Elections

They consider their bodies and the results on the court to determine when to hang it up.For two decades, men’s tennis pretty much meant Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.Now, Federer is retired and a hobbled Nadal is nearing the end. Djokovic won three Grand Slam events last year, but at 36 he is suddenly struggling, even as he heads into the French Open ranked No. 1.But below Mount Olympus, life is different for tennis mortals. Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic all won Grand Slam events and are still playing, as are Gaël Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Fabio Fognini, Roberto Bautista Agut and Kei Nishikori, players who once cracked the top 10.These players still scuffle along in reduced circumstances, far lower in the rankings than during their halcyon days. These old men of the court — all 34 to 39 years old — win a few matches here and there without much chance of regaining their former glory, yet they keep grinding.Gaël Monfils, 37, celebrating after a win at the 2024 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. “Every day I ask myself why I’m still doing this,” he said, before citing his “passion for the game” as his motivation.Michael Owens/Getty ImagesNow, only Monfils, ranked 36th, is even in the top 50. Murray is 75th, while Bautista Agut, Wawrinka, Fognini and Gasquet are from 80th through 124th. Cilic has fallen to 1,063rd but just had a second knee surgery in the hopes of coming back, while Nishikori is ranked 347th and still striving to get back on the court. (The miraculous inverse to all this is Adrian Mannarino, who suddenly at 35 cracked the top 20 for the first time this year.)“Every day I ask myself why I’m still doing this,” Monfils said with a laugh, before citing his “passion for the game” as his motivation. (He has extra incentive: His wife, Elina Svitolina, who is 29 and still in the WTA’s top 20, “pushes me quite a lot.”)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

Modern soccer shouldn’t be set up to rob fans of their joy.All being well, Bayer Leverkusen will end this season with one record, two trophies and just three haunting, existential questions. They will all trace back to Wednesday, back to Dublin, back to the Europa League final, and they will all take exactly the same, baleful form: What if?What if Exequiel Palacios had seen Ademola Lookman coming? What if Granit Xhaka had not given the ball away? What if Edmond Tapsoba had stretched out his leg? Could the final have been different? Could Leverkusen have rallied to beat Atalanta? Could Leverkusen’s manager, Xabi Alonso, have steered his team to an unbeaten treble?It is cruel, of course, that it should be this way. Leverkusen has, after all, illuminated the European season like no other team. It has won its first German championship, after 120 years of trying. It should, this weekend, add the German cup to its trophy haul. It has overtaken Benfica as the owner of the longest unbeaten run in European soccer since World War I. And it has done it all, in case nobody has mentioned it, in Alonso’s first full season in management.That is how its season should be remembered. When Alonso, his players and his fans reflect on this campaign in years to come, they should focus on what the team achieved, not on where it fell short. It has outstripped even the most fanciful of its ambitions. But should is not the same as will. Nothing hurts as much as nearly. Leverkusen will, whether it wants to or not, always wonder.Even before it lifted the Bundesliga trophy, Bayer Leverkusen knew it wouldn’t lose Manager Xabi Alonso.Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere is, though, a silver lining. A couple of months ago, as both Liverpool and Bayern Munich began to search for a new coach, Alonso made it clear that he would not welcome an approach from either club. He was, he said, still honing his craft. He had made a long-term commitment to Leverkusen, and he did not intend to break it at the first available opportunity.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

Madison Chamberlain is carving a niche with her vibrant, over-the-top bridal designs.“Make me look like a disco ball.” For most designers this isn’t a common request, but for Madison Chamberlain, so-called disco brides, and anyone looking to splash extra color, sparkle or glam into their wedding day, are a mainstay of her business.Ms. Chamberlain, 29, started her bridal brand in 2022. “I’ve always been what you would call an occasion-wear designer,” she said. In college, at what was then known as Philadelphia University, she studied fashion design and made “jacquard coats decked out in embellishments and trimmed with orange fur,” she said. “Things that were just extreme.”In 2019, Ms. Chamberlain left a design assistant job at Free People, where she had worked on party dresses. She was feeling burned out from corporate fashion and dreamed of someday starting her own fashion line, one of “joyful things,” made in a size-inclusive, low-waste way.Ms. Chamberlain’s sweetheart veil in copper…Alyssa Rose Photographyand in white tulle.Alyssa Rose PhotographyFor about two years she worked for a wedding-invitation studio, painted pet portraits, did freelance design work and taught children’s art and sewing classes. Then, in 2021, a friend of a friend asked Ms. Chamberlain to make a dress for her wedding in New Orleans. She created a custom gown embellished with shimmering paillettes, and wound up being invited to the wedding. The experience inspired her to shift her focus to nontraditional bridal design.In August 2022, Ms. Chamberlain posted a TikTok video of her first veil, a rainbow sequin piece. It got more than two million views and sparked a flurry of inquiries. After that, she was able to make the brand her full-time job, running her business out of a studio in Philadelphia.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

