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      How a Group of Female Independents Aims to Revive Australian Democracy

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      A community-driven movement has recruited around 25 candidates, most of them successful women preaching pragmatic reform. They could shape the balance of power after Saturday’s election.SYDNEY, Australia — On a cool morning at 5:50 a.m., Allegra Spender prepared to dive into the surf alongside dozens of ocean swimmers at Bondi Beach. She was there not just for exercise. She was there to meet voters.Her name was all over volunteers’ teal T-shirts and swim caps, identifying her as an independent candidate for the Australian federal Parliament.“Takes a lot of courage, what you’re doing,” said Jason Carr, 50, a security consultant, who came over to pledge his vote. “Good luck shaking things up.”Ms. Spender, 44, looked down and laughed.A first-time candidate, she said she still found the attention that comes with politics embarrassing. But that has not stopped her from shaking the political establishment — she is part of a movement of around 25 independents, nearly all of them women with successful careers, who are aiming to do nothing less than rejuvenate Australian democracy by saving it from the creep of corruption, right-wing populism and misogyny.The so-called teal independents, who tend to share the campaign colors of a Pacific wave, offer a sharp rebuke to Australia’s rigid party system. Recruited by energetic community groups that have formed only in the past few years, they are the public face of a fresh approach to politics that hopes to pull Australia back to the middle with a focus on climate change solutions, integrity and values like kindness.The “teals” could have a profound impact on Saturday’s election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party, has warned of a “cavalcade of chaos” should too many independents win. But if the vote is close, as expected, and if neither the Liberal coalition nor the opposition Labor Party wins a majority, this group of loosely organized women who share common goals of making government more responsive and productive could decide who leads the next Australian Parliament.Ms. Spender, center in black, during a swim to meet voters at Bondi Beach in Sydney.Stephanie Simcox for The New York TimesThe gray-haired men fighting for power in the world’s third-largest exporter of fossil fuels — where sexual harassment in politics has long been ignored, where money pours in and out of government without oversight, where conservatives promoting populism make bans on transgender athletes a campaign plank — could soon find themselves forced to negotiate with independent working mothers demanding change, backed by mobilized constituents.“It’s a rebellion from the sensible center,” said Ms. Spender, who is challenging a Liberal incumbent in a district her father once represented in Parliament as a Liberal, in the days when the party was more center-right.“No, rebellion is the wrong word,” she added. “It’s a move by people who feel that they are not represented, and have had enough, and are hoping things will change.”The Indie From IndiAustralia’s major parties are gatekeepers with old operating systems. There are no primaries, and dark money pays a lot of the bills. The parties decide who runs, and those who win rarely break ranks, because a single breach can end a political career.In many districts, there has long been a sense that political ambition and party loyalty matter more than local interests. And while some of that discontent has flowed to minor parties like the Greens on the left and One Nation on the far right, what’s happening now with independents is more focused on how to improve representation rather than channeling frustration into one partisan wing or another.It began far from the cities, with a no-nonsense leader. Her name is Cathy McGowan.A sheep farmer and former president of Australian Women in Agriculture, she reached Parliament in 2013 as an independent from Indi, a rural area northwest of Melbourne. She defeated the Liberal incumbent. And the way she got there was even more groundbreaking than the victory itself.The process started before her candidacy with a group of local residents — Voices for Indi — gathering to discuss what they loved about their community and what they wanted to see changed. More than 400 people participated in 55 conversations around kitchen tables, over coffee or a beer, after a class or while camping.Those casual chats led to a thoughtful report that listed concerns from poor mobile phone reception to climate change. It also sought to define good political representation with phrases pulled from the conversations like “walk the talk” and “asks the community what it needs and is willing to listen.”Voices for Indi was the catalyst for Ms. McGowan’s campaign. When she won, Australians around the country started calling and emailing.“I was quite surprised by the response,” Ms. McGowan said. “There was huge interest.”Cathy McGowan in Parliament in 2019. Her campaign sprang from a local grass-roots movement.Tracey Nearmy/Getty ImagesTo share what she had learned, she hosted small events in 2014 and 2017.After another voices group in Sydney helped an independent candidate, Zali Steggall, unseat former Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2019, the movement suddenly went viral.Ms. McGowan, who left Parliament that year, passing the seat to another independent, Helen Haines, wrote a book in 2020 that told her personal story. She also started leading conferences over Zoom during the pandemic, connecting hundreds of people with similar inclinations.Each voices group that emerged embarked on a listening tour and ended up with its own list of concerns. The groups also hosted virtual events with policy experts.“Political parties have become disconnected from any kind of local membership,” said John Daley, a professor at the University of Melbourne Law School who wrote a major report about disengagement and gridlock last year. “The independent playbook goes precisely in the other direction — it goes back to the original idea of representative democracy.”The strongest efforts seem to have sprung up in areas with conservative roots, professional families and intense frustration with the tilt away from the political middle by the Liberal-led governing coalition.Most of the contenders are pro-business, pro-innovation (especially on energy) and proudly pro-equality (on both race and gender).Their campaigns have been bolstered by money from a group called Climate 200, which has collected more than 12 million Australian dollars, or about $8.5 million, from 12,000 donors to go to 22 independent candidates.That has led critics to claim they are not really independent. But Ms. McGowan and others, including Simon Holmes à Court, a founder of Climate 200, say the traditional major parties just don’t get that they’ve been disrupted.The independents and their supporters describe what’s happening as a 21st-century movement, organized on Slack and Zoom, crowd-funded, decentralized and committed to pragmatism.“Whatever the issue may be,” Ms. McGowan said, “what they want is action.”Fun … and Climate ChangeFor first-timers like Ms. Spender, who has worked in education and renewable energy and for the fashion company founded by her mother, Carla Zampatti, campaigning with new community groups often feels like her swim toward a distant buoy with energetic neighbors — exhausting, a little scary, but also rewarding.After her ocean jaunt in Bondi, she walked to a nearby cafe with all the others. Waiting in line for coffee, Ms. Spender warmed up near other swimmers and a few dogs wearing Allegra scarves. For the next hour, she did less talking than her volunteers.“This is the alternative to a career politician,” said Jonathan Potts, 51, who said he spends five hours a day volunteering to get Ms. Spender elected. “It’s a different philosophy — we want to look after long-term interests rather than party interests.”In interviews, many of the independents said they were initially reluctant to run, but had been surprised by how fun it had been to work with an ideas-first, community-driven approach.Zoe Daniel, a former foreign correspondent for Australia’s national broadcaster who is an independent candidate in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs, said she had been amazed to see young schoolgirls stopping outside her campaign office, taking selfies. There is even a choir that sings songs with “Zoe-ified lyrics.”An independent candidate, Zoe Daniel, center, greeting constituents in the suburbs of Melbourne earlier this month.