Elections

The attacks look to destroy or damage crossings over a river in the Kursk region that are Russian forces’ only routes for resupply or retreat, military analysts say.Russian troops defending a pocket of territory wedged between a river and the border with Ukraine were at risk of becoming encircled, military analysts said Monday, after Ukraine bombed bridges that are the only routes for resupply or retreat.In their counterattack into Russia, which has been underway now for nearly two weeks, Ukrainian troops quickly broke through thinly manned border defenses, fanned out on highways and captured towns and villages, initially pushing deeper into Russian territory.The bombing of bridges, in contrast, takes aim at land between the Seym River, the border and an area inside Russia already controlled by Ukraine, with the potential to entrap the Russian forces positioned there. Three bridges span this stretch of river, all now destroyed or damaged, according to statements released by the Ukrainian Air Force and to social media posts by Russian officials and military commentators. More

Almin Karamehmedovic, the senior executive producer of ABC’s flagship newscast with anchor David Muir, will run Disney’s news division.ABC News said on Monday that Almin Karamehmedovic, the senior executive producer of “World News Tonight with David Muir,” is the network’s next president.The appointment puts Mr. Karamehmedovic, 52, in charge of a diminished but still powerful TV news empire that includes popular shows like “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight with David Muir,” “20/20” and “Nightline.” He will also oversee the network’s coverage of special events, such as the upcoming presidential debate and election, and the ABC News Studios division.Mr. Karamehmedovic has been at ABC News for more than two decades, working his way up the ranks from freelance video editing to the pinnacle of the TV news industry. His ascension is a positive omen for Mr. Muir, who anchors ABC’s flagship newscast, putting one of his key allies in control of the entire network.Mr. Karamehmedovic said in a statement that he would be leading “the best team in journalism” in his new role.“I approach this role with great respect and humility, not only for the hundreds of colleagues around the world whose tireless contributions fuel the unflinching and unbiased reporting of ABC News but also for the viewers we serve,” Mr. Karamehmedovic said.Mr. Karamehmedovic replaces Kim Godwin, whose tenure was marred by infighting and incessant leaks. Ms. Godwin announced her exit in May.Disney is appointing Mr. Karamehmedovic at a tricky moment for network news. As viewership of traditional TV erodes, networks have developed streaming services like ABC News Live to try to attract and retain viewers. But those services are not the appointment viewing juggernauts that network news programs were in their heyday, when broadcasters like Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were household names.Mr. Karamehmedovic oversaw one of the genuine success stories at ABC News. “World News Tonight With David Muir” is consistently the most highly rated network newscast and frequently outperforms non-news programs.Mr. Karamehmedovic, who began working for ABC News on a freelance basis in 1998, has held a variety of roles at the network. He embedded with the U.S. Army in 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and traveled to Darfur in 2005 to report on the genocide there. He joined “Nightline,” ABC’s Peabody Award-winning evening news program, in 2008 and served as its executive producer before joining “World News Tonight.” More

The Democratic National Convention, which opens Monday in Chicago, will be a test for the party and its new standard-bearer, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has never been so center stage. The next few days should signal how Ms. Harris intends to define her candidacy, and will help determine whether the party can remain unified despite deep divisions over issues including the war in Gaza.Here are six things to watch for this week.Harris presents herself: Ms. Harris’s acceptance speech on Thursday offers her a chance to introduce herself to what will likely be, along with her debate or debates with Mr. Trump, one of the biggest audiences she will have before Election Day. Her challenge, Democrats say, is to balance loyalty to Mr. Biden and assuming control of her party.Her speech is an opportunity to show the extent to which she intends to carve out her own political identity and demonstrate how a Harris presidency would be different from a Biden presidency. Not incidentally, it is also a test of whether the sitting vice president will present herself as the candidate of change or as the incumbent, running on the record of the past three years.Party unity: Democrats are hoping for four days of party-building, well aware of the dissension-free convention staged by Mr. Trump and the Republican Party last month in Milwaukee. That might be tough.The convention will be shadowed by demonstrations over the Biden administration’s strong support of Israel in the war in Gaza, a policy opposed by a sizable contingent of Democratic delegates. Protests on the streets could spill into the convention hall. Should that happen, Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant, said Ms. Harris would need to separate herself from “the fringe of her coalition.” He added: “This is important in terms of defining her as both strong and mainstream.”A handoff from a Clinton: Hillary Clinton is set to speak on Monday night, and thoughts about what might have been will not be lost on anyone in the hall. In 2016, Mr. Trump defeated her in her bid to be the first female president, a loss that some Democrats argued was at least in part a sign of Americans’ unwillingness to elect a woman to the nation’s highest office.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

