Elections

The former president is vowing to prosecute those he sees as working to deny him a victory, while laying the groundwork to claim large-scale voter fraud if he loses.Donald J. Trump has long used strongman-style threats to prosecute people he vilifies as a campaign tactic, dating back to encouraging his 2016 rallygoers to chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. And during his term as president, he repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to open investigations into his political adversaries.But as November nears, the former president has escalated his vows to use the raw power of the state to impose and maintain control and to intimidate and punish anyone he perceives as working against him.After Democrats replaced President Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris as their 2024 nominee — and Mr. Trump’s lead in the polls eroded — Mr. Trump’s targets expanded.He has been laying the groundwork to claim that there was large-scale voter fraud if he loses, a familiar tactic from his 2016 and 2020 playbooks, but this time coupled with threats of prosecution. Those who may face criminal scrutiny for purported efforts at election fraud, Mr. Trump has declared, will include election workers, a tech giant, political operatives, lawyers and donors working for his opponent.Over the past month, he has shared a post calling for former President Barack Obama to be subject to “military tribunals” and reposted fake images of well-known Democrats clad in prison garb. He has threatened the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a life sentence for helping state and local governments fund elections in 2020. He stoked fears of voter intimidation by urging police officers to “watch for the voter fraud” at polling places because some voters may be “afraid of that badge,” and warned that people deemed to have “cheated” in this election “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Mr. Trump wrote on his website Truth Social 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

Mr. Nygard was convicted in Toronto of sexually assaulting four women in his company’s headquarters. He also faces trials in Montreal, Winnipeg and New York.The hearing was meant to decide a prison sentence for a convicted rapist, Peter Nygard, the former Canadian fashion mogul. But for a woman who had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Nygard, being one of his victims had long made her life a prison.The trauma caused by the attack in the late 1980s, when she was 21, irreparably stunted her life, the woman told a Toronto courtroom during Mr. Nygard’s two-day sentencing hearing that began in July and was postponed until Monday.It shattered her career as a clothing designer and television presenter, caused debilitating health problems and left lasting psychological wounds, she said. “I live now still in a veil of sadness,” said the woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban. “It breaks my heart to reflect upon the derailment of my entire life.”After listening to statements from victims and from Mr. Nygard’s defense, a judge sentenced Mr. Nygard to 11 years in prison for sexually assaulting four women, one of whom was a teenager at the time of the attack. Because of the time he has spent in custody since his arrest, Mr. Nygard has about seven years remaining in his sentence and will be eligible for parole in about two years.“Peter Nygard is a sexual predator,” said Justice Robert Goldstein of the Superior Court of Ontario, delivering his sentence before a full courtroom. “He is also a Canadian success story gone wrong.”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

The storm ends a lull in the Atlantic season and is expected to become a hurricane before making landfall. More

Francine was a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico Monday morning Central time, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. The tropical storm had sustained wind speeds of 50 miles per hour.  All times on the map are Central time. By The New York Times Where will it rain? Flash flooding can […] More

Es la primera encuesta nacional no partidista en un mes en que Donald Trump aventaja a la vicepresidenta; casi el 30 por ciento de los votantes dijo que necesitaban saber más sobre ella.Kamala Harris iba ligeramente por detrás en la última encuesta nacional de Times/SienaJamie Kelter Davis para The New York Times¿Comienza a menguar el auge de Kamala Harris?Esa es la pregunta que plantea la encuesta de ayer del New York Times y el Siena College, según la cual Donald Trump la aventaja por poco entre los votantes probables de todo el país, 48 por ciento a 47 por ciento.Para mí, el resultado es un poco sorprendente. Es la primera ventaja de Trump en una encuesta nacional no partidista en aproximadamente un mes. Por esa razón, vale la pena ser al menos un poco cauteloso acerca de estos resultados, ya que no hay mucha confirmación de otras encuestas.Dicho esto, no sería difícil de explicar si el apoyo de la vicepresidenta Harris realmente se ha desvanecido un poco en las últimas semanas. Después de todo, se estaba beneficiando de un entorno noticioso ideal: un mes ininterrumpido de cobertura elogiosa desde la salida del presidente Joe Biden de la carrera en julio hasta la convención demócrata en agosto. Es posible que se encontrara en un momento de euforia política; de ser así, tendría sentido que se desinflara en las dos semanas sin incidentes transcurridas desde la convención.También hay una razón plausible por la que la encuesta del Times/Siena sería la primera en captar un giro hacia Trump: simplemente no ha habido muchas encuestas de alta calidad desde la convención, cuando Harris estaba en la cresta de la ola. Esta semana ha habido un puñado de encuestas online, pero no ha habido ninguna encuesta tradicional de alta calidad con entrevistas realizadas después del 28 de agosto.¿Por qué no ha habido más encuestas? Una explicación es el fin de semana del Día del Trabajo, que siempre hace una pausa en las encuestas. También es plausible que muchos encuestadores prefieran esperar hasta después del debate del martes antes de hacer otro sondeo. Cualquiera que sea la explicación, la encuesta del Times/Siena sería una de las primeras oportunidades para recoger una reversión hacia Trump.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

