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      Suspect in Shootings at Homes and Offices of New Mexico Democrats Is in Custody

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      The authorities say that a man is being held on unrelated charges, and that a gun tied to at least one of the episodes has been recovered.The authorities in Albuquerque announced Monday that a suspect in the recent shootings at the homes or offices of a half-dozen Democratic elected officials was in custody on unrelated charges and that they had recovered a gun used in at least one of the shootings.Officials did not release information on the suspect other than to say that he is a man under 50; nor would they say what the unrelated charges were.“We are still trying to link and see which cases are related and which cases are not related,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.Officials have ideas about a possible motive, Chief Medina said, but will not release details for fear of compromising the investigation.The authorities have not definitively tied the shootings to politics or ideology.Police officials asked the courts to seal all paperwork related to the case, Chief Medina said. He said that the authorities had numerous search warrants and were waiting for additional evidence.No one was hurt in the shootings, four of which happened in December and two that took place this month. The shootings involved four homes, a workplace and a campaign office associated with two county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general.The police had provided details last week on five of the shootings. On Monday, they said that they were also investigating a shooting that occurred in early December and caused damage to the home of Javier Martínez, a New Mexico state representative set to become the State Legislature’s next speaker of the House.Mr. Martínez said he had heard the gunfire in December, and recently discovered the damage after he heard of the attacks related to the other elected officials. He decided to inspect the outside of his home, KOB reported.In addition to the Albuquerque Police Department, the New Mexico State Police and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the shootings.If a federal crime was committed, the Police Department will pursue those charges, Chief Medina said. “The federal system has much stronger teeth than our state system,” he said.The shootings came at a time when public officials have faced a surge in violent threats, extending from members of Congress to a Supreme Court justice.Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said he hoped the fact that a suspect was in custody would provides some comfort to elected officials, who he said should be able to do their jobs without fear.“These are individuals who participate in democracy, whether we agree with them or not,” Mr. Keller said. “And that’s why this act of violence, I think, has been so rattling for so many people.” More

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      What Drove the Brazil Riots? Mass Delusion and Conspiracy Theories

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      For the past 10 weeks, supporters of the ousted far-right President Jair Bolsonaro had camped outside Brazilian Army headquarters, demanding that the military overturn October’s presidential election. And for the past 10 weeks, the protesters faced little resistance from the government.Then, on Sunday, many of the camp’s inhabitants left their tents in Brasília, the nation’s capital, drove a few miles away and, joining hundreds of other protesters, stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices.By Monday morning, the authorities were sweeping through the encampment. They dismantled tents, tore down banners and detained 1,200 of the protesters, ferrying them away in buses for questioning.Why an encampment demanding a military coup was allowed to expand for over 70 days was part of a larger set of questions that officials were grappling with on Monday, among them:Why were protests allowed to get so close to Brazil’s halls of power? And why had security forces been so outnumbered, allowing throngs of protesters to easily surge into official government buildings?More than a thousand supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro alleged to have taken part in the unrest were being detained in Brasília.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBrazil’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, said various security agencies had met on Friday to plan for possible violence in the planned protests on Sunday. But, he said, the security strategy hatched in that meeting, including keeping protesters away from the main government buildings, was at least partly abandoned on Sunday and there were far fewer law enforcement officers than had been anticipated.“The police contingent was not what had been agreed upon,” he said, adding that it was unclear why plans had changed.Some in the federal government blamed the governor of Brasília, Ibaneis Rocha, and his deputies, suggesting that they had been either negligent or complicit in understaffing the security forces around the protests.Late Sunday, Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice, suspended Mr. Rocha from his job as governor for at least 90 days, saying that the upheaval “could only occur with the consent, and even effective participation, of the security and intelligence authorities.”Whatever security lapses may have occurred, Sunday’s riot laid bare in shocking fashion the central challenge facing Brazil’s democracy. Unlike other attempts to topple governments across Latin America’s history, the attacks on Sunday were not ordered by a single strongman ruler or a military bent on seizing power, but rather were fueled by a more insidious, deeply rooted threat: mass delusion.Military police officers dismantling a camp used by Bolsonaro supporters in front of an army facility in Rio de Janeiro.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesMillions of Brazilians appear to be convinced that October’s presidential election was rigged against Mr. Bolsonaro, despite audits and analyses by experts finding nothing of the sort. Those beliefs are in part the product of years of conspiracy theories, misleading statements and explicit falsehoods spread by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies claiming Brazil’s fully electronic voting systems are rife with fraud.Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have been repeating the claims for months, and then built on them with new conspiracy theories passed along in group chats on WhatsApp and Telegram, many focused on the idea that the electronic voting machines’ software was manipulated to steal the election. On Sunday, protesters stood on the roof of Congress with a banner that made a single demand: “We want the source code.”Walking out of the protest encampment on Monday morning, Orlando Pinheiro Farias, 40, said he had entered the presidential offices on Sunday with fellow protesters to find documents related to “the investigations into the source code, which legitimize that Jair Messias Bolsonaro is the president of Brazil.”He rattled off several government acronyms and secret investigations that he had read about on the internet, and then said that he had to go back to his tent to retrieve a Brazilian flag he had stolen from the building.Delusions over the election extended to many protesters’ explanations of what had happened in the riots. People filing out of the encampment on Monday morning, carrying rolled-up air mattresses, extension cords and stools, each had a clear message: Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters had not ransacked the buildings. Rather, they said, those causing the damage were radical leftists in disguise, bent on defaming their movement.Employees of the presidential office during the clean-up on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times“Have you ever heard of the Trojan Horse?” said Nathanael S. Viera, 51, who had driven 900 miles to take part in the protests on Sunday. “The infiltrators went in and set everything up, and the damn press showed the Brazilian nation that we patriots are the hooligans.”The scenes on Sunday of right-wing protesters draped in their national flag roaming through the halls of power were strikingly similar to those from the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol, and so were the confused beliefs that drove protesters in both countries to invade federal buildings and film themselves doing so.“Donald Trump was taken out with a rigged election, no question about it, and at the time he was taken out, I said, ‘President Bolsonaro is going to be taken down,’” said Wanderlei Silva, 59, a retired hotel worker standing outside the encampment on Monday.Mr. Silva saw his own similarities between the riots on Sunday and those on Jan. 6, 2021. “The Democrats staged that and invaded the Capitol,” he said. “The same way they staged it here.”Brazil has long seen itself in the mold of the United States: a sprawling, diverse country rich in natural resources, spread across a collection of independent states and governed by a strong central government. But its tumultuous political history never truly mimicked the American system, until the past several years.“If there was no Trump, there would be no Bolsonaro in Brazil. And if there was no invasion of the Capitol, there wouldn’t have been the invasion we saw yesterday,” said Guga Chacra, a commentator for Brazil’s largest television network, who lives in New York and tracks politics in both countries. “Bolsonarismo tries to copy Trumpism, and Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil try to copy what Trump supporters do in the United States.”Even a description of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election reads like a summary of the 2020 American one: a far-right populist incumbent with a penchant for insults and off-the-cuff tweets against a septuagenarian challenger on the left running on his proven political track record and a promise to unite a divided nation.Outside the Federal Supreme Court on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBut the election’s aftermath was different.While former President Donald J. Trump fought to overturn the results and urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Mr. Bolsonaro had effectively given up and decamped for Florida by the time his voters were forcing their way into the offices he once occupied.Mr. Bolsonaro spent part of Monday in the hospital in Florida, dealing with abdominal pains stemming from a stabbing he suffered in 2018, his wife said on social media. Mr. Bolsonaro is planning to stay in Florida for the next several weeks or months, hoping investigations in Brazil into his activity as president will cool off, according to a friend. Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, would not comment specifically on Mr. Bolsonaro’s visa status, citing privacy laws. But he said that any person who came to the United States under a diplomatic visa and who “is no longer engaged in official business on behalf of their government” was expected either to depart the country or request a different type of visa within 30 days.“If an individual has no basis on which to be in the United States, an individual is subject to removal,” Mr. Price said.In a recorded address in the final days of his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro said that he had tried and failed to use the law to overturn the 2022 election, and suggested that his supporters should now move on. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said. “No one wants an adventure.” On Sunday, he posted a message on Twitter, criticizing the violence.But his years of rhetoric against Brazil’s democratic institutions — and his political strategy of instilling fear of the left in his supporters — had already left an indelible mark.Interviews with protesters in recent weeks appeared to show that Mr. Bolsonaro’s movement was moving beyond him. It is now driven by deeply held beliefs among many right-wing Brazilians that political elites rigged the vote to install as president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whom they regard as a communist who will turn Brazil into an authoritarian state like Venezuela.President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meeting with members of the Supreme Court and the National Congress on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMr. Lula, the new president, is a leftist but is not a communist. And independent security experts said there was no evidence of irregularities in the 2022 vote. A separate analysis by Brazil’s military found just one potential vulnerability in Brazil’s fully digital voting system, which would require the coordination of multiple election officials to exploit, a scenario that security experts said was extremely unlikely.Mr. Lula, who had campaigned on unifying the divided nation, is now faced with investigating and prosecuting many of his political opponents’ supporters just a week into his presidency. The authorities said that roughly 1,500 protesters had been detained by Monday evening, and that they would be held until at least the investigation was finished.On Monday, Mr. Lula spoke with President Biden, who conveyed “the unwavering support of the United States for Brazil’s democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people,” White House officials said. Mr. Biden invited Mr. Lula to the White House in early February. (It took more than 18 months for him to meet with Mr. Bolsonaro at a summit in Los Angeles.)In a televised speech on Monday night, Mr. Lula said that his government would prosecute anyone who had attacked Brazil’s democracy on Sunday. “What they want is a coup, and they won’t have one,” he said. “They have to learn that democracy is the most complicated thing we do.”He and many of Brazil’s top government officials then walked together from the presidential offices to the Supreme Court, crossing the same plaza that a day before was thronged with mobs calling for the overthrow of his government.Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesReporting was contributed by Ana Ionova, More

