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      Why Chicago’s Mayoral Election Matters, Even if You Don’t Live in Chicago

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      America’s cities increasingly face similar problems, particularly worries about crime and hangovers from the pandemic. That’s why the mayor’s election in Chicago on Tuesday is about more than Chicago.CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces eight challengers in a fierce mayoral election and risks being ousted from City Hall after one term. Here’s why the election, at a time of widespread unease in the nation’s cities, reflects issues that are resonating around the country.The race is a referendum on crime and policing.On the campaign trail and in debates, the election in Chicago has been driven by one issue above all others: crime.Under Ms. Lightfoot, who was elected in 2019, homicide rates soared to generational highs, an increase that was most deeply felt in pockets of the South and West Sides that have historically been plagued by gun violence. And residents throughout the city say they are unsettled by a spike in robberies, muggings, carjackings and other property crimes, and they have placed the blame on Ms. Lightfoot.She is facing her most serious competition from a tough-on-crime candidate, Paul Vallas, a former public schools executive who began attacking her record on public safety early in the campaign.The same political dynamic has played out in mayoral races in New York City and Los Angeles, with varying results: Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, a former police captain, won office in 2021 amid widespread concerns about crime. But last fall, Los Angeles voters chose Karen Bass, a veteran Democratic congresswoman, over Rick Caruso, a billionaire mall developer who spent close to $100 million on a campaign that focused directly on concerns over crime and disorder.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago met with Mayor Eric Adams of New York last year to discuss crime-fighting strategies.Tyler Pasciak Lariviere/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressMs. Lightfoot has crisscrossed Chicago telling voters that crime is down in the city and that her focus on the issue is yielding results: Homicides dropped in 2022 after rising in the two previous years. For many voters, it may be coming too late.The next Chicago mayor could reshape downtown.“Make no little plans,” Chicagoans like to say, quoting the city planner and architect Daniel Burnham, whose vision transformed Chicago’s lakefront and skyline.Cities around the county are struggling to redefine and revitalize their downtowns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. And whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the opportunity to make very big plans for the city’s downtown, including its most prominent neighborhood, the Loop. The area was battered during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover.Ms. Lightfoot has already made proposals that could nudge the Loop away from its identity as a center for office workers, and toward becoming a more residential neighborhood and hub of cultural life. (The Chicago Loop Alliance, a business advocacy group, says the area is already well on its way: There are now more people living in the Loop than before the pandemic, reflecting growth of about 9 percent since 2020.)One plan introduced under the Lightfoot administration addresses the high vacancy rates for commercial space in the Loop, calling for older office buildings on LaSalle Street in the heart of Chicago’s business district to be turned into apartments and condominiums, including affordable housing. If the plan is successful, it may become a model for other big cities that find themselves with excess commercial real estate as remote workers continue to balk at returning downtown.Whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the chance to shape downtown Chicago as it adapts to the effects of the pandemic.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBig-city politics are in flux.Mayoral elections in Chicago are officially nonpartisan, but none of the nine candidates on the ballot on Tuesday is a Republican. (In the 2020 presidential election, 83 percent of Chicago voters voted Democratic.) Assuming none wins an outright majority on Tuesday, the top two finishers in the race will advance to a runoff on April 4. Who those candidates turn out to be may offer a glimpse into the direction of urban politics in post-pandemic America.Ms. Lightfoot has been attacked from both the right and the left, and her challengers fit in familiar niches on the national Democratic spectrum. Mr. Vallas has attracted support from more conservative voters, especially in heavily white wards on the Northwest and Southwest Sides, where many police officers, firefighters and other city workers live. He has also gained support from Democrats who voted for Ms. Lightfoot in 2019 but are now fed up over crime and are willing to vote for a more conservative candidate.The mayor also faces serious challenges from the liberal wing of the party, especially from Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the liberal Chicago Teachers Union. Mr. Johnson has gained momentum in the last several weeks, polls suggest, as progressive voters who are unwilling to give Ms. Lightfoot another chance have searched for an alternative. But at a time when public safety is the No. 1 issue for many voters, Mr. Johnson’s previous support for reducing police funding — a stance he later backtracked from — may complicate his mayoral bid. More

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      Your Wednesday Briefing: A U.S. Push to Isolate Russia

