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      Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Comeback

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

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      Abortion Bans Weigh on Republicans

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      Banning abortion is weighing on the party.For years, abortion was a straightforward rallying cry for Republicans, a way to identify with the cultural politics of their core supporters in one word: pro-life.But the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade plunged the party into a complicated reproductive reality, as I reported in this story that published this morning. The decision ended federal abortion rights, essentially forcing each state to legislate its own rules. After decades of fighting for that very outcome, when it finally happened, Republicans had no clear national message or unified policy.Almost immediately, Republican lawmakers were thrust into messy and emotional debates over some difficult issues: child rape, life-threatening medical complications from pregnancies and the devastating diagnoses of fetuses with rare and fatal conditions. As they debated, Republicans saw a once-easy way to energize their supporters transformed into a new third rail. And Democrats saw their fortunes rise in the midterms.Will that be enough for Democrats to keep control of Congress? Probably not. But the issue could be a deciding factor in some close races, particularly governors’ contests where the winners may determine abortion rights in their states.One question, many answersWhat do Republicans believe about abortion? It all depends on whom you ask. Abortion is one of the starkest areas of disagreement within the party right now.In Nevada, Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of the Las Vegas area who is running for governor, says he wouldn’t change state law, which currently allows abortion up to 24 weeks of a pregnancy — one of the latest limits in the country.Lindsey Graham proposed a 15-week federal abortion ban last month.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesIn the Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is pushing for a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. (Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, does not agree, and neither do a number of Republican colleagues.)In Michigan, Tudor Dixon, the Republican nominee for governor, would rather talk about something else, saying abortion “shouldn’t be an issue.”And in Maine, Paul LePage, a former governor and the Republican candidate for that office, seemed to dodge the question entirely. “I don’t know what you mean by 15 weeks or 28 weeks because I don’t know,” LePage said in a debate last week. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”How voters feelThe big political problem with the strictest Republican position — total or near-total bans on abortion like those enacted in at least 13 states — is that it’s simply unpopular.Public opinion on abortion is notoriously hard to measure because so much of how voters view the issue depends on how surveys frame their questions. But there are a few clear data points. A majority of voters disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, saying they support a federal right to an abortion. Similarly, in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 62 percent of Americans said they favored abortion access in either all or most circumstances. At the same time, most voters also support some restrictions starting as women enter the second trimester of pregnancy.Part of what has made these questions particularly salient in the 2022 midterms is how they are embedding in the lives of female voters. From the time they get their first period to menopause, most women have an inescapable monthly clock that they discuss mostly with other women. Many of those discussions revolve around pregnancy, which for most of human history was commonly a high-risk, if not fatal, condition.The intimacy of the issue raises its political intensity for 50.5 percent of the population — and the even bigger percentage of women who make up the typical midterm electorate. Small changes in this group can cause big political outcomes. As Elaine Kamarck at the Brookings Institution points out, a shift of less than 3 percent of the women’s votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 could have flipped the state to Donald Trump.November and beyondWhatever happens in the midterms, Republicans are not escaping this issue. Activists in both political parties are bracing for a decades-long fight over the future of abortion rights.If Republicans win control of Congress, they will face pressure to embrace national abortion bans from social conservatives who see the court’s decision as the beginning of restrictions. That position, of course, contradicts nearly a half-century of Republican Party ideology arguing for abortion laws to return to the states.And then there’s the matter of the 2024 presidential primary. It’s easy to imagine a debate stage where Republican candidates are pressed for details about their positions on issues like exceptions for rape, life-threatening ectopic pregnancies and when, exactly, a fetus should be considered a person. We’re already seeing those kinds of questions being asked in midterm debates for Senate and governor.In the post-Roe world, just being “pro-life” doesn’t quite cut it for Republican politicians.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsResidents demanded that three Los Angeles City Council members resign over a secretly recorded conversation that involved racist insults.President Biden said there would be consequences for Saudi Arabia after its decision to cut oil production. The cuts could raise gas prices.Republicans are fielding a historic number of nonwhite candidates for Congress.A former TV host and lawyer promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election before going to work for Trump. Now she’s under investigation.Gov. Ron DeSantis redrew Florida’s congressional maps in a way that curtails Black voters’ power, ProPublica reported.War in UkraineMoscow said it had arrested eight people over the bombing of a bridge linking Crimea to Russia and blamed Ukraine’s spy agency for the attack.Ukraine needs more of the Russian-style weapons its military is trained to use. The U.S. and NATO are scouring the world for them.BusinessThe International Monetary Fund warned of a worldwide recession if policymakers mishandle the fight against inflation.Amazon employees at a warehouse near Albany, N.Y., start voting today over whether to join a union.A Biden administration proposal could lead to millions of workers, including janitors and gig drivers, being classified as employees rather than independent contractors.Other Big StoriesIsrael and Lebanon agreed to resolve a decades-old dispute over control of a stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.Prosecutors dropped charges against Adnan Syed, the subject of the podcast “Serial,” who was released from prison last month after 23 years fighting a murder conviction.A panel of medical experts recommended that doctors screen all children 8 and over for anxiety.NASA said its mission last month to alter an asteroid’s orbit was a success. The technique could some day protect Earth.Angela Lansbury was a Hollywood and Broadway star, but captured her biggest audience as the TV sleuth Jessica Fletcher. She died at 96.OpinionsHaiti is in free fall, Lydia Polgreen argues in her debut column.Among Ukrainians, there’s an almost palpable sense that Russia is losing, Margo Gontar writes.MORNING READSA worker measuring jute for a Trader Joe’s bag.