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      Could Congressional Gridlock Lead to More Government Shutdowns?

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      Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns.The House speaker elections last week turned a typically routine government procedure into a dramatic affair. They also exposed a major vulnerability in Congress: A small segment of lawmakers can stop the process of basic governance to obtain what it wants, with potentially big ramifications for the country.In the speaker fight, the immediate consequences were relatively small. A Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is leading a majority-Republican House.More critical is how Republicans got there. McCarthy made concessions that will weaken his power, make it easier for lawmakers to oust him and give the right-wing rank-and-file greater input in legislation and in lawmakers’ assignments to committees, where Congress does much of its work.The graver consequences will unfold months from now if the ultraconservatives who prolonged the speaker selection again withhold their votes until they have their way on looming spending bills. Congress must pass such legislation to keep the government open and avoid economic calamity. If deadlines for these bills come and go without a resolution, the government could be forced to shut down or, worse, default on its debt obligations, likely triggering a financial crisis. (More on that later.)The right flank has already connected its opposition to McCarthy to such spending bills. In speeches during the four-day speaker battle, far-right Republicans cited a $1.7 trillion spending bill Congress passed last month to argue that establishment figures, including McCarthy, have failed to reduce government spending. Among the concessions that ultraconservatives drew from McCarthy was a promise that any increase on the country’s debt limit, a congressionally set cap on the federal debt, will be paired with spending cuts.Some hard-liners have been clear that they would take drastic action again to have their way on spending. “Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? That’s a nonnegotiable item,” said Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican critic of McCarthy who ultimately voted for him.Representative Matt GaetzHaiyun Jiang/The New York TimesDeliberate gridlockThe ultraconservatives have said that one of their main goals is to shrink the size of government. “If you don’t stop spending money that we don’t have to fund the bureaucracy that is undermining the American people, we cannot win,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Republican who voted against McCarthy in 11 ballots.One way to achieve this goal is by pushing Congress toward inaction. Consider some of the assurances the holdout Republicans received from McCarthy: more time to read and debate legislation, as well as to propose unlimited changes to it.In theory, these changes might sound like common sense, since legislators should, ideally, be taking time to understand and finalize bills. But in practice, these kinds of allowances have slowed Congress’s work, if not halted it altogether, by giving lawmakers more chances to stand in the way of any kind of legislation.This roadblock is especially likely in a closely divided Congress. Since House Republicans have a slim majority of 222 votes out of 435, they must rely on their right-wing faction to reach a majority in any vote (absent unlikely support from Democrats). Last week, that faction showed it will wield its leverage.“It’s all about the ability — empowering us to stop the machine in this town from doing what it does,” Roy said.Coming deadlinesIf the ultraconservatives use these tactics in future legislative debates, Congress could miss deadlines to keep the government open and avoid a financial crisis.Among the looming fights is one over the debt limit. If the government ever reaches this limit, it can no longer borrow money to pay off its debts, potentially forcing a default. That could cause serious damage to the global financial system, which relies on U.S. Treasuries as a safe investment.The government is expected to hit the current debt limit in late summer. Republicans have already suggested that they will try to use negotiations over raising it to draw spending concessions from Senate Democrats and the Biden administration, a tactic that conservatives used during Barack Obama’s presidency. But Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt limit this time.If both sides stick to their word, the government could be on track for the most treacherous debt-limit debate since 2011, my colleague Jim Tankersley reported. That year, Obama and a new Republican House majority nearly defaulted on the nation’s debt before reaching a deal.Similarly, the government will have to pass a spending bill in September to remain open. Republicans have, again, suggested that they will use their control of the House to reduce government spending. Democrats have said that they will push back. If both sides fall short of an agreement, the government will shut down, halting or slowing functions like the payment of military salaries, environmental or food inspections and the management of national parks.The battle over the speaker, then, is potentially a preview of what’s to come: a Congress unable to perform even its basic duties because a small segment of lawmakers are willing to say no.More Congress newsHistory suggests that House Republicans’ plans are likely to bring more gridlock and instability, Carl Hulse writes.House Republicans are preparing to investigate law enforcement and national security agencies.THE LATEST NEWSBrazil RiotsSupporters of Jair Bolsonaro in Brasília yesterday.Evaristo Sa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThousands of supporters of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed the country’s Congress and presidential offices over false claims of a rigged election.Brazilian authorities cleared the government offices and arrested at least 200 people, an official said.These videos show how rioters stormed government buildings in protests that resemble the Jan 6., 2021, attack in the U.S.Bolsonaro is believed to be in Florida after spending months promoting the myth of a stolen election.InternationalTwo buses collided in Senegal, killing at least 40 people.Ultra-Orthodox politicians in Israel are pushing to cement their community’s special status under Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government.Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant rated the world’s best, will close next year. Its chef says its style of dining is unsustainable.Other Big StoriesPresident Biden made his first visit to the southern border since taking office.Winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people in Sacramento. More storms are coming to California this week.A new Korean War memorial has many names of American service members misspelled or missing.An avalanche buried and killed two snowmobilers in Colorado, emergency responders said.The Phoenix police are investigating their detention of a Black journalist for The Wall Street Journal who was reporting outside a Chase Bank.OpinionsNoncompete clauses lower wages and decrease competitiveness across the economy, says Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair.Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discussed the speaker chaos.Our society is failing visual thinkers, to everyone’s detriment, Temple Grandin writes.Damar Hamlin’s injury was serious but rare. Head trauma, heart disease and other more common conditions pose greater dangers to football players, Chris Nowinski writes.MORNING READSChatham, N.Y.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesExpensive, treacherous, beautiful: The battle over dirt roads.A $17,000 delay: A check-in agent’s mistake made her miss an Antarctic cruise.Metropolitan Diary: Food never tasted as good as it did at 3 a.m.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.7).A morning listen: 2022 was Bad Bunny’s year.Advice from Wirecutter: Stop killing houseplants. Try Lego flowers.Lives Lived: Russell Banks brought his blue-collar background to bear in novels that vividly portrayed working-class Americans. He died at 82.