Elections

There’s a lot of talk that Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to prevent Josh Shapiro’s views on the Middle East from becoming a distraction. But the more relevant reason that Walz was chosen is electoral.It’s true that we were told for weeks that Electoral College criteria would lead to Shapiro, in the hopes that he could put the crucial state of Pennsylvania in Harris’s column. And if Harris narrowly loses Pennsylvania and thus the election, the failure to pick Shapiro will reverberate for generations.But electoral math has many permutations. Shapiro, like Harris, is from the coastal elite. By contrast, Walz — a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard — graduated from high school in a Nebraska town of 400 and later coached the Mankato West Scarlets to a Minnesota high school football championship. Unlike JD Vance, Walz didn’t leave home for Yale and private equity. Once his life story penetrates among voters, he will probably shore up Democrats in parts of the country where they need help the most.Over the years. rural counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada have felt abandoned by Democrats. Many went for Donald Trump in the last two elections by 20 points or more, and he remains very popular in those places. But Walz, an authentic rural voice, might change that outcome and reduce Trump’s share to 55 percent from roughly 60 percent in enough counties. If that happens, Harris will win the election. More

The Nikkei 225, the benchmark index in Japan, rose on Tuesday after a record decline.Investors in Asia reclaimed a measure of calm on Tuesday, after a day of frenzied selling around the world over concerns about a potential U.S. recession.In Japan, where the losses Monday were largest, stocks bounced higher. The Nikkei 225 index rose 11 percent after plunging 12.4 percent the day before. That was the benchmark index’s biggest one-day point decline, larger than the plummet during the Black Monday crash in October 1987.Stocks in South Korea, which were also down more than 10 percent at one point on Monday, regained about 4 percent.The jolt to stock markets started last week in Japan, where worries about the state of the U.S. economy were compounded by concerns about the effects a rapidly strengthening yen would have on corporate profits.On Friday, a report on American jobs showed a considerable slowdown in hiring, prompting a sell-off in U.S. markets. More widespread panic took hold on Monday over fears that the Federal Reserve may have waited too long to start cutting interest rates, threatening the strength of the U.S. economy. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 3 percent, its sharpest daily decline since September 2022.The Fed is expected to start cutting rates, which are at a more-than-two-decade high, later this year.Conditions in Japan have been complicated by a policy shift in the opposite direction. The Bank of Japan last Wednesday increased its key rate to a quarter point. It was only the central bank’s second rate increase since 2007. After years in which policymakers kept interest rates low to try to boost prices and consumption, inflation has risen to levels at which they felt they could begin raising rates.The prospect of higher rates caused the yen to strengthen, a trend that could be good for Japan’s economy over the longer term but will be a drag on corporate profits, especially for big companies that rely on selling abroad. The currency’s rise spooked investors, some of whom feared a stronger yen would spell the end of a more-than-yearlong rally in Japanese stocks that had been driven by a weakened currency.A stronger yen also undercut some global investments made when the currency was cheaper, acting as a catalyst to wider selling across markets already nervous that stock prices had risen too high, too quickly. A popular trade among some investors involved borrowing in yen, and then investing it in markets like the U.S. But as the strength of the dollar this year began to ebb, profits from that trade also started to reverse course.The yen weakened on Tuesday, trading at around 145 to the dollar, compared with 141 the previous day.While the chain reaction of a strengthening Japanese currency and declining stocks seems to have calmed, analysts expect large market fluctuations to carry forward until there is more clarity about the direction of the economy in the United States.Joe Rennison More