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times“All of us feel that we’ve made lifelong friends with like-minded people through this,” she said.Dr. Monique Ryan, a pediatric neurologist who is challenging Josh Frydenberg, the national treasurer, said the local support pointed to the power of “small ‘l’ liberal values.”In her district, 2,000 volunteers have come out, including several hundred with Voices of Kooyong, who signed up before she was their candidate. They’ve knocked on around 50,000 doors — almost every single household in the electorate.“We offer something that’s not the normal partisan politics,” she said. “We also offer something that’s very values based. For me, it’s about integrity and transparency and action on climate, which a lot of people feel deep anxiety about. It’s about gender equity, it’s about a more cohesive society.”Polls show close contests for Ms. Daniel, Ms. Spender and Dr. Ryan. Incumbent independents, including Andrew Wilkie in Tasmania and Ms. Steggall in Sydney, also appear to be in strong positions. The fortunes of some other independents are harder to gauge, but the momentum has clearly set conservative politicians on edge.Mr. Frydenberg, who has been talked about as a potential prime minister, recently admitted he was facing “the fight of my political life.”Ms. Spender, at a recent climate event with two other independents — Georgia Steele, a lawyer, and Kylea Tink, a businesswoman — said they were trying to fill a national void.“I’m angry, I mean, really angry that the moderates of the coalition and even the Labor Party are not taking enough action right now and that other people have to stand up in their stead,” Ms. Spender said.“This is a national transformation,” she added. “It’s not one business, it’s not one community. It’s all.”Yan Zhuang contributed reporting. More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Russia’s Faltering Campaign

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      Plus climate’s role in Australia’s upcoming election and a Covid-19 protest at Peking University.Good morning. We’re covering Russia’s struggling military campaign, Australia’s halting recovery from bush fires and a Covid-19 protest at Peking University.A damaged apartment complex in Kharkiv.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesRussia scales back its charge eastAfter a series of military setbacks, Moscow now appears to be focusing on a narrow objective: widening its holdings in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas. But even there Russia may be forced to scale back its ambition to take most of eastern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War.Russia still controls the wide swath of southern Ukraine it seized early in the war, including Kherson, and continues to impose a naval blockade that is strangling the Ukrainian economy. But Russia has not secured a major strategic gain in the east.On Sunday, the Ukrainian military released a video purporting to show a small group of soldiers reaching the Russian border near Kharkiv — a powerful symbolic moment. Russian forces had to retreat from the city, Ukraine’s second-largest, earlier this month.NATO: The alliance is preparing to fast-track admission for Finland and Sweden, which formally announced that they will seek membership. On Monday, NATO forces from 14 countries held a large, long-planned military exercise on Russia’s doorstep in Estonia, a tough Kremlin critic.Vladimir Putin: The Russian president is increasingly isolated. He met with his five closest allies on Monday; only Belarus spoke up in support of Putin’s war.Soldiers: Russia has likely run out of combat-ready reservists, forcing it to draw from private companies and militias, the institute reported. But to many Russians, defeat remains inconceivable.Other updates:As the U.S. and Europe seek to deprive Russia of oil and gas income, their leaders hope Qatar can help fill the void.After 32 years, McDonald’s is selling its Russian business, once a symbol of globalization.Olga Koutseridi, a home cook from Mariupol who now lives in Texas, is fighting to preserve her city’s distinctive cuisine.Jamie Robinson, who lost everything during the 2019 fires, has been struggling to rebuild his house.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesAustralia’s bush fire reckoningIn late 2019 and early 2020, fires tore through southeastern Australia. Barely one in 10 families in the affected region of southeastern Australia have finished rebuilding, local government data shows. Most have not even started.The halting recovery efforts could have profound political import. The ruling conservative coalition holds a one-seat majority in Parliament and is already expected to lose some urban seats.The once-conservative rural towns south of Sydney could also defect. Angered by a lack of government support after the bush fires, they may vote for the opposition Labor party in the Australian election on Saturday.Background: The record-setting “black summer” bush fires killed 34 people, destroyed 3,500 homes and burned more than 60 million acres over two months.Analysis: Our Sydney bureau chief, Damien Cave, spoke to the Climate Forward newsletter about climate’s role in the Australian election.The U.S.: Half of all addresses in the lower 48 states are at risk of wildfire damage. Climate change will make the U.S. even more combustible.Peking University has a history of occasional organized unrest.Thomas Peter/ReutersPeking University’s Covid protestStudents at one of China’s most elite academic institutions protested strict Covid-19 lockdown requirements on Sunday, arguing that the measures were poorly communicated and unfair.Students are upset that they cannot order food and are required to isolate, while teachers and their families can leave the campus freely. On an online forum, one student called the policy contradictory. Another said it was “a joke indeed.”In response to student frustrations, the authorities tried to put up a wall separating students from faculty and staff. More than 200 people left their dorms to protest.Reaction: The government quickly moved to censor videos and photos from the brief protest, which quickly spread on China’s internet.Analysis: Peking University, which has a history of occasional organized unrest, holds a special place in Beijing’s cultural and political life. The demonstration underscores a growing challenge for officials, who must assuage anger while fighting the highly infectious Omicron variant.In other news:Evidence is growing that Covid-19 has mutated to infect people repeatedly, sometimes within months, a potentially long-term pattern.THE LATEST NEWSWorld NewsTensions were high in the Somali capital ahead of Sunday’s presidential election. Malin Fezehai for The New York TimesPresident Biden approved plans to redeploy hundreds of Special Operations forces inside Somalia and target Al Shabab leaders. Conservatives kept Germany’s most populous state, a blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his party.President Emmanuel Macron of France named a new, left-leaning and climate-focused prime minister: Élisabeth Borne. Currently the minister of labor, she will be the second woman to occupy the position.Buffalo ShootingInvestigators searched for evidence at the supermarket.Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersHere are live updates from the Saturday mass shooting in upstate New York.The accused shooter, an 18-year-old white man, had previously been investigated for a violent threat. He had planned to attack a second target.Officials released the full list of victims, almost all of whom were Black.The gunman published a hate-filled racist screed before the attack, connecting it to the livestreamed murder of 51 people by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.Some right-wing politicians have helped promote “replacement theory,” the racist ideology that the gunman espoused. In recent years, other perpetrators of mass shootings have also cited the idea, popularized on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.In other news: A gunman killed one person and critically wounded four others at a Southern California church before congregants overpowered him and tied him up. He has been charged with murder.A Morning Read“I keep telling the other sisters, ‘Get on TikTok!’” Sister Monica Clare said. “‘If we’re hidden, we’re going to die out.’”Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesNuns are joining TikTok, offering a window into their cloistered experiences. “We’re not all grim old ladies reading the Bible,” one said.Lives lived: Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma single-handedly elevated the santoor, a 100-string instrument little known outside Kashmir, into a prominent component of Hindustani classical music. He died last week at 84.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Mariupol steel plant. More

