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      A Day Before He Speaks, Conservative Gathering Is Mostly About Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Day Before He Speaks, Conservative Gathering Is Mostly About TrumpAt CPAC on Saturday, the focus was on praise for Mr. Trump in advance of his speech there on Sunday.Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, was one of the Republicans who lavished praise on former President Donald J. Trump at the CPAC conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 27, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETORLANDO, Fla. — A pair of influential House Republicans used a conservative political gathering on Saturday to lavish praise on former President Donald J. Trump and, in ways subtle and direct, marginalize their G.O.P. colleagues who have distanced themselves from Mr. Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol riot last month.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who faulted the former president for his role in the attack and at one point considered asking him to resign, credited Mr. Trump at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference with helping Republicans with their surprise gains in the House last year.“You know why we won that?” Mr. McCarthy asked of the 14 seats the G.O.P. claimed in 2020. “President Trump worked on all these races.” He also recalled how Mr. Trump, even when in quarantine after his coronavirus diagnosis, would do “rallies over the phone for each district.”The top House Republican sat onstage alongside Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, an emerging conservative leader who answered a question aimed at minimizing the party’s internal fractures by drawing attention to them.Mr. Banks highlighted Mr. McCarthy’s popularity before pointedly noting that “the least popular” congressional Republicans “are the ones who want to erase Donald Trump and Donald Trump supporters from our party.”If that happens, he continued, “we won’t win back the majority in 2022 — we definitely won’t win back the White House in 2024.”Neither lawmaker mentioned Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican. But their unprompted rhetorical embrace of the former president illustrated how little appetite there is among Ms. Cheney’s colleagues for cutting ties with Mr. Trump, as she has urged.In fact, Mr. McCarthy’s joint appearance with Mr. Banks was something of a brushback pitch at Ms. Cheney, who earlier in the week restated her hope that Republicans would move on from Mr. Trump just moments after Mr. McCarthy had said the former president should attend this conference.The Indiana Republican, who heads the conservative Republican Study Group, has sought to take a more prominent role in the caucus following Ms. Cheney’s break with Mr. Trump. On Saturday, Mr. McCarthy hailed Mr. Banks as “an amazing individual” shortly before he assailed the anti-Trump Republicans in their ranks.In the weeks since he criticized Mr. Trump over the deadly Jan. 6 attack, Mr. McCarthy has scrambled to patch up his relationship with the former president, visiting him at his home in Florida and welcoming him to play a continued role in the party.Yet he has not proved able to dissuade Mr. Trump from mounting a revenge campaign against those Republicans who voted to impeach him last month — a fact made vividly clear Friday when the former president endorsed a challenger against Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump over the Capitol attack.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      After 10 Months at Sea, a Giant Carrier Returns to a Changed Nation

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter 10 Months at Sea, a Giant Carrier Returns to a Changed NationA mounting pandemic death toll. A contested election. A riot at the Capitol. “The world at home has become completely different and we don’t know what we are coming home to,” one sailor on the Nimitz said.Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III greeting troops aboard the carrier Nimitz on Thursday. He told sailors and pilots that he knew what it felt like to be cut off from life during extended deploymentsCredit…Helene Cooper/The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021, 5:25 p.m. ETABOARD U.S.S. NIMITZ, off California — When this aircraft carrier and its city-size crew departed Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Wash., on April 27, George Floyd was still alive.Donald J. Trump was still president, Georgia had two Republican senators, and some 56,000 people in the United States had died of the coronavirus.Now, 10 months later, the nuclear-powered warship is returning home to a country vastly different from the one it left. That difference was highlighted on Thursday when the new defense secretary — for the first time, an African-American — landed aboard to talk to a travel-weary and isolated crew.