Elections

After first ignoring former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, then beginning to make sly insinuations about how he was “free on Wednesdays,” the court’s day off, President Biden’s campaign has jumped in with a stunt designed to emphasize the unprecedented situation of a major party’s presidential candidate awaiting a felony verdict.The Biden campaign on Tuesday dispatched Robert De Niro, the actor whose voice narrates the campaign’s latest ad, along with Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone, two former U.S. Capitol Police officers who have since become spokesmen for the Democratic effort to attack Mr. Trump over his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to hold a news conference outside the courthouse in Manhattan where Mr. Trump’s trial was concluding.“This is not a threat,” Mr. De Niro said of the prospect that Mr. Trump could return to the White House. “This is a reality.” The news conference was the sort of thing the Trump campaign would have done from the beginning if the political situation were reversed.The Biden campaign has for weeks kept to the letter of the president’s directive to not address the criminal charges Mr. Trump faces or offer commentary on the trial, but its decision to dispatch surrogates to the Manhattan courthouse while the former president’s lawyer was delivering his closing argument was hardly subtle.Though Mr. De Niro and the two former police officers did not address Mr. Trump’s Manhattan trial — he is charged with falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election — they sought to draw attention to his actions that led to the events of Jan. 6, which are the subject of another federal criminal case pending against Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has sought to tie together all four of his criminal cases and has argued baselessly that Mr. Biden is behind them all. In addition to the Manhattan trial, he is charged in separate federal cases over his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, along with a Georgia case related to his push to reverse that year’s results.Mr. Trump’s loudest supporters quickly jumped on the Biden news conference as evidence that the four cases against Mr. Trump are connected and that Mr. Biden is the hidden hand behind them all.“In case you needed more evidence that all of these BS cases were quarterbacked by Team Biden to interfere in the 2024 election, the Biden campaign is now showing up in NYC to explicitly cheerlead the political prosecution of my father,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on social media. More

An insider accused the agency of failing to scrutinize a lucrative tax break in Puerto Rico designed to lure wealthy Americans to the island.For the past decade, thousands of wealthy Americans have been flocking to Puerto Rico to take advantage of a tax break that can cut their tax bills to zero. For nearly as long, there have been allegations that the benefit enables multimillionaires to avoid paying what they owe when they reap big investment profits.Now, an Internal Revenue Service insider has accused the agency of failing to police the tax break. Despite a high-profile campaign announced more than three years ago to unearth possible abuse, the agency has audited barely two dozen people and has collected back taxes from none, according to a letter that an agency insider wrote this year to lawmakers and that has been reviewed by The New York Times, as well as interviews with I.R.S. officials.Senate officials have begun an investigation into the whistle-blower’s allegations about the Puerto Rican tax benefit.“It’s been three years since the I.R.S. announced its enforcement campaign on this issue,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “It needs to pick up the pace.”Hamstrung by decades of budget cuts, the I.R.S. has regularly struggled to crack down on tax avoidance by the wealthiest Americans and large companies. Audits of millionaires have declined more than 80 percent over the past decade, reaching record lows. The agency rarely examines giant private equity firms. And the annual “tax gap” — the difference between taxes that are owed and what is paid — is estimated to be $600 billion.In an interview, Danny Werfel, the I.R.S. commissioner, said the agency’s enforcement campaign in Puerto Rico, while still in its “early chapters,” was accelerating because of the $80 billion in new funding that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided to the agency.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

