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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

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      Democracy Challenged

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      Representative government faces its most serious threats in decades.This is an election year unlike any we’ve experienced in recent decades. Not only do candidates of both major parties in the United States have starkly different views on the pressing issues of the day, including climate change, war, taxes, abortion, education, gender and sexual identity, immigration, crime and the role of government in American life. They also disagree on democracy itself, especially one of its essential pillars — willingness to accept defeat at the polls.All year, our staff has sought to balance what we think of as politics, the candidates, polling, policy positions, campaign strategies, and views of voters on important issues, with coverage of acute challenges to democracy. Those include a deterioration in the integrity of constitutional democracy, manipulation of state election laws to limit or overturn the will of voters, and a global trend toward autocracy in places where democratic institutions once seemed solid. While we may continue to witness robust political competition in this midterm election cycle in ways that appear in keeping with American history, threats to that electoral system have grown relentlessly at the same time. Our coverage must examine both.So while we have a large staff dedicated to reporting on politics, a special team of some of our best journalists, nationally and internationally, has produced dozens of explanatory and investigative stories on the causes of our democratic decline. These include the rise in political violence, especially on the right, election denial and its hold on many Republicans, disinformation and the profiteers peddling falsehoods, the people and money behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, the origins and popularity of leading conspiracy theories, and the partisan political motives of some leading jurists.It is our deep and ongoing commitment to expose the cancers eating away at democracy, as well as joining the search for solutions. We have been gathering our coverage in a collection called Democracy Challenged.An overviewThe latest piece in the collection, by David Leonhardt, covers the two biggest threats to American democracy: first, a movement within the Republican Party that refuses to accept election defeat; and, second, a growing disconnect between public opinion and government power. Below, we summarize the main points:The Jan. 6 attack on Congress was only the most obvious manifestation of the movement that refuses to accept election defeat. Hundreds of elected Republican officials around the country falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged, suggesting they may be willing to overturn a future election. “There is the possibility, for the first time in American history, that a legitimately elected president will not be able to take office,” Yascha Mounk, a political scientist, said.Even many Republicans who do not repeat the election lies have chosen to support and campaign for those who do. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader, has gone so far as to support colleagues who have used violent imagery in public comments, such as calling for the killing of Democrats.But there are also many senior Republicans who have signaled they would be unlikely to participate in an effort to overturn an election, including Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. He recently said that the United States had “very little voter fraud.”This combination suggests that the risk of an overturned election remains uncertain. But the chances are much higher than would have been fathomable until the past few years. Previous leaders of both parties consistently rejected talk of reversing an election outcome.In addition to this acute threat, American democracy also faces a chronic threat: The power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion.Two of the past four presidents have taken office despite losing the popular vote. Senators representing a majority of Americans are often unable to pass bills, partly because of the increasing use of the filibuster. And the Supreme Court is dominated by an ambitious Republican-appointed bloc even though Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections — an unprecedented run of popular-vote success in U.S. history.Parties in previous eras that fared as well in the popular vote as the Democrats have fared in recent decades were able to run the government and pass policies they favored. Examples include the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson’s time, the New Deal Democrats and the Reagan Republicans.The growing disconnect from federal power and public opinion generally springs from enduring features of American government, some written into the Constitution. But these features did not conflict with majority opinion to the same degree in past decades. One reason is that less populous and more populous states tended to have broadly similar political outlooks in the past.A sorting of the population in recent decades has meant that the less-populated areas given outsize influence by the Constitution also tend to be conservative, while major metropolitan areas have become more liberal. In the past, “the system was still antidemocratic, but it didn’t have a partisan effect,” said Steven Levitsky, another political scientist. “Now it’s undemocratic and has a partisan effect.”Over the sweep of history, the American government has tended to become more democratic, through women’s suffrage, civil rights laws, the direct election of senators and more. The current period is so striking partly because it is one of the rare exceptions: The connection between government power and popular opinion has become weaker in recent decades.Here is the full story on democracy’s twin crises.A rally in Lansing, Mich., last fall, organized by the Election Integrity Force.Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesMore from the seriesThe following are some of the other articles in The Times’s continuing series, Democracy Challenged:The election-denier movement didn’t start in 2020. It began even before the Trump presidency.The Arizona Republican Party’s experiment: First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has moved to anti-democracy sentiment — the principles, the process and even the word itself.A team of Times journalists analyzed 1,150 episodes of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and produced an interactive feature explaining how he pushes extremist ideas and conspiracy theories into millions of households.As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.Viktor Orban — Hungary’s populist prime minister and a hero to many American conservatives — changed voting rules to help his re-election campaign.