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesBiodegradable: That reusable Trader Joe’s bag? It’s rescuing an Indian industry.World’s richest man: Elon Musk has a strange social calendar.It’s Never Too Late: Pivoting from the N.F.L. to becoming a neurosurgeon.Well: Climate change is making the fall allergy season longer and more intense.Advice from Wirecutter: How to unclog a drain.Lives Lived: Leonard Kriegel, an academic and essayist, was best known for “The Long Walk Home,” a memoir in which he wrote about losing the use of his legs to polio. He died at 89.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICDodgers edge Padres: A day filled with tense playoff moments ended with the Dodgers, the best team in the N.L., squeezing past division rival San Diego, 5-3, to take a 1-0 lead in the N.L.D.S. They join the Yankees as favorites who looked the part last night.Brett Favre pushes back: The former N.F.L. quarterback said he did “nothing wrong” in a corruption case in Mississippi. Mississippi is suing Favre and others over charges of improperly using welfare funds.A mess: The Los Angeles Lakers have three stars but no visible path forward from last season. The Athletic’s John Hollinger highlights the mild positives from this off-season (adding average bench players instead of bad ones) but sees a ninth-place team.ARTS AND IDEAS Birkenstock Boston clogs should cost about $160. If you can find a pair.Jeremy Moeller/Getty ImagesA staple, for a steep priceBirkenstock’s Boston model clogs have long been a staple of comfort footwear. Now they’ve become so popular that they’re almost sold out.TikTok has fueled the trend, along with sightings of celebrities wearing them, including Kendall Jenner, Kaia Gerber and the YouTube personality Emma Chamberlain.To add a hard-to-find pair to your autumn wardrobe, The Times’s Madison Malone Kircher writes, one option is resale sites like eBay and Poshmark, though pairs sometimes go for more than double their retail value of about $160.The price isn’t the only subject of debate, according to one 27-year-old who paid about $330 for a pair: “Some people are like, ‘Hey, they’re really cute,’ and some people think they’re a potato shoe.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookLinda Xiao for The New York TimesUse sesame paste to make vegan Tantanmen with pan-fried tofu.What to WatchFrom “The Manchurian Candidate” to “Beauty and the Beast” to her run on “Murder, She Wrote” on TV, stream Lansbury’s best roles.What to ReadA new story collection by Alan Moore — author of the comics “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta” — showcases his “soaring intelligence and riotous humanity.”Late NightJimmy Kimmel responded to Trump lashing out at late night.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was formula. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Ticked off (three letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. A Times event today explores how tech and art can respond to climate change, with guests including Laurene Powell Jobs. It starts at noon Eastern.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Ukraine. On “The Argument,” is America headed for another civil war?Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Balancing Extremes

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      The Federal Reserve is trying to tame inflation without wrecking the economy.America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is trying to strike a delicate balance: It has to take steps to slow down the economy to bring inflation under control — but it wants to do so without causing a severe recession.The predicament is unusual for a government agency. Typically, public officials talk about stimulating the economy and creating more jobs.The Fed is trying to do the opposite. Under its dual mandate from Congress, the Fed tries to keep unemployment low and prices relatively stable. Yet those two goals are sometimes in conflict: A strong economy can lead to more jobs but quickly rising prices, while a sluggish economy can lead to fewer jobs but slower price increases. The Fed aims to balance those extremes.But as the Fed has moved to slow down the economy, some experts have worried that it’s going too far, risking unnecessary economic pain. The Fed’s defenders, meanwhile, say the central bank is acting wisely — and may even need to go further than it has to tame rising prices.Today’s newsletter will explain both sides of the debate and the potential dangers to the economy if the Fed does too much or too little to bring down inflation.The case for cautionExperts arguing for caution worry that the Fed has already done enough to ease inflation, even if the effects are not clear yet, and that any more action could backfire.The Fed’s attempts to cool the labor market illustrate the potential risk.The jobs market is one of the major drivers of inflation today, said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University. Many employers have raised wages to compete for hires; there are more job vacancies than there are available workers. But someone has to pay for the higher wages, and employers have passed those costs on to consumers by charging higher prices, fueling inflation.In response, the Fed has raised interest rates five times this year to increase the cost of borrowing money. The goal: More expensive loans will result in less investment, then less business expansion, then fewer jobs, then lower pay, then less inflation.There are hints that the Fed’s moves are working. For example, stock markets have declined as the Fed has raised interest rates — partly a signal that investors expect the economy to cool off, just as the Fed wants. “Markets going down is not an indictment of the Fed’s policy,” my colleague Jeanna Smialek, who covers the economy, told me. “Markets going down is the Fed’s policy.”But the rest of the intended chain of reaction, from less investment to less inflation, will take time to work through the economy. The Fed’s interest rate hikes may have done enough, but the full effects aren’t visible yet.Some experts worry the Fed will not wait long enough to see the full effects of its previous actions before it takes more aggressive steps. That could lead to more harm to the economy than necessary. “The risk that the Fed is moving too slowly to contain inflation has declined, while the risk that high interest rates will cause severe economic damage has gone up — a lot,” Paul Krugman, the economist and Times columnist, wrote last week.The case for moreOn the other side, there’s the risk of the Fed doing too little.We have seen the consequences. The