Elections

The promise of universal suffrage has animated the city’s politics for decades. Beijing’s latest moves could finally extinguish that hope.HONG KONG — From her first protest at age 12, Jackie Chen believed she could help bring democracy to Hong Kong. Each summer, she marched in demonstrations calling for universal suffrage. She eagerly cast her ballot in elections.Now Ms. Chen, 44, is not sure if she will ever vote again.“If we continue to participate in this game, it’s like we’re accepting what they’re doing,” she said. “That would make me feel like an accomplice.”The Chinese government has upended the political landscape in Hong Kong, redefining the city’s relationship with democracy. Its plan to drastically overhaul the local electoral system, by demanding absolute loyalty from candidates running for office, is leaving factions across the political spectrum wondering what participation, if any, is still possible.Self-declared moderates aren’t sure they would pass Beijing’s litmus test. In the opposition camp, political leaders have slowed their voter registration efforts and are unsure if they will try to field candidates again.Jackie Chen, 44, said she would “feel like an accomplice” if she kept voting in Hong Kong’s elections after the changes imposed by China.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe changes to the voting system signal the gutting of a promise that has been central to Hong Kong since its 1997 return to Chinese control: that its residents would some day get to choose their own leaders, rather than being subject to the whims of London or Beijing. That promise is enshrined in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, which pledges that universal suffrage is the “ultimate aim.”Beijing has now made clear that it has no plans to meet that aim — at least, not on the terms that many Hong Kongers expected. The changes are also likely to slash the number of directly elected seats in the local legislature to their lowest levels since the British colonial era, meaning the majority of lawmakers would be picked by government allies.Though officials still nod to universal suffrage, theirs is a circumscribed version. A Chinese official in Hong Kong suggested last week that establishment lawmakers chosen through small-circle elections, of the type favored by Beijing, were equivalent to those elected by the general public.“The establishment camp is also pro-democracy,” the official, Song Ru’an, told reporters. “They’re all chosen through elections, and they all work on behalf of the people.”Indeed, many of Beijing’s supporters see the changes as a step toward more, not less, democracy. If the central government trusts Hong Kong’s electoral system, the thinking goes, it may be more willing to grant those long-promised rights.At a street stall where he was collecting signatures in support of the electoral changes, Choi Fung-wa, 47, said he shared many Hong Kongers’ goal of one day voting for the city’s top leader. That person, the chief executive, is currently selected by a group of 1,200 people dominated by pro-Beijing interests. Mr. Choi, who moved to Hong Kong from the mainland 33 years ago, said he, too, wanted a sense of ownership over the outcome.Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. The chief executive is chosen by a small group dominated by pro-Beijing interests.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesBut he felt the opposition camp had alienated the authorities by sometimes using violence and by demanding universal suffrage too quickly. (The Basic Law raised the possibility that the chief executive could be popularly elected as early as 2007, but Beijing has repeatedly delayed.)Screening candidates would ensure that future politicians were more moderate, Mr. Choi said. “Right now we have people who want to mess things up,” he said, standing under a giant Chinese flag that his group had erected on a sidewalk in North Point, a working-class neighborhood where support for the government runs high.“There will be a new pro-democracy wing that comes out, and they probably will actually want to act in the interests of the people,” Mr. Choi said.Hong Kong’s electoral system has always been skewed in favor of the establishment, but many residents had still hoped their votes could send a message. When activists swept neighborhood-level elections in 2019, at the peak of huge pro-democracy protests, they held it up as proof of their popular mandate. Even after Beijing imposed a national security law last year to quash dissent, protesters prepared to contest — and thought they could win — the next legislative elections.Celebrating pro-democracy activists’ victories in neighborhood-level elections in Hong Kong in November 2019.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThen the authorities arrested 53 people in January for participating in an informal primary ahead of those elections. The elections themselves were postponed for a year, and officials say they may be delayed again.Ms. Chen, the democracy supporter who is unsure about voting again, said the electoral changes were more disheartening than the national security law. “Voting isn’t organizing anything or trying to subvert the government,” she said. “It’s just each person voting to express their individual views. If we don’t even have this basic right, then I just don’t know what to say.”Beijing has said the changes are meant to block candidates it deems anti-China, or who have openly called for independence for Hong Kong. But moderates also worry that they will be shut out of the new system.Hong Kong’s politicians have long described their role as juggling the demands of two masters who are often at odds: Communist Party leaders in Beijing, and the people of Hong Kong. But Beijing has increasingly insisted that its will come first, a mandate crystallized in the new election rules, which allow only “patriots” to hold office.That demand holds little appeal for Derek Yuen, 42, who had planned to run for the legislature as a self-declared centrist. He had criticized the authorities’ handling of the 2019 protests as needlessly confrontational, but he had also once worked for a pro-Beijing political party and called the protesters’ demands unrealistic.But he feels he would be unable to win the approval of the new screening committee without hiding his views. “I’m not a genius ass-kisser,” he said with a laugh.Mr. Yuen, who holds a Ph.D. in strategic studies, said he would focus on writing commentaries and policy proposals that would allow him to stay involved indirectly.