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      Brazil Riot and Jan. 6 Attack Followed a Similar Digital Playbook, Experts Say

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      On TikTok and YouTube, videos claiming voter fraud in Brazil’s recent elections have been recirculating for days.On the WhatsApp and Telegram messaging services, an image of a poster announcing the date, time and location of the protests against the government was copied and shared over the weekend.And on Facebook and Twitter, hashtags designed to evade detection by the authorities were used by organizers as they descended onto government buildings in the capital, Brasília, on Sunday.One day after the thousands of people broke into government buildings to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election, misinformation researchers are studying how the internet was used to stoke anger and to organize far-right groups ahead of the riots. Many are drawing a comparison to the Jan. 6 protests two years ago in the United States, where thousands broke into the Capitol building in Washington. In both cases, they say, a playbook was used in which online groups, chats and social media sites played a central role.“Digital platforms were fundamental not only in the extreme right-wing domestic terrorism on Sunday, but also in the entire long process of online radicalization over the last 10 years in Brazil,” said Michele Prado, an independent researcher who studies digital movements and the Brazilian far right.She said that calls for violence have been “increasing exponentially from the last week of December.”She and other misinformation researchers have singled out Twitter and Telegram as playing a central role in organizing protests. In posts on Brazilian Telegram channels viewed by The New York Times, there were open calls for violence against the left-wing Brazilian politicians and their families. There were also addresses of government offices for protesters to attack.In one image, which The Times found on more than a dozen Telegram channels, there was a call for “patriots” to gather in Brasília on Sunday to “mark a new day” of independence. Underneath many of the posters were details of gathering times for protesters.The hashtag “Festa da Selma” was also widely spread on Twitter, including by far-right extremists who had previously been banned from the platform, Ms. Prado said.A military police officer at a camp of Bolsonaro supporters in front of an Army facility on Monday.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesIn the months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, far-right figures from around the world have had their accounts reinstated as a general amnesty unless they violated rules again. Ms. Prado said that misinformation researchers in Brazil have been reporting the accounts to Twitter in hopes that the company takes action.Twitter and Telegram did not respond to requests for comment.Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that the attacks Sunday were a “violating event” and that the company was removing content on its platforms that supported or praised the attacks on government buildings in Brazil.The protesters in Brazil and those in the United States were inspired by the same extremist ideas and conspiracy theories and were both radicalized online, Ms. Prado said. In both cases, she added, social media played a crucial role in organizing violent attacks. More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Brazil Arrests Rioters

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      Also, heavy fighting rages around Bakhmut and scientists say the ozone layer is healing.Protesters vandalized the facade of Brazil’s presidential office.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBrazil reels from Sunday’s riotsAt least 1,200 people have been detained after rioters stormed government offices on Sunday in Brazil’s capital, officials said yesterday.The detentions came after one of the worst attacks on Brazil’s democracy in the 38 years since its military dictatorship ended. On Sunday, thousands of people broke into government offices, falsely claiming the October election was stolen from Jair Bolsonaro, the former president. Here are videos of the Sunday riots.Yesterday, authorities also began dismantling the tent city where Bolsonaro supporters had been camping out since he lost the election. The dispersal was peaceful, despite fears that it could have fueled further tensions.Brazil’s justice minister said that authorities had identified about 40 buses that brought rioters to Brasília and that the financial backers of the trips would be tracked down and held responsible. Voices on social media had offered free transportation and food to protesters.Details: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed an emergency decree that put federal authorities in charge of security in Brazil’s capital. And a Supreme Court judge suspended the district’s governor while investigations take place into security failures.Bolsonaro: The former president has long attacked Brazil’s election process. After the vote, independent experts and Brazil’s military found no credible evidence of fraud. On Sunday, he criticized the protests.Ukrainian military analysts near Bakhmut reviewed videos obtained by drone operators last week.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesHeavy fighting near BakhmutFierce fighting raged yesterday around Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine that Russia has tried to capture since the summer. The fighting appeared to be focused on Soledar, a nearby town.Russia claimed to have taken a village near Soledar. Ukraine said that it had repelled Russian attempts to storm Soledar, where the deputy defense minister said that “fierce battles” were raging. Ukraine usually avoids battles with the risk of high casualties. But in Bakhmut, without hesitation, it’s going toe-to-toe with Russia.The State of the WarBattling for Bakhmut: Ukraine and Russia are going toe to toe in the key eastern city. That stands in contrast to Ukraine’s strategy elsewhere along the front line, where it succeeded by avoiding direct confrontations.New Equipment: The Western allies’ provision to Ukraine of infantry fighting vehicles signals their support for new offensives in coming months.Sexual Crimes: After months of bureaucratic and political delays, Ukrainian officials are gathering pace in documenting sexual crimes committed by Russian forces during the war.Adapting to Survive: The war has taken a severe toll on Ukraine’s economy. But it has also pushed Ukrainians to restructure parts of the economy at lightning speed.If Russian forces capture Soledar, it would mark their most significant advance in Ukraine in months. But fighting in the east is slow and relentless, and there is little sign that dug-in Ukrainian forces will relinquish the city anytime soon.Bakhmut: The city has become a symbol of Ukraine’s defiance. Some worry that could cloud military judgment, but analysts say Ukraine’s aggressive strategy has paid off, weakening Russia.The Wagner Group: The group’s Kremlin-aligned founder said that Soledar “is being taken solely by Wagner units,” which Western security officials and analysts say operate largely outside the Russian military’s chain of command.A refrigerator factory in 2018 in a part of China where businesses had defied restrictions on ozone-depleting chemicals.