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsRepublican senators at a news conference in August.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersThe economy remains the top concern for voters, a New York Times/Siena poll found, as Republicans focus their campaigns on inflation.Texas sent Lever Alejos, a Venezuelan migrant, on a bus to Washington, D.C. Two months later, he is making a new life for himself.Trump is involved in six separate investigations. Here’s where each of them stands.War in UkraineA missile struck a hotel in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, over the weekend.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesRussia has begun using Iranian-made attack drones to counteract heavy artillery provided by the U.S.Alla Pugacheva, a pop music icon once called “the most popular human being in Russia,” declared her opposition to the invasion.A video showed Russian mercenaries offering to release convicts from prison in return for a six-month combat tour in Ukraine.When Russian troops withdraw, they leave a trail of anonymous death.Other Big StoriesThe queen’s funeral this morning in Westminster Abbey.Pool photo by Phil NobleQueen Elizabeth II’s funeral is today. The Times has live coverage.“We still have a problem with Covid,” President Biden said in a CBS interview, “but the pandemic is over.”After knocking out Puerto Rico’s power grid, Hurricane Fiona has made landfall in the Dominican Republic.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Trump and his imitators.Thanks to hard work by activists and others, America is poised to lead on climate, Gina McCarthy argues.As the seasons change, take a cue from birds, butterflies and other migratory animals, Margaret Renkl says.MORNING READSXYZ: The jeans of the young and stylish are unzipped and unbuttoned.Errors: A copy editor recounts his obsession with perfection. Will Smith: Apple thought its Civil War drama could win an Oscar. Then the slap happened.Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 8.7. Can you can beat it?A Times classic: How to raise better boys.Advice from Wirecutter: Great retirement gifts.Lives Lived: Maximilian Lerner was one of the so-called Ritchie Boys, who were trained at a secret Army intelligence camp to serve in World War II. He died at 98.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICAces win W.N.B.A. title: Las Vegas has its first major sports championship after the Aces topped the Connecticut Sun, 78-71, to close out an entertaining finals series. It’s a crowning achievement for the team and its coach, Becky Hammon, who spurned the N.B.A. for this job. Comebacks highlight N.F.L.’s second week: Two teams overcame 20-point deficits to win, and another scored 14 points in the last 1:55. It was indicative of a wild football Sunday.Aaron Judge inches closer: The New York Yankees star hit two more home runs yesterday in Milwaukee, numbers 58 and 59 in what has become a magical season. He’s two shy of the American League record set by Roger Maris in 1961. Judge has 16 games left to break it.ARTS AND IDEAS Fasicka and Patrick Hicks run Smoke’N Ash in South Arlington, Texas.Jessica Attie for The New York TimesAmerica’s best restaurantsKitty’s Cafe makes a pork sandwich that ought to be the most famous meal in Kansas City, Mo. Neptune, in Boston’s North End, has perfected the art of the oyster bar. The married couple at Off Alley in Seattle cram a dozen customers into a tiny room with the raucous feel of a Lyonnaise bouchon.Times food writers and editors ate their way across the U.S. to find the 50 restaurants that most excite them. Here’s the list.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York TimesVegetarians, add smoked paprika to this classic split pea soup.What to ReadAndrew Sean Greer’s sequel to his 2017 novel “Less” might raise eyebrows.What to Watch“Moonage Daydream,” a documentary about David Bowie, is more séance than biography.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was validity. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fireworks reaction (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. Join Al Gore, John Kerry and other experts for a Times event about climate solutions tomorrow.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Britain after the queen.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, 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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      Are the Polls Wrong Again?

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      Are Democrats again about to be disappointed by overly optimistic polling? The final polls in the 2020 presidential election overstated Joe Biden’s strength, especially in a handful of states.The polls reported that Biden had a small lead in North Carolina, but he lost the state to Donald Trump. The polls also showed Biden running comfortably ahead in Wisconsin, yet he won it by less than a percentage point. In Ohio, the polls pointed to a tight race; instead, Trump won it easily.In each of these states — and some others — pollsters failed to reach a representative sample of voters. One factor seems to be that Republican voters are more skeptical of mainstream institutions and are less willing to respond to a survey. If that’s true, polls will often understate Republican support, until pollsters figure out how to fix the problem. (I explained the problem in more depth in a 2020 article.)This possibility offers reason to wonder whether Democrats are really doing as well in the midterm elections as the conventional wisdom holds. Recent polls suggest that Democrats are favored to keep control of the Senate narrowly, while losing control of the House, also narrowly.But the Democrats’ strength in the Senate campaign depends partly on their strength in some of the same states where polls exaggerated Democratic support two years ago, including the three that I mentioned above: North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, calls it “a warning sign” — for both the Democratic Party and for the polls. Nate goes into more depth in one of the first editions of a newsletter that he will be writing a couple of times a week for the rest of the midterm campaign.