“I like to be in politics,” he said, “but there are just way too many constraints.”Many of Beijing’s supporters in Hong Kong see the changes to the voting system as a step toward more democracy, not less.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesSuch retreats seem to be a broader goal of the electoral reforms, and of Beijing’s crackdown more generally. Hong Kong has long had a reputation for valuing a flourishing economy over political engagement, and the Chinese authorities have encouraged that.“Preserving Hong Kong’s prosperity is what accords with most Hong Kong people’s interests,” said Mr. Song, the Chinese official.In a sign of how deeply the last two years have ruptured the city’s way of life, some pro-democracy Hong Kongers have greeted the idea of a reprieve from politics with resignation, or even cautious optimism.Whenever elections rolled around, Ho Oi-Yan, 40, voted for pro-democracy candidates. In 2019, she, along with hundreds of thousands of others, took to the streets to protest China’s encroachment on the city’s freedoms.Though she moved overseas that fall, she flew back soon afterward, just to back the pro-democracy camp in local elections. She waited almost two hours to vote, sending photos of the line to other newly energized friends.Yet Ms. Ho said she would set her passion aside if the local economy improved and she could return.“I would go back and just not talk about politics and live,” she said by telephone. “When you need to make a living, then you have no choice.”Some believe that trying to extinguish Hong Kong’s democracy will only harden the opposition’s resolve.“I have no choice but to keep working on it,” Owen Au said of his pro-democracy activism. Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesAfter the police ended a mass movement for universal suffrage in 2014, many supporters worried that dreams of democracy were dead. But when those demands resurfaced in 2019, the crowds ballooned.Faith in that resilience has shaped the life of Owen Au, who was in high school in 2014. Invigorated by those protests, he enrolled at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to study politics. He was elected president of the student union. He dreamed of running for higher office.He knows that is impossible now. He is facing charges of unauthorized assembly related to the 2019 protests, and he said he would never qualify under the candidate-vetting system anyway.But far from pushing him out of the political arena, Mr. Au said, the crackdown will guarantee that he stays in it. He expects that no major company will hire him. Besides activism, he doesn’t know what else he could do.“I have no choice but to keep working on it,” he said. “But it’s not a bad thing. Most of the other paths, I’m not so interested in. But this one could ignite my hope.”Water-filled barriers in front of Hong Kong’s legislature, placed there to deter protesters. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times More

Worry, anxiety, hope: Readers shared how they experienced a wild year in American life and politics.Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your wrap-up of the week in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday.Last week, I asked how this extraordinary pandemic year changed your views on politics. And, boy, did you all deliver. I sat in my New York Times home office — otherwise known as my bedroom/yoga studio/Zoom meeting room — reading over the hundreds of thoughtful notes. So many of you shared experiences of lives transformed by the coronavirus: jobs upended, tearful periods of isolation and a fresh appreciation of family and close friends.Yet the collective challenges didn’t translate into much political consensus. About the only thing we agree on? We’re ready for the pandemic to be over, even if we’re not quite sure how the country will recover.Here’s some of what you had to say. (These emails have been lightly edited and condensed.)I have been a Republican and lifelong conservative. Voted for Trump twice. I grumbled about his tweets, but our country needed some bootstrap politics. Then the pandemic hit.His China blame was spot on. His daily briefings were encouraging; I was scared. All of us at the office kept on masks, agreed Trump was doing fine, and then the exposures started. Pretty soon, no agents came in to the office. Trying to get some satisfaction from Trump’s press briefings was harder and harder. He said things that made no sense; it was getting worse, not better.I started watching Andrew Cuomo’s briefings, and he made more sense — to my surprise. It was a comfort, and Trump started sounding like a moron. I stopped watching Trump. I even voiced, for the very first time, I might not vote for him to my sister. We both complained that his constant nonsensical tweets took away from his virtues. Nonetheless, we voted for him — but this time with a boatload of apprehension.Post-election, I was surprisingly not upset. Biden acted so gracious, and I appreciated the total lack of meanspiritedness. Within days, I wanted Trump gone from the White House, gone from the stage, gone from American politics. We need a low-key, decent person to lead us out of this polarized minefield of a nation. Biden was the better choice. I am glad he prevailed.— Andrea MacAulay, Jacksonville, Fla.I was a Democrat until Ronald Reagan. I supported Donald Trump from his earliest campaign events. If anything, the pandemic and the draconian, sometimes arbitrary response of the local, state and some smaller municipalities has been a bungled mess. No one really knew what to do. No one was prepared. People should be given guidelines and take personal responsibility. The closure of businesses, should be as brief and limited as possible. I am concerned about a “communist, totalitarian”-like methodology having been imposed. I believe states’ rights are important.The pandemic has altered my view to push me “further to the right.” Despite the horrific numbers of “reported” deaths (as a conservative I am skeptical of the actual numbers), I have not known anyone who died while my millennial-aged children got mild cases. Governor DeSantis is my hero for courage and common sense.