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      Also, China’s attempt to erase “zero Covid” and Nigeria’s contested election.Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meeting with Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, Mukhtar Tleuberdi.Pool photo by Olivier DoulieryA U.S. push in Central AsiaThe U.S. secretary of state met with the president of Kazakhstan in Astana at the start of a new effort to isolate Russia as Belarus’s leader began a state visit to China — the latest examples of dueling diplomacy related to the war in Ukraine.Antony Blinken, the top U.S. diplomat, is urging five Central Asian countries that were part of the former Soviet Union — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — not to help Russia evade sanctions imposed by the West over its invasion of Ukraine. The countries have strong ties to Russia, but leaders there have made comments reflecting concerns about maintaining their sovereignty.One of Russia’s staunchest allies, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, arrived in Beijing for talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. The U.S. has suggested that China was preparing to supply military aid to Russia, a claim rejected by the Chinese government.U.S. officials said they viewed Lukashenko’s visit as another sign of China’s growing engagement with Russia. Blinken’s trip to Central Asia follows recent visits to Kyiv by President Biden and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that were intended to shore up support for Ukraine.Context: China is trying to present itself as a neutral observer while maintaining close ties with Russia, a precarious balancing act. Beijing’s position has alienated European leaders who might have helped invigorate China’s economy following years of pandemic lockdowns.Other news from the war:The promised torrent of tanks from European nations to Ukraine now seems like more of a trickle.Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, warned that the situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut was “getting more and more difficult.”Removing a Covid testing booth at a park in Beijing. Jade Gao/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesChina moves to erase ‘zero Covid’China’s ruling Communist Party is trying to rewrite the public’s memory of “zero Covid,” the country’s strict lockdown policy. Analysts say the move is aimed at quashing any resentment over the enormous price China paid in economic loss and trauma to enforce its coronavirus restrictions.In a decree that was published after a recent meeting of top officials, a newly triumphant narrative has emerged in which the country’s Covid response was a “miracle in human history” and “completely correct.” China’s official messaging acknowledges none of the extremes of “zero Covid,” nor does it mention the chaos that ensued after the policy’s abrupt dismantling in early December, which left hospitals unprepared for an explosion in new infections.Instead, the party has declared that its efforts led China to a “decisive victory” over the virus. The term “zero Covid” itself, once ubiquitous, has vanished from the party’s rhetoric. The State of the WarRussia’s New Offensive: The Russian military is relying on tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts to carry out its latest maneuver, which has barely budged over the last month.Deploying High-Powered Aides: President Biden has dispatched Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a concerted diplomatic push to show support for Ukraine.A War of Words: Russia and the West have been arguing for months about which side is more willing to negotiate ending the war in Ukraine peacefully.Analysis: The government’s messaging is in line with efforts to restore the public’s confidence, both in the party’s leadership and in the country’s future. But the aftermath of the pandemic may be especially challenging for the party to bury, as feelings of whiplash, grief and frustration simmer just beneath the surface for many Chinese residents.Counting votes in Lagos.James Oatway/ReutersNigeria’s opposition calls for a rerunThree days after Nigeria held its most wide-open presidential election in years, two opposition parties called for the vote to be canceled and rerun, saying it was compromised by vote rigging and violence.The call came as vote counting showed that the candidate of the governing party appeared to be taking the lead. With about one-third of the 36 states reporting results, Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress party, had won 44 percent of the vote.Many polls had predicted a win for Peter Obi, the so-called youth candidate of the little-known Labour Party. But early results showed Obi had just 18 percent of the vote, while Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party also trailed behind Tinubu with 33 percent.Response: A spokesman for Tinubu’s party campaign council rejected the accusations of vote rigging. Independent observers raised concerns about whether the election was fair, but stopped short of accusing the governing party of rigging it.Context: Many Nigerians had looked to the election to put the country back on track after eight years of rule by Muhammadu Buhari, a military dictator turned democrat. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has struggled with economic and security crises under his leadership.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificDentsu helped coordinate the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in venues like Japan’s National Stadium.