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICBears’ conundrum: Chicago will pick first overall in the 2023 N.F.L. Draft. Should they take an elite college quarterback or continue building around Justin Fields?N.F.L.: The Bills, in their first game since Damar Hamlin’s collapse, beat New England. Detroit’s win over Green Bay sent the Seahawks to the playoffs and cemented postseason seeding. An injury: Kevin Durant injured his right knee in last night’s Nets win over the Heat. ARTS AND IDEAS Kathleen FuThe man behind the memoirOne name you won’t find on the cover of Prince Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” is J.R. Moehringer, the book’s ghostwriter. That’s because the job of ghostwriters — even the famous ones, like Moehringer — is to put ego aside and disappear into their subject’s voice.Michelle Burford, who has written books for several celebrities, explains to her clients that they provide the materials to build a house and she puts it together. “You own the bricks,” she tells them. “But you — and there should be no shame in this — don’t have the skill set to actually erect the building.”Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter, is known for his intense process. “He’s half psychiatrist,” said the Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who collaborated with Moehringer on his memoir. “He gets you to say things you really didn’t think you would.”Related: Prince Harry appeared at ease and at times emotional in high-profile interviews.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRomulo Yanes for The New York TimesBroccoli and Cheddar soup has a following on the internet.What to ReadIn “The Edge of the Plain,” the journalist James Crawford asks whether good fences really make good neighbors.The PlaylistSeven songs we nearly missed last year, including tracks by Flo, Becky G and Karol G, Monster and Big Flock.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was judicial. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Vernon Dursley, to Harry Potter (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanP.S. Sapna Maheshwari, a Times business reporter, will cover TikTok and emerging media.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Speaker McCarthy.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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      Your Wednesday Briefing: Chaos in the U.S. House Speaker Race

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      Also, China threatens countermeasures against travel restrictions.The 118th Congress took office on Tuesday.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMcCarthy twice fails Speaker voteKevin McCarthy lost both the first and second vote to become the House speaker as the 118th U.S. Congress took office yesterday. It was the first time the House has failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote since 1923. The third vote for new leadership is about to begin as we send this newsletter. You can follow live updates here.In the second vote, the existing anti-McCarthy votes consolidated behind Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. (Jordan is supporting McCarthy.) McCarthy did not pick up any votes.The mutiny was waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who, for weeks, have held fast to their vow to oppose McCarthy. The defection by 19 Republican lawmakers in both votes was a chaotic display of disunity within the party as it embarks on its first week in power in the House.Context: McCarthy, a California Republican, was once the favorite for House speaker, one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government. But a hard-right faction of his party opposed him, even as he made a series of concessions.What’s next: House precedent dictates that successive votes continue until someone secures enough supporters. But if McCarthy falls short, there is little modern precedent to govern the chaos that could ensue.Democrats: The party has a slim margin in the Senate. In the House, representatives voted unanimously for Hakeem Jeffries. He would be the first Black man to be minority leader. Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing speaker, leaves a legacy that will be difficult to match.China is dealing with a surge of Covid cases after it abruptly abandoned its “zero Covid” strategy.Alex Plavevski/EPA, via ShutterstockChina denounces travel restrictionsBeijing lashed out yesterday against Covid testing requirements imposed by more than a dozen countries on travelers coming from China, and threatened to take countermeasures.China’s foreign ministry labeled the entry requirements — including those set by Canada, the U.S., France, Spain, Japan and Britain — as unscientific and “excessive.” The ministry accused the countries of introducing restrictions for political reasons and said that China may take reciprocal measures.The restrictions on travelers from China include requiring a negative Covid test or mandatory testing upon arrival. But it’s unclear if China will change its own Covid policy. Even after it eases travel restrictions this Sunday, China will still require incoming travelers to show a negative P.C.R. test taken within 48 hours before departure.Justification: Some countries have cited concerns about Beijing’s perceived reluctance to share coronavirus data with the world and the potential risk of new variants emerging from China’s surging outbreak. However, many health experts have said that travel restrictions will not stop new variants.Cases: Bloomberg reports that crematories in China are overflowing as people die of Covid.Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the site under heavy guard yesterday morning.Ammar Awad/ReutersA provocation in IsraelItamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount yesterday, two days after he took office as Israel’s national security minister. Palestinian and Arab leaders reacted with fury and condemnation.The Temple Mount, a frequent flash point in Jerusalem, is a sacred site to both Muslims and Jews. But Palestinians and many Muslims view such visits, particularly by Israeli politicians with a nationalist and religious agenda, as part of an effort to alter its status and give Jewish worshipers more rights. (Muslims can pray there; Jews are not supposed to do so, though they are permitted to visit.)Ben-Gvir’s visit, the first by a high-level Israeli official in years, defied threats of repercussions from the Islamic militant group Hamas. So far there has been no violent reaction. Ben-Gvir is an outspoken ultranationalist, and religious nationalists have increasingly demanded equal prayer rights for Jews.Background: Tensions at the compound set off fighting between Israel and Gaza in 2022 and 2021. Ariel Sharon’s visit to the site in 2000, when he was Israel’s right-wing opposition leader, has been widely credited as a factor that set off the second Palestinian intifada.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificFor the Philippines, a deeply Catholic nation, the timing heightened the sense of tragedy.Bureau of Fire Protection/EPA, via ShutterstockThe fatal Christmas Day floods in the Philippines have displaced thousands.Japan’s plan to raise its ceiling on bond purchases sent a jolt through global markets, which have long relied on its ultralow interest rates.Japan is offering families one million yen — about $7,600 — to move from Tokyo to regions with aging and declining populations, The Guardian reports.South Korea and the U.S. are discussing joint nuclear planning to counter North Korea, Reuters reports.From Opinion: Ajai Shukla, a strategic affairs analyst and former Indian Army officer, explains why China and India are fighting in the Himalayas.The War in UkraineUkraine said it shot down all of the exploding drones Russia launched this year as it grows more able to resist the assault on its infrastructure.Russian military bloggers have avoided criticizing President Vladimir Putin for Ukraine’s attack in Donetsk. Instead, they targeted incompetent officials and the West.National gas prices in Europe fell to pre-invasion levels, thanks to warm weather, alternatives to Russian gas and a buildup of storage.The U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division has deployed to Europe for the first time since World War II. Troops are stationed in Romania, a seven-minute rocket flight from Russian stockpiles of munitions in Crimea.Around the WorldSofiane Bennacer, center right, is under police investigation on rape charges.Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA, via ShutterstockThe César Awards, France’s top film honors, will bar nominees convicted of or under investigation for sexual assault from next month’s ceremony.Brazilian officials estimate that 230,000 Brazilians paid their respects to Pelé at a stadium in Santos, the city he made famous as the star of its soccer club.Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old football player, is in critical condition after going into cardiac arrest during a game. Fans are complicit in the violence of the lucrative sport, Kurt Streeter writes in an analysis.A Morning ReadDr. Behija Gasri struggles to hold onto the surge of hope she had felt during the revolution.Zied Ben Romdhane for The New York TimesTunisia’s road to democracy began with a self-immolation. These days, frustrated young people still light themselves on fire, but their acts of protest change nothing. Instead, they fill the country’s top hospital burn ward as Tunisia’s march toward democracy and prosperity fails.ARTS AND IDEASJon HanThe happiness challengeThe Times has a new seven-day happiness challenge, which offers advice on a crucial element of living a good life: your social ties and relationships.The series is based on the longest-running in-depth study on human happiness in the world. For the past 85 years, researchers at Harvard have been tracking 724 participants, and, now, three generations of their descendants, asking detailed questions and taking DNA samples and brain scans.From all the data, one very clear finding has emerged: Strong relationships are what make for a happy life. More than wealth, I.Q. or social class, it’s the robustness of our bonds that most determines whether we feel fulfilled.To get started, take this quiz to assess the strength of your current relationships. Then, take stock of your current relationships and reach out to someone you love for a quick call.Sign up for the rest of the challenge, here.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York TimesOvernight oats are a creamy and easy breakfast.What to WatchOn the Netflix show “Mind Your Manners,” Sara Jane Ho brings practicality, and an East-meets-West perspective, to etiquette.PhotographyA French photographer documented Los Angeles’s video game parlors.AstronomyExpect solar eclipses this year. (Sync your calendar to never miss one.)Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Per person (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Myanmar gained its independence 75 years ago today.“The Daily” is on Kevin McCarthy’s bid for U.S. House Speaker.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      The Pocket Chinese Almanac Sees Some Hope for 2023

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      A little book bases its forecasts on a geomancer in Hong Kong, and says next year will be “nowhere near as bad” as 2022.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. It’s time to venture into predictions for 2023. We’ll also look at how progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans are clashing on what may be the most ideologically diverse City Council ever.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThis time last year, I asked Joanna Lee about predictions for 2022. She said, “My heart sank.”She had her husband, Ken Smith, have compiled and annotated the “Pocket Chinese Almanac” annually since 2010. So — after a year with a war in Ukraine, stubborn inflation in this country and a chronic housing shortage in New York — what do they see ahead?“It’s nowhere near as bad,” Smith said.Financial businesses and the travel industry will have “particularly rocky periods coming up,” Lee said — and it is not clear what will do well in 2023.They base the forecasts in their little book on the calculations of a geomancer, a Hong Kong architect named Warwick Wong. He said 2023 would be dominated by “wood and fire,” a shift away from “metal,” which had been dominant in recent years.Smith said “fire” includes energy — oil, natural gas and electricity — as well as what he called “high-energy fields” like public relations, marketing and the law.“At every turn, you have people who are trying to grab and control the narrative in some way that will offer some kind of clarity” as the pandemic fades, Smith said. He said the arts provided an example: “The initial story was going to be people are going to flock back to entertainment and into theaters, that two years of isolation would be over,” he said. Lee finished the thought: “Now that is not the case, or it is in some areas and not others. People are going out, but they’re more judicious.”Lee said it was less clear how to translate “wood” to modern life. It could be taken to refer to construction, but when I asked if there would be a construction boom, she said not necessarily. “When one place builds a lot, another place sees a lot of destruction,” she said. “We just don’t know where there will be the boom.”“The Pocket Chinese Diary” is an ultra-Reader’s Digest version of predictions in larger Chinese almanacs. Each page in their 128-page book measures a mere 4⅛ inches by 2½ inches. It is faithful to the original Chinese and, in turn, to the agrarian society that China once was. So, for each day of the year, there is an entry with two headings: “good” and “bad.”Some days are good for rituals, weddings, breaking ground or other pursuits like “building stoves,” “raising pillars and beams,” “placing doors,” “digging ditches” or “the maiden voyage of a boat.” Some days are bad for those things. Next Tuesday — Jan. 3, the first workday of 2023 — will be good for such things as “cleaning house” and “pest control.”It is not the day to make wine or distill alcohol. It’s also a bad day for “breaking ground.”All of those terms are metaphors. Lee said that “cleaning house” was about “paring down to the essentials, or at least what is useful.” As for “pest control,” the almanac notes that “pests today are hardly limited to insects and rodents.”Lee also said Jan. 3 was not the day to look to. It’s still in the Year of the Tiger. The Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year of the Rabbit, does not begin until Jan. 23, a day that has an unusually long list of “good” pursuits, including some that do not sound metaphorical: meeting friends, moving, starting new jobs, starting a business and “renovating warehouses.”WeatherThe sun will be shining and temps will be in the low 40s. At night, it will be mostly clear with low temps around the high 30s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Sunday (New Year’s Day).The latest New York newsLaylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York TimesTeen shootings: Since Jan. 1, 149 people under 18 have been shot, according to Police Department data. Roughly one in every 10 New Yorkers struck by a bullet was a child.Blizzard deaths: The death toll from the storm in western New York continued to climb, with the mayor’s office in Buffalo reporting eight more fatalities.Santos comes clean: For a week, Representative-elect George Santos avoided answering questions from the media. Now, Santos is taking a new approach: creating the appearance of coming clean.On an ideologically diverse City Council, the G.O.P. gainsAhmed Gaber for The New York TimesAri Kagan used to be 1 of 46 on the New York City Council. Now, after doing the politically unthinkable, he is one of only six.Kagan was a Democrat, and Democrats have an overwhelming majority on the 51-person Council. But he switched parties, joining the Council’s five other Republicans.My colleague Jeffery C. Mays writes that the switch might help when Kagan runs for re-election next year, even if it means a loss of power and influence on the Council between now and Election Day. Kagan’s district in South Brooklyn is becoming more conservative. But Kagan said that was not the main reason he crossed the aisle. He said he believed that the Democratic Party, especially in New York, had drifted too far to the left.“It’s not me leaving the Democratic Party,” Kagan said. “The Democratic Party started to leave me.”There are other signs that Republicans are making inroads in New York City, where Democrats outnumber them seven to one. Every borough voted more Republican in last month’s elections than in the 2020 presidential year. Three Democrats in the State Assembly lost to Republicans in South Brooklyn.Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor, won Staten Island by 19 points more than Republicans won the borough by in the 2020 presidential election. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, defeated Zeldin by the smallest margin in a governor’s race in more than 30 years, in part because of how well Zeldin did in parts of New York City.Some on the far left have accused Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat who is a former registered Republican, of serving as an unspoken ally to Republicans. Adams regularly criticizes left-leaning Democrats, including members of the Council, and has a working relationship with Joseph Borelli, a Republican who is the Council’s minority leader.On the Council, policy disagreements have underscored the gulf between liberals and the handful of Republicans.Tiffany Cabán, a Queens councilwoman who is on the progressive caucus and leads the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, received threatening emails and calls from the public, along with derogatory and vulgar comments about her Latina heritage and sexual orientation earlier this fall.The threats closely followed an appearance on Fox News by Joann Ariola, a Republican councilwoman, who called Cabán a “chaos inciter” for suggesting ways that small-business owners could deal with homeless or mentally ill people without calling the police.“What they’re doing is part and parcel of that far-right playbook,” Cabán said of Republicans on the Council. “You whip up fear and hatred of people of color, queer people, and you foment political violence. It’s what Tucker Carlson does every day. It’s what Marjorie Taylor Greene does.”METROPOLITAN diaryOwenEvery week since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has published stories by, and for, New Yorkers. Readers helped us pick the best Diary entry of the year, and Owen was a finalist in this year’s voting.Dear Diary:My mother died earlier this year. It was sudden and unexpected. In the weeks that followed, I was taking care of my father in addition to my children. I was so busy that I barely had a chance to cry.After about a month, I took a day off work to go to the Fotografiska Museum and then to meet my husband for lunch nearby.After viewing an exhibition of nude photography, I walked directly into one that was a chronicle of the life and death of the artist’s mother.The weight of the previous month and the unexpected connection to the artist hit me hard. I sat down in the mostly empty museum and sobbed.I tried to be quiet and inconspicuous there in the dark room, but before long a man approached me and asked if I was OK.I told him that my mother had died recently and that I just missed her so much.He sat down next to me, rubbed my back after politely seeking my consent and told me he would sit with me as long as I needed.I asked his name.Owen, he said.He asked mine.Suzie, I replied.And my mother’s?Stephanie.He said he would hold us in his heart and he asked if I needed a hug.I did. Even in heels, I stood on tiptoes to embrace a total stranger and sob into his shoulder. I thanked him with every fiber of my being.I skipped the final exhibition and ran to meet my husband. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t bear to see Owen’s face in the light.— Suzanna Publicker MetthamIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Morgan Malget and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      $142,000 a Year: State Legislators’ Expected New Salary

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      Lawmakers are headed to Albany today to vote themselves a raise that would make them the best-paid legislators in the nation.Good morning. It’s Thursday. We’ll find out why the State Senate and the Assembly will convene today in an unusual special session. We’ll also look at why some New Yorkers say race shapes the criticism of Mayor Eric Adams.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesState lawmakers are gathering in Albany today to give themselves a raise. If only a salary bump were that easy for everyone. The bill before the lawmakers, who already get six-figure base salaries for a five-month scheduled session in Albany, would boost their pay to roughly twice the median family income in the United States and slightly more than five times what lawmakers in neighboring Connecticut make. I asked my colleague Jesse McKinley for details.How are lawmakers in New York paid in comparison with other state legislators?Pretty darn well. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, New York lawmakers rank No. 2 in the nation in base pay, thanks to a raise they received in 2018. California, which has a habit of besting New York in all kinds of categories (population, economic output, number of professional baseball teams) is No. 1 for the moment.Won’t this make lawmakers in New York the best-compensated in the nation?Yes, with Thursday’s anticipated pay hike, Albany’s 213 lawmakers will now have the highest base salary of any in the country: $142,000 a year, from the current $110,000 a year. State lawmakers in California will still be taking home $119,702 a year.What’s the catch?The concession made by lawmakers to get that $32,000 raise is that they will agree to a $35,000 cap on outside income, something that good government groups have long pushed for (though some would like an even lower threshold for such nongovernment earning).The concern is the potential for corruption and conflicts of interest that could arise from, say, working in a law firm. Legislative leaders say this is a big step toward wiping out Albany’s well-deserved reputation for money-driven malfeasance. But the $35,000 limit won’t take effect until 2025, unlike the raise, which will take effect on Jan. 1.Why did they go back to Albany for one day just to give themselves a raise?Albany loves leaving things till the last minute, including its budgets, which used to be chronically late and now are only periodically late.The more germane answer, however, is that the bill authorizing the raise has to be approved before the new session of the Legislature begins in January. Lawmakers cannot vote themselves a raise that takes effect during the same session as the vote. It says so in the state Constitution. Obviously time is running out between now and January — hence, a lot of people descending on the capital for a one-day-only session.Will Gov. Kathy Hochul sign the bill raising their compensation? What happens if she decides not to sign it?The governor hasn’t explicitly said she’ll sign the bill to hike the lawmakers’ pay, but she’s expressed support for such an increase in the past. Also, it seems unlikely to me that the legislators would go all the way back to Albany without an implicit understanding that Hochul — a Democrat, like the leaders that control both houses of the Legislature — is cool with higher salaries.If she decided not to sign the bill, my best guess is that she would get very few Christmas presents from legislative leaders this year.What has the reaction been?Giving yourself a raise is always a bad look for politicians, even if many outside groups agree that it’s not unjustified. Republicans have lambasted the raise — and its timing during a “special session” — and some watchdog groups have said it doesn’t go far enough to limit outside earning.But legislative leaders stand by it, including the speaker of the Assembly, Carl Heastie. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world,” he said recently, “that could compensate you for being away from your families.”WeatherPrepare for wind gusts and rain persisting through the evening. Temps will be steady around the low to mid-50s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Dec. 26.The latest New York newsJohnny Milano for The New York TimesCrimeSuffolk cyberattack: The malicious cyberattack that forced the county government offline for weeks this fall began more than a year ago, officials revealed.Brooklyn subway shooting: The man accused in a shooting spree on an N train has told his lawyers he wants to admit to the April attack. He is expected to plead guilty to terrorism as well as a firearms charge.Councilman’s home invaded: Protesters descended on the home and the office of a gay member of the New York City Council, vandalizing the walls with homophobic graffiti and attacking one of his neighbors, over his support for Drag Story Hour events at libraries.More local newsA fall triathlon: The New York City Triathlon will move to the fall, with a race date of Oct. 1, following years of interruptions from extreme summer heat.Seasonal staples are back: After one holiday season lost to the pandemic and another curtailed by Omicron, “The Nutcracker” is being danced, “A Christmas Carol” is being performed and “Messiah” is being sung again.