— Gwen Baker, Wellesley, Mass.I am a 75-year-old woman who first watched our country’s unity shredded by the Vietnam War. Throughout the decades since then, I was naïve enough to believe that our nation’s people counted being an American above disparate views. That naïveté was squelched during the Trump years. But I held on to hope that the specter of a pandemic would draw Americans back together.The past year has once again proven me naïve. But the threat of Covid has only pulled us further apart. To mask or not to mask? To lock down or not to lock down? To take the vaccine or not to take it? These have become political weapons, separating us.So, how has Covid changed my views? Sad to say, it has eradicated the last of my hope for American unity. I am relieved to be as old as I am. — Tina Rosato, Black Mountain, N.C.Although I’m currently registered as a Republican, I’ve never been a fan of Trump. His handling of Covid-19 gets an “F” grade. His approach has led to many more deaths than would have happened had he taken a leadership role. I will forever blame Trump for my 98-year-old mother’s Covid-19 case.The Trump White House’s response to the pandemic, its claims regarding voter fraud that kept Trump from a second term, and its effect on the Republican Party in general have transformed me into a voter who will likely vote Democrat for the rest of my life.— Leslie Bates, Xenia, OhioBy most measures I considered myself a staunch progressive. Since the advent of the pandemic and subsequent crippling lockdowns, I now find myself more closely aligned with many Republican principles that I never would have thought possible a year ago.Democrats in my opinion have revealed themselves as having put politics in front of people. The lockdowns have caused far more harm than they prevented. I had always considered Democrats to be the party of equity, progressive ideals, and liberty.Yet, I’m seeing them stripping our rights with lockdowns which perpetuate inequality since the most vulnerable are hit hardest, closing schools which are meaningfully jeopardizing our children’s well-being and future, and finally censoring free speech under the guise of hiding misinformation.Parents (mothers in particular), children, and the impoverished have been disproportionately hurt by lockdowns. These are groups Democrats traditionally safeguarded. Where is that safeguarding now?I used to be a bleeding Democrat but now I’m not so sure.— Joanna Barron, San FranciscoI’m a lifelong Democrat, age 60, and a former county chairman of the Democratic Party in Bergen County, N.J.; an organization with a colorful history to say the least. For me, the pandemic has made the staggering demise of this nation’s collective faith in government abundantly clear to the point of absurdity.As a consequence, I’m a more ardent Democrat than I’ve ever been! The Biden administration has an incredible opportunity to re-energize the Democratic Party by demonstrating how the federal government can help people in real time.I think that’s the key to regaining the blue-collar tide and the Southern white, male vote the Democratic Party needs to be bring back under its tent if it truly wants to be the standard-bearer for women, minorities, the disabled, and the poor.— Michael Kasparian, Bergen County, N.J.Drop us a line!We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at [email protected] California recall push: A quick explainerCalifornians appear headed toward their second statewide recall election in history.This week, organizers of the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that they had turned in more than 2.1 million signatures on petitions to county officials — a tally that should force a recall election.“The reality is it looks like it’s going on the ballot,” Mr. Newsom said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We will fight it. We will defeat it.”Mr. Newsom won with 62 percent of the vote in 2018 — the biggest victory in a California governor’s race in decades. How did he end up in this position?One word: coronavirus. The sixth recall attempt against Mr. Newsom made little progress until November, when he attended a lobbyist friend’s birthday dinner indoors at the Michelin-starred French Laundry — at a time when he was urging Californians to avoid social gatherings.Mr. Newsom has taken a more restrictive approach to the pandemic than many other governors, and the recall campaign became a way for voters to express their anger at his handling of the virus, particularly the lockdowns in the state.When will the recall election happen?Not for months. After local election officials finish verifying signatures by the end of April, there is a 30-day period for voters to decide whether they want to withdraw their names, and another period of several weeks for the state to validate the election.After that, the date of the election is set no less than 88 days and no more than 125 days later. If more than half of voters back removing Newsom, then whoever gets the most votes among the candidates vying against him would become governor.Who’s running?A whole lot of people. There are likely to be more than 100 people challenging Mr. Newsom. The most prominent Republicans are John H. Cox, Mr. Newsom’s former challenger, and former Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego.A Democrat could jump into the race, but so far Mr. Newsom and his team have been fairly effective at keeping their own party out of the contest. There is a slight risk to this approach: Should Mr. Newsom lose the recall vote, he’d undoubtedly be replaced by a Republican.By the numbers: 97,000… That’s roughly the number of migrants arrested by Border Patrol agents last month, the highest number since 2019.… SeriouslySometimes a fuzzy microphone is just … a fuzzy microphone.Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

