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      Smoky Smell Engulfs NYC After Fires in New Jersey and Brooklyn

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      New Yorkers encountered an unsettling smell on Saturday, a day after fires broke out in Prospect Park and across the Hudson River.The smell of acrid smoke spread throughout New York City on Saturday and persisted into the evening, a day after brush fires broke out on Friday in Brooklyn, the Bronx and nearby New Jersey. It was a surreal experience for a city that is rarely home to wildfires but is in the middle of a drought.On Saturday, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation placed the city, as well as Rockland and Westchester Counties, under an air quality alert until midnight. The smell of smoke woke Desi Yvette, 36, in her Williamsburg home in the middle of the night.“It was close to 2 and I just stayed up for a while,” Ms. Yvette said as she walked her Maltese mix, Midas, on Saturday. “I thought maybe there was a fire nearby, but I didn’t hear any sirens. So I was like, I don’t think it’s an emergency or we would have been alerted. But it does smell bad.”Ms. Yvette had not heard about the brush fire that broke out on Friday night in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, burning two acres in a heavily wooded area. “It’s crazy that it smells all the way over here,” she added. “It’s just been a week of, like, disaster.”

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement on Saturday that there were multiple wildfires burning across New York State, noting that Hudson Valley, Long Island and the Catskills region were at high risk.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

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      Trump Should Not Let Putin Claim Victory in Ukraine, Says NATO Official

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      Adm. Rob Bauer warned against any peace deal that was too favorable to Russia, arguing that it could undermine American interests.A senior NATO military official suggested on Saturday that any peace deal negotiated by President-elect Donald J. Trump that allowed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to claim victory in Ukraine would undermine the interests of the United States.In a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of a European defense summit in Prague, Adm. Rob Bauer, the Dutch chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, said: “If you allow a nation like Russia to win, to come out of this as the victor, then what does it mean for other autocratic states in the world where the U.S. has also interests?”He added: “It’s important enough to talk about Ukraine on its own, but there is more at stake than just Ukraine.”Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that he could end the war in Ukraine in a day, without saying how. A settlement outlined by Vice President-elect JD Vance in September echoes what people close to the Kremlin say Mr. Putin wants: allowing Russia to keep the territory it has captured and guaranteeing that Ukraine will not join NATO.A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s transition team, Karoline Leavitt, said he was re-elected because the American people “trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world.”“When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary actions to do just that,” Ms. Leavitt said on Saturday.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

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      Two Militia Founders Are Convicted of Plot to Kill Federal Agents

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      “We were going out huntin’,” one of the men said in a video before a planned trip to the Mexico border, where they intended to shoot at immigrants and officials who might stop them, prosecutors said.Two founders of a militia group who were plotting a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border to shoot at immigrants and the authorities who might try to stop them were convicted on Thursday by a federal jury in Missouri of attempting to murder federal agents, prosecutors said.A jury in Jefferson City, Mo., convicted the men, Jonathan S. O’Dell, 34, of Warsaw, Mo., and Bryan C. Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tenn., of multiple felony counts.Most of the counts were linked to the men shooting at F.B.I. agents who arrived with a search warrant at Mr. O’Dell’s home. Among other charges, Mr. O’Dell and Mr. Perry were also convicted of conspiracy to murder officers and employees of the United States government, prosecutors said.They each face a minimum of 10 years in prison and up to a life sentence. Under federal statutes, neither would be eligible for parole. Lawyers for the men could not be immediately reached for comment on Saturday.Beginning in the summer of 2022, Mr. O’Dell and Mr. Perry tried to recruit others to join what they called the 2nd American Militia, prosecutors said.In September 2022, Mr. Perry posted a video on TikTok in which he said that the U.S. Border Patrol was committing treason by allowing illegal immigrants to enter the United States.In that same video, he said that the penalty for treason was death, court records show. In another video, he said that he was “ready to go to war against this government.”By late September, the two men stepped up their plans. They continued to recruit, acquired paramilitary gear and practiced shooting at targets, according to officials.Mr. Perry posted a video on TikTok in which he said “we’re out to shoot to kill,” and added that “our group is gonna go protect this country.” In early October, he posted another video. In that one he said that “we were going out huntin’,” and that his militia would go to the border on Oct. 8.But on Oct. 7, F.B.I. agents arrived at Mr. O’Dell’s home in an armored vehicle and identified themselves through a loudspeaker. The agents were met with gunfire, officials said, and several rounds hit the vehicle.The agents did not return fire and eventually Mr. O’Dell surrendered, officials said. Mr. Perry was also arrested at the home, but only after he brawled with agents and injured one, according to court documents.Agents found six guns and 23 magazines filled with ammunition inside Mr. O’Dell’s home, officials said. The F.B.I. recovered about 1,800 rounds of other ammunition, two sets of body armor, two gas masks, two ballistic helmets and zip ties. Agents also discovered multiple containers of liquids that would explode upon mixing. More