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesThe ozone layer is on the mendA U.N.-backed report found that the ozone layer could be restored within a few decades, now that China has begun successfully cracking down on rogue emissions of a banned chemical.That’s big news: In 2018, scientists revealed that global emissions of CFC-11, a chemical most likely used to make foam insulation, had increased since 2012. Investigations by The Times and others strongly suggested that small factories in Eastern China disregarding the global ban were the source.In 2018, the head of the U.N. Environment Program said the rogue emissions, if they continued, could delay ozone recovery by a decade. But now, scientists said that ozone levels between the polar regions should reach pre-1980 levels by 2040. Ozone holes should also recover.Ozone: The protective layer in the upper atmosphere blocks ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which can cause skin cancer.Context: The Montreal Protocol, the treaty negotiated in the 1980s to phase out the use of such chemicals, is generally considered to be the most effective global environmental pact ever enacted.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificA wallaby passed through floodwaters last week.Callum Lamond, via ReutersThe Kimberley region, in Australia’s western outback, is suffering a “one-in-100-year flood,” Sky News reports.Thailand dropped a rule that would have required visitors to present proof of a Covid vaccine, Reuters reports. Officials had announced the rule on Saturday, as the country prepared for Chinese visitors.Australia is doing well economically, but a recession is still possible.Around the WorldPresident Biden visited the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since taking office. He’s in Mexico City now.In a landmark lawsuit, environmental groups in France are suing Danone, the dairy giant, for failing to sufficiently reduce its plastic footprint.Prince Harry’s memoir comes out today. In it, he claims that he killed 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.Other Big StoriesThe Republican approach to running the U.S. House suggests there will be more gridlock and legislative instability, not less.About one in 12 working-age adults in Britain has a long-term health condition and is not working or looking for work. That’s a problem for the economy.Rome opened a skatepark right next to the Colosseum. It’s a triumph.A Morning ReadThe Ocean Canda nightclub feels more beachfront shack than ritzy club.Joao Silva/The New York TimesSouth Africa’s townships, born of racist apartheid-era social engineering, once kept nonwhite citizens segregated from economic opportunities and basic infrastructure.Now, they’re home to a vibrant nightlife scene. Instead of Cape Town — with its traffic, expensive drinks and whiter population — Black professionals party in Khayelitsha, a nearby township that they say better suits their culture and tastes.ARTS AND IDEASNoma is closingA signature of Noma and its cuisine is its luxurious, modern-rustic aesthetic.Ditte Isager for The New York TimesMy colleagues have a major scoop in the world of fine dining: Noma will close for regular service at the end of 2024. The Copenhagen restaurant, which repeatedly tops lists of the world’s best restaurants, will become a full-time food laboratory focused on its e-commerce operation. It will open to diners only for periodic pop-ups.Noma has fundamentally changed gastronomy: Foodies often book flights to Denmark’s capital only after they clinch a reservation. And its creator, René Redzepi, has been hailed as his era’s most brilliant and influential chef.But Redzepi said that the current model, which changed fine dining forever, was “unsustainable.” Staff at Noma work grueling hours. The workplace culture is intense, and the restaurant long relied on an army of unpaid interns. One alumnus compared the industry to ballet, another elite pursuit that has abuse built into its very model.“We have to completely rethink the industry,” Redzepi told The Times. “This is simply too hard, and we have to work in a different way.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookLinda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.This poppy seed tea cake is simple and earthy.What to ReadIn “The Bandit Queens,” wives in rural India get the ultimate revenge on their no-good husbands.What to Listen toHere are seven songs we nearly missed in 2022.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Dummy (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Mara Hvistendahl is joining The Times from The Intercept as a new investigative correspondent focused on China and Asia.“The Daily” is on Kevin McCarthy, the new House speaker.You can always reach me at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Brazil’s President Lula Has No Easy Choices

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      Brazil’s new president is hemmed in by protesters on one side and financial markets on the other. He needs to spend money to please the public, but he needs to demonstrate fiscal responsibility to keep investors from abandoning Brazilian assets, which could cause interest rates to soar and cripple the economy. Unfortunately, it will be extremely difficult to do both at once.It’s a tough spot for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist who served two terms from 2003 to 2010 and narrowly won election to a third term in October over the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro. On Sunday, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters broke into government buildings in the capital, Brasília, to protest what they falsely believe was a stolen election.Lula, as he is known, was able to spend generously on social programs during his first period in office in part because of high prices for many of the commodities that Brazil exports. Brazil is a major producer of steel as well as agricultural products such as citrus and soybeans. Now commodity prices are faltering because of expectations of a global economic downturn. On top of that, Brazil’s central bank has raised its key lending rate to nearly 14 percent in an effort to extinguish inflation, which is running around 6 percent.Bolsonaro, although far right in his politics, governed as a free-spending populist. His government bolstered fuel subsidies last year, which won him votes but worsened the government’s financial situation.Lula, who was inaugurated on Jan. 1 in the company of his adopted pet dog, Resistência, has handed the vital job of finance minister to Fernando Haddad, a fellow leftist who hasn’t (at least yet) won the confidence of investors.With Bolsonaro’s supporters roiling Brasília and other cities, “The capital flow of foreign buyers that entered the Brazilian market recently is likely to be undone,” Matthew Ryan, the head of market strategy at Ebury, a financial services firm, wrote in a note on Monday.In a warning to investors, Filippos Papasavvas, a markets economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a client note on Monday that “any worries about widespread protests could see Lula double down on the more popularist (and less market-friendly) parts of his agenda, such as significant increases to social spending.”For a closer look at Lula’s dilemma, I interviewed Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. A native of Brazil, she was named an honored economist by the Order of Brazilian Economists in 2014 for her contributions to the Brazilian policy debate.