Elections

Larry Connor, 74, who made his wealth in real estate, said he’s building a new acrylic-hulled submersible that will be certified and rigorously tested to show that deep sea exploration is safe.A real estate billionaire in Ohio is planning an underwater voyage to the site of the Titanic shipwreck, where a submersible imploded on its approach to the sea floor a year ago, killing all five passengers on board.Shortly after the OceanGate disaster, Larry Connor, 74, a real estate investor and amateur adventurer, contacted the co-founder of Triton Submarines, Patrick Lahey, imploring him to build a submarine that could reach the depths of the Titanic safely and repeatedly, according to The Wall Street Journal.The two men aim to explore and conduct scientific research at the site, located off the coast of Newfoundland, 12,500 feet under the sea, in a two-person submersible that Triton is designing in the summer of 2026.“Ours is just not a trip to the Titanic,” Mr. Connor said in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s a research mission.”“The other purpose is to demonstrate to people around the globe that you can build a revolutionary, first-of-its-kind sub and dive it safely and successfully to great depths,” he added.The custom sub, which Mr. Connor plans to call “The Explorer — Return to the Titanic,” is still in the design phase and will be based on an existing submarine design that Mr. Lahey had worked on for years. It is listed on the Triton website as the Abyssal Explorer, an acrylic-hulled vessel than can reach depths of 13,000 feet, “the perfect submersible for repeated trips to the deep ocean.”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

Garry Conille is taking on the office just ahead of the arrival of a Kenyan-led international police force charged with helping restore order to the violence-torn nation.An experienced international aid official, Garry Conille, was unanimously appointed prime minister of Haiti by a Presidential Transition Council on Tuesday, which tasked him with leading the country out of its current crisis until elections for a new president can be held.Mr. Conille will take on his new role just as a U.N.-backed security mission led by Kenyan police is scheduled to begin operations in the violence-torn Caribbean nation, which is battling to restore political stability and tackle armed gangs who control large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince.Fluent in English, French and Creole, Mr. Conille’s credentials include a 25-year career working for the United Nations and other aid agencies. He also briefly led Haiti as prime minister over a decade ago during another period of crisis following the devastating 2010 earthquake.But Mr. Conille has spent many of the last few years outside the country, and his perhaps rusty domestic political skills are sure to be tested by the highly volatile situation he will encounter as prime minister.He will not, however, have to face any political battles with Haiti’s fractious Parliament, which has sat vacant for months because of the country’s inability to hold elections amid the violence and turmoil.“He is a safe choice to appease the international community, but he’s also spent the last two decades working mostly outside Haiti in the U.N. system,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.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

As the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump began its seventh week, the prosecution and the defense made their final pitches to jurors, sending the landmark case into deliberations on Wednesday.A defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, spent three hours Tuesday hammering Michael D. Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, including accusing him of perjury. He attacked Stormy Daniels, the porn star whose account of a tryst with Mr. Trump in 2006 set in motion the charges the former president faces.The prosecution countered with an even longer, more detailed summation, pushing into the evening. A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, guided jurors through reams of evidence they had introduced and elicited, including testimony, emails, text messages and recordings.Mr. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying 34 business records to hide Mr. Cohen’s reimbursement for a $130,000 hush-money payment he made to Ms. Daniels. Mr. Trump has denied the charges and the sexual encounter.Once deliberations begin Wednesday, no one knows how long they will take. If convicted, Mr. Trump — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — could face prison or probation.Here are five takeaways from closing arguments and Mr. Trump’s 21st day on trial.‘Michael Cohen is a liar’ was a refrain. It may be the defense’s best bet.“The human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”The Links Between Trump and 3 Hush-Money DealsHere’s how key figures involved in making hush-money payoffs on behalf of Donald J. Trump are connected.The Donald Trump Indictment, AnnotatedThe indictment unveiled in April 2023 centers on a hush-money deal with a porn star, but a related document alleges a broader scheme to protect Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign.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

