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      Italia articula su próximo gobierno en torno a un rostro conocido: Silvio Berlusconi

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      El apoyo del magnate de los medios de comunicación definirá la posición de Giorgia Meloni como posible primera ministra del país. La salud de la democracia italiana también está en juego.ROMA — Durante el último mitin de campaña de la coalición de derecha italiana antes de su victoria en las elecciones del mes pasado, el magnate multimillonario Silvio Berlusconi, con una sonrisa congelada en su rostro de cera, estaba en el centro del escenario, apuntalado, literalmente, por sus aliados de la ultraderecha, Giorgia Meloni y Matteo Salvini, que agitaron la mano de Berlusconi por encima de su cabeza.El cuadro pudo haber evocado una versión italiana de Weekend at Bernie’s más que un triunvirato moderno. Pero los tres formarán ahora el gobierno italiano más derechista desde Mussolini. Berlusconi, con 86 años y cada vez menos popularidad, es su frágil eje.Hace casi 30 años, Berlusconi fue quien incorporó a los partidos de sus aliados, antes pequeños y marginales, a uno de sus gobiernos y a la política italiana establecida. Pero ahora es Meloni, líder de los Hermanos de Italia, un partido que desciende de los restos del experimento italiano con el fascismo del siglo pasado, quien casi con seguridad será la próxima primera ministra cuando se forme un gobierno, quizás esta misma semana.La cuestión ahora, sin embargo, es si el envejecido líder de centroderecha puede cumplir su promesa de fungir como una fuerza moderadora y proeuropea en el próximo gobierno de Italia, o si ha perdido el control de la política que puso en marcha y que ha convertido a Italia, la cuna del fascismo, otra vez en un campo de pruebas para el avance de la extrema derecha en Europa. El lunes, Suecia instaló su propio gobierno de derecha, respaldado por un partido de raíces neonazis.“Europa espera mucho de nosotros”, escribió la semana pasada en Twitter Berlusconi, que declinó una solicitud de entrevista. “Y nos consideramos el garante del próximo gobierno”.Incluso antes de que se forme el gobierno, las tensiones ya son evidentes. La semana pasada, cuando Berlusconi ocupaba su nuevo escaño en el Senado, un órgano que hace casi una década lo vetó temporalmente tras una condena por fraude fiscal, los fotógrafos hicieron un acercamiento sobre sus apuntes, quizá colocados a propósito para que fueran visibles, en los que describía a Meloni como “prepotente, arrogante, ofensiva”. Cuando los periodistas le preguntaron al respecto, Meloni espetó que había olvidado algo: “No chantajeable”.Los dos parecieron hacer las paces durante un encuentro el lunes por la noche en Roma; publicaron una foto sonriendo juntos, y Berlusconi los llamó “unidos”.La idea de Berlusconi como protector de la democracia italiana es para muchos algo profundamente preocupante.Simpatizantes del partido de extrema derecha Hermanos de Italia el mes pasado en Cagliari, Cerdeña. Es casi seguro que Meloni, la líder del partido, será la próxima primera ministra cuando se forme un gobierno.Gianni Cipriano para The New York TimesSus numerosos críticos recuerdan los abusos del poder gubernamental para proteger sus intereses empresariales, sus escapadas libertinas con mujeres jóvenes y las llamadas fiestas Bunga Bunga realizadas cuando ocupaba el cargo, su humillación a las mujeres y la cultura italianas con su humor, y sus canales de televisión, a menudo burdos, que, junto con sus periódicos y revistas, aprovechó para realizar propaganda política.Para ellos, es el villano que degradó la democracia italiana, cuyos conflictos de intereses, asociaciones dudosas y aparente ilegalidad desencadenaron un movimiento de oposición de furiosos populistas antisistema y llevaron a la izquierda a una crisis nerviosa de la que aún no se ha recuperado.En la escena internacional, es un viejo amigo del presidente ruso Vladimir Putin, al que defendió el mes pasado, lo que supuso un dolor de cabeza para Meloni, que apoya firmemente a Ucrania en la guerra con Rusia.Berlusconi también provocó un motín entre los centristas de su propio partido en julio, cuando hundió al gobierno del primer ministro Mario Draghi, al que admiraba públicamente, en su afán por volver a probar el poder.“Es muy importante entender inmediatamente que Berlusconi no es amigo de la democracia”, dijo antes de morir Paul Ginsborg, biógrafo de Berlusconi, en una conversación reciente.Pero dada la composición del nuevo gobierno, algunos analistas creen que Berlusconi puede ser el mejor amigo que tienen los defensores de una Italia proeuropea, centrista y democrática.“La parte responsable de la centroderecha la encarna el líder que durante mucho tiempo ha sido considerado el más irresponsable del mundo”, dijo Claudio Cerasa, autor de un nuevo libro, Le catene della destra (Las cadenas de la derecha), sobre la aceptación de las teorías de conspiración por parte de nacionalistas y populistas.