“He has no room to do the kinds of things that people expected him to do,” de Bolle told me. On the spending side, investors who worry about deficts spending will rebel if the government increases social spending or puts through a big increase in the minimum wage. Conversely, the public will rebel if he attempts to roll back subsidies on fuel that Bolsonaro put in place.De Bolle said that Brazil’s Wall Street is thick with Bolsonaro supporters. She argued that they gave Bolsonaro the benefit of the doubt but aren’t cutting Lula any slack. I told her that sounded like a great opportunity for investors from outside Brazil: If indeed domestic investors are overly pessimistic about Lula’s ability to rein in spending, then prices of Brazilian debt must be too low, presenting a good deal for buyers. She agreed. “Brazil will certainly present that opportunity,” she said.Then again, if Ebury’s Ryan is correct, foreign investors will be reluctant to scoop up Brazilian assets as long as the political situation remains uncertain. There’s no second honeymoon for Lula.Outlook: Georges Ugeux“Why is nobody talking about the debt?” Georges Ugeux, the chairman and chief executive of Galileo Global Advisors, a New York-based company that advises on mergers, acquisitions and management, asked in an article posted on Medium on Thursday. Rising interest rates have increased the burden of debt. It isn’t just a problem for emerging markets, he wrote. “The over-indebtedness of the United States, Europe, Japan and China could create a much more severe debt crisis, both at sovereign and at corporate levels.” He predicted that 2023 will be “the year where we will start paying the cost of our inconsiderate addiction to debt.”Quote of the Day“Japan’s experience of prolonged deflation suggests that it takes a great deal of effort to dispel anxiety over deflation. Nevertheless, there was no need to give up the challenge of overcoming deflation simply because the economy fell into deflation; against the background of the Bank’s monetary policy measures adopted since 2013, the economy has improved and is currently no longer in deflation.”— Masazumi Wakatabe, deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, in his keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Japan Association of Business Cycle Studies, Dec. 3, 2022Have feedback? Send a note to coy-newsletter@nytimes.com. More

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      Czech Court Clears Andrej Babis of Fraud in E.U. Funds Case

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      Andrej Babis, a billionaire agriculturalist, had been accused of illegally obtaining farm subsidies for one of his properties.A Czech court on Monday cleared Andrej Babis, the billionaire former prime minister of the Czech Republic who became a symbol of how the E.U. farm subsidy program enriched the well-connected and powerful, of fraud charges in a case regarding one of his properties.The court on Monday cleared Mr. Babis of fraudulently obtaining E.U. subsidies for the property, citing lack of evidence, just days before the first round of a presidential election in the Czech Republic in which Mr. Babis is considered a front-runner.“NOT GUILTY!” Mr. Babis said on Twitter on Monday. “I am very happy that we have an independent judiciary and the court has confirmed what I have argued from the beginning. That I am innocent and have done nothing illegal.”The case revolved around Mr. Babis’s use of the E.U. farm subsidy program, a pot of money worth dozens of billions that is handed out every year.A 2019 New York Times investigation found that politicians used the money to enrich themselves and their political patrons. That did not necessarily mean they broke the law. The investigation found that Mr. Babis’s companies received $79 million in subsidies.In the case resolved on Monday, Mr. Babis was accused of fraudulently transferring a company to his wife and children as a way of receiving subsidies.The case is separate from an audit by the European Commission that found that as prime minister, Mr. Babis breached conflict of interest rules and influenced the allocation of E.U. subsidies to the business conglomerate he built. Mr. Babis has said that the audit was flawed.For a decade, Mr. Babis was dogged by scandals related to Agrofert, the conglomerate he built out of companies in a range of sectors including food and agriculture. It is one of the country’s largest employers.The case resolved Monday involved a farm in the Czech Republic known as the Stork’s Nest, which received about $2.2 million in E.U. subsidies after its ownership was transferred from Agrofert to Mr. Babis’s wife and children.The prosecutor had said that in 2007 and 2008 Mr. Babis removed the Stork’s Nest from Agrofert to allow it to qualify for E.U. funding as a small- to medium-size business, and accused him of fraud. In 2018 the funds the company received were returned to the European Union.The judge, Jan Sott, said on Monday that the prosecutor did not provide relevant evidence proving that Mr. Babis held shares of the Stork’s Nest. He also said “it was not proved that the acts as described by the prosecutor were criminal.” The decision can still be appealed.In 2017, Mr. Babis placed his businesses into a trust amid accusations of conflicts of interest. The farm is now part of that trust, according to Agrofert’s website.Mr. Babis has also been accused of purchasing a villa and other properties on the French Riviera worth more than $20 million through offshore shell companies. According to French media, he is facing an investigation in France into money laundering. He has denied any wrongdoing.Mr. Babis, who was the finance minister between 2014 and 2017 and prime minister between 2017 and 2021, had not entered politics when he bought the French properties.In 2019, Czechs organized large demonstrations calling for Mr. Babis’s resignation. In 2021, he was defeated in parliamentary elections.In the presidential election set to take place on Friday and Saturday, Mr. Babis is running against Gen. Petr Pavel, a former NATO official, and Danuse Nerudova, a university professor and economist, both of whom are supported by the political coalition of Prime Minister Petr Fiala.On Monday, Mr. Fiala said on Facebook that the court’s verdict needed to be respected.“The actual political fights in democracy take place during elections,” he added. “Let’s come to the polls and let’s solve our future.” More

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      Speaker, Speaker, What Do You See? I See MAGA Looking at Me.