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      How the Long Recovery From Bush Fires Could Decide Australia’s Election

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      COBARGO, Australia — On a recent sunny day in the hills behind Cobargo, a village in southeastern Australia, local volunteers were hard at work installing a bathroom for the Jee family, which had waited more than two years for a proper one.Tammie and Brett Jee and their five sons lost their home on New Year’s Eve 2019 when a ferocious fire swept through the area. It was one of the most damaging of the record-setting “black summer” bush fires in Australia that killed 34 people, destroyed 3,500 homes and burned more than 60 million acres over two months.For the Jees and many others, the recovery from their devastating loss has been painfully slow. Barely one in 10 families in the affected region have finished rebuilding, local government data shows. Most have not even started. Planning delays, skilled labor shortages, supply chain problems brought on by the pandemic and a lack of government support are among the causes of delay.The suffering has left its mark not just on the families living in sheds or battling bureaucracy. It has also shifted the political firmament: If the opposition Labor Party wins the Australian election on Saturday, it could be in part because these once-conservative rural towns south of Sydney have shifted their allegiance out of frustration and anger.“It’s a perfect storm of factors,” said Kristy McBain, the area’s member of Parliament. Among them is a recovery effort complicated by overlapping involvement from national, state and local governments.“It seems that every time we have a disaster, we have a government that wants to try to reinvent the wheel for how recovery should work,” added Ms. McBain, who was mayor of the local council during the fires. “And we’ve never settled on a model, which is pretty crazy.”Tammie Jee and her son Mason preparing dinner in a temporary kitchen inside a shed on their property.Because Mason has muscular dystrophy, he needed a portable disabled bathroom installed, which took more than two years.Other communities were also devastated by the summer blazes. Other towns have also struggled to rebuild and recover, hampered by a pandemic; by flooding and storms; and by a glacial approval process from government agencies.But Cobargo, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison was loudly heckled while visiting the town in the fires’ immediate aftermath, has come to stand as an emblem for the devastation and the politically divisive aftermath.Just inland from Australia’s southeast coast, 240 miles from Sydney, Cobargo is in the electorate of Eden-Monaro, a bellwether seat that, until 2016, had been won by the party forming the government in Australia’s parliamentary system for four decades. It is currently held by Ms. McBain, for the opposition Labor Party, who won a by-election in July 2020 with a margin of less than 1 percentage point.The electorate to the north, Gilmore, also hard hit by the fires, is held by another Labor representative, Fiona Phillips. It was previously in conservative hands for two decades.With the ruling conservative Liberal-National coalition expected to lose urban seats in other states, the conventional wisdom is that the current government’s route to re-election goes through the country — in this case, bush-fire-ravaged country.Bushland on the outskirts of Cobargo that has been irrevocably altered by the fires that tore through the region in December 2019.Buildings in Cobargo destroyed by fire, January 2020.Mr. Morrison currently governs with a one-seat majority in Parliament. A failure to win back those seats could cost his coalition re-election.The Jee family has more immediate concerns. They initially lived in a rental property before returning to their fire-scarred rural acreage in Wandella, near Cobargo, where they built a small shed and supplemented it with a disaster accommodation “pod” — a self-contained shipping container 23 feet long and eight feet wide — provided by an Australian charity.Life in their tiny temporary accommodation has been hard, even before an unseasonably wet year that now has them fighting mold. Because the Jees’ third son, Mason, 16, has muscular dystrophy, he cannot use the cramped, camp-style shower in the pod. Before the new bathroom was installed in a newly constructed shed, every time he wanted to shower, he had to go to his grandmother’s house, a few miles away.When the Jees set about rebuilding, they hit a wall of planning paperwork. Legacy planning issues with their previous home, and changes to development law, meant that at one stage it looked as if they might never be permitted to rebuild.While those roadblocks have been largely overcome, the Jees are still awaiting final approval to start construction. They are unlikely to have a new home built by the fourth anniversary of the bush fires. “It’s been a nightmare,” Ms. Jee said.Nearby in Cobargo, Vic Grantham has been trying to get answers about the latest delays in his own planning process. When Mr. Grantham and his partner, Janice Holdsworth, moved to a 26-acre property in the area in 2005, they found community and contentment.Early in the morning on New Year’s Day in 2020, their house was destroyed by fire.Janice Holdsworth and Vic Grantham in front of the shed where they currently live. Because they moved after the fire, they no longer qualified as “bush-fire-affected” for planning prioritization.Emergency accommodation pods that have been returned or are about to be sent to families in need on the outskirts of Cobargo.They sold their property and bought a block in the Cobargo township, intending to live in an existing shed on that site while they built their new dream home.But because they had moved, they subsequently learned, they no longer qualified as bush fire survivors for planning prioritization by the local government.“We’re not prioritized,” Mr. Grantham said, “because we’re not ‘bush-fire-affected.’ It’s George Orwell-speak. Tell me again I’m not bush-fire-affected.”There are signs that such anger at the disaster response could hurt the Liberal-National government’s chances of regaining Gilmore and Eden-Monaro. A poster depicting Mr. Morrison in a Hawaiian shirt and floral headpiece was prominent recently on Cobargo’s main street, pointedly reminding voters that the prime minister vacationed in Hawaii while the fires were raging.In February, there was a regional government by-election for the seat of Bega, which takes in parts of the two federal electorates and is home to many communities hit by the fires. For the first time, a Labor candidate won the seat.“I do think there was anger about the bush fires,” said the election’s winner, Dr. Michael Holland.A poster depicting Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a Hawaiian shirt at a coffee shop in Cobargo, reminding voters that he vacationed in Hawaii while the fires were raging.The area around Wandella Creek was ravaged by the 2019-20 fires. Now it has been flooding after months of torrential rainfall in the area.In an interview at his clinic in the coastal town of Moruya, Dr. Holland, an obstetrician, recalled sheltering from the fires in his office. “I slept for five nights on the floor here,” he said.His home was spared, but many of his constituents were not so fortunate. “People still haven’t rebuilt,” he says. “There are really a lot of people out there struggling, and they’re a lot of the time struggling in silence.”With Australia acutely vulnerable to the impact of climate change, effective disaster recovery is going to become only more critical in the years ahead.“Climate change makes a difference,” said Ms. McBain, the member of Parliament. “These events are occurring more frequently; they are more intense. They are having an impact on the lives and livelihoods of so many people now. It is incumbent upon governments to get the process right.”Whatever happens during Australia’s election, the people of Cobargo will continue their slow road to recovery.“You heal with the land,” said Philippe Ravenel, a Swiss Australian blacksmith who, with his wife, Marie, lost his home in Wandella during the fires.Iain Hamilton, a blacksmith, showing his family how to prepare the steel used to forge leaves, part of a memorial sculpture project for the communities that survived the bush fires.