Elections

Beneath all the furor around Donald Trump’s appointments — Matt Gaetz down and out, Pete Hegseth down but maybe coming back, the Kash Patel drama waiting the wings — the most important figures in this administration’s orbit have not changed since Election Day: Besides the president himself, the future of Trumpism is still most likely to be shaped and stamped by two men, JD Vance and Elon Musk.Not just because of their talent and achievements, and not just because Vance is the political heir apparent and Musk would be one of the world’s most influential men even if he didn’t have the ear of the president-elect. It’s also because they represent, more clearly than any other appointee, two potent visions for a 21st century right, and their interaction is likely to shape conservatism for the next four years and beyond.Musk is the dynamist, the believer in growth and innovation and exploration as the lodestars of American civilization. His dynamism was not always especially ideological: The Tesla and SpaceX mogul was once a Barack Obama Democrat, happy to support an active and sometimes spendthrift government so long as it spent freely on his projects. But as Musk has moved right, he has adopted a more libertarian pose, insisting on the profound wastefulness of government spending and the tyranny of the administrative state.Vance meanwhile is the populist, committed to protect and uplift those parts of America neglected or left behind in an age of globalization. Along with his support for the Trumpian causes of tariffs and immigration restriction, this worldview has made him more sympathetic than the average Republican senator to certain forms of government investment — from longstanding programs like Social Security to new ideas about industrial policy and family policy.Despite this contrast, the Musk and Vance worldviews overlap in important ways. Musk has moved in a populist direction on immigration, while Vance has been a venture capitalist and clearly has a strong sympathy for parts of the dynamist worldview, especially its critique of the regulatory state. Both men share a farsighted interest in the collapsing birthrate, a heretofore-fringe issue that’s likely to dominate the later parts of the 21st century. And there is modest-but-real convergence between the Muskian “tech” worldview and Vance’s more “neo-trad” style of religious conservatism, based on not just a shared antipathy toward wokeness but also similar views about the intelligibility of the cosmos and the providential place of humankind in history.So you can imagine a scenario, in Trump’s second term and beyond, where these convergences yield a dynamist-populist fusionism — a conservatism that manages to simultaneously aim for the stars and uplift and protect the working class, in which economic growth and technological progress help renew the heartland (as Musk’s own companies have brought jobs and optimism to South Texas) while also preserving our creaking social compact.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

Liberals moving away from X are giving up on the 20th-century ideal of a public sphere, best described by Hannah Arendt as a place that “gathers us together and yet prevents our falling over each other.”Bluesky, the destination of the moment, is experiencing a post-election surge of new users as millions of mostly liberal users of X (nee Twitter) have moved over to the Twitter-like platform, which opened to the public last year. The platform had 13 million users by early November; 10 million more joined over the next month.Now that social media is ubiquitous, growth in one platform often means lost users for another. The Bluesky migration suggests that the broader the “us” gathered together, the harder it is to prevent our falling on another. (Owners of giant social media platforms often imagine they can get good moderation for many users with little effort, when that is a distinctly “pick two” choice.)On social media, the political is personal; migrating Bluesky users are signaling political separation from an increasingly conservative X and giving up on the idea of a town square that holds all voices simultaneously.It’s obvious why liberal users might want to leave X. Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 (and renamed it in 2023), he has reshaped the platform to be more welcoming to racism, misogyny and anti-immigrant and antitrans sentiment than even the old freewheeling Twitter. Abandoning early promises to not reinstate barred users without the judgment of a review board, Mr. Musk reversed previous suspensions and bans for Nick Fuentes, an admirer of Hitler; James Lindsay, an anti-L.G.B.T.Q. activist; and, of course, Donald Trump, who was barred after the Jan. 6 insurrection.Mr. Musk hasn’t just made X more conservative; he has also made it harder for users to ignore far-right and MAGA content, dismantling tools they had relied on to filter out those voices. X was originally a rebranding of Twitter, but over time, the service has become, in internet parlance, a Nazi bar.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

