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      An ‘Army’ of Volunteer Sleuths Are Out Hunting for Your Stolen Car

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      In Portland, Ore., vehicle thefts have soared, and the police say they are focused on other crimes. Now victims are helping each other track down their own cars.PORTLAND, Ore. — At the end of a quiet residential street in north Portland, Titan Crawford took a calming drag off his cigarette, and then shuffled past the gutted shell of a stolen Nissan pickup truck and into the patch of woodlands beyond.A little ways in, there was a Mazda sedan, flipped upside down. He passed a Cadillac Escalade, its rainbow bumper sticker one of the few features that remained intact. In the bushes nearby, there was a boat filled with furniture, tires and shoes. Mr. Crawford checked vehicle identification numbers and captured videos of an array of metal hulks along the way, but came away disappointed.“Nothing here is salvageable,” he said.For much of the past year, Mr. Crawford, 38, has led a growing network of volunteer sleuths who scour Portland’s streets, alleys and forests, racing against time in hopes of finding stolen vehicles before they end up shredded for parts.There is no shortage of work to be done. Vehicle thefts in Portland are on track to reach well over 10,000 this year, more than triple the number the city recorded a decade ago, part of a nationwide trend that accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. In Portland, the brazenness of the crimes, inattention from the police and desperation of residents who suddenly find themselves missing one of their most valuable possessions have led many to take matters into their own hands.Mr. Crawford pointed at the locations of stolen cars on his computer. Justin Katigbak for The New York TimesAn abandoned field with possible stolen cars in Portland.Justin Katigbak for The New York Times“It would be cool if the city could do this and I didn’t have to,” Mr. Crawford said. Similar groups have popped up and grown around the country as vehicle thefts have soared.For Mr. Crawford’s network, the effort is less about vigilante justice — his group rules say that people who take the law into their own hands will not be tolerated — and more about community building and expanding eyes and ears around town.Rewards aren’t allowed either: The group wants people motivated by a desire to help, rather than focusing on finding cars that might earn money.Neighbors share pictures of license plates, keep watch during commutes to work and hunt online for reports of stolen vehicles.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Nearly every day, the group, PDX Stolen Cars, helps a resident reconnect with a vehicle in Portland or the surrounding suburbs.“This is an army, and it’s exploding,” said Victoria Johnson, who joined the group after someone drove off with her SUV while she was helping at the scene of a car accident. “It does a body good to give back and help.”The nation is on track to record about 1.1 million stolen vehicles this year, the highest number in more than a decade but still well below numbers set in the early 1990s, when many cars were easy to steal without a key, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, an insurance industry group that tracks claims. The trend appears to be connected in part to the pandemic, as disruptions in the supply chain have created a surge in the value of catalytic converters and other car parts and have made vehicles a more lucrative target for theft, said David Glawe, the bureau’s chief executive.Carjackings are also up significantly in many cities, including Portland, where the police said they did not keep statistics but had noticed a spike in reports.Car thefts have lately taken a back seat to more violent offenses. Portland set a record for homicides last year and could surpass that number this year, part of a rise in crime that has deepened public unease and reverberated in the race for governor in Oregon, where a Republican has a possible path to victory for the first time in four decades. The Republicans also have their sights on three House seats in the state, where G.O.P. candidates have focused some of their attacks on the public protests against police brutality that rocked Portland in 2020.In Portland, the brazenness of car thefts, inattention from the police and desperation of residents who suddenly find themselves missing one of their most valuable possessions have led many to take matters into their own hands.Justin Katigbak for The New York TimesMr. Crawford has multiple security cameras around his house.Justin Katigbak for The New York TimesThe Portland Police Bureau said staffing challenges had prevented it from doing more to help solve car thefts. Last year, as the department struggled to retain and recruit officers and the city shrank the number of authorized positions, the department employed fewer sworn officers than at any point in the past 30 years, although it has recently started growing again.Sgt. Kevin Allen said the police bureau has often had to prioritize other crimes over vehicle theft but is not ignoring them. One precinct, he said, has undertaken occasional special missions to target and recover stolen vehicles.“Unfortunately,” he said, “it’s not hard to find them.”Older vehicles, which often lack alarms or modern security systems that prevent hot-wiring, remain among the most popular to steal. But newer vehicles can also be snatched when people leave their key fobs inside the car, or thanks to videos that show people how to steal some vehicles with little more than a USB charging cable.The results can be disastrous for people with limited incomes, or those who do not carry comprehensive insurance on their vehicles. A theft or a stolen catalytic converter can mean being left without a vehicle, or with a bill they cannot afford.