Elections

During the most challenging period of President Biden’s re-election bid, the first lady appears on the cover of a high-fashion bible.The August cover of Vogue featuring Dr. Jill Biden was released online Monday — four days after the big debate — and brought with it a fresh round of scrutiny over her role as a die-hard campaigner for her husband, who is locked in a nail-biting campaign for re-election.During much of President Biden’s term, the first lady was a figure of minimal controversy. That began to shift when campaign season heated up. Laura Ingraham of Fox News claimed that Dr. Biden was covering up the president’s unfitness out of her own desire for political power and prestige. Sounding the same theme, The Daily Caller, a right-wing website, began referring to her as “Lady Mac-Biden.”Dr. Biden took center stage after Mr. Biden struggled to finish his sentences during a dismal debate performance on Thursday against former President Donald J. Trump. Afterward, The New York Times reported that Dr. Biden was the first person he had turned to: “The first lady’s message to him was clear: They’d been counted out before, she was all in, and he — they — would stay in the race.”On the Vogue cover, Dr. Biden wears a white Ralph Lauren tuxedo dress. She was photographed in the spring by Norman Jean Roy, whose recent contributions to Vogue include portraits of Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys and the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. The accompanying profile of the first lady, by Maya Singer, describes her as a “vision of calm amid utter cacophony.”Dr. Biden has been on the cover of Vogue twice before. Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, noted that an appearance on the Vogue cover is a “rite of passage” for first ladies. Still, Ms. Brown added, the implications of Dr. Biden’s appearance on the cover of a fashion magazine are “always a risk.” And at this moment, the Vogue cover “is not particularly helpful,” she added.Soon after the magazine posted the cover image to its Instagram account on Monday, the comments were overwhelmingly negative. Some were from Trump supporters who took Dr. Biden’s appearance as an opportunity to complain about the fact that Melania Trump had been passed over for a Vogue cover when she was first lady. A number of other critical remarks seemed to come from Democrats, one of whom argued that Dr. Biden was pursuing her and her husband’s own ambitions “at the expense of Americans safety and happiness.”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

President Biden had paused new natural gas export terminals to assess their effects on the climate, economy and national security. A federal judge disagreed.A federal judge on Monday ordered the Biden administration to resume issuing permits for new liquefied natural gas export facilities after the government had paused that process in January to analyze how those exports affect climate change, the economy and national security.The decision, from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, comes in response to a lawsuit from 16 Republican state attorneys general, who argued that the pause amounted to a ban that harmed their states’ economies. Many of those states, including Louisiana, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, produce significant amounts of natural gas.The judge, James D. Cain Jr., who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, wrote in his decision that the states had demonstrated that they had lost jobs, royalties and taxes that would have flowed had permits for gas exports continued.Texas, for example, projected that it would lose $259.8 million in tax revenues associated with natural gas production over five years as a result of the pause of permitting.Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said that she expects that the analysis of L.N.G. exports, which is being conducted by her agency, would be completed late this year.But Judge Cain agreed with the attorneys general that the states were being harmed.“The Court finds that the lost or delayed revenues tied to natural gas production is a concrete and imminent injury that supports standing,” Judge Cain wrote.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

Josh Goodman sees things clearly.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — In the past, whenever I was indecisive or needed sage advice, I often turned to the Magic 8 Ball — a weighted, black plastic toy designed to look like an oversize billiard ball and filled with a viscous blue fluid. Inside the ball bobbed a 20-sided die that gave affirmative, negative or noncommittal answers to yes-or-no questions: Does my crush like me as much as I like him? “Very doubtful.” Will I become rich and famous someday? “Cannot predict now.” In hindsight, was my trust in the Magic 8 Ball as a child a precursor to my interest in astrology and tarot as an adult? “Without a doubt.”Now that we have search engines, group chats and astrology apps to provide counsel, the Magic 8 Ball may be relegated to its original use as a paperweight. But if you happen to have one lying around at home, it may help you identify the themed phrase in Josh Goodman’s crossword. Regardless of when the trick floats to the surface for you, I’d say “it is certain” you’ll enjoy the solve.Today’s ThemeStrings of circled letters seem to be either emanating from the grid’s center or angling toward it. Mr. Goodman lights the way for us with his revealer clue at 38-Across: [What all signs point to in this puzzle].The eight “signs” in question appear in circled letters, which must be read from the outside to the inside of the puzzle: CALL, EXIT, PEACE, PLUS, DOLLAR, STAR, NEON and STOP. Taken together, they illustrate the hidden expression: All signs points to YES (38A).I couldn’t determine the exact origins of the phrase “All signs point to yes,” but its popularity since the 1990s seems correlated with that of the Magic 8 Ball. The device was first patented in 1944, as a cylindrical “liquid-filled dice agitator,” before it took on its familiar name and black-and-white form. Then, shortly after it appeared on a 1992 episode of “The Simpsons,” sales of the Magic 8 Ball boomed. In fact, a New York Times report on its comeback used today’s themed phrase: “Can a middle-aged toy find happiness in the hard-bitten 90’s? ‘Signs point to yes.’”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