Former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday opened the door to bringing Nikki Haley into his circle, another step in what looked to be a thawing of hostilities between the two former rivals.“Well, I think she’s going be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Mr. Trump told News 12, the New York area cable outlet, one day after Ms. Haley said that she would vote for him in the November election.That admission from Ms. Haley, his one-time United Nations ambassador-turned-bitter rival for the Republican presidential nomination, was a seemingly requisite first step toward reconciliation between the two.In the interview after his rally in the Bronx on Wednesday, he also engaged in a rare moment of praise for Ms. Haley, calling her “a very capable person.”During the lopsided G.O.P. primary race, which ended in March with Ms. Haley’s withdrawal, Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley exchanged frequent attacks.Mr. Trump repeatedly called Ms. Haley “birdbrain” and insinuated that her husband, a National Guardsmen, left for a deployment in order to escape her.Ms. Haley increasingly clapped back at Mr. Trump and his attempts to push her out of the race, referring to him in late January as “unhinged.”Until recently, the prospects of the two making amends appeared to be uncertain, with Mr. Trump shooting down a report this month that he was considering Ms. Haley as his running mate.Mr. Trump has enlisted several other former G.O.P. opponents in his bid to avenge his defeat in the 2020 election: Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur.Mr. Trump’s “team of rivals mantra,” one made famous by Abraham Lincoln, appears to be a recognition of Ms. Haley’s potential value to his campaign, both in terms of dollars and votes.Despite leaving the G.O.P. nominating contest more than two months ago, Ms. Haley has continued to draw significant numbers of voters in subsequent primaries, chipping away at critical support that Mr. Trump is likely to need in a close election against President Biden. In Wisconsin, she received more than 75,000 votes (nearly 13 percent of ballots cast) in this month’s Republican primary.And then there are Ms. Haley’s connections to donors. In April, she was named the Walter P. Stern chairwoman at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank with a formidable list of high-dollar donors.Jazmine Ulloa More