Fed, believing inflation would be temporary, was slow to raise interest rates last year. That probably exacerbated the rising prices we’re dealing with now.But things could get worse. The longer inflation goes on, the likelier it is to become entrenched. For example, if businesses expect costs to keep rising, they will set prices higher in anticipation — leading to a vicious cycle of increasing costs and prices.Longer bouts of inflation are also more likely to result in stagflation, when inflation is high and economic growth slows. In such a situation, people have a harder time finding a job and the pay they can get quickly loses value. The U.S. endured stagflation in the 1970s; Europe is facing it now as prices rise and the continent’s economy stumbles.Entrenchment and stagflation could force the Fed to act even more drastically, with grave side effects. It has happened before: In the 1970s and ’80s, the Fed raised interest rates so dramatically and so quickly that the unemployment rate spiked to more than 10 percent.By acting aggressively now, the Fed hopes to avoid such harsh measures — and produce a “soft landing” that reduces inflation without wrecking the economy.The central bank’s record suggests it could pull off the feat, Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman, argued in The Wall Street Journal: The Fed achieved a soft landing or came close in six of 11 attempts over the past six decades. “Landing the economy softly is a tall order, but success is not unthinkable,” Blinder wrote.Related:Stocks rose yesterday for the second straight day, while Amazon became the latest large company to announce a slowdown in hiring.America’s gross national debt yesterday exceeded $31 trillion for the first time.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineSource: Institute for the Study of War | By Marco Hernandez and Josh HolderUkrainian troops expelled Russian forces from a key town in Kherson Province, pushing farther into Russian-controlled territory by attacking several places at once.Russian forces are outnumbered in Kherson, according to pro-Kremlin bloggers.Russians are fleeing to countries like Kyrgyzstan to avoid the military draft.President Biden spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and pledged to send four more of the mobile rocket launchers known as HIMARS.PoliticsIn oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices suggested that they might uphold Alabama’s congressional map but not profoundly limit the Voting Rights Act.Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to let a special master review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.Doctors and midwives in blue states are working to get abortion pills to red states, setting up a legal clash.InternationalMumbai and the monsoon.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesSouth Asia’s monsoon season is becoming more violent.Protests in Iran over a young woman’s death entered a third week. Women are at the forefront.He was a die-hard soccer fan. She was a chatty aerobics lover. Both perished in an Indonesian stadium.New vaccines are raising hopes of eradicating malaria.Other Big StoriesElon Musk proposed buying Twitter for the price he agreed to in April, after months of trying to back out of the deal.Micron will build a computer chip factory in upstate New York, a sign that government spending on semiconductors is bringing private investment.Days after Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida, many residents face homelessness.The scientists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless won the Nobel Prize for their work in “click chemistry.”OpinionsVladimir Putin’s nuclear threats heighten the danger that miscalculation will cause annihilation, Michael Dobbs argues.More school funding is one solution to the male resentment fueling right-wing politics, Michelle Goldberg says.MORNING READSIndigenous Alaskans’ freezers hold a winter’s worth of food.Katie Basile for The New York Times Cold storage: In rural Alaska, the stand-alone freezer is everything.“Beavis and Butt-Head”: The ’90s cartoon that mattered.Academia: Students were failing organic chemistry. Was the professor to blame?A Times classic: Sarah Paulson opens up.Advice from Wirecutter: Party favors for a kid’s birthday.Lives Lived: Loretta Lynn built her stardom not only on her Grammy-winning country music but also on her image as a symbol of rural pride. She died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICJudge stands alone: With his record-breaking 62nd home run last night, one can argue Aaron Judge’s 2022 season is definitively better than Roger Maris’s 1961 campaign. Relive all 62 home runs here.N.W.S.L. fallout continues: Players are “horrified and heartbroken” after the release of the Sally Yates report, according to the U.S. women’s national team and Portland Thorns star Becky Sauerbrunn, who called for the removal of top executives involved in the ongoing women’s soccer crisis.2023 N.B.A. champs? A survey of the league’s general managers revealed the Milwaukee Bucks as favorites, but familiar contenders also got some votes in what may be an open field for the 2023 title. M.V.P. favorite: Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic.ARTS AND IDEAS Jimmy Smits on the set of “East New York.”George Etheredge for The New York TimesA new era for cop showsAfter the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, public confidence in policing reached a record low. Police officers’ roles on television changed, too: Some shows like the ride-along reality program “Cops,” criticized as “copaganda,” were taken off the air or rewritten.Two years later, the police drama has survived. Eighteen crime-related programs are slated for prime-time slots in the coming months. But there are signs that the genre has evolved in response to public opinion, delivering more nuanced portrayals of law enforcement.Series like “East New York” aim to explore the complexity of policing, raising the question of whether cop shows can answer calls for change without losing the viewers that have kept them popular.Related: A history of the police procedural, in six shows.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookCraig Lee for The New York TimesFeed a crowd with overnight French toast.What to Read“Waging a Good War” examines the civil rights movement through military history.What to WatchA diverse intern class has arrived in the 19th season of “Grey’s Anatomy.”Late NightThe hosts joked about Herschel Walker, who denied paying for a former girlfriend’s abortion.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was mooching. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Home for birds (six letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. Listen to the trailer for “Hard Fork,” a new Times podcast that explores tech’s wild frontier.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the floods in Pakistan. On “The Argument,” Andrew Yang and David Jolly make the case for a third political party.Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Maggie Haberman Talks About Reporting on Donald Trump

