Elections

You know the expression “OK, Boomer”? Better said as “Boomer OK.” That’s because the social safety net in the United States is increasingly favoring the old over the young. And this affects our political views and the security of future generations.Younger Americans have valid reason for disgruntlement: Big shifts in income and wealth are dramatically favoring their elders. Under almost every president since 1980, 80 percent of the real growth in domestic spending has gone to Social Security and health care, with Medicare the most expensive health program, according to calculations based on federal data. As a share of GDP, all other domestic outlays combined have declined.Our current tax system also largely does not help Americans, most of whom are younger, pay for their higher education. That wasn’t as big a deal in the 1960s or 1970s, when the average college graduate most likely had little or no student debt. Today, the average taken out each year is about seven times that in 1971, in part because state governments have stripped colleges and universities of funding. This is happening at a time when owning a house is increasingly out of reach. The median price has risen from about 3.5 times median annual income in 1984 to 5.8 times in 2022.So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that today, younger generations are more likely to fall into lower-income classes than their parents or grandparents. Nearly a half century ago, it was the reverse. And in 1989, the median net worth of Americans aged 35 to 44 was nearly 75 percent of those aged 65 to 74. By 2022, that ratio had fallen to one-third.The why is simple. Unlike most other spending, Congress effectively designed Medicare in 1965 and Social Security in the 1970s in such a way that outlays would increase forever faster than our national income. That’s partly because Medicare costs keep rising along with medical prices and new treatments and because Social Security benefits are designed to increase for each new generation along with inflation and wages. And we’re living longer, which means more years of benefits.Today, tax revenues are so committed to mandatory spending, largely for older Americans, and to interest on the national debt (which has quadrupled as a share of G.D.P. since 1980) that few revenues are left for everything else. So, unless we borrow to pay for it, there’s little for education, infrastructure, environment, affordable housing, reducing poverty, or the military.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

Inside an intractable problem inside America’s change purses. I have good news and I have bad news. Actually, I have crazy news and I have bad news. Actually, all the news I have is bad, but some of it is also crazy. Before you become totally freaked out, all the news I’m describing here is about pennies; it’s nothing life and death. But you do need to buckle up.If you are reading this and live in America, or used to live in America, or maybe just went to America one time many years ago, then you are almost certainly performing unpaid labor for the U.S. government and have been for years. How? By storing some of the billions of pennies the U.S. Mint makes every year that virtually no one uses.Why are we still making tons (many thousands of tons) of pennies if no one uses them? That’s a sensible question with a psychotic answer: We have to keep making all these pennies — over $45 million worth last year — because no one uses them. In fact, it could be very bad if we did.When you insert a quarter into a soda machine, that quarter eventually finds its way back to a bank, from which it can be redistributed to a store’s cash register and handed out as change — maybe even to you, who can put it into a soda machine again and start the whole process over. That’s beautiful. (Please be mindful of your soft drink consumption.)But few of us ever spend pennies. We mostly just store them. The 1-cent coins are wherever you’ve left them: a glass jar, a winter purse, a RAV4 cup holder, a five-gallon water cooler dispenser, the couch. Many of them are simply on the ground. But take it from me, a former cashier: Cashiers don’t have time to scrounge on the sidewalk every time they need to make change. That is where the Mint comes in. Every year it makes a few billion more pennies to replace the ones everyone is thoughtlessly, indefinitely storing and scatters them like kudzu seeds across the nation.You — a scientist of some kind, possibly — might think an obvious solution now presents itself: Why not encourage people to use the pennies they have lying around instead of manufacturing new ones every year? We can’t! Or, anyway, we’d better not. According to a Mint report, if even a modest share of our neglected pennies suddenly returned to circulation, the result would be a “logistically unmanageable” dilemma for Earth’s wealthiest nation. As in, the penny tsunami could overwhelm government vaults.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