“That’s absolutely devastating. And we are seeing that over and over,” Mr. Glawe said.Enter the citizen patrol.Mr. Crawford said he first became caught up in looking for Portland’s missing cars a year ago when he was walking his dog and came across a vehicle that looked out of place. He posted a photo of it on social media, and was soon gathering the many people interested in the issue into a Facebook group. What started as a membership of dozens became hundreds, and then thousands, with many people trying to track down their own vehicles.One man was able to recover a cherished motorcycle that he uses to honor veterans at military funerals. The group located the stolen car of a police officer’s wife.Ms. Johnson found the group after losing her Lincoln Navigator during the roadside stop and went scouring online for a way to track it down. She didn’t stop there, and drove a meticulous grid through the area where her vehicle had been taken.One man was able to recover a cherished motorcycle that he uses to honor veterans at military funerals. Celeste Noche for The New York TimesA car on the side of the road in Portland. Justin Katigbak for The New York TimesShe didn’t find it, but she did spot another man’s vehicle that had been posted to the group, which helped him recover it. Days later, that same man texted with a surprise: He had found Ms. Johnson’s vehicle. She now spends several days a week checking her area for stolen cars and says she has discovered several.Nicole Heath, one of the administrators of the group, hunts for vehicles during every one of her commutes. Once, she saw and reported someone trying to break into a car with a screwdriver. Another time, some people yelled at her for examining a car that had been reported stolen. She proceeds with caution and urges others to do so, noting that one woman looking for stolen vehicles was assaulted when she was seen taking videos of cars parked in a homeless encampment.“No car is worth your life,” said Ms. Heath, who became active in the group after her husband’s motorcycle was stolen in January. It has not been recovered.The hunt for missing vehicles has become a second job for Mr. Crawford, who sells trucks for a living and has a deep familiarity with vehicle brands and styles from years in auto sales.On a recent day off, Mr. Crawford was at his computer by 7 a.m., downing coffee as he reviewed emails and Facebook messages, using an online database of vehicle history reports to check vehicle identification numbers that users had shared of vehicles that seemed out of place — some with torn-out interiors, damaged ignitions or that were otherwise seemingly abandoned.Later in the morning, Mr. Crawford got in his red pickup, which was leaking coolant from some deferred maintenance and sporting scratch marks down the side from a vehicle recovery mission that had taken him deep into the woods. He rolled down his windows, tuning in to the happenings around him and scouring side streets.At one point, he pulled behind a Toyota SUV that was emitting an unusual buzzing noise.“The anthem of Portland: no catalytic converter,” he said, sipping a can of Red Bull.Minutes later, Mr. Crawford pulled up at the scene of a vehicle in northeast Portland that had been reported by neighbors, a car with no plates and a partially gutted interior. He checked the VIN, found it had recently been reported as stolen and notified the police.He spent the rest of the day roaming through neighborhoods, capturing videos of cars that seemed out of place so he could check the license plates later. Many stolen cars that can still be recovered end up resurfacing in industrial neighborhoods, at auto supply stores, in parks or shopping centers, he said.Homeless encampments are also a common spot, Mr. Crawford said as he cruised past one of them, taking care not to bother residents. He said some homeless neighbors have joined the group to help find cars. At the encampments, he overlooks any other minor misdeeds he may encounter.“My only interest is stolen vehicles,” he said. “They can do whatever they want. Just don’t bother me. And don’t drive stolen cars.” More

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      Why the Price of Gas Has Such Power Over Us

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      Ask Americans their outlook on the country — its future, its economy, its president — and their mood has risen and fallen in surveys this year in striking sync with the price of gas. Gas prices go up, and fear that the country is on the wrong track often does, too. Gas prices go down, and so does unhappiness with the president.It’s of course not the case that fuel prices alone dictate the optimism (or surliness) of the nation. But these patterns suggest that gas, distinct from other things we buy, wields real power over how Americans think about their personal circumstances, the wider economy and even the state of the nation. Yes, this year has been marked by economic uncertainty, Supreme Court shock waves, Jan. 6 revelations and enduring pandemic divides. But lurking in the background of it all has been the whipsawing price of gas.And it is, by the way, now trending down again with two weeks to go to the election.Gas Prices Spike; Confidence DipsConfidence in the economy and in the direction of the country fell as gas prices rose earlier this year. Then those patterns reversed as gas prices dropped. More

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      Fact-Checking a GOP Attack Ad That Blames a Democrat for Inflation

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      In a Nevada tossup race that could help decide whether Republicans gain control of the House, a super PAC aligned with congressional G.O.P. leaders recently mounted an economically driven attack against Representative Dina Titus.In a 30-second ad released on Saturday, the Congressional Leadership Fund accused Ms. Titus, a Democrat who represents Las Vegas, of supporting runaway spending that has exacerbated inflation.Here’s a fact check.WHAT WAS SAID“Economists said excessive spending would lead to inflation, but she didn’t listen. Titus recklessly spent trillions of taxpayer dollars,” the ad’s narrator says, and, later: “Now we’re paying the price. Higher prices on everything. Economy in recession. Dina Titus. She spent big … and we got burned.”This lacks context. The implication here is that Democrats’ policies led to inflation. We recently put this question to our economics correspondent, Ben Casselman, who said: “True, although we can argue all day about how much.”He explains: “Here’s what I think we can say with confidence: Inflation soared last year, primarily for a bunch of pandemic-related reasons — snarled supply chains, shifts in consumer demand — but also at least in part because of all the stimulus money that we poured into the economy. Then, just when most forecasters expected inflation to start falling, it took off again because of the jump in oil prices tied to the war in Ukraine.