As critics issue their year-end lists, we want to know your personal favorites of 2024.It’s the most wonderful time of year, and I don’t mean the holiday season, although I’ve heard that people are excited about that too. No, for nerds like me who love to plan out their holiday culture consumption — those whose appetites are always far larger than their capacity for viewing/reading/listening — December is sacred because it is when critics issue their retrospective best-of lists, their verdicts on the best movies, music, TV, books and other cultural artifacts of 2024.I’ve always thought it a shame that everyone I know doesn’t issue a best-of list. Yes, critics are experts in their fields, completists who have surveyed the landscape of their beats such that their assessments of “the best” are far more informed than the average cultural consumer’s. But I also want to know what my friends and family loved, and why. There’s no easier way to get to know someone a little bit more deeply than by asking them for a recommendation. I have a fantasy of pulling out a bullhorn on my morning commute and asking everyone in my subway car their top five films of the year. I’m not sure anyone would play along with my reindeer game, but if they did, I expect that I’d get a few good recs, some truly nutty ones, and that it would certainly bring a spirit of joy and conviviality to a typically alienating part of the day.And why stop at the usual categories? Best-of lists are typically limited to the same categories. Tell me your favorite movie, book and song, but I also want to know the best line of poetry you read this year, the best cocktail you devised, the best tradition you started, the best grilling technique, the best piece of advice you received. We’re all living and exploring and absorbing.And so I ask you, as I do every year, to send in your own highly specific, idiosyncratic, genre-free favorites from 2024. What did you discover? What did you learn? What did you love? Submit your answers here, and I’ll include as many of them as I can in upcoming newsletters.For moreThe Morning readers’ bests of 2023 and 2022.The best advice Morning readers received in 2023 and 2022.“As with everything worth making — bread, sweet love, mix tapes — there’s an art to creating a great Top 10 list.” From 2011, Dan Kois on how and why to make a best-of list.The Times’s best of 2024 lists.More year-end lists from around the internet.THE WEEK IN CULTUREFilm and TVAmy Adams in a scene from “Nightbitch.”Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Nightbitch,” which stars Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mother who turns into a feral dog, is one of the movies Times critics are talking about this week.“The Agency” on Paramount + and Netflix’s “Black Doves” are part of a new crop of spy dramas whose biggest battles take place within the hearts and minds of their agents.ArtThe discovery of a rare picture of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, made by his lover Paul Verlaine, prompted a bidding war in Paris.At New York’s Grolier Club, an exhibition renders physical representations of lost or unfinished works by writers including Ernest Hemingway and Christopher Marlowe.More CultureJean-Charles de CastelbajacAlain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen Notre-Dame Cathedral reopens, the clergy will be wearing new liturgical garb designed by the French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction — a stegosaurus that went for almost $45 million — has a new home at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.The two remaining defendants in the case against Young Thug’s rap label YSL were found not guilty of murder and gang charges.THE LATEST NEWSWar in SyriaRebel fighters in the streets of Hama on Friday.Bakr Al Kassem/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRebels fighting to depose Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, advanced on another major city en route to the capital. The sudden intensification of the war has led neighboring countries to close their borders.Iran, which for years has helped Assad maintain control of Syria, is now evacuating military personnel from the country.The leader of Syria’s rebel groups told The Times that he was confident his fighters could oust Assad. “This operation broke the enemy,” he said.Other Big StoriesA vote on whether to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, slowed to a crawl as the opposition tried to convince members of his party to support the ouster of the president.A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy can consider race and ethnicity in admissions, asserting that affirmative action was essential to protect national security.A panel of federal judges upheld a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells the app. Donald Trump opposes the ban.The U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin testing the nation’s milk supply for the bird flu virus.Police officers now believe the man who shot the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Manhattan escaped from the city that day. Investigators recovered a backpack in Central Park similar to the one he was carrying.CULTURE CALENDAR📺 “Somebody Somewhere” (Sunday): In the second season of this HBO half-hour, a character graces a potluck with St. Louis sushi, a delicacy that combines ham, pickles and cream cheese. It’s delicious. And tough on the gut. That’s also true of this riotously funny, achingly tender comedy created by Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett. Everett stars as Sam, a woman who returns in middle age to her Manhattan, Kan., hometown. A sweet and salty heartbreaker about family found and chosen, this show will end its three-season run on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. 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Scroll down for hints and conversation about the puzzle for Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024.Welcome to The Wordle Review. Be warned: This page contains spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Wordle first, or scroll at your own risk.Wordle is released at midnight in your time zone. In order to accommodate all time zones, there will be two Wordle Reviews live every day, dated based on Eastern Standard Time. If you find yourself on the wrong review, check the number of your puzzle, and go to this page to find the corresponding review.Need a hint?Give me a consonantNGive me a vowelAOpen the comments section for more hints, scores, and conversation from the Wordle community.Today’s DifficultyThe difficulty of each puzzle is determined by averaging the number of guesses provided by a small panel of testers who are paid to solve each puzzle in advance to help us catch any issues and inconsistencies.Today’s average difficulty is 5.8 guesses out of 6, or very challenging.For more in-depth analysis, visit our friend, WordleBot.Today’s WordClick to revealToday’s word is HYENA, a noun. According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, it refers to a “wolflike carnivore” with a shrill cry “suggestive of laughter.”Our Featured ArtistChristina Chung is a queer Taiwanese Hong Konger American illustrator, raised in Seattle and Singapore and currently based in Brooklyn. Her work focuses on intricacies, color and symbolism, drawing inspiration from the natural world and powerful storytelling.Further ReadingSee the archive for past and future posts.If you solved for a word different from what was featured today, please refresh your page.Join the conversation on social media! Use the hashtag #wordlereview to chat with other solvers.Leave any thoughts you have in the comments! Please follow community guidelines:Be kind. Comments are moderated for civility.Having a technical issue? Use the help button in the settings menu of the Games app.See the Wordle Glossary for information on how to talk about Wordle.Want to talk about Spelling Bee? Check out our Spelling Bee Forum.Want to talk about Connections? Check out our Connections Companion.Trying to go back to the puzzle? More

