Elections

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Says He Might Use U.S. Transit Agency to ‘Kill’ Congestion Pricing

      by

      In an interview with The New York Post, President Trump said that congestion pricing hurt New York City but indicated that he was still talking with Gov. Kathy Hochul.President Trump said that he was considering using the federal Department of Transportation to “kill” congestion pricing, which he claimed was deterring people from coming into Manhattan.But Mr. Trump, in a weekend interview with The New York Post, was vague about how he might try to stop the program. Options could include withholding federal transportation funds or revoking a key federal authorization to toll drivers. He also said that he was still in discussions with Gov. Kathy Hochul about the future of congestion pricing and other matters.The president also vowed in the interview to eliminate bike lanes, which are approved by the New York City Department of Transportation. “They’re dangerous. These bikes go at 20 miles an hour. They’re whacking people,” he said.Charging most vehicles a $9 fee to enter Manhattan below 60th Street is “destructive” to New York, the president said.“If I decide to do it, I will be able to kill it off in Washington through the Department of Transportation,” Mr. Trump said.Mr. Trump, a lifelong New Yorker before he moved to Florida, maintains a deep interest in the city’s affairs and complained about trash and public safety in the subway, “sidewalks in the middle of the street” and New York’s sanctuary city policies during his interview with The Post.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      36 Hours After Russell Vought Took Over Consumer Bureau, He Shut Its Operations

      by

      The agency had been one of Wall Street’s most feared regulators, with the power to issue rules on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other areas affecting Americans’ financial lives.The day before Linda Wetzel closed on her retirement home in Southport, N.C., in 2012 — a cozy place where she could open the windows at night and catch an ocean breeze — the bank making the loan surprised her with a fee she hadn’t expected. Ms. Wetzel scoured her mortgage paperwork and couldn’t find the charge disclosed anywhere.Ms. Wetzel made the payment and then filed an online complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bank quickly opened an investigation, and a month later, it sent her a $5,600 check.“My first thought was ‘thank you.’ I was in tears,” she recalled. “That money was a year or two of savings on my mortgage. It was my little nest egg.”Ms. Wetzel’s refund is a tiny piece of the work the bureau has done since it was created in 2011. It has clawed back $21 billion for consumers. It slashed overdraft fees, reformed the student loan servicing market, transformed mortgage lending rules and forced banks and money transmitters to compensate fraud victims.It may no longer be able to carry out that work.President Trump on Friday appointed Russell Vought, who was confirmed a day earlier to lead the Office of Management and Budget, as the agency’s acting director. Mr. Vought was an author of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for upending the federal government that called for significant changes, including abolishing the consumer bureau.In less than 36 hours, Mr. Vought threw the agency into chaos. On Saturday, he ordered the bureau’s 1,700 employees to stop nearly all their work and announced plans to cut off the agency’s funding. Then on Sunday, he closed the bureau’s headquarters for the coming week. Workers who tried to retrieve their laptops from the office were turned away, employees said.The bureau “has been a woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time,” Mr. Vought wrote Sunday on X. “This must end.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Man Sentenced to 475 Years for Dogfighting

      by

      Vincent Lemark Burrell was found guilty last month of more than 100 counts of dogfighting and animal cruelty after dozens of dogs were found in poor condition at his home.A Georgia man who the authorities said kept more than 100 dogs in cruel conditions at his home has been sentenced to 475 years in prison after being found guilty last month of dogfighting and cruelty to animals, prosecutors said.The man, Vincent Lemark Burrell, 57, of Dallas, Ga., was found guilty by a jury on Jan. 30 of 93 counts of dogfighting and 10 counts of cruelty to animals.The verdict came after a four-day trial in which the authorities said they had found 107 dogs, many of them underweight, scarred and missing teeth, chained up in his yard in 2022, the Paulding County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.Judge Dean C. Bucci of the Paulding County Superior Court gave Mr. Burrell the maximum possible sentence.The authorities had been acting on a search warrant issued after an Amazon driver raised concerns about the welfare of the dogs, which the driver said he saw chained in the yard, according to the statement.Officers sent to Mr. Burrell’s house in Dallas, which is about 32 miles outside of Atlanta, found the dogs, most of them pit bulls, without access to food or water, the Paulding County Sheriff’s Office said at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Dozens of Maoist Guerrillas Killed in Central India, Officials Say