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesJapanese prosecutors accused the advertising giant Dentsu, a driving force behind the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, of illegally conspiring to evade the public bidding process.Hong Kong’s leader said the city would lift its Covid mask mandate, ending one of the last such policies in the world.Wendy’s, the American burger chain, is coming to Australia. Like other American imports, it might need to change its name.Around the WorldThe coffins of shipwreck victims in Crotone, Italy, on Tuesday.Valeria Ferraro/Associated PressA shipwreck off Italy’s coast that killed at least 63 people has made it clear that the E.U.’s consensus against migrants has hardened.After accusations of misconduct and mismanagement, the president of France’s soccer federation stepped down yesterday.U.S. NewsThe Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed deeply skeptical of the legality of the administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt.Jazz Pharmaceuticals exploited a safety requirement to prolong its monopoly on a narcolepsy drug that has generated more than $13 billion in revenue.Nearly two dozen dead whales have washed ashore on the East Coast since early December, in part because of collisions with cargo ships. A Morning ReadCustomers at Kuraichi, a sake shop in Brooklyn.Nico Schinco for The New York TimesSake is booming in the U.S., The Times’s wine critic writes. Exports of the fermented product of rice from Japan are soaring, and breweries and specialty stores have opened in the U.S. to quench the growing thirst. Here’s a guide to sake basics.ARTS AND IDEAS Should acting awards be gender-neutral?The cast of Season 2 of “The White Lotus” at the SAG Awards.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressAt the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday in Los Angeles, there was at least one red-carpet question without an easy answer: Should awards shows eliminate separate acting categories for men and women?The debate over gender-neutral acting prizes has gained steam as more nonbinary actors have given acclaimed performances and, in some cases, chosen to withdraw from awards consideration rather than compete in a gendered category. “Right now, you need to choose,” said August Winter, a nonbinary actor, referring to awards that separate categories for men and women. “And I don’t think people should be put in that position.”Others worry that gender-neutral categories could mean fewer nominations — or that women could be shut out of awards consideration entirely.“I’m not sure what the solution is,” said Sarah Polley, director of the Oscar-nominated film “Women Talking.” “But it certainly can’t stay the way it is, because it is excluding people from being recognized.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookBobbi Lin for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Sue Li. Prop Stylist: Sophia Pappas.This vegetarian tteokbokki features a base of butter-fried shallots, a layer of melted cheese and a crunchy blanket of raw cabbage.What to ReadThese three science fiction and fantasy novels offer a welcome break from reality.What to Listen ToThe experimental pop duo 100 gecs turns toward rock for its second album.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Paramour (5 letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a great day. — Dan and MariahP.S. Here’s how The Times has covered the war in Ukraine, one year in.“The Daily” is about why so many buildings have collapsed in Turkey. We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Nikki Haley Hits the Campaign Trail

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      John Tully for The New York TimesIn New Hampshire, where she also leaned into her age, calling for “new generational leadership,” she was endorsed by Don Bolduc, a Trump ally and on-again, off-again election denier who was the state’s G.O.P. Senate nominee last year. More

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      Ron DeSantis ‘The Courage to Be Free’: Review

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      In his new book, “The Courage to Be Free,” the Florida governor and potential Republican presidential candidate offers a template for governing based on an expansive vision of executive power.THE COURAGE TO BE FREE: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, by Ron DeSantisAs governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis has been casting himself as a Trump-like pugilist. But the overall sense you get from reading his new memoir is that of the mechanical try-hard — someone who has expended a lot of effort studying which way the wind is blowing in the Republican Party and is learning how to comport himself accordingly.Not that he admits any of this, peppering “The Courage to Be Free” with frequent eruptions about “the legacy media” and “runaway wokeness.” But all the culture war Mad Libs can’t distract from the dull coldness at this book’s core. A former military prosecutor, DeSantis is undeniably diligent and disciplined. “The Courage to Be Free” resounds with evidence of his “hard work” (a favorite mantra), showing him poring over Florida’s laws and constitution in order to understand “the various pressure points in the system” and “how to leverage my authority to advance our agenda through that system.” Even the title, with its awkward feint at boldness while clinging to the safety of cliché, suggests the anxiety of an ambitious politician who really, really wants to run for president in 2024 and knows he needs the grievance vote, but is also trying his best to tiptoe around the Trump dragon.