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      Blinken Visits NATO Headquarters

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      The U.S. secretary of state met with European allies rattled by the American election results at a critical moment for Ukraine and the alliance.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday at what he called a “critical moment” for Ukraine and the U.S.-led military alliance, as Europe braces for the anticipated upheaval of a new Trump era in Washington.In a trip organized only after last week’s presidential election results made clear that U.S. policy will likely swing dramatically away from President Biden’s lock step support for NATO and Ukraine, Mr. Blinken met with alliance and European officials to help plan for a post-Biden future.Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House in January has deeply shaken Europe’s mainstream political leaders, thanks to his skepticism about the value of NATO, the cost of defending Ukraine, and the wisdom of isolating Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.Once in office, Mr. Trump could move quickly to change U.S. policy on all three fronts — a shift that European leaders fear might leave their countries both less secure from Russian aggression and at an economic disadvantage.Mr. Blinken did not explicitly mention Mr. Trump or last week’s election in his public remarks after meetings at NATO headquarters. But an American leadership change with huge global import was the obvious subtext, as Mr. Blinken stressed the intrinsic value of the alliance.Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, addressed the elephant in the room before sitting down with Mr. Blinken at a Brussels hotel. He said that their meeting offered “an opportunity to coordinate steps” after the U.S. election, noting that Ukraine’s government was speaking “both with the president-elect and his team and also with the outgoing administration.”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

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      Trump Doesn’t Care Enough About K-12 Education to Break It

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      When it comes to education, I consider myself a normie parent. What I want is for my children to have a strong foundation in the core subjects: reading, math, science and history. I want my kids to be challenged to the best of their abilities and be prepared for the future. I want to be guaranteed that they will be physically safe. I don’t want monthslong school board fights over book bans or school renaming. I just want my children to read books and go to school.People disagree about how best to meet these goals (roughly, liberals think the worst public schools should be made better, conservatives think parents should be given more choices outside the public system, though there are some heterodox advocates). But the depressing fact is that neither party has delivered on the basics. As I argued last month, neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris had a plan for increasing test scores, fixing Covid learning loss, working on the student absentee crisis or addressing the fact that the teacher pipeline is drying up.Though education is not a top -five issue for voters, I don’t think Democrats on the city and state levels have done a good job as leaders on K-12 schools under President Biden. And on the federal level, he also has struggled. To name one, there’s the ongoing FAFSA debacle — the federal student aid application form was delayed for a second year in a row after last year’s disastrous rollout of a new form.A lot of students are still suffering from the prolonged school closings of 2020-2021, and schools in blue cities and suburbs were closed the longest. While the Biden-Harris administration isn’t responsible for these decisions made on the local level, I don’t think they did enough to push back on the districts that were completely closed for in-person learning after adults could be vaccinated. The federal government pumped a lot of money into Covid education relief, but that funding expired in September. As a public school parent, I can feel it: My third grader’s class has 30 kids in it, more than we’ve ever experienced since my older child entered the system in 2017.In Trump’s first term, he proposed billions of dollars of cuts to the Department of Education that did not get through Congress. His secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, was a huge proponent of school choice. “But for all her efforts, DeVos has little to show for it,” NPR’s Cory Turner said in 2020.Despite Trump’s lackluster record, his ability to gain voters in urban areas might have had to do with how much voters were fed up with Democratic leadership on things like education. As Politico’s Charlie Mahtesian explained, he was able to win in part because “In big, diverse urban places — like Houston’s Harris County or Chicago’s Cook County — he pared down traditionally large Democratic margins.” Trump also increased support in blue places like New York, San Francisco and the densely populated Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. And a lot of city-dwelling Democrats stayed home.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

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      Melania Trump Declines Jill Biden’s White House Invitation

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      Melania Trump, the former and incoming first lady, will not accompany President-elect Donald J. Trump to the White House on Wednesday, a person briefed on the plans said.Mrs. Trump had been invited by the current first lady, Jill Biden, for a traditional meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidential spouses as President Biden hosts Mr. Trump at the White House.But Mrs. Trump is declining the invitation, the person said, rebuffing a tradition that’s part of the transition of power.An aide to Mrs. Trump did not respond to a message about her plans.Mrs. Trump sometimes eschewed tradition in her first stint in the White House. She has not yet outlined how she plans to go about the role in the next administration.She has frequently been in New York as the president-elect’s youngest son, Barron, attends college there. In 2017, she didn’t move to Washington for several months while his school year was going on. More

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      U.S. to Keep Sending Arms to Israel Despite Dire Conditions in Gaza