“Almost Famous” closing: “Almost Famous,” a stage adaptation of the acclaimed 2000 film, will close on Broadway on Jan. 8 after facing soft ticket sales in a competitive market.Race and criticism of the mayorDavid Dinkins in 1988.Joyce Dopkeen/The New York TimesThe end of the year is in sight — the end of Mayor Eric Adams’s first year in office. It has been a difficult 12 months in which he faced the challenges of moving the city past the pandemic, reinvigorating a weakened economy and tempering heightened fears of crime.Some New Yorkers have questioned whether he moved fast enough to address intractable problems like homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. Complaints have also focused on his hiring practices, his response to the crisis at the Rikers Island jail complex and how he handled the influx of migrants from Texas.But my colleagues Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons write that several Black leaders are raising concerns that criticism of the mayor has been shaped by race. They suggest that implicit racism undermined Mayor David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, a generation ago, and could undercut Adams now.Adams himself said that he was accustomed to criticism, but that when some people “look at these two Black mayors, Dinkins and my role now, there are those that wish we fail.”“Look at all the mayors,” he said. “Dinkins and I are the only two mayors that people talk about how we went out at night. They used to say he had a tuxedo in his car all the time because he went out to different galas and balls and what have you. That’s the role of the mayor.”Adams’s allies may be hoping to discourage criticism at a time when his popularity appears to be waning: In a recent Siena College poll, 50 percent of voters in the city viewed him favorably and 35 percent unfavorably.Adams, a former police captain, has sought to have a better relationship with the police than Dinkins did: He brought back a controversial plainclothes police unit. He has also dispatched waves of officers to address crime on the subway and protected police funding in his budget while often standing by officers accused of misconduct.Adams said he had drawn two lessons from Dinkins’s loss to Rudolph Giuliani in 1993: Focus on making “real changes in office” and do not allow your political coalition to erode. He has made sure that his base feels heard after winning the mayoralty with a coalition of Black and Latino voters and moderates outside Manhattan.“My secret sauce is everyday working-class families,” he said, adding that he had met some of those families on a recent visit to the Rockaways in Queens. “They’re just not complicated. They just want a safe place to raise their children and families. Those are my folks.”METROPOLITAN diaryRock, rock, rockDear Diary:“Rock, rock, rock,” I heard a voice repeating. “Rock, rock, rock.”I was walking up a trail into the Ramble in Central Park when I came upon the voice’s owner: a tall, slender man with a twist of silver hair over one eye.I waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was that he was doing.“Rock, rock, rock,” he said again in a monotone. “Rock, rock, rock.”Two minutes later, a red cardinal flew down from a tree, landed on a large flat rock and did the hokey pokey, hopping tentatively toward the middle of the rock.That was when I noticed a single peanut in the shell sitting there. The cardinal grappled with how to lift the nut. After finally securing it, the bird flew off.The man turned to me.“The wife is much smarter,” he said in a serious tone. “I’ve known the family for years. I never have to wait when she’s around.”— Sharyn WolfIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, Morgan Malget and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      The End of a Presidential Launchpad

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      Democrats stripped Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status.It was an inauspicious debut, to say the least. In February 1975, a little-known governor from Georgia named Jimmy Carter showed up in Des Moines, Iowa, to kick off an improbable campaign for president. His team rented a hotel ballroom and bought enough food for a crowd of 200 people. Three showed up.So Carter started working the streets and stores. Gerald Rafshoon, who was his media adviser, recalled the other day a story that later became famous. “Carter walks into a barbershop and says, ‘My name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for president,’” Rafshoon told me. “And the barber said, ‘Yeah, the boys and I were just laughing about that.’”From that modest start, however, something really big grew. Over the next year, Carter practically lived in Iowa and beat every other candidate in the caucuses that followed, propelling him to the White House. Now, nearly a half-century later, the Iowa launchpad is about to close down. With it will go the romance of the long-shot candidate who goes door to door in farm country to emerge from obscurity and reach the heights of American politics.At President Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee is moving around its presidential primary schedule to end Iowa’s marquee first-in-the-nation status. The party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee on Friday approved a schedule putting South Carolina first, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada and then Georgia and Michigan, dropping Iowa from the early lineup. For the changes to be adopted, the full D.N.C. still must sign off early next year.It is unclear whether Republicans will follow suit, but as my colleague Trip Gabriel wrote, “one of the most idiosyncratic and consequential pageants in American elections has come to its likely end.”‘The Big Mo’The Carter breakthrough in 1976 gave birth to generations of campaigns by little-known candidates hoping to replicate his stunning success. Iowa had never been a force in primary politics until then, but Carter’s team, which had noticed that George McGovern got a bounce out of a second-place showing in the state in 1972, decided to invest time and resources there.It was a humbling experience. Just getting a reporter to show up for an event was a major victory. “Anyone with a scratchpad and a tape recorder would send us into ecstasy,” Carter recalled to Jonathan Alter for his biography “His Very Best.” But, from nowhere, Carter got 28 percent of the vote on Jan. 19, 1976, placing him second behind “uncommitted,” with 37 percent, but ahead of all the flesh-and-blood candidates. He went on to win the New Hampshire primary that came next.Iowa was a proving ground for most candidates who followed. When George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan there in the 1980 Republican contest, he ecstatically declared that he had “the Big Mo,” or momentum, only to fall in New Hampshire afterward. In 2008, Barack Obama upset the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, demonstrating that a Black candidate could win in a predominantly white state and giving credibility to his underestimated campaign.Joe Biden in Iowa in 2020.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe winnowingIowa picked the ultimate Democratic nominee all but two times since that original 1976 contest, the exceptions being 1988, when Richard Gephardt won the caucuses only to lose the nomination to Michael Dukakis, and 1992, when Iowa’s own Senator Tom Harkin was running. On the Republican side, it has been less influential. Putting aside incumbents running for re-election, no Iowa winner has gone on to win the G.O.P. nomination since George W. Bush in 2000. But it has always played a role in winnowing the field.One candidate who did not particularly like getting winnowed was a senator and later vice president named Joseph R. Biden Jr. In 2008, Biden drew less than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa and dropped out. In 2020, he finished in a humiliating fourth place when he was the presumed front-runner, though he ultimately bounced back.No surprise, then, that Biden might not feel too committed to Iowa’s claim to the first vote. South Carolina, his choice for opening contest in 2024, is where he turned around his 2020 campaign.It did not help that the Iowa Democratic Party’s new app-based counting in 2020 was so botched that the winner did not emerge for days. (Under its complicated rules, Pete Buttigieg barely edged out Bernie Sanders for the most state delegate equivalents, the key metric.)And so that is the end of the Jimmy Carter scenario, at least for the Democrats. “When we decided to do it, it was one of the smartest things we did,” Rafshoon told me. Now, that is just a story in the history books.Related: The Democrats’ new primary calendar indicates that Biden plans to seek re-election.