“The Courage to Be Free” resounds with evidence of DeSantis’s “hard work” (a favorite mantra).What a difference a dozen years make. Back in 2011, a year before DeSantis first ran for Congress, he published “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers” — an obvious dig at Barack Obama, whom DeSantis lambasted for his “thin résumé” and “egotism” and “immense self-regard.” It was a curious book, full of high-toned musings about “the Framers’ wisdom” and “the Madisonian-designed political apparatus.”His new book will leave some supporters, who have encouraged DeSantis to “humanize himself” for a national audience, sorely disappointed. In his acknowledgments, he thanks “a hardworking team of literary professionals who were critical to telling the Florida story,” but presumably those professionals could only do so much with the material they were given. For the most part, “The Courage to Be Free” is courageously free of anything that resembles charisma, or a discernible sense of humor. While his first book was weird and esoteric enough to have obviously been written by a human, this one reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT.DeSantis’s attempts at soaring rhetoric are mostly too leaden to get off the ground. “During times of turmoil,” he intones, “people want leaders who are willing to speak the truth, stand for what is right and demonstrate the courage necessary to lead.” Of his childhood baseball team making the Little League World Series, he says: “What I came to understand about the experience was less about baseball than it was about life. It was proof that hard work can pay off, and that achieving big goals was possible.” You have to imagine that DeSantis, a double-barreled Ivy Leaguer (Yale and Harvard Law School), put a bit more verve into his admissions essays. At around 250 pages, this isn’t a particularly long book, but it’s padded with such banalities.Much of it is given over to laying out what he calls “Florida’s blueprint for America’s revival,” or, as he puts it in his generic summary: “Be willing to lead, have the courage of your convictions, deliver for your constituents and reap the political rewards.” What this has meant in practice looks an awful lot like thought policing: outlawing classroom discussion of sexual orientation through the third grade; rejecting math textbooks that run afoul of Florida’s opaque review process; forbidding teachers and companies to discuss race and gender in a way that might make anyone feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress.” Florida also has a ban on abortion after 15 weeks — which DeSantis has indicated he would be willing to tighten to six weeks — with no exceptions for rape and incest.In this regard, all the bland platitudes do serve a purpose. DeSantis’s blunt-force wielding of executive power might sound like a good time for hard-core social conservatives, but if part of the point of this book is to float a trial balloon for a presidential run, you can see the gears turning as he tries to make his message palatable for the national stage. Take out the gauzy abstraction, the heartwarming clichés, and much of what DeSantis is describing in “The Courage to Be Free” is chilling — unfree and scary.Much of what DeSantis is describing in “The Courage to Be Free” is chilling — unfree and scary.Of course, DeSantis insists that he’s simply doing his bit to fight “political factionalism” and “indoctrination.” He removed Tampa’s democratically elected prosecutor from office in large part for pledging not to prosecute abortion providers — explaining in the book that he, DeSantis, was just using the powers vested in him by Florida’s state constitution to suspend a “Soros-backed attorney” for “a clear case of incompetence and neglect of duty.” (Last month, a federal judge ruled that DeSantis was in violation of state law.) DeSantis boasts about big-footing companies and local municipalities when he prohibited vaccine mandates and lifted lockdowns. In April 2020, when the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship expressed annoyance at the possibility of dealing with some “jackass mayor,” DeSantis told him not to worry: “I will overrule any mayor that gives you guys a hard time.”It’s unclear what happened to the DeSantis of a decade ago, a boilerplate libertarian and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus who was mainly preoccupied with fiscal austerity and privatizing Medicare and Social Security. His 2011 book contained numerous tributes to “limited government.” Now, he says, in his typically windy way, anything he does that looks suspiciously intrusive is in fact a cleansing measure, purging public life of excess politicization: “For years, the default conservative posture has been to limit government and then get out of the way. There is, no doubt, much to recommend to this posture — when the institutions in society are healthy. But we have seen institution after institution become thoroughly politicized.”Fewer than 20 pages later, DeSantis proposes making about 50,000 federal employees — currently apolitical civil servants — into “at-will employees who serve at the pleasure of the president.” By any measure, this would amount to politicization on steroids.But despite all the dutiful servings of red meat, DeSantis looks so far to be the favored son of the donor class — which is probably the main audience for this book. The message to them seems to be twofold. First, don’t normalize “the woke impulse”: When Disney’s chief executive criticized Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law (officially titled “Parental Rights in Education”), DeSantis cracked down accordingly. Second, Republican donors can take assurance from “the Sunshine State’s favorable economic climate” that, when it comes to what truly matters to them, it will be business as usual.Any criticism of his policies gets dismissed as “woke” nonsense cooked up by the “corporate media.”Reading books, even bad ones, can be a goad to thinking, but what DeSantis seems to be doing in “The Courage to Be Free” is to insist that Americans should just stop worrying and let him do all the thinking for them. Any criticism of his policies gets dismissed as “woke” nonsense cooked up by the “corporate media.” (Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and News Corp, which owns the publisher of this book, doubtless don’t count.) “I could withstand seven years of indoctrination in the Ivy League,” DeSantis says, only half in jest.The bullying sense of superiority is unmistakable, even when he tries to gussy it up in a mantle of freedom. DeSantis is not taking any chances: He may have been able to “withstand” the “indoctrination” of being exposed to ideas he didn’t like, but he doesn’t seem to believe the same could be said for anyone else.THE COURAGE TO BE FREE: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival | By Ron DeSantis | 256 pp. | Broadside Books | $35 More

