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      Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak Among Top Contenders to Replace UK Prime Minister

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      Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the man who helped oust him from his job, the former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, are seen as two of the top contenders within the governing Conservative Party.LONDON — The race to succeed Liz Truss as Britain’s prime minister was already gathering pace on Friday morning, potentially pitting the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, against the man who helped oust him from Downing Street just a little more than three months ago, the former finance minister, Rishi Sunak.Penny Mordaunt, now a senior minister, was also seen as a serious potential contender in an election that will be conducted within the governing Conservative Party, which controls the government and can select a prime minister without calling a general election.The next government leader faces a formidable task as Britain heads into an economic slowdown with inflation surging, borrowing costs rising and a winter likely to be dominated by labor strikes and worries about energy supplies.Ahead of what could be a head-on battle against Mr. Johnson, Mr. Sunak’s supporters are presenting him as the safe pair of hands, the man who can restore stability following the crisis precipitated by Ms. Truss’s government when it announced unfunded tax cuts last month, sending financial markets into a tailspin. The British pound plummeted and borrowing costs soared.Less than seven weeks after she took office, Ms. Truss resigned on Thursday — the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.This summer, after Mr. Johnson was forced to resign, Mr. Sunak ran to succeed him but lost out to Ms. Truss. During that leadership contest he gave a prophetic warning of the risks of her economic program, including the tax cuts that ended up rattling the markets.So the appointment of Mr. Sunak, an experienced former chancellor of the Exchequer, might reassure financial markets enough to give a new government more leeway when it comes up with a new budget plan.“Rishi is the experienced leader to sort the economy, lead effectively, get us back into political contention and unite the Party and country,” wrote Bim Afolami, a Conservative lawmaker, on Twitter.Rishi Sunak, one of the possible candidates for prime minister, meeting with supporters in August in Birmingham, England.Susannah Ireland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the prospect of an extraordinary return for Mr. Johnson, who left Downing Street less than two months ago under a sizable cloud, has galvanized the looming contest.Reinstalling him would be a risk for the Conservative Party because he quit after a succession of ethics scandals and is still being investigated by a parliamentary committee over claims he misled lawmakers about lockdown-busting parties at his Downing Street office and residence.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.Mr. Johnson has been on a Caribbean vacation. But his father, Stanley Johnson, did little to dispel the impression that his son was preparing a comeback attempt. He told Britain’s ITV television network on Friday: “I think he’s on a plane, as I understand it.”By the time he left office, Mr. Johnson, always a polarizing figure, was deeply unpopular with voters, according to opinion polls. He tarnished his party’s reputation and dozens of members of his government resigned.But since then, the Conservative Party’s support has collapsed. A new opinion poll showed the party plunging to a new low in support of just 14 percent.Mr. Johnson’s supporters argue that because he won a landslide election victory in 2019, he has a mandate from the voters, and his brand of optimism could help rally the Conservatives.If he were to run, he would be seen as the clear favorite as he remains popular among party members who could make the ultimate decision.Boris Johnson on his last day in office in September.Leon Neal/Getty ImagesIt was they who, during the summer, rejected Mr. Sunak in favor of Ms. Truss when the two reached the final stages of the last leadership contest. One of the main reasons for his failure was the perception among party members that Mr. Sunak betrayed Mr. Johnson by resigning from his cabinet, prompting the crisis that destroyed his leadership.Even before formal declarations by any candidates, their allies were canvassing lawmakers, who in some cases offered their public support.Among those urging Mr. Johnson to run are Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, who wrote on Twitter that he was supporting the former prime minister under the hashtag #BORISorBUST. Nadine Dorries, another strong supporter in Parliament, described him as a “known winner.”More centrist lawmakers might also be tempted to support Mr. Johnson because of his history of success in elections before his recent ethics scandals. But his critics say he would struggle to unite his colleagues, and one Conservative lawmaker, Roger Gale, has said he would resign from the party if Mr. Johnson returned.Ms. Mordaunt, who finished third in the summer leadership contest, has good communication skills and has raised her profile in recent weeks, including this week when she appeared in Parliament to defend the government.She is relatively untested at the highest reaches of government. But her supporters argue that she has more experience than former prime ministers like Tony Blair and David Cameron who never held ministerial positions before taking power, having been in opposition.And Ms. Mordaunt might be the best placed of the possible contenders to manage a fractured Conservative Party.“Penny is the best candidate to unite our party and lead our great nation,” said Bob Seely, one of her supporters and a member of Parliament.Britain’s leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, is another potential candidate for prime minister. Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of the likely front-runners have yet declared, but by Monday afternoon, contenders must have nominations from at least 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers, a number intended to speed up the contest by limiting potential candidates to a maximum of three.If only one politician passes that threshold, he or she will become prime minister on Monday. If there are two or three, Conservative lawmakers will vote on Monday and the top two will then go for a final decision on Oct. 28 in a vote by about 170,000 Conservative Party members — unless one withdraws voluntarily.Other possible candidates include the home secretary, Suella Braverman, who was fired by Ms. Truss on Wednesday, and Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary. However, on the evidence of their performance in the summer leadership contest, neither is seen as likely to reach the threshold of 100 nominations.On Friday, the defense secretary, Ben Wallace, ruled himself out of the contest, and said he was leaning toward support for Mr. Johnson. More

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      Could Boris Johnson Make a Comeback as U.K. Prime Minister?

