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      Kennedy Vows to Cut Military Budget in Half

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, said this week that he would cut military spending by half by the end of his first term as president, and said the United States should have a reduced role in global affairs.“Military spending is a constant drain on our nation’s vitality,” Mr. Kennedy said in an hourlong speech on Wednesday evening at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California, adding that “obsessed with the idea of our nation’s strength, we ignore the growing infirmity at our core.”Mr. Kennedy has long assailed American military spending and defense contractors, but his speech at the Nixon Library, which partly focused on foreign policy, painted a grim picture of American decline over the last 60 years and laid out a radically different vision of America’s place on the world stage.He said the United States should accept a diminished role in global affairs, divert much of the nation’s security spending to domestic programs, and prepare for a multipolar world — where other powerful countries like China and Russia would have increased influence and America would not be the sole global superpower.“We seem to think that we’re still where we were — in the same world as in 1991,” Mr. Kennedy said, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He added: “We are stuck in that past. Any nation, or for that matter any individual, can maintain an illusion like that only at an ever increasing cost.”Mr. Kennedy’s vow to aggressively reduce national security spending stands in stark contrast to the trajectory of global military spending, which has reached a 35-year high, driven in part by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Kennedy, as an independent, would also have few allies in Congress to help him fulfill that promise, and there has typically been strong support for military spending in Congress. The defense budget for 2025 is currently capped at about $895 billion, though Democrats and Republicans are mulling a further increase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats Plan to Turn Statehouses Blue by Dishing Out Green

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      The spending blitz showcases the importance of state legislatures in 2024.Hi there. Today, my colleague Nick Corasaniti, who covers voting and elections, joins us with an exclusive look at the big money pouring into small races. Then, I ask whether a surprising election result last night in Ohio tells us anything about November. — Jess BidgoodThey’re the races often listed near the bottom of the ballot, with what may be unfamiliar names running for state legislative seats. But these little-known contests are drawing big money.Democrats are poised to flood the country’s most consequential state house and senate elections with a spending blitz that will add up to nine figures, showcasing the critical role state legislatures play in some of the nation’s most pressing issues — and building on a cash advantage over Republicans.The States Project, a Democratic-aligned group, is set to announce a plan to spend $70 million in legislative battles in nine states, according to a memo I obtained, one of the largest investments in such races by a single outside Democratic-leaning group in recent history. They plan to send the funds directly to candidates and groups on the ground, who can decide how best to use it.Combined with a previously announced $60 million target from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and $35 million from the aligned group Forward Majority, the total cash coming to help Democratic state legislative candidates will most likely exceed $160 million.These investments in down-ballot races underscore the growing realization by national Democratic organizations that state legislative fights will probably have a greater influence on many of the issues affecting voters’ day-to-day lives than other contests this cycle — even the presidential race. And the torrent of cash from the left shows how Democrats have surpassed what had long been a Republican advantage in funding campaigns for state legislatures.“In the last decade, whether it comes to the right to reproductive health care or policies to raise wages for full-time workers, state legislatures have done more good — and more harm — than any other level of government,” said Daniel Squadron, a former Democratic state senator from New York and co-founder of the States Project. “So that’s what’s on the ballot across these states this election.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Wake of Election Defeat, Germany’s Olaf Scholz Will Slog On

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      Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his governing coalition emerged battered from the vote for the European Parliament. But a snap election seems unlikely.Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany heads to the Group of 7 summit meeting in Italy on Thursday as a diminished leader after Sunday’s battering in elections for the European Parliament.All three of the parties in his coalition government earned fewer votes than the conservative opposition — combined. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, showed itself to be the country’s second-most popular party.While an even worse defeat in France for President Emmanuel Macron at the hands of the far right prompted him to call fresh elections for the National Assembly, no such outcome is expected in Germany, where the results reverberate differently.Here’s a look at why.Snap Elections Are RareSome opposition leaders said the results showed such a lack of confidence in the chancellor and his coalition that he, too, should call new federal elections.The government replied definitively: no.The reason could be as simple as the difference between the French and German systems. Whereas President Macron could call a new election for the French Parliament, a new vote in Germany can only happen at the end of a complicated procedure triggered by a parliamentary majority vote of no confidence in the chancellor. That makes snap elections extremely rare in Germany — happening only three times in the 75-year history of the Federal Republic.While the three parties in the coalition government took a beating on the E.U. level, at home they still have a majority of seats in the German Parliament. As unpopular as the coalition is, then, it is most likely to slog on, and hope that it can turn things around before the next regular federal election in 2025.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Macron’s Early Election Call After EU Vote Is a Huge Gamble

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      The president has challenged voters to test the sincerity of their support for the far right in European elections. Were the French letting off steam, or did they really mean it?On the face of it, there is little logic in calling an election from a position of great weakness. But that is what President Emmanuel Macron has done by calling a snap parliamentary election in France on the back of a humiliation by the far right.After the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and her popular protégé Jordan Bardella handed him a crushing defeat on Sunday in elections for the European Parliament, Mr. Macron might have done nothing, reshuffled his government, or simply altered course through stricter controls on immigration and by renouncing contested plans to tighten rules on unemployment benefits.Instead, Mr. Macron, who became president at 39 in 2017 by being a risk taker, chose to gamble that France, having voted one way on Sunday, will vote another in a few weeks.“I am astonished, like almost everyone else,” said Alain Duhamel, the prominent author of “Emmanuel the Bold,” a book about Mr. Macron. “It’s not madness, it’s not despair, but it is a huge risk from an impetuous man who prefers taking the initiative to being subjected to events.”Shock coursed through France on Monday. The stock market plunged. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, a city that will host the Olympic Games in just over six weeks, said she was “stunned” by an “unsettling” decision. “A thunderbolt,” thundered Le Parisien, a daily newspaper, across its front page.For Le Monde, it was “a jump in the void.” Raphaël Glucksmann, who guided the revived center-left socialists to third place among French parties in the European vote, accused Mr. Macron of “a dangerous game.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      La izquierda gana a lo grande en México. Los inversores están preocupados

