denied access to independent doctors or to medicines delivered by relatives.A retired Sandinista general, Hugo Torres, was arrested despite having staged a raid that helped Mr. Ortega break out of Mr. Somoza’s jail in the 1970s, potentially saving his life. The former Sandinista minister Víctor Hugo Tinoco was detained and his house ransacked for hours by the police in front of his daughter, Cristian Tinoco, who has terminal cancer.Cristian Tinoco, the daughter of Hugo Tinoco, a former vice foreign minister,  in his room after a police raid in June. Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe police also smashed into the presidential candidate Miguel Mora’s home at night and dragged him out in the presence of his son Miguel, who has cerebral palsy, said Mr. Mora’s wife, Verónica Chávez.“He kept repeating that night, ‘Where is Papa?’” Ms. Chávez said. “It felt like living in a horror movie.”The cases against the political prisoners are being heard in closed courts without the presence of legal counsel. This has left their relatives and the public in the dark about the evidence presented, adding to the climate of fear.Those who tried documenting the legal process — relatives, lawyers, journalists — say they were threatened or faced with similar accusations, and in some cases forced to flee the country or go into hiding. A lawyer for one of the jailed candidates was himself arrested late last month for being a member of an opposition party.“Absolutely no one has any idea what they are accused of, or what’s in their cases,” said Boanerges Fornos, a Nicaraguan lawyer who represented some of the detained politicians before fleeing the country in June. “There’s a systematic destruction of all nonofficial sources of information. The regime likes to operate in the dark.”After dismantling opposition parties and jailing their candidates, the government shifted its attacks to others with independent views: the clergy, journalists, lawyers, even doctors. In the past few weeks, the government has called Nicaragua’s Catholic bishops “children of demons,” threatened the medics who raised alarm about a new Covid-19 wave and taken over the installations of the country’s biggest newspaper, La Prensa.The uncertainty behind the seemingly arbitrary arrests has made the situation harder to bear for the victims’ families.Verónica Chávez, a journalist and the wife of the detained candidate Miguel Mora, at her home in Managua.Inti Ocón for The New York Times“They have their chess board already set up, and you’re just a pawn on it,” said Uriel Quintanilla, a Nicaraguan musician whose brother Alex Hernández, an opposition activist, was recently detained.Since then, Mr. Quintanilla said, he has not heard news of his brother or the charges against him.“The check and mate against you have already been planned out,” he said. “We merely don’t know at what moment it will come.”Alex Villegas contributed reporting from San José, Costa Rica. More

WASHINGTON — It isn’t a pretty picture.One coast is burning. The other is under water. In between, anti-abortion vigilantes may soon rampage across gunslinging territory.What has happened to this country?America is reeling backward, strangled by the past, nasty and uncaring, with everyone at one another’s throats.A teenager cleans water out from a car in a flooded Queens neighborhood that saw massive flooding and numerous deaths following a night of heavy wind and rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida in New York City, September 3, 2021.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesResidents stand in front of garbage as Governor Murphy tours storm damage left by Tropical Storm Ida in Cranford, New Jersey, U.S. September 3, 2021.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesPost-Trump, we let ourselves hope that the new president could heal and soothe, restore a sense of rationality, decency and sanity. But the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be just a firefly.We feel the return of dread: We’re rattled by the catastrophic exit from Afghanistan; the coming abortion war sparked by Texas; the Trumpian Supreme Court dragging us into the past; the confounding nature of this plague; the way Mother Nature is throttling us, leaving New Yorkers to drown in their basements. And now comes Donald Trump, tromping toward another presidential run.It feels as if nothing can be overcome. Everything is being relitigated.We’re choking on enlightened climate proposals but the disparity between the disasters we see, and what’s being done in Washington, makes it feel as though nothing is happening except climate change. We’re so far from getting a handle on the problem, the discussions around it seem almost theoretical.Joe Manchin, tied to the energy industry, balks at climate change provisions in the reconciliation bill. He should be looking for ways to get West Virginia in touch with reality rather than living in the past.A firefighter uses a garden hose to save a home in Meyers, California on August 30, 2021.Max Whittaker for The New York Times“Manchin’s claim that climate pollution would be worsened by the elimination of fossil fuels — or by the resolution’s actual, more incremental climate provisions — is highly dubious, if not outright false,” The Intercept reported, noting that the truth is that Manchin’s personal wealth would “be