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      A comeback by Mr. Johnson is viewed as a very real possibility, delighting some Conservative Party lawmakers and repelling others.LONDON — It seemed at once incredible and inevitable.No sooner had Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain announced her sudden resignation on Thursday afternoon than a familiar name surfaced as a candidate to succeed her: Boris Johnson, the prime minister she replaced a mere 45 days ago.Mr. Johnson, who is vacationing in the Caribbean, has said nothing publicly about a bid for his old job. But the prospect of Boris redux has riveted Conservative Party lawmakers and cabinet ministers — delighting some, repelling others, and dominating the conversation in a way that Mr. Johnson has for his entire political career.Nor is the idea of his return merely notional: Among those who are keeping tallies of the voting intentions of lawmakers, including some London news organizations, Mr. Johnson is only slightly behind his chief rival, Rishi Sunak. On Friday morning, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is currently the business secretary and served under Mr. Johnson, became the first cabinet minister to endorse his former boss.But the prospect of Mr. Johnson back in 10 Downing Street appalls many Conservatives, who cite the serial scandals that brought him down in July and argue that voters would never forgive the party for rehabilitating him. Embracing such a polarizing figure, they say, would splinter the Tory ranks, perhaps irrevocably.“Only a nation which was gripped by pessimistic despair and no longer believed that there could be a serious response to its unfolding tragedies would want to take refuge in the leadership of a clown,” Rory Stewart, who ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Johnson in 2019, wrote on Friday on Twitter.Rishi Sunak on Friday in London. Mr. Sunak lost to Liz Truss in the contest to replace Boris Johnson, but now he may get another shot at the job.Beresford Hodge/Press Association, via Associated PressAnd yet, as Mr. Johnson’s supporters never tire of pointing out, he delivered a landslide Conservative victory in the general election of 2019. After the calamitous tenure of Ms. Truss, in which she tried to engineer a radical economic agenda with the support of only a third of the Tories in Parliament, some say that mandate gives him — and him alone — the capacity to restore the party’s depleted electoral fortunes.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.“One person was elected by the British public with a manifesto and a mandate until January ‘25,” Nadine Dorries, a former cabinet minister who is one of Mr. Johnson’s most outspoken backers, wrote on Thursday on Twitter.Under election rules laid out by the party on Thursday, candidates need 100 nominations from lawmakers to appear on the ballot next week. According to the informal tallies, neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Sunak is close yet, though in one spreadsheet, which includes unnamed supporters, Mr. Johnson is at 52.Setting a threshold of 100 nominations was intended to winnow the field to a handful of candidates and keep the race brief, thus avoiding the drawn-out, divisive campaign that was won by Ms. Truss. Given that there are only 357 Conservative lawmakers, there can be, at most, three names.There is a lively debate in political circles about whether Mr. Johnson can clear that hurdle, but with several more lawmakers coming out in his favor on Friday, it no longer seems implausible. Asked who was likely to be the next prime minister, a member of the government texted in reply, “Boris?”Andrew Gimson, who wrote a biography of Mr. Johnson, said, “I think he’s got a very good chance of coming back. He’s got real momentum.” For a demoralized party trailing in the polls, Mr. Gimson said, “It would be a much better story if Boris came back. There would be a sense of incredulity — the sheer spectacle of it.”If Mr. Johnson were to emerge from the ballot as one of two surviving candidates, the odds of his winning could rise considerably. The choice would then go to the party’s 160,000 or so members, among whom Mr. Johnson remains enduringly popular. Mr. Sunak, whose resignation as chancellor of the Exchequer in July helped set in motion Mr. Johnson’s downfall, is viewed with suspicion by many party members, even if he has solid support among the lawmakers.Parliament in London. Mr. Johnson is under investigation by a parliamentary committee over whether he misled the House of Commons about parties held in Downing Street that broke pandemic rules.Mary Turner for The New York TimesThat is why some political analysts expect the party’s elders to lean on the candidate with fewer votes to withdraw before that stage.There are other significant hurdles to Mr. Johnson’s return: He is under investigation by a parliamentary committee over whether he misled the House of Commons about parties held in Downing Street that broke pandemic rules. It could recommend Mr. Johnson’s expulsion or suspension from Parliament.For all of his charisma, it is also not clear that Mr. Johnson retains the same power to turn out voters that he did three years ago. The scandals that brought him down eroded his popularity with many Britons, and it was under his watch that the polls began to tilt heavily toward the opposition Labour Party.Finally, there is the question of whether Mr. Johnson is actually ready to return. In his farewell speech to Parliament, he signed off with, “Hasta la vista, baby,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous line from the movie “Terminator 2.” He later compared himself to Cincinnatus, a fifth-century Roman politician who saved the state from an invasion, retired to his farm, then subsequently returned to Rome as leader.Still, as a highly visible former prime minister, Mr. Johnson is in line to take in millions of dollars on the after-dinner speaking circuit. He is expected to write another newspaper column, a gig that could bring him several hundred thousand pounds a year.Mr. Johnson could also receive a lucrative advance for his memoirs, though that is complicated by the fact that he already owes the Hachette Book Group a biography of Shakespeare. Publishing executives said that if he sold the memoir to Hachette, it could allow him to set aside the Shakespeare book.With two young children with his wife, Carrie, and several other children by his former wife, Marina, people who know Mr. Johnson say he is keen to make big money — something he cannot do as a serving prime minister, even if the job comes with housing and a comfortable salary of £164,080, or about $182,400. More

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      Liz Truss Resigns After 6 Chaotic Weeks, Igniting New Leadership Fight

