Elections

Democrats managed to be in two places at once on Tuesday night, holding a ceremonial roll-call vote at their Chicago convention to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s nominee, while she herself rallied supporters roughly 80 miles north in Milwaukee.Ms. Harris’s choice to appear in Milwaukee, the largest city in a crucial battleground state, was intentional and pointed: She stood onstage in the same arena where former President Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican nomination last month.For much of the evening in Milwaukee, the Harris campaign used the arena’s Jumbotron to pipe in the events taking place in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. But after Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced his state’s votes for Ms. Harris, ending the roll call of 57 states and territories, Ms. Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, marched onto the stage in Milwaukee.For a moment, she was speaking to two packed arenas at the same time, celebrating the roll-call vote in front of tens of thousands of people, with millions more watching on screens. The two-city rally represented a significant flexing of Democratic muscle with the presidential election just 76 days away.“We are so honored to be your nominees,” Ms. Harris said. “Together, we will chart a new way forward.”The Milwaukee rally was just the latest event at which the Harris campaign filled a major arena with Democrats. For more than a year, they had largely stayed away from events featuring President Biden, who drew crowds only in the low thousands.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

Stacey Yaruss McCullough makes her New York Times debut.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — There are situations in which it pays to read between the lines, but a crossword theme with no revealer is not often one of them. So when you start to see the pattern in Stacey Yaruss McCullough’s crossword — her first puzzle for The New York Times — don’t think too hard about it. I speak from experience, having the capacity to overthink just about everything: crossword themes, text-message reactions, side eye from retail workers that I am certain means they dislike me.No such mental acrobatics are required here. Ms. McCullough’s theme is merely a guileless celebration of rhyme in the English language, which acts as a perfect counterweight to the challenge of the puzzle itself.Today’s ThemeRhyming makes everything just a little more whimsical, and Ms. McCullough has managed to have it on both sides of the crossword equation: Her themed clues rhyme, as do their entries. At 17A, [Gathering for a lathering?] is a RUB-A-DUB CLUB. [Jewels for fools?] at 26A could be called DING-A-LING BLING.You probably won’t hear anyone calling a [Fryer piled higher?] a CHOCK-A-BLOCK WOK, or a [Cup to drink up?] a CHUG-A-LUG MUG, but that can be the greatest gift of a crossword puzzle: We get to see and hear words combined in ways that they might never be otherwise. It’s dreamy stuff when you think about it.Tricky Clues36A. [Events at which you try not to lose track?] are MEETS (think track and field).60A. When you see “not” in a clue, its entry is often an opposite of the word provided. That gets tricky when a word’s meaning is ambiguous. Here, [Not out] means HOME. In a different puzzle, the same clue might have an answer like “safe” (as in baseball) or “secret.”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

Standing in the middle of an outdoor bar in an alleyway in Chicago, Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, looked around and remarked: “Nice city. It’s not New York, but it’s a nice city.”It was the second night of the Democratic National Convention, and Mr. Schumer was getting ready to give his eight-minute speech at 8 p.m. But first he stopped by a party where the crowd was made up almost entirely of New Yorkers: a mix of businesspeople, state senators and Assembly members. Mr. Schumer, an old-school party boss who loves nothing more than retail politics, was in his element.He began pointing out familiar faces in the crowd.“You’ve got a great daughter,” he told one woman. “I love her.”“I was at your swearing-in,” he boomed as a state senator from the Bronx approached.“Everything this lady does is a success!”“He’s the best.”“Love her!”He had started his day by having breakfast with convention delegates from New York, and then spent the afternoon prepping for his speech and chatting on the phone with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, applying pressure to get some help to Long Island, which had been battered by a storm.So he was feeling good and ready by that point to do a little schmoozing. Peering around, he recognized a number of former aides who had made it out to the happy hour to give him a pat on the back. “He was a Schumer worker,” Mr. Schumer said, pointing one out. “She was a Schumer worker. We’re everywhere.”The Democratic strategist Stu Loeser came over to say hello, and Mr. Schumer bellowed, “Another former Schumer worker!”He next spotted a tall, boyish-looking New York City Council member named Erik Bottcher and exclaimed, “We ate at his parents’ restaurant in the Adirondacks!”“The Hungry Trout,” replied Mr. Bottcher.The party was thrown by Julie Samuels, the chief executive of Tech:NYC, a nonprofit representing tech companies in New York. And even though he found himself surrounded by a bunch of techies, Mr. Schumer proudly waved around his LG flip phone. It is the only one he uses. He likes it for its utility, and because he figures Russia cannot hack it. “This is my secret,” he said. “No text. Just tawk.”When he spotted the platter of black-and-white cookies, Mr. Schumer reminded the crowd that they were “a Brooklyn specialty,” but he added, “Now that I’m gluten-free, I can’t eat them.”It was time to head to the arena. As he turned to go, he collided with the bar’s owner. They spoke for a moment, and then Mr. Schumer announced: “This guy’s going to move his next restaurant to New York!” More

As Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck show, rekindling an old romance is risky. We asked couples counselors what you should ask before diving back in.When the superstars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck married in 2022, decades after calling off their initial engagement, it seemed like the stuff of a romantic Hollywood blockbuster.“Love is beautiful,” Ms. Lopez wrote after the couple’s Las Vegas nuptials. “Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”But Ms. Lopez filed for divorce from Mr. Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, ending months of frenzied media speculation about their shaky union, and highlighting a decidedly unromantic truth: Reuniting with an ex-partner does not guarantee a happy ending.“I have certainly seen people who are in long-term happy relationships who got back together after having broken up,” said Elizabeth Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Philadelphia. “I would say that is the exception to the rule.”Many couples counselors said they recommended taking an almost clinical approach to reuniting with an ex — even (or especially) if you are swept up in the thrill of rediscovering old passions. Here are four questions therapists recommend asking.1. Do we both understand why we broke up?That is a “laughably obvious” question to start with, admitted Lisa Marie Bobby, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Denver and the founder of Growing Self, a counseling and coaching service. But if you and your partner cannot both articulate a clear answer without defensiveness or tension, that is a red flag, she 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

The A-list couple, who married in 2022, had attempted to rekindle their romance after close to two decades.Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, capping a decades-long romantic history that spawned its own famous portmanteau: “Bennifer.”Ms. Lopez filed the petition to dissolve the couple’s marriage to the L.A. County Superior Court, according to court records. The filing, which was first reported by TMZ, was submitted on the second anniversary of the couple’s lavish wedding celebration at Mr. Affleck’s home in Georgia.Representatives for Ms. Lopez and Mr. Affleck did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The on-again, off-again relationship between Ms. Lopez, 55, a singer and actress, and Mr. Affleck, 52, an actor and director, has been a subject of pop-culture fascination since the early 2000s.The pair began dating while filming the 2003 romantic comedy “Gigli.” Although the movie was panned, the relationship between its stars became “the summer’s most watched romance,” according to an article that year in The New York Times. They got engaged in 2002, but postponed the wedding the following year, citing the media frenzy around their union.The pair split and moved onto other relationships: Ms. Lopez married the singer Marc Anthony in 2004, and Mr. Affleck married the actress Jennifer Garner in 2005. (Both ended in divorce.)In the spring of 2021, tabloids lit up with headlines that Ms. Lopez and Mr. Affleck were dating again. In July 2022, the superstars were wed at a midnight ceremony in Las Vegas, complete with a pink Cadillac convertible. They held a celebration with family and friends in Georgia in August, with Ms. Lopez wearing a Ralph Lauren gown and a sweeping veil.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