On platforms such as Telegram and 4chan, racist memes and posts about Asian-Americans have created fear and dehumanization.In January, a new group popped up on the messaging app Telegram, named after an Asian slur.Hundreds of people quickly joined. Many members soon began posting caricatures of Asians with exaggerated facial features, memes of Asian people eating dog meat and images of American soldiers inflicting violence during the Vietnam War.This week, after a gunman killed eight people — including six women of Asian descent — at massage parlors in and near Atlanta, the Telegram channel linked to a poll that asked, “Appalled by the recent attacks on Asians?” The top answer, with 84 percent of the vote, was that the violence was “justified retaliation for Covid.”The Telegram group was a sign of how anti-Asian sentiment has flared up in corners of the internet, amplifying racist and xenophobic tropes just as attacks against Asian-Americans have surged. On messaging apps like Telegram and on internet forums like 4chan, anti-Asian groups and discussion threads have been increasingly active since November, especially on far-right message boards such as The Donald, researchers said.The activity follows a rise in anti-Asian misinformation last spring after the coronavirus, which first emerged in China, began spreading around the world. On Facebook and Twitter, people blamed the pandemic on China, with users posting hashtags such as #gobacktochina and #makethecommiechinesepay. Those hashtags spiked when former President Donald J. Trump last year called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu.”While some of the online activity tailed off ahead of the November election, its re-emergence has helped lay the groundwork for real-world actions, researchers said. The fatal shootings in Atlanta this week, which have led to an outcry over treatment of Asian-Americans even as the suspect said he was trying to cure a “sexual addiction,” were preceded by a swell of racially motivated attacks against Asian-Americans in places like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.“Surges in anti-Asian rhetoric online means increased risk of real-world events targeting that group of people,” said Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, which tracks misinformation and extremism online.He added that the anti-China coronavirus misinformation — including the false narrative that the Chinese government purposely created Covid-19 as a bioweapon — had created an atmosphere of fear and invective.Anti-Asian speech online has typically not been as overt as anti-Semitic or anti-Black groups, memes and posts, researchers said. On Facebook and Twitter, posts expressing anti-Asian sentiments have often been woven into conspiracy theory groups such as QAnon and in white nationalist and pro-Trump enclaves. Mr. Goldenberg said forms of hatred against Black people and Jews have deep roots in extremism in the United States and that the anti-Asian memes and tropes have been more “opportunistically weaponized.”But that does not make the anti-Asian hate speech online less insidious. Melissa Ryan, chief executive of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation, said the misinformation and racist speech has led to a “dehumanization” of certain groups of people and to an increased risk of violence.Negative Asian-American tropes have long existed online but began increasing last March as parts of the United States went into lockdown over the coronavirus. That month, politicians including Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican of California, used the terms “Wuhan virus” and “Chinese coronavirus” to refer to Covid-19 in their tweets.Those terms then began trending online, according to a study from the University of California, Berkeley. On the day Mr. Gosar posted his tweet, usage of the term “Chinese virus” jumped 650 percent on Twitter; a day later there was an 800 percent increase in their usage in conservative news articles, the study found.Mr. Trump also posted eight times on Twitter last March about the “Chinese virus,” causing vitriolic reactions. In the replies section of one of his posts, a Trump supporter responded, “U caused the virus,” directing the comment to an Asian Twitter user who had cited U.S. death statistics for Covid-19. The Trump fan added a slur about Asian people.In a study this week from the University of California, San Francisco, researchers who examined 700,000 tweets before and after Mr. Trump’s March 2020 posts found that people who posted the hashtag #chinesevirus were more likely to use racist hashtags, including #bateatingchinese.“There’s been a lot of discussion that ‘Chinese virus’ isn’t racist and that it can be used,” said Yulin Hswen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, who conducted the research. But the term, she said, has turned into “a rallying cry to be able to gather and galvanize people who have these feelings, as well as normalize racist beliefs.”Representatives for Mr. Trump, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment.Misinformation linking the coronavirus to anti-Asian beliefs also rose last year. Since last March, there have been nearly eight million mentions of anti-Asian speech online, much of it falsehoods, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights firm..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{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;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{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-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-coqf44{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-coqf44 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-coqf44 em{font-style:italic;}.css-coqf44 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-coqf44 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#333;text-decoration-color:#333;}.css-coqf44 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}In one example, a Fox News article from April that went viral baselessly said that the coronavirus was created in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan and intentionally released. The article was liked and shared more than one million times on Facebook and retweeted 78,800 times on Twitter, according to data from Zignal and CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool for analyzing social media.By the middle of last year, the misinformation had started subsiding as election-related commentary increased. The anti-Asian sentiment ended up migrating to platforms like 4chan and Telegram, researchers said.But it still occasionally flared up, such as when Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a researcher from Hong Kong, made unproven assertions last fall that the coronavirus was a bioweapon engineered by China. In the United States, Dr. Yan became a right-wing media sensation. Her appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in September has racked up at least 8.8 million views online.In November, anti-Asian speech surged anew. That was when conspiracies about a “new world order” related to President Biden’s election victory began circulating, said researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute. Some posts that went viral painted Mr. Biden as a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party.In December, slurs about Asians and the term “Kung Flu” rose by 65 percent on websites and apps like Telegram, 4chan and The Donald, compared with the monthly average mentions from the previous 11 months on the same platforms, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute. The activity remained high in January and last month.During this second surge, calls for violence against Asian-Americans became commonplace.“Filipinos are not Asians because Asians are smart,” read a post in a Telegram channel that depicted a dog holding a gun to its head.After the shootings in Atlanta, a doctored screenshot of what looked like a Facebook post from the suspect circulated on Facebook and Twitter this week. The post featured a miasma of conspiracies about China engaging in a Covid-19 cover-up and wild theories about how it was planning to “secure global domination for the 21st century.”Facebook and Twitter eventually ruled that the screenshot was fake and blocked it. But by then, the post had been shared and liked hundreds of times on Twitter and more than 4,000 times on Facebook.Ben Decker More