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      LONDON — Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain announced her resignation on Thursday, bringing a swift end to a six-week stint in office that began with a radical experiment in trickle-down economics and descended into financial and political chaos, as most of those policies were reversed.With her tax-cutting agenda in tatters, her Conservative Party’s lawmakers in revolt and her government in the hands of people who did not support either her or her policies, Ms. Truss, 47, concluded that she could no longer govern. She departs as the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.“Given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” a grim Ms. Truss said, standing on the rain-slicked pavement outside 10 Downing Street, where only 44 days ago she greeted the public as Britain’s new leader.Ms. Truss said she would remain in office until the party chooses a successor, by the end of next week. That sets off an extraordinarily compressed, unpredictable scramble to replace her in a party that is both demoralized and deeply divided. Among the likely candidates is Boris Johnson, the flamboyant previous prime minister she replaced after he was forced out in a string of scandals.Only a day after declaring in Parliament, “I’m a fighter, not a quitter,” Ms. Truss bowed out after a hastily scheduled meeting on Thursday with party elders, including Graham Brady, the head of a group of Conservative lawmakers that plays an influential role in selecting the party leader.Graham Brady, leader of an influential group of Conservative lawmakers, following the resignation of Liz Truss as Prime Minister.Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesIt was the most shocking jolt in a week of seismic developments that included the ouster of Ms. Truss’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng; the bitter departure of the home secretary, Suella Braverman; and a near melee in Parliament on Wednesday night, as cabinet ministers tried to force unruly Tory lawmakers to back the prime minister in a vote on whether to ban hydraulic fracking.The spectacle dramatized how Ms. Truss — only the third female prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May — had lost control of her party and government.By then, though, her mandate had already been shredded: her proposals for sweeping, unfunded tax cuts rattled financial markets because of fears they would blow a hole in Britain’s finances.That sent the pound into a tailspin that left it briefly near parity with the dollar, forced the Bank of England to intervene in bond markets to stave off the collapse of pension funds and sent mortgage interest rates soaring.The resulting chaos has left Britons frustrated and jaded, with many convinced the country is spinning out of control.“We are in an economic crisis, a political crisis, a food crisis — an everything crisis,” said Cristian Cretu, a gas engineer on a break from work. “Whoever is going to replace her, I don’t think they will make a difference.”The opposition Labour Party called for an immediate general election. But under British law, the Conservatives are not required to call one until January 2025.If enough Conservative lawmakers joined with the opposition, they could force an election, but with the party’s support collapsing in opinion polls, it is in their interests to delay any encounter with the voters. British political convention also allows them to change party leaders — and therefore the prime minister — using their own flexible rule book.Boris Johnson, the former prime minister who left office amid scandal only last month, is said to be considering a new run for the top job. Henry Nicholls/ReutersMs. Truss’s position was already shaky on Monday, when her newly appointed chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the government would undo the last vestiges of her tax proposals. As Mr. Hunt presented details of the reworked fiscal plan in Parliament, a silent Ms. Truss sat behind, a faraway smile on her face.For Britain, it is another chapter in the political convulsions that followed its vote to leave the European Union in 2016. The country will soon have its fifth prime minister in six years. Ms. Truss is the third consecutive leader to be deposed by the Conservative Party, also known as the Tory Party, which now appears to have devolved into warring factions and has fallen as many as 33 percentage points behind the opposition Labour Party in polls.The political upheaval also comes only a month after Britain buried Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for seven decades and acted as an anchor for the country. Among the queen’s last official duties was greeting Ms. Truss at Balmoral Castle after she had won the party leadership contest. On Thursday, Ms. Truss said she had informed King Charles III of her decision to step down.The Conservatives announced rules for the new leadership contest, including a minimum threshold of 100 nominations from lawmakers, which will limit the number of candidates to a maximum of three.From a shortlist of two, selected by lawmakers, Conservative Party members will then vote online to choose the victor, with the goal of avoiding the prolonged, multistage campaign last summer that resulted in Ms. Truss. In fact, the contest might not get that far: if only one candidate passes the threshold of 100 nominations, or if the second-place contender drops out, there will be a decision on Monday.“In recent leadership contests, they have chosen someone who is manifestly unsuitable for the job,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “It is unlikely anyone can rescue them electorally, but there are people who can walk into No. 10 and do the job of prime minister intellectually, emotionally and practically.”Still, the convulsions of recent days have exposed how divided the Conservative Party is, after 12 exhausting years in power, and how difficult it will be for Ms. Truss’s successor to unite it.Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer who lost out to Ms. Truss in this summer’s leadership contest, is considered a strong candidate to succeed her.Andy Buchanan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRishi Sunak, a former chancellor who ran against Ms. Truss last summer and warned that her proposals would produce chaos, should be in the pole position, having led the Treasury and performed well under pressure in the leadership campaign. But he lost that contest largely because many party members blamed him for bringing down Mr. Johnson, from whose cabinet he resigned.“The obvious candidate is Rishi Sunak,” Professor Bale said. “The question is whether they can forgive him. The situation is now so extreme that people might be prepared to forgive him his supposed sins.”That is far from clear, however, because Mr. Sunak is also distrusted on the right of the party and among hard-core Brexit supporters in Parliament. His leadership would be hard to stomach for some who opposed him, including the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who once refused to deny reports that he had described Mr. Sunak’s policies, which included tax increases, as “socialist.”Supporters of Mr. Johnson, who is reported to be considering a run at his old job, argue that because of his landslide election victory in 2019, he has a mandate to lead without holding another general election. Under the hashtag #bringbackboris, one of his supporters, James Duddridge, wrote on Twitter: “I hope you enjoyed your holiday boss. Time to come back. Few issues at the office that need addressing.”But restoring him would be highly risky, given the circumstances of his forced resignation in July and the fact that he remains a polarizing figure among voters. Mr. Johnson is also being investigated by a parliamentary committee over whether he misled the House of Commons about parties held in Downing Street that broke pandemic rules.Even if Mr. Johnson is exonerated, it will remind Britons of the serial scandals that led lawmakers to oust him. And the committee could recommend Mr. Johnson’s expulsion or suspension from Parliament — a sanction that might mean his constituents get a vote on whether to kick him out of Parliament altogether.The party’s ideological divisions were laid bare by Ms. Braverman in a blistering letter written after she was fired, ostensibly for breaching security regulations in sending a government document on her personal email. She accused Ms. Truss of backtracking on promises and going soft on immigration.While the government has reversed Ms. Truss’s tax cuts, the economy is still suffering from inflationary pressures that sent food prices soaring by 14 percent last month.Sam Bush for The New York TimesMs. Braverman’s parting shot illustrated the resistance from people on the right to what they see as the growing influence of Mr. Hunt, a moderate who voted against Brexit and was a supporter and ally of Mr. Sunak. Mr. Hunt, who has run twice for party leader, said he would not be a candidate this time.Were the Conservatives to allow Downing Street to fall into the hands of another untested candidate, outside the mainstream, like Ms. Braverman or perhaps Kemi Badenoch, who currently serves as the secretary of international trade, there could be renewed instability in the financial markets.Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons who finished third in the contest last summer, appears well placed to straddle the divide. She is a good communicator, but is untested at the top level of government.Another option might be a candidate with little ideological baggage, like Ben Wallace, the defense secretary, or Grant Shapps, the new home secretary. But Mr. Wallace decided against running earlier this year, saying he did not want the job enough. Mr. Shapps concluded that he did not have the support to win.Whoever is chosen will inherit a forbidding array of problems, from 10.1 percent inflation and soaring energy prices to labor unrest and the specter of a deep recession. The new leader will have to make cuts to government spending that are likely to be resisted by different coalitions of Conservative lawmakers.On Monday, Mr. Hunt said the government would end its huge state intervention to cap energy prices in April, replacing it with a still-undefined program that he said would promote energy efficiency. That could prove unpopular, increasing uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity prices.While the government has abandoned Ms. Truss’s tax cuts — in one of the most striking policy reversals in modern British history — the chaos her program unleashed in the markets has left lingering damage. The rise in interest rates has made borrowing more expensive for the government, economists said, which will produce pressure for even deeper spending cuts.Despite the Conservative Party’s internal feuds, Professor Bale said he believed it was not inherently ungovernable, so long as it makes the right choice. As recent history has shown, the stakes for the party are extremely high.“The Conservative Party is an incredibly leadership-dominated party,” he said, “which means that if you get the choice of leader wrong, you’re in serious trouble.”Euan Ward More

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      Liz Truss’s Quick Resignation Spurs Anger and Bewilderment Among Britons

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      The news of the prime minister’s resignation whipsawed many in Britain, a country already dealing with spiraling inflation and still grappling with the departure of Boris Johnson.LONDON — The fast-paced developments that culminated Thursday with the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss left many Britons in a state of anger and alarm about their country’s future. “We are in an economic crisis, a political crisis, a food crisis — an everything crisis,” said Cristian Cretu, a gas engineer. “Whoever is going to replace her, I don’t think they will make a difference.”Others were dumbfounded at her sudden resignation.“Are you serious?” said Michael Debas, an Uber driver, as he heard the news of Ms. Truss’s resignation on the radio. “This is just crazy. What’s going on in this country?” he said as he began to count the list of Britain’s recent prime ministers on his fingers.In pubs and on the streets of London, as news of the turmoil flashed across screens and cellphones and blared over radios, Britons who had already stared down a year of economic and political turmoil met the latest developments with anxiety and concern about what comes next.“I’m not surprised at all,” Diana Godwin, 61, said of the resignation as she worked at her fruit and vegetable stall in Brixton, in South London. “But who wants to throw their hat into the ring now?”“When they lose the next election, that one will have to be sacked, too,” she said of the governing Conservatives and whoever becomes Britain’s next leader.With the government in chaos, Britons are wondering what the instability atop the government could portend for a country battling double-digit inflation and widening economic malaise.“It feels like the economy could collapse at any moment,” Edward Brusnahan, 53, said. He was in the middle of trying to refinance his apartment so that he could move away from the city. But with the mortgage market disrupted and rates rising sharply, it was no easy task.Consumer prices had risen by 10.1 percent in September from a year earlier, propelled by food prices that soared 14.5 percent in September.Sam Bush for The New York TimesHe said that political leaders had “no vision” to address the nation’s mounting problems and that Britain seemed to be transgressing back to the painful economic malaise of the 1970s.“We’re lurching from crisis to crisis,” he said. Nevertheless, he called Ms. Truss’s decision to quit “the right decision,” saying, “Hopefully they’ll make a better choice this time.”In poorer parts of London, where the pain of rising costs has been more pronounced, there was anger, frustration and exhaustion with the chaos in Britain’s government and the worsening economic news.“I’ve just closed my ears to it all,” said Ms. Godwin, who said that her energy bills had more than doubled recently. “Anyone with any common decency should step down.”“They don’t give a damn about normal, working people,” she added.That sense of government incompetency has also bled into an all-consuming worry about how bad Britain’s economic crisis could get. On Wednesday, the government announced that consumer prices had risen by 10.1 percent in September from a year earlier, propelled by food prices that soared 14.5 percent in Septem“Everything — the cost of living — is too much,” said James Hill, 32, who was fixing an elevator on Thursday morning. With two young children, Mr. Hill said he was working as much overtime as he could, which meant less time with his family.Customers at the clothing stall that Sevin Singh, 39, owns have all but dried up amid Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, and he says he now worries about the future of the 20-year-old family business.Britons who had already stared down a year of economic and political turmoil met the latest developments with anxiety and concern about what comes next.Sam Bush for The New York Times“The government don’t have control anymore. Every day something changes,” said Mr. Singh, as he busied himself on a rainy Thursday morning tending to his collection of women’s turbans and dashiki dresses. Of Ms. Truss, he said, “She was just not good enough for the job, and we urgently need someone who is.”Christopher Egege, who had spent the past few months abroad, returned to London and was stunned at how far prices for everything from eggs to sauces and other foodstuffs had been marked up. If things did not improve, Mr. Egege said he would consider moving back overseas in a few months.Mr. Egege said he believed that Rishi Sunak, Britain’s former chancellor of the Exchequer beaten by Ms. Truss, should have become prime minister. “I don’t understand why they voted for her,” he said referring to Ms. Truss. “Is it down to racism?” (Mr. Sunak’s parents are of Indian heritage.)Ghifftie Bonsu, 47, who was opening her wig shop along with her young son, said she had become numb to Britain’s myriad crises. Customers have dwindled amid the country’s inflationary crisis, and she now worries about the businesses’ future.“I don’t even know where to start,” Ms. Bonsu said of the political turmoil. “They should pick people who are ready and can do the job.” More

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      What Happened With Liz Truss in Britain? A Guide to the Basics.