“Secretary of defense in combat!” came the announcement.Lloyd J. Austin III, his baritone ringing through the ship’s public-address system, told the sailors and pilots on the Nimitz that he knew what it felt like to be cut off from life during extended deployments: Mr. Austin, a retired Army four-star general, was posted in Iraq about a decade ago for a tour even longer than the Nimitz’s.But that was on land, in Army bases near Baghdad and flying around to Erbil and Ramadi. The Nimitz sailors and Navy and Marine pilots were at sea, spending 2020 in what sometimes felt like a time warp, sailors said.They had to quarantine for two weeks before they even boarded the ship and, once on, they basically could associate only with one another, even during port calls.On the rare occasions that the ship came into port — in Guam or in Manama, Bahrain — the 5,000-strong crew was not allowed traditional shore leave, and had to sleep on board, in berths with around 100 other sailors. They were told not to interact with the public on land, because of the pandemic.They watched the presidential election returns from the Indian Ocean and woke up the morning of Jan. 7, in the Persian Gulf, to the news that rioters had stormed the Capitol.Petty Officer First Class Christina Ray, 31, said she turned on the television in her office on the ship’s second deck, and stared at the images. She recalled being aghast at what was happening.“That type of violence was what we were supposed to be defending the country against,” she said in an interview. “The world at home has become completely different and we don’t know what we are coming home to.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Gov. Phil Murphy Unveils N.J. Budget Plan With No New Taxes

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow New Jersey Averted a Pandemic Financial CalamityA $44.8 billion spending plan unveiled Tuesday by Gov. Phil Murphy calls for no new taxes and fully funds the state pension program for the first time since 1996.Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey released a $44.8 billion budget on Tuesday that shows better-than-expected revenue projections.Credit…Pool photo by Anne-Marie CarusoFeb. 23, 2021Updated 3:07 p.m. ETIt has been five months since New Jersey officials issued warnings about a coronavirus-related financial calamity. The dire outlook contributed to lawmakers’ decisions to increase taxes on income over $1 million and to become one of the first states to borrow billions to cover operating costs.But the doomsday forecast has since brightened considerably, officials said, enabling the Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, to unveil a $44.8 billion spending plan on Tuesday that calls for no new taxes, few cuts and tackles head-on a chronic problem — the state’s underfunded pension program — for the first time in 25 years.The governor also said there would be no increase in New Jersey Transit fares.“The news is less bad,” the state’s treasurer, Elizabeth Maher Muoio, said. “I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s less bad.”The governor’s election-year financial blueprint relies on better-than-expected revenue from retail sales and high-earners, who have lost fewer jobs during the pandemic than low-income workers and are reaping the benefits of a prolonged Wall Street rally.The $38 billion that New Jersey and its residents have received in federal stimulus funding, a short-term extension of a corporate tax and a $504 million windfall from the so-called millionaire’s tax also helped, Ms. Muoio said.The release of New Jersey’s proposed 2022 fiscal year budget comes as Congress continues to debate President Biden’s $1.9 trillion virus relief package. The proposed package includes considerable funds for states and municipalities as well as grant and loan programs for small businesses.Other states have seen similarly strong signs of an economic rebound even as cases of the virus have spiked nationwide over the last several months and the nation’s death toll surpassed 500,000 on Monday.Earlier this month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that large sectors of the economy were adapting to the pandemic better than originally expected and that December’s economic aid package had helped.Mr. Murphy, who is running for re-election in November, said the spending plan was designed to not only enable the state to scrape through the pandemic, but to help it emerge stronger.“This is the time for us to lean into the policies that can fix our decades-old — or in some cases centuries-old — inequities,” the governor said Tuesday in a budget address, which he delivered virtually.A key pillar of the budget is a proposal to fully fund the state’s public sector pension obligations for the first time since 1996.The state has not set aside the full amount of its pension obligation for 25 years, leading $4 billion in extra debt to accrue over time, Ms. Muoio said. Under a deal brokered with the Legislature, Mr. Murphy had been on track to fully fund the state’s share by the 2023 fiscal year. But the spending plan released on Tuesday sets aside $6.4 billion for the pension system, accelerating full funding by a year.