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As Energy Costs Surge, Eastern Governors Blame a Grid Manager
For decades, a little-known nonprofit organization has played a central role in keeping the lights on for 65 million people in the Eastern United States.Even some governors and lawmakers acknowledge that they were not fully aware of how much influence the organization, PJM, has on the cost and reliability of energy in 13 states. The electrical grid it manages is the largest in the United States.But now some elected leaders have concluded that decisions made by PJM are one of the main reasons utility bills have soared in recent years. They said the organization had been slow to add new solar, wind and battery projects that could help lower the cost of electricity. And they say the grid manager is paying existing power plants too much to supply electricity to their states.Some governors have been so incensed that they have sued PJM, drafted or signed laws to force changes at the organization, or threatened to pull their states out of the regional electric grid.The Democratic governors of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania sharply criticized the organization in recent interviews with The New York Times and in written statements. And the Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, called on the organization to fire its chief executive in a letter obtained by The Times.“PJM has lost the plot,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey said in an interview. In another interview, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland said about PJM, “I am angry.”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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Jacques Pépin: Our Food Reflects Our History
How we cook and what we eat are an intimate reflection of our personal and collective pasts.This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.As a young chef in the 1950s, I had a bit of a complex about not having an education. I had left school at the age of 13 and learned my trade in the kitchen. I was traveling to New York City in 1959, looking to expand my horizons, when someone on my boat mentioned Columbia University as the best school in the city. A week after I arrived, I took the subway uptown to Columbia’s campus.I would go on to study at Columbia from the fall of 1959 to the spring of 1972. During my time there, I proposed a doctoral dissertation on the history of French cooking in the context of history and literature. I was amazed by how many of the great French works contained references to food, eating and the art of the table. The wedding feast in Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” is meticulously depicted, and in Colette’s “Chéri,” breakfast becomes an important ritual with sexual overtones. My proposal was turned down. The subject was too menial, too simple — not worth the intellectual pursuit. I dropped out.For many years, the work of cooking was indeed considered too menial. A chef was a physical laborer in a basement kitchen dealing with food, fat and dirty dishes, doing nothing more than creating sustenance. But there is nothing more worthy of intellectual pursuit and respect than food. Not only is it a part of history, it also actively shapes and reflects it. Indeed, my whole life, my history, was molded by it.I was born in 1935, on the eve of World War II. Life was simpler then. The Michelin Guide, whose prestigious designations are now sought by chefs around the world, had only begun awarding stars to restaurants in 1926 and was exclusively the domain of the French. It would be decades before a Michelin star was granted to a restaurant outside of France. Our history — and what we ate — was defined by and limited to our own place and time.A wall of photos at Jacques Pépin’s home in Connecticut, including pictures of Pépin with Julia Child and former President Barack Obama. Pépin’s career covers more than seven decades.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesWe 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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Austria School Shooting: What to Know
Several people have been killed in a mass shooting at a high school in Graz, the country’s second-largest city, police said.At least nine people were killed on Tuesday in a mass shooting at a high school in Graz, Austria, the city’s mayor said. The assailant was also found dead, the police said.The mass shooting is the deadliest attack in recent Austrian history and one of the deadliest recent school shootings across Europe.Here’s what you need to know:What happened?What’s known about the suspect and the victims?How rare are mass shootings in Austria?Are guns common in Austria?What happened?Students and at least one adult were killed, Mayor Elke Kahr of Graz said in comments to the Austria Press Agency, the national news agency. The shooter, who police said acted alone, died at the scene, Ms. Kahr said.Police said they received reports of a shooting around 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday and responded with heavy force. Specially trained COBRA units, Austria’s version of SWAT teams, arrived at the scene, as did a police helicopter.The school was evacuated in the late morning, with students sent to a nearby stadium. By noon, police said that there was no further threat.Austrian schools were closed on Monday for the Pentecost holiday, so students had just returned to classes after the long weekend.What’s known about the suspect and the victims?Austrian officials have not yet identified any of the victims. They have also not released any details about the shooter or a possible motive.How rare are mass shootings in Austria?There were two mass shootings in Austria between 2000 and 2022, both since 2010, according to an analysis published in 2024 by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, a think tank based in Albany, N.Y. During that period, there were 109 mass shootings in the United States, according to the institute’s records.Graz, Austria’s second-largest city after the capital, Vienna, last experienced a mass attack in 2015. In that incident, a man with a history of domestic violence killed three people after driving a car into crowds and then attacking bystanders with a knife.Austria has also had terrorism-related violence in the past few years.In 2024, security officials thwarted a plot to attack people at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. In 2020, a gunman killed four people and wounded 23 others in Vienna. The man had previously been arrested on suspicion of trying to join ISIS.Are guns common in Austria?Austrian civilians are among the most heavily armed in the world, according to a 2017 estimate from the Small Arms Survey, a research group based in Geneva.Austrians hold about 2.6 million guns, only about 837,000 of which are registered, according to the survey. Austria ranked 12th in the world in gun holdings per person.That’s about 30 firearms for every 100 civilians. The United States had about 120.5 guns for every 100 people during that same time, the survey showed.Pump-action shotguns are prohibited in Austria, which has a population of 9.2 million. Official authorization is required to legally acquire a handgun, a semiautomatic firearm or a repeating shotgun. More
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World Bank Forecast Underscores Cost of U.S. Trade War
Along with a sharply downgraded projection for global output this year, it urged a “course correction” on trade to help preserve living standards.The global economy is projected to slow sharply this year as President Trump’s trade policy disrupts international commerce and increases economic uncertainty, the World Bank said on Tuesday in a report that underscores the toll of America’s trade war.Despite the weakening outlook, the global economy is not expected to fall into a recession, the World Bank said. However, the trade tension is setting the stage for the weakest decade of growth since the 1960s. Economic development in many of the poorest parts of the world has come to a standstill.Expansion in global output is forecast to slow to 2.3 percent in 2025 from 2.8 percent last year, the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report. That is down from the 2.7 percent growth that it forecast in January.“The world economy today is once more running into turbulence,” Indermit Gill, chief economist of the World Bank, wrote in the report. “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep.”The United States enacted across-the-board 10 percent tariffs on imports and 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports this year. It has also threatened “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of trading partners and raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent before lowering them to allow for trade negotiations.The tariffs have pushed the average effective U.S. tariff rate to the highest level in a century.The World Bank released its new forecasts as officials from the United States and China held their second day of trade talks in London. In recent months, the world’s two largest economies have each imposed export controls limiting the other’s access to a broad range of items critical to high-technology and military applications.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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Who Is David Huerta, the Labor Leader Arrested in Los Angeles?
