Elections

New hobbies, graduation ceremonies and more.Mission Beach in May.Ariana Drehsler for The New York TimesBelieve it or not, we’re nearly halfway through 2024. As a midweek pick-me-up, today I’m sharing some of the lovely notes readers have sent me about their favorite parts of this year: new hobbies, graduation ceremonies and more. Send your own tales to [email protected] are some highlights, edited and condensed:“I am retired and very active with my local fitness club. The best part of my year to date is learning to play pickleball with a fabulous group of ladies who also enjoy staying active and enjoying each other’s company. We play every week and just have a great time exercising and laughing with each other.” — Linda Robertson, Paso Robles“The best part of my year would have to be late February, the moment I found out I was spontaneously pregnant with triplets. I will meet them in August and I am simultaneously excited and terrified.” — Emily Hannon, San Diego“The best part of my year so far was watching my son walk across the stage at his graduation ceremony at San Diego State University — something he never had a chance to do four years ago because of Covid. The look on his face and the thousands of other students that day will stay with me for a long time!” — Fred Mandel, Encino“This year has allowed me to embark on my Peace Corps Response term in Barranquilla, Colombia. I am here to coach and encourage local public school English teachers. Growing up in Claremont and spending the last 40 years in San Diego, you would think my Spanish would be better. But it is here in Colombia that my Spanish has had a chance to grow. I will be back in California before Thanksgiving and my South American exposure will be complete, but there will be many tales to tell. I came at 77 and will return at 78, perhaps a more seasoned traveler.” — Judy Minnich Stout, San Diego“The best thing this year so far is enjoying four great-grandsons, ranging in age from 15 months to 7 years. Their boundless energy and enthusiasm are contagious. I never thought I would live long enough to see my grandchildren’s children.” — Eleanor Egan, Costa MesaWe 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

Tyrese Haspil, 25, was convicted of murdering his former boss, the entrepreneur Fahim Saleh, and dismembering his body in 2020.Just days after the body of Fahim Saleh, a successful tech entrepreneur, was found dismembered in his luxury condominium in Manhattan in July 2020, his former personal assistant, Tyrese Haspil, made a series of unsettling web searches.“Fahim Saleh.” “Murder of tech C.E.O. in New York.” “Dismembered body.”The search queries were just some of the chilling details that emerged during Mr. Haspil’s murder trial this month in Manhattan Criminal Court. And on Monday jurors convicted him of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Saleh — and then killing him and cutting up his body in an effort to conceal what he had done.Mr. Haspil, 25, of Brooklyn is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 10.“Tyrese Haspil tragically cut Mr. Saleh’s life short — a man who came from a close-knit immigrant family and followed his passions to become a successful entrepreneur,” said Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, in a statement announcing the conviction on Monday. “I hope the accountability delivered by today’s verdict can provide a measure of comfort to Mr. Saleh’s loved ones as they continue to mourn his loss.”Mr. Saleh, 33, was born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents and grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was the founder of two motorcycle ride-sharing companies, based in Bangladesh and Nigeria, the latter of which raised millions in venture capital. After his death, he was remembered as an innovative businessman and a generous friend.Sam Roberts, Mr. Haspil’s lawyer, said on Monday that he was disappointed by the verdict. He acknowledged that Mr. Haspil had committed the crime and said the killer felt remorse. “We fully believe that Tyrese Haspil is not solely and only the worst thing that he’s done in his life,” he said. “We hope that the court will understand that there are mitigating factors here.”Mr. Haspil’s ill-fated scheme began in the fall of 2018, when he was working as Mr. Saleh’s entrepreneurial assistant and began stealing money from his companies to purchase lavish gifts for his new girlfriend.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

Rush-hour commuters at Penn Station faced a shutdown of close to an hour, followed by extensive delays, after Amtrak investigated a report of a problem with overhead wires.New Jersey Transit service was disrupted once again on Monday evening, with travel suspended in and out of Pennsylvania Station for nearly an hour because of a report of a problem with Amtrak overhead wires in one of the Hudson River tunnels.Service was suspended at 6:37 p.m. and resumed shortly before 7:30 p.m., but trains were still subject to delays of up to 60 minutes, a New Jersey Transit spokesman said.It was at least the fifth disruption for New Jersey commuters in the last two months, and the third in less than a week. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains share the portion of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between New York City and Trenton, N.J., so issues with Amtrak tracks or wires immediately affect New Jersey Transit service.Trains were held in place for about 25 minutes, or in some cases pulled back to Penn Station, according to a New Jersey Transit customer service representative.An Amtrak spokesman said service had been suspended as a precautionary measure after a report of trouble with the overhead wires that provide the electricity that powers trains moving in and out of Penn Station. The inspection turned up no problems, he said, so service resumed after about half an hour.During the shutdown, trains were diverted to Hoboken, N.J., and New Jersey Transit rail tickets were accepted for rides by private bus companies and PATH trains in Newark, Hoboken, N.J., and Midtown Manhattan.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