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      El peso tuvo su peor semana desde la pandemia. Los inversores temen que el gobierno apruebe “cambios radicales” a la Constitución, considerados como un desmantelamiento de los controles y equilibrios democráticos.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El conteo final de votos publicado el fin de semana sugiere que el partido político de izquierda que gobierna México y sus aliados obtendrían amplias mayorías en el Congreso, lo que podría permitir a la coalición aprobar cambios radicales en la Constitución.El conteo final de votos publicado el fin de semana sugiere que el partido político de izquierda que gobierna México y sus aliados obtendrían amplias mayorías en el Congreso, lo que podría permitir a la coalición aprobar cambios radicales en la Constitución.El recuento oficial de las elecciones de la semana pasada mostró que el partido, Morena, y sus socios parecían en camino de conseguir una mayoría de dos tercios en la Cámara baja del Congreso.En el Senado, parecía que la coalición no alcanzaría la supermayoría, pero por un pequeño número de escaños, según los analistas, lo que significa que probablemente solo necesitaría el apoyo de unos pocos legisladores de la oposición para modificar la Constitución. Construir esas alianzas “es relativamente fácil” de conseguir, dijo el presidente del partido, Mario Delgado, en una entrevista.“Somos ahora una fuerza dominante”, añadió Delgado, “por decisión de la gente”.La composición final de la legislatura aún no está clara porque una parte de los escaños del Congreso mexicano se designan mediante un sistema de representación proporcional en agosto. Las impugnaciones legales también podrían afectar al reparto de escaños.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Music Speaks to Some Deep Need Among Humans’

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      More from our inbox:Will Politicians Accept the Election Results?Honoring the DeadFear of CrimeA research team that comprised musicologists, psychologists, linguists, evolutionary biologists and professional musicians recorded songs in 55 languages to find that songs share certain features not found in speech.Album/AlamyTo the Editor:Re “Delving Into the Archaeology of Music” (Science Times, May 21):Virtually all our achievements as a species depend upon humans working together. One human alone, in a state of nature, is a medium-sized animal struggling for survival (and with no use for music). Working in tandem, we produce homes, towns, cities, factories and all the rest.Music is a vital part of that process. Most traditional music is highly functional. It’s used for religious ceremonies, community events, family gatherings, dancing, courtship and labor (keeping workers in sync). Sometimes, as in the case of the Scottish bagpipe, it plays a role in battle.Music is like an intangible thread tying us together. Anything that facilitates human cooperation confers a major survival advantage. It’s no wonder that music, like language, is universal among us.David GoldbergNew YorkTo the Editor:I was interested to read the latest research into music using big data, as your article reports. My late father, David Epstein, a conductor and a professor of music at M.I.T., did a lot of research into musical performance that pointed to how and why music taps into some fundamental human abilities, across cultures.His work focused on tempo/rhythm/pulse, and he uncovered some fascinating features of tempo that were of interest to scientists from many disciplines. One of his main findings (with the use of a stopwatch — not big data!) was that highly skilled musicians have such a fine-tuned sense of rhythm that they can play with the tempo in a piece, take a phrase and stretch it out here, and then speed up somewhere else, landing exactly where they might have if they had played a straight (and boring) metronome tempo through the whole piece. Audiences respond to the drama in that playful interpretation.I don’t think my father ever questioned that music speaks to some deep need among humans — for a language beyond words that allows us to tie our very heartbeats to one another.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Narendra Modi Fell to Earth After Making It All About Himself

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      The Indian leader used his singular persona to lift his party to new heights. Then the opposition found a way to use his cult of personality against him.When everything became about Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, his party and its century-old Hindu-nationalist network were propelled to unimagined heights.On the back of his singular charisma and political skill, a onetime-fringe religious ideology was pulled to the center of Indian life. Landslide election victories remade India’s politics, once dominated by diverse coalitions representing a nation that had shaped its independence on secular principles.But there were always risks in wrapping a party’s fortunes so completely in the image of one man, in inundating a country of many religions, castes and cultures with that leader’s name, face and voice. Voters could start to think that everything was about him, not them. They could even revolt.On Tuesday, Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., fell back to earth. After having promised their biggest election romp yet, they lost more than 60 seats. Mr. Modi will remain in office for a third term, but only with the help of a contentious coalition of parties, some of which are opposed to his core beliefs and want power of their own.With the result, India’s strained democracy appeared to roar back to life, its beaten-down political opposition reinvigorated. And after a decade in which Mr. Modi’s success in entrenching Hindu supremacy had often felt like the new common sense, India is seeing its leader and itself in a new light, and trying to understand this unexpected turn.Most fundamentally, the opposition, newly coalesced for what it called a do-or-die moment as Mr. Modi increasingly tilted the playing field, found a way to use the cult of personality around him to its advantage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More