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.“Now, inflation is falling again. Overall consumer prices were up just 0.1 percent in August, and a separate measure showed prices falling in July. But a lot of that is because of the recent drop in gas prices, which we all know could reverse at any time. So-called core inflation, which sets aside volatile food and energy prices, actually accelerated in August.“All of which means we don’t know how long the recent pause in inflation will last, and we definitely don’t know whether Biden will get credit for it if it does.”Backing up a bit, it’s worth noting that not all of the stimulus spending was at the direction of President Biden and Democrats. The first two rounds were approved during the Trump administration. And, economists were not united in warning about inflation.As for the economy being in recession? “Most economists still don’t think the United States meets the formal definition,” Mr. Casselman wrote in July, and he said that remained true as we head into October. But such calls are only made in retrospect. “Even if we are already in a recession, we might not know it — or, at least, might not have official confirmation of it — until next year,” Mr. Casselman said.What was said“Tax breaks for luxury electric cars.”This is true. The Inflation Reduction Act contains a tax credit for electric vehicles. Their final assembly must be completed in North America to be eligible for the credit, which, indeed, extends to several luxury automakers. The list includes Audi, BMW, Lincoln and Mercedes, but also non-luxury models like the Ford Escape and Nissan Leaf. What about Tesla? It made the list of 2022 models, but it has already reached a federal cap of the number of vehicles eligible for the credit, according to the Energy Department.What was said“Even a billion dollars to prisoners, including the Boston Bomber.”This is exaggerated. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of helping carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, received a $1,400 Covid-19 stimulus rebate from the federal government in June 2021. The money was part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which President Biden signed into law after it passed the House on a mostly party-line vote, with Ms. Titus supporting it.But what the Republican attack ad failed to disclose was that Mr. Tsarnaev was required by a federal judge to return the money as part of restitution payments to his victims. Another glaring omission was the fact that inmates were previously eligible for Covid-19 relief payments when former President Donald J. Trump was in office, though the Internal Revenue Service and some Republicans had later tried to rescind the payments. A federal judge thwarted those efforts, ruling that inmates could keep the payments.Those nuances haven’t stopped Republicans from latching onto the issue of inmates receiving Covid-19 payments against Democrats in key races across the nation, including Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Yellen Embarks on Economic Victory Tour

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      DEARBORN, Mich. — Emerging from months of inflation and recession fears, the Biden administration is pivoting to recast its stewardship of the U.S. economy as a singular achievement. In their pitch to voters, two months before midterm elections determine whether Democrats will maintain full control of Washington, Biden officials are pointing to a postpandemic resurgence of factories and “forgotten” cities.The case was reinforced on Thursday by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who laid out the trajectory of President Biden’s economic agenda on the floor of Ford Motor’s electric vehicle factory in Dearborn, Mich. Surrounded by F-150 Lightning trucks, Ms. Yellen described an economy where new infrastructure investments would soon make it easier to produce and move goods around the country, bringing prosperity to places that have been left behind.“We know that a disproportionate share of economic opportunity has been concentrated in major coastal cities,” Ms. Yellen said in a speech. “Investments from the Biden economic plan have already begun shifting this dynamic.”Her comments addressed a U.S. economy that is at a crossroads. Some metrics suggest that a run of the highest inflation in four decades has peaked, but recession fears still loom as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates to contain rising prices. The price of gasoline has been easing in recent weeks, but a European Union embargo on Russian oil that is expected to take effect in December could send prices soaring again, rattling the global economy. Lockdowns in China in response to virus outbreaks continue to weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.In her speech on Thursday, Ms. Yellen said the legislation that Mr. Biden signed this year to promote infrastructure investment, expand the domestic semiconductor industry and support the transition to electric vehicles represented what she called “modern supply-side economics.” Rather than relying on tax cuts and deregulation to spur economic growth, as Republicans espouse, Ms. Yellen contends that investments that make it easier to produce products in the United States will lead to a more broad-based and stable economic expansion. She argued that an expansion of clean energy initiatives was also a matter of national security.