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    Trump Just Scrapped My Anti-Kremlin Streaming Platform, Votvot

    The Trump administration’s decision to take a hammer to the funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty might be legally dubious, but politically pretty safe: Its programming wasn’t intended to reach American audiences, so who would miss it, really?In September 2022, I came to Prague, in an unusual role of a volunteer media expert, to observe the operations of the Russian-language TV channel and online news portal, Current Time — one of the many brands under the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty umbrella. An American from Latvia whose native language is Russian, I had spent much of the previous decade trying to build bridges between the U.S. and Russian TV industries, a dream wiped out overnight with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. Current Time had become an indispensable source of news for an audience misled by their own state media. Six months in, war coverage had pushed out almost all other reporting and fatigue was setting in. I wanted to be useful. If my knowledge of the Russian media could somehow help Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, I was happy to share it.Not to mention the fact that, as a lifelong fan of the band R.E.M., I’d never pass up a chance to visit the organization that helped inspire their debut single, “Radio Free Europe.”The organization’s headquarters was an imposing gray cube, just east of the city center. The general aura reminded me of a U.S. Embassy. It might be an editorially independent nongovernment entity, but its cultural and literal footprint was always that of an American values bulwark.I soon found I had landed in the middle of a philosophical debate. Would showing anything other than atrocities constitute catering to Russia? At the time of my arrival, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty staff was considering starting a second channel that would run hard-hitting documentaries about Russian history and cruelties. I wondered who would be the audience for such depressing programming. A better tactic, I thought, would be to try to appeal to the persuadables, an audience many of whom had tuned out watching the news but retained a sense of right and wrong; an audience that Alexei Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader, had sacrificed his freedom — and, soon, his life — trying to reach.The walls of the headquarters were lined not only with photos of the likes of Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton, but also Duke Ellington and Tom Jones. Indeed, the older generation of Soviet citizens retained warm memories of the “enemy voices” (as Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the BBC’s Russian Service were known) not because they delivered news from the West, but because they’d play jazz and rock ’n’ roll. Pop culture was the draw.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

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    Trump restored funding for Radio Free Europe and reinstated 33 employees for Cuban radio station.

    Reversing course, the Trump administration on Thursday restored funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a federally financed news organization born out of American efforts to counter Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.The decision to again support the news group, known as RFE/RL, came two days after a federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked President Trump’s push to close it down, saying Mr. Trump cannot unilaterally dismantle the news organization established by Congress.Also Thursday, the administration reinstated 33 employees at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, a federal news outlet critical of the island’s communist government, allowing the radio station’s programming to resume.On March 15, the administration terminated all grants for RFE/RL in a one-page letter, citing Mr. Trump’s executive order a day earlier aimed at eliminating RFE/RL’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.On Thursday, the administration claimed that the lawsuit was moot — since the funding was restored — rather than continuing to argue for the legitimacy of its March 15 decision to cut funding while complying with the judge’s order.The Trump administration still reserved the right to terminate the RFE/RL’s financing “at a later date” if it “were to determine that such termination was appropriate,” according to the administration’s letter to RFE/RL that was submitted to the court.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

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    Trump mantiene ventaja en Arizona y Harris en Pensilvania, según una encuesta

    Las últimas encuestas del Times/Inquirer/Siena sitúan a Donald Trump con seis puntos de ventaja en Arizona y a Kamala Harris con cuatro puntos en Pensilvania.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Dos de los estados más disputados del país —Pennsylvania y Arizona— ilustran las dificultades a las que se enfrentan ambas campañas para obtener una clara ventaja en la recta final de la contienda para 2024, en la que Kamala Harris mantiene una estrecha ventaja en Pensilvania, pero Donald Trump sigue manteniendo una ventaja en Arizona, según un nuevo par de encuestas del New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College.Las encuestas, realizadas en dos estados separados por más de 3000 kilómetros, muestran el reto al que se enfrentan ambos partidos al intentar cerrar sus campañas ante un conjunto diverso de votantes que, en ocasiones, tienen prioridades contrapuestas.Tanto en Arizona como en Pensilvania, Harris ha consolidado el apoyo entre los demócratas desde que sustituyó al presidente Biden como candidata del partido. Pero la fuerza de Trump sigue siendo la economía, el tema principal responsable de su potencia política en Arizona y otros estados disputados este año.En Pensilvania, la ventaja de Harris en las encuestas ha sido constante, aunque el estado sigue siendo reñido. Su ventaja, 50 por ciento a 47 por ciento, entra dentro del margen de error. Pero esta es la tercera encuesta Times/Siena en dos meses que muestra el apoyo a Harris de al menos la mitad del estado. (Su ventaja en la encuesta fue de cuatro puntos porcentuales si se calculan sin redondear las cifras).Lo que impulsa a Harris en el estado es su ventaja de casi 20 puntos porcentuales en lo que se refiere al aborto, su mejor tema en los estados disputados y la segunda preocupación más importante para los votantes de Pensilvania.How the polls compare More