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsThe Supreme Court will hear a case on a Christian graphic designer who is opposed to working for same-sex couples.Georgia’s Senate candidates delivered their final campaign pitches before tomorrow’s runoff election. (These could be the most competitive precincts.)Donald Trump called for a “termination” of the Constitution, drawing some bipartisan criticism.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, is close to twin brothers with dubious financial pasts, a Times investigation found.InternationalA protest in Tehran in October.via Associated PressIran abolished its morality police, an official suggested, after months of unrest incited by the death of a woman they arrested.A Korean pop group is accusing an executive at its agency of abuse, reviving worries about exploitation in the industry.War in UkraineEurope and the United States started enforcing a price cap intended to limit Russia’s oil income. Russia threatened to cut off supplies.Germans are using heat pumps to warm their homes, an alternative to expensive Russian natural gas.War and sanctions are pushing Russia’s economy back in time.Other Big StoriesInternal documents from Twitter revealed how the company handled an unconfirmed news report about Hunter Biden.Gunfire at two substations knocked out power for tens of thousands of people in North Carolina in what an official said was an “intentional” attack.A shipwreck or a piece of an old pier? An 80-feet wooden object emerged on a Florida beach.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens (already) discuss presidential primaries.Georgia’s runoff election has big implications for judicial appointments, the 2024 election and more, Ross Barkan argues.North Carolina has been ground zero for Republican attempts to manipulate elections. Now they want to do the same nationwide, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, argues.MORNING READSAlessandro Michele’s fall 2018 collection for Gucci.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesFreaky, geeky Gucci: Alessandro Michele changed how people dress.Vows: They met in study hall.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 9.8).Metropolitan diary: Choosing a special park bench.A Times classic: The colleges where graduates are most (and least) likely to get married.Advice from Wirecutter: Check yourself for signs of hearing loss.Lives Lived: Bob McGrath was an original “Sesame Street” cast member who played an advice-giving music teacher for nearly half a century. He died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICInjury: The San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo broke his foot in the 49ers’ win over Miami yesterday, a blow for the team’s Super Bowl aspirations. Brock Purdy subbed in. Elected: Fred McGriff earned entry into baseball’s Hall of Fame yesterday by a unanimous vote from the Contemporary Era Committee. He hit 493 home runs across 19 seasons.College Football Playoff: Georgia, Michigan, T.C.U. and Ohio State will decide this year’s national champion, arguably the toughest decision the playoff committee has had to make.WORLD CUPRound of 16: France beat Poland, 3-1, and England won 3-0 against Senegal.Suriname: The tiny country is responsible for some of soccer’s greatest players.Lionel Messi: This is how a team could stop him.Spot the ball: We removed it from these photos. Where do you think it was?Today: Japan plays Croatia at 10 a.m. Eastern, and Brazil faces South Korea at 2 p.m.ARTS AND IDEAS A gift that goes back millenniumsBooks are, in many ways, the quintessential gift: They offer infinite variety, are easily wrapped and can be tailored to the recipient. So it makes sense that they have been a favorite of holiday giving for as long as people have had holidays, Jennifer Harlan writes.A Roman gift guide for the celebration of Saturnalia by the first-century poet Martial included several texts on parchment, including works by Virgil and Cicero and Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” In December 1851, just a few months into The Times’s existence, the paper declared a “season of Book-blossoms,” adding, “The Holidays act upon books like April upon trees.”To this day, the holiday book-buying rush continues. In Iceland, it is called the jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas book flood.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJoe Lingeman for The New York TimesThese sesame-brown butter udon noodles are slurpable and quick.What to WatchStream the year’s best Christmas movies.What to ReadJohn le Carré was one of the last great letter writers.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was conjoined. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tea variety (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.P.S. Lauren Leatherby, who has contributed to this newsletter, will cover Europe and the Middle East as a visual reporter in London.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about Ukraine’s winter. 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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      Pandemic Learning Loss

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      The role remote education played.Months into the current school year, most American students are still trying to make up for what they lost during the pandemic. This fall, we saw some of the clearest evidence yet of the extent to which the pandemic — and the school closures that came with it — hurt children’s education.Nine-year-olds lost the equivalent of two decades of progress in math and reading, according to an authoritative national test. Fourth and eighth graders also recorded sweeping declines, particularly in math, with eighth-grade scores falling in 49 of 50 states.The data comes from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a rigorous exam that evaluates thousands of children across the country and is overseen by a research arm of the U.S. Education Department.Today, I’ll break down the factors that drove these declines and explain an important trend that helps show why these results are so sobering.Remote learning’s roleFirst, to address one of the most common questions I hear as an education reporter: To what degree is remote learning responsible for these setbacks? The answer is both simple and complicated.At a basic level, there is good evidence and a growing consensus that extended remote learning harmed students. Some state test results from 2021 help show the damage. In Ohio, researchers found that districts that stayed fully remote during the 2020-21 school year experienced declines up to three times greater than those of districts that mostly taught students in person.More recently, the national test results capture both the initial academic declines and any recovery, and they offer some nuance. While there was a notable correlation between remote learning and declines in fourth-grade math, for example, there was little to no correlation in reading. Why the discrepancy? One explanation is that reading skills tend to be more influenced by parents and what happens at home, whereas math is more directly affected by what is taught in school.So remote learning does not explain the whole story. What else does? In a sophisticated analysis of thousands of public school districts in 29 states, researchers at Harvard and Stanford Universities found that poverty played an even bigger role in academic declines during the pandemic.