(If you’re fascinated by politics, I encourage you to sign up. It’s available to Times subscribers, and Nate is one of the sharpest political analysts working today. He helps oversee Times polls and has a record of noticing trends before many others do. One example was in June 2016, when he wrote: “There are more white voters than people think. That’s good news for Trump.”)Or is 2022 different?Nate is also careful to acknowledge what he doesn’t know, and he emphasizes that the polls may not be wrong this year in the same way that they were wrong in 2020. It’s even possible that pollsters are understating Democratic support this year by searching too hard for Republican voters in an effort to avoid repeating recent mistakes.The unavoidable reality is that polling is both an art and a science, requiring hard judgments about which kinds of people are more or less likely to respond to a survey and more or less likely to vote in the fall. There are still some big mysteries about the polls’ recent tendency to underestimate Republican support.The pattern has not been uniform across the country, for instance. In some states — such as Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — the final polls have been pretty accurate lately. This inconsistency makes the problem harder to fix because pollsters can’t simply boost the Republican share everywhere.There is also some uncertainty about whether the problem is as big when Trump is not on the ballot — and he is obviously not running for office this year. Douglas Rivers, the chief scientist of the polling firm YouGov, told me that he thought this was the case and that there is something particular about Trump that complicates polling. Similarly, Nate noted that the polls in the 2018 midterms were fairly accurate.Finally, as Nate points out, the 2022 campaign does have two dynamics that may make it different from a normal midterm and that may help Democrats. The Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees, issued an unpopular decision on abortion, and Trump, unlike most defeated presidents, continues to receive a large amount of attention.As a result, this year’s election may feel less like a referendum on the current president and more like a choice between two parties. Biden, for his part, is making this point explicitly. “Every election’s a choice,” he said recently. “My dad used to say, ‘Don’t compare me to the Almighty, Joey. Compare me to the alternative.’”As Nate told me:Just about every election cycle, there’s an argument for why, this time, things might be different — different from the expectations set by historical trends and key factors like the state of the economy or the president’s approval rating.The arguments are often pretty plausible. After all, every cycle is different. There’s almost always something unprecedented about a given election year. There’s always a way to spin up a rationale for why old rules won’t apply.In the end, history usually prevails. That’s a good thing to keep in mind right now as Democrats show strength that seems entirely at odds with the long history of the struggles of the president’s party in midterm elections.But this cycle, there really is something different — or at the very least, there is something different about the reasons “this cycle might be different.”More on politicsPresident Biden remembering 9/11.Al Drago for The New York TimesBiden visited the Pentagon for a Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony. “I know for all those of you who lost someone, 21 years is both a lifetime and no time at all,” he said.An Atlanta prosecutor has emerged as a consequential legal threat to Trump while presiding over the justice system in Georgia’s most populous county.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineThe Kharkiv region this weekend.Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRussia acknowledged that it had lost much of Kharkiv, a military stronghold, as Ukraine’s lightning advance took back more than 1,000 square miles.Russian cruise missiles knocked out power to regions in eastern and northeastern Ukraine in apparent retaliation.Ukraine drew on U.S. intelligence to plan its counterassault. The gains in the northeast have been the most important advances of the war, American officials said.The QueenAntigua and Barbuda announced that it would hold a referendum on becoming a republic, one of several countries considering a split with the British monarchy.The queen’s beloved corgis will stay in the family.Other Big StoriesFloodwaters cover around a third of Pakistan, including its agricultural belt. The economic losses will be felt for years, officials warn.Torrential, unrelenting rains swept through Chicago, taking the city by surprise.Improved weather conditions allowed firefighters to make progress on some of California’s blazes. But the battles are far from over.A New York education board will vote on new rules to keep private schools accountable to academic standards. (Read The Times’s investigation into New York yeshivas.)Alcohol deaths rose in the pandemic. Activists in Oregon say higher taxes could save lives.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Trump and the queen.To soften its Senate candidates’ images, the G.O.P. is turning to their wives. It’s trite and insulting, Michelle Cottle writes.The killing of a Memphis kindergarten teacher is a tragedy, not a talking point, Margaret Renkl says.MORNING READSDragon Con: Redefining what nerd culture looks like.No longer taboo: For better or worse, student debt has become normalized.Still rolling: Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, wants to reveal it all.Metropolitan Diary: The cabby and the cat food.Quiz time: The average score on our latest news quiz was 9.4. See if you can beat it.A Times classic: Don’t try to walk off a sprained ankle.Advice from Wirecutter: The best over-the-counter hearing aids.Lives Lived: Thomas Carney tended bar at Elaine’s for decades. The Times once wrote that he kept alive the traditions of saloons: “wit, tact, patience and a boundless tolerance for drunks.” He died at 82.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICA new era in men’s tennis: Teen phenom Carlos Alcaraz seized his first Grand Slam title in a four-set win over the Norwegian player Casper Ruud at the U.S. Open. The Spaniard’s stunning tournament might even have left tennis fans feeling optimistic about the post-Big Three future. Panic time for the Dallas Cowboys? Quarterback Dak Prescott exited yesterday’s 19-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with an injury to his throwing hand. He will undergo surgery and miss several weeks. Here are the other takeaways from Week 1 of the N.F.L. season.W.N.B.A. finals get underway: The typically high-scoring Las Vegas Aces narrowly edged the Connecticut Sun 67-64 at home in Game 1. It was the game the Sun wanted, but MVP A’ja Wilson lifted the Aces to a win. Game 2 is tomorrow at 9 p.m. Eastern.ARTS AND IDEAS Tasting menus for the peopleMore chefs are embracing tasting menus, while rejecting the grandiose conventions and price tags that usually accompany them, Brett Anderson writes in The Times.Tasting menus can be surprisingly thrifty. Because they tend to require reservations, with meals chosen in advance, chefs can purchase the precise amount of ingredients. That has allowed aspiring restaurateurs to branch off on their own, serving food to small groups without much overhead.At Southern Soigné in Jackson, Miss., Zacchaeus Golden offers a multicourse dinner for $95, a fraction of the cost of most lavish tasting-menu marathons. One way he keeps it affordable: The only other employee is his mother, Margie.