“New Jersey is done kicking problems down the road,” the governor said. “We are solving them.”Under the plan, the state’s surplus, which proved to be a vital resource during the first wave of the pandemic, would not grow, officials said, but would remain at about the same level it was at the end of 2020.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Your Monday Briefing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Aleksei NavalnyNavalny’s Life in OppositionKremlin AnxietyCourt DecisionWhat Will Yulia Navalnaya Do?Putin’s ‘Palace’AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYour Monday BriefingThe Schengen Area closes up.Feb. 21, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETGood morning.We’re covering travel restrictions within the E.U., the worst day of violence in Myanmar since the coup and the coming U.S. milestone of 500,000 deaths from Covid-19.[embedded content]A police officer addressing a driver at a checkpoint at the German-Czech border near Bad Gottleuba, Germany. Credit…Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockA fresh blow to Europe’s open bordersAs new variants of the coronavirus are spreading rapidly, European countries such as Germany and Belgium have introduced new border restrictions, flying in the face of the free movement that has long been seen as a fundamental pillar of the European Union.The European Commission, the E.U. executive, has tried to pull countries back from limiting free movement since March, on the grounds that it had disrupted the bloc’s single market. The result has been an ever-shifting patchwork of border rules that has sown chaos and not always successfully limited the virus’s spread.But many countries cannot seem to resist taking back control of their borders. A suggestion by the commission that new restrictions be reversed induced a swift pushback from Germany, even as the new rules triggered supply chain disruptions and long lines of commuters from Austria and the Czech Republic.Background: Countries within the Schengen Area have the explicit right to reintroduce checks at their borders, but they need to clear a few legal hurdles to do so, and they are not meant to retain them over the long term.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.In other developments:As the American death toll nears 500,000, more Americans have now died of Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. No other country has counted as many deaths in the pandemic.To secure the release of an Israeli civilian held in Syria, Israel secretly — and contentiously — agreed to finance a supply of Russian-made Covid-19 vaccines for Damascus.Australia began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Sunday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 19 others getting their shots. The first to be vaccinated was an 84-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home.Dozens of protesters were injured in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Saturday.Credit…Aso/Associated PressMyanmar security forces open fire on protestersWitnesses said two people were killed and dozens wounded when security forces on Saturday opened fire on protesters in the city of Mandalay, Myanmar. It was the bloodiest day of protests so far against the military’s Feb. 1 coup.The shootings occurred as the authorities were trying to force workers back to their jobs at a local shipyard. The work stoppage there in protest of the ouster of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, has paralyzed river transport on the Irrawaddy, the country’s most important commercial waterway, according to Radio Free Asia.Details: The authorities used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, slingshots and live ammunition to break up the crowd. At least 40 people were wounded, according to medics.Mansour Abbas, center, an Islamist leader hoping to join the next Israeli government, campaigning in Daburiyya, an Arab village in northern Israel.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIn the Israeli election, an opportunity for ArabsAccelerated by Israel’s election campaign, two trends are converging: On the one hand, Arab politicians and voters increasingly believe that to improve the lives of Arabs in Israel, they need to seek power within the system instead of exerting pressure from the outside.Separately, mainstream Israeli parties are realizing they need to attract Arab voters to win a very close election — and some are willing to work with Arab parties as potential coalition partners.Both trends are born more of political pragmatism than dogma. But while the moment has the potential to give Arab voters real power, it could backfire and split the Arab vote, ultimately lowering the numbers of Arab lawmakers in the next Parliament.Context: Arab politicians and voters have not shed all their discomfort with Zionism and Israeli policies in the occupied territories. But there is a growing realization that problems the Arab community in Israel faces — gang violence, poverty and discrimination in access to housing and land — will not be solved without Arab politicians shaping policy at the highest level.If you have 7 minutes, this