The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on how to support someone with an addiction problem.My significant other has a friend who is a longtime alcoholic, while also being intelligent, entertaining and conniving. For example, he used to tell his wife he was going to the gym and then head to the bar; before returning home, he’d dampen his clothes in the bathroom to make it seem as if he’d gotten a good sweat on. He was off the radar for a bit, and then we learned he had a liver transplant. After that, he had an episode of hepatic encephalopathy, a brain disorder caused by liver dysfunction. It seems the doctors knew he was still drinking but gave him the new liver anyway and counseled abstinence. A few parties later, he was sneaking vodka, gin and whatever else was around. He lies to everyone and has made his guy friends vow not to tell his wife about his drinking. They’ve made a meager attempt to confront him, only to be assured that he just fell off the wagon and would be good. Just don’t tell the wife!I’m appalled that they’re going along with this. There are a couple of ethical issues here. First, who should decide whether someone is entitled to a transplant? Some hospital systems deny a liver transplant to patients who continue to drink alcohol, and other hospitals don’t. Second, do the friends have an obligation to tell this man’s wife that he’s still drinking? She could insist he leave the house and go to rehab, in which case he might have a chance of living long enough to see his children get married. Some additional context: A friend of mine died waiting for a liver transplant. I am also the child of a lifelong alcoholic. — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:There’s more than one morally defensible way of allocating donor organs. In the United States, as in Western Europe, the system emphasizes equity and basically gives priority to patients with the greatest need. An approach that focused instead on efficiency — on getting the maximum use out of donated livers, as measured by ‘‘quality-adjusted life years’’ — might give an edge to people who were younger and otherwise healthier and might work against low-income and minority populations.Organ allocation in the United States is governed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (O.P.T.N.), whose policies determine the order in which deceased-donor organs are offered; they do not, however, dictate medical practice. So it’s up to a medical center to decide whether or not transplant candidates with alcohol-related liver disease are to abstain from alcohol for some period — six months having long been a typical sobriety window. Some studies indicate that carefully selected patients who aren’t subject to a sobriety window can do just as well as those who are (though the data is hard to interpret because of the ‘‘carefully selected’’ part). And if your drinking has caused a severe case of acute hepatitis that doesn’t respond to medical treatment, you probably won’t survive a six-month waiting period. So the trend seems to be away from requiring an extended interval of abstinence.The point is that the current system for allocating this scarce resource is morally legitimate, whatever trade-offs it may entail; its architects are perfectly aware that many liver recipients will not succeed in refraining from heavy drinking afterward. The fact that this longtime alcoholic has returned to his old habits is distressing. It doesn’t mean that the system isn’t functioning the way it’s meant to.One thing that transplant centers may try to determine is whether patients with an alcohol problem have social networks that could help them stay sober. This brings us to your second question. This fellow’s friends weren’t looking after him when they agreed to uphold this boozy bro code and keep mum. He doesn’t want to die, but he’s drinking himself to death, which means that, at least in this key area, he lacks the capacity for rational decision-making. In a situation like that, it’s more important to attend to his interests than to respect his autonomy. If there’s a chance that his life can be extended by successful management of his alcoholism, and if discussing the problem with his wife will help, thoughtful friends would do just that.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