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said he was “horrified” by the debate. Representative Debbie Dingell said “the campaign needs to listen to us.”Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said he was surprised and “horrified” by President Biden’s frail appearance in his debate against former President Donald J. Trump and pleaded with Mr. Biden and his campaign to be candid about his current condition.In an interview with WPRI, a television station in Providence, Mr. Whitehouse, who in March defended Mr. Biden as “the only option that we have” to defeat Mr. Trump in the election, expressed alarm and said that he had “never seen” Mr. Biden in that kind of condition before.“Like a lot of people, I was pretty horrified,” Mr. Whitehouse said Monday, adding that he wanted “the president and his team to be candid about his condition, that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days.”Mr. Whitehouse was joined in his concerns by Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat in a deep blue district that encompasses Ann Arbor. Ms. Dingell criticized the Biden campaign for reports that its leaders were “going to stick to their strategy” and were considering holding some kind of interview or news conference to allay concerns about the president.“One interview isn’t going to fix this,” Ms. Dingell said in an interview on CNN, adding: “I think the campaign’s got to listen to people. And by the way, I think the campaign needs to listen to us.”She continued: “I know how to win campaigns. My strategy is to stick my ear to the ground and know what people are saying.”The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.It was the latest in a wave of reactions among Democrats concerned about Mr. Biden and his re-election campaign. The campaign and Biden allies have sought to tamp down the panic that has gripped the party and its wealthy donors in the aftermath of the debate. Top Democratic lawmakers fanned out on Sunday to defend the president and reassure his supporters.But Ms. Dingell’s and Mr. Whitehouse’s comments on Monday demonstrated that questions about Mr. Biden’s fitness for another four years in office will continue to linger heading into the Democrats’ nominating convention in August. More

Beyond Donald J. Trump, the decision adds to the seemingly one-way ratchet of executive authority.The Supreme Court’s decision to bestow presidents with immunity from prosecution over official actions is an extraordinary expansion of executive power that will reverberate long after Donald J. Trump is gone.Beyond its immediate implications for the election subversion case against Mr. Trump and the prospect that he may feel less constrained by law if he returns to power, the ruling also adds to the nearly relentless rise of presidential power since the mid-20th century.It had seemed like a constitutional truism in recent years when more than one lower-court opinion addressing novel legal issues raised by Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking behavior observed that presidents are not kings. But suddenly, they do enjoy a kind of monarchical prerogative.“The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in an outraged dissent joined by the court’s other two liberals. “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”Dismissing those worries, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, argued that presidents stand apart from regular people, so protecting them from prosecution if they are accused of abusing their powers to commit official crimes is necessary.“Unlike anyone else,” he wrote, “the president is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties.”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

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A post that Mr. Trump circulated on Sunday called for Liz Cheney to be prosecuted by a military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.Former President Donald J. Trump over the weekend escalated his vows to prosecute his political opponents, circulating posts on his social media website invoking “televised military tribunals” and calling for the jailing of President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence, among other high-profile politicians.Mr. Trump, using his account on Truth Social on Sunday, promoted two posts from other users of the site that called for the jailing of his perceived political enemies.One post that he circulated on Sunday singled out Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who is a Republican critic of Mr. Trump’s, and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military court reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals.“Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” the post said. “Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.”A separate post included photos of 15 former and current elected officials that said, in all-capital letters, “they should be going to jail on Monday not Steve Bannon!” Those officials included Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris, Mr. Pence, Mr. Schumer and Mr. McConnell — the top leaders in the Senate — and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.The list in the second post also had members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Ms. Cheney and the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, another Republican, and the Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren and Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee.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