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      La presidencia incomprendida de Jimmy Carter

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      El hombre no era como piensas. Era duro. Era muy intimidante. Jimmy Carter fue probablemente el hombre más inteligente, trabajador y decente que haya ocupado el Despacho Oval en el siglo XX.Cuando lo entrevisté con regularidad hace unos años, rondaba los 90 años y, sin embargo, seguía levantándose al amanecer para ponerse a trabajar temprano. Una vez lo vi dirigir un acto a las 7 a. m. en el Centro Carter, donde estuvo 40 minutos caminando de un lado al otro del estrado, explicando los detalles de su programa para erradicar la enfermedad de la lombriz de Guinea. Era incansable. Ese mismo día me concedió a mí, su biógrafo, 50 minutos exactos para hablar sobre sus años en la Casa Blanca. Aquellos brillantes ojos azules se clavaron en mí con una intensidad alarmante. Pero era evidente que a él le interesaba más la lombriz de Guinea.Carter sigue siendo el presidente más incomprendido del último siglo. Era un liberal sureño que sabía que el racismo era el pecado original de Estados Unidos. Fue progresista en la cuestión racial; en su primer discurso como gobernador de Georgia, en 1971, declaró que “los tiempos de la discriminación han terminado”, para gran incomodidad de muchos estadounidenses, incluidos muchos de sus paisanos del sur. Y, sin embargo, creció descalzo en la tierra roja de Archery, una pequeña aldea del sur de Georgia, por lo que estaba impregnado de una cultura que había experimentado la derrota y la ocupación. Eso lo convirtió en un pragmático.El periodista gonzo Hunter S. Thompson dijo una vez que Carter era el “hombre más maquiavélico” que había conocido jamás. Thompson se refería a que era implacable y ambicioso, a su empeño en ganar para llegar al poder: primero, a la gobernación de Georgia; después, a la presidencia. Aquella época, tras Watergate y la guerra de Vietnam, marcada por la desilusión con el excepcionalismo estadounidense, fue la oportunidad perfecta para un hombre que en gran medida basó su campaña en la religiosidad del cristiano renacido y la integridad personal. “Nunca les mentiré”, dijo en varias ocasiones durante la campaña, a lo que su abogado de toda la vida, Charlie Kirbo, respondió bromeando que iba a “perder el voto de los mentirosos”. Inopinadamente, Carter ganó y llegó a la Casa Blanca en 1976.Decidió utilizar el poder con rectitud, ignorar la política y hacer lo correcto. Fue, de hecho, un admirador del teólogo protestante favorito de la clase dirigente, Reinhold Niebuhr, que escribió: “Es el triste deber de la política establecer la justicia en un mundo pecaminoso”. Carter, bautista del sur niebuhriano, era una iglesia unipersonal, una auténtica rara avis. Él “pensaba que la política era pecaminosa”, dijo su vicepresidente, Walter Mondale. “Lo peor que podías decirle a Carter, si querías que hiciera alguna cosa, era que políticamente era lo mejor”. Carter rechazó constantemente los astutos consejos de su esposa, Rosalynn, y de otros, de posponer para su segundo mandato las iniciativas que tuvieran un costo político, como los tratados del canal de Panamá.Su presidencia se recuerda, de forma un tanto simplista, como un fracaso, pero fue más trascendental de lo que recuerda la mayoría. Llevó adelante los acuerdos de paz entre Egipto e Israel en Camp David, el acuerdo SALT II sobre control de armas, la normalización de las relaciones diplomáticas y comerciales con China y la reforma migratoria. Hizo del principio de los derechos humanos la piedra angular de la política exterior de Estados Unidos, y sembró las semillas para el desenlace de la Guerra Fría en Europa del este y Rusia.Liberalizó el sector de las aerolíneas, lo que allanó el camino a que un gran número de estadounidenses de clase media volaran por primera vez; y desreguló el gas natural, lo que sentó las bases de nuestra actual independencia energética. Trabajó para imponer en los autos los cinturones de seguridad o las bolsas de aire, que salvarían la vida de 9000 estadounidenses cada año. Inauguró la inversión nacional en investigación sobre energía solar y fue uno de los primeros presidentes estadounidenses que nos advirtió sobre los peligros del cambio climático. Impulsó la Ley de Conservación de Tierras de Alaska, mediante la cual se protegió el triple de los espacios naturales de Estados Unidos. Su liberalización de la industria de la cerveza casera abrió la puerta a la pujante industria de la cerveza artesanal estadounidense. Nombró a más afroestadounidenses, hispanos y mujeres para la magistratura federal, y aumentó considerablemente su número.Sin embargo, algunas de sus decisiones polémicas, dentro y fuera del país, fueron igual de trascendentes. Sacó a Egipto del campo de batalla en beneficio de Israel, pero siempre insistió en que Israel también estaba obligado a suspender la construcción de nuevos asentamientos en Cisjordania y a permitir a los palestinos cierto grado de autogobierno. A lo largo de las décadas, sostuvo