The candidate and the man who prosecutors say recruited him to play spoiler in a Florida Senate race last year were both arrested this week.MIAMI — The recruitment of the sham candidate began with a Facebook message at around 4 a.m. on May 15, 2020. “Call me,” a Florida legislator turned lobbyist wrote to an old friend. “I have a question for you.”Later that day, former State Senator Frank Artiles, a Republican, asked Alexis Pedro Rodriguez by phone whether he still owned a home in the suburban Miami village of Palmetto Bay. Because in that case, Mr. Artiles wanted something else: to put his friend’s property and last name to use in the upcoming election.The incumbent Democrat, State Senator José Javier Rodríguez, was on the ballot. And Mr. Artiles, a crafty political operator with a dubious reputation, had a plan: to plant his friend as a candidate and siphon off votes that could defeat Senator Rodríguez.The plan worked, setting off one of Florida’s most brazen electoral scandals in years — even by the heady standards of a state that has long been fertile ground for political scammers. What is still uncertain is how broad the scandal is, whether it had touched other races and whether it was part of an organized effort by Republicans or an interest group to sway legislative races.Mr. Rodriguez, a machine-parts dealer who had been struggling financially, agreed to help Mr. Artiles, who promised him $50,000 in return. He switched from Republican to no party affiliation and qualified for the ballot as Alex Rodriguez. He did not disclose that he actually lived far from the district, in Boca Raton, or that the money for his candidacy came from Mr. Artiles.In November, Senator Rodríguez, an effective legislator who had crusaded for Florida to face the climate change crisis, lost to the Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia, by a mere 32 votes out of more than 215,000 that had been cast. Alex Rodriguez had received 6,382 votes and played the spoiler.It was a devastating loss for Florida Democrats in a year of Republican successes in the state. It was also the result of criminal behavior, prosecutors say.On Thursday, Mr. Artiles, 47, and Mr. Rodriguez, 55, turned themselves in for arrest. They were each charged with three third-degree felony charges related to violating campaign finance law, including for conspiracy to make campaign contributions in excess of legal limits, making those excess contributions and false swearing in connection to an election.Mr. Artiles declined to comment to a scrum of reporters who chased him out of jail on Thursday once he posted a $5,000 bond. “This will be decided in the courts, thank you,” he said.His lawyer, Greg Chonillo, said in a statement on Friday that his client, whose home was raided by investigators on Wednesday, had been cooperative with prosecutors “throughout the course of this investigation.”“We will be investigating this matter fully and zealously, representing our client in court against these charges,” Mr. Chonillo said.Mr. Artiles planned to use Alex Rodriguez as a candidate that would siphon votes away from State Senator José Javier Rodríguez, causing him to lose.Steve Cannon/Associated PressThe story of how Mr. Artiles plotted the scheme, according to the arrest documents, is a classic South Florida racket complete with the sale of a nonexistent Range Rover and wads of cash stored in a home safe.But it leaves unanswered the questions of where the money for the scheme came from — the Republican Senate president said the party had nothing to do with it — and whether the funds were tied to secretive dark money that oozed through two other State Senate races last year. Republicans have controlled the state government for more than two decades.On Friday, Democrats called for campaign finance reform — and for the resignation of Ms. Garcia so that a new election could be held. “Her victory is clearly tainted,” said Manny Diaz, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party.Prosecutors said they had found no ties between her and the scheme by Mr. Artiles and Mr. Rodriguez. On Friday, State Senator Wilton Simpson, the state’s Senate president, issued a joint statement with Ms. Garcia saying that they “support the ongoing efforts of law enforcement.”“Senator Garcia has the full support of President Simpson as she continues to serve her constituents,” the statement said.South Florida has an ignominious history of political and electoral shenanigans, both high profile — fraud that was so rampant in a Miami mayoral election in 1997 that a judge threw out the results — and low rent, such as small-time brokers getting caught unlawfully harvesting absentee ballots.In 2012, former Representative David Rivera, a Republican, was involved in a shadow campaign to try to hurt the electoral chances of his Democratic rival, Joe Garcia. The recruited candidate and Mr. Rivera’s ex-girlfriend, who acted as a go-between, wound up in jail. Mr. Rivera, who was never charged, last month was ordered to pay the Federal Election Commission a $456,000 fine.On Thursday, Katherine Fernández Rundle, the state attorney for Miami-Dade County, a Democrat, noted that recruiting a sham candidate to deliberately influence an election was not illegal, unless the candidate was also secretly financed.