“We use fire to create something, instead of all the destruction that the fire left behind,” said Philippe Ravenel, another blacksmith working on the project, showing some of the leaves made by local residents.“We cannot complain,” he said, noting that some lost their lives. The fire in the area was so intense that Mr. Ravenel’s cast-iron pots melted.For much of the past two years, the Ravenels have been living in a shed attached to the blacksmith workshop, which survived the fires. They will soon begin rebuilding.In the meantime, Mr. Ravenel has been part of a project to help the community heal. Together with another local blacksmith, Iain Hamilton, he has opened up his workshop to residents from the area to forge a leaf inscribed with their name. Once 3,000 or so leaves have been forged, the blacksmiths intend to use them to create a memorial.“The idea is that you have a tree that you can sit under and reflect,” he said.The memorial, on Cobargo’s main street, will be a lasting reminder of the bush fire that devastated this hamlet, the turbulent rebuilding process that followed and Cobargo’s central role in a wider national debate in Australia.“We use fire to create something,” Mr. Ravenel said of the project, “instead of all the destruction that the fire left behind.”Bushland destroyed by the fires in 2019. With Australia acutely vulnerable to the impact of climate change, effective disaster recovery is going to become only more critical in the years ahead.Matthew Abbott for The New York Times More

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      German Conservatives Win State Election in Setback for Scholz

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      Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats scored record-low votes in the first major electoral test he has faced since taking office.BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, in a regional election overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, scored record-low vote percentages on Sunday as Germany’s most populous state went to the polls.The contest involved only legislative seats in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. But with the campaign’s start coinciding with the Russian invasion, the race was unusually dominated by national issues — in particular, the risks that the European land war might spread and the worry about energy supplies.Mr. Scholz has been increasingly criticized as dithering in his approach to supporting Ukraine in the war, which has become a popular cause in Germany across several parties, and his party appears to have paid a price in the first major electoral test it has faced since taking power less than six months ago.Projections showed the incumbent Christian Conservatives easing to a win and likely the governorship as the head of a coalition government. They were expected to take close to 36 percent of the vote versus less than 27 percent for the Social Democrats and 18 percent for the Greens.“It’s a huge disappointment for the S.P.D.,” said one political scientist, Uwe Jun of Trier University.“Given these results,” he said, “the S.P.D. must realize that it is obviously not perceived as the driving force of the federal government, but that it seems to be playing more of a supporting role in the coalition at the moment.”Just days after Russia invaded on Feb. 24, Mr. Scholz addressed the German federal Parliament and promised an epochal change, and signaled more spending on the Germany military. But since then the chancellor has struck many people as dragging his heels on policies that would actually help Ukraine.Supporters of the Christian Democrats after hearing the initial exit poll results on Sunday.Sascha Schuermann/Getty ImagesThere were weeks of debates on whether the German government would allow the export of heavy weapons before the Defense Ministry finally announced the shipment of dozens of armored air-defense systems.Germany was also seen as wavering on punishing Russia over the invasion. Fellow members of the European Union said Germany was trying to block decisions to boycott Russian energy imports, on which Germans are heavily dependent.Mr. Scholz was also criticized for sending his foreign minister on a state visit to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, instead of going himself.A recent poll found that nearly two-thirds of Germans do not consider Mr. Scholz a strong leader, and from respected broadsheets to Germany’s noisy tabloid Bild, commentators took the result of Sunday’s election as a damning verdict on Mr. Scholz’s first six months in office. A headline in the Süddeutsche Zeitung called the outcome “a vote of no confidence against the chancellor,” while Bild called it “a historic slap.”Voter unease seems not to have hurt one of Mr. Scholz’s coalition partners, the Greens. On Sunday, they were the big winners in terms of numbers gained over the last election, bettering their performance in 2017 by nearly 12 percentage points. Mr. Scholz’s two most popular ministers are Green party members who appear to be pushing for much of the popular Ukraine policy within the government coalition. One of them, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, traveled to Kyiv last week.The Free Democratic Party, the third coalition partner in the federal government, did not do well at the polls, claiming less than 6 percent of the state’s votes.At 56 percent, voter participation was unusually low for a state election in Germany.“It’s a test of people’s mood, which just shows what people think about the government’s work at the moment,” said Professor Jun.Voters handed the Christian Democratic Union, which lost the federal election after Chancellor Angela Merkel retired, an important win. It keeps conservatives in power in the industrial west, the former heartland of the Social Democrats, but it could signal a changing tide as voters go to polls in several other big state elections in the coming years.“The C.D.U. is back, our forward-looking course has been vindicated,” the party leader, Friedrich Merz, said on Twitter.The Social Democratic leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, Thomas Kutschaty, on Sunday.Ina Fassbender/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe election does not directly affect federal politics in Berlin, where Mr. Scholz has been running the three-party coalition since December. But the support for the conservative government in the big western state adds to Mr. Scholz’s woes trying to keep his government stable and the Social Democratic brand strong.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Inching closer to NATO. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: North Korea’s Growing Outbreak

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      Plus India bans most wheat exports and South Korea amends surgery laws.Good morning. North Korea’s outbreak grows, India bans most wheat exports and South Korea amends its surgery laws.Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, chided health officials for “incompetence” at a Saturday meeting, according to state media.Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressNorth Korea’s outbreak growsState media reported 21 new deaths and a huge jump in suspected coronavirus cases on Saturday, as North Korea struggled to contain its first reported outbreak.State media said an additional 174,400 people had symptoms, like a fever, that could be caused by Covid-19 — a tenfold jump from the 18,000 such cases reported on Friday. North Korea has reported a total of 524,400 people with Covid-like symptoms since late last month.“North Korea is reporting only ‘people with fever’ because it does not have enough test kits,” an expert said. Covid may not be causing all those fevers, he said, but the number of asymptomatic cases is likely much higher than the official count.Vaccines: North Koreans are unvaccinated, though some elites may have received shots. International health organizations and the South Korean government have said that they were ready to ship vaccines, therapeutics and other aid.In other developments:The Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is nearing one million. The nation wants to move on, but many of the loved ones left behind are grieving alone.If the U.S. had the same Covid death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved, our Sydney bureau chief writes in an analysis.