Elections

A steady stream of people lined up at the Bank of England on Wednesday to get what they hoped would be collector’s items: the first bank notes featuring the portrait of King Charles III.Bank notes can still be exciting in our increasingly cashless society.On Wednesday morning, in front of the Bank of England headquarters, a queue — that’s a British line, which is the same as an American line but more orderly — formed, as people walked out with collector’s items: the first bills with King Charles III’s portrait on them.In the queue were avid coin collectors, people with nostalgic feelings toward the new bank note (the first in their lifetime showing a new monarch) and the odd tourist who happened to need old money changed.The bank has issued 5, 10, 20 and 50 pound bills with the new designs, which are similar in color scheme to the bills in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II on them. Bills with the Queen’s portrait on them will remain in circulation across the country, alongside the ones with King Charles.Although Brits are accustomed to seeing the monarch on their money, it wasn’t always the case. The Bank of England began printing bank notes in 1725, but it was not until 1960 that bills featured the monarch. Until that time, Britannia — the personification of Britain — had been the only character on the bills.The modest but steady line moved along swiftly on Wednesday, with people spending no more than 20 minutes to exchange their money.An orderly line outside the Bank of England headquarters in central London, on Wednesday.Claire Moses/The New York TimesWe 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

Automakers are exploring energy storage as a way to help utilities and save customers money, turning an expensive component into an industry asset.Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline models largely because batteries cost so much. But new technology could turn those pricey devices into an asset, giving owners benefits like reduced utility bills, lower lease payments or free parking.Ford Motor, General Motors, BMW and other automakers are exploring how electric-car batteries could be used to store excess renewable energy to help utilities deal with fluctuations in supply and demand for power. Automakers would make money by serving as intermediaries between car owners and power suppliers.Millions of cars could be thought of as a huge energy system that, for the first time, will be connected to another enormous energy system, the electrical grid, said Matthias Preindl, an associate professor of power electronic systems at Columbia University.“We’re just at the starting point,” Dr. Preindl said. “They will interact more in the future, and they can potentially support one another — or stress one another.”A large flat screen on the wall of the Munich offices of the Mobility House, a firm whose investors include Mercedes-Benz and Renault, illustrates one way that carmakers could profit while helping to stabilize the grid.The graphs and numbers on the screen provide a real-time picture of a European energy market where investors and utilities buy and sell electricity. The price changes from minute to minute as supply and demand surge or ebb.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

Political observers are quick to blame hyperpartisanship and political polarization for leading more than 2,000 supporters of Donald Trump to riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.But according to a recently published study, “racial resentment” – not just partisanship – explains the violence that broke out after the 2020 election.Angered over the claim, promoted by Trump and his closest allies, that heavily Black cities had rigged the 2020 election in favor of Democrats, white voters – some affiliated with white-nationalist groups and militias, and others acting alone – stormed the US capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 election.“What Trump and Republicans did was they tried to make the point that something nefarious was going on in areas that were primarily African American,” said David Wilson, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who published the study with Darren Davis, a professor of political science at Notre Dame.The paper, Stop the Steal: Racial Resentment, Affective Partisanship, and Investigating the January 6th Insurrection, relied on a national survey of adults in the US conducted in 2021.Respondents were asked a question assessing their approval or disapproval of the House select committee investigating January 6, and responded to numerous statements evaluating racial resentment, such as “I resent any special considerations that African Americans receive because it’s unfair to other Americans” and “special considerations for African Americans place me at an unfair disadvantage because I have done nothing to harm them”.The research revealed a correlation between respondents’ feelings of racialized resentment and opposition to the House committee on January 6.Wilson and Davis also point to the fact that while a slew of polls show the general public split somewhat evenly over the legitimacy of the House select committee, Black Americans overwhelmingly supported the committee’s work, while white poll respondents generally opposed it.“Many of President Trump’s supporters believed they were being victimized by election fraud in the 2020 election, but they also believed that whites were being victimized more generally – the American way of life for them was changing and they were being disadvantaged by African Americans and other minorities,” Wilson and Davis wrote.The study comes as the former president and his allies are stoking unfounded fears of non-citizens voting and tainting political outcomes.The strategy activates “action emotions – primarily anger”, said Wilson. “When you’re angry, you want to see some problem resolved because it’s clearly not making you feel good. Your heart rate increases, you have a festering sense that things are wrong and you’re playing by the rules and other people aren’t and it’s just not right.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther forms of racial resentment, according to this framework, would include the perception that affirmative action unfairly hurts white applicants – or the idea that DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies unfairly benefit people of color.Distinct from racial hatred or prejudice, racial resentment, Wilson argues, is a particularly powerful motive to action because it stems from a sense of injustice.The psycho-social phenomenon can have consequences for democracy, Wilson said.“If you can get people to believe that democracy is about your freedom, and that the government is taking that away through taxes, through policies, through regulatory efforts, and [even] by fixing and rigging elections, you can stoke their resentment and they can even come to resent democracy.” More

Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Camille Baker, Neil Berg, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Irineo Cabreros, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Will Houp, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Additional reporting by Felice Belman, Kellen Browning and Patrick Hays; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White.
Editing by Wilson Andrews, Lindsey Rogers Cook, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press. More

The victory makes Mr. Kim a favorite to replace Mr. Menendez’s father, Senator Robert Menendez, who is on trial, charged with corruption — a detail that became central to his son’s re-election race.Representative Andy Kim, a lawmaker who has turned New Jersey politics on its head since entering the race to unseat Senator Robert Menendez, won the Democratic nomination for Senate on Tuesday after a campaign marked by a watershed ballot-access ruling.The victory makes Mr. Kim, 41, a favorite to become New Jersey’s next senator. He would be the first Korean American to be elected to the U.S. Senate.“I’m humbled by the results,” Mr. Kim said at Terhune Orchards in Princeton, where his supporters had gathered to celebrate. “This has been a very challenging and difficult race, a very dramatic one at that, and one that frankly has changed New Jersey politics forever.”The results, announced by The Associated Press minutes after polls closed, capped a tumultuous campaign that began a day after Senator Menendez, a Democrat, was accused in September of being at the center of a sprawling international bribery scheme.The senator’s criminal case thrust his son, Representative Rob Menendez, 38, into a suddenly competitive race for re-election to a second term. But the younger Menendez managed to hold on, winning a Democratic primary over Ravi Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., by a decisive margin.“This is about showing that you’re resilient in the face of challenges,” an exuberant Mr. Menendez told supporters crowded into a beer hall in Jersey City, N.J.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

Tim Sheehy, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Montana on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, setting him up for a November showdown against Senator Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent.With 27 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Sheehy had 75.5 percent, well ahead of his lesser-known opponents. Brad Johnson, Montana’s former secretary of state, had 18 percent of the vote, and Charles Walkingchild had 6.5 percent.The Republican primary was essentially a foregone conclusion since February, when Representative Matt Rosendale abruptly exited the race — less than a week after he entered it — citing former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Sheehy. Mr. Rosendale, a right-wing hard-liner, had been viewed as the only serious challenger to Mr. Sheehy, for whom the Republican establishment had worked to clear the field. His victory is a boon for Republicans as they work to recapture control of the Senate, competing on a favorable map in which a number of vulnerable Democrats face tough re-election battles.“Tim Sheehy is a strong conservative, an American hero and a successful businessman who will bring an outsider’s perspective to a broken Washington,” said Senator Steve Daines, the Montana Republican who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate. “The clearest path to a Republican Senate majority runs through Montana.”Mr. Sheehy will face a formidable opponent in Mr. Tester, a popular incumbent who has survived past challenges in his ruby-red state by leaning on his background as a third-generation Montana farmer and his reputation of bipartisanship. Recent polls have suggested a tight race, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Montana a “tossup.” Mr. Tester officially captured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Mr. Tester has a cash advantage; he raised $4.1 million between April 1 and May 15, according to recent financial filings, and his campaign has $11.7 million cash on hand. Mr. Sheehy’s campaign raised $2.1 million in the same period — including $600,000 the candidate lent himself — and had $2.2 million cash on hand.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

