Elections

Michael Schlossberg sugarcoats the truth.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Over the centuries, English speakers have come up with several creative ways of avoiding vulgarity. Minced oaths are euphemistically rendered expressions of profanity or obscenity that gained popularity among playwrights of the Elizabethan era. Bowdlerization began a few hundred years later, when a well-meaning couple sought to make Shakespeare more family-friendly. And today, the teens use algospeak to avoid censors on TikTok, often using emojis in place of words.While I cannot confirm that Michael Schlossberg constructed today’s crossword with any of those strategies in mind, I can tell you that solving his puzzle will give you a particularly creative way to express your delight about what lies inside the grid.Today’s ThemeI can honestly say that I let out a “Little laugh” (53D) when I entered the revealer of Mr. Schlossberg’s puzzle (though mine sounded a little more like a “hehe” than a TEHEE).“What you might cry upon recognizing this puzzle’s ingredient list?” (62A) requires first solving the entries with gray-shaded squares: 17A, 20A, 32A, 42A and 54A. These yield a recipe of MILKSOP, COCOA BEACH, BUTTERFINGERS, SUGAR SNAP PEAS and VANILLA ICE.When mixed together, the terms in bold elicit a delicious confection that doubles as an interjection — OH, FUDGE!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 people call Stormy Daniels.”So began the intense and often uncomfortable testimony of Ms. Daniels, who spent almost five hours in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday recounting her story of a 2006 encounter with Donald J. Trump and the ensuing hush-money cover-up that has become the bedrock of the prosecution’s case.Ms. Daniels spoke quickly and at length about her first meeting with Mr. Trump at a celebrity golf tournament near Lake Tahoe in Nevada.After the lunch break, Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche moved for a mistrial, arguing that the prosecution’s questions had been designed to embarrass Mr. Trump and prejudice the jury.The judge, Juan M. Merchan, agreed that some of Ms. Daniels’s testimony might have “been better left unsaid,” but he denied a mistrial.The former president is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels just before the 2016 election. Mr. Trump, 77, has denied the charges and says he did not have sex with Ms. Daniels. If convicted, he could face prison time or probation.Here are six takeaways from Mr. Trump’s 13th day on trial.Prosecutors took a risk with their witness.Jurors heard a vivid account of the Lake Tahoe encounter and met the woman who received the hush-money deal. This could present a risk for prosecutors, depending on whether the jury viewed Ms. Daniels’s story as prurient or powerful.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.Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. 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

While his message resonated with many Jewish leaders, the president’s remarks drew criticism from Republicans and supporters of Palestinians on the left.President Biden, standing in front of six candles symbolizing the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, delivered on Tuesday the strongest condemnation of antisemitism by any sitting American president.For Jews monitoring a spike in hate crimes and instances of antisemitic rhetoric amid pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, Mr. Biden’s speech at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Capitol was both fiercely necessary and fiercely appreciated. The Anti-Defamation League, which has been tracking antisemitic incidents since the 1970s, says the number of such episodes has reached all-time highs in four of the last five years.“In an unprecedented moment of rising antisemitism, he gave a speech that no modern president has needed to,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “There has not been a moment like this since before the founding of the state of Israel. We have said it will never get worse, but then it has.”Still, if the president thought he might change minds with his emotional and deeply personal speech — recalling his father’s discussions about the Holocaust at the dinner table and taking his grandchildren to former concentration camps — there were few signs he had caused many to reconsider their views. Instead, initial reactions fell along ideological lines.Republicans dismissed his comments as meek, while supporters of Palestinians on the left attacked him for conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.Warren David, the co-founder of the Arab America Foundation, an advocacy group, said it was disappointing that Mr. Biden has not spoken more forcefully against anti-Arab racism and the death toll in Gaza.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 province that was a global pioneer in harm reduction took a step back after a political backlash.The government of Canada on Tuesday walked back part of a program allowing people in British Columbia to possess small amounts of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, without fear of criminal charges. At the request of the province and after a public backlash, people in British Columbia are no longer permitted to use drugs in public places.Under the changes, which went into effect immediately, adults will still be allowed to possess small amounts of drugs. But they will now have to use them in legal residences, at safe injection sites and at other harm-reduction centers established by the health authorities.The re-criminalization of public drug use in British Columbia underscores the difficulties that governments face as they grapple with the opioid crisis. Even in a province that has been a global pioneer of the harm reduction movement, an approach that seeks to reduce risky behavior rather than to punish drug users, there are no easy answers.The province’s coroner estimated that there were a record 2,511 toxic drug deaths last year. Drug overdoses from toxic substances kill more people ages 10 to 59 than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined in British Columbia, according to the provincial coroner’s office.The goals of decriminalizing possession were to enable police officers to focus their time on large drug distributors rather than users and encourage users to be open to treatment. But concerns about public drug use have quickly surfaced and raised repeatedly in the provincial legislature by members of opposition parties.Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, a professor in the medical school at the University of British Columbia who studies addiction and public health policy, said the decision amounted to “three steps back” in dealing with the opioid crisis.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 victim, José Mynor López, was a member of a work crew that had been filling potholes on the bridge when it was struck in March by a container ship.The body of the sixth and final victim who died in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was found on Tuesday, officials said, bringing to a close a difficult salvage mission after the country’s deadliest bridge collapse in more than a decade.The victim, José Mynor López, 37, was a member of a work crew that had been filling potholes on the bridge when it was struck on March 26 by the Dali, a container ship on its way to Sri Lanka that apparently lost power after leaving the Port of Baltimore.Five of his co-workers also died in the collapse, though it took six weeks to find all of the bodies, a daunting task that required divers to sift through mangled steel and crumbled concrete amid swift currents in murky water. Two other workers were rescued from the waters in the hours after the collapse.All of the men who died were immigrants, from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Mr. López was from Guatemala and had come to Baltimore for a better life, his brother, Jovani López, told The New York Times. He was married with two young children, a boy and girl, Jovani López said.“With heavy hearts, today marks a significant milestone in our recovery efforts and providing closure to the loved ones of the six workers who lost their lives in this tragic event,” Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland Department of State Police, said in a statement on Tuesday.Gov. Wes Moore, in a statement, offered prayers to the friends and families of the six men who died. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to enduring support and will forever remember the lives of these six Marylanders,” he said.There is still work ahead. The Dali, which was carrying 4,700 shipping containers when it left the port, is still sitting in the Patapsco River under an enormous piece of the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695 and a critical transportation link on the East Coast. The authorities have announced a goal of restoring full access to the channel by the end of May.This week, engineers are planning to remove a huge section of bridge weighing thousands of pounds that is sitting across the bow of the Dali, a complex task that involves handling collapsed pieces of the roadway, damaged shipping containers and pieces of the bridge supports.Crews have removed 182 containers from the Dali as part of this operation. When completed, it will free the ship to be refloated and guided back to port. More

Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 6, 2024 – The New York Times

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A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order protecting a work by Mary Miss. A Des Moines museum wanted to destroy it, citing safety concerns.A work of environmental art by Mary Miss has evaded demolition — for now. A judge in the U.S. District Court in Des Moines on Friday granted her request for a temporary restraining order that would bar the Des Moines Art Center, the museum that commissioned the land art installation, from dismantling it. The museum maintains it has become a safety hazard and that the resources to repair it are not available.The decision, the Art Center said in a statement, amounts to “a court-ordered stalemate.”While the judge, Stephen H. Locher, found that destroying the work, “Greenwood Pond: Double Site” (1989-1996), would violate the Art Center’s contract with the artist, he also said that Miss could not force the museum to restore it to its original condition. He wrote, “The end result is therefore an unsatisfying status quo: the artwork will remain standing (for now) despite being in a condition that no one likes but that the court cannot order anyone to change.”The lawsuit is the latest twist in a fight over the fate of “Greenwood Pond,” which has highlighted the difficulty of preserving large-scale public artworks, especially for smaller institutions. Located on the grounds of a city-owned park next to the museum, the installation is a collection of sloping walkways, wooden sitting areas, huts and towers that encourage visitors to engage with the landscape. Over the years, the wood has degraded substantially, and the Art Center estimates that it would cost between $2 million and $2.6 million to restore it. (Miss contests that, but has not provided another figure.)In an interview on Tuesday, Miss said, “I don’t know why the museum wouldn’t come to me at this point and try to work this out instead of spending more money on legal fees.”Having visited “Greenwood Pond: Double Site” while in Des Moines to testify, she said she felt a newfound appreciation for the work. “I just can’t imagine this whole thing going south at this point,” she said.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

Senator Mike Braun of Indiana won the Republican nomination for governor of his solidly conservative state, The Associated Press said on Tuesday, positioning him as the strong favorite in this fall’s general election.Mr. Braun defeated several other candidates, including Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, in the primary. Mr. Braun, who received the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump, has presented himself as a fiscal conservative and has pledged to take a tough stance on crime.Indiana’s current governor, Eric Holcomb, a Republican who has occasionally bucked the right wing of his party on public health and cultural issues during his tenure, was barred by term limits from seeking re-election.Mr. Braun, a businessman and first-term senator, will face Jennifer McCormick, the former state superintendent of public instruction, in November. Ms. McCormick, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, was elected to her prior position as a Republican but fell out of favor with that party.Indiana was once politically competitive. Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 presidential race, and Mr. Braun’s predecessor in the Senate, Joe Donnelly, was a Democrat. But Republicans have dominated elections in Indiana over the last decade. Mr. Trump carried the state by 16 percentage points in 2020.Republicans have used their control of state government to outlaw abortion in almost all cases, to ban gender transition treatments for transgender minors and to impose “intellectual diversity” requirements on public universities. State leaders have also cut income taxes and worked to attract business investments.Mr. Braun, a former state legislator, defeated two Republican congressmen in the 2018 Senate primary before beating Mr. Donnelly by six percentage points in the general election.In early 2021, Mr. Braun indicated that he would object to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential election victories in contested states. But after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol that Jan. 6, Mr. Braun reversed course and voted to certify the results.Mr. Braun’s decision not to seek a second Senate term leaves an open seat that Republicans are widely expected to hold in the chamber. Representative Jim Banks, a former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, is running unopposed for his party’s nomination and will face the winner of the Democratic primary in November. More