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRikki Snyder for The New York TimesThe trick to this chicken salad is the method for poaching chicken.AwardsThe Emmy Awards are tonight, with Kenan Thompson of “Saturday Night Live” hosting.What to WatchIn “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg himself is the star. But Michelle Williams steals the show.Now Time to PlayNYTThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was devotion. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Unattractive (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. Katie Baker is joining The Times from BuzzFeed News to cover the social and cultural conflicts dividing the U.S.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Serena Williams.Lauren Hard, 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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      The Queen in New York, From a Ferryboat to Bloomingdale’s

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      Queen Elizabeth II made three visits to New York City during her 70-year reign.Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at Queen Elizabeth II and New York, a city she visited three times in her long reign. We’ll also hear former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s reflections on a subject he has had time to reflect on: former Mayor Bill de Blasio. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times“A visit to New York for just a day is really a teaser,” Queen Elizabeth II said of her first trip to New York, in 1957. And she wasn’t even around for a full day — only 15 hours.Arriving on a ferryboat, she was not disappointed by the famous skyline she had seen only in pictures. “Wheeeee!” she cried in an uncharacteristically unrestrained moment.How much she saw on the way uptown is an open question. Ticker tape rained down as she waved from a limousine — “a tiny woman suspended in time,” as my colleague Robert D. McFadden later wrote. She went on to touristy places: She had asked to see the view from the Empire State Building and pronounced it “tremendous.”But the queen, who died on Thursday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, was no ordinary tourist: At the United Nations, she gave a speech.She was 31 then. She spent more time in New York on her second visit when she was 50, in 1976 — the year of the Bicentennial, celebrating those rebellious colonists’ break with her country. She went to Bloomingdale’s. Mayor Abraham Beame proclaimed her an honorary New Yorker.Her third visit, in 2010, when she was 84, was the shortest. She and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived on a private plane from Canada. They left for Britain after only about five hours in New York.There was not a wasted moment. The queen, wearing a flowered suit and white gloves, formally opened the Queen Elizabeth II Sept. 11 Garden in Lower Manhattan. “She’d gone to the U.N., given a speech and gone to ground zero,” said Isabel Carden, the treasurer of the nonprofit British Memorial Garden Trust, which commissioned the garden as a memorial to the 67 British citizens who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.Her second speech at the United Nations, in 2010, lasted just eight minutes. Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general at the time, introduced her as “an anchor for our age,” and she used the appearance to look back. “In my lifetime,” she said, “the United Nations has moved from being a high-minded aspiration to being a real force for common good.”“Then,” Carden said on Thursday, “she came to us. She met all the families. She was never hurried. She took time to speak to everyone, and we had about 500 people there. It was so remarkable.”And, on a day when the temperature soared to 103 degrees, the queen’s face showed not a drop of sweat.Collin Mitchell, a tax specialist from Guyana who lived in Brooklyn, waited outside the garden for five hours, hoping to see her. “My mother always took her children out; she would pull her entire brood to events like these, flag in hand,” he said. She had died five years earlier, he said, adding, “I want to keep that legacy.”WeatherEnjoy a sunny day with temperatures near the low 80s. The evening will be clear, with temps around the mid-60s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Sept. 26 (Rosh Hashana).Andrew Kelly/ReutersTrump in the headlinesDonald Trump, who now lives in Florida, made his name in New York. And it was New York that exerted its pull on three stories related to the former president on Thursday:Steven Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, surrendered in Manhattan to face felony charges of money laundering, conspiracy and scheming to defraud in connection with his work with We Build the Wall Inc., a nonprofit.Prosecutors say We Build the Wall defrauded donors who believed that they were helping to make Trump’s promise of a border wall with Mexico a reality. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said Bannon had “acted as the architect” of the scheme. Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, whose office worked with Bragg’s on the investigation, said Bannon had taken “advantage of his donors’ political views to secure millions of dollars which he then misappropriated.”Geoffrey Berman, the former United States attorney in Manhattan, charged in a new book that the Justice Department sought to use his office to support Trump politically and pursue Trump’s critics. Berman writes the Justice Department pressured him to open a criminal investigation of John Kerry, a former secretary of state.Trump fired Berman in 2020 after he refused to resign. Berman’s book, “Holding the Line,” is scheduled to be published on Tuesday.City Council leaders asked Mayor Eric Adams to end the Trump Organization’s contract to run a city-owned golf course in the Bronx and to cancel a women’s tournament next month.The event is part of the Aramco Team Series, which has been linked to the Saudi government’s network of businesses. Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, is the title sponsor for the series, and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is the “presenting partner.”Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, and Shekar Krishnan, a Council member who leads its Committee on Parks and Recreation, sent the mayor and Sue Donoghue, the parks commissioner, a letter saying that the recent guilty plea by Allen Weisselberg, a top Trump Organization executive, gave the city grounds to end the contract. The city’s agreement with the company requires its employee to comply with all federal, state and laws.The latest New York newsDakota Santiago for The New York TimesShooting in a Brooklyn park: A 15-year-old boy was shot and killed after a fistfight, the police said.First day of school: New York City’s public school students returned to class as the nation’s largest school system loosened coronavirus restrictions.Homeless shelter officer suspended: A police officer for the New York City Department of Homeless Services was suspended without pay after a video showed him hitting a shelter resident in the face.De Blasio on de BlasioCharlie Neibergall/Associated PressBill de Blasio — former mayor, former presidential candidate and former congressional candidate — is off to Harvard University as a visiting teaching fellow. Before he left New York for a semester, he looked back on his career as the first Democrat in City Hall in 20 years.“I found him to be remarkably reflective,” said my colleague Michael Gold, who interviewed de Blasio last month. “I had not thought of him as a particularly reflective guy because when you’re the mayor, you end up being defensive — there’s always something else to deal with, especially, in his case, given the pandemic.”But Michael, who also drew on a de Blasio interview with our political reporter Jeffery C. Mays, added: “He’s now been away from City Hall for nine months and out of the spotlight except when he ran for Congress, and that fizzled, so he suddenly had time to stop and look back in a way I don’t think he had had an opportunity to do.”Since leaving City Hall, de Blasio has acknowledged that he “made mistakes” as mayor. He told Michael that they included failing to stay “close to the hearts of people” and keep up “the personal bond” that had carried him into City Hall.The congressional campaign seems to have amplified de Blasio’s sense that the personal mattered more than he understood at the time. He jumped into the crowded field running for an open congressional seat in Brooklyn in the spring, only to drop out two months later, when it was clear his campaign was not gaining ground.“Humans vote emotionally,” he told Michael. “And if you’re tired of someone, you’re tired of them.”He said that without sounding bitter. “The thing that sticks in my mind was when he said he was saddened he did not get the support of his neighbors in Park Slope but appreciated the opportunity to talk to them,” Michael said. “Especially during the pandemic, he had been at such a remove as mayor.”METROPOLITAN diaryBrooklyn stop signDear Diary:After a fun July 4 barbecue with friends, my fiancé and I were driving home to Brooklyn when we came up behind a van that was pulled up at a stop sign.We waited nearly half a minute, but the van did not move. It was getting late and we had to run the puppy out, so my fiancé honked once.The van didn’t budge.We honked again.Still nothing.By now, we were impatient. We drove around the van, pulling up cautiously to the stop sign from the driver’s side.Looking in the van, we saw a man with his eyes closed. He was vigorously playing a flute.— Michael DruckmanIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you on Monday. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero More

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      Our Latest Covid Poll

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      Americans on the left end of the political spectrum have become less anxious about Covid.Almost six months ago, when my Morning colleagues and I released our last poll about Covid, the deep anxiety among Americans identifying as “very liberal” was one of the main findings.Forty-seven percent of very liberal adults said that they believed Covid presented a “great risk” to their own personal health and well-being. That was a significantly larger share than among conservatives, moderates or even liberals who stopped short of calling themselves very liberal. Particularly striking was the level of concern among liberals under age 45, even though the virus’s worst effects have been concentrated among older people.I understand why attitudes about the virus vary so sharply by ideology. Our country is polarized on most high-profile issues today. In the case of Covid, Donald Trump and some other Republicans exacerbated the divide by making a series of false statements that downplayed the threat or misrepresented the vaccines.To many liberals, taking Covid seriously — more seriously, at times, than the scientific evidence justified — became an expression of identity and solidarity. As one progressive activist tweeted last year, “The inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative.”This morning, we’re releasing the results of our latest Covid poll (which, like the earlier ones, was conducted by Morning Consult). This time, one of the central findings is how much attitudes have changed since the spring. Americans are less worried about the virus today — and driving that decline is the receding level of anxiety among the very liberal, including many younger adults.The share of the very liberal who say the virus presents a great risk to their own personal health has fallen to 34 percent. The 13-point drop since March was larger than the drop among any of the six other ideological self-identifications in the poll:Share of adults who say Covid presents a great personal risk More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Florida

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      How the Republican governor is turning the swing state into a right-wing laboratory.