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      A little over six weeks into her leadership, the British prime minister said she would resign.LONDON — The rapid political collapse of Liz Truss ended as she announced her resignation on Thursday, a little more than six weeks after she became Britain’s leader. Her agenda had floundered, her own party had turned on her and commentators widely speculated on whether she could outlast a head of lettuce. She couldn’t.She had pledged to shoulder through the turmoil despite widespread calls for her resignation. But minute by minute the heat on her grew until there was no path out.If you need to get caught up, here is a guide to the basics.Who is Liz Truss and how did she become prime minister?Ms. Truss was anointed on Sept. 6 to replace Boris Johnson, who was elected by voters in 2019 but who flamed out in spectacular fashion after a series of scandals, forcing him to step down in July.The general public did not elect Ms. Truss — instead, she won a leadership contest among members of her Conservative Party. To replace Mr. Johnson, the party’s members of Parliament narrowed a field of candidates to two, who were then put up to a vote by about 160,000 dues-paying party members. (They’re an unrepresentative group of the nation’s 67 million residents, far more likely to be male, older, middle-class and white.)Ms. Truss, 47, had been Mr. Johnson’s hawkish foreign secretary, a free-market champion and eventual supporter of Brexit (after she changed her mind), winning over the right flank of the party despite her more moderate past. (Before joining the Conservative Party, she was a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats when she was a student at Oxford University.)How did it start to come undone?She was never going to have it easy. As Ms. Truss entered office, the nation was staring down a calamitous economic picture, highlighted by energy bills that were predicted to jump 80 percent in October and jump again in January. It threatened to send millions of Britons, already reeling from inflation and other challenges, spiraling into destitution, unable to heat or power their homes.So it was unwelcome news when her signature economic plans immediately made things worse.Her announced plans for tax cuts, deregulation and borrowing so alarmed global investors that the value of the British pound sank to a record low against the U.S. dollar. The Bank of England stepped in to prop up government bonds, an extraordinary intervention to calm the markets.The response left no doubt that her free-market ambitions were untenable. In a humiliating reversal, she was forced to reverse virtually all of the tax cuts this week, including a much-criticized one on high earners. She fired Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the Exchequer who was the architect of the plan and a close ally, and adopted economic policies favored by the opposition Labour party.“You cannot engage in the sort of U-turn that she has engaged in and retain your political credibility,” said Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool.How did her tenure come under threat?Her concessions did little to mollify a growing rebellion from within her own party, which had the power to topple her in much the same way it toppled Mr. Johnson.The Conservatives — also known as Tories — had seen their popularity decline in public opinion polls after Mr. Johnson’s scandals, and their numbers cratered to staggering new lows as Ms. Truss stumbled. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll this week revealed the lowest approval rating it had ever recorded for a prime minister, with 70 percent disapproving of Ms. Truss, including 67 percent of Conservatives.If a general election were held today, 56 percent would vote for Labour while 20 percent would vote Conservative, the poll found.The Conservative Party’s discontent with Ms. Truss crescendoed in turn, and she was enveloped with a palpable sense of crisis. On Wednesday, it boiled into a frantic fight for her survival — “I’m a fighter and not a quitter,” she said while being grilled by members of Parliament.Then even more chaos broke out. Suella Braverman, Britain’s interior minister, stepped down after an email breach, but took a swipe at Ms. Truss in her resignation letter, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government.” A vote on fracking in Parliament turned into a reported scene of bullying, shouting, physical manhandling and tears. More Conservative members of Parliament openly called for Ms. Truss to step down. Rumors swirled of high-profile resignations. It was difficult to keep up.“In short, it is total, absolute, abject chaos,” a news announcer said on iTV. Charles Walker, a Conservative lawmaker, did not hold back in an interview on BBC.On Thursday, she said she had handed her resignation to the king, with a new leadership election planned within a week.What comes next?Ms. Truss will remain prime minister until her successor is chosen. (Here are the likely front-runners.) In her resignation remarks, Ms. Truss said a leadership election would be completed in the next week, bringing Britain its second unelected leader in a row.The next general election — when the entire public can participate, and the next opportunity for Labour to take control — is not scheduled until January 2025 at the latest. A Conservative leader could call for one earlier, but they would have little reason to do so imminently since polls indicate the party would be wiped out by Labour.Mr. Tonge said one advantage Conservatives have is time — the party could theoretically regain credibility if the economy recovers in the following years, he said.“I don’t think that changing the leader will necessarily save the Conservatives,” he said. “But you can engage in damage limitation by doing so.” More

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      Lessons From Liz Truss’s Handling of U.K. Inflation

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      The sharp policy U-turn by Liz Truss, Britain’s prime minister, reveals the perils of taking the wrong path in the fight against scalding inflation.Government leaders in the West are struggling with rising inflation, slowing growth, and anxious electorates worried about winter and high energy bills. But Liz Truss, Britain’s prime minister, is the only one who devised an economic plan that unnerved financial markets, drew the ire of global leaders and the public and undermined her political standing.On Friday, battered by savage criticism, she retreated. Ms. Truss fired her top finance official, Kwasi Kwarteng, for creating precisely the package of unfunded tax cuts, billion-dollar spending programs and deregulation that she had asked for.She reinstated a scheduled increase in corporate taxes to 25 percent from 19 percent, a rise she had previously opposed. That announcement came on top of backtracking last week on her proposal to eliminate the top 45 percent income tax on the highest earners. The prime minister, in office a little over five weeks, also promised that spending would grow less rapidly than proposed, although no specifics were offered.The drama is still playing out, and it’s unclear if the Truss government will survive.In the United States, President Biden, while waging his own political battles over gas prices and inflation, has not proposed anything like the kind of policies that Ms. Truss’s government attempted, nor have any other leaders in Europe.Still, for European governments whose economies are suffering greatly from shocks and energy price surges caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, there are timely lessons from the debacle playing out in London.One of the strongest was delivered early on by the International Monetary Fund: Don’t undermine your own central bankers. The I.M.F., which usually reserves such scoldings for developing nations, on Thursday doubled down on its message. “Don’t prolong the pain,” Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director, admonished.How to blunt the impact of inflation on the most vulnerable without further stoking inflation is the dilemma that every government is confronting.The Bank of England in London has aggressively tried to slow the sharp rise in prices by slowing the British economy.Alberto Pezzali/Associated Press“That is the question of the hour,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University who was attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and I.M.F. in Washington this week.Tension between the fiscal spending policies proposed by a government and the monetary policies controlled by central banks is not unusual. At the moment, though, central bankers are engaged in delicate policy maneuvers in the fight against a level of inflation not seen in decades. With the rate in Britain nearing 10 percent, the Bank of England has moved aggressively to slow down climbing prices through a series of interest rate increases aimed at crimping consumer and business spending.Any expansion of government spending is going to interfere with that aim to some degree, but Ms. Truss’s plan was far too big and too ill defined, Mr. Prasad said.