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand tested positive and has moderate symptoms.Thanks to its focus on subsidizing its farmers, India has about 10 percent of the world’s grain reserves.Amit Dave/ReutersIndia bans most wheat exportsAdding to concerns of global food insecurity, the world’s second-largest wheat producer has banned most exports of the grain. India’s commerce ministry said that a sudden price spike had threatened the country’s food security.The move, an apparent about-face, could compound a worldwide shortfall and exacerbate a dire forecast for global hunger. In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told President Biden that India was ready to supply the world with its reserves.Background: The war has interrupted wheat production in Ukraine and Russia, and blockades in the Black Sea have disrupted transport of the grain. And climate change poses a dire threat. Agricultural experts said that India’s ongoing heat wave could affect the harvest this year. Torrential rains brought on poor harvests in China, while drought in other countries further snarled supplies.Iran: Protests driven by rising food prices spread to at least six provinces on Friday. A hospital near Seoul voluntarily put cameras in its operating rooms in 2020.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSouth Korea’s surgery surveillanceSouth Korea has become one of the first countries to require cameras in operating rooms that handle patients under general anesthesia, a measure meant to restore faith in the medical system.For years, hospitals have fielded complaints about doctors turning patients over to unsupervised assistants who perform “ghost surgeries.” About five patients have died from such surgeries in the past eight years, a patient advocate said.According to patient advocates, surgeons deputize nurses to perform operations, thereby packing in more procedures and maximizing profits. They argue that cameras will protect patients and offer medical malpractice victims evidence to use in court.But ethicists and medical officials across the world have cautioned that surveilling surgeons may hurt morale, violate patient privacy and make physicians less likely to take risks to save lives.Background: The surreptitious surgeries began occurring at plastic surgery clinics in the 2010s, after South Korea started promoting medical tourism, according to legal experts. They spread to spinal hospitals, experts said, which mostly perform relatively uncomplicated procedures in high demand among the country’s aging population. THE LATEST NEWSAsia and the PacificMost of the victims were assembly line workers, local officials said.Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt least 27 people were killed after a fire swept through a commercial building in New Delhi. The city’s chief fire officer said that the city was seeing more fires during India’s heat wave.Most members of the Rajapaksa political dynasty are hiding out at a military base in Sri Lanka as a protest movement grows. Only the president is still clinging to power.Gender transition surgery is a campaign flashpoint in Australia that looks like something from an overseas culture war.The WarHere are live updates.Finland’s government and Sweden’s governing party confirmed that they would seek NATO membership on Sunday, another strategic setback for Russia.Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops farther from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, as thousands of residents return each day. Residents are also returning to Bucha, and Kyiv shortened its curfew.Russian bloggers are criticizing evidence of a military disaster on the Donets River, which is breaking through the Kremlin’s information bubble.Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest in a pop culture endorsement of solidarity.World NewsA memorial for the victims of the Buffalo shooting.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York TimesA white gunman killed 10 people and injured three more — almost all Black — at a supermarket in upstate New York, one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history. Follow live updates here.Israeli police officers attacked mourners at the funeral procession of Shireen Abu Akleh, a slain Palestinian American journalist.The U.A.E. has a new leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. His half brother Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed died on Friday, after leading the Persian Gulf country for 18 years.Somalia elected a new president, but the government holds little sway: Al Shabab militants collect taxes, decide court cases and control the streets.Lebanese voters cast ballots for a new Parliament on Sunday, their first chance to pass judgment on lawmakers since the economy fell apart.A Morning ReadKim Do-yoon, an internationally known tattoo artist, at his studio in Seoul. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Tattooing without a medical license is illegal in South Korea, where decorative body art has long been associated with organized crime. But the law is crashing into rising international demand for what are known as “k-tattoos,” and the country’s tattoo artists argue that it’s time to end the stigma against their business.Lives lived: Katsumoto Saotome compiled six books of survivors’ recollections of the 1945 Tokyo firebombing and founded (without government support) a memorial museum. Saotome died at 90.ARTS AND IDEASThe future of paralysis?Sixteen years ago, Dennis DeGray’s mind was nearly severed from his body. He ran to take out the trash in a rainstorm, slipped, landed hard on his chin, and snapped his neck, paralyzing him from the collarbones down.For several years, he “simply laid there, watching the History Channel,” he said. But then he met Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford, who had been developing a brain-computer interface. Henderson asked DeGray if he wanted to fly a drone. DeGray decided to participate.Now, implants in his brain allow DeGray some control, even though he cannot move his hands. Just by imagining a gesture, he can move a computer cursor, operate robotic limbs, buy from Amazon and fly a drone — albeit only in a simulator, for now.There are obvious therapeutic applications. Interest from an increasing number of high-profile start-ups also suggests the possibility of a future in which neural interfaces enhance people’s innate abilities and grant them new ones — in addition to restoring those that have been lost.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.The secret to these chocolate chip cookies? Chill the dough for a day before you bake them.FitnessGetting back into running is easier than you think.What to WatchFour children develop unusual abilities in “The Innocents,” a wonderfully eerie Norwegian horror movie.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Clothing (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Elisabeth Goodridge, The Times’s deputy travel editor, will study travel reporting in an era of climate change as a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on America’s Covid death toll.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Somalia Elects Next President, but Terrorists Hold True Power

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      MOGADISHU, Somalia — Every month, Abdow Omar, who runs a business importing flour and sugar, gets a call from the Somali militant group Al Shabab reminding him that it’s time to pay them taxes — or risk losing his business, or even his life.After more than 16 years, the Shabab, terrorists linked to Al Qaeda, now have a firm grip on much of Somalia — extorting taxes, judging court cases, forcibly recruiting minors into its forces and carrying out suicide bombings.The country is about to get its next leader on Sunday in an election that has been delayed for almost two years. No less than 38 candidates, including one woman, registered to vie and unseat the incumbent president. But many residents, observing the government’s infighting and paralysis, are asking whether a new administration will make a difference at all.