Seth Bisen-Hersh and Jeff Chen game the system.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesNote to readers: In the past, Wordplay indicated crossword clues with quotation marks. In crossword construction and editing, though, clues are typically indicated by brackets, a practice Wordplay is now following.TUESDAY PUZZLE — Seth Bisen-Hersh, who constructed today’s crossword with Jeff Chen, wrote that he was inspired to craft this grid’s theme while watching a TV show hosted by Penn & Teller, the prolific magician duo. I grew up admiring Penn & Teller, too — only it was because of their prank book, “How to Play With Your Food.” The book was given to me by my aunt, no doubt in the hopes that I’d terrorize my parents with it. And reader, I did: One my favorite tricks from the book involved palming a single-serve creamer from a restaurant’s dining table, and then casually starting to play with a fork near my face. Having subtly brought the hand with the creamer near my eye, I’d stab the cup with the fork and scream as the creamer spattered unsuspecting family members with a stream of white liquid that my eye seemed to have expelled.This puzzle’s theme relies on slightly higher-brow sleights of hand — hint — but I’m willing to bet that you’ll love it.Today’s ThemeYou may know the [Card game whose winning hands can be found hidden in 17-, 27-, 42- and 54-Across] (33A) as blackjack, but constraints in the grid led the constructors to refer to it by its other name, TWENTY-ONE. Each of the entries cited in the revealer clue hides a pair of cards that adds up to 21 — or blackjack — in the game.[Sloppily making out, in slang] (17A) is known as SUCKING FACE. The [Piece of jewelry consisting of a single line of diamonds] (27A) is a TENNIS BRACELET. An ace is worth 11 points, while the remaining honor cards — jack, queen and king — are worth 10 apiece. TWENTY-ONE is played with a two-card hand, which means that to reach exactly 21, you have to have draw an ace and an honor card.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

An aide to Senator Robert Menendez testified that she had been asked to consult with an Egyptian intelligence officer who had befriended Nadine Menendez.In March 2019, an aide to Senator Robert Menendez drafted a letter that used strong language to criticize the president of Egypt and the country’s human rights record. Mr. Menendez declined to sign it.Mr. Menendez, then the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he wanted to try a less confrontational approach, the aide, Sarah Arkin, testified on Monday at the senator’s bribery trial.“We’ve been going after them for so long on human rights — have been really out there publicly criticizing them — and it hasn’t really changed anything on the ground,” Ms. Arkin, a senior staff member with the committee, said Mr. Menendez had told her.Instead, Mr. Menendez said he wanted “to be a little less publicly critical and do more private and quiet engagement,” Ms. Arkin said.Ms. Arkin’s testimony came at the start of the seventh week of the senator’s trial in Manhattan federal court. Mr. Menendez, 70, is charged with steering aid and weapons to Egypt in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes as part of a wide-ranging and yearslong conspiracy.He has strenuously maintained his innocence, and as Mr. Menendez was leaving court on Monday he defended his record related to Egypt and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. “No one has been a harsher critic of Egypt,” Mr. Menendez said. “No one has been more persistent a critic of President el-Sisi on the question of human rights, democracy, rule of law.”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

Mr. Trump’s campaign has indicated that he would neither cut Social Security and Medicare benefits nor raise taxes to fund them, and has not given any details on how he would keep them solvent. His team suggested that the economy would be stronger under Mr. Trump, and that could strengthen the programs in the long […] More

Midlife, typically defined as ages 40 to 60, is an inflection point. It’s a time when our past behaviors begin to catch up with us and we start to notice our bodies and minds aging — sometimes in frustrating or disconcerting ways. But it’s also an opportunity: What our older years will look and feel […] More

The announcement by Ukraine’s president on Monday came hours after a scathing social media post implicitly accused the general of “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine removed one of his top generals from his post on Monday amid public criticism that the commander’s decisions had led to excessive casualties.The dismissal of the general, Yurii Sodol, as commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces, was a clear indication that the discord that had rankled the army since Mr. Zelensky replaced his commanding general, Valery Zaluzhny, with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky in February, continued to threaten military cohesion.Mr. Zelensky announced that he was replacing General Sodol with Brig. Gen. Andrii Hnatov.General Sodol was appointed by General Syrsky as part of a broader shake-up in February, and Mr. Zelensky did not say why he had dismissed the commander or what position he would now hold.But the president’s announcement came after Bohdan Krotevych, chief of staff of the Azov brigade — a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard — wrote a letter to the State Bureau of Investigation calling for an investigation into the general’s conduct.Then, just hours before the general’s dismissal. Mr. Krotevych posted an unusually blunt and scathing open letter on social media, implicitly accusing the general of, through his poor leadership, “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”While Mr. Krotevych did not name General Sodol directly in the public letter, he suggested that all of Ukraine’s forces knew to whom he was referring. “Everyone in the military understands because 99 percent of the military hate him for what he does,” he 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