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, remember “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” the unforgettable Lionel Shriver novel about a woman whose son murders his classmates? Maybe someone should write the sequel: “We Need to Talk About What They Did to Kevin.”Gail Collins: A book-length disquisition on Kevin McCarthy, Bret? I dunno. Always thought his strongest suit was that he was too boring to hate. But now that he’s apparently promised the Republican right wing everything but permission to bring pet ocelots to the House floor, I can see it.Bret: Too boring to hate or too pathetic to despise? I’ve begun to think of McCarthy almost as a literary archetype, like one of those figures in a Joseph Conrad novel whose follies make them weak and whose weakness leads them to folly.Gail: Love your literary allusions. But let’s pretend you’re in charge of the Republican Party — tell me what you think of him in general.Bret: A few honorable exceptions aside, the G.O.P. is basically split between reptiles and invertebrates. McCarthy is the ultimate invertebrate. He went to Mar-a-Lago just a short while after Jan. 6 to kiss the ring of the guy who incited the mob that, by McCarthy’s own admission, wanted to kill him. He hated Liz Cheney because of her backbone. But he quailed before Marjorie Taylor Greene because she has a forked tongue. He gave away the powers and prerogatives of the office of speaker in order to gain the office, which is like a slug abandoning its shell and thinking it won’t be stepped on. A better man would have told the Freedom Caucus holdouts to shove it. Instead, as a friend of mine put it, McCarthy decided to become the squeaker of the House.Gail: OK, Kevin is House squeaker forever.Bret: If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the whole spectacle has shown voters what they get for voting for this Republican Party.Gail: Hey, you’re still in charge of Republicans. Now that they’re sort of in command, do you have hopes they’ll make progress on your priorities, like controlling government spending? Without, um, failing to make the nation’s debt payments ….Bret: Buried in the noise about McCarthy’s humiliation is that his opponents had some reasonable demands. One of them was to give members of Congress a minimum of 72 hours to read the legislation they were voting on. Another was to limit bills to a single subject. The idea is to do away with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spending packages that Congress has lately become way too fond of.Gail: Yeah, I can buy into that one.Bret: On the other hand, the idea that this Republican clown show is going to accomplish anything significant — particularly since doing so would require them to work with a Democratic president and Senate — is roughly the equivalent of Vladimir Putin leaving the vocation of vile despot to become a … cannabis entrepreneur. Not going to happen.So what do Democrats do?Gail: Well, one plus is that we don’t have to worry about the Republican House passing some terrible, nutty legislation since the Senate is there to put a halt to it. Interesting how much better obstruction looks when your party is doing the obstructing ….Bret: It’s almost — almost — enough to be grateful to people like Herschel Walker and Blake Masters for being such deliriously awful candidates.Gail: When it comes to positive action, like keeping the government running, I’d like to think the moderate Dems and the moderate Republicans could get together and come to some agreement on the basics. Do you think there’s a chance?Bret: What was the name of that Bret Easton Ellis novel? “Less Than Zero.” Bipartisanship became a four-letter word for most Republicans sometime around 2012. If we can avoid another useless government shutdown, I’ll consider it a minor miracle.On the other hand, all this is good for Democrats. In our last conversation, I predicted that McCarthy wouldn’t win the speakership and that Joe Biden would decide against a second term. I was wrong on the first. Now I’m beginning to think I was also wrong on the second, in part because Republicans are in such manifest disarray. What is your spidey sense telling you?Gail: Yeah, Biden knows 80 is old for another run, but the chance to take on Donald Trump again is probably going to be irresistible.Bret: Assuming it’s going to be Trump, which, increasingly, I doubt.Gail: You really think it’s going to be Ron DeSantis? My theory is that if the field opens up at all, there’ll be a swarm of Republican hopefuls, dividing the Trump opposition.Bret: It’ll be DeSantis or you can serve me a platter of crow. Never mind that Trump still managed to seal the deal for McCarthy’s speakership by winning over a few of the last holdouts. It still took him 15 ballots.Gail: But about Biden — if he did drop out, Democrats would have to figure out what to do about Kamala Harris. A woman, a minority, with the classic presidential training job. Yet a lot of people haven’t found her all that impressive as a potential leader.My vote would be for him to announce he’s not running instantly, and let all the other potential heirs go for it.Bret: How do you solve a problem like Kamala? My initial hope was that she’d grow into the job. That hasn’t seemed to happen. My second hope was that Biden would give her a task in which she’d shine. Didn’t happen either. My third hope was that Biden would ask her to fill Stephen Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court and then nominate Gina Raimondo or Pete Buttigieg to the vice presidency, setting either of them up to be the front-runner in ’24 or ’28. Whoops again. Now Dems are saddled with their own version of Dan Quayle, minus the gravitas.Gail: Not fair to compare her to Dan Quayle. But otherwise OK with your plan. Go on.Bret: I also think Biden should announce he isn’t going to run, both on account of his age and the prospect of running against someone like DeSantis. But the argument is harder to make given the midterm results, Republican chaos, the sense that he’s defied the skeptics to pass a lot of legislation and the increasingly likely prospect that Ukraine will prevail over Russia this year and give him a truly historic geopolitical win.I just hope that if he does run, he switches veeps. It would … reassure the nation.Gail: So happy to hear you’re on a Biden fan track. Does that apply to his new plan for the Mexican border, too?Bret: Not a Biden fan, exactly, though I do root for a successful presidency on general principle. As for the border plan, the good news is that he finally seems to be recognizing the scale of the problem and promising tougher enforcement. It’s also good that he’s doing more for political refugees from oppressive countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.Gail: And next …Bret: The right step now is to start pushing for realistic bipartisan immigration reform that gives Republicans more money for border wall construction and security in exchange for automatic citizenship for Dreamers, an expanded and renewable guest-worker visa that helps bring undocumented workers out of the shadows and a big increase in the “extraordinary ability” EB-1 visas for our future Andy Groves and Albert Einsteins. What do you think?Gail: I was waiting for you to get to the border wall itself, which we disagree about. Terrible symbol, awful to try to maintain and not always effective.Bret: All true, except that it paves the way for a good legislative compromise and can save lives if it deters dangerous border crossings.Gail: Moneywise, the border states deserve increased federal aid to handle their challenges. A good chunk should go to early childhood education, which would not only help the new arrivals but also local children born into non-English-speaking families.The aid should also go to states like New York that are getting busloads of new immigrants — some from those Arizona and Texas busing plots, but a good number just because they’re the newcomers’ choice destination.I believe there was a bipartisan plan hatched in the House that included citizenship for Dreamers — an obvious reform that, amazingly, we haven’t yet achieved. But bipartisan plans aren’t doing real well right now.Bret: It’s still worth a shot. I’m sorry Biden didn’t invest the kind of political capital into immigration reform that he did into the infrastructure and climate change bills. And if Republicans wind up voting down funding for a border wall out of spite for Dreamers, I can’t see how that helps Republicans or hurts Democrats. Supporting them seems like smart politics at the very minimum.Before we go, Gail, one more point of note: We just passed the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. I was happy to see Biden honor the heroes of that day at a White House ceremony. Also happy to see the Justice Department continue to prosecute hundreds of cases. And appalled to watch Brazil’s right-wing loons try to imitate the Jan. 6 insurrectionists by storming their own parliament. Any suggestions for going forward?Gail: Well, what we really need to see is an effort by Republicans, some of whom were endangered themselves during the attack, but virtually none of whom have shown any interest in revisiting that awful moment — only one member of the party showed up for that ceremony.Now that Kevin McCarthy has his job in hand, let’s see him call for a bipartisan committee to come up with some suggestions. Ha ha ha.Sorry — don’t want to end on a snippy note.Bret: Not snippy at all. Truthful. We could start by requiring a civics course for all incoming members of Congress. Maybe some of them might learn that their first duty is to the Constitution, not to themselves.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. More

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      Could Congressional Gridlock Lead to More Government Shutdowns?

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      Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns.The House speaker elections last week turned a typically routine government procedure into a dramatic affair. They also exposed a major vulnerability in Congress: A small segment of lawmakers can stop the process of basic governance to obtain what it wants, with potentially big ramifications for the country.In the speaker fight, the immediate consequences were relatively small. A Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is leading a majority-Republican House.More critical is how Republicans got there. McCarthy made concessions that will weaken his power, make it easier for lawmakers to oust him and give the right-wing rank-and-file greater input in legislation and in lawmakers’ assignments to committees, where Congress does much of its work.The graver consequences will unfold months from now if the ultraconservatives who prolonged the speaker selection again withhold their votes until they have their way on looming spending bills. Congress must pass such legislation to keep the government open and avoid economic calamity. If deadlines for these bills come and go without a resolution, the government could be forced to shut down or, worse, default on its debt obligations, likely triggering a financial crisis. (More on that later.)The right flank has already connected its opposition to McCarthy to such spending bills. In speeches during the four-day speaker battle, far-right Republicans cited a $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress passed last month to argue that establishment figures, including McCarthy, have failed to reduce government spending. Among the concessions that ultraconservatives drew from McCarthy was a promise that any increase on the country’s debt limit, a congressionally set cap on the federal debt, will be paired with spending cuts.Some hard-liners have been clear that they would take drastic action again to have their way on spending. “Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? That’s a nonnegotiable item,” said Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican critic of McCarthy who ultimately voted for him.Representative Matt GaetzHaiyun Jiang/The New York TimesDeliberate gridlockThe ultraconservatives have said that one of their main goals is to shrink the size of government. “If you don’t stop spending money that we don’t have to fund the bureaucracy that is undermining the American people, we cannot win,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Republican who voted against McCarthy in 11 ballots.One way to achieve this goal is by pushing Congress toward inaction. Consider some of the assurances the holdout Republicans received from McCarthy: more time to read and debate legislation, as well as to propose unlimited changes to it.In theory, these changes might sound like common sense, since legislators should, ideally, be taking time to understand and finalize bills. But in practice, these kinds of allowances have slowed Congress’s work, if not halted it altogether, by giving lawmakers more chances to stand in the way of any kind of legislation.This roadblock is especially likely in a closely divided Congress. Since House Republicans have a slim majority of 222 votes out of 435, they must rely on their right-wing faction to reach a majority in any vote (absent unlikely support from Democrats). Last week, that faction showed it will wield its leverage.