“While the government is busy with itself, we are suffering,” Mr. Omar said. “The Shabab are like a mafia group. You either have to obey them or close your business. There’s no freedom.”Somalia, a nation of 16 million people strategically located in the Horn of Africa, has suffered for decades from civil war, weak governance and terrorism. Its central government has been bolstered by African Union peacekeepers and Western aid, including billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and security assistance from the United States, which sought to keep the country from becoming a safe haven for international terrorism.Now, inflation is climbing, and food prices are sharply on the rise because of a biting drought and the loss of wheat imports from Ukraine.The country doesn’t have a one-person, one-vote electoral system. Instead, more than 325 lawmakers, who were chosen by clan representatives, will select the next president.People enjoying the Eid celebration at Mogadishu’s Lido Beach this month.Tensions were high in the Somali capital ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.The candidates, who include former presidents and prime ministers, are looking to unseat the current president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who has served for five years. Critics accused Mr. Mohamed — a former U.S. citizen and bureaucrat — of trying to illegally stay in power, cracking down on the opposition and journalists, fomenting a rift with neighboring Kenya and undercutting the power-sharing model that buttressed the country’s federal system.Al Shabab exploited the political instability, and the bitter divisions among security forces, to grow their tentacles. In the weeks and months before the vote, the group killed civilians including at beachside restaurants, mounted a major offensive on an African Union base — killing at least 10 peacekeepers from Burundi — and dispatched suicide bombers to jump on the cars of government officials.In interviews with more than two dozen Somali citizens, lawmakers, analysts, diplomats and aid workers before Sunday’s vote, many expressed concern at how the deteriorating political, security and humanitarian situation had reversed the few years of stability the nation achieved after Al Shabab were kicked out of the capital in 2011.“These were five lost years, ones in which we lost the cohesion of the country,” said Hussein Sheikh-Ali, a former national security adviser to President Mohamed and the chairman of the Hiraal Institute, a research center in Mogadishu. The protracted political battles, particularly over the elections, undermined the government’s ability to deliver key services, observers say. Critics and opposition figures have accused President Mohamed of trying to cling to power at all costs, exerting pressure on the electoral commission, installing leaders in regional states who would help sway the election and trying to fill the Parliament with his own supporters. Last year, when he signed a law extending his tenure by two years, fighting broke out in the capital’s streets, forcing him to change course.As the election of lawmakers got underway, observers said it was rife with corruption and irregularities.Anisa Abdullahi, left, and her friend Jamila Adan said they don’t believe politicians have the interests of the Somali people at heart.A total of 39 candidates registered to run in Somalia’s long-delayed presidential election, including Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, seen in this billboard, who was Somalia’s president between 2009 and 2012.Abdi Ismail Samatar, a first time senator who is also a professor at the University of Minnesota who researches democracy in Africa, said this election could be ranked as “the worst” in Somalia’s history.“I don’t think I could have ever imagined how corrupt and self-serving it is,” Mr. Samatar said. While no one attempted to bribe him, he said, “I saw people being given money in the election for the speakership right in front of my face in the hallway.”Larry E. André Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Somalia, said that the majority of the seats had been selected by regional leaders, “sold” or “auctioned,” and that the messy election had pushed the country to the “cliff’s edge.”The United States imposed visa sanctions in both February and March on Somali officials and others accused of undermining the parliamentary elections. The parliamentary vote finally concluded in late April, producing new speakers and deputy speakers mostly aligned with groups opposed to President Mohamed.Because of the indirect nature of the vote, presidential candidates in Mogadishu aren’t shaking hands with citizens or campaigning in the streets. Instead, they are meeting with lawmakers and clan elders in glitzy hotels and compounds guarded by dozens of soldiers and blast walls. Some aspirants have put up election billboards along major roads in the capital, promising good governance, justice and peace.But few in this seaside city believe they would make good on their pledges.“Everyone wears a suit, carries a briefcase and promises to be as sweet as honey,” said Jamila Adan, a political science student at City University. “But we don’t believe them.”Hawo Mohamed Hussein, a 1-year-old who is severely malnourished, with her mother, Habiba Ali Adam, at a health facility in Doolow, in the southern Gedo region. Ms. Adam said they left their home after their goats died from the drought. A juice and snacks shop in Doolow. The manager said that prices of sugar, vegetables and fruits had all increased in recent weeks. Her friend Anisa Abdullahi, a business major, agreed, saying those running for office cannot identify with the daily tribulations facing ordinary Somalis. Security forces, she said, frequently block roads unannounced to create safe corridors for politicians, making it impossible for her and many others to get to class, do business or visit relatives.“They never make people feel like the government comes from the people and is supposed to serve the people,” she said.Some Somalis have now turned to the Shabab to get services that would normally be delivered by a functioning state. Many in Mogadishu regularly travel to areas dozens of miles north of the city to get their cases heard at Shabab-operated mobile courts.One of them is Ali Ahmed, a businessman from a minority tribe whose family home in Mogadishu was occupied for years by members of a powerful tribe. After he presented his case to a Shabab-run court, he said, two weeks later the court ruled that the occupiers should vacate his house — and they did.“It’s sad, but no one goes to the government to get justice,” he said. “Even government judges will secretly advise you to go to Al Shabab.”Some officials admit the government’s own shortcomings. Al Shabab have been able to widen their tax base because “elected officials were too busy politicking instead of doing policy work,” said one government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the media.The election comes as parts of Somalia face the worst drought in four decades. Some six million people, or about 40 percent of the population, are facing extreme food shortages, according to the World Food Program, with nearly 760,000 people displaced.A newly constructed camp for internally displaced people in Doolow on Monday. Nearly 760,000 people have been displaced by the ongoing drought, according to the United Nations.The remains of a dead camel in the outskirts of Doolow. Rural communities have been hit hardest in the drought that has blanketed Somalia.Many of those impacted by the drought live in Shabab-controlled areas in south-central Somalia, where aid organizations are not able to reach them, crops are failing and the Shabab demand taxes on livestock, according to interviews with officials and displaced people. The United Nations estimates that almost 900,000 people reside in inaccessible areas administered by Al Shabab.To find food and water, families travel hundreds of miles, sometimes on foot, to cities and towns like Mogadishu, and Doolow in the southern Gedo region. Some parents said they buried their children on the way while others left weak children behind in order to save other offspring.Mohammed Ali Hussein, the deputy governor of Gedo, said the lack of security prevented officials from rescuing people in Shabab-dominated areas even when family members pinpoint an exact location.Dealing with the threat of the Shabab will be among the first challenges facing Somalia’s next government, said Afyare Abdi Elmi, executive director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in Mogadishu.But the next leader, he said, needs also to deliver a new constitution, reform the economy, deal with climate change, open dialogue with the breakaway region of Somaliland and unite a polarized nation.“Governance in Somalia became too confrontational over the past few years. It was like pulling teeth,” Mr. Elmi said. “People are now ready for a new dawn.”The recently opened Pescatore Seafood Restaurant, along Lido Beach in Mogadishu, was frequented by government officials. It was attacked in April with an explosion that killed six people. More

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      After Lebanon’s Collapse, Can an Election Fix the Country?