impacted.” Since he joined the Senate, The Intercept said, he has grossed some $4.5 million from coal companies he founded.With its new abortion law, sending women back to the back alley and encouraging Stasi-like participation from the citizenry, Texas now becomes the capital of American unreason. The law “essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.There were medieval fiefs more enlightened than the Lone Star G.O.P.Between putting women in danger by pushing that law and putting children in danger by imposing his anti-mask mania on school districts that want to mask up, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has become a scourge of the first rank.A cynical slice of the Republican Party — and this includes Trump — privately denigrates anti-abortion activists as wackos, but publicly moves in lock-step with them in order to cling to that base and keep power.But the anti-abortion forces were somehow clever enough to hijack the Supreme Court and Republicans will have to contend with the backlash when the court tosses Roe v. Wade aside.As botched as the withdrawal from Afghanistan was, at least Joe Biden was trying to move into the future and do triage on one of America’s worst mistakes.Organizing and training specialist with Planned Parenthood Texas Votes Barbie H. leads a chant during the “Bans Off Our Bodies” protest at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas on September 1, 2021.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesDemonstrations took place outside of the Supreme Court after the court refused to block a near-total ban on abortion outlined in a new Texas law, Sept. 2, 2021, Washington, D.C.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesAnd unlike other presidents — J.F.K. with the Bay of Pigs, L.B.J. with the Vietnam War and Barack Obama with the Afghanistan surge — Biden did not allow himself to be suckered by the generals, the overweening Ivy Leaguers and the Blob, the expense account monsters who keep this town whirring and always have a seat at the table, no matter how wrong they were, and are.The Afghanistan tragedy, as James Risen wrote in The Intercept, was just two decades of Americans lying to one another, and it “brought out in Americans the same imperial arrogance that doomed the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.”Unlike his three predecessors, Biden risked Saudi ire by directing the Justice Department and other agencies on Friday to review and declassify documents related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into 9/11. Families of 9/11 victims had been pushing for the release of the secret files to learn more about the role the Saudis played in the attacks.The enablers of our misbegotten occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been shrieking like banshees at Biden, trying to manacle him to their own past mistakes as he attempts to lift off.With peerless chutzpah, Tony Blair called Biden’s decision to depart cynical and driven by an “imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars.’”President Joe Biden delivers remarks on ending the war in Afghanistan in the State Dining Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug, 31, 2021.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut Biden knew enough not to spend more lives and treasure to prop up a kleptocracy. He oversaw some bad weeks in Afghanistan but George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld should be blamed for 20 bad years.Remarkably, as Jon Allsop pointed out in The Columbia Journalism Review, the word “Bush” was not mentioned once on any of the Sunday news shows the weekend Kabul was falling.“He looks like the Babe Ruth of presidents when you compare him to Trump,” Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate majority leader, told The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, for a story this past week on Bush nostalgia.With a memory like a goldfish, America circles its bowl, returning to where we have been, unable to move forward, condemned to repeat a past we should escape.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

As California’s Sept. 14 election over whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom draws closer, unfounded rumors about the event are growing.Here are two that are circulating widely online, how they spread and why, state and local officials said, they are wrong.Rumor No. 1: Holes in the ballot envelopes were being used to screen out votes that say “yes” to a recall.On Aug. 19, a woman posted a video on Instagram of herself placing her California special election ballot in an envelope.“You have to pay attention to these two holes that are in front of the envelope,” she said, bringing the holes close to the camera so viewers could see them. “You can see if someone has voted ‘yes’ to recall Newsom. This is very sketchy and irresponsible in my opinion, but this is asking for fraud.”The idea that the ballot envelope’s holes were being used to weed out the votes of those who wanted Gov. Newsom, a Democrat, to be recalled rapidly spread online, according to a review by The New York Times..