“Is it an attack on our democracy? Is it a dirty political trick?” she said. “Absolutely.”At the center of the latest scandal is Mr. Artiles (pronounced are-TEE-less), who before his arrest this week was perhaps best known in Tallahassee, the state’s capital, for resigning from the Senate in 2017, after he cursed at and used a racist slur before a group of Black lawmakers. His political committee had spent money on “consultants” who were models from Hooters and Playboy without any campaign experience. He once denied punching a college student at a bar near the Capitol.His involvement in recruiting the sham candidate for the Senate District 37 race last year became public in December, when The Miami Herald reported that Mr. Artiles had boasted about planting Mr. Rodriguez on the ballot to a crowd at an election night party held at an Irish pub in Seminole County. “That is me, that was all me,” The Herald quoted Mr. Artiles as saying, citing an anonymous source who was present.Employees and campaign observers working on a manual recount for Florida’s Senate District 37 election between Ileana Garcia and José Javier Rodríguez, at the Miami-Dade Elections Department in November.David Santiago/Miami Herald, via Associated PressThe furor around Mr. Rodriguez’s suspicious candidacy had begun after Election Day, when the results separating Senator Rodríguez and Ms. Garcia, a founder of the group Latinas for Trump, were so tight that they led to a manual recount.Local reporters in Tallahassee, Orlando and Miami found that Mr. Rodriguez along with two mysterious under-the-radar candidates in two other Senate races, one in the Miami area and one in Seminole County, were all likely plants. (Results in the other races were not close.)Politico Florida tied the three candidates to dark money from two political committees that had sent hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of attack fliers to voters during the campaign. The only donor reported was an entity that listed a UPS box in Atlanta as its mailing address. The committees amended their financial reports after Election Day, changing the source of the money to a different donor, this time in Colorado.Investigators with Miami-Dade County’s public corruption investigations unit began sniffing around on Nov. 11, eight days after the election.“It was suspicious that Rodriguez did not appear to have actively campaigned,” Detective Eutimio Cepero of the Miami Police Department wrote in one of the arrest documents. “Additionally, it was learned that political committees were spending money in support of Rodriguez’s candidacy, even though Rodriguez did not actively campaign.”Investigators found that Mr. Artiles ultimately paid $44,708 to Mr. Rodriguez in violation of the state’s $1,000 campaign contribution limit for legislative races. The payments came in various forms, including payments of $3,000 and then $5,000 that Mr. Artiles had stored in his home safe and recorded in a ledger on his desk as well as $2,400 that Mr. Artiles had wired to Mr. Rodriguez’s landlord.There was much distrust between Mr. Artiles and Mr. Rodriguez, who told investigators he thought Mr. Artiles would not come through with the money he had promised him. At one point, when Mr. Artiles was looking for a used Range Rover to buy his daughter, Mr. Rodriguez concocted a story about finding one in Jacksonville for $10,900. Mr. Artiles paid Mr. Rodriguez for the car, even though it did not exist. (That money was not considered by prosecutors as part of Mr. Artiles’s payments to Mr. Rodriguez for his candidacy.)But where Mr. Artiles got so much cash is still unknown.“Frank Artiles is not a lone wolf,” said William R. Barzee, a lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez. “Over half a million dollars was spent by political operatives working in the shadows to prop up ghost candidates in three separate Senate races, all in one cycle. This was a well-thought-out, calculated and coordinated plan to steal Senate seats throughout Florida.”The “greatest beneficiary of these actions,” Mr. Barzee added, “is the Republican Party of Florida.”Mr. Simpson, the Senate president who ran the Republican Senate campaigns in 2020, has said that he had nothing to do with the effort. “I think we don’t have all the facts,” he told reporters in Tallahassee on Thursday. “We’re learning what you’re learning as you report it.”“I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said former State Representative Juan-Carlos Planas, known as J.C., who was Senator Rodríguez’s lawyer during the recount and who himself once fought a candidate who had been planted against him: his second cousin, who appeared on the Republican primary ballot as Juan E. “J.P.” Planas.Senator Rodríguez, 42, lamented that weak enforcement mechanisms continue to allow questionable candidates to make it on the ballot.“It’s a shame that it has to reach this level of criminality for there to be any kind of consequence, because this is not the first time these types of schemes have been put together,” he said. “But this is the Wild West here in Florida.” More

For years, right-wing populists have been a driving force in the Netherlands. But this week a pan-European party called Volt shook things up.Lost among the mostly humdrum national elections in the Netherlands this week was the emergence of Volt, an anti-populist, pro-Europe party made up of students and young professionals that snatched three seats in the Dutch Parliament — the first national electoral success in its five years of existence.Volt wasn’t the only outsider group to win a seat or two in the elections. One politician arrived at Parliament driving a tractor with flashing lights to claim her newly won seat for a farmer’s party. Sylvana Simons, a former TV presenter, won a seat for “Bij1,” an anticapitalist party. A new far right, anti-immigrant party won four seats.Over the last two decades, however, it was populists and far right parties that played the insurgent role in Dutch politics, promoting anti-immigrant, anti-establishment and anti-European policies. While never a serious threat to seize power, in 2016 representatives of these parties initiated and won a referendum in the Netherlands on an E.U. trade treaty with Ukraine, temporarily halting the deal.This makes this week’s victory of newcomer Volt all the more remarkable. The party is staunchly pro-Europe, something that most traditional parties had thought was a complete turnoff for voters.“Most people of my generation grew up paying in euros and never having to think about crossing borders,” said Laurens Dassen, 35, the party’s Dutch leader. “For us, Europe is a fact of life.”Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose center-right Party for Freedom and Democracy comfortably won the greatest number of seats for the fourth time since 2010, has had a tense relationship with Europe. Last year, for example, he upset Southern European countries when he refused to discuss financial support during the pandemic, and brought a biography of Chopin to the meetings because he wasn’t planning on talking anyway.The success of Volt in the Netherlands is all the more remarkable in that it isn’t even a Dutch party but an offshoot of a European movement, with 9,000 members scattered across Europe, and a few more in Switzerland and Albania. The main party was established in 2016 by Andrea Venzon, 29, an Italian living in London, and has a presence in every one of the 27 member states of the European Union.Caroline van der Plas, the leader of the BoerBurgerBeweging party, speaking with journalists from the booth of her tractor.Remko De Waal/Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesMr. Dassen, who was raised in Knegsel, a village near Eindhoven, played in the local youth orchestra and, after studying business management, went to work at ABN Amro bank checking processes for transactions in money laundering.But he was worried about the rise of populism and far-right parties, he said, and “in 2018 I read an article about Volt, decided to join and gave up my job some months later to really try to get the party started.”In the Dutch elections Volt piled up heavy vote totals in several Dutch student cities like Delft and Leiden, powered in part by a social media campaign and a broad network of volunteers.Another pro-European party, the D66, won an extra four seats this week, making it the second largest party in the parliament. Its leader, Sigrid Kaag, is a former United Nations special envoy for Syria and the outgoing foreign minister of trade and development.Because no party in the Dutch Parliament commands a majority, analysts said the idiosyncrasies of coalition building could bring Volt into the governing bloc along with Mr. Rutte and Ms. Kaag. Whatever the outcome of that horse trading, analysts think Volt’s future is bright in the Netherlands.“They could be big here and double their seats if they manage to go even stronger on the climate,” said Felix Rotterberg, a campaign strategist long affiliated with the social-democratic party PvdA. “Volt has the youth, and there will only be more of those in the future.”The party is on a winning streak in other parts of Europe, though nothing else is as high-profile as its victories in the Netherlands. Volt now has over 30 elected representatives across Europe, mainly in municipalities in Germany and Italy. But it has also won its first seat in the European Parliament, in the person of Damian Boeselager, 33.In coming months, Volt will be running candidates in national elections in Bulgaria and Germany, in a regional vote in Spain and in local elections in Italy. Following Brexit this year, its British members are starting a rejoin Europe campaign. Its leaders emphasize Volt’s pan-European character, which they say differentiates it from any other party in Europe.“Every one of our members, has direct voting rights at the European level, they are able to choose our board and influence our policies directly,” said Valerie Sternberg, 30, the party’s Germany-based co-president. “No matter where you live in Europe, even in Britain.” The party doesn’t have a youth organization. “Most of us are young ourselves,” she said.Ms. Sternberg said she cried “tears of joy,” when she learned about the success of Volt’s Dutch chapter, and said the party is now setting its sights on Germany, which is having national elections in the fall.“Our weak point is in rural areas across Europe, we need to get our message there, now populists are winning there,” she said. “We hope that Covid is showing people that isolation makes us weak and cooperation makes us stronger.” More

Readers discuss the role that religion and sexual guilt may have played. Also: Who should be mayor of New York; the decline of air travel.More from our inbox:Elect the Best Person as Mayor of New YorkWho Needs Air Travel?Three women were killed on Tuesday at the Gold Spa in Atlanta.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Racism and Sexism Shadow Many Interactions for Asian-American Women” (news article, March 19):Two-thirds of the way into this piece, The Times finally offers the beginning of wisdom on the Atlanta shootings: “Very little is known about the motives of the Atlanta gunman.”Yet the story has already been pervasively framed primarily as a case of anti-Asian violence and of violence against women. Many observations about the disturbing rise of anti-Asian violence over the past year have been adduced, as if these findings explained the Atlanta shooter’s actions. But they cannot be so used.Anti-Asian animus and misogyny may well have played a role in the gunman’s twisted thinking. But there are good reasons to think that his reported distress about his sexual proclivities and his church’s moral teachings will prove to be an important part of the story as well.Unfortunately, the race and gender framing of the story is now so reflexive and ingrained that it may never be possible for the country to understand the tragedy in Atlanta.John TorpeyMontclair, N.J.The writer is a professor of sociology and history at the CUNY Graduate Center.To the Editor:Re “Sex and Guilt Defined Life of a Suspect” (front page, March 19):Sorting out the factors that contributed to the murders at Atlanta massage parlors, we must not ignore the role likely played by Robert Aaron Long’s religious background. By inculcating in him an extreme opinion that premarital sex is a sin, his religious upbringing made him feel that the normal sexual strivings of any young male make that person a sinner. This caused unbearable guilt when he succumbed to his sexual urges.There needs to be a more enlightened attitude toward premarital sex among those religious extremists. Sexual relations between two consenting adults should not be regarded as a sin or as a crime. Until this becomes universally accepted, expect to see more conflicted young men like Mr. Long act out their sexual conflicts via violence.Harvey M. BermanWhite Plains, N.Y.The writer is a psychiatrist.To the Editor:Re “Asian-Americans Ask: Why Not Call It Hate?” (front page, March 19):Quick question: How many people demanding increased investigation and prosecution of anti-Asian hate crimes supported last year’s protests to “defund the police”?They can’t have it both ways. If you want more enforcement of hate-crime laws, you’ll need more money. It doesn’t