“Europa espera mucho de nosotros”, escribió Berlusconi la semana pasada en Twitter. “Y nos consideramos el garante del próximo gobierno”.Gianni Cipriano para The New York TimesCerasa, que también es director de Il Foglio, un periódico fundado por la familia de Berlusconi pero que ahora es independiente, señaló que solo Berlusconi en la derecha italiana había rechazado el trumpismo, el populismo antielitista y el nacionalismo euroescéptico. También sirvió de contrapeso a la desconfianza que Meloni y Salvini expresaron ante las vacunas, y gobernó en coaliciones con la centroizquierda.Muchos en la clase política creen que Berlusconi evitará que Meloni ponga en peligro la unidad europea al gravitar de nuevo hacia sus viejos aliados, entre ellos el primer ministro euroescéptico y de extrema derecha Viktor Orbán de Hungría y Marine Le Pen en Francia. “Él es como una brújula”, dijo Cerasa.No está claro que Meloni lo siga. Este mes, ella participó en un mitin del partido español de extrema derecha Vox, junto con el expresidente Donald Trump y Orbán. “No somos monstruos”, dijo en un mensaje de video. “El pueblo lo entiende”.Meloni, consciente de las preocupaciones que genera su pasado ideológico, desea calmar a los mercados internacionales al nombrar a tecnócratas reconocidos para los ministerios económicos clave. Pero estos siguen rechazándola.Algunos sostienen que el legado más duradero de Berlusconi en la política italiana —más que el debate que forzó sobre los impuestos onerosos o la extralimitación judicial— puede ser su creación de una coalición europea moderna de derecha, formada por partidos antes marginados cuyas versiones actuales lideran Meloni y Salvini.De este modo, Berlusconi eliminó la noción, según John Foot, un historiador del fascismo, de que “un fascista no debería hablar, no debería existir, no debería tener un lugar en la sociedad italiana”.En 2019 Berlusconi dijo durante un mitin político que, en lo que respecta al partido de la Liga de Salvini y a los “fascistas”, “los dejamos entrar en el 94 y los legitimamos”. Insistió, sin embargo, en que “somos el cerebro, el corazón, la columna vertebral”.“Sin nosotros”, dijo, “la centroderecha no existiría ni existirá nunca”.Meloni el mes pasado en Roma. Algunos sostienen que el legado más duradero de Berlusconi en la política italiana puede ser su creación de una moderna coalición de derecha europea.Gianni Cipriano para The New York TimesAlgunos de los antiguos partidarios de Berlusconi consideran que esa alianza fue un golpe maestro democrático, por obligar a la franja a normalizarse y comprometerse con la realidad transaccional de la capital.“Transformó estos dos movimientos que eran, digamos, balas perdidas, o variables fuera de control, y los llevó al puerto constitucional”, dijo Renato Brunetta, que ayudó a fundar el partido Forza Italia de Berlusconi. “Esto fue un elemento estabilizador”.Pero después de que Forza Italia ayudó a desencadenar nuevas elecciones, Brunetta, que fue ministro en el gobierno de Draghi, abandonó el partido y dijo que Meloni era “realmente regresiva en lo que respecta a la cultura de la derecha en Italia”.Meloni, por su parte, agradeció la obra de Berlusconi. En una reciente entrevista, reconoció que “hizo algo inesperado” cuando en 1993 apoyó la candidatura a la alcaldía del entonces líder de su partido Alianza Nacional, que luego fue Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Berlusconi.“Eso seguramente hizo que muchos que quizás no tenían el valor de decirlo, y lo creían de corazón, salieran a la luz”, dijo Meloni. “En este sentido, es el tema de la legitimación”.Pero, añadió Meloni, “creo que el momento de la derecha había llegado”.Ahora claramente llegó. El partido de Meloni obtuvo el 26 por ciento de los votos, más que ningún otro. Insistió en que no se limitaba a andar con Berlusconi porque necesitara el pequeño porcentaje de su partido para gobernar, como él necesitó en su día al partido de ella.“No necesitamos llevarlo con nosotros”, dijo Meloni. Y añadió: “Puede que sea la persona que más se ha impuesto en la historia italiana, en la historia republicana italiana, más que cualquier otro en los últimos 20 años”.De hecho, a pesar de su paso cansino y de los jóvenes con banderas que lo protegen de la vista del público al salir del escenario, las cosas parecen ir a favor de Berlusconi.La semana pasada, con el pelo lacado, fue el centro de atención en la sesión de apertura del Senado recién elegido.Berlusconi, en el centro, el jueves en la primera sesión del recién elegido Senado en Roma.Antonio Masiello/Getty ImagesTodas las contradicciones de la historia y la política actual de Italia estaban a la vista. También las tensiones entre los aliados de la derecha.La sesión la abrió un sobreviviente del Holocausto y senador vitalicio que recordó que el fascismo de Mussolini tomó el poder hace 100 años. Los senadores eligieron como presidente a Ignazio La Russa, líder del partido de Meloni, que lleva el segundo nombre de Benito y guarda en su casa recuerdos de Mussolini.Berlusconi, que recibió apretones de manos y peticiones de selfis por parte de los senadores, tiró el bolígrafo y maldijo furiosamente a La Russa, cuya presidencia intentó bloquear como represalia por la negativa de Meloni a nombrar ministra a su propia lugarteniente, Licia Ronzulli, una antigua enfermera que se sienta a su lado y solía ayudar a organizar sus veladas nocturnas con mujeres jóvenes.La novia de Berlusconi, Marta Fascina, de 32 años, obtuvo un escaño en el Parlamento en representación de una ciudad siciliana en la que nunca hizo campaña. El 29 de septiembre, el día del cumpleaños de Berlusconi, hizo que un globo aerostático soltara miles de globos con forma de corazones rojos sobre el jardín de su villa.Al día siguiente, Berlusconi publicó un video de su cena de cumpleaños en el que meseros con guantes blancos sacaban un pastel de varios pisos: uno por su equipo de fútbol, otro por su partido político y otro por su imperio mediático.Encima de todo estaba la imagen de un Berlusconi mucho más joven y con su traje característico, sonriendo junto a una tierra comestible.Jason Horowitz es el jefe del buró en Roma; cubre Italia, Grecia y otros sitios del sur de Europa. Cubrió la campaña presidencial de 2016 en Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Obama y al congreso con un énfasis en perfiles políticos y especiales. @jasondhorowitz More