A blaze in San Bernardino burned suburban homes and threatened others nearby, adding to an already intense California fire season.A fast-moving brush fire burned homes and forced evacuations in the inland California city of San Bernardino on Monday afternoon. Shocking views of the fire tearing across a residential hillside stoked fears that an already dangerous fire season could threaten the more populated parts of the state.The fire in the Southern California city, about 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, has grown to 100 acres and burned multiple buildings, said Eric Sherwin, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Residents of dozens of homes in the Shandin Hills neighborhood are under evacuation orders, and the county has set up an evacuation center at a nearby elementary school.Multiple suburban houses with tile roofs could be seen on live TV engulfed in flames on Monday afternoon.The fire was first reported at 2:40 p.m. in a northern San Bernardino neighborhood, where firefighters found a grass fire spreading quickly. Very dry weather and temperatures approaching 110 degrees conspired to “allow this fire to move at a ridiculously rapid clip,” Mr. Sherwin said.The fire, which has been named the Edgehill fire, is zero percent contained, and 200 firefighters from various agencies are battling the blaze.In San Bernardino, gusty winds coming from the southwest on Monday were helping to push the fire up a hill where many of the homes were perched, said Sam Zuber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in San Diego, which provides forecasts for the San Bernardino region.“That’s probably why it’s been so difficult for them to get containment,” Ms. Zuber said, adding that low humidity and high temperatures were further fueling the fire. “It’s the perfect conditions for it to spread right up to the ridge top.”California has had a particularly bad fire season so far after scorching temperatures this summer parched the heavy vegetation that grew over the two past wet winters. Those dry grasses and brush have turned into abundant fuel.Hundreds of miles to the north, the Park fire began nearly two weeks ago near Chico and has ballooned into the fourth-largest fire in California history, spreading more than 403,000 acres. The fire, which is 34 percent contained, is expected to keep expanding, though its growth has slowed over the past week.That fire alone has burned more acres than all of the fires in California did last year combined, according to Cal Fire. This year, more than 778,000 acres have burned statewide, compared with roughly 325,000 acres in all of 2023, and the peak of the fire season has not yet arrived. More

Mr. McDowell, 21, was being held on bond for the July shooting death of a man in the parking lot of a Houston apartment complex, the authorities said.Akili McDowell, an actor who starred in the television series “David Makes Man,” has been charged with murder in the July shooting death of a man in the parking lot of a Houston apartment complex, authorities said.Mr. McDowell, 21, was arrested and charged on Thursday with the murder of Cesar Peralta, 20, according to a criminal complaint.Mr. McDowell is being held on $400,000 bond at the Harris County jail and is scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 9. A lawyer for Mr. McDowell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Jonell Whitt, Mr. McDowell’s manager, offered prayers to the victim’s family and to Mr. McDowell. She declined to comment further on Monday evening.Harris County sheriff deputies responded to reports of a shooting on July 20 in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Houston, according to the sheriff’s office.Deputies arrived to find an adult male, who has since been identified as Mr. Peralta, unresponsive from apparent gunshot wounds. Emergency medical workers pronounced him dead at the scene. The authorities said that deputies spoke with several witnesses who reported seeing the victim in a fight with an unidentified male, who fled on foot immediately after the shooting.“David Makes Man” follows David, played by Mr. McDowell, as he navigates life in a housing project in South Florida while trying to succeed as one of the few Black students at his magnet school. The show, which aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network, was tinged with magical realism and explored its characters’ inner lives. It was created and written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, known for his Tony-nominated play “Choir Boy” and as a writer of the Oscar-winning film “Moonlight.”According to the website IMDb, Mr. McDowell appeared this year in “The Waterboyz,” a film about two young men whose paths cross while trying to make it in Atlanta. He also appeared in the 2015 film “Criminal Activities,” a crime yarn starring John Travolta; and in the television shows “Billions” and “The Astronaut Wives Club.”Alain Delaquérière More