Phil Donahue, who in the 1960s reinvented the television talk show with a democratic flourish, inviting audiences to question his guests on topics as resolutely high-minded as human rights and international relations, and as unblushingly lowbrow as male strippers and safe-sex orgies, died on Sunday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 88.His death was confirmed by Susan Arons, a representative of the family.“The Phil Donahue Show” made its debut in 1967 on WLWD-TV in Dayton, Ohio, propelling Mr. Donahue on a 29-year syndicated run, much of it as the unchallenged king of daytime talk television.Almost from the start, “The Phil Donahue Show” dispensed with familiar trappings. There was no opening monologue, no couch, no sidekick, no band — just the host and the guests, focused on a single topic.At the time, audiences were expected to be seen and not heard, unless prompted to applaud. Mr. Donahue changed that. He quickly realized from chatting with audience members during commercial breaks that some of them asked sharper questions than he did. And so he began his practice of stalking the aisles, microphone in hand, and letting those in the seats have their say. He also opened the telephone lines to those watching at home. Electronic democracy, as some called it, had arrived.Few subjects, if any, were off limits for Mr. Donahue, who was said to have told his staff, “I want all the topics hot.” It mattered little that at times the subjects made some viewers, and local station managers, squirm. His very first guest was guaranteed to stir controversy: Madalyn Murray O’Hair, at the time America’s most famous, and widely unpopular, atheist.Across the years — he moved from Dayton to Chicago in 1974, and then to New York in 1985 — he interviewed presidential candidates and Hollywood stars, consumer advocates and feminist pioneers. He also televised a child’s birth, an abortion, a reverse vasectomy and a tubal ligation. From inside a maximum-security prison in Ohio, he examined the American penal system. He was among the first television hosts to explore the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and the first Western journalist to go to Chernobyl, in Ukraine, after the 1986 nuclear accident there.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

Heavy rainfall in southwestern Connecticut led to mudslides, washed-out roads and flash flooding on Sunday, while thunderstorms sweeping through New York City disrupted flights and train service.The National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency or flash flood warning into Sunday evening for parts of Fairfield, New Haven, Litchfield and Hartford Counties, as overfilled rivers crested their banks and additional thunderstorms were predicted. Emergency crews carried out widespread water rescues, especially in the Southbury area, and several mudslides were reported, according to the Weather Service.The New York City area was also getting inundated on Sunday evening, as heavy rains caused all major airports in the region to ground flights. Officials warned of potentially damaging wind gusts. Flash flood warnings were issued in Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and several counties north and west of New York City. Video on social media showed water pouring from the ceiling of Chelsea Market.Chelsea Market in NYC flooding #nyc #storm pic.twitter.com/D3Qt3vuWY3— Haley Morgan Ryger (@hmryger) August 18, 2024

There was heavy flooding in Central Park, where the New York Police Department said drivers should avoid the 86th Street Transverse. Parts of Harlem River Drive in Manhattan, Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx and Long Island Expressway in Queens were blocked because of the flooding, the police said.Amtrak and New Jersey Transit said at about 8:20 p.m. that all trains between New York and Philadelphia were temporarily suspended. By 10:25 p.m., services had been restored but delays continued. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority issued a travel alert on closures along the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.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

