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We explore America’s childhood death rate.If I drew you a graph that showed the death rate among American kids, you would see a backward check mark: Fewer kids died over the last several decades, thanks to everything from leukemia drugs to bicycle helmets. Then, suddenly, came a reversal.Child mortality rate More
Howard Lutnick? Scott Bessent? Marc Rowan? Kevin Warsh? The president-elect’s list of candidates has grown longer, clouding the future of the department.Who will get the key to head up the Treasury Department?Kevin Lamarque/ReutersRowan and Warsh shake up Treasury raceFew of the unfilled positions in Donald Trump’s cabinet are as important as Treasury secretary. But the question of who will fill the role is only getting cloudier.Allies of two candidates, Howard Lutnick, the transition co-chair, and Scott Bessent, a top economic adviser, publicly stumped for them this weekend. But The Times reports that the president-elect himself wants somebody “big” for the role and is now considering Marc Rowan, the C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor.Elon Musk, Dan Loeb and others are weighing in. Musk threw his support behind Lutnick over the weekend, calling Bessent “business as usual,” an especially cutting criticism in the Trump camp. That said, The Times reports that Trump has privately griped about Lutnick hanging around too much and potentially manipulating the transition process for his own benefit.Loeb backed Bessent, arguing that choosing Lutnick might rattle investors, including in the $28 trillion market for Treasury bonds and notes. That said, Bessent is also being floated for positions such as chair of the White House’s National Economic Council.Trump has told associates that he is impressed by Rowan, The Times reports. The president-elect tends to value wealth and status on Wall Street, and Rowan, a co-founder of Apollo who helped turn the firm into a $733 billion investment giant, has plenty of both.Rowan would be likely to reassure many on Wall Street, particularly given how unorthodox some of the other cabinet choices have been. But it’s unclear whether he would want to take such a public role, especially given his current work at Apollo. (How hard it would be to extricate Rowan from any “key man” provisions in the firm’s funds is another question.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
We explore Musk’s agenda and ideology. Over the course of the 2024 presidential campaign, Elon Musk went from dark-money donor to high-profile surrogate to unofficial chief of staff. He camped out at Mar-a-Lago after the election with the Trump family and hopped on Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president. He’s even played diplomat, meeting secretly in New York with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.Last week, the president-elect named Musk to co-lead a department focused on government efficiency, a role that will put him in a position to recommend the hiring and firing of federal workers and the restructuring of entire agencies. But it’s clear that Musk’s influence could reach far beyond even this.He and Trump are in sync on a lot of issues (immigration, trans rights). And although they diverge on some others (climate change and policies that push people toward electric vehicles), the world’s richest person has now allied himself with the leader of the free world whom he helped install in office, creating a political partnership unlike anything America has ever seen.In today’s newsletter, we will look at Musk’s agenda and ideology — and at what his influence in the new administration could mean for both him and the country.Big government dealsMusk previewed plans for his new job on the campaign trail.He said that the federal government’s $6.8 trillion budget should be slashed by at least $2 trillion and acknowledged that such draconian cuts would “necessarily involve some temporary hardship.” Slashing and burning is certainly one of his hallmarks: He laid off 80 percent of X’s staff after buying the company — then called Twitter — in late 2022.Musk has a lot to gain from a second Trump administration. His businesses are already entangled with the federal government, which awarded them $3 billion in contracts across numerous agencies last year. His rocket company, SpaceX, launches military satellites and shuttles astronauts to the International Space Station. Even before the election, Musk asked Trump to hire SpaceX employees at the Defense Department, presumably to further strengthen their ties.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