At Hunter Biden’s trial, he listened with the jury to his own voice on the audio version of his memoir. “We’ve all been inside rooms we can’t afford to die in,’’ he heard himself say.When the federal prosecutor, Derek Hines, began his opening statement with the words “no man is above the law,” it signified the only rhetorical acknowledgment to the jury that the trial of Hunter Biden was not an ordinary gun charge.Mr. Hines seemed intent on trying a seemingly run-of-the-mill case of a drug addict charged with illegally purchasing a firearm. In doing so, however, it was as if he had instructed the 12 jurors, in the manner of the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz,” to pay no attention to the extraordinary spectacle plainly in view.Pay no attention to the defendant’s last name, the most famous one in Wilmington. Pay no attention to the first lady, Jill Biden, sitting in the front row behind the defendant, whom she raised as her own son. Pay no attention to Mr. Biden’s famous attorney, Abbe Lowell, or to the millionaire Hollywood lawyer also in the front row, Kevin Morris, who is largely bankrolling his friend Mr. Biden’s legal defense.And pay no attention to the 50 or so members of the media taking up most of the spectator space — among them a documentary film team paid for by Mr. Morris.The 12 jurors were left to deduce these matters on their own. Several of them stole glances at the defendant, as if trying to square the image of the 54-year-old man in the dark suit, flag lapel pin and tortoiseshell reading glasses with the crack addict described in the testimony. At one point, Mr. Biden flashed a genetically familiar broad smile while talking to Mr. Lowell during a courtroom break.For the most part, however, the defendant looked the somber part of a man facing up to 25 years in prison. He sat impassively, listening along with the jury to his own voice reciting the audio version of his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” including the observation, “We’ve all been inside rooms we can’t afford to die in.”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

Herb Conaway, a member of the New Jersey General Assembly, won a five-way Democratic primary for a seat in the U.S. House representing communities in the central and southern part of the state.Mr. Conaway, 61, a physician with a law degree who was first elected in 1997, had won endorsements from the Democratic organizations in Burlington, Monmouth and Mercer Counties.Herb Conaway is a longtime member of the New Jersey General Assembly.He made health care issues a key part of his campaign.“I will continue to defend a woman’s right to choose and a patient’s right to consult with physicians to direct their health care,” said Mr. Conaway, who has been Assembly health committee chairman for 18 years.The District 3 seat became open last fall when the incumbent, Representative Andy Kim, announced plans to run for the Senate seat held by Robert Menendez.Mr. Kim unseated a two-term Republican, Tom MacArthur, in 2018. Since then, redistricting has made the district significantly more Democratic.Mr. Kim’s decision to seek higher office was the first of two major developments to shape the race. The second was a court decision forcing Democratic officials across the state to redesign their primary election ballots. In the past, those candidates endorsed by party leaders were given preferential placement on the ballot — placement known as “the county line.” That is no longer the case, and it threw election night expectations into doubt across the state.Mr. Conaway’s chief competitor was Carol Murphy, 61, a member of the General Assembly who took office in 2018 and in the past worked for lawmakers. Mr. Conaway and Ms. Murphy worked together in the Assembly and had similar voting records.The other Democrats in the race were Joe Cohn, a lawyer from Lumberton; Brian Schkeeper, a 44-year-old teacher from Medford; and Sarah Schoengood, 30, a seafood business owner who was a plaintiff in the ballot lawsuit.In the Republican race, Rajesh Mohan of Holmdel, a cardiologist, beat out three other candidates: Michael F. Faccone of Freehold; Shirley Maia-Cusick of Medford, an immigration consultant; and Gregory Sobocinski of Southampton, a financial adviser. More