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      He often utters falsehoods, but his speaking style is more strategic than it sometimes seems. Listen for the first time to audio clips from interviews with Maggie Haberman.Donald Trump is the leading candidate to be the Republican nominee for president — for the third straight election — and he’s also a subject of multiple criminal investigations. My colleague Maggie Haberman has been covering him the entire time and has written a book about him, “Confidence Man,” being published tomorrow. She often broke stories in The Times that she uncovered while reporting for the book.For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Maggie about what she’s learned, about how much the media should cover Trump and about what’s likely next for him. David: You’ve spent more time covering and interviewing Trump than almost anybody, back to your days observing him when you were a New York Post reporter in the 1990s. You’ve also pointed out that he lies a lot. Given that, I’m curious: How does interviewing him help you better capture reality when he is not confined by reality?Maggie: He’s a former president and a potential future candidate, with huge influence over the party. Among other things, interviewing him helps illuminate how he keeps that influence: his obsession with us-versus-them politics, with salesmanship and with presenting a version of himself that is often very different from who he actually is.Additionally, there are moments of unintended candor by him.David: Yes, like his comments to you about the letters from Kim Jong-un that Trump apparently kept after leaving the White House.That’s gotten a lot of attention recently. (You can listen to the clip below.)‘Nothing of Great Urgency’ Was TakenAlthough Mr. Trump mentioned letters from Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. (Interviewed on Sept. 16, 2021 at Bedminster, N.J.)Maggie: It was a question I asked on a lark, during our third interview for my book, held at his club at Bedminster, N.J., on Sept. 16, 2021. I asked him if he had taken any “memento” documents from the White House, knowing how proud he had been of items like his letters from the authoritarian Kim Jong-un.Trump’s immediate response was to deny having taken anything significant, saying, “Nothing of great urgency, no,” before — unsolicited — mentioning the Kim Jong-un letters, appearing to suggest he had them in his possession. A few months later, we learned he had a huge trove of White House material, including dozens of individual documents with classified markings.David: As I listened to the clip, it felt like part of a pattern with him. He was certainly not being straightforward. But he was also being just vague and confusing enough that it was hard to pin down exactly what he was saying. As the journalist Joe Klein has written, referring to this larger pattern, “He deployed words with a litigator’s precision — even if it sounded the opposite.”Maggie: That’s exactly it, and one of the difficulties of interviewing him, or tracking what he says, is he is often both all over the place and yet somewhat careful not to cross certain lines. This was a hallmark of his business career, when he would tell employees not to take notes, although behind closed doors with employees he tended to be clearer in his directives.At his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, he told people to go “peacefully and patriotically” but also directed them to the Capitol with apocalyptic language about the election. Frequently, people around him understand the implications of words, even when he’s not being direct.David: Our readers can also listen to a clip of him telling you that he wasn’t watching the Jan. 6 rally on television. Isn’t there widespread documentation to the contrary?‘I Was Not Watching Television’Mr. Trump said he heard about the attack on the Capitol on the “late side.” (Interviewed on April 27, 2021 at Mar-a-Lago)Maggie: His aides told The Times that day and in the following days that he was watching television, and a public hearing held this year by the House committee investigating Jan. 6 documented that he was watching television. It represents two things, I think — his desire to construct an alternate reality, and his particular sensitivity to anyone suggesting he watches a lot of television, which he associates with people diminishing his intelligence (even though he watches a very large amount of television).David: How do you approach an interview with Trump?Maggie: I try to get specific pieces of information, answers that only he would have, even with all the caveats about what can be believed coming out of his mouth. One example was when I asked if he would be facing the same legal troubles if Robert Morgenthau, the former Manhattan district attorney, still held the office. His answer was no, because Morgenthau was “a friend of mine.” That was revealing about Trump’s engagement with prosecutors, as he has escaped one investigation after another over years.Maggie Haberman has observed Trump for decades.Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The New York TimesDavid: You’ve written that Trump has a “relentless desire to hold the media’s gaze.” Do we cover him too much?Maggie: I think the criticism about too much coverage of Donald Trump felt very real to his primary opponents in 2016, and often to the Clinton campaign. But I would argue that he was leading the polls in the primaries and that the coverage was often not what one would call flattering.What I think is a significant criticism deals with the decades before, when he built this image of himself, with each news story serving as a brick in the artifice, as a self-made business tycoon. He definitely had successes, but he was reliant on his father in ways the public didn’t see and, thanks in part to the Times reporting on his tax returns, learned about years later. That’s something the industry needs to reckon with.Now, he’s a former president with a huge following, as he undermines faith in elections and embraces conspiracy theories. I’m not sure there’s a good argument for ignoring him, because he still gets heard through other means. There is a good argument for contextualizing him.David: What happens next? Does he want to be president again or just get revenge on Biden? And what do you think motivates him?Maggie: I think Trump misses the pomp and legal protections that the presidency afforded him. I also think he wants revenge on Biden, and on the media, and on a whole range of people. And he wants to be able to continue to raise money and get attention, both of which disappear if he doesn’t run. What I’m not clear on is that he really wants to wage another campaign, in part because he’s that much older and in part because he seems less engaged generally. But that will reveal itself in the coming weeks or months.InternationalVoters in Rio de Janeiro yesterday.