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who appears to be preparing to run for president in 2024, has achieved a national platform by leaning into cultural battles. He signed laws limiting what teachers can teach about race, sexual orientation and gender identity, and he recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the state’s anti-abortion laws.DeSantis is up for re-election in November. I spoke to my colleague Patricia Mazzei, who as The Times’s Miami bureau chief has tracked his rise, about how DeSantis has changed life in Florida.German: Where do you see DeSantis’s impact on Florida?Patricia: He was elected by just 32,000 votes or so but has governed as if he had a mandate to reshape the state into a laboratory for right-wing policies.Tuesday’s primary didn’t have big-name Republicans on the ballot, so DeSantis got involved in school board races. These are traditionally nonpartisan and sleepy. But he endorsed 30 candidates, and he campaigned for them. And he succeeded: So far, 20 of his endorsed candidates have won outright, and five are going to runoffs.This is an example of trying to turn the state red — not just at the top level, but by starting at the bottom. That builds the bench of candidates who will back him as they go on to make their own political careers. It’s leaving a longer-lasting legacy of the policies and politics he espouses. School board decisions affect parents’ and their children’s lives on a daily basis by deciding what will be in school curriculums.The focus on schools reminds me of the quote from the conservative Andrew Breitbart that “politics is downstream from culture” — meaning that to win elections, partisans first need to shape culture. Changing what the next generation learns about seems like a clear attempt to change the culture, as does DeSantis signing an education bill that critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law.I went to one of the campaign events for these school boards last weekend in Miami-Dade County. There, the lieutenant governor — DeSantis’s running mate — said, “Our students should go to school to learn their ABC’s, not their L.G.B.T.’s.”But Florida is not entirely a red state. For example, Miami is often called a gay mecca. How do you reconcile that with DeSantis signing the education law?Generally speaking, the people of Florida are less conservative than their leaders. We’ve seen that in statewide ballot initiatives: Voters went against gerrymandering, passed medical marijuana legalization and a minimum wage hike, and restored ex-felons’ voting rights.It’s just a contradiction in the politics. People who live in strictly red or strictly blue areas of the country may not know this. But where I am, if you go into a family gathering, party, anything, you never assume that everybody thinks the way you do. Even in cities like Miami or Orlando, where people are more liberal, your co-worker, neighbor, cousin and parents may have diametrically opposed political views.How has DeSantis succeeded in this environment? The typical formula has been to act as a moderate, but DeSantis has openly embraced the hard right.He has long been a Trump supporter and was a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus when he was in Congress. He got elected governor in 2018 by winning Trump’s endorsement and running a tongue-in-cheek ad with a jaunty tune and DeSantis exhorting his oldest child to “build the wall” with toy blocks.But he governed his first year by trying to lie low.Then came the pandemic. He tried to keep the state open, and he seemed to take criticisms of his looser pandemic policies personally. He started to score political points by portraying himself as a foe of the “corporate media” that conveyed virus restrictions endorsed by public health experts.You can talk to independents, even Democrats, who may not necessarily vote for him, but they remember the lasting impact DeSantis’s policies had on their children, that they could go to school. They are happy they were able to keep their businesses open.Is there a political risk for DeSantis’s re-election campaign in overreaching?He has so many advantages built in for him. He’s got a lot of money right now. He’s got Republicans down the ticket who are all going to campaign with him and for him. His party is much more organized in Florida, and it has a better operation to get their voters to the polls than the Democrats. It’s a governor election in a midterm year, during which Florida has reliably gone red for almost three decades.So even if there’s a feeling of overreach, is that enough for him to lose? Well, Democrats see a narrow path to victory. But it’s unlikely — it’s an uphill climb.More on Patricia Mazzei: She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and decided to become a reporter after working as a student journalist at the University of Miami, where a professor declared her to be a “muckraker.” She began her career in 2007 and began writing for The Times in 2017.For moreDeSantis is trying to channel the same culture war issues as Donald Trump, but with more discipline, The New Yorker explained in a profile.Florida teachers, worried about violating new state laws, are increasingly nervous about what they can say to their students in schools.DeSantis’s Democratic opponent for governor, Representative Charlie Crist, picked a teachers union leader as his running mate.DeSantis suspended four school board members after a Parkland school shooting report accused them of incompetence. One ousted member called the move “political retribution.”NEWSPoliticsThe redacted F.B.I. affidavit seeking court permission to search Donald Trump’s home.Jon Elswick/Associated PressProsecutors may be pursuing a theory that Donald Trump illegally obstructed Justice Department efforts to retrieve classified documents from him.Intelligence officials will review Trump’s handling of the documents for possible national security risks.President Biden’s student loan plan is the latest example of political limitations forcing Democrats to settle on patchwork solutions to solve economic problems.InternationalUkrainian women have taken on new roles in wartime, including demining and combat.Outrage over videos showing Finland’s prime minister dancing at parties led to a debate over whether she is held to a different standard than older, male leaders.Serbia’s president canceled Europride, a weeklong L.G.B.T.Q. celebration. Organizers pledged to go ahead as planned.HealthAnxious and depressed teens are increasingly prescribed multiple powerful psychiatric drugs, many of them untested in adolescents.Some public health officials expressed concern that the U.S. would fall short on distributing updated Covid vaccines in the coming weeks.Abbott Nutrition said it will resume production of its leading baby formula, months after its plant shutdown triggered a national shortage.FROM OPINIONOn women’s rights, Democrats are in an asymmetrical war. They should act like it, Maureen Dowd argues.Summer sequels are worse than ever — in politics and in movies, Pamela Paul writes.You don’t need an electric car to be as powerful as you might think, Edward Niedermeyer argues.Are you fun? Take Frank Augugliaro’s and Jessica Bennett’s quiz.Talk of secession — or even another American civil war — is escapist fantasy. We’re stuck with each other, says Sarah Vowell.The Sunday question: The way Americans pay for college is broken. What would fix it?President Biden’s plan to cancel student debt is a good start, says Suzanne Kahn, but more government funding for colleges would reduce students’ reliance on loans. Laura Arnold wants more visibility into school quality so students can know whether a loan is worth it.MORNING READSThe Giant Slide in Detroit.