is worth itLibraries to honor women lost to violenceCredit…Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesNajiba Hussaini, who died in a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul in 2017, was a determined, highly accomplished scholar, who landed a prestigious job in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.Today, her memory lives on at the Najiba Hussaini Memorial Library, in the Afghan city of Nili, as a symbol of the progress made toward gender equality and access to education in Afghanistan. As of 2018, as many as 3.5 million girls were enrolled in school in the nation and one-third of its teachers were women.But amid negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, many worry that a peace deal could mean that the progress Afghan women have made over the past two decades will be lost.Here’s what else is happeningAleksei Navalny: A Russian court has cleared the way for the possible transfer of the opposition leader to a penal colony, the latest step by the authorities to silence the country’s most vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.Libya weapons: Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was trying to overthrow the government in Tripoli, according to U.N. investigators. He has denied any wrongdoing.Venezuela: Millions of women in the troubled South American country are no longer able to find or afford birth control. The situation has pushed many into unplanned pregnancies or illegal abortions at a time when they can barely feed the children they have.ISIS: Frenchwomen who joined the Islamic State and are now held in squalid detention camps in Syria have gone on a hunger strike to protest France’s refusal to bring them back.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSnapshot: Above, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Australian Open title. His victory over the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev gave him his 18th career Grand Slam title. Naomi Osaka beat Jennifer Brady for her fourth Grand Slam title.Cephalopod sensing: An octopus’s arms can sense and respond to light — even when the octopus cannot see it with the eyes on its head, according to a study published this month in The Journal of Experimental Biology.Bollywood: Increasingly, new Hindi productions are showing mothers, and women over all, as full and complex human beings — not melodramatic side characters, but outspoken, independent leads who are in charge of their own fates.What we’re reading: The U.S. may experience a wonderful summer this year — even if the pandemic is not yet behind us, writes the health journalist James Hamblin in this long read from The Atlantic.Now, a break from the newsCredit…Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Jerrie-Joy Redman-Lloyd.Cook: This shrimp étouffée draws inspiration from Cajun and Creole cuisines.Listen: Radio drama, especially from its golden age in the 1930s through the ’50s, is now freely available, thanks to the internet. Here are six shows to enjoy.Do: Many mothers have felt obliged to put themselves last during the pandemic. But making time for self-care may give you what you need to keep on going.Restore your sense of self. At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. And now for the Back Story on …Taking stock of 500,000 deathsA graphic on Sunday’s front page of The New York Times depicts the totality of Covid’s devastation in the United States. From afar, the graphic looks like a blur of gray, but up close it shows something much darker: close to 500,000 individual dots, each representing a single life lost to the coronavirus.Credit…The New York TimesThis is not the first time The Times’s designers have used the front page to represent the scale of the pandemic’s toll. When Covid-19 deaths in the United States reached 100,000 last May, the page was filled with names of those lost — nearly a thousand of them, just 1 percent of the country’s deaths then.And as that number approached 200,000, the lead photograph on the page showed the yard of an artist in Texas who had filled his lawn with a small flag for every life lost to the virus in his state.But this is the first time the front page has depicted all the U.S. fatalities. “I think part of this technique, which is good, is that it overwhelms you — because it should,” said Lazaro Gamio, a graphics editor at The Times.That’s it for this briefing. See you on Tuesday.— NatashaThank youTo Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on children and Covid.• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: What light travels in (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.• Claire Cain Miller, a reporter who worked on our series on working mothers, “The Primal Scream,” spoke to NPR about the toll of the pandemic on women.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve Him