Jay Furman, a retired Navy officer, has won the Republican nomination to challenge embattled Representative Henry Cuellar of South Texas in November, according to The Associated Press.Mr. Furman defeated his challenger, Lazaro Garza Jr., a rancher, in a runoff after the two emerged as the top vote-getters in a crowded March primary. Mr. Cuellar, a centrist Democrat, is still largely expected to win re-election in Texas’ 28th Congressional District. But the terrain has become somewhat more favorable for Republicans after Mr. Cuellar was indicted this month on federal bribery and money-laundering charges.Mr. Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, are accused of accepting at least $598,000 over seven years from a Mexican bank and an oil company owned by the government of Azerbaijan, according to the federal indictment. He has denied any wrongdoing.In his district, which stretches from his hometown, Laredo, and the U.S. southern border to the eastern outskirts of San Antonio, Mr. Cuellar is considered an institution. He has powerful allies on both sides of the aisle and has survived two bruising Democratic primary contests. Even former President Donald J. Trump — who is on trial over allegations that he falsified business records — has come to his defense, arguing Mr. Cuellar became a target of the Biden administration because he supports tight border policies.Mr. Cuellar’s fund-raising efforts have dwarfed those of his Republican opponent. At the end of March, Mr. Cuellar had raised nearly $2 million and had more than $415,000 cash on hand. As of May, Mr. Furman had raised just under $195,500 and had roughly $2,013 cash on hand, according to the latest federal filings for each campaign.Still, Mr. Furman is betting the charges against Mr. Cuellar have improved his odds. The election forecasters Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have both shifted their rating for the general election from likely Democratic to leans Democratic.Mr. Furman, who grew up in Austin and lives in San Antonio, served in the military for nearly 30 years before returning to Texas. Like Mr. Garza, he has made immigration central to his campaign. He echoes Mr. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and calls for hard-line actions, including mass deportations. On his website, he also has promised to tackle inflation, empower small businesses and block “‘woke’ insanity.”In an interview, Mr. Furman argued the charges against Mr. Cuellar were “exactly in line with what the people have come to expect of the Cuellar dynasty.” But he also echoed Mr. Trump in his criticism of the Justice Department, which he contended had been weaponized against conservatives.“My goal is not only to highlight his charges,” he said, “but also the arbitrary capricious enforcement of the law by our Department of Justice.” More

Over more than five hours on Tuesday, a Manhattan prosecutor made his final case to the jury in Donald J. Trump’s criminal hush-money trial that the former president had orchestrated “a conspiracy and a coverup” to help him win the 2016 presidential election.The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, argued that 20 witnesses called to the stand and evidence presented during six weeks of testimony had shown that Mr. Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges stem from his repayment, made on the eve of the 2016 election, of hush money that silenced a porn star’s account of a sexual encounter a decade earlier.Mr. Steinglass wove a sweeping story of how Mr. Trump, with help from The National Enquirer and his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, among others, sought to bury negative news stories about Mr. Trump in the days and months before the election. One effort included the catch-and-kill operation to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels, the porn star, which Mr. Steinglass said kept the American public from knowing about her account when they voted.“This scheme, cooked up by these men, at this time, could very well be what got President Trump elected,” Mr. Steinglass said. “This was overt election fraud, an act in furtherance of the conspiracy to promote Mr. Trump’s election by unlawful means.”A deal with Ms. Daniels took on extra urgency, he said, following the leak in October 2016 of an “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.Mr. Steinglass started his closing argument by countering the statements by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche earlier in the day. He said that the Trump team’s closing argument — which claimed that Mr. Trump was a victim of extortion — did not change the underlying facts of the case. And, Mr. Steinglass noted, extortion is not a defense for falsifying business records.Mr. Steinglass acknowledged to the jurors that some of the witnesses had biases. Both Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels have talked publicly about wanting to see Mr. Trump convicted, and Mr. Cohen admitted on the stand that he stole money from the Trump Organization. But he said their testimony was credible and often corroborated by others who took the stand.“I’m not asking you to feel bad for Michael Cohen,” Mr. Steinglass told the jury. “He made his bed.”At the end of the marathon day, just before 8 p.m., Mr. Steinglass said that while the former president is a former president, the law applies to him the same as it does to everyone else. More