“It will put us well on our way toward a future where we depend on the wind, sun and other clean sources for our energy,” Ms. Yellen said as Ford’s electric pickup trucks were assembled around her. “We will rid ourselves from our current dependence on fossil fuels and the whims of autocrats like Putin,” she said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.The remarks were the first of several that top Biden administration officials and the president himself are planning to make this month as midterm election campaigns around the country enter their final stretch. After months of being on the defensive in the face of criticism from Republicans who say Democrats fueled inflation by overstimulating the economy, the Biden administration is fully embracing the fruits of initiatives such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021, which disbursed $350 billion to states and cities.At the factory, Ms. Yellen met with some of Ford’s top engineers and executives. During her trip to Michigan, she also made stops in Detroit at an East African restaurant, an apparel manufacturer and a coffee shop that received federal stimulus funds. She dined with Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan, and Michigan’s lieutenant governor, Garlin Gilchrist.Detroit was awarded $827 million through the relief package and has been spending the money on projects to clean up blighted neighborhoods, expand broadband access and upgrade parks and recreation venues.Although Ms. Yellen is helping to lead what Treasury officials described as a victory lap, some of her top priorities have yet to be addressed..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed last month, did not contain provisions to put the United States in compliance with the global tax agreement that Ms. Yellen brokered last year, which aimed to eliminate corporate tax havens, leaving the deal in limbo. On Thursday, she said she would continue to “advocate for additional reforms of our tax code and the global tax system.”Despite Ms. Yellen’s belief that some of the tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on Chinese imports were not strategic and should be removed, Mr. Biden has yet to roll them back. In her speech, Ms. Yellen accused China of unfairly using its market advantages as leverage against other countries but said maintaining “mutually beneficial trade” was important.Ms. Yellen also made no mention in her speech of Mr. Biden’s recent decision to cancel student loan debt for millions of Americans. She believed the policy, which budget analysts estimate could cost the federal government $300 billion, could fuel inflation.Treasury Department officials said Detroit, the center of the American automobile industry, exemplified how many elements of the Biden administration’s economic agenda are coming together to benefit a place that epitomized the economic carnage of the 2008 financial crisis. Legislation that Democrats passed this year is meant to create new incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles, improve access to microchips that are critical for car manufacturing and smooth out supply chains that have been disrupted during the pandemic.“There will be greater certainty in our increasingly technology-dependent economy,” Ms. Yellen said.But the transition to a postpandemic economy has had its share of turbulence.Ford said last month that it was cutting 3,000 jobs as part of an effort to reduce costs and become more competitive amid the industry’s evolution to electric vehicles. The company also cut nearly 300 workers in April.“People in Michigan can be pretty nervous about the transition to electric vehicles because they actually require by some estimation a lot less labor to assemble because there are fewer parts,” said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan. “There are questions about what does that mean for these jobs.”Republicans in Congress continue to assail the Biden administration’s management of the economy.“Inflation continues to sit at a 40-year high, eating away at paychecks and sending costs through the roof,” Representative Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, said on Twitter on Thursday. “While in Michigan today, Secretary Yellen should apologize for being so wrong about the inflation-fueling impact of the Biden administration’s runaway spending.”Ms. Yellen will be followed to Michigan next week by Mr. Biden, who will attend Detroit’s annual auto show.The business community in Detroit, noting the magnetism of Michigan’s swing-state status, welcomed the attention.“We’re about as purple as it gets right now,” Sandy K. Baruah, the chief executive of the Detroit Regional Chamber, a business group.Noting the importance of the automobile industry to America’s economy, Mr. Baruah added: “When you think about blue-collar jobs and the transitioning nature of blue-collar jobs, especially in the manufacturing space, Michigan has the perfect optics.” More

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      United Auto Workers Seek to Shed a Legacy of Corruption

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      After his predecessors’ imprisonment, the union’s president is being challenged for re-election in the first direct vote by its membership.DETROIT — For the United Auto Workers, the last five years have been one of the most troubling chapters in the union’s storied history.A federal investigation found widespread corruption, with a dozen senior officials, including two former presidents, convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in union funds for luxury travel and other lavish personal expenses. Since last year, the union has been under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor charged with ensuring that anticorruption reforms are carried out.The scandal tarnished a once-powerful organization and left many of its 400,000 active members angry and disillusioned.“You bet I’m mad,” said Bill Bagwell, who has been in the U.A.W. for 37 years and works at a General Motors parts warehouse in Ypsilanti, Mich., represented by Local 174. “That was our money, the workers’ money. I don’t like people stealing our money.”Now U.A.W. members have a chance to determine how much of a break from that past they want to make. In one of the changes prompted by the corruption scandal, the union this year will choose its leaders through a direct election — its first. Until now, the president and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, a system in which the union’s executive board could shape the outcome through favors and favoritism, and the results did not always reflect the views of the rank and file.