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationMitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve HimOn the impeachment front, it was an exciting — if sometimes perplexing — weekend.Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.Feb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Alexander Drago/ReutersBret Stephens: What a wild week, Gail. Should we feel pleased that seven Republican Senators voted to convict Donald Trump of incitement — six more than in the last impeachment — or appalled that the other 43 didn’t?Another way of putting the question is whether the G.O.P.’s cup is 14 percent full or 86 percent empty.Gail Collins: It was certainly an interesting show. It’ll be a long time before I forget Mitch McConnell’s speech about the “outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”It was, by McConnell standards, very passionate. Of course it’d have been a heck of a lot more moving if he hadn’t just voted against any punishment.Bret: The other day I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast on the Yiddish word “chutzpah.” The word has two distinct connotations. In its American usage, it suggests audacity, as in, “It took a lot of chutzpah for her to walk into her boss’s office back in 1962 and demand a raise, but — guess what? — she got it!” In the Israeli sense, it usually means gall and shamelessness, as in, “First the boy murders his parents. Then he pleads for mercy in court because he’s an orphan.”Anyway, McConnell’s speech was chutzpah in the Israeli sense. He wanted to have his outrage and eat it, too. He wanted to ease whatever conscience he has left by denouncing Trump in a way that had no consequences, while using a legal dodge to advance his political interests in the way that really matters. Just pathetic.Gail: Maybe we can call it the McConnell Two-Step.Bret: Or maybe the “Mitch Macarena.” Where is Ted Sorensen when you need him to ghostwrite “Profiles of Invertebrates?” It’s the story of today’s Republican Party and conservative establishment, minus Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski and the other brave ones.Gail: But about the G.O.P’s cup — I ought to ask you. Where do you see your party going from here? Engineering a post-Trump turnaround or just sticking to the same brain-dead script that’ll probably force you to vote Democratic again in 2024?Bret: Gail, it isn’t my party any longer, and you’re obviously delighting in the thought of my being forced to vote for Democratic presidential candidates for three election cycles in a row. It might suggest a pattern.Right now I’m working on a longish piece making the case that America needs a Liberal Party, albeit in the European sense of the term. I mean parties that are for free markets, civil liberties and small government, without being hostile to immigration and cultural change.Gail: If that means a three-party system, we’re going to have a lot to fight about.Bret: We should fight more. As for the G.O.P., it’s probably a lost cause. My guess is that Trump’s luster will fade in the party because a lot of Republicans know he’s crazy and are ashamed of what happened on Jan. 6. But Trumpism as the politics of nativism, rage and conspiracy theory is going to be a dominant strain in the G.O.P., especially if Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or one of the Trump kids is the next nominee.Gail: Eric for president!Credit…Jessica Mcgowan/Getty ImagesBret: To return to Yiddish: Oy vey. Of course there’s Nikki Haley. But after reading Tim Alberta’s long profile of her in Politico, I can’t decide whether she’s crazy like a fox or too clever by half.Gail: What do you think her slogan would be: Served the Trump administration loyally except secretly she always hated him?Bret: From a political standpoint, she’s played her cards pretty astutely. She might be the only potential G.O.P. candidate who can unite the party. She’s smart, charismatic, has a great personal story, did the right thing as governor of South Carolina by getting rid of the Confederate flag from the State House soon after the Charleston church slaughter, and was effective as U.N. ambassador. If she wins the nomination she’d be a formidable challenger to the Democratic nominee, whoever that winds up being.Gail: Wow, Kamala vs. Nikki.Bret: Interesting that Kamala ’24 already seems like a foregone conclusion. Shades of Hillary ’08?Back to Haley. Her dodges and maneuvers are a bit too transparent. And her brand of mainstream Republican conservatism is just out of step for a party that is increasingly out of its mind.Gail: Still, you’ve got me obsessing about an all-female presidential race.Bret: About time.Gail: But back for a minute to the Senate. Do you think they should have called witnesses so the country could have listened to a description of Trump ignoring the real physical danger to Mike Pence and other top Republicans, and defending the rioters when he was begged to call them off?Bret: Not really, no. What more does the country need to know than the evidence the House managers presented? Calling witnesses would have dragged out the trial for weeks on end, forcing us all to watch those despicable Trump lawyers. And we both know it wouldn’t have changed the result.Gail: Yeah, and we really need to get on to Biden’s agenda. There’s a rumor about some kind of pandemic …Bret: Also, the trial introduced the country to some new Democratic stars. Stacey Plaskett deserves an immediate promotion to a big administration job. And Jamie Raskin should be a future contender for attorney general. That he was able to perform with so much grace under pressure, after a terrible family tragedy, made him that much more admirable.Gail: Agreed.Bret: So it’s time for the country to move on. Since I’m grooving on Jewish tropes today, let’s just say, “Trump Came, He Tried to Destroy Us, We Won, Let’s Eat.”Let me switch subjects on you this time. Should Andrew Cuomo be impeached for being, er, highly parsimonious with the truth about the nursing home Covid deaths?Gail: This is Andrew Cuomo. Punishment would be not letting him run for a fourth term in 2022. But New York definitely needs a new crop of executives. Try mentioning Bill de Blasio to a socially distanced friend and watch eyes glaze over from six feet away.Bret: Or, in my case, head exploding. De Blasio is to managerial competence what Yogi Berra was to the syllogism. He’s the guy who redeems the memory of Abe Beame. He makes Trump’s handling of the coronavirus situation seem relatively competent. He’s the nation’s unintentional uniter, bringing everyone from Cuomo to Ted Cruz together into shared contempt.Gail: I thought I was good at complaining about de Blasio, but you win the medal.Bret: I’m keeping fingers crossed that Andrew Yang or some other reasonably competent character can bring the city back from moving further toward 1970s-style insolvency, disorder, crime and decay.Gail: Here’s my last question, Bret. In a couple of weeks it’ll be March. Which won’t change much, pandemic-wise. But as it starts to get warmer, do you think we’ll all start to feel more optimistic? Walking through parks, picnics on the terrace? Our last Trumpian chapter over?Bret: I’m enjoying this continual blanket of snow and wouldn’t mind if it stretched into April. Maybe it will help everyone chill out and calm down. And it’s an excellent excuse for doing as little exercise as possible and binge-watching this French spy thriller, “The Bureau,” that an old friend of mine just got me into.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Can We Put Fox News on Trial With Trump?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyCan We Put Fox News on Trial With Trump?Even if we can’t impeach media companies, we can do more to hold them accountable for sowing sedition.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 10, 2021Credit…Ryan Jenq for The New York Times More

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      Clemency for Older Prisoners

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersClemency for Older Prisoners“It is time for immediate action,” a law professor writes. Also: Angry Democrats; better ways to declutter.Feb. 4, 2021, 2:48 p.m. ETMore from our inbox:Enraged DemocratsNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Seth Wenig/APTo the Editor:“Hard-Hit by Virus, Inmates Struggle to Find Place in Vaccine Line” (front page, Jan. 26) is an insight into the state’s failure to care for this highly vulnerable population. But it does not mention one simple option: clemency for older prisoners.Releasing the many long-serving prisoners over 65 who are not a danger to society would reduce crowding and the need for vaccination in prisons, while safeguarding the lives and health of these most vulnerable inmates. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has the power to do this right now (with appropriate quarantine). In many cases, he has clemency petitions on his desk.Governor Cuomo has promised rolling clemencies. When the new and highly transmissible Covid variants inevitably appear in prisons and their surrounding communities, vulnerable prisoners will face a death sentence, and all New Yorkers will be at risk from these hot spot facilities. It is time for immediate action.Cynthia Grant BowmanIthaca, N.Y.The writer, a law professor at Cornell, helped draft a clemency petition on behalf of one aged prisoner and filed amicus briefs in several New York State cases seeking release for others.Enraged Democrats Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s Base Nurses Anger Over Election” (front page, Jan. 19):Trump supporters are not the only ones enraged by the 2020 election. Many Democrats are enraged by the uphill battle necessary to overcome Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression targeting minorities. Many Democrats are enraged by being falsely accused of fraud and election interference by the Republicans who themselves undermined and attempted to overturn the election.Many moderates and progressives are angry at the far-right groups, including major media, that accuse the left of inciting the violent riot by the Trump mob at the Capitol. And many of us are furious at Donald Trump and his supporters for making public health measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives into a political issue.The overwhelming majority that voted against Donald Trump have every reason to be angry at