Best cocktail or mocktail? Best advice? Best app you discovered? We want to know your highly subjective, hyper-specific, genre-agnostic favorites from the past year.What’s on your best-of list for 2024? Forget about genre, forget the usual year-end list categories and think about everything you consumed. What was the best breakfast you devised? The best song lyric? The best tradition you started or ended, the best movie you rediscovered, the best piece of advice you received? Make up your own categories! Go wild! (For inspiration, check out reader favorites from past years.)We read every submission, and we plan to use some in upcoming newsletters that highlight readers’ year-end picks and favorite advice. We won’t publish any part of your response without following up with you first, verifying your information and hearing back from you. And we won’t share your contact information outside the Times newsroom or use it for any reason other than to get in touch with you.Morning Readers’ Best Of 2024 More

Corrections that appeared in print on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024.NATIONALAn article on Wednesday about Sheriff Chad Chronister, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdrawing his name from consideration for the office misstated Pam Bondi’s role at the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office. She was a prosecutor in and a spokeswoman for the office; she was not in charge of it.MAGAZINEAn article on Page 18 this weekend about psychosis and race misstates the occupation of Deidre Anglin’s grandmother. She worked as a nanny, not a house cleaner.OBITUARIESAn obituary on Nov. 30 about Robert W. Dixon Sr., who was stationed at West Point with the Ninth Cavalry Regiment during World War II, credited him with an erroneous distinction. He was not the last survivor of the Army’s all-Black units historically known as Buffalo Soldiers; there are at least two surviving members — Roy Caldwood and the jazz saxophonist Marshall Allen — of the 92nd Infantry Division, nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers Division, which saw combat in Europe during World War II.Errors are corrected during the press run whenever possible, so some errors noted here may not have appeared in all editions.To contact the newsroom regarding correction requests, please email [email protected]. To share feedback, please visit nytimes.com/readerfeedback.Comments on opinion articles may be emailed to [email protected] newspaper delivery questions: 1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637) or email [email protected]. More

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea delivered the following televised address on Saturday morning:My fellow citizens,I declared emergency martial law at 11 p.m. on Dec. 3. About two hours later, at around 1 a.m. on Dec. 4, I ordered the withdrawal of the armed forces in accordance with the National Assembly’s resolution to lift martial law, and lifted martial law after a late-night cabinet meeting.The declaration of martial law was born out of desperation as the president, the ultimate head of state, but it caused anxiety and discomfort to the people in the process. I am deeply sorry for this, and I sincerely apologize to the people who must have been greatly surprised.I will not dodge my legal and political responsibility for this declaration of martial law. There is talk of martial law being imposed again, but let me be clear: There will never be a second martial law.My fellow citizens, I will entrust my party with the task of stabilizing the country, including my term in office. My party and the government will be responsible for the management of the country’s affairs in the future.I would like to bow my head and apologize once again for the worry I caused to the people. More