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      Baltazar Ushca, Who Kept Andean Ice Harvesting Alive, Dies at 80

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      He trekked up Ecuador’s tallest mountain twice a week for six decades to hack ice off a glacier with a pickax. He is believed to have been the last of his breed.For 60 years, Baltazar Ushca worked a rare but rigorous trade: ice merchant. Once or twice a week, he climbed snow-capped Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest peak, to hack ice from a glacier with a pickax, wrap the 60-pound blocks in hay and transport them on the backs of his donkeys. He would then sell them to villagers who did not have electricity and needed refrigeration to conserve their food.It started as a family business. Mr. Ushca’s father, Juan, was an ice merchant, as were his brothers, Juan and Gregorio, and they made their very modest livings off the Chimborazo ice.But Mr. Ushca, who was 4-foot-11, chipped at the ice decades after modern refrigeration came to his village, by which time his job was nearly obsolete. He gradually became known as the last of his breed, selling his blocks of ice for a few dollars each largely to vendors in a market in Riobamba, Ecuador, for use in fruit drinks and making ice cream.“The natural ice from Chimborazo is the best ice,” Mr. Ushca said in a short documentary, “El Último Hielero,” or “The Last Ice Merchant” (2012), directed by Sandy Patch. “The tastiest and the sweetest. Full of vitamins for your bones.”Once he reached the market, he delivered the blocks of ice by carrying them on his back.“My kids would say, ‘Why suffering so much?’” Gregorio Ushca said the documentary. “‘Being so cold, walking far, if you almost make no money?’”Since he was 15, Baltazar Ushca has harvested the glacial ice of Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo. His brothers have long since retired. “El Último Hielero” is a story of cultural change and adaption.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

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      Don Bacon Defeats Tony Vargas for House Seat in Nebraska

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      The victory of the four-term Republican, who has resisted his party’s veer to the right, dashed Democratic hopes of flipping a critical district.Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the most politically vulnerable Republicans in the country, has defeated his Democratic challenger and won a fifth term, according to The Associated Press. His victory denies Democrats one of their best opportunities this year to pick up a seat and bolsters his party’s drive to hold its majority.The race was the second matchup between Mr. Bacon and Tony Vargas, who came within 6,000 votes of unseating the congressman in 2022. Mr. Vargas came up short again on Friday evening, even after top Democrats including Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, then the vice-presidential nominee, traveled to the Omaha district to support his campaign.The contest between Mr. Bacon, 61, a former brigadier general in the Air Force, and Mr. Vargas, 40, a former public-school teacher who is the son of Peruvian immigrants, featured debates over national issues including abortion rights, taxes and public safety.But it was also a test of whether there was still a place in the G.O.P. for a mainstream lawmaker like Mr. Bacon, who has staked out a reputation on Capitol Hill as an independent voice in a party increasingly dominated by the hard right — and whether he could survive in a liberal-leaning district won by President Biden.Nebraska’s Second Congressional District centers on Omaha, often referred to as the “blue dot,” in reference to its uniquely liberal leanings in an otherwise red state. But Republicans have represented it in the House since the mid-1990s, with the exception of one two-year term from 2015 to 2017.Mr. Bacon was first elected in 2016, in a year when Donald J. Trump also carried the district. But he was able to appeal to voters across the aisle; in 2020, when Mr. Biden won the district, Mr. Bacon was re-elected by the widest margin he has ever enjoyed.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

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      Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies

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      As happens every time a new president is elected, Donald Trump is experiencing a sudden role reversal. His campaign to earn support from voters has ended abruptly and a new one has begun among donors and activists to earn his support for their priorities. The election was about tax cuts, or maybe cryptocurrency, the arguments go. What Americans really want, sir, is fewer protections on the job and a weaker safety net.This is the first moment when presidencies go wrong. Rather than prepare to govern on behalf of the electorate that put them in power — especially the independent swing voters who by definition provide the margin of victory in a two-party system — new presidents, themselves typically members of the donor and activist communities, convince themselves that their personal preferences are the people’s as well. Two years later, their political capital expended and their agendas in shambles, their parties often suffer crushing defeats in midterm elections.As he looks toward his new term, Mr. Trump could claim a mandate to lead however he wishes, huddle with his supporters at Mar-a-Lago and then see how much of their agenda he can advance before his popularity falls too far to effect further change. That is the formula that has left a nation seemingly resigned to the loss of both common purpose and institutional competence. It is not a formula for a successful presidency, let alone for making America great again.He has another option. He is an iconoclastic leader with a uniquely unfiltered relationship to the American people and a disdain for the chattering class of consultants. He is also the first president since Grover Cleveland to get a second shot at a first term. He has already experienced the bruising tax fight that helped bring his approval rating down to 36 percent a year after his inauguration, the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the loss of more than 40 House seats and control of the chamber in a midterm election. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, he made a promise to “every citizen” that he would “fight for you, for your family and your future” and that “this will truly be the golden age of America.” Achieving that will require focusing on the challenges and respecting the values broadly shared by not only his voters, but also many others who might come to support him.Take immigration. A promise to secure the border has long been a central aspect of Mr. Trump’s appeal, and Democrats are now clambering to get on his side of the issue. A Trump administration serving American voters would stanch the flow of migrants with tough border enforcement and asylum restrictions, reverse the Biden administration’s lawlessness by removing recent arrivals and protect American workers and businesses by mandating that employers use the E-Verify program to confirm the legal status of the people who work for them. That program, which strikes at the harm that illegal immigration does to American workers, is wildly popular. A recent survey of 2,000 adults conducted by my organization, American Compass, in partnership with YouGov, found 78 percent support overall and 68 percent support even among Democrats. Law-abiding businesses tend to like it, too — they’re tired of getting undercut by competitors that get away with breaking the rules.That’s the path to solving the problem. Mr. Trump will hear a lot of counterarguments from the affluent and influential class that builds its business model on underpaid, undocumented labor, especially in industries such as construction and hospitality, where he has personal experience, as well as in agriculture. Those voices are likely to suggest that instead he condescend to the masses with border theater and hostile rhetoric, while expanding temporary worker programs. To this end, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who opposes the E-Verify program on libertarian grounds, has already been mentioned as a potential candidate for secretary of agriculture. Moves like that will keep the guests at Mr. Trump’s golf clubs happy but ensure growing frustration and disillusion elsewhere.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

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      Howard Lutnick Is Scouting Trump’s Nominees. Some Will Oversee His Interests.

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      Howard Lutnick, co-chair of the president-elect’s transition team and a Wall Street financier, is leading the search for appointees while still running his businesses.The financier Howard Lutnick has been given a high-profile assignment from President-elect Donald J. Trump, one that raises questions about the Wall Street executive’s dual role and what he might gain from it.As co-chair of the transition team, Mr. Lutnick is in charge of identifying 4,000 new hires to fill the second Trump administration, including antitrust officials, securities lawyers and national security advisers who have global expertise.But Mr. Lutnick has not stepped away from running financial firms that serve corporate clients, traders, cryptocurrency platforms and real estate ventures around the world — all of which are regulated by the same agencies whose appointees he is helping to find.Given his sprawling business interests, it’s not known how Mr. Lutnick might keep from violating the transition’s own code of ethics, which echo federal conflict-of-interest guidelines for transition team members. The Trump transition guidelines say that individuals who work on the team must disqualify themselves from matters that may directly conflict with their own financial interests or those of an organization with which they do business.It is not clear whether Mr. Lutnick, who gained national attention when many of his employees died in the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, has signed the code of ethics or whether he has recused himself from providing lists of possible nominees for any specific agencies that have oversight of his businesses.Mr. Lutnick declined an interview request from The New York Times. People who work with Mr. Lutnick say that he is careful about separating his private business from his transition work.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

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      Could the Bond Market Stymie Trump’s Economic Plans?

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      Some fiscal hawks worry that Trump’s policies would increase the deficit and fuel inflation.With Republicans poised to seize control of Congress, Donald Trump’s economic plans could face little legislative resistance. The president-elect has vowed to escalate tariffs, extend a corporate tax cut and introduce tax breaks on tips and Social Security benefits, policies that some fiscal hawks worry would increase the federal deficit, and with it, inflation.But even if Trump faces meager resistance on Capitol Hill, another force may temper his policies: the bond market.While stocks just pulled off a record-setting week, with the S&P 500 gaining roughly 5 percent since Election Day, a volatile bond market signals that investors have some worries that an unchecked Trump agenda might stimulate growth but worsen the country’s debt burden.“If the Trump administration runs excessively stimulative fiscal policy, with lots of spending and tax cuts, leading to even wider deficits, I think then that may cause the bond vigilantes to push yields up to levels that create problems for the economy,” Ed Yardeni, the president of Yardeni Research, told DealBook.Yardeni, a veteran Wall Street analyst, coined the term “bond vigilantes” in the 1980s to describe the influence that frustrated bondholders can have on the policy agendas of politicians and central bankers. He sees a potential for bond vigilantes to pose a risk to the Trump agenda, too.The United States sells Treasury bonds and notes to fund big parts of the federal government. These auctions provide the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, and the yields on Treasuries are viewed as a real-time gauge of the country’s financial health. Yields tend to climb when investors anticipate economic growth accelerating inflation, and expect the Fed may have to raise rates to slow the economy. Higher yields mean the government pays more to borrow.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