Mr. Trump and his supporters who feel so entitled that they are willing to bring down our democracy after they lost an election.Michael E. MahlerLos AngelesNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Trisha KraussTo the Editor:Re “How to Declutter Quickly” (Here to Help, Jan. 27):I wish Melissa Kirsch had pointed out that the result of impulsively throwing things into the garbage is overflowing landfills that are a big problem for municipalities and the planet. The cake-decorating tips that she left at the curb might have been donated to a thrift store and then, for a dollar, might have provided a child being driven crazy by Zoom school with a fun activity. Clothing that was annoying Ms. Kirsch could have been donated to a local charity.It’s liberating to throw something into the garbage and be done with it, but it’s more considerate to try to find a new home for something we have purchased improvidently or no longer use.Diane S. GreenbergPalo Alto, Calif.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mario Draghi Is Asked to Form Government in Italy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMario Draghi Gets Nod to Form New Government and Guide Italy Out of CrisisThe sudden ascent of the man credited with helping save the euro was a pipe dream for Italians frustrated with a coalition paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence.Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level. Credit…Andrew Medichini/Associated PressFeb. 3, 2021Updated 8:43 a.m. ETROME — Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is largely credited with helping to save the euro, accepted a mandate from Italy’s president on Wednesday to try and form a new unity government that would guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.“To overcome the pandemic, to complete the vaccine campaign, to offer answers to the daily problems of the citizens, to relaunch the country are the challenges we face,” Mr. Draghi said after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella for more than an hour at the Quirinal Palace. Italy, he said, faced a “difficult moment.” And he said he had accepted Mr. Mattarella’s appeal because the emergency “requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation.”Until as recently as Tuesday, the idea of Mr. Draghi replacing Giuseppe Conte as prime minister remained a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with a governing coalition that seemed paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence, especially as the coronavirus pandemic raged and economic devastation set in.But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi and appealed to “all the political forces in the Parliament” to support a “high profile government” to meet the historic moment.He made it clear Mr. Conte’s tenure was over and the new players, potentially political leaders proposed by the parties supporting Mr. Draghi or an all-star cast of politically unaffiliated economists, judges and scientists, was ready to take the stage.Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news that Mr. Draghi had been lined up to lead the Italian government. He immediately began consultations with party leaders that will continue in the coming days in an effort to form a new Italian government.“I am confident that from the exchange with the parties and the groups in the Parliament and from the dialogue with the social forces,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday, “there will emerge unity and the capacity to give a responsible answer to the president’s appeal.”Mr. Draghi is himself no political novice. He has served in past Italian governments, was a director of Italy’s treasury and knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level.His name has been mentioned for years as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Mattarella as Italy’s head of state in 2022. But now Mr. Mattarella himself has called on Mr. Draghi, whom he has publicly praised in the past, and brought him directly into the fray.“Now everyone of good will must heed the call of President Mattarella and support the government of Mario Draghi,” Matteo Renzi, the wily former prime minister who engineered the collapse of Mr. Conte’s government by pulling his small party’s support in Parliament. “Now is the time for sobriety.”A former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, triggered the previous government’s collapse.Credit…Pool photo by Alessandro SerranoParty leaders on the right and left quickly expressed support for Mr. Draghi after it became clear that Mr. Mattarella would ask him to form a government.Among them were leaders who had made great shows of their loyalty to Mr. Conte. Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party that Mr. Renzi once led, released a statement that on the one hand referred to the government crisis as a “disaster provoked by the irresponsible choice” of Mr. Renzi, but he then welcomed Mr. Mattarella’s decision. “We will stand ready to discuss the common good for the country.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More