      by

      Rebels known as Naxalites have waged an insurgency that has ebbed and flowed over decades, but government operations have given them less space to maneuver.Dozens of Maoist guerrillas were killed in central India by government forces on Sunday, one of the deadliest operations in recent years against leftist rebels who have waged an insurgency that has ebbed and flowed over several decades.The operation, in the forested Bijapur area in the state of Chhattisgarh, was carried out against the so-called Naxalite movement, and left 31 rebels dead, along with two members of the police forces, according to the area’s police chief, Jitendra Kumar Yadav.Chief Yadav said the authorities had also recovered a number of AK-47 assault weapons and several other automatic rifles after the clashes.“We will completely eradicate Naxalism from the country, so that no citizen of the country has to lose his life because of it,” said Amit Shah, India’s home minister, referring to the left-wing insurgency.The Maoist insurgency began in eastern India in the 1960s and spread widely in central and southern parts of the country.The violence peaked in 2010, when more than 600 civilians and over 250 security forces were killed in the conflict.In recent years, civilian deaths have dwindled, after government operations shrunk the space for the insurgents to operate. The insurgency’s leadership has also struggled, analysts say, in the face of targeted operations, old age and illness.The Home Ministry told Parliament last year that the threat of leftist extremism had dropped significantly in recent years, in terms of the number of deaths as well as the amount of affected territory.Deaths of civilians and security forces related to the insurgency in 2023 were 86 percent lower than at their peak in 2010, the ministry said, adding that the number of districts affected by the violence had shrunk to 38 from 126.Niranjan Sahoo, who studies left-wing extremism at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank, said the Maoists were struggling to recruit members, among other problems.He also said they were concentrating their activities in several districts around the Abujhmad forest, including Bijapur, after suffering losses over the years.“The Maoists are at their weakest point, largely because they have lost a lot of their territory,” he said. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Israeli Troops Withdraw From Netzarim Corridor in Gaza

      by

      Israel’s military withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor under the cease-fire with Hamas. During the war, troops patrolled the zone that splits the territory, preventing evacuated Palestinians from returning north.Israel’s military withdrew Sunday from a key corridor dividing the Gaza Strip, leaving nearly all of the territory’s north as required by a tenuous cease-fire with Hamas ahead of any negotiations for a longer-lasting agreement.The military’s departure from the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza came as the Israeli government sent a delegation to Qatar over the weekend to discuss the next group of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be freed during the cease-fire agreement’s initial phase, which came into effect last month and is ongoing. The gaunt appearances of three Israeli hostages who were released on Saturday, stoking public comparisons to Holocaust victims, heaped new pressure on the negotiations.In a statement on Sunday, the Israeli military said troops were “implementing the agreement” to leave the corridor and allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to continue returning home to northern Gaza.Two Israeli military officials and a soldier in Gaza who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly or by name said the troops had already left the Netzarim Corridor by Sunday morning.Hamas also said that Israeli troops had departed from the Netzarim Corridor, saying in a statement that it was “a victory for the will of our people.”A drone view after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor on Sunday.ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Anora’ Wins Big at Producers and Directors Guild Awards

      by

      The film that takes those two major industry prizes almost always goes on to win the best-picture Oscar.This tumultuous Oscar season has a certified front-runner.On Saturday night in Los Angeles, more than a month after “Anora” lost every award it was nominated for at the Golden Globes, the Sean Baker-directed comedy took top honors at awards shows held by the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America. The later victory is especially telling: Since 2009, when both the PGA and the academy expanded their number of best-film nominees from five, the PGA winner has gone on to claim the best-picture Oscar all but three times.The ceremonies were held opposite each other in Beverly Hills and Baker had to race from the DGAs, which wrapped first, to the PGAs. While accepting his award at the earlier ceremony, he appeared gobsmacked.“My impostor syndrome is skyrocketing right now,” Baker said, “as well as my cortisol levels.”The victories capped a good weekend for “Anora,” which also won the top prize at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night. And though Baker may be battling impostor syndrome, 18 of the last 20 DGA winners also went on to take the best-director Oscar, which puts him in good company.Other winners at both shows included “Shogun,” and “Hacks,” which won drama-series and comedy-series awards, respectively. “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross took the DGA award for first-time theatrical filmmaker.“Emilia Pérez,” which led the Oscar field with 13 nominations but has been battered by controversy involving old tweets made by its star Karla Sofia Gascón, failed to take a prize at either ceremony.Here is the list of PGA winners:FilmFeature Film“Anora”Animated Feature“The Wild Robot”Documentary“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”TelevisionEpisodic Drama“Shogun”Episodic Comedy“Hacks”Limited or Anthology Series“Baby Reindeer”Television Movie or Streamed Movie“The Greatest Night in Pop”Nonfiction Television“STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces”Live, Variety, Sketch, Stand-up or Talk Show“Saturday Night Live”Game or Competition Show“The Traitors”Sports Program“Simone Biles Rising”Children’s Program“Sesame Street”Short-Form Program“Succession: Controlling the Narrative”And here is the list of DGA winners. For the complete list, go to dga.org.FilmFeatureSean Baker, “Anora”Read our review.First-Time FeatureRaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”Read our review.DocumentaryBrendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, “Porcelain War”TelevisionDrama Series“Shogun,” Frederick E.O. ToyeRead our review.Comedy Series“Hacks,” Lucia AnielloTelevision Movies and Limited Series“Ripley,” Steven Zaillian More