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesJair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, outperformed the polls with 43 percent of the vote and will face Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (who received 48 percent) in a runoff.An independent commission in Indonesia will investigate the deaths of at least 125 people after the police fired tear gas at a soccer match.Before word of Vladimir Putin’s illegal land grab could reach residents of Lyman, Ukrainian soldiers held the city again.PoliticsA new Supreme Court term begins today. The justices are poised to continue their rightward push on issues including affirmative action and gay rights.On Jan. 6, 2021, 139 House Republicans rejected election results. They braced for a backlash. Instead, they have redefined the party.“We were tricked.” A woman with a counterintelligence background recruited asylum seekers for last month’s flights to Martha’s Vineyard, investigators say.Other Big StoriesDarcy Bishop in Naples, Fla., after Hurricane Ian.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesAs floodwaters rose in Florida because of Hurricane Ian, a woman saved her two disabled brothers.Marin County, Calif., was long a center of vaccine skepticism, but it has embraced Covid vaccines.Svante Paabo, a Swedish geneticist, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for sequencing Neanderthals’ genomes.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss pardoning Trump for taking those documents to Mar-a-Lago.William Siu makes video games. He won’t let his daughters play them.Migrating songbirds need you to turn your lights off, Margaret Renkl says.China’s dominance over commercial shipping threatens U.S. security, Michael Roberts writes.MORNING READSDifficult DMs: The challenges of dating with a chronic illness.Work Friend: Some people get to keep working from home. Get over it.Metropolitan diary: A “delightful” subway encounter.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share how you did (the average was 8.6).A Times classic: The Minecraft generation.Advice from Wirecutter: The best hurricane-preparedness supplies.Lives Lived: Elias Theodorou was a Canadian mixed martial artist and a pioneer of the use of medical marijuana in sports. He died at 34.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICA statement win: Kansas City earned one of the best victories of the young N.F.L. season in Tampa Bay, 41-31. It was a key data point in an illuminating weekend of football.Pink slip: After seven years, 67 wins and a stretch of divisional dominance, Wisconsin fired Paul Chryst yesterday. Four games left: Aaron Judge and the Yankees close out the regular season in Texas this week, with Judge one home run shy of the A.L. single-season record. The series runs today through Wednesday with a doubleheader on Tuesday.ARTS AND IDEAS Goodbye, charcuterie.You may have seen people smearing butter across different surfaces and posting them across social media platforms lately — all in the name of the butter board.The instructions for creating a butter board are straightforward: Grab a cutting board. Slab a lot of soft butter on it. Then customize it, with ingredients like honey, lemon zest, edible flowers, chile flakes, figs or radishes (as you can see in these photos). “It’s simple, it’s fun, it’s artistic,” said one woodworker, whose board sales on Etsy have surged.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookAndrew Scrivani for The New York TimesIf you’re in the mood for butter now, try these cookies.TheaterThe Viennese Jewish family in Tom Stoppard’s play “Leopoldstadt” thinks it is too assimilated to be in danger when the Nazis arrive. They’re wrong.What to ReadIn “Bully Market,” Jamie Fiore Higgins describes being seduced, and ultimately repelled, by Goldman Sachs.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was pungency. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Otherwise (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. The Times won five Emmys and three Gerald Loeb Awards for business journalism.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Latino voters.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Shreeya Sinha and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      A choice between two heavyweights

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      Brazil votes for president today. Jack Nicas, the bureau chief there, explains what’s at stake.Brazilians are voting for president today in an election between two political heavyweights: Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right incumbent, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president. To help you understand the election, I spoke to Jack Nicas, The Times’s Brazil bureau chief, who lives in Rio de Janeiro.Claire Moses: Hi Jack. This is quite an election.Jack Nicas: It is. We reporters often say any given election is a big deal — but everyone here seems to agree that this one really is Brazil’s biggest vote in decades. Bolsonaro and Lula are perhaps the most prominent names in the modern history of Brazilian politics, and they come with a lot of baggage. They’re either loved or hated. People aren’t usually in-between on either.Bolsonaro is a right-wing populist who has divided the country. He has fervent supporters on the right, and the left just abhors him and wants him out. Lula led Brazil during a time of tremendous growth, but then he served time in prison on corruption charges, which were later thrown out. He’s been leading in the polls.Is it mostly political junkies who are obsessed with the election — or ordinary people, too?It’s everyone. People are wearing their political colors visibly. If you see people wearing yellow and green, the colors of the Brazilian flag, you can probably bet that they’re Bolsonaro supporters. On the other side, people are wearing red, the color of the left-wing Workers’ Party, which is Lula’s party. People are eager to show off their political leanings and happy to debate them. The campaign is kind of in-your-face that way.Beach towels are another example. You see vendors selling these towels with enormous prints of Lula’s or Bolsonaro’s face. Some of the vendors keep track of sales and post them on a sign — a sort of informal presidential poll.There have been huge rallies across the country. Just down the street from me here in the Copacabana neighborhood, thousands of people gathered last month to celebrate Brazil’s 200 years of independence. In name it was a national celebration, but in practice it was a political rally for Bolsonaro. To avoid confrontations, Lula asked his supporters to attend a different rally on another day.Towels for sale with the candidates’ faces.Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe fact that people wear the national colors to support Bolsonaro makes me wonder about soccer jerseys. Will people still wear the iconic jerseys of Brazil’s national team even if they don’t support Bolsonaro?The national team has been the pride of Brazil for so long. But now its jersey is also a symbol of Bolsonaro supporters. How will Brazil cope with that during the upcoming World Cup in November, weeks after such a contentious election?You’ve also reported on Bolsonaro’s antidemocratic moves, such as casting doubt on the country’s voting system, despite no evidence of fraud. American readers might see similarities with Donald Trump, with whom Bolsonaro has forged close ties. Is the state of democracy as big a topic in Brazil as it is in the U.S.?It’s one of the biggest questions overhanging this election (along with a sputtering economy, rising hunger and the destruction of the Amazon). People saw what happened in the U.S. in 2020, and they know about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. On the left, people are worried about a similar situation here because of Bolsonaro’s rhetoric. He was one of the last world leaders to recognize Joe Biden as the winner of the election.Bolsonaro has said repeatedly that he sees three possible outcomes in this election for him: He wins, he’s put in jail or he’s dead. Those are aggressive words that worry a lot of people. From our reporting, it appears that institutions like the courts and Congress are prepared to stand up to an election challenge by Bolsonaro. And the armed forces, which had also been questioning the voting systems, now also don’t seem to have any interest in backing a coup.The bigger threat may be that Bolsonaro’s supporters take to the streets if he doesn’t accept a loss. Many Bolsonaro supporters believe that Lula’s team and election officials are set on rigging the election. That belief doesn’t have any basis in the truth, but years of false claims by Bolsonaro have persuaded a large portion of the population.What about Lula’s campaign strategy?In a way, Lula’s campaign has been very Biden-esque. Even though Lula is much more of a leftist than Biden, he has also tried to build a broad coalition and appeal to the center. And like Biden, given his time as vice president, Lula has already spent eight years in the presidential offices. He’s a well-known face, and he’s trying to play it safe against an unpopular incumbent.We should know the result, and whether there will be a runoff, around 7 p.m. Eastern tonight. Just because Lula is leading in the polls doesn’t mean something unpredictable can’t happen here.Jack Nicas leads The Times’s coverage of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazilians were fascinated by his efforts to translate the Portuguese words “tchutchuca” and “imbrochável” in his election coverage — two slightly vulgar words that each had their campaign moments.For moreBrazil’s Supreme Court has expanded its power to counter Bolsonaro’s antidemocratic stances. But some experts are worried the court itself has become repressive.If Bolsonaro loses and his supporters react violently, how will police respond? The Times’s Amanda Taub looks at the possibilities.Lula is trying to complete a stunning political comeback.You can follow election results here.NEWSHurricane IanDestruction in Bonito Beach, Fla., on Friday.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesHurricane Ian’s death toll in Florida climbed, with at least 35 people killed. Officials in Florida’s hardest-hit county delayed telling people to flee. Now they’re encountering mass death.Other Big StoriesRussian forces retreated from Lyman, a key city in eastern Ukraine, one day after Vladimir Putin illegally declared control of the region.At least 170 people died after a soccer match in Indonesia as the police tried to quell a riot with tear gas. Many people were trampled.Venezuela released seven Americans after Biden agreed to grant clemency to two nephews of the country’s first lady.Congress members of both parties are experiencing a surge in threats. In the months since the Jan. 6 attack, they have faced stalking, vandalism and assaults.China’s Covid rules are becoming more entrenched, dictating the patterns of daily life.The recent flooding in Pakistan has plunged farmers further into debt with their landlords.“Saturday Night Live” kicked off its new season with a cold open that was also a commentary on the expectations it faces this year.FROM OPINIONWant less inflation? Try a consumption tax on the rich, Ezra Klein says.Putin is less a guilt-ridden Raskolnikov than a vengeful Medea, Maureen Dowd writes.When paying for an elite private school gets you into an elite college, how dare we call American education a meritocracy? Sophie Callcott asks.Liz Truss, Britain’s new prime minister, is floundering because she has nostalgic answers to modern problems, Ross Douthat argues.“It is the role of faith to counter evil.” Pinchas Goldschmidt, Moscow’s former chief rabbi, on his first Yom Kippur in exile.The Sunday question: Could Iran’s protests bring down its government?Outrage over a woman’s death in police custody, an economic crisis and Iran’s out-of-touch clerical leaders have created a serious legitimacy crisis, Sanam Vakil writes in Foreign Affairs. The Guardian’s Jason Burke is doubtful; dissent appears less widespread than in 1979, when Iranians last ousted their government, and the regime remains strong enough to crush it.MORNING READSRabbi Delphine Horvilleur, center left, in black, at a bar mitzvah.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesMusing on mortality: A feminist French rabbi is drawing atheists, Christians and Jews to her talks on death.Well: Can supplements replace cranberry juice as a U.T.I. treatment? Experts aren’t sure.Nuclear fashion: Climate consciousness and abortion activism are on the runway at Paris Fashion Week.Sunday routine: The immigrant rights leader Murad Awawdeh greets arrivals from Texas at the Port Authority or he’s with his family.Advice from Wirecutter: Pay attention to iPhone permissions.A Times classic: Facial exercises to make you look younger.BOOKSMichela ButtignolRomance novels: Finding wonderful books that bring to mind old favorites is one of the genre’s greatest pleasures.By the Book: The Swedish novelist Fredrik Backman has learned to read while distracted.Times best sellers: “Dreamland,” by Nicholas Sparks, is a No. 1 debut on the hardcover fiction best-seller list, which also includes the latest from Richard Osman, Elizabeth Strout and Andrew Sean Greer. See all our lists.THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINERuth Ossai for The New York TimesOn the cover: Whoopi Goldberg refuses to hold anything back.“Stolen babies”: Thousands of Spanish children were taken from hospitals and sold to wealthy Catholic families. This is Ana Belén Pintado’s story.Recommendation: The end of life is often invisible. There’s another way.Eat: These little coconut cakes are fluffy and perfect for sharing.Read the full issue.THE WEEK AHEADWhat to Watch ForThe Nobel Prizes will be announced this week, including literature on Thursday and peace on Friday.Canada’s Quebec province will hold elections tomorrow. François Legault, the incumbent premier, is expected to win by appealing to nationalism — without advocating for independence.The 2022 Miss USA Pageant is tomorrow. It will honor Cheslie Kryst, the 2019 winner who died in January.The Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios is set to face a charge of assaulting a former girlfriend.The government will release new monthly jobs numbers on Friday.What to Cook This WeekJim Wilson/The New York TimesFall seems to have arrived in New York, and Emily Weinstein has ideas for autumnal dishes this week: “I made a crumble after I went apple picking and brought home a ridiculous (some might say crazy) number of apples, and I simmered kabocha squash with scallions, too.” You can also use squash for soup; this recipe is amazing.NOW TIME TO PLAYHere’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:64 Across: Candy bar whose name is an exclamationTake the news quiz to see how well you followed the week’s headlines.Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Gerrymandering, the Full Story