“The poverty rate is very predictive of how much you lost,” Sean Reardon, an education professor at Stanford who helped lead the analysis, told me.Comparing two California school districts, one wealthier and the other poorer, illustrates this point. Cupertino Union, a Silicon Valley school district where about 6 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch (a marker that researchers use to estimate poverty), spent nearly half of the 2020-21 school year remote. So did Merced City in the Central Valley, where nearly 80 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, according to the Harvard-Stanford analysis.Yet despite spending roughly the same amount of time attending classes remotely, students in the wealthier Cupertino district actually gained ground in math, while students in poorer Merced City fell behind.High vs. low performersWhile the overall declines in student achievement were stark, the averages mask even deeper divergences between student groups. For example, Black and Hispanic students, who had started out behind white and Asian students in fourth-grade math, lost more ground than those groups during the pandemic.Notably, the gap is also growing between the country’s highest-achieving students and low-performing students who struggle the most.That gap — driven by declines among lower performers — was most clear for younger students and in reading. (Middle-school math declines were more significant across the board.)In fourth grade, the average reading score on the national exam fell three points. But results for students in the top 90th percentile did not fall at all, while those for students in the bottom 10th percentile plunged six points, double the overall average.In other words: The students who had the least ground to lose lost the most.There may be a twofold explanation. Recent research from NWEA, a nonprofit academic assessment organization, found that students at the bottom of their classes both experienced sharper setbacks at the start of the pandemic and showed less improvement last school year.I am sometimes asked: If the pandemic affected all students, how much does it matter? Isn’t everyone behind?What the latest data affirmed is that while the pandemic affected all students, it did not affect all students equally. That was true with remote learning, and it is playing out now in recovery. The students who had the greatest needs coming into the pandemic have the steepest challenge — and will need the most help — in the future.Related: On “The Daily,” I explained what schools can do to help students recover.THE LATEST NEWSProtests in ChinaDemonstrators in Beijing.Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesChina has witnessed its most defiant eruption of public anger in years, after a deadly apartment fire last week set off nationwide protests against Covid lockdowns.Anger with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, helps explain how the demonstrations gained momentum.Chinese spam flooded Twitter and obscured news about the protests, The Washington Post reported.PoliticsA strong midterm performance eased some Democrats’ fears about President Biden’s potential re-election bid.Attorney General Merrick Garland is recalibrating his political approach as the Justice Department investigates Donald Trump.Biden’s sweeping marijuana pardons do not apply to many people with minor convictions.Other Big StoriesGunmen in explosive vests stormed a hotel in Somalia, trapping government officials in an ongoing siege. The militant group Al Shabab claimed responsibility.A small plane crashed into power lines in Maryland, injuring two people and knocking out electricity to roughly 117,000 customers.Many developed countries have reduced roadway deaths, but the U.S. has failed to keep up.“I simply wanted to save the family I found”: Another patron helped stop the shooter during the attack on an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs.Millions of people in Houston were told to boil drinking water and schools were closed after a power failure at a purification plant.OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss gun violence.Just ignore Donald Trump, Patti Davis, a daughter of Ronald Reagan, writes.To protect patients, give older doctors competency assessments, Dr. Sandeep Jauhar writes.MORNING READSA wind farm in the North Sea.Francesca Jones for The New York TimesGreen transition: Oil and gas workers are finding jobs on Scotland’s wind farms.Vows: They met in an elevator and danced their way to a “beautifully intoxicating” romance.Metropolitan diary: The upside of a forgotten phone.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz, and share your score (the average was 9.4).Advice from Wirecutter: The best advent calendars.Lives Lived: Irene Cara was an Oscar-winning singer who performed the title tracks for “Flashdance” and “Fame.” She died at 63.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICEagles beat Packers: Philadelphia maintained the N.F.L.’s best record with a 40-33 win over the Packers late last night. Aaron Rodgers left the game with a rib injury.No. 1 goes down: The Alabama men’s basketball team upset top-ranked North Carolina in four overtimes.WORLD CUPMorocco’s Zakaria Aboukhlal scores against Belgium.Amr Abdallah Dalsh/ReutersShock: Morocco upset Belgium, leading to riots in Brussels. And Canada is out after losing to Croatia. Manager John Herdman’s ill-fated bravado before the match proved disastrous.Powers draw even: Germany kept its tournament hopes alive with a 1-1 tie against Spain.Taking stock: Do all these upsets make for a more exciting tournament?Protest battle: Iran called for the U.S. to be expelled from the competition over a social media post featuring an altered flag.Photo collage: A V.I.P. entrance at Qatar’s showpiece stadium replaced a mural celebrating migrant workers.Today: Cameroon is playing Serbia, and Brazil will face Switzerland this afternoon — though without its star, Neymar, who is injured. Here are the latest scores.ARTS AND IDEAS The modern wine barPlace des Fêtes in Brooklyn.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThey’re popping up all over New York City. But what is a wine bar, anyway?American wine bars used to be a novelty — a space for customers to learn about the intricacies of a bottle’s taste and production. They have evolved over the last few decades, finding success with a new formula: simple food, casual atmosphere, inexpensive wine by the glass.This relaxed approach sets wine bars apart from restaurants. “Good wine bars are informal neighborhood gathering places rather than destinations, with occasional exceptions,” our critic Eric Asimov writes. Some of his favorite wine bars introduce new trends, like natural and orange wines.For more: Eric picks New York’s best wine bars.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookPeter DaSilva for The New York TimesCacio e Pepe is simple but incredible.What to seePuerto Rican artists at the Whitney.What to WatchAn “Unsolved Mysteries” reboot from an executive producer of “Stranger Things,” and six other shows to binge.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was workload. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Moon goddess (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.P.S. Amanda Choy and Mantai Chow are joining Times Cooking to produce documentary-style videos.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the World Cup.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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      Marijuana Majority