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Book Review: ‘After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart,’ by Megan Marshall

      by

      The standout essays in Megan Marshall’s “After Lives” recall her troubled father and the fate of a high school classmate.AFTER LIVES: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart, by Megan Marshall“All biography is autobiography,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, but most biographers are marginal by definition: parasites or scavengers, “the shadow in the garden,” to quote a godfather of the genre, James Atlas, in turn quoting his thorniest subject, Saul Bellow. When they step out of the margins it’s often because something has gone wrong.In 2017 the highly esteemed biographer Megan Marshall, who won big prizes for her books about long-dead Margaret Fuller and the Peabody sisters, tried interlacing strings of her own life story with that of her former poetry teacher, Elizabeth Bishop, and was thanked with mixed reviews.Now Marshall is making another halting run at memoir, with a modest collection of essays on topics including her paternal grandfather, who worked for the Red Cross in France after the First World War and photographed the burial of young American soldiers; a run of left-handedness on her mother’s side of the family; and a trip the author took to Kyoto during typhoon season. This is not a typhoon-like book that will knock you over with its coherence, but irregular winds blowing this way and that, some hotter than others.The most compelling essay, “Free for a While,” is about Jonathan Jackson, the 17-year-old killed in a shootout that made front-page headlines in 1970. He had taken courtroom hostages in an attempt to force the release of his older brother George Jackson, the author of the best-selling Black Power manifesto “Soledad Brother,” from prison. Jonathan happened to be Marshall’s classmate at Blair High School in Pasadena, Calif., which canceled her planned salutatorian’s speech devoted to him (she managed to barge up and speak anyway).To read her account of the boy she knew as “Jon” getting laughs playing Pyramus from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in their A.P. English class — “Tongue, lose thy light; Moon, take thy flight. Now die, die, die, die, die” — two weeks before his death, and to discover the devastating origin of the essay’s title, is to yearn for an entire new suite of intellectual property — book, play, movie — devoted to this family. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      The Democrats Are in Disarray. Now What?

      by

      More from our inbox:Asheville’s ChallengesMental Health Intervention Can Save Lives Gus Aronson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “How Democrats Can Reinvent Themselves,” by Doug Sosnik (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 1):Mr. Sosnik claims that Democrats focused too much on “elite” special interest groups and failed to address voter frustrations about the economy and crime. He then hearkens back 30 years ago and credits President Bill Clinton’s success to his avoidance of “divisive social issues.”This glosses over reality: Mr. Clinton bowed to right-wing messaging that embraced the idea of a burdened white taxpayer and scapegoated communities of color, resulting in policies like mass incarceration and a weakened social safety net. Today, Republicans have recycled the same playbook, this time demonizing D.E.I. initiatives and “woke” activists as modern-day villains responsible for all social problems and economic woes.Mr. Sosnik’s dismissal of advocates for social justice, L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights, environmental protection and labor protections as “elite outsiders” fuels this false, harmful narrative. These groups aren’t elites, as Mr. Sosnik suggests they are. They are working people fighting to dismantle the root causes of economic insecurity and vast economic inequality — and protect our planet. The cost of silencing them will be steep.Jenice Rochelle RobinsonWashingtonTo the Editor:Please do not blame the Democrats’ situation on a failure of messaging. As any communications professional will tell you, organizations need to decide what they stand for and what their value proposition is before the experts can figure out how best broadcast them so they resonate with audiences. And it can’t just be, “We’re not that.”Democrats, there are plenty of communications and media relations experts, including me, who are distraught at what’s happening and more than willing to help you shape your messaging. But you need to figure out what you want to say before we can help you. Those conversations need to be more than just “What’s our message?”Keith BermanDenverTo the Editor:As a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, Doug Sosnik can perhaps be forgiven for failing to draw the solid line that leads from the Democrats’ 2024 losses straight back to Mr. Clinton’s failings more than 30 years ago — punitive criminal justice “reform,” weakening the social safety net and risky, Wall Street-favoring economic policies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More