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      A Times analysis finds that the House of Representative has its fairest map in 40 years, despite recent gerrymandering.If you asked Americans to describe the ways that political power has become disconnected from public opinion, many would put the gerrymandering of congressional districts near the top of the list. State lawmakers from both parties have drawn the lines of House districts in ways meant to maximize the number that their own party will win, and Republicans in some states have been especially aggressive, going so far as to ignore court orders.Yet House gerrymandering turns out to give Republicans a smaller advantage today than is commonly assumed. The current map is only slightly tilted toward Republicans, and both parties have a legitimate chance to win House control in the coming midterm elections.My colleague Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains this situation in the latest version of his newsletter. “In reality, Republicans do have a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for the Democrats,” Nate writes. “By some measures, this is the fairest House map of the last 40 years.”Republican advantage in how districts lean More

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      Iran’s Ferocious Dissent

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      Times reporters make sense of what’s happening.Few independent journalists are working inside Iran today. But videos, emails and other information coming from inside the country suggest that Iran is experiencing its most significant protests in more than a decade.The demonstrations began after a 22-year-old, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody on Sept. 16, having been arrested for violating Iran’s law requiring women to wear head scarves fully hiding their hair. This weekend, the protests spread to at least 80 cities, and demonstrators briefly seized control of a city in northwestern Iran. In response, the country’s security forces have opened fire on crowds.In today’s newsletter, I’ll try to help you make sense of what’s going on.Five main points1. Iran’s government is again run by hard-liners.In last year’s presidential election, the clerics who hold behind-the-scenes power in Iran disqualified nearly every candidate except for a hard-liner named Ebrahim Raisi. Since becoming president, Raisi has set out to reverse the legacy of his reformist predecessor, Hassan Rouhani.“On multiple fronts, Raisi has ferociously swung the pendulum back to the kind of xenophobic policies and tone-deaf rhetoric witnessed during the Revolution’s early days,” Robin Wright wrote this weekend in The New Yorker. Among Raisi’s moves: calling for the police to strictly enforce the head scarf law, in a reversal of Rouhani’s policy.Raisi has also taken a tougher line toward the U.S. In meetings connected with the United Nations gathering last week, for instance, he scoffed at the notion that Iran’s police were overly violent. “How many times in the United States, men and women are killed every day at the hands of law enforcement personnel,” he told journalists on Thursday.As Wright described, “His voice rose so loudly and so often that it was frequently hard to hear the English translation through our headsets.”2. The rise of hard-liners has contributed to growing desperation among young Iranians.“The reason the younger generation is taking this kind of risk is because they feel they have nothing to lose, they have no hope for the future,” Ali Vaez, Iran director for the International Crisis Group, told The Times. (My colleagues Vivian Yee and Farnaz Fassihi went into more detail in this recent story.) Many Iranians understand they are taking existential risks by protesting, given the regime’s history of responding to past protests with mass arrests.“I’m struck by the bravery of these young Iranians,” my colleague David Sanger, who has been covering Iran for decades, said. “And by the ferocity of their desire to get out from under the rule of this government.”Protesters in the streets of Tehran on Wednesday.Associated Press3. The economy plays a big role in the dissatisfaction.In 2018, Donald Trump decided to pursue a high-risk, high-reward policy toward Iran. He exited a nuclear deal that Barack Obama had negotiated three years earlier, which had lifted many sanctions in exchange for Iran’s taking steps away from being able to build a nuclear weapon. Trump reimposed those sanctions and added new ones, betting that doing so would force Iran to accept a tougher deal and maybe even destabilize the government.Over time, the sanctions — combined with Iran’s pre-existing economic problems — plunged the country into an economic crisis. “Many Iranians are struggling to make ends meet, thanks to an economy decimated by mismanagement, corruption and sanctions,” Vivian, who is The Times’s Cairo bureau chief, told me. “Some are even offering to sell their organs.”She added:In the past — say, when Rouhani first got elected, in 2013 — lots of Iranians felt genuinely optimistic that things would turn around, because Rouhani promised that the nuclear deal with the U.S. would help open up the economy and boost trade, along with getting the sanctions lifted. But the mood darkened when those benefits failed to materialize before President Trump scuttled the deal.With the election of Raisi, a hard-liner who has spoken against returning to the deal and whose government hasn’t shown much flexibility in negotiations with Western powers over the last year, Iranians who had hoped for a recovery felt like there was no way things would improve.Does all this mean Trump’s policy is succeeding? Many experts say it’s too soon to make that judgment. The policy has sharply raised the risk that Iran will soon have a nuclear weapon. And a week or so of protests does not mean Iran’s regime will collapse. If the regime does collapse, however, it will be fair to revisit Trump’s Iran legacy.4. Biden is taking a tougher approach toward Iran than Obama did.In 2009, during the last major wave of protests, Obama did relatively little to support them, out of a concern that Iran’s government could then portray the demonstrations as the work of foreign agitators.This time, Biden is pursuing a more confrontational policy. “Part of the reason that there was a different kind of approach in 2009 was the belief that somehow if America spoke out, it would undermine the protesters, not aid them,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, who also served in the Obama administration, said on “Meet the Press” yesterday. “What we learned in the aftermath of that is that you can overthink these things, that the most important thing for the United States to do is to be firm and clear and principled in response to citizens of any country demanding their rights and dignity.”One example: To combat Iran’s government’s attempts to shut down large parts of the internet and prevent protesters from communicating with each other, the Biden administration has authorized some technology companies to offer services inside Iran without risk of violating U.S. sanctions. The administration also allowed SpaceX — one of Elon Musk’s companies, which offers the Starlink communication service — to send satellite equipment into Iran.