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      Italy’s Next Government Hinges on a Familiar Face: Silvio Berlusconi

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      Giorgia Meloni’s likely turn as prime minister will depend on support from the billionaire media mogul. So may the health of Italian democracy.ROME — During the final campaign rally for Italy’s right-wing coalition before it emerged victorious in Italy’s elections last month, the billionaire mogul Silvio Berlusconi, a smile frozen on his waxen face, stood center stage, propped up, quite literally, by his hard-right partners, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, who waved Mr. Berlusconi’s hand above his head.The tableau may have evoked an Italian remake of “Weekend at Bernie’s” more than a modern-day triumvirate. But the three will now make up the most right-wing Italian government since Mussolini, with Mr. Berlusconi, 86 and decreasingly popular, as its fragile linchpin.It was nearly 30 years ago that Mr. Berlusconi brought his partners’ once small, marginalized parties into one of his governments and Italy’s political mainstream. But today it is Ms. Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the wreckage of Italy’s experiment with Fascism last century, who is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed, perhaps as soon as this week.The question now, though, is whether the aging center-right leader can fulfill his promise to act as a moderating, pro-European force on Italy’s next government, or whether he has lost control of the politics he set in motion that have made Italy, the birthplace of Fascism, once again a testing ground for the far right’s advance in Europe. On Monday, Sweden installed its own right-wing government, backed by a party with neo-Nazi roots.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi, who declined a request for an interview, wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Even before the government begins, the tensions are already evident. Last week, as Mr. Berlusconi took his new seat in the Senate, a body that almost a decade ago temporarily barred him after a conviction for tax fraud, photographers zoomed in on his notes, perhaps purposefully left visible, describing Ms. Meloni as “overbearing, arrogant, offensive.” Asked about it by reporters, Ms. Meloni snapped that he forgot something: “Not blackmailable.”The two seemed to make peace during a meeting on Monday evening in Rome; they released a photo of themselves smiling together, and Mr. Berlusconi called them “united.”The notion of Mr. Berlusconi as a protector of Italian democracy is for many a deeply troubling one.Supporters of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party last month in Cagliari, Sardinia. Ms. Meloni, the party leader, is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesHis legions of critics recall his abuses of government power to protect his business interests, his libertine escapades with young women and so-called Bunga Bunga parties while in office, his degrading of Italian women and culture with his humor, and his often crude television channels, which, along with his newspapers and magazines, he exploited for political propaganda.For them, he is the villain who debased Italian democracy, whose conflicts of interest, questionable associations and apparent illegality set off an opposition movement of angry anti-establishment populists and drove the left into a nervous breakdown from which it has still not recovered.On the international stage, he is a longtime friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he defended as recently as last month, causing a headache for Ms. Meloni, who is a strong supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia.Mr. Berlusconi also prompted a mutiny of centrists in his own party in July when he sank the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, whom he publicly admired, as he reached for another taste of power.“It’s very important to understand immediately that Berlusconi is no friend to democracy,” Paul Ginsborg, the biographer of Mr. Berlusconi, said in a conversation recently, before his death.But given the composition of the new government, some analysts believe that Mr. Berlusconi may be the best friend proponents of a pro-Europe, centrist and democratic Italy have.“The responsible part of the center-right is embodied by the leader considered for a long time the most irresponsible in the world,” said Claudio Cerasa, the author of a new book, “The Chains of the Right,” about the embrace of conspiracy theories by nationalists and populists.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesMr. Cerasa, who is also the editor of Il Foglio, a newspaper founded by Mr. Berlusconi’s family but is now independent, noted that Mr. Berlusconi alone on the Italian right had rejected Trumpism, anti-elite populism and Euroskeptic nationalism. He also served as a counterweight to vaccine skepticism exercised by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini, and he governed in coalitions with the center left.Many in the political establishment believe that Mr. Berlusconi will prevent Ms. Meloni from endangering European unity by gravitating back toward her old allies, including the Euroskeptic and hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France. “He’s like a compass,” Mr. Cerasa said.It is not clear that Ms. Meloni is following him. This month, she, along with former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Orban, took part in a rally of the far-right Spanish party Vox. “We are not monsters,” she said in a video message. “The people understand that.”Ms. Meloni, aware of concerns about her ideological past, is eager to assuage international markets by appointing mainstream technocrats to key economic ministries. But they keep turning her down.Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics — more than the debate he forced about burdensome taxation or judicial overreach — may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition, made from previously untouchable parties, which are now led in their current iterations by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini.In doing so, Mr. Berlusconi eliminated the notion, John Foot, a historian of Fascism, said, that “a Fascist should not speak, should not exist, should not have a place in Italian society.”Mr. Berlusconi said in 2019 at a political rally that, when it came to Mr. Salvini’s League party and the “Fascists,” “we let them in in ’94 and we legitimized them.” He insisted, though, that “we are the brain, the heart, the backbone.”“Without us,” he said, “the center right would never exist and will never exist.”Ms. Meloni last month in Rome. Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Berlusconi’s longtime supporters cast that alliance as a democratic masterstroke, for forcing the fringe to normalize and compromise in the transactional reality of the capital.“He transformed these two movements which were, let’s say, loose cannons, or who were out-of-control variables, and brought them into the constitutional harbor,” said Renato Brunetta, who helped found Mr. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. “This was an element of stabilization.”But after Forza Italia helped trigger new elections, Mr. Brunetta, who was a minister in Mr. Draghi’s government, quit the party and said Ms. Meloni was “actually regressive when it comes to right-wing culture in Italy.”Ms. Meloni, for her part, appreciated what Mr. Berlusconi had done. In a recent interview, she acknowledged that he “did something unexpected” when in 1993 he supported the mayoral candidacy of the leader at the time of her National Alliance party, who later served as Mr. Berlusconi’s foreign minister.“That surely brought many who maybe did not have the courage to say it, and thought it in their hearts, to come out,” Ms. Meloni said. “In this sense, it is the theme of legitimization.”But, Ms. Meloni added, “I believe the time of the right had arrived.”It now clearly has. Ms. Meloni’s party received 26 percent of the vote, larger than any other. She insisted she was not merely carrying Mr. Berlusconi along because she needed his party’s small percentage to govern, as he once needed her party.“We don’t need to carry him with us,” Ms. Meloni said. She added, “He may be the person who has imposed himself in the Italian history, in the Italian Republican history, more than any other in the last 20 years.”Indeed, despite his shuffling gait and the flag-bearing youths who shield him from view as he exits the stage, things seem to be going Mr. Berlusconi’s way.Last week, his hair looking lacquered, he held court during the first seating of the newly elected Senate.Mr. Berlusconi, center, on Thursday at the first seating of the newly elected Senate in Rome.Antonio Masiello/Getty ImagesAll of the contradictions of Italy’s history and current politics were on display. As were the tensions between the right-wing partners.The session was opened by a Holocaust survivor and senator for life who noted that Mussolini’s Fascism took power 100 years ago. Senators elected as their president Ignazio La Russa, a leader in Ms. Meloni’s party, who carries the middle name Benito and keeps Mussolini memorabilia in his house.Mr. Berlusconi, who received handshakes and selfie requests from senators, threw down his pen and angrily cursed Mr. La Russa, whose presidency he tried to block as a reprisal for Ms. Meloni’s refusal to make a minister out of his own lieutenant, Licia Ronzulli, a former nurse who sat beside him and used to help organize his after-hours soirées with young women.Mr. Berlusconi’s girlfriend, Marta Fascina, 32, won a seat in the Parliament representing a Sicilian town she never campaigned in. On Sept. 29, his birthday, she arranged for a hot-air balloon to release thousands of red balloon hearts over his villa’s garden.The next day, Mr. Berlusconi posted a video of his birthday dinner where waiters in white gloves brought out a multitiered cake — one for his soccer team, one for his political party, one for his media empire.Atop it all sat a likeness of a Mr. Berlusconi, much younger and in his trademark suit, grinning next to an edible earth. More

