Elections

Shariff Bukari, 25, gravitated toward math and science as a child. One of his dream careers was paleontology, which combined his love for dinosaurs with the hands-on work of combing through artifacts. His parents nurtured his curiosity, encouraging him to read books and newspapers. They yearned to give him more opportunities to explore his passions beyond their life in Queens.That wasn’t always easy when both parents worked late shifts. So when a neighbor told his parents about the Fresh Air Fund’s Career Awareness Program, in which children attend camp during the summer and participate in career training sessions during the school year, they filled out an application for him.Mr. Bukari’s parents treasured the time they spent outdoors growing up in Ghana and hoped that their children, who didn’t have the same access to natural escapes in New York City, could discover the joy of swimming in lakes, too.Mr. Bukari was 12 when he spent his first summer in upstate New York, at the Fresh Air Fund’s Camp Mariah. Leaving home for the first time made him feel more mature and aware of how big the world was. Being at camp “raised my eagerness to want to do more things on my own,” he says.He remembers the rush of trying each new summer camp activity: building campfires, jumping into the water, listening for the birds in the trees. But what left the most lasting impact was the career training part of the program, which gave him a new perspective on his ambitions and interests.One day, dancers arrived to talk about their training and the cultures they drew from in their choreography. The creativity and physical demands of the job impressed him, but Mr. Bukari wrestled with the idea of pursuing dance. Hearing people talk about the details of their careers, “you really get to understand and decide whether it’s something you can see yourself doing or not,” he explained. Ultimately, he set dance aside.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 prosecutors said the former president had made “grossly misleading” assertions about the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago that could endanger the agents involved.Federal prosecutors on Friday night asked the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case to bar him from making any statements that might endanger law enforcement agents involved in the proceedings.Prosecutors said Mr. Trump had recently made “grossly misleading” assertions about the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, two years ago. The request came just days after the former president falsely suggested that the F.B.I. had been authorized to shoot him when agents descended on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and discovered more than 100 classified documents while executing a court-approved search warrant.In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that President Biden “authorized the FBI to use deadly (lethal) force” during the search.Mr. Trump’s post was a reaction to an F.B.I. operational plan for the Mar-a-Lago search that was unsealed on Tuesday as part of a legal motion filed by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The plan contained a boilerplate reference to lethal force being authorized as part of the search, which prosecutors said Mr. Trump had distorted.“As Trump is well aware, the F.B.I. took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant unobtrusively and without needless confrontation,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the case.“They scheduled the search of Mar-a-Lago for a time when he and his family would be away,” the prosecutor added. “They planned to coordinate with Trump’s attorney, Secret Service agents and Mar-a-Lago staff before and during the execution of the warrant; and they planned for contingencies — which, in fact, never came to pass — about with whom to communicate if Trump were to arrive on the scene.”The request to Judge Cannon was the first time that prosecutors have sought to restrict Mr. Trump’s public statements in the case.Prosecutors did not seek to impose a gag order on Mr. Trump, but instead asked Judge Cannon to revise his conditions of release to forbid him from making any public comments “that pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation.” More

The landmark settlement made many wonder what the reality — and impact — of revenue-sharing plans with college athletes would look like.Brent Jacquette knows a thing or two about college sports. A former collegiate soccer player and coach in Pennsylvania who is now an executive at a consulting firm for athletic recruiting, he’s well aware of issues surrounding pay for college athletes.But even for an industry veteran like Mr. Jacquette, the news of the N.C.A.A.’s staggering settlement in a class-action antitrust lawsuit on Thursday came as a surprise, with more than a little anxiety. The first words that came to mind, he said, were “trepidation” and “confusion.”And he was not alone in feeling unsettled. Interviews, statements and social media posts mere hours after the settlement was announced showed that many were uncertain and concerned about what the future of collegiate sports holds. “These are unprecedented times, and these decisions will have a seismic effect on the permanent landscape of collegiate athletics,” Phil DiStefano, chancellor of the University of Colorado Boulder, and Rick George, the school’s athletic director, said in a statement. If the $2.8 billion settlement is approved by a judge, it would allow for a revenue-sharing plan through which Division I athletes can be paid directly by their schools for playing sports — a first in the nearly 120-year history of the N.C.A.A. Division 1 schools would be allowed to use about $20 million a year to pay their athletes as soon as the 2025 football season.Mr. Jacquette thought of the word “trepidation” because of the impact that the settlement, shaped by the biggest and wealthiest universities with robust football programs, could have on coaches and athletes at smaller institutions and in low-profile sports.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 ruling could undermine prosecutors’ ability to prove certain elements of the bribery case against Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat.In a potential setback for the government, a federal judge on Friday blocked the introduction of certain evidence that prosecutors wanted to use to support their case that Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey accepted bribes in exchange for approving billions of dollars in aid to Egypt.The judge’s order, which comes two weeks into Mr. Menendez’s corruption trial in Manhattan, could undermine prosecutors’ ability to prove certain elements of the multifaceted bribery charges against the senator.The ruling rests on protections afforded to members of Congress under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which bars the government from citing specific legislative actions in seeking to prove a federal lawmaker committed a crime.The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York has said it intended to sidestep discussion of official legislative acts and focus instead on promises it says preceded Mr. Menendez’s votes and congressional actions.The judge, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court, ruled in March that although Mr. Menendez’s performance of a legislative act was protected conduct, “his promise to do the same is not.”Who Are Key Players in the Menendez Case?Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, are accused of taking part in a wide-ranging, international bribery scheme that lasted five years. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.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