“Everyone in power is in one party, and it’s been like that forever,” said William Parker, a retired worker who is eligible to vote and hopes to see a new slate of officers take over. “But now we’ve got one man, one vote, and we are mobilizing to change.”Over four days last week, at a sometimes-chaotic convention in Detroit, some 900 delegates debated a wide range of issues facing the union. Four members were nominated to challenge the incumbent president, Ray Curry, in the fall election. Under rules approved by the delegates, the union’s nearly 600,000 retirees can vote but cannot run for executive offices. If no candidate wins at least 50 percent of the vote, the top two will vie in a runoff.The convention proceedings dragged out each day as members stepped to microphones to offer motions, objections and requests for clarifications. A day after voting to increase stipends for striking workers to $500 a week from $400, they rescinded the move. At least three times Mr. Curry was scheduled to give a state-of-the-union address only to have the extended debates force postponements, and the convention adjourned without his address.Mr. Curry is seen as a strong favorite for re-election. He has held senior posts for more than a decade and became president in 2021 in the fallout from the corruption scandal. One potentially serious challenger is Shawn Fain, an electrician who has been a U.A.W. member for 28 years and holds a post with the union’s headquarters staff. He is part of a slate of candidates for senior posts, and is backed by a dissident group, Unite All Workers for Democracy, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the election campaign.Shawn Fain, a U.A.W. member for 28 years, is a potentially serious challenger for the union presidency.Sarah Rice for The New York Times“Members have to believe in the leadership and believe that the corruption is behind us,” Mr. Fain said.The other candidates are Brian Keller, a quality worker at Stellantis who for years has run a Facebook group critical of the union’s leadership; Will Lehman, a worker at a Mack Truck plant in Pennsylvania; and Mark Gibson, a chairman at Local 163 in Westland, Mich. Read More on Organized Labor in the U.S.Apple: Employees at a Baltimore-area Apple store voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s 270-plus U.S. stores to do so. The result provides a foothold for a budding movement among Apple retail employees.Starbucks: When a Rhodes scholar joined Starbucks in 2020, none of the company’s 9,000 U.S. locations had a union. She hoped to change that by helping to unionize its stores in Buffalo. Improbably, she and her co-workers have far exceeded their goal.Amazon: A little-known independent union scored a stunning victory at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. But unlike at Starbucks, where organizing efforts spread in a matter of weeks, unionizing workers at Amazon has been a longer, messier slog.A Shrinking Movement: Although high-profile unionization efforts have dominated headlines recently, union membership has seen a decades-long decline in the United States.The challengers and Mr. Curry agree on most of the key issues at stake in next year’s contract negotiations. Members want automakers to resume cost-of-living wage adjustments, once a key element of U.A.W. contracts, and eliminate compensation differences between newer and more senior workers. Workers hired in 2007 or earlier earn the full U.A.W. wage of about $32 an hour and are guaranteed pensions. Workers hired after 2007 have started at lower wages and can work up to the top wage over five years. They get a 401(k) retirement account instead of a pension.Dorian Fenderson, a U.A.W. member at a G.M. location in Warren, Mich., started a year ago as a temporary worker at $17 an hour and after four months was made a permanent hire, making $22 an hour.“There are people making $34 doing the same work as me,” he said. “I know they’ve been here a long time, but it’s not really fair to people like me.”The opposition candidates have called for the U.A.W. to take a more confrontational line in contract negotiations to win back concessions now that the manufacturers are solidly profitable, and to push them to keep more production in the United States and use more union labor. G.M. is building four battery plants in a joint venture, and Ford Motor is building three with its own partner. The union will have an opportunity to organize those plants, but success is not guaranteed.“We are hemorrhaging jobs, and that has to stop,” Mr. Fain said.Mr. Curry said he was confident that battery plants would be organized and that the workers would be covered by U.A.W. contracts with the automakers. He said similar joint ventures had been represented by the union in the past, and noted that current contracts assign engine production to the U.A.W.“Our belief is that batteries are the powertrains of electric vehicles,” he said in an interview. “It’s just new technology. We have a right to negotiate that and establish those locations.”One potential weakness for Mr. Curry could be recent actions that have riled some members. He and members of his executive board recently increased pay and pensions for themselves and others working at the union’s headquarters. A vice president who is running for re-election spent $95,000 in union funds on backpacks that were embroidered with his name and were to be given to members at union gatherings, a move that could be seen as using union money for his campaign.In a July report, the court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, wrote that he had 19 open investigations into possible improprieties, and said Mr. Curry’s leadership group had been uncooperative at times. Mr. Barofsky, a lawyer at a New York firm, wrote that the union’s leaders had uncovered mishandling of union funds by a senior official but that they had concealed the matter, though he added that cooperation and transparency had improved in recent months.Mr. Curry said that once he learned of the communications issues with the monitor, he stepped in and addressed the matter.