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      The State Department said Israel needs to take more steps to improve the situation among Palestinians. The United States had given the country 30 days to meet aid criteria.The State Department said on Tuesday that it did not plan to decrease weapons aid to Israel, as a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration passed without the country substantially improving the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had warned in a letter dated Oct. 13 that the United States would reassess its military aid to Israel if it failed to increase the amount of aid allowed to enter Gaza within 30 days.The letter said that the humanitarian situation for the two million residents of Gaza was “increasingly dire” and that the amount of aid entering Gaza had fallen by 50 percent since April.By law, the U.S. government cannot give aid to foreign military forces deemed by the State Department to be committing “gross violations of human rights.”U.N. officials have said Israel’s continued blocking of humanitarian aid and targeting of humanitarian workers constitute violations of international law and could amount to war crimes.Food insecurity experts working on an initiative controlled by U.N. bodies and major relief agencies said last week that famine was imminent or most likely already occurring in northern Gaza. U.N. officials say the entire population of Gaza is facing food insecurity.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

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      Exxon Chief to Trump: Don’t Withdraw From Paris Climate Deal

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      Darren Woods was one of only a few Western oil executives attending a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, cautioned President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday against withdrawing from the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, saying Mr. Trump risked leaving a void at the negotiating table.Mr. Woods, speaking at an annual U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, described climate negotiations as opportunities for Mr. Trump to pursue common-sense policymaking.“We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Mr. Woods said in an interview with The New York Times in Baku. “Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”Mr. Woods also urged government officials to create incentives for companies to transition to cleaner forms of energy in a profitable way.“The government role is extremely important and one that they haven’t been successfully fulfilling, quite frankly,” he said.Mr. Woods’s presence in a stadium teeming with diplomats is all the more noteworthy because of who is not here in Azerbaijan, a petrostate on the Caspian Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Many heads of state, including President Biden, have taken a pass, as have the leaders of several big oil companies like Shell and Chevron.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

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      Blinken Heads to NATO as Alliance Prepares for Trump’s Return

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      Officials meeting in Brussels will discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia amid concerns that the new administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is set to depart on Tuesday for Brussels, where he will attend meetings with NATO and European officials to discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia, the State Department announced.Mr. Blinken’s trip, a late addition to his schedule before a trip to Latin America, comes amid grave concern among Ukraine’s supporters that the new Trump administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.The Biden administration and NATO officials also fear that President-elect Donald J. Trump may try to undermine the military alliance and even seek to withdraw the United States from it.The State Department said Mr. Blinken would meet NATO and E.U. counterparts “to discuss support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s aggression.”Mr. Blinken plans to travel on to Peru and Brazil, where he will join President Biden for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit. More

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      Democrats Search for Answers

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      Nina FeldmanCarlos PrietoSydney Harper and Marc Georges and Sophia Lanman and Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioDemocrats, devastated by their sweeping losses in the election, are starting to sift through the wreckage of their defeat.Political leaders from all corners of the Democratic coalition are pointing fingers, arguing over the party’s direction and wrestling with what it stands for.Reid J. Epstein, who covers politics for The Times, discusses the reckoning inside the Democratic Party, and where it goes from here.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.On today’s episodeReid J. Epstein, a reporter covering politics for The New York Times.Vice President Kamala Harris performed worse than President Biden did four years ago across the country, in cities, suburbs and rural towns.Kevin Lamarque/ReutersBackground readingIn interviews, lawmakers and strategists tried to explain Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to misinformation, the Gaza war, a toxic Democratic brand and the party’s approach to transgender issues.Nancy Pelosi, the influential former House speaker, lamented Biden’s late exit and the lack of an “open primary.”There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg, and Chris Haxel.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman. More

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      There Were Two Huge Problems Harris Could Not Escape

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      Sarah Isgur, a longtime Republican campaign operative — and my friend and a senior editor at The Dispatch — has a brilliant sports analogy for the process of campaigning. She compares it to … curling.For those unfamiliar with the sport (which enjoys 15 minutes of fame every Winter Olympics), it involves sliding a very large, heavy “rock” toward a target on the ice. One person “throws” a 44-pound disc-shaped stone by sliding it along the ice, sweepers come in and frantically try to marginally change the speed and direction of the rock by brushing the ice with “brooms” that can melt just enough of the ice to make the rock travel farther or perhaps a little bit straighter.The sweepers are important, no doubt, but they cannot control the rock enough to save a bad throw. It’s a matter of physics. The rock simply has too much momentum.What does this have to do with politics? As Isgur writes, “The underlying dynamics of an election cycle (the economy, the popularity of the president, national events driving the news cycle) are like the 44-pound ‘stone.’ ” The candidates and the campaign team are the sweepers. They work frantically — and they can influence the stone — but they don’t control it.One of the frustrating elements of political commentary is that we spend far too much time talking about the sweeping and far too little time talking about the stone. Political hobbyists in particular (and that includes journalists!) are very interested in ad campaigns, ground games and messaging.Those things do matter, but when facing an election defeat this comprehensive, you know it was the stone that made the difference.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