“The technology available today makes it easier for Iranians to communicate in secret than ever before,” David Sanger said. “That’s why the Iranians are trying to bring down the whole internet inside Iran. That’s real desperation.”5. In the short term, Iran’s government seems likely to prevail. Then again, revolutions are rarely predictable.David put it this way: “History would suggest that since the state holds all the guns, this isn’t likely to last. But sometimes it’s a mistake to be a slave to past events. The successful Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 led many of us — me included — to suspect that Ukraine would shatter in a few days back in February.”Related: Amini, the Iranian woman who died in police custody, was a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority. Their rage reflects a history of discrimination.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsTikTok has been under a legal cloud in the U.S. because of its Chinese ownership.Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe Biden administration and TikTok have drafted a preliminary deal to let the Chinese-owned app continue operating in the U.S.State chief justices want the Supreme Court to reject a legal theory that would give state legislatures extraordinary power over elections.InternationalGiorgia Meloni is set to become Italy’s first female leader.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesGiorgia Meloni, a hard-right politician who leads a party descended from the remnants of fascism, appears set to be Italy’s next prime minister.China is on track to sell about six million electric vehicles this year, more than every other country combined.Global markets tumbled this morning, and the pound fell to a record low against the dollar.Russia is forcing Ukrainians in occupied territory to fight against their own country.Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, fearing a war between Russia and NATO, refuses to send Ukraine tanks.Other Big StoriesA NASA spacecraft is set to collide with an asteroid today, testing a technique to protect Earth. Here’s how to watch.Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya beat his own world record to win the Berlin Marathon.Rihanna will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss crime and the investigations into Trump.“My faith is in the people of this state”: Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, spoke to Charles Blow.On both Taiwan and Russia, Biden’s rhetoric and actions are dangerously mismatched, Kori Schake argues.MORNING READSCalm: Can “brown noise” turn off your brain?“Jihad Rehab”: Sundance liked her documentary on terrorism, until Muslim critics didn’t.Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.1. See if you can do better.A Times classic: Do these A.I.-generated faces look real to you?Advice from Wirecutter: How to clean a coffee grinder and baking sheets.Lives Lived: Nancy Hiller was one of America’s most renowned woodworkers, breaking a barrier in a male-dominated trade. She died at 63.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICBroncos win ugly affair: Safeties and fumbles highlighted Denver’s 11-10 win over San Francisco last night, improbably sending the Broncos to 2-1 this season and ending a chaotic day of football.Judge’s chase stifled: Rain intervened Sunday in the Bronx to end the Yankees’ 2-0 win over the Red Sox after just six innings, cutting short another chance for Aaron Judge to tie the A.L. home run record. He has 10 games left to hit two home runs to pass Roger Maris.U.S. takes Presidents Cup: Jordan Spieth led the way for a convincing American victory in the Presidents Cup, as expected, but the weekend brought up questions about changing the event’s format.ARTS AND IDEAS Rookie dinnersRib-eye steaks, Norwegian water and cognac named after a French king: At “rookie dinners” in the N.F.L., the bill can reach $20,000.The meals are a longstanding tradition, in which new players pay for exorbitant nights out for their teammates. Footing these five-figure bills is “like putting your pads on before practice,” Channing Crowder, a former linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, said. “It is part of the game.”Torrey Smith, a two-time Super Bowl champion, disagrees. “Dudes come into the league with no financial literacy and real problems but folks think 50k dinners are cool! NAH!” he wrote on Twitter in June. His posts have prompted discussions of whether the tradition should end.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookMichael Graydon & Nikole Herriott for The New York Times. Matzo ball soup is a combination of three simple things: chicken broth, matzo balls and garnish.What to ReadSpecial powers, avian obsession and visions of the future fuel these historical novels.FashionErgonomic laptop bags — with style.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was tackled. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Colon, in an emoticon (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. Phil Pan, The Times’s top weekend editor, will become our next International editor.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the decline in child poverty in the U.S. “Popcast” is about Blondshell, Ice Spice and other breakout stars of 2022.Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      A Shrinking Margin

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      Democrats lost ground with Hispanic voters in 2020. It doesn’t seem to have been a blip.In Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, he won the Hispanic vote over Mitt Romney by 40 percentage points — 70 percent to 30 percent, according to Catalist, a political research firm. Four years later, Hillary Clinton did even better, beating Donald Trump by 42 percentage points among Hispanic voters.But then something changed.The economy became even stronger at the start of Trump’s presidency than it had been during Obama’s. The Democratic Party moved further to the left than it had been under Obama. Trump turned out to have a macho appeal, especially to some Hispanic men. And some Hispanic voters became frustrated with the long Covid shutdowns.Whatever the full explanation, Hispanic voters have moved to the right over the past several years. As a group, they still prefer Democrats, but the margin has narrowed significantly. In 2020, Joe Biden won the group by only 26 percentage points. And in this year’s midterms, the Democratic lead is nearly identical to Biden’s 2020 margin, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll — a sign that the shift was not just a one-election blip:Which party’s candidate are you more likely to vote for in this year’s election for Congress? More