A strong episode focuses on Ruby, the Doctor’s companion, and the mysterious older woman who starts following her from a distance.Season 1, Episode 4: ‘73 Yards’Let’s get the easy bit out of the way. “73 Yards” is not just the best episode of the season so far, but also the strongest story “Doctor Who” has produced in years — despite the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) hardly featuring.That’s not to say the decade-spanning story’s success depends on Gatwa’s absence. Yes, Episode 4 gives Millie Gibson space to break out of her companion role for the first time, and she gives a nuanced performance well beyond her 19 years.But it’s Russell T Davies’s ambitious, unpredictable script that will ensure a place for “73 Yards” in the Whoniverse history books. The episode constantly wrong-foots viewers, plays with folk stories and horror tropes, and finds a genuinely terrifying villain in a nuclear-warmongering politician.“We are in Wales. Spectacular!” shouts the Doctor as the TARDIS materializes on a craggy cliff face. For international viewers, it’s a swift introduction to a nation that has long been associated with “Doctor Who”: Davies is Welsh, and the show is a former BBC Wales production.In a seemingly throwaway comment, the Doctor mentions a future prime minister, a Welshman named Roger ap Gwilliam, who will lead Britain to “the brink of nuclear war” in the 2040s. “Sorry, spoilers,” he says, shooting Ruby a smile.The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, and Ruby start the episode on a cliff in Wales.Bad Wolf/BBC StudiosWe 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 ruling increases the likelihood that Mr. Baldwin will stand trial this summer in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”A judge in New Mexico denied Alec Baldwin’s bid to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge he faces in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust,” ruling on Friday that the case had been properly presented to a grand jury.The ruling by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer increased the likelihood that the trial of Mr. Baldwin would move forward this summer.Lawyers for Mr. Baldwin — who was rehearsing with an old-fashioned revolver on the set in 2021 when it fired a live bullet, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins — have lodged numerous objections to how the case against the actor has been handled, arguing that the prosecution had not sufficiently showed jurors evidence that could have supported Mr. Baldwin’s case. They claimed that the prosecution had “steered grand jurors away” from witnesses who would have testified that it was not Mr. Baldwin’s responsibility to check that the gun was safe to handle on set.In a written order, Judge Marlowe Sommer, of the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, N.M., ordered that the indictment would stand, finding that the prosecution had not operated in bad faith and that the grand jurors had been properly alerted to the existence of the defense’s witnesses and evidence, though they decided not to examine them.“The court is not in a position to second-guess the grand jury’s decision in this regard,” Judge Marlowe Sommer wrote.In a statement on Friday, lawyers for Mr. Baldwin, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said, “We look forward to our day in court.”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 International Court of Justice has no means to enforce its order in the Gazan city, but the ruling added pressure on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Israel to “immediately” halt its military offensive in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, dealing another blow to the country as it faces increasing international isolation and a drumbeat of criticism over its conduct in the war.The court has few effective means of enforcing its order, and it stopped short of ordering a cease-fire in Gaza, with some of the court’s judges arguing that Israel could still conduct some military operations in Rafah under the terms of their decision.But the order added more pressure on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced domestic and external calls to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas that would lead to the release of hostages held in Gaza.“The court considers that, in conformity with obligations under the Genocide Convention, Israel must immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” the court’s president, Nawaf Salam, said in reading the 13-2 ruling.The court, based at The Hague, also specified the need for open land crossings, in particular the Rafah crossing, as part of its request for “the unhindered provision” of humanitarian assistance and services. Israel has controlled the Rafah crossing for more than two weeks, and very few aid trucks have entered the enclave since, according to United Nations data.The Israeli government said in a statement that its military “has not and will not” take actions that would lead to the partial or complete destruction of the Palestinian population of Rafah. In effect, it said that the court’s decision has no bearing on Israel’s offensive because the prohibited acts are not occurring. 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

Some G.O.P. Trump opponents want to hear more from the Biden campaign. It says it’s on it.Earlier this week, a couple of former Republican members of Congress sent an email to dozens of fellow G.O.P. retirees with a clear and urgent subject line.“Join the Republicans for Biden,” it said. “PLEASE.”The email invited the former lawmakers to a virtual meeting next week with members of President Biden’s campaign team — a meeting that, for many of them, would be their first official interaction with Biden’s re-election campaign since it kicked off last year.Some recipients were quick to offer their help. But multiple people who received the email said it had kicked off a private airing of frustrations among Republicans who, despite publicly supporting Biden in 2020, and in some cases risking their political future to take on Trump, said they had been largely ignored by the campaign and an administration they didn’t always agree with.“A lot of us are wrestling with, how can we support him when he’s gone so far to the left?” said former Representative Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, who endorsed Biden in 2020 but said he was “unlikely” to do so again.Back in 2020, a steady stream of Republicans stepped forward and endorsed Biden, representing a narrow but important slice of the electorate: anti-Trump Republicans. That group took a hit this week when Nikki Haley, Trump’s last rival standing in the Republican primary, said she planned to vote for him — a man she frequently described as dangerous.Now, even as Trump lays out a vision for a presidency that could be even more radical than his first, the Republican opposition is in an uneasy place. Some Republicans blame the Biden campaign, saying they’ve heard practically nothing from an operation they think could use their help. And they worry that the omission represents a broader failure to bring moderate Republicans into the fold.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