“Measures to help households hit hard by energy increases, by themselves, would not have created that much of a stir,” he said. Many other countries have proposed exactly that. And the European Union has proposed a windfall tax on energy profits to help finance those subsidies.Ms. Truss, instead of coming up with a way to pay for energy assistance, pushed to eliminate a corporate tax increase and cut income taxes for the wealthiest segment of the population. The result was a reduction in government revenue and a ballooning of Britain’s debt.“Overall, the package did not have much clarity in terms of how it would support the economy in the short run without raising inflation,” Mr. Prasad said.By contrast, Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, cited the way governments and central banks worked in tandem when the pandemic struck in 2020 to keep economies from collapsing, issuing vast amounts of public debt.“Central banks printed every single dollar, euro and pound that governments spent” to support households and businesses because of the Covid crisis, Mr. Vistesen said. But now the circumstances have changed, and inflation is setting economies aflame.The actions of the Federal Reserve in the United States illustrate the switch central banks have made: In the harrowing early weeks of the global outbreak of the coronavirus, the Fed embarked on an extraordinary program to stimulate the economy and stabilize markets. This year, the Fed has been swiftly raising interest rates in a bid to slow growth.Both the United States and eurozone countries have somewhat more wiggle room than Britain, because the dollar and the euro are much more widely used around the world as currencies held in reserve than the British pound.Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s former chancellor of the Exchequer, left 11 Downing Street after Ms. Truss fired him on Friday.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressEven so, European governments can help households and businesses get through an energy crisis, Mr. Vistesen said, but they can’t embark on an open-ended spending spree.They also need to take account of what is happening in other economies. The richest countries that make up the Group of 7 are essentially part of the same “monetary and fiscal convoy,” said Will Hutton, president of the Academy of Social Sciences. By championing a Thatcher-era blend of steep tax cuts and deregulation, he said, the Truss government strayed too far from the rest of the flotilla and the economic mainstream.The adherence to 1980s-era trickle-down verities also revealed the risks of sticking with outdated policies in the face of changing circumstances, said Diane Coyle, a ​​public policy professor at the University of Cambridge.“The situation in 1979 was very different,” Ms. Coyle said. “There were sclerotic high taxes and an overregulated economy, but not anymore.” Today, taxes in Britain are lower, and the economy is less regulated than the average member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of 38 major economies.“The character of the economy has changed,” she said. “Public investment in research and skills are more important.”In that sense, what was missing from Ms. Truss’s economic plan was as important as what was included. And what Britain is lacking, said Mariana Mazzucato, an economist at University College London, is a visionary public investment program like the trillion-dollar climate and digitalization plans adopted by the European Union or the climate and infrastructure program in the United States.A rate of Inflation nearing 10 percent in Britain has affected the price of groceries and how people spend their money.Alex Ingram for The New York Times“If you don’t have a growth plan, an industrial strategy innovation policy,” Ms. Mazzucato said, “then your economy won’t expand.”Both Ms. Mazzucato and Ms. Coyle emphasized that Britain had some specific economic handicaps that predated the Truss administration, including the 2016 vote to exit the European Union, a stubborn lack of productivity, anemic business investment, and lagging research and development.Still, Ms. Coyle offered some advice that referred pointedly to Ms. Truss. “I think the main lesson is: Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.” More

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      Truss Takes a Bold Economic Gamble. Will It Sink Her Government?

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      Three weeks into her term, Prime Minister Liz Truss’s financial plans have thrown the markets and Britain’s currency into chaos and put her future in peril.LONDON — Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain campaigned as a tax cutter and champion of supply-side economics, and she won the race to replace her scandal-scarred predecessor, Boris Johnson. Now she has delivered that free-market agenda, and it may sink her government.Four days after Ms. Truss’s tax cuts and deregulatory plans stunned financial markets and threw the British pound into a tailspin, the prime minister’s political future looks increasingly precarious as well.Her Conservative Party is gripped by anxiety, with a new poll showing that the opposition Labour Party has taken a 17 percentage point lead over the Tories. It’s a treacherous place for a prime minister in only her third week on the job.Labour is seizing the moment to present itself as the party of fiscal responsibility. With some experts predicting the pound could tumble to parity with the dollar, economists and political analysts said the uncertainty over Britain’s economic path would continue to hang over the markets and Ms. Truss’s government.“It’s entirely possible she could be replaced before the next election,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, who is an expert on the Conservative Party. “It would be very, very difficult to conduct a full-blown leadership contest again, but I wouldn’t rule anything out.”That Ms. Truss should find herself in this predicament so soon after taking office attests to both the radical nature and awkward timing of her proposals. Cutting taxes at a time of near-double-digit inflation, when central banks in London and elsewhere are raising interest rates, was always going to mark Britain as an economic outlier.But the government compounded the shock last Friday when the chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, unexpectedly announced that the government would also abolish the top income tax rate of 45 percent applied to those earning more than 150,000 pounds, or about $164,000, a year.And Mr. Kwarteng did not submit the package to the scrutiny a government budget normally receives, deepening fears that the tax cuts, without corresponding spending cuts, will blow a hole in Britain’s public finances.Cutting taxes at a time of near-double-digit inflation, when central banks in London and worldwide are raising interest rates, has made Britain an economic outlier.Carl Court/Getty ImagesOn Tuesday, the pound stabilized briefly against the dollar, as did 10-year rates on British government bonds, though both began to gyrate later in the day after a senior official at the Bank of England signaled an aggressive rise in interest rates.The International Monetary Fund, which bailed out Britain in 1976, added to the deepening sense of anxiety when it urged the British government to reconsider the tax cuts. In a statement, it said the cuts would exacerbate inequality and lead to fiscal policy and monetary policy working at “cross purposes.”Rising Inflation in BritainInflation Slows Slightly: Consumer prices are still rising at about the fastest pace in 40 years, despite a small drop to 9.9 percent in August.Interest Rates: On Sept. 22, the Bank of England raised its key rate by another half a percentage point, to 2.25 percent, as it tries to keep high inflation from becoming embedded in the nation’s economy.Energy Bills to Soar: Gas and electric charges for most British households are set to rise 80 percent this fall, further squeezing consumers and stoking inflation.Investor Worries: The financial markets have been grumbling with unease about Britain’s economic outlook. The government plan to freeze energy bills and cut taxes is not easing concerns.Already, the specter of higher interest rates was causing the housing market to seize up. Two major British mortgage lenders announced that they would stop offering new loans because of the market volatility. Higher rates will hurt hundreds of thousands of homeowners who need to refinance fixed-term mortgages — property owners, analysts noted, who are the bedrock of the Conservative Party.