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      The Misinformation Beat, Translated

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      To report an article on the spread of false narratives in non-English languages, the journalist Tiffany Hsu spent time on fringe platforms — and Google Translate.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Facts are facts no matter the language in which they are shared. Ahead of the midterm elections, misleading translations and blatant falsehoods about topics such as inflation and election fraud are swirling in non-English languages on social media — and multilingual fact checkers are struggling to keep up.The Times journalist Tiffany Hsu tackled this topic in a recent report. After spending several years on the media beat for The Times, she joined the team covering disinformation and misinformation this summer. (Disinformation means a coordinated campaign by people or organizations that generally know the information is false; misinformation, as Ms. Hsu puts it, is when your uncle repeats something he read on Facebook, not realizing the post wasn’t factual.) For the article, Ms. Hsu spoke with about a dozen researchers — and spent time on Google Translate — to understand how the spread of falsehoods may target immigrant communities and affect the vote.In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Hsu shared more about her recent reporting. This conversation has been edited.When did you start to hear about misinformation in other languages?My family is from Taiwan, and for several years now there has been this interesting flow of content from not only Taiwanese producers, but also Taiwanese American producers and mainland Chinese producers that reaches immigrants like my parents in this country. Often a lot of that information is twisted or is just flat-out wrong.Misinformation, especially in Spanish, was a big problem in 2020. Jennifer Medina wrote a great couple of stories for us on this during that election. I was talking to researchers and many of them were pointing out that the problem had not only not gone away, it had gotten worse. We were entering the midterm season with more fact checkers working in different languages, but also with more misinformation on more topics in more languages on more platforms.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With elections next month, a Times/Siena poll shows that independents, especially women, are swinging toward the G.O.P. despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights as voters worry about the economy.Questioning 2020: Hundreds of Republicans on the ballot this November have cast doubt on the 2020 election, a Times analysis found. Many of these candidates are favored to win their races.Georgia Senate Race: The contest, which could determine whether Democrats keep control of the Senate, has become increasingly focused on the private life and alleged hypocrisy of Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee.Jill Biden: The first lady, who has become a lifeline for Democratic candidates trying to draw attention and money in the midterms, is the most popular surrogate in the Biden administration.Do you spend a lot of time on fringe services?For this particular story, because it covered so many different languages that I’m not familiar with, the researchers were a fantastic lifeline. I would reach out to them and say, “This narrative is circulating in English language communities. Are you seeing this in Spanish or Chinese or Vietnamese or Hindi?” They would tell me if they had, and often, they had.Generally in my reporting, I spend a lot of time on various platforms like Gab, Telegram, Truth Social, Rumble and TikTok. This morning, I was commuting on the train, and I spent an hour scrolling through TikTok, looking at videos that were tagged with the midterm hashtag and seeing quite a lot that were not fully factual.Has your work changed the way that you use social media?Absolutely. I had been on Facebook for a while. I was on Instagram for a long time, and I used to look at it just as entertainment. But ever since taking on the media beat and now the misinformation beat, I’m hyperconscious of what’s being served to me. Covering this beat has personally been helpful to me because it’s trained me to stop and think about what it is I’m seeing on these platforms and to not take everything at face value.In your reporting, you already have to cut through what’s true and what’s not. Now you have to do that in languages that you don’t speak. What tools did you use?Every time a researcher, tipster or my editor sends me a post, I try to find it myself either on one of the platforms or through Wayback Machine, which often can find deleted posts. I try to confirm for myself the post does in fact exist in the form that it was sent to me.And a lot of Google Translate. I’m lucky in that I know a lot of people who speak these popular languages, so I run a lot of the content by them. A lot of what ended up in the story had already been independently fact-checked by many excellent fact-checking groups like Factchequeado and Viet Fact Check. The key with all stories is to find the authoritative sources and then try to double check them.What audience are you thinking about?I don’t think about audience per se, because I’m not coming into this with an angle. I’m not trying to convince a disbelieving audience, and I’m not trying to back up what a supportive audience might think. What I’m trying to do is look at the content that’s out there and determine whether or not it’s accurate. If it’s not accurate, I’m trying to prove why and then explain what some of the consequences might be. My job is to lay out the evidence and readers will determine for themselves whether or not that’s convincing to them.As we approach the midterms, what most concerns you?There’s a lot of chatter still on a lot of these platforms and in other mediums about the integrity of elections. That, from everything I’ve heard, is very dangerous. There’s a piece of research that says that new voters are most likely to be Latino. Primarily Spanish-speaking voters are at risk of being exposed to disinformation about voting. There have been changes in voting policies that make the election process confusing, even to a native English speaker. To have this doubt swirling in the environment heading into a really consequential election is problematic, especially when so many diasporic communities are going to become or are becoming very powerful voting centers.The midterms are important, which is why a lot of our coverage right now is focused on political misinformation. But misinformation is everywhere. It touches every single topic you can think of: Parenting groups, education, crime. I really do think it’s important to have a lot of reporting firepower behind it. More

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      As Europe Piles Sanctions on Russia, Some Sacred Cows Are Spared