Daniel Raymon rides the current.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — Some crossword themes have punchlines. Others end in “aha!” moments. And some, like today’s theme, have no beginning or end at all. They merely drift into focus and then echo in our minds long after we’ve solved the puzzle. I have a soft spot for themes in this third category and was thrilled to find one in today’s crossword by Daniel Raymon.These gentle, revealerless themes tend to highlight something simple about language: the various uses of a cliché, for instance, or a specific way that words go together. Perhaps this kind of thing shouldn’t surprise me — a crossword being about words? what a concept! — but I love that these observations can still make me gasp a little gasp. And that’s just what I did today once Mr. Raymon’s theme was in view.Today’s ThemeAll of today’s themed clues are spoken, which is to say they appear between quotation marks, although they aren’t the only clues to do so in the puzzle. The way to identify them is not by their cluing, but by their common format: Each consists of the word AS, followed by a pronoun and a verb.The clue for 17A, [“Any option is fine by me”], for example, solves to AS YOU PLEASE. And for 21A, a more succinct way to say [“Or so the motto goes”] is AS THEY SAY. By contrast, a way to say [“What a surprise!”] stretches across 27A, 33D and 51A: AS I LIVE / AND / BREATHE!See if you can solve the remaining two themed entries at 59- and 65A and get to the finish line AS the crow flies.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

92 DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY More

The vice president is expected to announce her choice on Tuesday morning. One prominent Democrat recounted being asked by a contender, “Will you please make sure you put in a good word for me?”Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to reveal her running mate on Tuesday morning, a decision that will end a 16-day sprint to vet, interview and choose a person who could potentially become the future leader of the Democratic Party.Ms. Harris’s announcement, coupled with a major rally she plans to hold with her running mate on Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, will also cap a frenzied period that had, in recent days, exposed some of the party’s internal fissures on matters ranging from labor rights to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.With only days to consider a range of contenders, Ms. Harris and her team were inundated with unsolicited advice — much of it public — about whom she should pick. In the final hours, her allies, fellow Democrats, progressive activists and even some of the potential nominees themselves tried to find ways to sway her decision.At the center of the maelstrom is Ms. Harris, who has fielded input from a small group of formal and informal advisers, including former President Barack Obama, whom she has consulted on policy, personnel decisions and her vice-presidential pick during her whirlwind ascent to the Democratic presidential nomination, according to a person familiar with their conversations.Some of the candidates even tried to cozy up to influential friends of Ms. Harris’s, hoping that it might make their way back to the vice president — or at least to one of the people in the tight group of confidants advising her. Two presumed favorites, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, have been checking in with Democratic members of Congress by phone in recent days.Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said she had recently fielded calls from more than one of Ms. Harris’s potential running mates.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

Economists blamed a variety of factors for Monday’s slide. But Donald Trump was trying to disrupt weeks of momentum for Vice President Kamala Harris and her party.Donald J. Trump didn’t wait for the opening bell before blaming Monday’s market sell-off on Vice President Kamala Harris.“Stock markets are crashing, jobs numbers are terrible, we are heading to World War III, and we have two of the most incompetent ‘leaders’ in history,” the former president and Republican presidential nominee wrote in a post on Truth Social at 8:12 a.m. Eastern time. “This is not good.”Mr. Trump did not mention that markets had suffered far greater single-day losses when he was president, or that economists blamed a variety of factors — including a disappointing July jobs report, a plunge in Japanese markets earlier in the day and a growing consensus among investors that the Federal Reserve has waited too long to start cutting interest rates — for Monday’s slide.He also did not mention that earlier this year, he had claimed credit for a surge in stock prices, which he said reflected confidence he would be re-elected.What Mr. Trump was engaged in was a calculated attempt at political marketing. By 9:45 a.m. on Monday, less than an hour after U.S. markets opened, Mr. Trump branded what would become a 3 percent decline for the day in the S&P 500 the “Kamala Crash.”By lunchtime, it was official party messaging: The Republican National Committee hyped the “Great Kamala Crash of 2024,” and the Trump campaign had produced and circulated on social media a video tying the vice president to Monday’s dip in the markets. By the afternoon, the Trump forces had turned “KamalaCrash” into a “trending” subject on X.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