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    Trump Gets a Lift From Arizona Ticket-Splitters Backing a Democrat for Senate

    Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leads in this key contest, a New York Times/Siena College poll found, while Kamala Harris trails Donald Trump.Former President Donald J. Trump appears to be benefiting from ticket-splitters in Arizona, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday, a finding that highlights his strength with Latino and younger voters as well as the unique weaknesses of the Republican nominee for Senate.The poll found Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leading Kari Lake, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, by six percentage points, even as Mr. Trump has opened up a five-point lead in the state over Vice President Kamala Harris.Such a scenario would represent a notable degree of ticket-splitting, perpetuating a trend captured by surveys throughout this election cycle. Democratic Senate candidates in a number of swing states, including Arizona and Nevada, have consistently polled ahead of the top of the ticket, especially when President Biden was the party’s standard-bearer. As Ms. Harris’s nomination has made the election more competitive, the gap between her and those down-ballot Democrats has narrowed — but the trend persists in most races in swing states.“Donald Trump creates his own weather, and he has a coalition supporting him like no other Republican nominee in our lifetime — perhaps ever — in Arizona,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state lawmaker who is now a political consultant there. He pointed to the support Mr. Trump has garnered from young people and voters of color, who traditionally lean Democratic, in surveys this year. “He’s breaking out of that rule, and it does not translate down-ballot,” he said.In 2022, Ms. Lake angered many traditionally Republican voters during her divisive governor’s race, feuding with the governor at the time, Doug Ducey, a conservative Republican, and angering supporters of Senator John McCain, who died in 2018, by saying her political rise “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.” She further alienated some Republicans by filing a series of lawsuits after she lost her election, claiming that it had been stolen.This year, she has tried to change tactics, courting the moderate wing of the Republican Party in Arizona. But old grievances die hard.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

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    Why Senate Democrats Are Outperforming Biden in Key States

    Democratic candidates have leads in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan and Arizona — but strategists aligned with both parties caution that the battle for Senate control is just starting.It was a Pride Weekend in Wisconsin, a natural time for the state’s pathbreaking, openly gay senator to rally her Democratic base, but on Sunday, Tammy Baldwin was far away from the parades and gatherings in Madison and Milwaukee — at a dairy farm in Republican Richland County.“I’ll show up in deep-red counties. and they’ll be like, ‘I can’t remember the last time we’ve seen a sitting U.S. senator here, especially not a Democrat,’” said Ms. Baldwin, an hour into her unassuming work of handing out plastic silverware at an annual dairy breakfast, and five months before Wisconsin voters will decide whether to give her a third term. “I think that begins to break through.”Wisconsin is one of seven states that will determine the presidency this November, but it will also help determine which party controls the Senate. President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are running neck-and-neck in the state, which Mr. Trump narrowly won in 2016 and Mr. Biden took back in 2020.Ms. Baldwin, by contrast, is running well ahead of the president and her presumed Republican opponent, the wealthy banker Eric Hovde. Polls released early last month by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College found Ms. Baldwin holding a lead of 49 percent to 40 percent over Mr. Hovde. In late May, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report put the spread even wider, 12 percentage points.That down-ballot Democratic strength is not isolated to Wisconsin. Senate Democratic candidates also hold leads in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. A Marist Poll released Tuesday said Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden in Ohio by seven percentage points, but Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, leads his challenger, Bernie Moreno, by five percentage points, a 12-point swing.The Huff-Nel-Sons Farm in Richmond Center, Wis., hosted the annual dairy breakfast on Sunday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesWe 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

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    Kari Lake Delivered a Speech in Front of a Confederate Flag

    Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, delivered a speech in front of a Confederate flag at a Trump-themed merchandise store in Show Low, Ariz., last week.Footage of the speech, which was obtained by The New York Times, showed Ms. Lake on May 31 repeating lies about the 2020 election’s having been stolen from former President Donald J. Trump as she stood in front of a Confederate battle standard hanging in the store. The flag has become the one most associated with the Confederacy in the modern era.“I am the only person running for U.S. Senate, either Republican or Democrat, who truly believes there was fraud in the election in 2020 — does anyone else here believe that?” Ms. Lake said to cheers and applause. She later added: “We are still fighting. We have more fight in us. We have a lot of cases going.”The store, known as the Trumped Store, sells a variety of pro-Trump and 2020 election-denier merchandise as well as the Confederate battle flag and the Confederate national flag. The store also sells merchandise with slogans attacking President Biden, including “Let’s Go Brandon” and “F.J.B.,” which stands for a phrase that includes an expletive. A number of products also feature the phrase “Trump won,” in support of Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.In a statement, the Lake campaign defended her appearance at the store by saying: “Kari went to a store. The New York Times published an op-ed from the terrorist organization the Taliban. Do you approve of the Taliban?” In another statement, to The Guardian, which earlier reported Ms. Lake’s appearance at the store, the campaign said: “The Kari Lake campaign does not respond to British propaganda outlets. We stopped doing that in 1776.”The local news media in Arizona had also reported on Ms. Lake’s appearance at the Trumped Store earlier this week.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

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    Election Deniers Are Still Shaping Arizona Politics

    There have been few political consequences for many Republicans accused of helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.Two years ago, a group of election deniers ran for office in Arizona, with Kari Lake’s campaign for governor topping the ticket. When many of them lost, it seemed like a convincing rebuke of the conspiracy theory-steeped Republicans who wanted to control the levers of electoral power in 2024.It turned out, though, that the small matter of losing was not going to keep election deniers out of the spotlight, nor away from key roles in the Arizona Republican Party and beyond.And neither will an indictment, it seems.Last week, the Democratic attorney general of Arizona charged 17 people with counts including conspiracy, fraud and forgery, alleging they made efforts to overturn former President Donald Trump’s narrow loss in the 2020 election that amounted to a crime. Eleven of the people charged cast fake electoral votes in support of Trump.The defendants who got the most attention are the ones who were closest to Trump at the time, like former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Boris Epshteyn, who is one of Trump’s legal advisers. (While their names were redacted in the indictment, detailed descriptions contained in the charging documents made it easy to tell who they are.)But the trajectory of some of the 11 local and lower-profile defendants is even more revealing. Their story shows how Republicans who sought to challenge the 2020 election results continue to face few political consequences, and how deeply their philosophy is woven into the politics of 2024 in Arizona and elsewhere.“The party has not only not created any distance, it has continued to forcefully embrace” election deniers, said Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Phoenix.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

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    Arizona Republicans Who Supported Repealing an Abortion Ban Face Blowback

    On social media, Arizona lawmakers are accused of being baby killers, cowards and traitors.State Representative Matt Gress, a Republican in a moderate slice of Phoenix, was in line at his neighborhood coffee shop on Thursday when a customer stopped and thanked him for voting to repeal an 1864 law that bans abortion in Arizona.“I know you’re taking some heat,” he told Mr. Gress.More than some.Shortly after the repeal bill squeaked through the Arizona House on Wednesday with support from every Democrat, as well as Mr. Gress and two other Republicans, anti-abortion activists denounced Mr. Gress on social media as a baby killer, coward and traitor. The Republican House speaker booted Mr. Gress off a spending committee. And some Democrats dismissed his stance as a bid to appease swing voters furious over the ban during an election year.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gress said that he was trying to chart a middle path through a wrenching debate over abortion that has consumed Arizona politics in the two weeks since the State Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban.“There are extremes on both ends here,” he said. “To go from abortion being legal and constitutionally protected to nearly a complete ban overnight is not something that the electorate is going to be OK with.”Mr. Gress, 35, a former teacher and school-board member, worked as a budget director under Arizona’s previous governor, the Republican Doug Ducey. He was first elected in 2022 to represent a swath of Phoenix and Scottsdale that spreads from middle-class neighborhoods through strip malls, desert parks and wealthy gated communities.He speaks with the measured cadences of someone who has appeared on plenty of news programs, and had focused his attention on homelessness and teacher pay before abortion erupted into an all-consuming legislative battle.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