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      The European Union has been severing economic ties with Moscow to support Ukraine, but some countries have lobbied to protect key sectors.BRUSSELS — Eight months into the war in Ukraine, and eight rounds of frantic negotiations later, Europe’s sanctions against Russia run hundreds of pages long and have in many places cut to the bone.Since February, the European Union has named 1,236 people and 155 companies for sanctions, freezing their assets and blocking their access to the bloc. It has banned the trade of products in nearly 1,000 categories and hundreds of subcategories. It has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil. About one-third of the bloc’s exports to Russia by value and two-thirds of imports have been banned.But even now some goods and sectors remain conspicuously exempted. A look at just a few items reveals the intense back-room bargaining and arm-twisting by some nations and by private industry to protect sectors they deem too valuable to give up — as well as the compromises the European Union has made to maintain consensus.The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks ship Russian oil unimpeded. France and several other nations still import Russian uranium for nuclear power generation.The net impact of these exemptions on the effectiveness of Europe’s penalties against Russia is hard to assess, but politically, they have allowed the 27 members of the bloc to pull together an otherwise vast sanctions regime with exceptional speed and unanimity.“Ultimately, this is the price of unanimity to hold together this coalition, and in the grander scheme of things the sanctions are really working,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in the Brussels office of the research group the German Marshall Fund, citing Russia’s diminished access to military technology as evidence.A Lukoil gas station in Priolo Gargallo, Italy, last month. The European Union has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil, but some sectors of trade remain conspicuously exempt from sanctions.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“We would love to have everything included, diamonds and every other special interest hit, but I am of the opinion that, if sparing them is what it takes to keep everyone together, so be it,” he added.The Ukrainian government has criticized some of the exemptions, with President Volodymyr Zelensky chiding European nations for continuing to permit business with Russia, saying they are skirting sacrifices.“There are people for whom the diamonds sold in Antwerp are more important than the battle we are waging. Peace is worth much more than diamonds,” Mr. Zelensky said to the Belgian Parliament during an address by video link in late March.Keeping Diamonds ComingThe continued success of Belgium and the broad diamond sector in keeping the Russian diamond trade flowing exemplifies the sacred cows some E.U. nations refuse to sacrifice, even as their peers accept pain to punish the Kremlin.Exports of rough diamonds are very lucrative for Russia, and they flow to the Belgian port of Antwerp, a historically important diamond hub.The trade, worth 1.8 billion euros a year — about $1.75 billion — has been shielded in consecutive rounds of the bloc’s sanctions, despite being raised as a possible target soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February.The Belgian government has said that it has never asked the European Commission, the E.U. executive body that drafts the measures, to remove diamonds from any sanctions list and that if diamonds were added, it would go along.Diamonds being sorted in Mirny, Russia, at a facility operated by Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamond company. Russian diamonds have been shielded in consecutive rounds of European sanctions.Maxim Babenko for The New York TimesTechnically speaking, that may be true. But the latest round of penalties, adopted this month, exposed the intensive interventions when a coordination error occurred among the various services in the bloc that are involved in the technical preparation of sanctions.The incident, described to The New York Times by several diplomats involved as “farcical,” shows how the lobbying works. The diplomats spoke anonymously in order to describe freely what happened.The European Commission over the course of September prepared the latest round of sanctions and left diamonds off that list.But the European External Action Service — the E.U.’s equivalent of a foreign service or state department, which works with the commission to prepare sanctions — did not get the memo that diamonds should remain exempted and included in its own draft listings Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamonds company.Once Alrosa had been put on the draft document, removing it became difficult. Spotting the error, Poland and other hard-line pro-Ukraine countries in the bloc dragged out the negotiations over the package as much as they could on the basis that Alrosa should indeed face sanctions.In the end, the need for unanimity and speed prevailed, and Alrosa continues to export to the European Union, at least until the next round of sanctions is negotiated. In proposals for a fresh, ninth round of sanctions, presented by Poland and its allies last week, diamonds were again included, but formal talks on the new set of penalties have not yet begun.A spokesman for the European External Action Service declined to comment, saying it does not comment on internal procedures involved in preparing sanctions.The Tricastin nuclear power plant in the Drôme region of southeastern France. France is one of several E.U. countries that depend on Russian uranium to operate civil nuclear power facilities. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNuclear PowerMost exemptions have not been as clear-cut as diamonds because they have involved more complex industries or services, or affected more than one country.Uranium exported from Russia for use in civil nuclear power production falls under this category. Nuclear power plants in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland and other countries depend on Russian civilian uranium exports.The trade is worth 200 million euros, or about $194 million, according to Greenpeace, which has been lobbying for its ban. Germany and other E.U. countries have supported the calls to ban civilian nuclear imports from Russia, making this another issue likely to come up in the next round of sanctions talks.In August, Mr. Zelensky also highlighted the persistent protection of the Russian nuclear exports to Europe just as Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant came under fire.Some supporters of keeping Russian uranium running say that France and the other countries’ ability to generate electricity by operating their nuclear power plants during an acute energy crisis is more important than the political or financial gains that could come from a ban through E.U. sanctions, at least for now.Tankers in the NightOne of the most complex and important lobbying efforts to protect a European industry from sanctions is the one mounted by Greek diplomats to allow Greek-owned tankers to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations.This has facilitated one of the Kremlin’s biggest revenue streams. More than half of the vessels transporting Russia’s oil are Greek-owned, according to information aggregated from MarineTraffic, a shipping data platform.Supporters of the Greek shipping industry say that if it pulled out of that business, others would step in to deliver Russian oil to places like India and China. Experts say lining up enough tankers to make up for a total Greek pullout would not be simple, considering the sheer size of Greek-interest fleets and their dominance in this trade.According to European diplomats involved in the negotiations, their Greek counterparts were able to exempt Greek shipping companies from the oil embargo in a tough round of talks last May and June.Since then, the E.U. has come around to a United States-led idea to keep facilitating the transport of Russian oil, in order to avert a global oil-market meltdown, but to do so at a capped price to limit Russia’s revenues.The Greeks saw an opening: They would continue to transport Russian oil, but at the capped price. The bloc offered them additional concessions, and Greece agreed that the shipping of Russian oil would be banned if the price cap was not observed.The Greek-flagged oil tanker Minerva Virgo. Greek diplomats have lobbied for Greek-owned tankers to be allowed to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations. Bjoern Kils/ReutersEven if the economic benefits of such exemptions are hard to define, from a political perspective, the continued protection of some goods and industries is creating bad blood among E.U. members.Governments that have readily taken big hits through sanctions to support Ukraine, sacrificing revenues and jobs, are embittered that their partners in the bloc continue to doggedly protect their own interests.The divisions deepen a sense of disconnect between those more hawkish pro-Ukraine E.U. nations nearer Ukraine and those farther away, although geographical proximity is far from the only determinant of countries’ attitudes toward the war.And given that the bloc is a constant negotiating arena on many issues, some warn that what goes around eventually will come around.“This may be a raw calculation of national interests, but it’s going to linger,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Whoever doesn’t contribute now through sacrifice, next time there’s a budget or some other debate, it’s going to come back and haunt them.” More

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      Rightist Party in Sweden Gets No Formal Role but Big Say in Government

