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      Senators Release Border Deal to Unlock Ukraine Aid, but Fate Remains Uncertain

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      Senate Republicans and Democrats on Sunday unveiled a $118.3 billion compromise bill to crack down on unlawful migration across the U.S. border with Mexico and speed critical security aid to Ukraine, but the deal faces long odds in a Congress deeply divided over both issues.The release of the agreement, struck after more than three months of near-daily talks among senators and Biden administration officials, counted as an improbable breakthrough on a policy matter that has bedeviled presidents of both parties and defied decades of efforts at compromise on Capitol Hill. President Biden, who last month promised he would shut down the border immediately if the measure became law, implored Congress on Sunday to pass the bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible.“If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” he said in a statement, adding that Republicans “have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?”The bill features some of the most significant border security restrictions Congress has contemplated in years. They include making it more difficult to claim asylum, vastly expanding detention capacity and effectively shutting down the border to new entrants if more than an average of 5,000 migrants per day try to cross over unlawfully in the course of a week, or more than 8,500 attempt to cross in any given day.But Speaker Mike Johnson has already pronounced the bill “dead on arrival” in the Republican-controlled House. And with former President Donald J. Trump actively campaigning against the deal, it was not clear whether the measure could even make it out of the Democratic-led Senate, where it needs bipartisan backing to move forward.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said he planned to put the package to an initial vote on Wednesday, in a critical test of its ability to survive.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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      Providence Officials Approve Overdose Prevention Center

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      The facility, also known as a safe injection center, will be the first in Rhode Island and the only one in the U.S. outside New York City to operate openly.More than two years ago, Rhode Island became the first state in the nation to authorize overdose prevention centers, facilities where people would be allowed to use illicit drugs under professional supervision. On Thursday, the Providence City Council approved the establishment of what will be the state’s first so-called safe injection site.Minnesota is the only other state to approve these sites, also known as supervised injection centers and harm reduction centers, but no facility has yet opened there. While several states and cities across the country have taken steps toward approving these centers, the concept has faced resistance even in more liberal-leaning states, where officials have wrestled with the legal and moral implications. The only two sites operating openly in the country are in New York City, where Bill de Blasio, who was then mayor, announced the opening of the first center in 2021.The centers employ medical and social workers who guard against overdoses by supplying oxygen and naloxone, the overdose-reversing drug, as well as by distributing clean needles, hygiene products and tests for viruses.Supporters say these centers prevent deaths and connect people with resources. Brandon Marshall, a professor and the chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, said studies from other countries “show that overdose prevention centers save lives, increase access to treatment, and reduce public drug use and crime in the communities in which they’re located.”Opponents of the centers, including law enforcement groups, say that the sites encourage a culture of permissiveness around illegal drugs, fail to require users to seek treatment and bring drug use into neighborhoods that are already struggling with high overdose rates.Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said that while supervised drug consumption sites “reduce risks while people use drugs inside them,” they reach only a few people and “don’t alter the severity or character of a neighborhood’s drug problem.”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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      Tech CEOs Got Grilled, but New Rules Are Still a Question

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      Tech leaders faced a grilling in the Senate, and one offered an apology. But skeptics fear little will change this time.Five tech C.E.O.s faced a grilling yesterday, but it’s unclear whether new laws to impose more safeguards for online children’s safety will pass.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesA lot of heat, but will there be regulation?Five technology C.E.O.s endured hours of grilling by senators on both sides of the aisle about their apparent failures to make their platforms safer for children, with some lawmakers accusing them of having “blood” on their hands.But for all of the drama, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta apologizing to relatives of online child sex abuse victims, few observers believe that there’s much chance of concrete action.“Your product is killing people,” Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, flatly told Zuckerberg at Wednesday’s hearing. Over 3.5 hours, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee laid into the Meta chief and the heads of Discord, Snap, TikTok and X over their policies. (Before the hearing began, senators released internal Meta documents that showed that executives had rejected efforts to devote more resources to safeguard children.)But tech C.E.O.s offered only qualified support for legislative efforts. Those include the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which would require tech platforms to take “reasonable measures” to prevent harm, and STOP CSAM and EARN IT, two bills that would curtail some of the liability shield given to those companies by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.Both Evan Spiegel of Snap and Linda Yaccarino of X backed KOSA, and Yaccarino also became the first tech C.E.O. to back the STOP CSAM Act. But neither endorsed EARN IT.Zuckerberg called for legislation to force Apple and Google — neither of which was asked to testify — to be held responsible for verifying app users’ ages. But he otherwise emphasized that Meta had already offered resources to keep children safe.Shou Chew of TikTok noted only that his company expected to invest over $2 billion in trust and safety measures this year.Jason Citron of Discord allowed that Section 230 “needs to be updated,” and his company later said that it supports “elements” of STOP CSAM.Experts worry that we’ve seen this play out before. Tech companies have zealously sought to defend Section 230, which protects them from liability for content users post on their platforms. Some lawmakers say altering it would be crucial to holding online platforms to account.Meanwhile, tech groups have fought efforts by states to tighten the use of their services by children. Such laws would lead to a patchwork of regulations that should instead be addressed by Congress, the industry has argued.Congress has failed to move meaningfully on such legislation. Absent a sea change in congressional will, Wednesday’s drama may have been just that.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?  More

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      Utah Sets Restrictions on Transgender People’s Bathroom Use