que los asentamientos se habían convertido en un obstáculo para la solución de dos Estados y la resolución pacífica del conflicto. No se arredró al advertirle a todo el mundo que Israel estaba tomando un rumbo equivocado hacia el apartheid. Lamentablemente, algunos críticos llegaron a la imprudente conclusión de que era antiisraelí, o algo peor.Tras la revolución iraní, Carter hizo bien al resistirse durante muchos meses a las presiones de Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller y su propio consejero de Seguridad Nacional, Zbigniew Brzezinski, para que le concediera asilo político al sah depuesto. Carter temía que eso pudiera encender las pasiones iraníes y poner en peligro nuestra embajada en Teherán. Tenía razón. Solo unos días después de que accediera a regañadientes, y el sah ingresara en un hospital de Nueva York, la embajada estadounidense fue tomada. La crisis de los rehenes, que duró 444 días, hirió gravemente su presidencia.Pero Carter se negó a ordenar represalias militares contra el régimen rebelde de Teherán. Eso habría sido lo más fácil desde el punto de vista político, pero también era consciente de que pondría en peligro la vida de los rehenes. Insistió en que la diplomacia funcionaría. Sin embargo, ahora tenemos pruebas fehacientes de que Bill Casey, director de campaña de Ronald Reagan, hizo un viaje secreto en el verano de 1980 a Madrid, donde pudo haberse reunido con el representante del ayatolá Ruhollah Jomeini, y prolongar así la crisis de los rehenes. Si esto es cierto, con esa injerencia en las negociaciones sobre los rehenes se pretendió negarle al gobierno de Carter una buena noticia de cara a las elecciones —la liberación de los rehenes en la recta final de la campaña—, y fue una maniobra política sucia y una injusticia para los rehenes estadounidenses.La presidencia de Carter estuvo prácticamente impoluta en lo que a escándalos se refiere. Carter se pasaba 12 horas o más en el Despacho Oval leyendo 200 páginas de memorandos al día. Estaba empeñado en hacer lo correcto, y cuanto antes.Pero esa rectitud tendría consecuencias políticas. En 1976, aunque ganó los votos electorales del sur, y el voto popular de electores negros, judíos y sindicalistas, en 1980, el único gran margen que conservaba Carter era el de los votantes negros. Incluso los evangélicos lo abandonaron, porque insistía en retirar la exención fiscal a las academias religiosas exclusivamente blancas.La mayoría lo rechazó por ser un presidente demasiado adelantado a su época: demasiado yanqui georgiano para el nuevo sur, y demasiado populista y atípico para el norte. Si las elecciones de 1976 ofrecían la esperanza de sanar la división racial, su derrota marcó la vuelta de Estados Unidos a una etapa conservadora de partidismo áspero. Era una trágica historia que le resultaba familiar a cualquier sureño.Perder la reelección lo sumió durante un tiempo en una depresión. Pero, después, una noche de enero de 1982, su esposa se sobresaltó al verlo sentado en la cama, despierto. Le preguntó si se estaba sintiendo mal. “Ya sé lo que podemos hacer”, respondió. “Podemos desarrollar un lugar para ayudar a las personas que quieran dirimir sus disputas”. Ese fue el comienzo del Centro Carter, una institución dedicada a la resolución de conflictos, a las iniciativas en materia de salud pública y la supervisión de las elecciones en todo el mundo.Si bien antes pensaba que Carter era el único presidente que había utilizado la Casa Blanca como trampolín para lograr cosas más grandes, ahora entiendo que, en realidad, los últimos 43 años han sido una extensión de lo que él consideraba su presidencia inacabada. Dentro o fuera de la Casa Blanca, Carter dedicó su vida a resolver problemas como un ingeniero, prestando atención a las minucias de un mundo complicado. Una vez me dijo que esperaba vivir más que la última lombriz de Guinea. El año pasado solo hubo 13 casos de enfermedad de la lombriz de Guinea en humanos. Puede que lo haya conseguido.Kai Bird es biógrafo, ganador del Pulitzer, director del Leon Levy Center for Biography y autor de The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter. More

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      Your Friday Briefing: A Year of War

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      Also, Nigeria’s upcoming election and healthcare protests in China.Workers reinforced a checkpoint in Kyiv with sandbags.Emile Ducke for The New York TimesOne year of warUkraine is bracing for potential Russian attacks timed to the anniversary of the war today. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has warned of a symbolic “revenge” assault from Russia around the one-year mark of Moscow’s invasion. Schools across Ukraine are holding classes remotely, people have been advised to avoid large gatherings and additional security measures are being put in place. We have updates here.One year on, virtually no one in Ukraine has avoided the violence, destruction and bloodshed of the war, which has killed tens of thousands, left millions homeless and turned entire cities into ruins. But the foreboding that gripped Ukraine in the days before the invasion has long faded.Now, many people in Ukraine said that they had found strength in the shared sacrifice and the collective struggle for survival. Some have become accustomed to the air-raid sirens and warnings. One 30-year-old Ukrainian said those things had become a part of everyday life, “like brushing my teeth.”A global look: The U.S. tried to isolate Russia by imposing sweeping sanctions along with its Western partners. But the rest of the world has taken a more neutral approach to the war, including India and China, as our graphic shows.The latest on weapons: Poland said that it was close to finalizing a deal worth $10 billion to buy additional U.S.