If approved by a judge, the $2.8 billion settlement of an antitrust lawsuit would allow for the first revenue-sharing plan for college athletes. The question now: How will it work?Since its founding, the N.C.A.A. has operated with a business model that defined the college athlete as an amateur. Over the years, as college sports evolved into a mega-enterprise, lawsuits and labor actions chipped away at that model, which came to be increasingly seen as exploitative in big-money sports like football and men’s basketball. But the N.C.A.A.’s $2.8 billion settlement on Thursday night in a class-action antitrust lawsuit represents the heaviest blow — and perhaps a decisive one — to that system. If approved by a U.S. district judge in California, the settlement would allow for the creation of the first revenue-sharing plan for college athletics, a landmark shift in which schools would directly pay their athletes for playing.This sea change, though, also carries its own questions, according to critics. Those include whether women would be compensated fairly, whether smaller conferences would bear a disproportionate burden of the settlement and whether this framework would do anything to limit the power of collectives — the booster-funded groups that entice players with payments to hopscotch from school to school. “It’s both a historic and deeply flawed agreement,” said Michael H. LeRoy, a law professor at the University of Illinois. “The idea that schools are paying millions of dollars to the people who are selling the TV contracts and filling the seats — that’s good. But it closes one Pandora’s box and opens four or five others.”In recent years, college athletes had already made significant strides in gaining the right to make money for their performances. Three years ago, they were allowed for the first time to individually market their name, image and likeness legally. And in March, the men’s basketball team at Dartmouth voted to form a union after a federal official ruled that players were employees of the school. Thursday’s settlement in the case of House v. N.C.A.A. was seen by many college administrators as an inevitable conclusion. 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 state dinner was held in honor of the African nation, but it was clear that the night was about keeping Democratic allies close as President Biden heads into the heat of the 2024 campaign season.Yes, Barack Obama was there.State dinners are best known as bear hugs for overseas allies, and Thursday’s honoree was Kenya. But the sixth state dinner of President Biden’s term was designed to clutch domestic allies — not the least of them Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan — even tighter as the president makes the long slog toward November.The 500-person event, held on the South Lawn of the White House on a humid May evening, was attended by dozens of influential Kenyans, of course. The list included President William Ruto of Kenya and his wife, Rachel, along with three of his daughters. It also included some of the country’s wealthiest figures, like James Mwangi, the chief executive of the global banking conglomerate Equity Group Holdings Limited.“We share a strong respect for the history that connects us together,” Mr. Biden said to his guests during a toast. He quoted from a speech given by President Jimmy Carter, who honored Kenya with a state dinner in 1980: “Neighbors do not share a border but share beliefs.”But the evening, along with the guest list, was just as notable for what it said about Mr. Biden’s current political obstacles. Aside from Mr. Obama — the former president was not on the initial guest list published by the White House, and he departed before Mr. Biden’s speech — the list name-checked the people Mr. Biden will want to bring closer into the fold in the months ahead. The lineup included elected officials in several battleground states, influential Black political operatives, and powerful philanthropists, like Melinda French Gates.Choosing their guests, the president and Jill Biden, the first lady, mixed supporters of the president’s re-election effort with several Biden family members — granddaughters and Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, who is scheduled to stand trial on gun charges next month. (Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, walked the red carpet alone.) There were few Hollywood types, though one notable attendee was the actor Sean Penn. Mr. Penn was photographed by the gossip website TMZ as he spent time with Hunter Biden, who has been working on a documentary about his life, in California earlier this month.Hunter Biden and the actor Sean Penn listened to President William Ruto of Kenya as he spoke at the dinner.Haiyun Jiang 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 Republican National Committee, alarmed by what it sees as a significantly worsening security threat, asked on Thursday that the director of the Secret Service personally intervene and grant a request to move a designated protest zone farther away from convention participants in Milwaukee this summer.Republicans have demanded for nearly a month that the Secret Service push back the protesters from the convention site. Now, seven weeks before the start of the convention on July 15, a letter from Todd R. Steggerda, a counsel to the R.N.C., has raised the stakes.“Your failure to act now to prevent these unnecessary and certain risks will imperil tens of thousands of convention attendees, inexcusably forcing them into close proximity to the currently planned First Amendment Zone,” Mr. Steggerda wrote to Kimberly A. Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, referring to a designated protest site at Pere Marquette Park, a small public park on the bank of the Milwaukee River, about a quarter-mile from the arena hosting the convention.In his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Steggerda cited “an increased and untenable risk of violence” from a “rapidly deteriorating security environment,” and demanded that Ms. Cheatle intervene. The Secret Service is tasked with leading security for both major-party conventions this summer.The Republican Party has previously argued that, in the current plan, those attending the convention will be forced to pass by the protesters on their way into the venue, increasing the opportunity for confrontation.The Secret Service responded in a lengthy statement to Mr. Steggerda’s letter, saying that officials had held “multiple meetings” with the R.N.C. chairman, convention staff and concerned senators, but that the agency was “confident in the security plan being developed.”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

With speeches canceled, students at the CUNY School of Law ceremony chanted, carried signs and walked out.In some ways, a walkout by pro-Palestinian students at the City University of New York School of Law’s commencement on Thursday was part of the unique political moment that has marked the Class of 2024’s graduation season at so many universities.But CUNY law students were also carrying on something of a graduation tradition at their school.Students chanted pro-Palestinian messages, waved painted banners as they walked across the stage and turned their backs to the law school’s dean, Sudha Setty, during her remarks onstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Then, after the last degrees had been conferred, dozens of students rose from their seats and walked out, joined by a handful of professors and guests.“It reminded me so much of why I came to CUNY Law,” Ale Humano, one of the graduates who walked out of the ceremony, said.The walkout on Thursday is not the first time that tensions over Israel have taken center stage during a commencement ceremony for the New York City public law school. The school, which is known for fostering public interest lawyers, has been a hot spot for pro-Palestinian activism for years, and its graduation ceremonies have recently become the site of conflict over politics related to Israel.For the past two years, law school commencement speakers have made support for Palestinians and opposition to Israel a focus of their speeches, eliciting criticism from public officials, who called the speeches antisemitic.In 2023, Fatima Mousa Mohammed, a Yemeni immigrant and an activist devoted to the Palestinian cause, denounced “Israeli settler colonialism” in her address. The speech set off furious coverage and a wave of public criticism, including from Mayor Eric Adams, who spoke at the same ceremony and condemned the speech’s “divisiveness.”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