World of Warcraft was first released two decades ago. You might not have played World of Warcraft, but you probably know of it. The game, which turns 20 this year, inspired an Emmy-winning “South Park” episode and a (not-so-great) movie. Its fans include celebrities like Henry Cavill and Mila Kunis.WoW, as the game is known, was social media before social media. As a teenager, I would log on as my undead mage character mostly to hang out with my friends. What we did together was certainly different than how people use today’s social media; I do not typically hunt giant dragons on Facebook or Instagram. But it was a chance to socialize with the people I had met in the game. It was also, as a 16-year-old, the only space I felt safe being openly gay.The game was truly huge. When it was released 20 years ago, so many people tried to play that the servers struggled for weeks to handle the demand. At its peak, WoW had more than 12 million monthly subscribers worldwide, making it one of the biggest games of its time. More than 100 million people have played it at one point or another.Perhaps most impressively, the game is still going. It got a new expansion, called The War Within, this year. Imagine everything that has changed in the world since 2004, when phones were still dumb and the biggest movie of the year was “Shrek 2.” WoW has endured all of that.My colleagues wrote about World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary in this lovely story that published today. We’ve included excerpts from their reporting below. I recommend reading the whole piece, which has many more interesting stories that we couldn’t fit in the newsletter.A welcoming space for womenA World of Warcraft fan in costume in 2014.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The Trump loyalist supports an “aggressive” antitrust approach and has called for breaking up Big Tech. But can the controversial nominee win Senate approval?Matt Gaetz may be Donald Trump’s most surprising and contentious pick yet to join his cabinet.Mike Blake/ReutersA “disrupter” for the Justice DepartmentMatt Gaetz is known for his outspoken defenses of Donald Trump, numerous scandals and a House ethics investigation. He can now add another distinction: being the president-elect’s pick to be nominee for attorney general.It isn’t clear whether Gaetz, perhaps the most divisive of Trump’s cabinet choices so far, will get Senate confirmation. But if he does, he could keep corporate America on its toes.Trump and his allies see the position of attorney general as especially important, given the president-elect’s numerous legal woes.The Times reports that Trump weighed more traditional candidates, including Jay Clayton, who was S.E.C. chair in his first administration, and Bob Giuffra, a co-chair of the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. But he ultimately chose a loyalist who supported efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Gaetz “is a disrupter,” said Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, praising Trump’s selection. Gaetz, who resigned from his position as representative of Florida last night, repeatedly challenged Republican leaders, picked fights with Democrats and pulled off stunts like trying to barge into the secure chambers for the House Intelligence Committee.Will he go after Trump’s perceived enemies, including in business? In his announcement on social media, Trump said that Gaetz would “dismantle Criminal Organizations” as part of a mission to bring “desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.” On X, Elon Musk wrote that “the Hammer of Justice is coming.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Leaders from across the Arab and Muslim world were in Riyadh for a meeting officially convened to discuss the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.Leaders from across the Arab world gathered on Monday in the capital of Saudi Arabia for a summit that came at a delicate moment for the kingdom, which has signaled a rapprochement with Iran after a violent, decades-long rivalry.The meeting was officially convened to discuss the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel’s military is battling Iran-backed militant groups. It takes place amid heightened regional tensions and the prospect of a hawkish Trump administration on Iran.Saudi Arabia had been preparing to recognize Israel, but the wars in Gaza and Lebanon cooled that prospect. Now, the kingdom and its allies find themselves warming to Tehran. Last month, the foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf states met for the first time as a group with their Iranian counterpart. On Sunday, the chief of staff of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces met with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran — further signaling a thaw in relations as Iran considers a response to Israeli attacks on its territory.Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, emphasized the relationship in his opening remarks at the summit on Monday.“We call on the international community to compel Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and not to attack its territory,” he told the audience in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been locked in a long battle for regional dominance, a rivalry shaped by the competing branches of Islam each country embraces. Iran’s network of regional proxies — which includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — has long been a particular source of concern for Saudi Arabia.While Hamas and Hezbollah have been weakened by the Israeli military’s operations in Gaza and Lebanon, Iran still arms and supports the Houthis in Yemen — a group that has been implicated in attacks on the kingdom.“The issue that we’ve had, and that was the basis for the divergence in our relationship, was Iran’s regional behavior, which from our perspective has not contributed to stability,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said last week. “We are having very, very clear and honest conversations with the Iranians.”Analysts said that Saudi Arabia could also be using the summit in Riyadh as an opportunity to send a message to the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald J. Trump has said he will “stop wars” when he takes office, noted Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.“Saudi Arabia could be trying to position itself as an attractive and credible choice for the Trump administration to work with if Trump follows through with his pledge to broker a deal to end the war, especially given the fact that diplomatic efforts led by other regional mediators, notably Qatar and Egypt, have failed to bear fruit,” Mr. Alhasan said. More