grow on trees.Jonathan ZimmermanPhiladelphiaThe writer teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania.Elect the Best Person as Mayor of New YorkKathryn Garcia, center, the former sanitation commissioner, was one of the first mayoral candidates to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign.Mike Segar/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Women Running for Mayor Say Cuomo Shows Need for Change” (front page, March 18):The best person — be it he, she or they — should be elected mayor of this city, which desperately needs to be brought back from its current state.Frankly, it is insulting to women to promote the idea that one should vote for a woman just because she is a woman. In my view, this city needs someone who comes in with a record of excellent administrative experience, actually getting things done.If the best person for mayor happens to be a man, then that man should be elected and, moreover, should also be held to an “inclusive style of leadership” and “not rely on bullying.” You can have both.Ellyn S. RothNew YorkWho Needs Air Travel?Many airlines, including United, American, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic, began running flights only to haul cargo after the pandemic began and commercial passenger travel plummeted.Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Do You Really Need to Fly?,” by Farhad Manjoo (column, March 15):Back in the ’90s I flew to Chicago from New York for a one-day meeting at the O’Hare Hilton. I got off the plane, and walked through the terminal and into the hotel. After the meeting I left the hotel, walked through the terminal and boarded my return flight.My friends asked me how Chicago was. I told them that I had no idea, as I had never even been outside.Charlie PerrinLeesburg, Fla.To the Editor:Farhad Manjoo’s points against “gratuitous business travel” apply to academic travel as well.The Zoom conferences I attended this past year promoted a focus on ideas, bypassing not only tedious air travel but also the tedious pseudo-socializing that often infests in-person academic conferences.After a session of philosophical discussion, I was delighted to socialize with my cat rather than with someone bent on professional advancement.Felicia Nimue AckermanProvidence, R.I.The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University. More

Warning: some viewers may find the following footage distressing
The FBI has released new footage of the deadly 6 January US Capitol insurrection as it seeks to identify 10 suspects involved in what the agency says were ‘some of the most violent attacks on officers’. Law enforcement are still pursuing more than 100 suspects from the attack on Congress, which the then president, Donald Trump, was accused of inciting and led to his historic second impeachment.
But the 10 suspects highlighted this week by the federal authorities are considered among the most dangerous still at large

FBI releases new Capitol attack footage as it seeks to identify 10 suspects More

The FBI has released new footage of the deadly 6 January US Capitol insurrection as it seeks to identify 10 suspects involved in what the agency says were “some of the most violent attacks on officers”.Law enforcement are still pursuing more than 100 suspects from the attack on Congress, which Donald Trump was accused of inciting and led to his historic second impeachment. Hundreds have been arrested after the violent mob invaded the Capitol to try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.But the 10 suspects highlighted this week by the federal authorities are considered amongst the most dangerous still at large.Each of the clips posted to the FBI’s Washington field office website shows the suspects allegedly in the act of assaulting the officers, alongside closeups of their faces, several of them masked but many not.“The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying 10 individuals suspected of being involved in some of the most violent attacks on officers who were protecting the US Capitol and our democratic process on January 6,” Steven M D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said in a statement accompanying the footage.“These individuals are seen on video committing egregious crimes against those who have devoted their lives to protecting the American people.”The FBI said it had already received “hundreds of thousands of tips” following the riots that claimed five lives when a mob stormed the Capitol and invaded the US Senate and House of Representatives.At a rally earlier in the day, the former president incited his followers to march to the Capitol building and “fight like hell” in support of his false claims that the election was stolen from him.The massive investigation that ensued led to the arrest of more than 300 individuals, of whom 65 were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers, the FBI said.The most recent came this week as the agency arrested and charged two men, Julian Elie Khater, 32, of Pennsylvania, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, from West Virginia, with assaulting Brian Sicknick, a US Capitol police officer who died in hospital after the attacks.Khater was seen in social media footage discharging a spray he referred to as “bear shit” into the 42-year-old officer’s face, court papers allege. The cause of death is not yet known, although investigators believe Sicknick may have ingested a chemical substance, possibly bear spray, that may have played a role.Earlier this month, Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, called the riots “domestic terrorism” in congressional testimony.“That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” Wray told the Senate judiciary committee.“The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a number of years now, and it’s not going away any time soon,” he added, although analysis has concluded that most of the 6 January rioters were unconnected to any extremist group.The alleged assaults captured in the new FBI footage take place in a variety of locations around the capitol. All the suspects are male, and several are wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps that became a signature of Trump’s supporters during his tumultuous presidency.“We’re grateful to the members of the public who have already been a tremendous help in these investigations,” D’Antuono said.“We know it can be a difficult decision to report information about family, friends, or co-workers, but it is the right thing to do.” More