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The Instagram video collected nearly half a million views. On the messaging app Telegram, posts that said California was rigging the special election amassed nearly 200,000 views. And an article about the ballot holes on the far-right site The Gateway Pundit reached up to 626,000 people on Facebook, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media analytics tool.State and local officials said the ballot holes were not new and were not being used nefariously. The holes were placed in the envelope, on either end of a signature line, to help low-vision voters know where to sign it, said Jenna Dresner, a spokeswoman for the California Secretary of State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity.The ballot envelope’s design has been used for several election cycles, and civic design consultants recommended the holes for accessibility, added Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County registrar. He said voters could choose to put the ballot in the envelope in such a way that didn’t reveal any ballot marking at all through a hole.Instagram has since appended a fact-check label to the original video to note that it could mislead people. The fact check has reached up to 20,700 people, according to CrowdTangle data.Rumor No. 2: A felon stole ballots to help Governor Newsom win the recall election.On Aug. 17, the police in Torrance, Calif., published a post on Facebook that said officers had responded to a call about a man who was passed out in his car in a 7-Eleven parking lot. The man had items such as a loaded firearm, drugs and thousands of pieces of mail, including more than 300 unopened mail-in ballots for the special election, the police said.Far-right sites such as Red Voice Media and Conservative Firing Line claimed the incident was an example of Democrats’ trying to steal an election through mail-in ballots. Their articles were then shared on Facebook, where they collectively reached up to 1.57 million people, according to CrowdTangle data.Mark Ponegalek, a public information officer for the Torrance Police Department, said the investigation into the incident was continuing. The U.S. postal inspector was also involved, he said, and no conclusions had been reached.As a result, he said, online articles and posts concluding that the man was attempting voter fraud were “baseless.”“I have no indication to tell you one way or the other right now” whether the man intended to commit election fraud with the ballots he collected, Mr. Ponegalek said. He added that the man may have intended to commit identity fraud. More

The charismatic and divisive socialist mayor of Paris is eyeing an office that has been occupied by eight male presidents over six decades.BLOIS, France — French Socialists gathered recently in the Loire Valley for a weekend of debate that turned into the virtual anointment of Anne Hidalgo, the charismatic and divisive mayor of Paris, as their candidate for next year’s presidential election.Speaker after speaker, gathered in the courtyard of the Chateau de Blois, turned to Ms. Hidalgo to say they dreamed of a “Madame la Présidente,” stressing the last “e”-accentuated syllable denoting the feminine form. Up to now, the Fifth Republic has produced eight male “présidents” over six decades.That is not the only statistic stacked against Ms. Hidalgo, 62, who was coy about her intentions while leaving little doubt she is preparing to run. Most polls give the left, divided between Socialists, ecologists and far-left parties, less than 30 percent of the vote in a France drifting rightward. The once-proud “gauche” is in tatters.I asked Ms. Hidalgo when she would announce her candidacy. “I believe in solid foundations, and I am working on that,” she said. “If the foundation is solid, the house stands up.” Her latest book, “A French Woman,” will be published Sept. 15. It appears likely the announcement will come around that time.Whether a Hidalgo candidacy can galvanize the left and throw open an election in which Emmanuel Macron, the centrist president, and Marine Le Pen, the rightist candidate, remain favorites is unclear.“I believe in solid foundations, and I am working on that,” Ms. Hidalgo said when she was asked when she would announce her candidacy.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe daughter of poor Spanish immigrants, a product of the French model of integration now widely questioned, and an environmentalist mayor whose bike-friendly and car-hostile policies have earned her adulation and loathing in equal measure, Ms. Hidalgo has clout and international recognition. Michael Bloomberg is a friend.In the provinces, however, she is relatively unknown. A feel for “la France profonde,” or the rural soul of the country, is an important credential for any would-be president. Jacques Chirac, first Paris mayor and then president, made much of his links to the southwestern Corrèze region.Carole Delga, the popular Socialist president of the southwestern Occitanie region, called Ms. Hidalgo, who has been mayor of Paris since 2014, “a solid captain” for the left. Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, tasked with rebuilding it after a humiliating defeat in the 2017 presidential election, hailed Ms. Hidalgo as his choice. He urged the crowd in Blois to recall the “fervor of 1981” that swept François Mitterrand and the left to power for the first time in the Fifth Republic.Just eight months before the April 2022 election, the left will need a very sudden advent of fervor and unity if it is to have any chance of winning.Uncertain how to address a French preoccupation with security and immigration, and facing a generational fracture over identity politics, the left’s disarray has allowed Mr. Macron to tilt rightward for votes.Journalists followed Ms. Hidalgo as she entered a movie theater that was the site of a debate in Blois.