Democrats released their party platform on Sunday, unveiling a document that offers plenty of political comfort food for a newly energized party ahead of its convention in Chicago.As a sign of what Democrats believe will mobilize their forces — and the head-spinning transformation that has remade their presidential ticket — the document mentions former President Donald J. Trump’s name 150 times.Vice President Kamala Harris, the new nominee who has brought her party back together after a bruising internal fight over President Biden’s candidacy, is mentioned by name just 32 times.The platform seems intended to avoid stirring any controversy that could derail that fresh feeling of unity.At the top of the list of issues that could threaten the party’s cohesiveness is the war in Gaza. Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are descending on Chicago, and roughly 30 delegates representing the Democratic primary voters who opposed Mr. Biden, mostly in protest over Gaza, will attend the convention, which begins on Monday.The platform repeats a traditional Democratic message supporting Israel, condemning the brutal Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and backing “an immediate and lasting cease-fire deal” that will return hostages still being held by the terrorist group and address “the displacement and death of so many innocent people in Gaza.”Democrats will vote to approve the platform on Monday evening. It was passed by the party’s platform committee, a group of party insiders, with wider input from “community leaders from coalitions across the Democratic Party,” according to the Democratic National Committee.On other issues, the platform represents a predictable collection of Democratic policy priorities, including calls to make investments in infrastructure and manufacturing; to cut taxes on working families while making big corporations and the wealthy “finally pay their fair share”; and to fight climate change.Another section addresses efforts to lower costs on everyday items like food, housing and health care, in similar terms to the economic agenda that Ms. Harris rolled out last week. And there are also calls to protect abortion rights, restore democratic norms and combat gun violence.On the other side, Mr. Trump took a direct hand this summer in reshaping — and shrinking the size — of the Republican platform, which focuses more on his own priorities than on a traditional laundry list of policies.The Democratic platform says that Mr. Trump’s vision for the country is one of “revenge and retribution,” a reflection of the party’s attempt to make the 2024 election a referendum on the former president.The party’s former presumptive nominee, Mr. Biden, is mentioned by name 287 times.Lisa Lerer More

Before their convention that this week will signal the final sprint to November, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, headed out on a brief bus tour on Sunday to fire up voters in perhaps the most crucial battleground state in the 2024 election.As they toured western Pennsylvania, their play for support beyond the state’s more liberal cities was apparent at the team’s first stop, a field office in Rochester, Pa., in the largely conservative Beaver County: Ms. Harris picked up a volunteer’s cellphone to speak with a resident from Erie, a northwestern city in one of the state’s swingiest counties, which Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won four years later.“I love Erie,” Ms. Harris said. “At some point we’ll get to Erie.”Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz were joined on the outing by their spouses, Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, traveling in two new campaign buses from the Pittsburgh airport, where they arrived on Air Force Two to greet a small group of supporters.Recent polling of Pennsylvania shows a close race between the Harris-Walz ticket and the Trump-Vance ticket.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas are the two main drivers of Democratic support in Pennsylvania, a state whose 19 electoral votes could decide the presidency. Recent polling shows a neck-and-neck race there between Ms. Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, with some surveys showing Ms. Harris gaining a narrow edge recently.Mr. Trump is also increasing his presence in Pennsylvania — on Saturday he held a rally in Wilkes-Barre and another is set in York on Monday, while Senator JD Vance of Ohio, his running mate, campaigns in Philadelphia.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

Harris campaign officials and Democratic leaders have stepped up outreach to Arab and Jewish voters before the event, but large protests are still expected.Even as feel-good displays of joy and confidence are set to dominate the Democratic National Convention this week in Chicago, one painful issue is bitterly dividing the Democratic establishment from its left flank: Israel’s war in Gaza.The specter of convention-upending protests that hovered over a gathering hosted for President Biden has receded somewhat with the rise of a new candidate in Kamala Harris, who is seen as more sympathetic to Palestinian rights activists. But tens of thousands of protesters are still expected to convene just outside the event’s security perimeter, and the potential for high-profile disruptions remains real.Emphasizing the unity theme, convention planners have tried to mollify both Muslim and Jewish Americans.Speaking slots have been allotted to the families of American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. One of the most prominent Muslims in national politics, Keith Ellison, the progressive attorney general of Minnesota, will be given time onstage. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Ms. Harris, is expected to speak proudly of his Judaism. And the Democratic platform highlights America’s commitment to Israeli security.At the same time, Ms. Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, held a series of meetings last week to hear the concerns of Arab Americans and some delegates representing Democratic primary voters who cast “uncommitted” ballots in the Democratic primary to protest Mr. Biden’s Israel policy.Despite such efforts, the convention will be shadowed by large protests against the Biden-Harris administration’s approach to a war that Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that left 1,200 people dead in Israel.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