Francis’ remark, referring to gay men, came during what was supposed to be a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops last week.The Vatican said on Tuesday that Pope Francis “extends his apologies” after reports that he had used an offensive slang word referring to gay men at what was intended to be a private meeting with 250 Italian bishops last week.Francis had been taking questions from Italian bishops meeting for their annual assembly on a number of issues when the question of whether or not to admit openly gay men into seminaries, or priesthood colleges, came up.According to several people present at the meeting, who spoke anonymously to Italian media, Francis stated a firm no, saying that seminaries were already too full of “frociaggine,” an offensive slang term referring to gay men.“Pope Francis is aware of articles that recently came out about a conversation, behind closed doors,” said Matteo Bruni, the press office director for the Holy See, in response to questions from reporters. “The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term, reported by others.”Francis has been widely credited with urging the church to take a more welcoming approach to the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and he has delivered a mostly inclusive message.At the start of his papacy, he said, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” He also met often with gay-rights activists, and made a decision last year allowing priests to bless same-sex couples.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 Cannes Festival jury led by Greta Gerwig announced its winners this weekend, including the Palme d’Or for “Anora,” a comedy from the American filmmaker Sean Baker about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. The ceremony concluded 10 full days filled with movies and long ovations, news conferences peppered with politics, a filmmaker’s return, women-led films that caused a stir, a president’s origin story and, of course, canine stars. But the Côte d’Azur’s red carpet proved also to be a bonanza, where stars upped the ante on style, wearing bright swaths of color, statement hats that canceled out the need for any SPF — and baring skin, lots of it. Here, 15 looks worth remembering. Anya Taylor-Joy: Most Flapper!Andre Pain/EPA, via ShutterstockThe star of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” wore an updated flapper style in her Jil Sander skirt suit. The actress mixed a cropped jacket, shag skirt and fringe with a delicate heel and dramatic eyes to pull off an elegant yet understated look.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

Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon will star in the two-hander, a psychological thriller that previously found success downtown.“Job,” a two-character thriller about a psychological evaluation going awry, started small, with a run last year at SoHo Playhouse. Word-of-mouth was good, the New York Times review was positive and sales were strong, so early this year it transferred for another Off Broadway run at the Connelly Theater in the East Village.Now the play, written by Max Wolf Friedlich and directed by Michael Herwitz, is planning to make the leap to Broadway, with a two-month run beginning this summer at the Hayes Theater.The Broadway production, like the Off Broadway runs, will star Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon. Both of them appeared in the HBO series “Succession” — Friedman was a member of the principal cast, playing Frank Vernon, the chief operating officer of Waystar Royco, and Lemmon appeared in the show at one point as a love interest of Kendall Roy.Friedman is a mainstay of the New York stage who was nominated for a Tony Award for “Ragtime.” Lemmon has worked mostly onscreen, including in the Hulu streamer “Helstrom”; if her surname sounds familiar, that’s because she is also the granddaughter of the great actor Jack Lemmon.In “Job,” Friedman plays a therapist who has been hired to evaluate Lemmon’s character for her suitability to return to work. (She has been suspended after a videotaped workplace breakdown.) Their interaction is fraught, and frightening, from the get-go.“Job” is scheduled to begin previews July 15 and to open July 30 at the Hayes Theater, which, with about 600 seats, is the smallest house on Broadway. The run will be brief — it is scheduled to end on Sept. 29.The play is being produced by Hannah Getts, who has been with the show at each stage of its production history; Alex Levy, a speechwriter and media strategist whose work includes communications consulting for New York Times executives; Craig Balsam, who co-founded the music company Razor & Tie; and P3 Productions, the company that was the lead producer for last season’s musical “How to Dance in Ohio.”“Job” will be the latest sign of a surge to the stage by “Succession” alumni. Those include two of this year’s Tony nominees — Jeremy Strong, who played Kendall Roy on “Succession,” is nominated for “An Enemy of the People,” and Juliana Canfield, who played Kendall’s assistant, Jess, is nominated for “Stereophonic.”Also on Broadway, Natalie Gold, who played Kendall’s ex-wife, Rava, is featured in “Appropriate.”Meanwhile in London, Sarah Snook (Shiv Roy) won an Olivier Award last month for her performance in a one-woman version of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” that is expected to transfer to New York next year. Also in London, Brian Cox (Logan Roy) is starring in a revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and J. Smith-Cameron (Gerri Kellman) is planning to star in a revival of “Juno and the Paycock” this fall. More