“It’s not like the U.S., where people are on 30-year mortgages,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London.An estimated 63 percent of mortgage holders have either floating rate mortgages or loans that will expire in the next two years. And the steep decline of the pound means that interest rates will have to rise even further than they would have merely to curb inflation.Ms. Truss, he said, could have taken a more cautious approach: rolling out the supply-side measures first, like plans to untangle Britain’s cumbersome residential planning rules and build more housing, which are hurdles to economic growth. Then, when inflationary pressures had eased, the government could have cut taxes.But that was never in the cards, Professor Portes said, because Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng are free-market evangelists who ardently believe that cutting taxes will reignite growth, and because they have little more than two years to turn around the economy before they face voters in a general election.“This is ‘shock and awe,’” he said. “Truss, Kwarteng, and the people around them think they had to act quickly. The longer they wait, the more the resistance will build up.”Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, announced tax cuts that some fear will blow a hole in Britain’s public finances.Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersDuring the campaign, Ms. Truss modeled herself on Margaret Thatcher, who also announced a series of free-market measures after taking office as prime minister and endured a turbulent couple of years. Unlike Ms. Truss, though, Thatcher worried about curbing inflation and shoring up public finances; she even raised some taxes during a recession in 1981 before reducing them in later years.But Thatcher came in after an election victory over an exhausted Labour government, which gave her more time to weather the downturn and for her deregulatory measures to take effect. She also got a lift after Britain vanquished Argentina in the Falklands War in 1982, which uncorked a surge of patriotism.“Thatcher was thinking in 1979 that I only need to give voters something they like by 1982,” said Charles Moore, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph who wrote a three-volume biography of the former prime minister. “Liz Truss hasn’t got this amount of time.”The better analogy to Ms. Truss, he said, is Ronald Reagan, with his emphasis on tax cuts and other supply-side policies, as well as his relative lack of concern for their effect on public deficits. Like Thatcher, Reagan weathered a recession before the United States began growing again in 1983. And like her, he had a cushion before he had to face voters.Ms. Truss, by contrast, has taken office after 12 years of Conservative-led governments, and three years into Mr. Johnson’s tenure. She will have to call an election by the beginning of 2025, at the latest. The Labour Party, which had been divided by Brexit and internal disputes, has been galvanized by the new government’s chaotic start, in particular Mr. Kwarteng’s plan to cut the top tax rate, which has allowed Labour to stake out a clear contrast on issues of economic equity.Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, declared that the Conservatives “say they do not believe in redistribution. But they do — from the poor to the rich.”Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is seizing the moment to present itself as the party of fiscal responsibility.Henry Nicholls/ReutersLabour’s lead of 17 percentage points in a new poll by the market research firm, YouGov, is the largest advantage it has had over the Conservatives in two decades. The Tories won the support of just 28 percent of those surveyed, raising questions about its ability to hold on to its existing seats, according to Professor Bale.That forbidding political landscape only adds to the challenge facing Ms. Truss. For the tax cuts to have one of their desired effects — which is to encourage businesses to invest more — economists said companies would need some reassurance that the policy is not going to be reversed by a new government in two years.“This is a very inexperienced government swinging for the fences in a situation where Labour is the strong favorite in the next election, if they don’t swing too far left,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard. “If one believes that the tax cuts are going to be reversed under Labour, and that there is a high chance of a Labour government, why would they influence long-term investment?”Britain, Professor Rogoff said, was also rowing against much greater forces in the global economy. After years of low inflation and extremely low interest rates, the flood of public spending because of the coronavirus pandemic has brought back the scourge of inflation and a shift toward higher rates.“The verdict will almost certainly be that governments borrowed too much and should have raised taxes on the wealthy more,” he said.In the short term, Ms. Truss is likely to find herself increasingly at odds with the Bank of England. The bank was already expected to raise rates at its next meeting in November. On Tuesday, its chief economist, Huw Pill, said the government’s new fiscal policies would require a “significant monetary policy response.”Adam S. Posen, an American economist who once served on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said, “The government’s policies are not only outrageously irresponsible, but they don’t seem to understand that the bank has to respond to these policies by raising interest rates a lot.”The Bank of England, like many other banks worldwide, is expected to raise rates at its meeting next month.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Posen, who is the president of the Peterson Institute of International Economics, likened Britain’s loss of credibility in the markets to that of Britain and other European countries in the 1970s and Latin American countries in the 1980s. The best course, he said, would be for the government to reverse its fiscal policy, though he said Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng seemed “willfully committed to it.”Certainly, they have given no indication that they plan to back down. On Tuesday, Mr. Kwarteng told bankers and asset managers that he was confident the government’s plan would work.After the turmoil that led to Mr. Johnson’s ouster in July, and the protracted contest to replace him, few in the Conservative Party have the stomach to move against Ms. Truss now. But analysts note that the new prime minister has a shallow reservoir of support among lawmakers. Barely a third of them voted for her in the final ballot against her primary opponent, Rishi Sunak, and she won the subsequent vote among party members by a closer margin than expected.Taking note of the new YouGov poll, Huw Merriman, a Conservative lawmaker, may have spoken for many of his colleagues when he said on Twitter, “Those of us who backed Rishi Sunak lost the contest, but this poll suggests that the victor is losing our voters with policies we warned against.”“For the good of our country, and the livelihoods of everyone in our country,” he added, “I still hope to be proven wrong.” More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Britain Buries Queen Elizabeth II