“You have to read report to the end, and at the end the monitor talks about true transparency, response time, and change in counsel, the steps we have taken to shows we are moving in a positive direction,” he said. “And I’ve asked the monitor, if he has issues, to come directly to me so I don’t read about it in a report four months later.”Mr. Barofsky declined to comment beyond the findings in his report.Decades ago, the U.A.W. was a powerful organization that could influence presidential elections and consistently won increases in wages and benefits, often through hard-nosed negotiating and strikes. Its contracts with G.M., Ford and Chrysler set standards that helped pull up pay and benefits for working classes all around the country, union and nonunion alike.Mr. Fain’s grandfather kept his first Chrysler pay stub from 1937. For decades, the U.A.W.’s contracts with automakers set the standards for pay and benefits for the working class.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesBut its fortunes waned as the Detroit automakers steadily reduced their U.S. operations and struggled to compete as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other foreign automakers built nonunion plants across the South. The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler forced the union into once-unthinkable concessions, including the two-tier wage structure.Over the last 10 years, the automakers have rebounded, often with record earnings, and union workers have benefited. Last year, G.M. paid a profit-sharing bonus of $10,250 to each of its U.A.W. employees. But on other fronts, the union is still in retreat. A 40-day strike in 2019 was unable to prevent G.M. from closing a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and workers have gone without cost-of-living adjustments to their wages since 2009.The corruption investigation was started around 2014 by the U.S. attorney in Detroit, and eventually found schemes that embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers. Top union officials used the money for expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty. As part of a consent decree to settle the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed Mr. Barofsky to monitor the U.A.W.’s efforts to become more democratic and transparent.In July, a former U.A.W. president, Gary Jones, was released from federal prison after serving less than nine months of a 28-month sentence. Another former leader, Dennis Williams, served nine months of his 21-month sentence. Other convicted officials were also released after serving less than half of their sentences.At the convention last week, the shortened sentences were a source of frustration for many attendees, but as the proceedings pressed on, many backed the positions of Mr. Curry and the current executive board on issues that arose.David Hendershot, a forklift driver at a Ford plant in Rawsonville, Mich., said that he wanted the union to push for higher wages in contract talks next year, and that he wasn’t happy with the corruption that took place. But he isn’t sure he wants a wholesale change in leadership. “I’ll probably stick with what we’ve got,” he said. More

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      Your Monday Evening Briefing

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      Daniel E. Slotnik and (Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.Firefighters at the scene of a missile strike in Lviv, Ukraine, today. Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times1. Russia has begun its offensive in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.“Now we can state that the Russian forces have started the battle for the Donbas that they have been getting ready for a long time,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address.Russia claimed today that it had hit some 300 Ukrainian targets, mostly in the east, in one of the broadest barrages of missile attacks in weeks. There was also a missile strike on the western city of Lviv, which had been relatively unscathed until now. Seven people there died. Russian forces are closing in on a complete capture of the city of Mariupol, which would be a major strategic prize in the fight.In Russia, the central bank chief warned that ripple effects from Western sanctions were only beginning to spread, despite President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia’s economy remains stable. Moscow’s mayor said 200,000 jobs were at risk in the Russian capital alone.Travelers may no longer need to wear masks in U.S. airportsAlyssa Pointer for The New York Times2. A federal judge struck down the mask requirement on planes and public transit in the U.S.The ruling came days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended the federal transportation mask requirement through May 3. The judge in Florida said that the mandate “exceeds the C.D.C.’s statutory authority.”The judge’s decision apparently shuts down the requirement for people to wear masks on airplanes, in airports and while taking other public transportation. It was not immediately clear whether the Justice Department would appeal the judge’s order, which could keep the rule in place while the matter undergoes further litigation.In other Covid news, Philadelphia became the first major city in the U.S. to reinstate a mask rule in response to rising cases of the coronavirus. In China, several economic indicators show that Covid lockdowns could have a disastrous effect on the country’s economy.And in Shanghai, the authorities announced that some workers might have to live at their workplaces even after the city lifts its lockdown.Allies of former President Donald Trump are renewing a push to overturn the 2020 election.Veasey Conway for The New York Times3. Some Trump allies are pushing to “decertify” the 2020 vote in key states and overturn the election.More than a year after failing to cancel the 2020 election results, some of the same lawyers and associates are still insisting that former President Donald Trump won. In statehouses and courtrooms across the country, Trump allies are pressing for states to pass resolutions rescinding Electoral College votes for President Biden and to bring lawsuits that seek to prove baseless claims of large-scale voter fraud. The efforts, dismissed as preposterous by many legal experts, are nonetheless stoking Trump supporters’ grievances. Democrats and some Republicans have raised deep concerns about the effect of the decertification efforts, including the potential to incite violence of the sort that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021.Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir won the 126th Boston Marathon’s women’s division.Winslow Townson/Associated Press4. Peres Jepchirchir and Evans Chebet won the Boston Marathon.Jepchirchir finished the 26.2-mile course in 2 hours 21 minutes 1 second, beating Ababel Yeshaneh in the women’s division by just four seconds in a sprint to the finish line.Evans Chebet won the men’s race with a time of 2 hours 6 minutes 51 seconds, his first victory at a major marathon. The Boston Marathon returned to its traditional slot on the springtime calendar after three years.In 2020, the race was canceled for the first time in its history. And last year, the race was pushed to October, when it competed for elite entrants with a cluster of other marathons. We have highlights from the race.Alex Jones addressed Trump supporters in 2020.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times5. Alex Jones’s Infowars and two affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy.The Infowars filing, which was made yesterday, came after courts in two states ruled against Jones, a far-right broadcaster, in defamation lawsuits by families of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.For years, Jones spread bogus theories that the shooting, which killed 20 elementary school students and six educators, was part of a government-led plot to deprive Americans of their guns and that the victims’ families were actors in the scheme. Two other companies connected to Jones, IWHealth and Prison Planet TV, also filed for bankruptcy protection. A homeless encampment along Glendale Boulevard in Los Angeles last month.Mark Abramson for The New York Times6. More than ever it has become deadly to be homeless in the U.S., especially for men in their 50s and 60s.There are many factors behind these lonely deaths: the aging of the unsheltered population; the wider availability of fentanyl, a fast-acting and dangerous opiate; the lack of treatment for chronic illnesses and the long-term health damage from years on the street. In many cities the number of homeless deaths doubled during the pandemic, and the problem is especially acute in California, where about one in four of the nation’s 500,000 homeless people live.“It’s like a wartime death toll in places where there is no war,” said Maria Raven, an emergency room doctor in San Francisco who co-wrote a study about homeless deaths.The four co-CEOs of the Lede Company at their New York City office.OK McCausland for The New York Times7. Meet the women of the Lede Company. They’re some of Hollywood’s top publicists (just don’t ask why).Their clients include Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Emma Stone, Ariana Grande, Charlize Theron and the Obamas. And oh yes, an actor named Will Smith (about whom they have no comment). Discretion is their craft, making it tough for our reporter to get her subjects to open up.Marcy Engelman, Julia Roberts’s longtime publicist, did say of Amanda Silverman, one of Lede’s heads: “She knows how to play the game. She is very well liked, so she must take care of people.”Workers on the production line of the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times8. Ford’s new pickup truck could determine whether the automaker can survive in an industry dominated by Tesla.Driven by the dizzying success of Tesla, sales of electric vehicles appear to be on an unstoppable rise, and automakers are spending tens of billions of dollars to prepare to meet that demand.The question for Ford is whether Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive and a car guy from the Detroit area, can channel his inner Elon Musk. Farley, and Ford, are betting big on the F-150 Lightning, an electric version of the company’s signature pickup that could become one of the most important vehicles in the company’s 113-year history.The Gravity Diagnostics lab in Kentucky where an unwanted birthday party was thrown. Liz Dufour/The Enquirer via Imagn Content Services, LLC9. They wished him a “Happy Birthday!” he didn’t want. He sued and won $450,000.A Kentucky man, Kevin Berling, asked his manager at a medical lab to be sure no one threw him a birthday party. Berling has an anxiety disorder and knew the party would trigger it. But while the manager was away, Berling’s colleagues planned a celebration.After hearing of it, Berling spent the time in his car. Two supervisors confronted him about his “somber behavior.” After having a panic attack in the meeting, he was fired. A month later, he sued the company for disability discrimination.In other acts of workplace dissent, a Dollar General employee who loved her job but thought it needed improvements opened up on a TikTok series that went viral. She was fired.We say we like creative thinking and thinkers but our gut response isn’t always in sync.Illustration by Yoshi Sodeoka10. And finally, we look up to great artists, scientists and inventors. Or do we?The new science of implicit bias suggests we may talk a good game about admiring creativity but many of us are suspicious of it. Without realizing it, we may see creativity as disturbing.“People actually have strong associations between the concept of creativity and other negative associations like vomit and poison,” said Dr. Jack Goncalo, a business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Goncalo has looked at what spurs or hinders creators in studies. One main conclusion? Often, people’s subconscious views of creativity reflect a fear of change or uncertainty; creativity disrupts, and we like stability.Have an original eveningHannah Yoon and Eve Edelheit compiled photos for this briefing. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.Want to catch up on past briefings? You can browse them here.What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.Here are today’s Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee and Wordle. If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here. More

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      United Auto Workers reformers prevail in vote to choose president by direct election.