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      The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats will have a say over new policies for the incoming government under a complicated leadership agreement.STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Parliament approved a new right-wing government Monday that includes the Liberal and Christian Democrat parties but no formal role for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, without whom the right-wing bloc would not have achieved its narrow victory last month.Despite being the largest party in the bloc after capturing a fifth of the national vote on Sept. 11, the Sweden Democrats will have only a supporting role in the new government, which will be led by the incoming prime minister, Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party.Normally, the party with the most votes would be included in the government, but because of ideological differences and the Sweden Democrats’ neo-Nazi roots and anti-liberal policies, the other parties did not want to give them a formal role in the governing coalition, Jonas Hinnfors, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, said.“It’s realpolitik,” Mr. Hinnfors said.The Liberal Party conditioned its support for the coalition on excluding the Sweden Democrats from a seat in the government.The price for the Sweden Democrats’ support of the new government, hammered out in a 62-page pact, is high, analysts said, and includes the parties’ cooperation in seven policy areas, including criminal justice and immigration.The document focuses heavily on the areas of crime and immigration, priorities for the Sweden Democrats, and is “very short and rather vague” on other key issues — including tax reform, medical care and education, Mr. Hinnfors said.“There’s nothing about foreign policy, the E.U., NATO or defense spending,” he added, alluding to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the security situation in Europe and the Baltic region, in particular.The pact does call for an inquiry into a ban on begging, driven by the Sweden Democrats and widely criticized by the Liberals.Jimmie Akesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, touted the pact as a victory that will broadly fulfill his party’s campaign promises.Jimmie Akesson, second from right, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, in Parliament in Stockholm on Monday.Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“A change in government must also entail a paradigm shift when it comes to immigration and integration policy — and for me there is no doubt that this agreement means just that,” he told reporters.The pact covers mostly Sweden Democrats’ policy priorities, including doubling sentences for gang-related crimes, expanding police powers in certain neighborhoods to stop and search people for weapons without probable cause, and restricting immigration to the absolute minimum required by E.U. rules.The agreement also calls for the creation of committees composed of members of the Sweden Democrats and the other three parties to hammer out new government policies.“If there are differences of opinion, they can veto a measure,” said Sverker Gustavsson, a political scientist at Uppsala University, of the Sweden Democrats. The agreement gives the Sweden Democrats exactly what they wanted — the strongest possible influence without the accountability of sitting in the new government, Mr. Gustavsson said. “This gives them a lot of informal power,” he said. “It is an ideal solution for them.”Sweden’s Parliament meeting in Stockholm on Monday.Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Liberal Party appears to have made the most concessions — on criminal justice and individual freedoms. Observers said some of these concessions crossed previous red lines for the party.“We are at the brink of something very different in key respects in Swedish society: how we relate to each other, the forces of the state in relation to individual freedoms and what it is to be a foreigner in this country,” Mr. Hinnfors said.The Sweden Democrats might be more comfortable outside the government, he added. “They are in the ultimate blackmailing position. The government needs them, and they can withdraw support at any moment.”This isn’t the first time a strong far right anti-immigration has held a supporting role in a Scandinavian government without a seat in the cabinet. The Danish People’s Party supported the governing liberal-conservative parties for 10 years until 2011. “They had huge reach over and really dominated Danish politics in immigration policies,” Mr. Hinnfors said. The Parliament voted 176 to 173 in favor of Mr. Kristersson taking the reins as prime minister. He will succeed Magdalena Andersson, who has been prime minister since last November.Amid criticism leveled at the Liberal Party, which many see as going against its own ideology by supporting the governing coalition, Ms. Andersson, said that the Social Democrats were still open to cooperate “with all good forces that want Sweden to become more like Sweden. That goes for the Liberals, too.” More

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      ‘The Latino Vote’: 10 Hispanic Voters Discuss

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      In September, we convened a group of 10 Latino voters from Texas, Florida and Arizona, a collection of Democrats, Republicans and independents who planned to vote or were open to voting for Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections.

      “Is there anything that you think the Republican Party does that is off-putting to Latino voters?” our moderator asked. “Is there anything about the way Democrats talk to or talk about the Latino community that turns off Latino voters, in your view?”

      “When Trump said Mexicans were rapists — even though he probably didn’t mean all of us — it still left a bad taste in my mouth. You know, a lot of people clapped for that. So I was like, ‘OK, that’s how it is,’” one participant said.

      “When the first lady referred to us as unique as breakfast tacos, that kind of stands out in my mind,” another participant said, referring to Jill Biden’s remarks this year at a conference for UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights group.

      Several of them said neither party really spoke to them in a personal, informed way. Part of the problem is that there’s no one way to talk to Latino voters, because — as our participants reminded us — there’s no one typical Latino voter. “There’s a whole spectrum of Hispanics,” one participant said. And maybe the distinction between Latino voters and other voters shouldn’t be made at all: “We are Americans first,” another participant said.

      What’s clear is that both parties have an opportunity to connect with voters like the ones we spoke to, both to solidify their support and to clear up misconceptions. Our participants thought Republicans were stronger on a variety of issues, such as crime and safety, gun control, national security, immigration and the economy. But on the issue of abortion, most of them favored Democrats. One participant thought that Democrats in general supported defunding the police, and another said of Donald Trump’s comments about Mexicans, “I feel like he just said what other people were thinking.”

      It’s a cliché at this point to say that Latino voters are politically powerful, that they often hold complicated political positions, that it’s not a given that they’ll vote for Democrats. What comes after these clichés will become clearer only in the coming weeks, months and years, as politicians, news outlets and the country pay more attention to voters like these participants.

      Lenin

      33, Texas, independent, insurance sales

      Orlando

      53, Florida, independent, computer-aided design drafter

      Lourdes

      42, Texas, leans Democratic, receptionist

      Sally

      60, Texas, Republican, airline assistant

      Christina

      43, Texas, leans Republican, homemaker

      Kelly

      38, Texas, independent, recruiter

      Jerry

      22, Florida, Republican, banker

      José

      39, Florida, leans Democratic, finance

      John

      58, Arizona, Republican, photographer

      Cindy

      35, Florida, leans Republican, financial case manager More

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      How Much Will the Supreme Court Change the World?