The European Union banned mercury amalgam fillings to protect the environment. Should you worry about protecting your health, too?When the European Union adopted a ban on dental amalgam fillings earlier this year, its aim was to eliminate one of the last remaining intentional uses of mercury in Europe. The regulation is part of the Zero Pollution Action Plan, an initiative that includes removing microplastics, chemical pesticides and even noise pollution from the environment.The ban, which will go into effect at the beginning of next year, can help “avoid the release of approximately 10 tons of mercury into the environment by 2030,” Tilly Metz, a member of the European Parliament who worked on the legislation, said in an email.The E.U. is going a big step further than required by the United Nations’ Minamata Convention, a global treaty adopted by more than 140 countries including the United States, that requires countries to “phase down” the use of dental amalgam. The treaty is named after the Minamata Bay in Japan where, in the mid-20th century, industrial pollution containing mercury contaminated seafood and sickened thousands of people, some fatally.While the new E.U. ban is not focused on the health of the individuals receiving the fillings, millions of people around the world have mercury fillings in their mouths; it’s natural to wonder about what the regulations might mean for your health.What are mercury fillings?Dental amalgam fillings, commonly known as silver fillings, have been used in dentistry since the 19th century. They are approximately half mercury and a half blend of silver, zinc, tin, copper or other metals.More than 100 million Americans have mercury fillings, but they’re being used less and less often. Most new dental fillings in the United States are made of resins and composites that do not contain any mercury.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

“All In: Comedy About Love,” a new play by Simon Rich, includes a celebrity cast taking on the roles of pirates, dogs and other zany characters.John Mulaney is coming back to Broadway.The comedian will star in a new play, “All In: Comedy About Love,” staged as vignettes about relationships, marriage and heartbreak and written by the humorist Simon Rich, Mulaney’s former “Saturday Night Live” collaborator.The production, set to feature a rotating group of actors, will be directed by Alex Timbers, who helmed Mulaney’s most recent Netflix special, “Baby J,” as well as his Broadway debut, the 2016 comedy “Oh, Hello on Broadway.”“It’s a weird fantasy camp of things I always wanted to do with my very good friends,” Mulaney said in a video interview.The comedian, who has two Emmy Awards for his stand-up specials “Kid Gorgeous” and “Baby J,” will lead an ensemble cast of four actors portraying pirates, the Elephant Man, dogs looking for love and other characters: Initially, Mulaney will be joined by Richard Kind (“Spin City,” “Mad About You”), Renée Elise Goldsberry (“Hamilton,” “Girls5eva”) and the “S.N.L.” alum Fred Armisen.“We jump around between eras and countries and species, but they’re all love stories,” said Rich, a former “S.N.L.” writer who is making his Broadway debut with the play, which is adapted largely from tales that have previously been published in his 10 short story collections and in The New Yorker.The idea for the show, which will also feature songs from the indie band the Magnetic Fields, came about when Timbers approached Rich about adapting some of his short stories for the stage. And once Mulaney, who first met Rich when they were writing partners on “S.N.L.” from 2008-11, was on board, the built-in rapport between the two proved irresistible, Timbers said.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

Russia appears to be trying to cut off Ukrainian soldiers around the strategic city of Pokrovsk, a focal point of the war in recent months.Russian forces have captured two villages in eastern Ukraine and are now pressing to encircle Ukrainian soldiers at two locations along the frontline, according to an analysis of the battlefield on Monday.The two villages, Nevelske and Vodiane, were captured by Russian troops on Sunday, according to DeepState, a group of analysts mapping the battlefield. DeepState’s analysis is based on sources in the Ukrainian military and open-source data like satellite imagery and photos and video posted on social media.Russian forces have been expanding the territory they control around a key objective in the region, the strategic city of Pokrovsk, which has been strengthened in recent days by Ukrainian reinforcements, the analysis shows.Now, Russia appears to be trying to cut off Ukrainian forces with pincer movements in two areas — to the south of Pokrovsk and in a pocket of Ukrainian-held territory near the town of Vuhledar, another strategically important site.Control of those areas would allow Russian forces to broaden their lines of approach toward Pokrovsk, a logistics and transit hub that has been a focal point of the war in recent months, experts say.“They are trying to strengthen their flanks in this way” along the main axis of attack toward Pokrovsk, said Mykhailo Samus, deputy director at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies in Ukraine, an independent institution. “Their route to Pokrovsk depends on those flanks.”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