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      Plus a preview of the U.N. General Assembly and growing nuclear fears in Ukraine.The queen’s coffin was moved from the gun carriage to a hearse before traveling on to Windsor.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBritain buried Queen Elizabeth IIQueen Elizabeth II was buried in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, next to her husband, Prince Philip. It concluded the period of official mourning — a time of unifying grief and disorienting change.The state funeral began with a majestic service at Westminster Abbey. International dignitaries and about 200 people who had performed public services joined members of the royal family.The queen’s coffin then moved through London in a procession as tens of thousands of people watched. “They don’t make them like her anymore,” one woman said. “She was a one-off.”The funeral closed with a more intimate service and private internment. Before the final hymn, the crown jeweler removed the imperial state crown, the orb and the scepter from the queen’s coffin and placed them on the altar. The lord chamberlain broke his wand of office and placed it onto the coffin, a symbol of the end of his service, to be buried with the sovereign.Photos: See images from her life and a visual dictionary of the symbols of her reign.Reflection: The queen’s coronation and funeral have become the bookends of a generation, Alan Cowell, a contributor based in London, writes in an essay on her life.Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea, is trying to raise his profile by pursuing a new foreign policy agenda.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesU.N. General Assembly beginsThe 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly, the largest annual gathering of world leaders, began yesterday in New York City. Here’s what to expect.The meeting will be the first in-person General Assembly in three years, after the pandemic restricted movements. But the mood is likely to be a somber one. Leaders will address the war in Ukraine, mounting food and energy crises and concerns over climate disruptions, such as the floods in Pakistan.Tensions are expected to be high between Russia, the U.S. and European countries over Ukraine — and between China and the U.S. over Taiwan and trade. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China, are not expected to attend.The State of the WarA Critical Moment: After success in the northeast battlefields, Ukraine is pressing President Biden for more powerful weapons. But Mr. Biden wants to avoid provoking Russia at a moment U.S. officials fear President Vladimir V. Putin could escalate the war.Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: As Ukrainian troops try to inch forward in the east and south without losing control of territory, they face Russian forces that have been bolstered by inmates-turned-fighters and Iranian drones.In Izium: Following Russia’s retreat, Ukrainian investigators have begun documenting the toll of Russian occupation on the northeastern city. They have already found several burial sites, including one that could hold the remains of more than 400 people.An Inferno in Mykolaiv: The southern Ukrainian city has been a target of near-incessant shelling since the war began. Firefighters are risking their lives to save as much of it as possible.“The General Assembly is meeting at a time of great peril,” António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, said last week.Analysis: “This is the first General Assembly of a fundamentally divided world,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at International Crisis Group, a research group based in Brussels. “We have spent six months with everyone battering each other. The gloves are off.”South Korea: Yoon Suk Yeol, the new president of South Korea, is expected to address the General Assembly today. Last week, he told our Seoul bureau chief that it had become necessary — even inevitable — for South Korea to expand its security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo as North Korea intensified its nuclear threat.Other details: Narendra Modi, India’s leader, and Abiy Ahmed, the leader of Ethiopia, will also skip the meeting. The U.S. and Europe will most likely try to pressure Iran over the nuclear deal. And developing nations and the West will very likely spar over development aid.Recent setbacks haven’t deterred Russia from advancing on the eastern city of Bakhmut and claiming all of the Donbas Region.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesNuclear concerns rise in UkraineRussian missiles struck a second nuclear site in Ukraine yesterday, narrowly avoiding a possible calamity in the Mykolaiv region.Moscow damaged a hydroelectric station less than 900 feet (about 274 meters) from reactors at Ukraine’s second-biggest nuclear plant. (The occupied Zaporizhzhia site is the largest.) Despite the close call, there was no damage to essential safety equipment at the plant, which remained fully operational, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company said.The explosion still caused extensive damage, forced the shutdown of one of the plant’s hydraulic units and led to partial power outages in the area. It also highlighted the threat to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.“A few hundred meters and we would have woken up in a completely different reality,” a Ukrainian official said. Here are live updates.Details: Before the war, 15 working reactors at four nuclear power plants produced more than half of Ukraine’s electricity, the second-highest share among European nations after France.Other updates:Senior officials from China and Russia announced joint military exercises and enhanced defense cooperation. It signals a strengthening partnership, despite Xi Jinping’s apparent misgivings about the war in Ukraine.Ukraine is facing a severe glass shortage that will make it hard to fix shattered windows before winter.European manufacturing are furloughing workers and shutting down lines because of “crippling” energy bills.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaAn undated photo of the American engineer, Mark Frerichs.Charlene Cakora, via Associated PressIn a prisoner swap with the U.S., the Taliban freed an American engineer in exchange for a tribal leader convicted of drug trafficking.The deaths of 27 people on a quarantine bus in China renewed an anguished debate over “zero Covid.” Even in Tibet, where people live under repressive controls from the Chinese government, there are grumblings against lockdowns.Army helicopters in Myanmar shot at a school, Reuters reports, killing at least six children.Typhoon Nanmadol has killed at least two people in Japan, the BBC reports.World NewsMore than 1,000 residents were rescued across Puerto Rico.Ricardo Arduengo/ReutersHurricane Fiona dumped heavy rain on the Dominican Republic after knocking out Puerto Rico’s fragile power grid. It is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane. Here is a map of its path and live updates.Donald Trump is involved in six separate investigations. And the trial of one of his advisers, Thomas Barrack, who is accused of working secretly for the U.A.E., may shed light on foreign influence campaigns.The economy remains the top concern for U.S. voters, a New York Times/Siena poll found.A Morning ReadHundreds of thousands gathered in Washington, a day after Donald Trump took office.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn 2017, as American feminists came together to protest Donald Trump’s election, Russia’s disinformation machine worked to derail the Women’s March, a Times investigation found.Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American activist whose hijab marked her as an observant Muslim, became a central target. ARTS AND IDEAS“The Phantom of the Opera” will close a month after celebrating its 35th anniversary.Matthew MurphyThe end of “Phantom”“The Phantom of the Opera” is the longest-running show in Broadway history. Based on Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel, this symbol of musical theater will drop its famous chandelier for the last time in February after 35 years, becoming the latest show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.The show, about a mask-wearing opera lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young soprano, is characterized by over-the-top spectacle and melodrama. A Times review in 1988 acknowledged, “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it.”Speaking about the decision to end the show’s run, the producer Cameron Mackintosh, said: “I’m both sad and celebrating. It’s an extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest successes of all time. What is there not to celebrate about that?”By the numbers: On Broadway, the show has been seen by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion since opening. —Natasha Frost, a Briefings writer.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.Garam masala punches up this pantry pasta.What to Watch“The Lost City of Melbourne,” a new documentary with a growing cultural cachet, explores the city’s fraught architectural history.What to Read“The Rupture Tense,” already on the poetry longlist for the National Book Award, was partly inspired by a hidden photo archive of China’s Cultural Revolution.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fan publication (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. The executive editor of The Times, Joseph Kahn, wrote about why we’re focusing on the challenges facing democracy in the U.S. and around the world.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the U.K after the Queen.Natasha Frost wrote today’s Arts and Ideas. You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More