As Trump allies including Elon Musk endorse ending the Federal Reserve’s independence, the central bank’s chair is reportedly ready to go to court to fight back.Jay Powell appears ready to defend Fed independence, and his job.Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesA battle over the Fed’s future Donald Trump’s threat to exert more say over the Fed or even fire Jay Powell, the chair of the central bank, has alarmed some on Wall Street. But the president-elect’s effort took on added weight in recent days, after Elon Musk endorsed a push to erode the Fed’s independence.The fight shows how the future of the Fed could remain high on the agenda, and how far Musk’s influence — and the role of X as place for announcing policy positions — could extend across government.The Fed has its foes. Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, introduced a bill in June to abolish the central bank, accusing it of being an “economic manipulator that has directly contributed to the financial instability many Americans face today.”Lee said on X that he wants to see the Fed under the president’s control — a view that Musk backed.Powell could turn to the courts to challenge any White House attempt to exert more control, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos. Trump appointed Powell in 2017 but flirted with removing him shortly afterward. Powell held onto his job, but was ready for a fight if Trump made a move, Timiraos writes:Powell told then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he would fight his removal if sought by the president, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump was upset the Fed was raising interest rates against his wishes.For Powell, the unsavory prospect of a legal showdown — one he might have to pay for out of his own pocket — was imperative to preserve the ability of future Fed chairs to serve without the threat of being removed over a policy dispute.Powell has made it clear that the president doesn’t have the authority to remove a Fed chair. Last week, he said he wouldn’t step down if Trump asked him to do so after the central bank lowered borrowing costs by a quarter point. Removing him, he added, was “not permitted under the law.”A 1977 law gave Congress more oversight of the Fed, but enshrined the institution’s independence on policy.The central bank’s ability to set monetary policy without political influence is a core tenet for markets and the economy. The Fed also has an outsized influence through its freedom to buy and sell securities, like Treasury notes and bonds, as it looks to bring more liquidity to trading.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
We’re covering this year’s successful Democratic campaigns.In a very bad year for their party, some Democrats still figured out how to win tough races.Marcy Kaptur seems to have won a 22nd term in Congress despite representing an Ohio district that has voted for Donald Trump three straight times. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State was re-elected in a House district where Trump thumped Kamala Harris. Jared Golden of Maine is leading in a similarly red district. In Senate races, Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Ruben Gallego (Arizona), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) prevailed or are leading in states that Trump won.How? These Democrats ran on strikingly similar themes — part progressive, part moderate, part conservative. Above all, they avoided talking down to voters and telling them they were wrong to be frustrated about the economy, immigration and post-pandemic disorder. “The fundamental mistake people make is condescension,” Gluesenkamp Perez told my colleague Annie Karni after the election.In today’s newsletter, I’ll focus on three issues that helped these candidates win.1. ImmigrationMany Democrats have been in denial about immigration. Some initially argued that immigration didn’t soar under President Biden. Others claimed Biden’s policies weren’t the cause. Still others dismissed concerns about strained social services and crowded schools as Republican misinformation. (Many Republicans, to be clear, did tell lies about immigrants.)But Biden did spark a huge immigration wave. He encouraged more people to come to the U.S. and loosened entry rules. Sure enough, immigration surged to its highest levels in many decades.Source: Congressional Budget Office | By The New York TimesIf anyone doubted Biden’s role, more proof came this year when he tightened policy, and immigration plummeted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