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. The Supreme Court is back in session, and this month it will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases challenging affirmative action policies in college admissions. My guess is that the court will end up forbidding universities to consider race in selecting their student bodies. What are your feelings about this?Gail Collins: Bret, I’m sure you will be shocked to hear that I’m totally against this kind of change. Universities consider all sorts of factors when they’re picking their next student body — it’s not as if everybody just takes a test and the top 10 percent get to talk to the admissions folks at Harvard.Bret: That would actually be my preferred approach, but go on.Gail: If you’re moving on to a college career, you’re going to want to meet a lot of different kinds of people — kids with different talents, different histories, different stories to tell. The idea that racial diversity shouldn’t be an admission goal is just crazy.Bret: One of the reasons these cases have proved so effective is that the plaintiffs have amassed a lot of evidence that while elite universities do more to admit some students on the basis of race, they wind up discriminating against other students on the basis of race. For instance, Harvard admits 12.7 percent of Asian Americans with the highest grades and test scores — while it admits 15.3 percent of similarly qualified white applicants, 31.3 percent of Hispanics and 56.1 percent of African Americans. Also, as The Times’s wonderful Anemona Hartocollis reported a few years ago, Asian American students at Harvard were portrayed in the admissions process as “standard strong” and “busy and bright,” which smack of the stereotypes that schools like Harvard or Stanford once used to discriminate against gifted Jewish kids. It’s hard for me to see any possible justification for it.Gail: Some Asian American groups have argued fiercely that Asian American students have actually benefited from schools’ focus on inclusivity. And in general, there’s a very good case to be made that inclusive institutions perform better in general — whether it’s schools, corporations or the military.Bret: Assuming the court rules against Harvard, how would you recommend universities respond?Gail: Whatever they do has to be based on the fact that the country has an education system that discriminates against kids from low-income areas where the tax revenue just isn’t good enough to support high-level schools. Or areas where the citizens just aren’t fair-minded enough to pay what’s necessary.Bret: I would feel much better about affirmative action if it were structured on the basis of class, not race, to lend a hand to poorer young scholars, irrespective of skin tone.Gail: If you want a bottom line on responding to this wrongheaded court, I’d say it’s a signal that taxes need to rise to fund a very sizable rise in education spending, so kids from underprivileged areas get a fair break.Care to rally around a federal tax hike for schools — maybe a Bad Education Elimination Tax? I know something called BEET doesn’t sound intellectual, but at least it’d be memorable.Bret: It’s an attractive suggestion! But the U.S. spends more per student at both the grade school and the university level than most other developed countries, for mediocre results. Money isn’t always the answer, especially when so many of our public and private universities look like country clubs on the outside and feel like conclaves of the Socialist International on the inside. What’s really needed is better academic leadership, especially when it comes to creating environments of genuine intellectual diversity, challenge and freedom. That … and the abolition of college football.Gail: Make killing college football your crusade and you’ll definitely get, um, attention. Although I’m recalling that when I went to Marquette, I arrived around the time it was eliminating the football team. Did not hurt a bit, as far as I could tell — the students and alumni rallied around the much cheaper basketball program.Bret: I went to the University of Chicago. Our first Heisman Trophy winner, Jay Berwanger in 1935, was, mercifully, our last. What we lost in football glory we made up in … atomic reactions, actually. On a different subject, Gail, any lingering thoughts on the Senate race in Georgia, now that we’ve had time to watch the debate?Gail: Been thinking about it a lot. Georgia seems to have put itself in a position where Herschel Walker wins any debate in which he doesn’t simply stare at the camera and moan. He appeared to be pretty well prepared for this one. What’s your reaction?Bret: The debate dynamics reminded me of the paradox that when nothing is expected, much is forgiven, and when much is expected, nothing is forgiven. So in that sense, Walker had the hidden advantage, and he seized it. He also had the advantage of being able to tie Raphael Warnock to the Biden economy, which is … no bueno. I’m afraid it could tip the election to Walker, especially if food, rent and gas prices keep going up. Any feelings about why the Inflation Reduction Act isn’t … working as the name claimed it would?Gail: A lot of the problems have to do with the international scene — Russia-Ukraine and, of course, the Saudi oil price hike. It’s working fine on some levels, although the results will be in the long term. I can’t think of anything more important than encouraging clean energy — and the act addresses this, in part, through your fave, tax reduction.Bret: Ah, “clean energy,” the kind that gets us to stop pumping dirty oil and start digging dirty lithium, copper, cobalt and rare earth metals. Sorry, go on.Gail: Conservatives have made a huge row about the way the bill will increase I.R.S. spending, but in the long run that, too, will be a big plus — making it quicker at helping law-abiding taxpayers and ferreting out the sneaky evaders.The bill will help senior citizens afford prescription drugs, to which I say yay. On the downside, it’s hard to reduce inflation when deficit spending is high, and it’s hard to get that under control without significantly higher taxes on folks like … prescription drug manufacturers.Bret: When Chuck Schumer got Joe Manchin to sign on to the bill, I thought it was clever to put it under the title of inflation reduction, as opposed to climate. Now it looks like political malpractice, since it gives Republicans a campaign punchline as inflation stays high. That and forecasts for a steep recession next year, the migration crisis, the spendthrift and shambolic student-loan forgiveness plan and high crime rates are going to put a lot of wind in Republican sails in the next few weeks. I mean, a Republican might even win the governor’s race in Oregon! And the Democrat who is going to turn around the party’s fortunes is …Gail: Sorry to say it won’t be Joe Biden. I think history will give Biden a lot of points for the way he brought us out of the Trump presidency, but his strong points — good at bipartisanship, powerful history of congressional negotiating, fatherly image — aren’t holding up well in the current still-quite-Trumpian political world.Bret: History will definitely remember him as a transitional president, but whether it’s as George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford or John Adams — all former veeps, I might add — remains to be seen.Gail: I’m still hoping Biden will change his mind about his vow to run again and open up a competition among the more promising Democrats. That would include the names we’ve been tossing around for some time, like Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris — although I absolutely do not think Harris’s position as vice president should give her automatic support.Bret: Of those three, the only one I think of as a strong contender is Klobuchar, who is smart, experienced and competent, her salad-eating habits notwithstanding. Another favorite of mine is the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo. But like so many would-be centrist politicians, she could win handily at the national level but would have no chance of making it through the primaries. It seems to be part of a larger problem we have in this country, which is that in one institution after another, it’s almost impossible for the best people to rise to the top.Gail: The current senatorial races are encouraging me with the show of talent like Tim Ryan in Ohio or already-a-senator Mark Kelly in Arizona — who, of course, has the advantage of a disastrous Republican opponent.And, you know, anything for a silver lining …Bret: Silver lining being that we will have elections in early November and results in early December?On a better note, Gail, please don’t miss our colleague Patrick Healy’s gorgeous reminiscence of the late, great Angela Lansbury and what she meant to Patrick as a person and to his family as an actress. Obit, he wrote. Among the essay’s other virtues, it is a good reminder of how much we can learn from vulnerability — our own, our parents’ and our colleagues’ — and especially the vulnerability of those who, in advancing years, handle it, as she did, with supreme grace. Rest in peace.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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      Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Comeback