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Division is loss,” said Benoît Hamon, who won just 6.36 percent of the vote as the Socialist Party candidate in 2017. “We will not be in the second round of the presidential election if there is not a single candidate of the left.”Others have different ideas. They include Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed; Green leaders including Yannick Jadot and Eric Piolle; and Socialists angered by what they see as efforts to install Ms. Hidalgo ahead of a party primary starting Sept. 18.For now, nobody has shown much inclination to step aside. The Greens were incensed when Mr. Faure, the Socialist leader, suggested they had an electoral “ceiling” that would make any environmentalist presidential candidate unelectable.As François Hollande, the former Socialist president, observed recently, “It’s not unity that creates power, it’s power that creates unity” — and for now the left seems bereft of the momentum or conviction that delivers force. Hence, it seems, the Socialist push to get behind Ms. Hidalgo quickly and change the conversation.“We are all part of the same family,” said Mr. Piolle, the mayor of Grenoble and a potential presidential candidate. “But the climate crisis and issues of identity politics have jostled us.”Ms. Hidalgo with Yannick Jadot, a Green lawmaker for France in the European Parliament, in Blois. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAll year, the left has fought over whether France’s universalist, supposedly colorblind model — the one that welcomed Ms. Hidalgo and propelled her upward — still functions, or whether it serves as camouflage for racism and hypocrisy.The battle has come to a head over various issues, including a French student union’s decision to hold “non-mixed” meetings so that particular groups — Blacks or Muslims, for example — could air their views and any grievances among themselves.Mr. Mélenchon, the far-left leader, saw no problem. Julien Bayou, the national secretary of the main Green party, called the meetings “useful and necessary.” But Manuel Valls, a former Socialist prime minister, told Europe 1 radio that “When you organize racialized meetings, you legitimize the concept of race, and this is unacceptable.”This view echoed much of the Socialist mainstream, not to mention all the outraged right.Danièle Obono, a Black lawmaker from France Unbowed, told me that Mr. Valls was “an absolute traitor” to the left. “French laïcité is something that must be debated,” she said, alluding to the French secular model that wants to see only undifferentiated citizens.These are the kinds of divisions that Ms. Hidalgo will have to overcome. The Paris mayor is clearly a universalist, a passionate believer in the capacity for good of the French model that benefited millions of immigrants, before a large North African Muslim influx presented challenges that often proved overwhelming.In Blois, Ms. Hidalgo took up what will clearly be core themes of her eventual campaign: the urgency of a job-creating transformation to tackle climate change and the fight against a degree of “inequality that leads people to lose faith in the institutions of the Republic.”“A child today would not have the same chances I had,” she said.Ms. Hidalgo, standing fourth from left, with other Socialist officials in the courtyard of the Chateau de Blois on Friday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHélène le Roux, a state employee, had mixed feelings about Ms. Hidalgo. “I like the idea of the left being carried forward by a woman in a country that is still very paternalistic and macho,” she said. “But I am not sure she has the political presence across the country — and her image is very center left.”If the left’s challenges appear daunting, they are perhaps not yet insuperable. Eight months before the 2017 election, Mr. Macron’s chances appeared remote. Ms. Hidalgo, allying herself with the Greens, defeated a candidate from Mr. Macron’s party to be re-elected Paris mayor in 2020. She has a streak of tactical ruthlessness.The long pandemic and accompanying economic problems appear to have created a greater appetite for a strong state both in Europe and the United States. Support for social solidarity over unfettered global capitalism is rising. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic candidate, is a leading contender in the German elections this month. In French regional elections in June, the Socialists performed well.Still, as Philippe Labro, an author and political observer, remarked, “France today is squarely on the right.” Terrorism, insecurity, fear and perceptions of unrestrained immigration pushed the country there. The left has had no clear answer, not Ms. Hidalgo, not anyone.The Chateau de Blois is notable in French history because in 1429 Joan of Arc stopped there for a blessing before defeating the English at Orléans. Her name came up, of course, as French Socialists appear ready to put their faith in a woman facing a tough campaign and unlikely odds. More