At an industry presentation about dangerous “forever chemicals,” lawyers predicted a wave of lawsuits that could dwarf asbestos litigation, audio from the event revealed.The defense lawyer minced no words as he addressed a room full of plastic-industry executives. Prepare for a wave of lawsuits​ with​ potentially “astronomical” costs​. Speaking at a conference earlier this year, the lawyer, Brian Gross, said the coming litigation could “dwarf anything related to asbestos,” one of the most sprawling corporate-liability battles in United States history.Mr. Gross was referring to PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that have emerged as one of the major pollution issues of our time. Used for decades in countless everyday objects — cosmetics, takeout containers, frying pans — PFAS have been linked to serious health risks including cancer. Last month the federal government said several types of PFAS must be removed from the drinking water of hundreds of millions of Americans.“Do what you can, while you can, before you get sued,” Mr. Gross said at the February session, according to a recording of the event made by a participant and examined by The New York Times. “Review any marketing materials or other communications that you’ve had with your customers, with your suppliers, see whether there’s anything in those documents that’s problematic to your defense,” he said. “Weed out people and find the right witness to represent your company.”A spokesman for Mr. Gross’s employer, MG+M The Law Firm, which defends companies in high-stakes litigation, didn’t respond to questions about Mr. Gross’s remarks and said he was unavailable to discuss them.A wide swathe of the chemicals, plastics and related industries are gearing up to fight a surge in litigation related to PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of nearly 15,000 versatile synthetic chemicals linked to serious health problems.PFAS chemicals, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been detected almost everywhere scientists have looked: in drinking water, in rain falling over the Great Lakes, even in Antarctic snow. They are thought to be present in the blood of nearly every American. Researchers have linked exposure to PFAS to testicular and kidney cancers, developmental delays in children, decreased fertility, liver damage and thyroid disease. The man-made chemicals are so long-lasting that scientists haven’t been able to reliably identify how long it might take for them to break down.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

The Parliament, controlled by the Georgian Dream party, overrode a presidential veto of a bill critics say could undermine the country’s efforts to join the European Union.Georgia’s Parliament gave final approval on Tuesday to a contentious bill that has plunged the country into a political crisis and threatened to derail the pro-Western aspirations of many Georgians in favor of closer ties with Russia.The law will require nongovernmental groups and media organizations that receive at least 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as organizations “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” The country’s justice ministry will be given broad powers to monitor compliance. Violations could result in fines equivalent to more than $9,000.The passage of the bill is likely to represent a pivotal moment for Georgia, which has been one of the most pro-Western states to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The bill has already unsteadied Georgia’s relationship with the United States and the European Union, and it could upset the fragile geopolitics of the Caucasus, a volatile region where the interests of Russia, Turkey, Iran and the West have long come into conflict.The bill has also set off night after night of protests in the capital, Tbilisi, that have often descended into clashes with the police. Dozens of protesters have been beaten and arrested as the police used pepper spray, tear gas and fists to disperse them.Lawmakers from the ruling Georgian Dream party on Tuesday voted to override a veto of the bill that was announced on May 18 by President Salome Zourabichvili. Ms. Zourabichvili has been among the most vocal opponents of the law, but her veto was largely symbolic, because the government easily had the votes in Parliament to pass it with a simple majority.President Salome Zourabichvili, center, has been a vocal opponent of the law, but her veto was largely symbolic.Vano Shlamov/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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

Two of the escapees were back in jail after being found in a dumpster, while the others remained at large, officials said.Four men were able to escape from Tangipahoa Parish Jail in Louisiana this weekend because of an eight-inch gap and a lack of oversight at the facility, the authorities said. Two of the men were still at large as of Monday night, while the other two had been found hiding in a dumpster, the police said.Jimmy Travis, the chief of operations for the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s office, blamed structural issues and a lack of oversight by the jail staff in a news conference on Monday.The four men escaped after they evaded correction officers during recreation time in the yard and hid out until darkness, according to a Facebook statement from the Tangipahoa Parish sheriff, Daniel Edwards.The men escaped in pairs, Mr. Travis said. The first two — Avery Guidry, 19, and Travon Johnson, 21 — left the jail on Saturday by evading correctional officers and escaping through a narrow, eight-inch gap under a wall before scaling two fences after dark. On Sunday, two other inmates — Omarion Hookfin, 19, and Jamarcus Cyprian, 20 — copied that route for their escape.The authorities were not aware that the men had escaped until a family member of one of the escapees called them on Sunday, saying that the men had tried to seek refuge at a relative’s house, Mr. Travis said. He attributed the delayed realization to understaffing and a lack of oversight.“If proper head counts had been conducted we would have known about it immediately,” he said.The staffing issues at the jail over the weekend are not unique for the state, which has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country. In 2022, Louisiana corrections officials told lawmakers that state prisons and juvenile detention facilities were understaffed because of low wages and poor conditions.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