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      Americans support marijuana legalization, but many of their political leaders do not.A decade ago, no American lived in a state where marijuana was legal to smoke, vape or eat recreationally. Today, nearly half of Americans do or will soon: Voters approved legalization ballot measures this month in Maryland and Missouri, bringing the number of states allowing any adult use to 21.Legalization may not make major news often anymore, but it’s a big deal. It amounts to America’s largest change to its drug policy in decades. By aligning marijuana with alcohol and tobacco, rather than harder drugs, the policy change is giving birth to a new industry. And, over time, it could reduce the hundreds of thousands of marijuana arrests made in the U.S. every year, freeing up police resources.The change came about largely because of the support of voters, not politicians or lawmakers. While the public backs legalization, some prominent political leaders do not: President Biden has said he’s opposed. Donald Trump has characterized legalization as an issue for states to decide, but his 2020 presidential campaign said marijuana should remain illegal.Voter supportA key reason for marijuana legalization’s success: It’s popular. About 68 percent of adults in the U.S. support legalization, a Gallup survey found last week. Even a majority of Republicans, who are typically more conservative on the issue, have told Gallup that they support legalization.Around two decades ago, public opinion was essentially the reverse: About 64 percent of U.S. adults said marijuana should not be legal.The shift toward support empowered legalization campaigns around the U.S. The 21 states that have legalized it have done so only since 2012, starting with Colorado and Washington. Three of those states reliably vote Republican: Alaska, Montana and Missouri.Why have voters come around to legalization? Advocates credit several issues. Much of the public now sees the broader war on drugs as a costly failure — and marijuana, widely viewed as less dangerous than alcohol, is an accessible target for policy changes. States’ experiments with medical marijuana, starting in the 1990s, helped make Americans more comfortable with loosening access. And the internet has made it easier for a grass-roots legalization movement to spread.Political oppositionSome leading lawmakers have not followed the shift in public opinion. Biden has said he opposes jailing marijuana users and pardoned thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law. But he also opposes legalization, putting him at odds with more than 80 percent of self-identified Democrats.Lawmakers’ opposition has led activists to rely largely on voter support to enact legalization. Of the 21 states where recreational marijuana is or will soon be legal, 14 approved the change through ballot measures.But there are limits to the ballot process. Not every state allows such initiatives. And the drug remains illegal at the federal level, stopping most big banks from working with marijuana businesses and raising the businesses’ tax bills.Even in states where voters approve legalization, marijuana may remain illegal. South Dakotans voted to legalize marijuana in 2020, but Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, took the measure to court and won. This month, South Dakotan voters rejected another legalization initiative.Some of the political resistance is easing. Congress passed its first stand-alone marijuana reform bill last week, which will allow for more research into medical uses if Biden signs it into law, as expected. Several state legislatures, including Vermont’s and Virginia’s, have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. Some prominent Democrats, like Senator Bernie Sanders and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, have voiced support for legalization.The shift is coming slowly, but perhaps typically: Whether they are considering action on prescription drugs or same-sex marriage, lawmakers often move well after voter support for an issue has solidified.For moreUnlicensed weed shops have exploded in popularity in New York City since the state legalized recreational marijuana last year.The state approved its first licenses for recreational marijuana retailers this week.THE LATEST NEWSMass ShootingsAn attacker opened fire at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va., leaving at least six people dead. The shooter was also found dead at the store, the police said.Colorado Springs is questioning its progress on gay rights after the deadly shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub there last weekend.PoliticsThe Supreme Court cleared the way for House Democrats to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns.The Biden administration extended its pause on federal student loan payments.Senator Lindsey Graham testified in a Georgia investigation into 2020 election interference by Trump, after fighting to avoid answering questions.Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader campaigning to become House speaker, visited the southwestern border and demanded the Homeland Security secretary resign.The VirusDr. Anthony Fauci at what was likely his last White House briefing.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesU.S. officials say they see a reduced Covid threat this winter, but urged people to get updated booster shots.Chinese officials have ordered businesses and schools in Beijing to close and locked down much of a major northern city as cases rise.Other Big StoriesTwo blasts during rush hour in Jerusalem killed one person and wounded at least 18 others. They were believed to be the first bomb attacks on Israeli civilians in years.After retaking the city of Kherson, Ukraine’s forces are trying to push Russian troops out of a strategic strip of land in the Black Sea. Follow updates.“Bregret”: Facing a grave economic slump, some British people are rethinking Brexit.OpinionsElon Musk might long for a bygone era of bro-boss workplaces, but most workers have moved on, Jessica Bennett writes.From Al Gore’s 2000 concession speech to Liz Cheney at the first Jan. 6 hearing, Thomas Friedman offers Thanksgiving readings to celebrate American democracy.The “momfluencer” industry has heightened already unrealistic expectations for American mothers, Jessica Grose says.MORNING READSDijon at the decks at Moogfest 2018.Jeremy M. Lange for The New York TimesUp from underground: The dance D.J. Honey Dijon is now everywhere.Mind farm: Researchers are investigating the inner lives of cows, pigs and chickens.Family treasures: A colander. A wooden Snoopy. Times readers shared their heirlooms.Advice from Wirecutter: Save money on heat and hot water.Lives Lived: Hebe de Bonafini helped build the protest movement the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo after her sons disappeared under Argentina’s military dictatorship. She died at 93.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICRankings: L.S.U. moved up to No. 5 in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, surprisingly one spot ahead of U.S.C. Preview: Here’s what to watch for in the N.F.L.’s Thanksgiving tripleheader.WORLD CUPPlayers for Saudi Arabia celebrate after a goal.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesShock victory: Saudi Arabia beat the heavily favored Argentina, 2-1, one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history. (These were some of the others.)A closer look: The loss invited scrutiny of a deal that the Argentine great Lionel Messi has signed to promote Saudi Arabia.“We got here six beers ago”: After Qatar banned the sale of beer in and around stadiums, British fans found a solution.Elsewhere in soccer: Cristiano Ronaldo will immediately leave his English Premier League team, Manchester United.Today’s matchups: Germany plays Japan this morning, and Canada faces Belgium this afternoon. Follow all of today’s matches.ARTS AND IDEAS Rozalina Burkova for The New York TimesThe year in booksLooking for a good holiday read? The Times Book Review has published its annual 100 Notable Books, a survey of the best books of the year in fiction, nonfiction and poetry.“I’m still pretty new to the Book Review,” Gilbert Cruz, who took over as editor this year, told us. “But I’ve been reading it forever, and this is possibly the most vibrant and wide-ranging Notables list that we’ve ever had — historical fiction, mysteries, thrillers, horror, translated literature, an exceptional crop of short-story collections, a fantastic graphic memoir. It really feels like there’s something for almost anyone.”Browse the full list.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist:Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Christina Lane.This cheesecake can customize however you want.One Day to ThanksgivingForgetting the salad is a common Thanksgiving faux pas. Here are three recipes that will balance out the richer dishes.Where to GoThe remote Andaman Islands offers Indian culture and spectacular beaches.Late NightThe hosts joked about Trump’s tax returns.Now Time to PlayThe pangrams from yesterday’s Spelling Bee were blanked and kneadable. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Colorado ski resort (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. Diplomats from China accused “one or two superpowers” of “aggression” at a U.N. Security Council meeting 51 years ago today.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about cooking the perfect turkey.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