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      On Sunday, Lebanese voters get their first chance to pass judgment on lawmakers since the economy fell apart. Few expect things to improve.BEIRUT, Lebanon — Onstage, Lebanese politicians spoke of upholding national sovereignty, fighting corruption and fixing the state. Their leader said he would fight to disarm Hezbollah, the political party that is also Lebanon’s strongest military force.But those concerns were far from the mind of Mohammed Siblini, 57, who like many Lebanese had watched his life fall apart over the past two years as the country collapsed.The national currency’s free-fall meant that his monthly salary from a rental car company had fallen to $115 from $2,000, he said. The state’s failure to provide electricity meant that most of his earnings went to a generator to keep his lights on. What was left failed to cover the small pleasures that had been, until recently, a normal part of life.“I want meat!” Mr. Siblini yelled at the politicians. “Get us one kilogram of meat!”On Sunday, Lebanon votes for a new Parliament for the first time in four years. It is hard to overstate how much worse life has gotten for the average citizen in that period, and how little the country’s political elite have done to cushion the blow.The vote is the public’s first opportunity to formally respond to their leaders’ performance, so at stake is not just who wins which seats, but the larger question of whether Lebanon’s political system is capable of fixing its many dysfunctions.Few analysts think that it is, at least in the short term.Flags of the Lebanese Forces political party in Byblos, Lebanon, on Sunday. The election is the public’s first opportunity to pass judgment on their leaders since the economic collapse.Joseph Eid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe country’s complex social makeup, with 18 officially recognized religious sects and a history of civil conflict, drives many voters to elect their coreligionists, even if they are corrupt.And in a country where citizens seek out a party boss to cut through bureaucracy or get their children government jobs, corruption actually helps established political parties serve their constituents.But the collapse has put new strain on that old system.The crisis began in late 2019, when protests against the political elite spilled into the streets of the capital, Beirut, and other cities.That exacerbated pressure on the banks, which had been engaging in creative accounting with the central bank to prop up the currency and earn unsustainable returns for depositors.Critics have called it a Ponzi scheme, and it suddenly failed. The value of the Lebanese pound began a decline that would erase 95 percent of its value, and commercial banks placed limits on withdrawals, refusing to give people their money because the banks had effectively lost it.The financial turmoil tore through the economy. Prices spiked, businesses failed, unemployment skyrocketed and doctors, nurses and other professionals fled the country for better salaries abroad.The state, which had never managed to provide 24-hour electricity, ran so low on cash that it now supplies barely any at all, even to power traffic lights.Making matters worse, a huge explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, also caused by gross mismanagement, killed more than 200 people and did billions of dollars in damage.A view of Beirut’s port on Friday. Official negligence led to the explosion there in August 2020, which killed hundreds.Mohamed Azakir/ReutersDespite losses that the government says total $72 billion, none of the banks have gone out of business, the central bank chief remains in his job, and none of the politicians who backed the policies that led to the collapse have been held accountable. Some of them are running in Sunday’s election — and are likely to win.Many of the candidates are familiar faces who would struggle to bill themselves as agents of change.They include Nabih Berri, the 84-year-old speaker of Parliament, who has held that job, uninterrupted, for nearly three decades; Ali Hassan Khalil, a former finance minister who worked to hobble the investigation into the cause of the Beirut explosion; and Gebran Bassil, the president’s son-in-law, whom the United States accuses of corruption and placed sanctions on last year. Mr. Bassil denies the accusation.Hezbollah, which has a substantial bloc in Parliament and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries, is fielding a range of candidates. Others are warlords from the Lebanese civil war, which ended in 1990, or, in some cases, their sons.Many voters are just fed up, and have little faith that their votes will make a difference.“A candidate comes now and says ‘I will do this and that,’ and I tell them, ‘Many came before you and couldn’t change anything,’” said Claudette Mhanna, a seamstress.She said she would like to vote for a new figure who came out of the 2019 protests, but because of the way the election is run, she has to vote for lists that include candidates she hates.“We are suffocating,” she said. “If I get myself to think about going and voting, I can’t think of who I would vote for.”Supporters of Hezbollah at a rally in Baalbek, Lebanon, on Friday.Francesca Volpi/Getty ImagesMany of those running have ties to the financial system, which Olivier De Schutter, a United Nations expert on poverty, said shared responsibility for the “man-made crisis” in Lebanon that had resulted in human rights violations.“Lifetime savings have been wiped out by a reckless banking sector lured by a monetary policy favorable to their interests,” he wrote in a report published last week. “An entire generation has been condemned to destitution.”On Friday, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that a son of Lebanon’s central bank governor had transferred more than $6.5 million out of the country at a time when most depositors were locked out of their savings.Those transactions were carried out by AM Bank, whose chairman, Marwan Kheireddine, bought a Manhattan penthouse for $9.9 million from the actress Jennifer Lawrence in August 2020, when Lebanon’s economy was plummeting.Mr. Kheireddine has said the purchase was for a company he managed, not for him personally.Now he is running for Parliament, and he told The New York Times in an interview that he wants to use his experience to help fix the economy.“I’m experienced in finance,” he said. “I’m not going to make promises, but I will do my best to work hard to get the depositors’ money back.”For many Lebanese, party loyalty remains strong.“There’s no list more deserving of my vote than Hezbollah,” said Ahmad Zaiter, 22, a university student from Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.He said Hezbollah’s weapons were necessary to defend the country, and that the party had helped its supporters weather the crisis by providing cheap medication from Syria and Iran.“If there’s a party besides Hezbollah that is offering weapons to the government to strengthen it so we can defend ourselves or offering services, then where is it?” he said.Soldiers were deployed in Beirut on Saturday, the eve of the election.Mohamed Azakir/ReutersMany first-timers are running, too, marketing themselves as being cleaner and closer to the people. Most projections have them winning only a limited number of seats in the 128-member Parliament, and analysts expect them to struggle without the infrastructure of a political party.