The choreographer Florentina Holzinger’s shows feature circus performers and abundant nudity. Now, she’s bringing her experimental approach to opera.In a rehearsal last week at the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin, northeastern Germany, Fleshpiece, a shirtless performer with tattoos and purple hair, strode to the front of the main stage and delivered an impassioned monologue.“This opera house, this is our church,” Fleshpiece intoned. “We continue to nail you to the present, just as Jesus was nailed to the cross.”Supervising the scene was the experimental choreographer Florentina Holzinger, wearing a black baseball cap and a T-shirt printed with a picture of two nuns engaged in B.D.S.M. play.Her previous works, including “Ophelia’s Got Talent” at the Volksbühne in Berlin and “A Divine Comedy” for the Rührtriennale festival, were boundary-pushing, peripatetic shows in which nudity, profanity, onstage helicopters, onstage ejaculation and performers hanging from their teeth have shocked and awed audiences. “Ophelia’s Got Talent” jointly won Germany’s Faust prize for best dance production last year, cementing Holzinger’s status as one of Europe’s rising theater stars.In the German-speaking world, that kind of profile brings invitations to direct opera — and Holzinger’s work, which matches music with powerful, stage-filling spectacle, certainly has operatic qualities. Yet a gilded opera theater still seems an unlikely home for Holzinger, 38, whose anarchic works are collaged from new and old text and music, often with sharply contrasting styles.Holzinger is known for her boundary-pushing experimental shows.Gordon Welters for 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

The co-founder of the shared-office company, who stepped down under pressure before the firm went bankrupt, announced an audacious takeover bid earlier this year.Adam Neumann has officially admitted defeat in his quest to buy back WeWork, ending his bid to acquire the co-working company that he helped found in 2010 and built into a global enterprise valued at $47 billion before it fell into bankruptcy last year.“For several months, we tried to work constructively with WeWork to create a strategy that would allow it to thrive,” Mr. Neumann said in a statement to the DealBook newsletter. “Instead, the company looks to be emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed.”The writing was on the wall for weeks. Mr. Neumann stepped down as WeWork’s chief executive in 2019 under pressure from directors and investors, after the company failed to go public amid questions about its business model and corporate governance. It marked a stunning fall for Mr. Neumann, the company’s charismatic frontman.But in February, DealBook reported that Mr. Neumann was planning an audacious move to buy back the company.His new real estate company, Flow, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, offered more than $500 million. The plan was to buy WeWork or its assets, and inject bankruptcy financing to keep it afloat.But WeWork found a different lifeline. A U.S. bankruptcy judge last month approved a restructuring deal that essentially wiped out $4 billion in company debt. It also included $450 million in new funding from SoftBank, the Japanese technology investor that has backed WeWork from its early days, enabling it to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy.WeWork has been busy renegotiating leases in an effort to shed $11 billion in rent obligations. The rise of hybrid work since the coronavirus pandemic has hit the commercial real estate sector hard. A surge in vacancies has helped companies like WeWork rework deals with landlords, but has also cast doubts over the growth potential of the shared-office business model. More

This Tuesday debut puzzle is full of fun facts.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAYPUZZLE — One of the downsides of being the editorial director of games is that it’s now rare for me to solve one of our puzzles the way the our solver community does. I often see puzzles in their nascent stages, and I’m thinking about the details rather than enjoying the solving experience. I was happy to solve this Tuesday the way I used to: at my kitchen table with my little sister, coffees in hand. She likes to solve jigsaw puzzles on her iPad, and we chat idly as we work on our respective devices.Today’s puzzle, a debut by Chris Leatherberry, was a fun one to do with a family member. The theme is accessible, and I do love a long entry. But the rest of the puzzle is full of facts and figures that lend themselves to group solving. For example, I was briefly stumped on 7-Down.“Hey — Flying adversary for Godzilla,” I lobbed at my sister. In our defense, Godzilla has had many enemies.“Planes!” she shouted. We looked at each other and burst into laughter.The answer is below, for those who need help.7D. Flying adversary for GodzillaRODANWe 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