Grandchildren of two Democratic presidents — John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter — helped to open the second night of the Democratic convention on Tuesday by presenting Vice President Kamala Harris as a natural heir to the legacy of both of these former leaders.“Today, J.F.K.’s call for action is now ours to answer,” said Jack Schlossberg, 31. He is the only grandson of Mr. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. “Because once again, the torch has been passed to a new generation.”Jason Carter, a 49-year-old lawyer and politician, said that his grandfather, who is 99 and in hospice care, “can’t wait to vote for Kamala Harris.”“Kamala Harris carries my grandfather’s legacy,” he said. “She knows what is right, and she fights for it.”Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are attending the party’s convention in Chicago. Mr. Carter could not. His grandson said that Mr. Carter was “holding on” and that although the former president’s body was weakening, “his spirit is as strong as ever.”Jason Carter said that Vice President Kamala Harris carried the legacy of his grandfather, Jimmy Carter. “She knows what is right,” he said, “and she fights for it.”Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe remarks by Mr. Schlossberg and the younger Mr. Carter reflected the effort by Democrats to wrap the party’s legacy around Ms. Harris, who is 59 years old. Mr. Obama was expected to speak later on Tuesday night, and Mr. Clinton on Wednesday.Mr. Schlossberg portrayed Ms. Harris as a leader who reflected the spirit of his grandfather’s call to the American people.“She believes in America, like my grandfather did,” he said, “that we do things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” More

A Massachusetts professor has filed a lawsuit against Meta using a novel interpretation of Section 230, a law known primarily for shielding social media companies from liability.Facebook, X, YouTube and other social media platforms rely on a 1996 law to insulate themselves from legal liability for user posts. The protection from this law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, is so significant that it has allowed tech companies to flourish.But what if the same law could be used to rein in the power of those social media giants?That idea is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in May against Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The plaintiff in the suit has asked a federal court to declare that a little-used part of Section 230 makes it permissible for him to release his own software that lets users automatically unfollow everyone on Facebook.The lawsuit, filed by Ethan Zuckerman, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the first to use Section 230 against a tech giant in this way, his lawyers said. It is an unusual legal maneuver that could turn a law that typically protects companies like Meta on its head. And if Mr. Zuckerman succeeds, it could mean more power for consumers to control what they see online.“I see and appreciate the elegance of trying to use a piece of law that has made user generated content possible, to now give users more control over those experiences and services,” he said.Section 230, introduced in the internet’s early days, protects companies from liability related to posts made by users on their sites, making it nearly impossible to sue tech companies over defamatory speech or extremist content.Mr. Zuckerman has focused on a part of Section 230 that spells out protection for blocking objectionable material online. In 2021, after a developer released software to purge users’ Facebook feeds of everyone they follow, Facebook threatened to shut it down. But Section 230 says it is possible to restrict access to obscene, excessively violent and other problematic content. The language shields companies from liability if they censor disturbing content, but lawyers now say it could also be used to justify scrubbing any content users don’t want to see.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

Carlos Magdalena, whose botanical adventures have shades of Indiana Jones, was a driving force in saving the world’s smallest water lily and finding the largest one. He has been called the “plant messiah.”In Australia, he went plant hunting by helicopter and waded in crocodile-infested waters to watch a water lily bloom. In Mauritius, he grabbed a plant specimen off the ledge of a cliff. Last month, while looking for lilies in a tributary of Colombia’s piranha-packed Orinoco River, he jumped from plank to plank in the pitch dark at 4 a.m. to get to a floating pontoon.“It’s not that I am that daring,” said Carlos Magdalena, a research horticulturalist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. “These situations just arise, and they are not like Superman extreme. Sometimes it’s more Peter Sellers than Indiana Jones.”Mr. Magdalena’s main responsibility at Kew Gardens is tending tropical plants. But he is also known as “the plant messiah,” as anointed by a Spanish newspaper in 2010, for his work rescuing several plant species from the brink of extinction. That work has earned him enormous respect in the field of botany and made him somewhat of a celebrity in the horticulture world.His renown only grew when David Attenborough, the British doyen of nature documentaries, repeated the “plant messiah” tagline at the 2012 premiere of one of his films, which featured a scene of Mr. Magdalena propagating the pygmy lily.The attention, especially from a figure as venerated as Mr. Attenborough, initially dismayed Mr. Magdalena. “Imagine what happens when the God calls you the messiah,” he said, standing outside one of the graceful greenhouses at Kew Gardens.It is appropriate that Mr. Magdalena’s star moment in the documentary showed him working with lilies, the plant closest to his heart and the first one he grew as an 8-year-old on his parent’s finca, a plot of land in the Asturias region of northern Spain.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