“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” “A Very Royal Scandal,” a “Walking Dead” spinoff and “Agatha All Along” arrive.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of September’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘A Very Royal Scandal’Starts streaming: Sept. 19Earlier this year, Netflix debuted a movie called “Scoop,” about the complicated negotiations that led to Prince Andrew’s headline-making 2019 interview with BBC Two’s “Newsnight,” covering his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The three-part mini-series “A Very Royal Scandal” tells the same story in a little more detail, with a screenplay from Jeremy Brock (the co-writer of “The Last King of Scotland”). Michael Sheen plays Prince Andrew, while Ruth Wilson plays Emily Maitlis, the interviewer, who kept pressuring the prince with follow-up questions, asking him to account for all the time he had spent with Epstein over the years.Also arriving:Sept. 10“The Money Game”Sept. 24“Evolution of the Black Quarterback”Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier in “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol.”Emmanuel Guimier/AMCNew to AMC+‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol’ Season 2Starts streaming: Sept. 29When this spinoff of “The Walking Dead” was first announced, it was supposed to be the story of the soulful hunter Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and his hard-edge pal Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) venturing into new territories together in a zombie-ravaged world. But when that territory turned out to be Europe, McBride had to drop out for what was described as logistical reasons. Her Carol made a cameo at the end of Season 1 though; and she is now on board for Season 2 (as well as an already announced Season 3). This new season will find Carol searching for her friend in France, while Daryl reluctantly gets more involved with the twisted political situation overseas, trying to help some good people make things better.Also arriving:Sept. 6“The Demon Disorder”Sept. 7“All You Need Is Death”Sept. 12“The Tailor of Sin City”Sept. 13“In a Violent Nature”Sept. 16“Candice Renoir” Season 10Sept. 20“Dandelion”Sept. 26“Wisting” Season 5Sept. 27“Oddity”Sept. 30“The Bench” Seasons 1-2We 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

Her campaign’s message that Democrats are losing, which she never voiced when President Biden was tanking the ticket, is an artful attempt to lower expectations.Days before the debate that ended up cutting off President Biden’s path to a second term, his campaign chief, Jen O’Malley Dillon, defiantly set expectations: “We are going to win,” she said in an interview with the news site Puck.Fast-forward 10 weeks. Democrats have a more popular nominee in Vice President Kamala Harris, torrents of grass-roots campaign cash that Mr. Biden could have only dreamed of, a well-received convention and a running mate who has energized the party’s liberal base.Ms. O’Malley Dillon somehow seems less optimistic.“Make no mistake,” she wrote in a campaign memo released on Sunday morning. “We head into the final stretch of this race as the clear underdogs.”How can it be that a campaign that by all metrics is better off than it was in late June is now pushing a narrative that things are worse than they were when Mr. Biden was in the race?It is because the Harris operation, like any campaign riding a wave of momentum, is suddenly worried about overconfidence. The New York Times’s polling average has shown her ahead since Aug. 6, the day she unveiled Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate. And the mood carried over from the Democratic National Convention is hardly one of a party despairing about its chances against former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Biden never declared his campaign an underdog. Neither did Ms. Harris until July 27. Before that, with Mr. Biden still running, she had nothing but confidence in public. Several times in the post-debate period, as Mr. Biden’s campaign began to look like a rolling catastrophe, Ms. Harris declared that they would be re-elected.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

He was at the Hamden Town Center Park in Hamden, Conn., when he collapsed onstage on Friday night.The rapper Fatman Scoop, whose hoarse and booming voice brought an electric energy to songs by Missy Elliott and Mariah Carey, and who performed the underground club favorite “Be Faithful,” died after collapsing onstage during a performance on Friday. He was 56.A statement from the rapper’s family posted to his Instagram account confirmed his death but did not provide a cause. The post described him as “the undisputed voice of the club” and as a performer with an infectious stage presence.A video taken at the concert, at the Hamden Town Center Park in Hamden, Conn., appeared to show people performing CPR behind equipment on the stage.Lauren Garrett, the mayor of Hamden, said that paramedics had attempted lifesaving measures.Fatman Scoop, whose birth name was Isaac Freeman III, rose to prominence and international recognition after the song “Be Faithful,” in which the rapper performs over beats by the Crooklyn Clan, became the No. 1 single on the U.K. Billboard singles chart in 2003, more than four years after the track’s initial release.The song, which primarily samples “Love Like This” by Faith Evans, is a constant thrum of bass lines and lyrics from Fatman Scoop as he works to hype up a crowd.“You got a $100 bill get your hands up; you got a $50 bill get your hands up” are the opening lines to the track that goes on to rhythmically instruct a crowd to make noise.Questlove, the drummer for the Roots and the author of “Hip Hop Is History” (2024), wrote his appreciation on social media for the song and Fatman Scoop: “I want to thank FATMAN SCOOP for being an embodiment of what hip-hop was truly about,” he wrote. “To just forget about your troubles and live in the moment and allow joy in.”Fatman Scoop was born on Aug. 6, 1968, and grew up in Harlem, learning the art of hip-hop from his peers and those already making noise in the scene.“I am a disciple of Doug E. Fresh,” Fatman Scoop said in a 2023 interview with Urban Politicians TV, speaking of the New York City rapper who is also known as the Human Beat Box. “He was the neighborhood star.”“Everything that I learned, pretty much, I learned from Doug,” he added.Fatman Scoop was formerly a D.J. on Hot 97, an FM radio station in New York, which described him as a “legendary hype man and radio personality” in an online tribute. It said he helped usher a digital era for the station, bringing a video camera to what had been strictly a radio operation.Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.Missy Elliott recognized his impact in a tribute on social media on Saturday, saying “Fatman Scoop VOICE & energy have contributed to MANY songs that made the people feel HAPPY & want to dance for over 2 decades.” More