A well-known figure in the California labor movement for decades, he is now the president of the Service Employees International Union of California. The arrest of the prominent California union leader David Huerta on Friday as he protested an immigration raid in Los Angeles quickly drew condemnation from national labor activists and Democrats.Mr. Huerta — the president of the Service Employees International Union of California — was released on Monday but is still facing charges. He has become a symbol for those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The protests were further inflamed by the president’s decision on Saturday to send 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell demonstrations, followed by his decision on Monday to more than double that deployment.Here’s what we know.Why was Mr. Huerta arrested?On Friday, Mr. Huerta was detained by federal agents while protesting an immigration raid at a work site in downtown Los Angeles. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to impede an officer. According to a criminal complaint, federal agents conducted search warrants at four businesses suspected of employing undocumented immigrants and falsifying employment records. Mr. Huerta arrived at the work site in the early afternoon, with protesters already gathered. Mr. Huerta and others were accused of “communicating with each other in a concerted effort to disrupt the law enforcement operations,” according to the criminal complaint.The complaint also accused Mr. Huerta of yelling at officers and sitting cross-legged in front of a vehicular gate, as well as urging demonstrators to “stop the vehicles,” and continue protesting.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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New York Moves to Allow Terminally Ill People to Die on Their Own Terms
A bill permitting so-called medical aid in dying passed the State Legislature and will now head to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature.The New York State Senate approved a bill on Monday that would allow people facing terminal diagnoses to end their lives on their own terms, which the bill’s proponents say would grant a measure of autonomy to New Yorkers in their final days.The bill, which passed the State Assembly earlier this year, will now head to the desk of Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, for her signature. It is unclear whether she plans to sign it; a spokesman for her office said she would review it.Eleven states and the District of Columbia have passed laws permitting so-called medical aid in dying. The practice is also available in several European countries and in Canada, which recently broadened its criteria to extend the option to people with incurable chronic illnesses and disabilities.The bill in New York is written more narrowly and would apply only to people who have an incurable and irreversible illness, with six months or less to live. Proponents say that distinction is key.“It isn’t about ending a person’s life, but shortening their death,” said State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan Democrat and one of the sponsors of the bill. It passed on Monday night by a vote of 35 to 27, mostly along partisan lines.He framed the measure as a statement of New York’s values, citing efforts by Republicans to increase governmental control over people’s bodies, including by restricting gender-affirming care and abortion.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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Defying Trump’s Firing, Smithsonian Says It Controls Personnel Decisions
The Smithsonian is challenging the president’s authority to dismiss the leader of the National Portrait Gallery but says it will look into his complaints.In a challenge to President Trump, the Smithsonian said on Monday that the president did not have the right to fire Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, despite his recent announcement that she had been terminated.“All personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board,” said a statement from the Smithsonian, which oversees that museum and 20 others, as well as libraries, research centers and the National Zoo. “Lonnie G. Bunch, the secretary, has the support of the Board of Regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian.”The statement came hours after the Board of Regents, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed the president’s announcement at a quarterly meeting. When Mr. Trump said 10 days ago that he had fired Ms. Sajet, he called her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position.”The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Ms. Sajet was not mentioned in the Smithsonian’s statement. But the board said it was asking Mr. Bunch to take steps to ensure the institution’s nonpartisan nature.“The Smithsonian must be a welcoming place of knowledge and discovery for all Americans,” the statement said. “The Board of Regents is committed to ensuring that the Smithsonian is a beacon of scholarship free from political or partisan influence, and we recognize that our institution can and must do more to further these foundational values.”The statement said the board had directed Mr. Bunch to articulate expectations to museum directors about what is displayed in their institutions and to give them time to make any changes needed “to ensure unbiased content.”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