“It’s all about the ability — empowering us to stop the machine in this town from doing what it does,” Roy said.Coming deadlinesIf the ultraconservatives use these tactics in future legislative debates, Congress could miss deadlines to keep the government open and avoid a financial crisis.Among the looming fights is one over the debt limit. If the government ever reaches this limit, it can no longer borrow money to pay off its debts, potentially forcing a default. That could cause serious damage to the global financial system, which relies on U.S. Treasuries as a safe investment.The government is expected to hit the current debt limit in late summer. Republicans have already suggested that they will try to use negotiations over raising it to draw spending concessions from Senate Democrats and the Biden administration, a tactic that conservatives used during Barack Obama’s presidency. But Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt limit this time.If both sides stick to their word, the government could be on track for the most treacherous debt-limit debate since 2011, my colleague Jim Tankersley reported. That year, Obama and a new Republican House majority nearly defaulted on the nation’s debt before reaching a deal.Similarly, the government will have to pass a spending bill in September to remain open. Republicans have, again, suggested that they will use their control of the House to reduce government spending. Democrats have said that they will push back. If both sides fall short of an agreement, the government will shut down, halting or slowing functions like the payment of military salaries, environmental or food inspections and the management of national parks.The battle over the speaker, then, is potentially a preview of what’s to come: a Congress unable to perform even its basic duties because a small segment of lawmakers are willing to say no.More Congress newsHistory suggests that House Republicans’ plans are likely to bring more gridlock and instability, Carl Hulse writes.House Republicans are preparing to investigate law enforcement and national security agencies.THE LATEST NEWSBrazil RiotsSupporters of Jair Bolsonaro in Brasília yesterday.Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThousands of supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed the country’s Congress and presidential offices over false claims of a rigged election.Brazilian authorities cleared the government offices and arrested at least 200 people, an official said.These videos show how rioters stormed government buildings in protests that resemble the Jan 6., 2021, attack in the U.S.Bolsonaro is believed to be in Florida after spending months promoting the myth of a stolen election.InternationalTwo buses collided in Senegal, killing at least 40 people.Ultra-Orthodox politicians in Israel are pushing to cement their community’s special status under Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant rated the world’s best, will close next year. Its chef says its style of dining is unsustainable.Other Big StoriesPresident Biden made his first visit to the southern border since taking office.Winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people in Sacramento. More storms are coming to California this week.A new Korean War memorial has many names of American service members misspelled or missing.An avalanche buried and killed two snowmobilers in Colorado, emergency responders said.The Phoenix police are investigating their detention of a Black journalist for The Wall Street Journal who was reporting outside a Chase Bank.OpinionsNoncompete clauses lower wages and decrease competitiveness across the economy, says Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair.Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discussed the speaker chaos.Our society is failing visual thinkers, to everyone’s detriment, Temple Grandin writes.Damar Hamlin’s injury was serious but rare. Head trauma, heart disease and other more common conditions pose greater dangers to football players, Chris Nowinski writes.MORNING READSChatham, N.Y.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesExpensive, treacherous, beautiful: The battle over dirt roads.A $17,000 delay: A check-in agent’s mistake made her miss an Antarctic cruise.Metropolitan Diary: Food never tasted as good as it did at 3 a.m.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.7).A morning listen: 2022 was Bad Bunny’s year.Advice from Wirecutter: Stop killing houseplants. Try Lego flowers.Lives Lived: Russell Banks brought his blue-collar background to bear in novels that vividly portrayed working-class Americans. He died at 82.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICBears’ conundrum: Chicago will pick first overall in the 2023 N.F.L. Draft. Should they take an elite college quarterback or continue building around Justin Fields?N.F.L.: The Bills, in their first game since Damar Hamlin’s collapse, beat New England. Detroit’s win over Green Bay sent the Seahawks to the playoffs and cemented postseason seeding. An injury: Kevin Durant injured his right knee in last night’s Nets win over the Heat. ARTS AND IDEAS Kathleen FuThe man behind the memoirOne name you won’t find on the cover of Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” is J.R. Moehringer, the book’s ghostwriter. That’s because the job of ghostwriters — even the famous ones, like Moehringer — is to put ego aside and disappear into their subject’s voice.Michelle Burford, who has written books for several celebrities, explains to her clients that they provide the materials to build a house and she puts it together. “You own the bricks,” she tells them. “But you — and there should be no shame in this — don’t have the skill set to actually erect the building.”Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter, is known for his intense process. “He’s half psychiatrist,” said the Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who collaborated with Moehringer on his memoir. “He gets you to say things you really didn’t think you would.”Related: Prince Harry appeared at ease and at times emotional in high-profile interviews.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRomulo Yanes for The New York TimesBroccoli and Cheddar soup has a following on the internet.What to ReadIn “The Edge of the Plain,” the journalist James Crawford asks whether good fences really make good neighbors.The PlaylistSeven songs we nearly missed last year, including tracks by Flo, Becky G and Karol G, Monster and Big Flock.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was judicial. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Vernon Dursley, to Harry Potter (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. Sapna Maheshwari, a Times business reporter, will cover TikTok and emerging media.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Speaker McCarthy.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More