“The waxing was a little robust”: A giant slide sent a few too many riders airborne.The office’s last stand: It’s either the end of the flexibility era — or the beginning of rebellion.Chill out: San Franciscans are done apologizing for their cold summers.Sunday routine: An attendant keeps the clock for tennis players at a New York park.Advice from Wirecutter: Bug zappers kill the wrong bugs.A Times classic: How often should you really wash your hair?BOOKSGetting published: The industry is intimidating. How does a writer break in?By the Book: James Hannaham resists the very idea of genres.Times best sellers: “Diana, William, and Harry,” a biography by James Patterson and Chris Mooney, is a hardcover nonfiction best seller. See all our lists here.THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINEArielle Bobb-Willis for The New York TimesOn the cover: Has Coco Gauff’s moment arrived?All the tips: How to do everything.The Ethicist: Is it OK that my friend keeps her anti-abortion views quiet?Eat: The seasonal gems of Japanese fruit sandwiches.Screenland: The app Be-Real captures our nostalgia for a simpler online era.Read the full issue.THE WEEK AHEADWhat to Watch ForNASA will launch a giant rocket on Monday in a first unmanned test of a spacecraft that aims to take astronauts to the moon for the first time in nearly a half-century.The C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, is expected to decide whether to offer doses of an updated Covid booster after an advisory panel meets Thursday and Friday.The Labor Department will release employment data for August on Friday.The MTV Video Music Awards are tonight. LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj and Jack Harlow are the hosts.Tennis’s U.S. Open will start Monday. The men’s star Novak Djokovic will miss the tournament because he is unvaccinated and was not allowed into New York.What to Cook This WeekDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.Freed from picky eaters for a week (read: kids at camp), Margaux Laskey rounded up spicy, vegetable-abundant weeknight options, including spicy and saucy cherry tomato pasta, saag paneer and skillet chicken thighs with brown butter corn.NOW TIME TO PLAYHere’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:98 Across: Bridge that’s painted International OrangeTake 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, 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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      Biden’s Debt Relief

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      The president’s plan focuses on less affluent student borrowers.Fewer than 40 percent of Americans graduate from a four-year college, and these college graduates fare far better than nongraduates on a wide range of measures. College graduates earn much more on average; are less likely to endure unemployment; are more likely to marry; are healthier; live longer; and express greater satisfaction with their lives. These gaps have generally grown in recent decades.As a result, many economists have expressed skepticism about the idea of universal student-loan forgiveness. It resembles a tax cut that flows mostly to the affluent: Americans who attend and graduate college tend to come from the top half of the income distribution and tend to remain there later in life. College graduates are also disproportionately white and Asian.“Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee have written for the Urban Institute, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.”But the idea of loan forgiveness has nonetheless taken off on the political left. As Democrats have increasingly become the party of college graduates living in expensive metropolitan areas — and as the cost of college has continued rising, while income growth for many millennials has been disappointing — loan forgiveness has obvious appeal.These crosscurrents put President Biden and his aides in an awkward position. Biden fashions himself as a working-class Democrat. (He is the party’s first presidential nominee without an Ivy League degree since Walter Mondale.) He did not initially campaign on a sweeping plan of college debt relief, adding it to his agenda only after he defeated more liberal candidates in the primaries, as a way to reach out to their supporters.Yesterday, after months of behind-the-scenes work and internal debate, Biden finally announced his plan for loan forgiveness. And it is an attempt to find a middle ground.A graduation in New Jersey.Seth Wenig/Associated Press‘The worst of both’By definition, the plan will not help the many Americans who do not go to college. But its benefits are targeted at lower-income college graduates and dropouts, especially those who grew up in lower-income families. Compared with other potential debt-forgiveness plans, Biden’s version is much more focused on middle-class and lower-income households.It is restricted to individuals making less than $125,000 (or households making less than $250,000), which will exclude very high earners at law firms, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. For anybody under this income threshold, the plan will forgive up to $10,000 in debt. For somebody who received Pell Grants in college — a federal program focused on lower-income families — the plan may forgive an additional $10,000.More broadly, Biden also said he wanted to enact a new rule to restrict future payments on college loans to no more than 5 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income, down from between 10 percent and 15 percent now.(My colleagues Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard have written a Q. and A. that is full of useful information about the plan.)The emphasis of Biden’s plan partly reflects academic research that has found that the people who struggle the most to repay their loans don’t fit a common perception. They are less likely to be baristas with six figures in debt and a graduate degree than blue-collar workers who have a smaller amount of unpaid loans but never graduated college. That worker, Biden said yesterday, has the “worst of both worlds — debt and no degree.”A study by Judith Scott-Clayton of Columbia University found that the loan-default rate for borrowers without any degree was 40 percent. For those with a bachelor’s degree, it was less than 8 percent.The details of Biden’s plan mean that it targets the people most likely to default, rather than the caricature of them. “$10k will forgive ALL the debt of many millions of borrowers,” Susan Dynarski, a Harvard University economist — and herself a first-generation college graduate — tweeted yesterday. As an example, she cited “those who went to community college for a semester or two.”There is still some uncertainty about whether the plan will be implemented. Biden is enacting it through executive action because it seems to lack the support to pass in Congress, and opponents may challenge it in court.