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      Members of the United Automobile Workers union have voted decisively to change the way they choose their president and other top leaders, opting to select them through a direct vote rather than a vote of delegates to a convention, as the union has done for decades.The votes on the election reform proposal were cast in a referendum open to the union’s roughly one million current workers and retirees and due by Monday morning. Nearly 64 percent of the roughly 140,000 members who cast valid ballots favored a direct-election approach, according to a court-appointed independent monitor of the union.“It is time to move forward on behalf of the over one million members and retirees of the U.A.W. in solidarity,” the union said in a statement.The referendum was required by a consent decree approved this year between the union and the Justice Department, which had spent years prosecuting a series of corruption scandals involving the embezzlement of union funds by top officials and illegal payoffs to union officials from the company then known as Fiat Chrysler.More than 15 people were convicted as a result of the investigations, including two recent U.A.W. presidents.Reformers within the U.A.W. have long backed the one member, one vote approach, arguing that it would lead to greater accountability, reducing corruption and forcing leaders to negotiate stronger contracts. A group called Unite All Workers for Democracy helped organize fellow members to support the change in the referendum.“The membership of our great union has made clear that they want to change the direction of the U.A.W. and return to our glory days of fighting for our members,” said Chris Budnick, a U.A.W. member at a Ford Motor plant in Louisville, Ky., who serves as recording secretary for the reform group, in a statement Wednesday evening. “I am so proud of the U.A.W. membership and their willingness to step up and vote for change.”David Witwer, an expert on union corruption at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, said the experience of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which shifted from voting through convention delegates to direct election in 1991, after an anti-racketeering lawsuit by federal prosecutors, supported the reformers’ claims.Dr. Witwer said the delegate system allowed seemingly corrupt union leaders to stay in power because of the leverage they had over convention delegates, who were typically local union officials whom top leaders could reward or punish.“Shifting the national union election process from convention delegates to membership direct voting was pivotal in changing the Teamsters,” he said by email.At the U.A.W., leadership positions have been dominated for decades by members of the so-called Administration Caucus, a kind of political party within the union whose power the delegate system enabled.Some longtime U.A.W. officials credit the caucus with helping to elevate women and Black people to leadership positions earlier than the union’s membership would have directly elected them.But the caucus could be deeply insular. The Justice Department contended in court filings that Gary Jones, a former U.A.W. president who was sentenced to prison this year for embezzling union funds, used some of the money to “curry favor” with his predecessor, Dennis Williams, while serving on the union’s board.Union officials have said Mr. Williams, who was recently sentenced to prison as well, later backed Mr. Jones to succeed him, helping to ensure Mr. Jones’s ascent. More

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      Horse Carriage Ban in New York? De Blasio Wants to Try Again.

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      As he enters his final weeks in office, Mayor Bill de Blasio is resurrecting an old campaign promise to ban horse-drawn carriages in New York City.When Bill de Blasio first ran for mayor of New York City, he promised to ban horse-drawn carriages “on Day 1.”Eight years later, with just six weeks left in office, Mr. de Blasio is trying one last time to fulfill that pledge.His administration is developing legislation that would phase out the use of the carriages in Central Park and replace them with “show cars,” according to a series of internal City Hall emails marked “confidential” that were sent between late October and last week and reviewed by The New York Times.The promise to ban horse-drawn carriages, along with an ultimately successful plan to implement universal prekindergarten, was among a handful of major proposals that animated Mr. de Blasio’s successful mayoral bid. Mr. de Blasio and some advocates argue that it is inhumane to use horses for transportation in a modern city filled with cars.Now, as the mayor contemplates a run for governor next year, he has returned to his core campaign issues: In an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday morning, he proposed statewide, year-round, all-day school, a vision that he said would “revolutionize education in the State of New York.”Mr. de Blasio has yet to announce his plan to ban horse-drawn carriages, which would require approval by the City Council, but it has been quietly moving forward. In the emails, city officials said they were aiming to have the legislation ready by Dec. 16, when the City Council is expected to hold its last full meeting of the year.Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said he had always wanted to ban horse-drawn carriages, and that he hoped the City Council would again consider it.The mayor’s office has directed the Economic Development Corporation to contract with a consulting firm, Langan Engineering, to conduct an analysis of the proposal, with a focus on its environmental, transportation, and socioeconomic impacts, according to the emails. The firm’s managing principal did not respond to requests for comment.It remains unclear if there is any appetite in the City Council to ban horse-drawn carriages. “The Council has not received a proposal from the mayor,” Shirley Limongi, a spokeswoman for the Council, said in a statement. “We will review anything we do receive.”The City Hall emails do not define “show cars,” but proponents of banning the carriages have previously pushed to replace them with electric-powered vehicles resembling old-time carriages.In 2018, Appaloosa Management Charitable Foundation, named for a horse breed and run by the billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper, retained lobbyists to push for such a plan, according to city records and a city official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Little came of the effort.This April, New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets, the leading advocates for the ban, retained the lobbying firm Blue Suit Strategies to push Mr. de Blasio to pursue a similar plan, city lobbying records indicate. The organization is paying the firm $7,000 per month.The group, known as NYCLASS, helped fund a campaign to topple the 2013 mayoral candidacy of Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker and Mr. de Blasio’s rival, in part because she did not support a ban on horse carriages. The campaign was credited with helping to undermine the candidacy of Ms. Quinn, who was considered the early front-runner.In the ensuing years, NYCLASS pushed Mr. de Blasio to fulfill his promise. But efforts to pass legislation went nowhere, including in 2016, when the mayor failed to push through a bill that would have reduced the number of horses on city streets and confined them to Central Park.The group has gotten involved in more recent political efforts. This year, it supported a super PAC that ran ads targeting Andrew Yang’s mayoral campaign after Mr. Yang responded “no” to a questionnaire asking if he supported efforts “to strengthen welfare protections and increase the standards of care for New York City’s carriage horses.”And in October, after a grisly collision between a horse and a car, NYCLASS ran roughly $200,000 worth of TV and digital ads calling for the elimination of the industry.Steve Nislick, the group’s co-founder, said that New York should follow the example of Guadalajara, Mexico, which replaced horse-drawn carriages with electric vehicles.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More