-made HIMARS rocket launchers and related equipment, as part of a rapid military buildup. As the West scrambles to find munitions for Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons, it is turning to arms factories across Eastern Europe.China: Janet Yellen, the U.S. treasury secretary, warned Beijing against helping Russia evade sanctions, at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in India. She also said that the U.S. planned to unveil additional sanctions on Russia.Officials sorted voter cards in Lagos last month, ahead of the election.Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNigeria votesNigerians head to the polls tomorrow to choose a new president in the most wide-open race in years. The presidential candidates for the two major parties, which have alternated power for over two decades, are facing a surprise, third-party challenger.In the lead-up to voting day, a decision by Nigeria’s government to replace its currency caused chaos. Voters are furious at the governing party over a shortage of new bank notes, and protests could disrupt voting in parts of the country.Lynsey Chutel, our Briefing writer based in Johannesburg, spoke with our West Africa bureau chief, Ruth Maclean, who is in Abuja to cover the election. Here’s what Ruth said about what’s at stake.“When I interviewed Peter Obi, one of the three main candidates, the other day, he described this as an ‘existential election.’ I think that’s how many Nigerians feel, particularly young Nigerians who were involved in the EndSARS movement a couple of years ago, protesting against police violence, but also against everything they saw going wrong in Nigeria. Many of them have left or are trying to leave the country. If their chosen candidate wins, maybe some will stay, or come back,” Ruth said.As populations in wealthy countries grow older, Africa’s median age is getting younger. In Nigeria, half of the population of more than 200 million is 18 and under.“If Nigeria is safe and prosperous, it brightens life for a whole generation of Africans,” Ruth said.A protest against health care cuts in Wuhan last week.Keith Bradsher/The New York TimesHealth care protests in ChinaThousands of seniors in China are protesting abrupt cuts to their health insurance. The changes were enacted by local governments, and highlight their struggle to recover from the costs of implementing the central government’s expensive “zero Covid” policies for nearly three years.One of the most immediate problems is that municipal insurance funds are running out of money. To free up cash, municipalities have started contributing much less to personal health accounts, the insurance that middle-class people use to pay for medicine and outpatient care. Seniors are most vulnerable to the changes, which include higher costs and reduced benefits.Protests have taken place in the northeastern city of Dalian, in Guangzhou, and in Wuhan in central China, where the Covid pandemic began at the end of 2019. Wuhan’s hospitals responded with an effective but expensive effort to contain the outbreak, and are now implementing some of the sharpest cuts to personal health accounts.Context: The cuts are a symptom of China’s overlapping economic struggles. The country is aging rapidly, and more retirees mean more health care needs. Yet the main source of municipal revenue has shriveled as real estate developers buy less public land because of a housing shakeout.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificRescuers at the site of the mine collapse in northern China’s Inner Mongolia.CCTV, via Associated PressRescuers are working to save 53 coal miners who are missing after a mine collapsed in northern China.The European Commission banned TikTok from most of its employees’ phones, citing security concerns.The temporary suspension of Peter Bol, an Australian Olympic runner, over doping allegations has opened a national debate over testing procedures.Around the WorldLawmakers in Mexico gutted the country’s election watchdog, a change that comes ahead of next year’s presidential contest.Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump.The U.S. nominated Ajay Banga, the former chief executive of Mastercard, to lead the World Bank.Other Big StoriesMaternal mortality rates have fallen in many countries across Asia, but have increased in the U.S. and Europe, the W.H.O. reported.Turkey is scrutinizing Turkish builders after the recent earthquake that killed more than 43,000 people in the country.A British pilot program of a four-day workweek won converts: 92 percent of participating companies plan to continue with the approach.The Week in CultureHarvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison for sex crimes in Los Angeles.Alec Baldwin pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set.The singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes.A Morning ReadThe new drinks are branded Oleato, which can mean oiled or greaseproof in Italian.Valentina Za/ReutersStarbucks is testing out a new ingredient that it believes will draw the Italian masses to its coffee: olive oil. A golden foam espresso martini is one of five oily options.ARTS AND IDEASChatGPT’s scary banalityWhen the movies imagined A.I., they pictured the wrong disaster, our critic A.O. Scott writes. Instead of the chilling rationality of HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” we got the drearier, very human awfulness of Microsoft’s Sydney. Because when real chatbots finally came about, they learned from what humans have expressed online, which can often be deceitful, irrational and plain old mean.