The Israeli military asked the public not to speculate, but many Israelis assumed the announcement referred to dead hostages. The news amplified calls for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had found a number of dead bodies during an operation in the Gaza Strip, asking the Israeli public to refrain from speculation about their identities.The announcement was widely interpreted in Israel, however, as confirmation that more Israeli hostages had died in captivity, and it quickly amplified calls for an immediate cease-fire in order to free the roughly 100 captives still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza.Roughly 250 people were captured by Hamas and its allies during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which started the war.The military said in a statement on Saturday that the recently found bodies had yet to be identified and brought to Israel. It did not give further details about how many bodies had been found or where they were discovered, and it would not officially confirm that they were hostages.Still, the news of the discovery accelerated an increasingly rancorous debate within Israeli society about whether Israel should soften its position during negotiations with Hamas for a cease-fire. Under the terms currently being negotiated, scores of hostages would be released from captivity in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israel.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is holding out for a deal in which the country would be able to retain control of strategic parts of Gaza during the cease-fire and restart the war in the future.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

A Cessna crashed into a row of townhouses in Fairview, Ore., on Saturday, sparking a large fire, officials said.A small plane struck a row of townhouses in Fairview, Ore., according to the authorities, who said at least three people were missing.KPTVA small plane crashed on Saturday morning in a residential neighborhood near an airport in Fairview, Ore., according to the authorities who said that three people were missing.The plane had at least two people on board when it struck a row of townhouses around 10:30 a.m. local time, with a fire spreading from two units to four, according to Chief Scott Lewis of the Gresham Fire Department of Gresham, Ore., a neighboring city.Two people who were aboard the plane and one person from a home were missing, he said.At least five families were displaced from their homes. Two transmission lines from Portland General Electric were down as a result of the crash, which happened near an airport in Troutdale, Ore.Video footage from the scene showed flames rising from a building in a neighborhood with townhouses that are tightly packed together.At some point during the crash, a power pole or tower fell, starting a brush fire, according to John Plock of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. “That fire, luckily, was kind of adjacent to a swampy area, so it didn’t really spread,” he said.The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a twin-engine Cessna. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash along with the F.A.A.Fairview is a city of about 11,000 people that is roughly 12 miles east of Portland, Ore. More

Caite Upton wrote on social media that “online bullying needs to stop,” after JD Vance posted a clip of her mangled answer from the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant to mock Kamala Harris.Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who since becoming former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate in July has been criticized on several occasions for comments demeaning women, found himself again embroiled in controversy this week when he used a viral clip of a beauty pageant contestant’s meltdown to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.On Thursday, Mr. Vance shared a video clip from the 2007 Miss Teen USA competition in which Caite Upton, who was representing South Carolina, gave a mangled answer to a question about why many Americans could not locate the United States on a map.“BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview,” Mr. Vance wrote on X.That evening, CNN was set to broadcast the first major interview with Ms. Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. quickly reposted Mr. Vance’s post, writing: “This is total Fake News from JD. We all know that Kamala isn’t that articulate.”In a social media post on Friday, Ms. Upton objected to Mr. Vance’s dredging up the 17-year-old clip of her pageant struggles, remarks that were reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., and later deleted, after she appeared to have deactivated her account on X.“Regardless of political beliefs, one thing I do know is that social media and online bullying needs to stop,” she wrote, according to the newspaper.A representative for Ms. Upton, who competed in the pageant under the name Lauren Caitlin Upton, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.In 2015, Ms. Upton told New York magazine that the embarrassment she felt over the viral video had led to depression and thoughts of suicide.When Mr. Vance was asked whether he had been aware of Ms. Upton’s mental health challenges during an appearance on CNN on Friday, he said that he had not at the time he posted the clip.“My heart goes out to her, and I hope that she’s doing well,” he said.When asked whether he wanted to apologize, Mr. Vance said that he did not have regrets.“Politics has gotten way too lame,” he said, adding, “I’m not going to apologize for posting a joke, but I wish the best for Caitlin.” More