“Let the lawsuits begin over presidential authority,” Robert Kelchen of the University of Tennessee predicted. “I wouldn’t count on forgiveness happening for a while, and it may go to the Supreme Court.”More commentary“Thoughtful people disagree on student loan forgiveness,” Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, wrote on Twitter. He praised the plan as a form of “disaster relief” that addressed the struggles of younger workers during the decade-plus since the Great Recession began.Matthew Chingos of the Urban Institute has noted that the income cap increases the share of debt forgiveness that flows to Black borrowers.Susan Dynarski told me she was “thumbs up” on the plan but wished people did not need to apply for forgiveness, because some would fail to do so. The government has the data it needs to cancel debt automatically, she said.Progressive groups were mostly supportive of the plan. Indivisible called it a “bold move to improve the lives of working people.”Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, said: “Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt.”Democrats in competitive elections had mixed reactions. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia called for even more debt relief. Representative Tim Ryan, running for an Ohio Senate seat, criticized the plan: “Instead of forgiving student loans for six-figure earners, we should be working to level the playing field for all Americans.”THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsSince the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats have made steady gains in midterm polls. Party leaders are beginning to believe they can keep control of Congress.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis took the unusual step of endorsing 30 candidates in county-level school board races. At least 20 of them won.InternationalThe New York TimesHere’s how China could blockade Taiwan, cutting off the island in its campaign to take control of it.A Russian missile killed at least 22 people at a train station as Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day.Hungary fired two top weather officials after an inaccurate forecast led the government to postpone holiday fireworks.Other Big StoriesCalifornia will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a move that could accelerate the global transition to electric vehicles.The school board in Uvalde, Texas, fired the police chief who led the response to the May 24 shooting.A jury awarded Vanessa Bryant $16 million in her lawsuit over photos of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, and daughter Gianna.Artificial intelligence is making remarkable strides. The Times’s Kevin Roose asks what it will mean when computers can write and create art.Mack Rutherford, 17, became the youngest pilot to complete a solo flight around the world in a small plane.OpinionsLong Covid sufferers are running out of savings, treatment options and hope, Zeynep Tufekci writes.“Managed retreat” is needed to avoid the worst of climate change. But even after a disaster, many residents don’t want to move, say Anna Rhodes and Max Besbris.More women should coach boys’ sports, Abby Braiman writes in The Washington Post.MORNING READSJeanne Bédard and Jessica Gagnon, Montreal, 2015.Look-alikes: Your doppelgänger is out there.‘The big one’: Here’s the story behind New York City’s bizarre nuclear attack P.S.A.Treasure hunting: Choosy shoppers are bypassing Brooklyn for the Newburgh Vintage Emporium.Not that Robby Thomson: The manager who’s often asked to sign someone else’s baseball card.Touchy-feely: When your boss is crying, but you’re the one being laid off.A Times classic: How to age well.Advice from Wirecutter: Great gifts for cat and dog lovers.Lives Lived: Known for his larger-than-life personality and his Vietnam War photographs, Tim Page was a model for the crazed photographer played by Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now.” Page died at 78.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICAn ominous injury: Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 pick in the 2022 N.B.A. Draft, is feared to have torn ligaments in his foot at a pro-am game last week in Seattle. Have we seen the end of N.B.A. players showing up at unofficial summer tuneup events?A new era for the P.G.A. Tour: Golf’s primary governing body announced sweeping changes to drastically increase pay and, likely, star power throughout the season. The moves come shortly after LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed rebel circuit, wooed top players with eye-popping guaranteed contracts. Welp.Who won the Kevin Durant saga? The Brooklyn Nets superstar himself doesn’t look great after his trade request went unfulfilled. But now fans face a must-watch reality of Durant, Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons (finally) playing together. The intrigue countdown clock is set.ARTS AND IDEAS Gerry Kulzer in 2020 when he temporarily filled in as a butter sculptor.Becky Church/Midwest DairyGrade AA artThere’s been a changing of the guard in Minnesota. When the state fair opens today, Gerry Kulzer will be the official butter sculptor, taking over for a predecessor who held the role for 50 years.A sculptor has carved blocks of butter into busts of the finalists in the fair’s dairy pageant since the 1960s. (The contest’s winner earns the title Princess Kay of the Milky Way.) Kulzer, an art teacher who usually works with clay, understands that his new medium will not be easy. “To capture a person’s likeness is really tough,” he said. “Especially when you’re in a 40-degree refrigerator.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookCon Poulos for The New York TimesThis yogurt-marinated grilled chicken is inspired by Turkish chicken kebabs.What to Read“Diary of a Misfit,” a memoir by Casey Parks, pieces together the elusive queer history of a musician in the Deep South.ComedyAfter 15 years of experimental stand-up, Kate Berlant’s solo show is a departure.Now Time to PlayThe pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were kitchen, kitchenette and thicken. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: ___ Jenner, most-followed woman on Instagram (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. — DavidP.S. The latest “The New York Times Presents,” available on Hulu, is about an influential doctor who spreads Covid misinformation.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the death of Daria Dugina. “Popcast” is about Rage Against the Machine’s return.Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Lauren Hard, 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