“I will be the people’s voice inside the Parliament, but I cannot promise that I will fix the electricity or the infrastructure,” said Asma-Maria Andraos, who is running in Beirut. “I cannot say that I will stop the corruption, which is deeply rooted in our system.”Many Lebanese who have the means have already left the country, and many more are seeking ways out. A recent poll by the research group Arab Barometer found that 48 percent of Lebanese citizens were seeking to emigrate. For those between ages 18 and 29, the percentage rose to 63 percent, the poll found.Fares Zouein, who owns a Beirut sandwich shop, said he intended to vote for his local political boss, whom he refused to name, because the man uses his position to help the neighborhood.“That’s our problem in Lebanon: If you don’t have someone to help you, you’re stuck,” said Mr. Zouein, 50.He, too, had little faith that the election would make life better.“This is why everyone in Lebanon has three goals in life: to get a second passport, to open a bank account abroad, and to send their children abroad for school,” he said. More

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      An American Moment in an Australian Campaign

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      To some analysts, a spat over transition surgery looks like something from an overseas culture war.The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. Perhaps the ugliest part of Australia’s election campaign has been the debate around the rights of transgender people. Katherine Deves, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handpicked candidate for the seat of Warringah, courted controversy this week when she walked back a previous apology for calling transition surgery “mutilation.”Mr. Morrison has resisted calls — including from within his own Liberal Party — to drop Ms. Deves since tweets that had been deleted from her account resurfaced, including the original comment about transition surgery. In another tweet, she compared her campaign to ban trans women from women’s sports to standing up against the Holocaust.Mr. Morrison has dismissed the reaction to Ms. Deves’s comments as cancel culture, and in an election season that’s been light on policy and heavy on spectacle, the issue has spawned furious commentary and countless headlines. For many, the tone and the arguments feel very, well, American. It seems as though a conservative conversation in the United States has been exported to Australia. Or is this something that reflects Australia’s own political urges or unresolved divides?It’s not the first time that culture war and identity issues have formed part of an Australian election campaign. But this time feels particularly ugly, both because of the topics being debated and the vitriolic language being used.“I think it’s more personal, intrusive, and I think hurtful for those who are caught up in it,” said John Warhurst, an emeritus professor of politics at the Australian National University. He said it seemed to be an example of overlap with American culture. “We’ve had earlier political debates about political correctness and wokeness,” Professor Warhurst said. “Those generally arise in the U.S. and are picked up in Australia by those who use them for their advantage.”Political analysts say Mr. Morrison seems to be hoping that Ms. Deves’s views will resonate with religious voters in rural areas, in districts that the coalition needs to win on May 21, even if some moderate Liberal seats have to be sacrificed.But will it work? According to Paul Williams, a political analyst and associate professor at Griffith University, the issue of transgender rights doesn’t resonate in Australia the way it does in the United States.“You can see culture wars is at the heart of American politics,” he said. “I don’t think we’re at that point in Australia.”“Middle Australia seems to be a fairly reasonable electorate,” he added. With economic concerns at the forefront of people’s minds, issues like trans women’s participation in sports are hardly a priority.That doesn’t mean there aren’t voters who view politics through the prism of pro- and anti-political correctness. But do they amount to a critical mass? No, Professor Williams said. And would the trans rights issue decide their votes? Probably not, he added.But he’s concerned about the future. This campaign has been particularly “presidential,” he said — driven by leaders’ personalities, not parties’ policies. It has also been marked by the “atomization” of news coverage, with different outlets constructing different realities for different constituencies, and by the weaponization of issues like trans rights, he said. He fears that “Australia will become not just polarized but as irrational as post-Obama America, where the old adage that you’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts has been completely thrown out the window.”“This idea of win at all costs, win on ethos and pathos, feeling and character — or at least perception of character — but not on facts, is a terribly slippery road to go down,” Professor Williams said.Now here are our stories of the week. Australia and New ZealandPrime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand in Parliament in March, announcing the easing of some of the country’s pandemic restrictions. Pool photo by Mark MitchellJacinda Ardern, whose restrictions buffered New Zealand from the worst of the pandemic, tests positive. The prime minister’s rules kept transmission at bay for two years, and by the time the highly infectious Omicron variant hit, the vast majority of New Zealand’s population had been vaccinated.There’s an election in Australia. Here’s how climate fits in. The country has been hit hard by wildfires and other climate disasters, but it’s also making tons of money from fossil fuels.U.S. Picked as Host of Rugby World Cup. Eager to establish a foothold in a coveted market, world rugby officials awarded the 2031 men’s World Cup and 2033 women’s event to the United States.New Zealand will fully reopen its borders at the end of July. The move comes two months ahead of schedule, in an attempt to speed up economic recovery.Around The TimesChang W. Lee/The New York Times Tattoos, Still Illegal in South Korea, Thrive Underground. Tattoo artists, long treated as criminals for their work, say that it is time to end the stigma against their business.Butt Lifts Are Booming. Healing Is No Joke. Beauty, pain, race and money play out in Miami’s post-surgical recovery houses.Life in a Ukrainian Unit: Diving for Cover, Waiting for Western Weapons. Analysts say the outcome of fighting now is riding on the accuracy, quantity and the striking power of long-range weapons. Ukraine is pleading for more.The Mundane Thrill of ‘Romanticizing Your Life.’ A trend that took off early in the pandemic encourages people to appreciate life’s simple pleasures, a philosophy that resonates just as strongly two years later.Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group. More