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      Republican leaders have embraced the former political pariah, demonstrating Trumpism’s hold over the party.In February 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was dealt what would typically be considered a knockout blow in Washington politics: She lost her seats on House committees, where Congress does much of its work, because she had supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and spread other dangerous misinformation on social media.But instead of being consigned to political oblivion, Greene has gained clout over the past two years, as my colleague Robert Draper explained in a New York Times Magazine profile of her that published online this morning.Last month, Greene sat directly behind the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, as he unveiled his agenda for the midterm elections. Republican candidates often ask Greene to campaign for them. She has become a major fund-raiser within the party. And Greene told Robert she had talked with Donald Trump about being his running mate if he were to run for president in 2024.“This is not at all what I expected when I began reporting on Greene,” Robert told me.So how did Greene, who was a political pariah a few years ago, place herself at the center of Republican politics today?Trumpism’s torchbearerGreene’s rise did not come about because she apologized and abandoned her extreme views. Instead, her core supporters rallied around her because they agreed with at least some of her beliefs and liked that she stood her ground — a narrative that echoes Trump’s ascent.Greene herself is a big supporter of Trump and his policies and falsely claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him. “She’s a perfect reminder that Trumpism will not go away even if he does,” Robert said.One telling moment: Early last year, House Republicans met to discuss whether to remove Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from a leadership position after she voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 attack. (They eventually did.) In that meeting, Greene justified her support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories — and about a third of the conference stood up and applauded her.“The headline tonight is that we tried to kick out Liz Cheney, and we gave a standing ovation to Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina warned at the time.Since then, McCarthy, who would likely be speaker should Republicans regain control of the House in the midterms, has reportedly offered Greene prized committee assignments if she supports his run for the post — giving her back what she once lost, and then some.Not every Republican is on board. Some worry that Greene’s style could hurt them in next month’s elections. And she often criticizes members of her party; last month, she said that “21 Republican senators just voted with the woke climate agenda” after they voted for an international climate agreement.“She’s far more willing to offend than to accommodate,” Robert said. That could ultimately limit her rise.Read Robert’s full story, which includes interviews with the typically mainstream media-averse Greene.More on politicsRepublicans have a narrow midterm advantage as voters worry about the economy, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.Democrats in tight races are asking for Jill Biden’s help.Pandemic aid checks were popular with voters, but, with inflation rising, Democrats don’t want to talk about them.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineA drone attack in Kyiv today.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRussia attacked Kyiv with Iranian “kamikaze” drones this morning, hitting energy infrastructure and a residential building.“Untrained guys are thrown onto the front line”: Moscow is rushing thousands of newly drafted soldiers into combat.Explosions hit a border region inside Russia that has been used as a staging ground for troops. Russian officials blamed Ukraine.Ukraine’s surrogate mothers have continued deliveries, and clients are arriving again to pick up their children.Other Big StoriesBritain’s new top finance official said he would speed up a tax plan to calm financial markets. The pound rose slightly after the announcement.Iran’s leaders have turned to elite military commandos to quash weekslong protests.Xi Jinping, China’s leader, defended his authoritarian policies at the opening of a Communist Party meeting, during which he will probably secure a third term.Kanye West is buying Parler, a social media platform that claims to be a “free speech” alternative to Twitter, The Verge reports.For those who can afford them, niche sports like fencing can offer a path to selective universities.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss affirmative action and the Supreme Court.Neoliberalism has failed to deliver the economy we need, Rana Foroohar writes.Oak trees, central to many ecosystems, are vanishing. So plant acorns, Margaret Renkl says.MORNING READSLeaping into the Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina.Alessio MamoWorld Through a Lens: Is this the most picturesque high dive?A “Star Wars” bread replica: It’s … Pan Solo.Metropolitan Diary: When a stranger’s flip-flops save the day.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.5).Advice from Wirecutter: Learning piano? Start here.Lives Lived: Mary Adelia Rosamond McLeod was the first female bishop to lead an Episcopal diocese. She died at 84.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICYankees survive: The Bronx will be buzzing tonight for a deciding Game 5 of the A.L. Divisional Series after New York edged Cleveland on the road last night. Gerrit Cole was excellent.Eagles stay steady: Philadelphia remains undefeated after a 26-17 win yesterday over its division rival Dallas. It was impressive considering the surprises Week 6 had in store for the rest of the N.F.L.Jordan Poole’s strange two weeks: The Warriors guard inked a four-year contract extension yesterday that guarantees him $123 million, days after a video was leaked of teammate Draymond Green punching Poole in the face at practice. Poole says the pair will be “professional.”The man who bet on Neymar: The Brazilian supermarket magnate Delcir Sonda saw promise in the soccer star before he became a household name. Now, Sonda is going to court for the payday that he said never arrived, The Times’s Tariq Panja writes.ARTS AND IDEAS Cormac McCarthy, 89, is famously private.Beowulf SheehanCormac McCarthy’s returnCormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men,” is publishing his first novel since 2006 — and his second: “The Passenger,” is out Oct. 25, and “Stella Maris,” will be released Dec. 6.The books have intertwined narratives. They focus on a tortured young mathematical prodigy and her brother. It’s a stylistic and thematic break from McCarthy’s earlier blood-soaked morality tales set in the American Southwest, The Times’s Alexandra Alter writes.“But the novels are also recognizably McCarthy’s,” she adds, “laced with transcendent language and profound insights into human nature.”For more: Read an excerpt from “The Passenger.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York TimesSoy-braised tofu with garlic and ginger takes only 20 minutes.What to ReadPaul Newman shares self-doubt in his posthumous memoir, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.”What to WatchIn “Till,” Chinonye Chukwu tells the story of Emmett Till’s life.Now Time to PlayThe pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were analogizing and gazillion. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tests without pencils (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. The veteran health journalist Jancee Dunn is joining The Times as a columnist.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Herschel Walker.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