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      The NewsUtah will prohibit transgender people from using bathrooms in public schools and government-owned buildings that align with their gender identity, after Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday imposing the restrictions.Demonstrators protest the bill on the steps of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. Marielle Scott/The Deseret News, via Associated PressBackgroundThe bill, House Bill 257, which passed the Legislature last week, set sweeping restrictions for transgender people.Under the bill, also known as Sex-Based Designations for Privacy, Anti-Bullying and Women’s Opportunities, transgender people can use bathrooms that match their gender identity only if they can prove that they have had gender-affirming surgery and have had the sex on their birth certificates changed.In public schools, students can now use only a bathroom, shower room or locker room that aligns with their sex assigned at birth, with few exceptions. For government-owned buildings, including state universities, the restrictions apply only to showers and locker rooms.Violators may face charges for loitering, and government-owned institutions may face fines if they do not enforce the new rules. The state auditor will be required to establish a process to receive and investigate reports of violations.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?  More

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      Mayor Adams Clashes With City Council Speaker on NYC’s Path

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      Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council, has become one of Mayor Eric Adams’s most powerful critics as he struggles with crises and low approval ratings.As Mayor Eric Adams battles low poll ratings, a federal investigation and potential challengers to his re-election in New York City, a Democratic ally has emerged as an unexpected adversary: Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker.Ms. Adams, who shares many of the mayor’s moderate stances, has become one of his most powerful and vocal critics, unifying the most diverse City Council ever and empowering it as a forceful wedge against him.On Tuesday, Ms. Adams led the Council in overriding the mayor’s vetoes of a bill banning the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails and another bill requiring police officers to record the race, age and gender of most people they stop.The actions were an unusual rebuke of a New York City mayor by his Democratic colleagues: It was only the second time in nearly a decade that the Council has overridden a mayor’s veto.When she was chosen as Council speaker in 2022, Ms. Adams was seen as a compromise candidate, a moderate Democrat who could work with Mayor Adams without being beholden to him. But in recent months, she has begun to regularly play the role of political antagonist to the mayor.She has questioned Mr. Adams’s management of the budget and criticized his approach to handling the influx of migrants as inhumane. She prompted the Council to pass the bills banning solitary confinement and improving police accountability, despite the mayor’s objections, and carried enough support to override his vetoes.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?  More

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      Canada Delays Plan to Offer Medically Assisted Death to the Mentally Ill

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      A parliamentary panel concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to properly assess patients.Canada is postponing a plan to offer people suffering from mental illnesses the option of a medically assisted death, two cabinet ministers said on Monday.The announcement by Mark Holland, the health minister, and Arif Virani, the justice minister, came after a special parliamentary committee looking into the plan concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to assess patients with mental illnesses who want to end their lives and to help them do so.“The system needs to be ready, and we need to get it right,” Mr. Holland told reporters. “It’s clear from the conversations we’ve had that the system is not ready, and we need more time.”Neither minister offered any timeline for the latest extension. Following an earlier delay, the expansion had been scheduled to come into effect on March 17.Canada already offers medically assisted death to terminally and chronically ill people, but the plan to extend the program to people with mental illnesses has divided Canadians.Some critics say the plan is a consequence of the inability of Canada’s public health care system to offer adequate psychiatric care, which is chronically underfunded and facing demand that outstrips its availability.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?  More

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      My Sister Chose the Day She Wanted to Die

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      Should terminally ill people be able to choose how they die? Six years after being diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer, Julie Petrow-Cohen decided to use medical aid in dying — or MAID, as it is often called — to end her life. But for many Americans in similar circumstances, this is not an option. In this audio essay, the writer Steven Petrow shares the story of his sister’s last day and why MAID should be a right for everyone.Read Steven’s guest essay on Julie’s decision here.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available by Monday.)Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Steven PetrowThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram.This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Isaac Jones, Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Joanna Pearlstein, Hans Buetow and the “Modern Love” podcast team. More

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      Leading Museums Remove Native Displays Amid New Federal Rules

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      The American Museum of Natural History is closing two major halls as museums around the nation respond to updated policies from the Biden administration.The American Museum of Natural History will close two major halls exhibiting Native American objects, its leaders said on Friday, in a dramatic response to new federal regulations that require museums to obtain consent from tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items.“The halls we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples,” Sean Decatur, the museum’s president, wrote in a letter to the museum’s staff on Friday morning. “Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”The museum is closing galleries dedicated to the Eastern Woodlands and the Great Plains this weekend, and covering a number of other display cases featuring Native American cultural items as it goes through its enormous collection to make sure it is in compliance with the new federal rules, which took effect this month.Museums around the country have been covering up displays as curators scramble to determine whether they can be shown under the new regulations. The Field Museum in Chicago covered some display cases, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University said it would remove all funerary belongings from exhibition and the Cleveland Museum of Art has covered up some cases.But the action by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which draws 4.5 million visitors a year, making it one of the most visited museums in the world, sends a powerful message to the field. The museum’s anthropology department is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the United States, known for doing pioneering work under a long line of curators including Franz Boas and Margaret Mead. The closures will leave nearly 10,000 square feet of exhibition space off-limits to visitors; the museum said it could not provide an exact timeline for when the reconsidered exhibits would reopen.“Some objects may never come back on display as a result of the consultation process,” Decatur said in an interview. “But we are looking to create smaller-scale programs throughout the museum that can explain what kind of process is underway.”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?  More