“We’re more or less reconciled to the reality that machines are, in some ways, smarter than we are,” Scott writes. “We also enjoy the fantasy that they might turn out to be more sensitive. We’re therefore not prepared for the possibility that they might be chaotic, unstable and resentful — as messy as we are, or maybe more so.”In China: Tech companies making chatbots are facing hurdles from the government.And in the arts: Science fiction magazines are being flooded with stories written by chatbots. They’re “bad in spectacular ways,” one editor said.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookColin Clark for The New York TimesFor a weekend project, make Swedish cardamom buns.What to Read“Win Every Argument” and “Say the Right Thing” offer different approaches to talking to others.What to WatchIn “Yanagawa,” by the Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu, two brothers reconnect over a lost love.HealthLearn about the wild world inside your gut.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Bashful (three letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a lovely weekend! — Amelia and LynseyP.S. Will Shortz, our puzzle editor, talked to The New Yorker about his life in crosswords.“The Daily” is on a U.S. Supreme Court case about social media.If you ever want to reach me, I’m available at briefing@nytimes.com. Thanks!  More

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      Joe Biden’s Greatest Strength Is Also His Greatest Vulnerability

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      In February 2020, just before the world shut down, I was waiting for Joe Biden to speak on a Friday night in Henderson, Nev. The next morning I watched Bernie Sanders rally a fairly young, largely Latino crowd in a packed Las Vegas high school cafeteria. The Biden event, held when it looked as if he would not win the nomination, was smaller and more subdued. On the other side of a rope separating media from attendees, a group of Biden supporters were talking about how stressful it would be to be president at their and Mr. Biden’s age. As I remember it, one of them said, “But he feels he has to do it.”Not much has changed about the substance of their conversation since then, other than three long years: Mr. Biden, at 80, is the oldest U.S. president ever. If and when he announces a re-election campaign, he will put into play the idea of an even older president, eventually 86 years old. “Is age a positive thing for him? No,” Nancy Pelosi recently told Maureen Dowd, before adding that age is “a relative thing.” For reasons ultimately only Mr. Biden can know, it seems he feels he has to do it.There’s a straightforward dimension to the problem: The effects of age can get beyond your control, and it’d be a safer bet to leave office before the risk probability elevates to a danger zone. Barney Frank decided well in advance that he would retire from Congress at 75, then did so in his early 70s. You could feel that would be the right choice for Mr. Biden or any other leader over a certain age threshold, and be done with this topic. But age and health knot together different contradictions in America. Everything’s so weird now. Tech types, athletes and people of means are spending millions to keep their bodies youthful, and to defeat decline, if not death. We live in this society where people frequently talk about their resentment of older leadership — and elect and re-elect older leaders.Donald Trump would also, were he to win and serve out a second term, turn 82, and you could view the final days of the first Trump White House through this prism. Nearly a quarter of the Congress was over 70 last year, Insider found, up from 8 percent in 2002. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican and Iowa’s senior senator, won re-election at age 89 last fall. Two of the most powerful and defining congressional leaders of most of our lives — Mitch McConnell and Ms. Pelosi — are in their 80s, and until the recent hockey line change in House leadership, much of the Democratic congressional leadership was over 70. The Treasury secretary is 76. Two Supreme Court justices are in their 70s; in the last decade, death changed the ideological balance of the court.If he runs for this second term, squarely in this space of all these contradictions, Mr. Biden is making the same ask as he did during the 2020 election — to trust him, to trust that he will be proven right about himself. Qualitatively, Mr. Biden represents familiarity and stability, which both derive from his age and sit in uneasy tension with it.Mr. Biden premised his 2020 campaign on his singular ability to win the presidency, when a good number of people in politics and media didn’t think he could win even the nomination. He predicted a level of congressional function that many people found nostalgic to the point of exotic. This skepticism was, on a deep level, about his age and whether his time had passed and whether he was too distant from the political realities of the 2020s. The thing is: Mr. Biden was right before. He did win the nomination. He did win against Donald Trump. The first two years of the Biden presidency did involve a productive and occasionally bipartisan U.S. Congress. On some level, people like me were wrong. This whole presidency originated with Mr. Biden being right about himself, and therefore his age.And maybe he will be right again! That’s a real possibility, under-discussed in these conversations. Age is relative, as Ms. Pelosi said. Medical science keeps improving, and people keep living longer, healthier lives. Presidents can focus on the big picture and delegate the rest. Mr. Biden’s own parents lived to 86 and 92. Having purpose, professional or otherwise, can rejuvenate all our lives. He looked pretty lively during that State of the Union earlier this month, and certainly in Ukraine and Poland.A generation of old men, from Clement Attlee to Konrad Adenauer, rebuilt Europe after the catastrophic 1930s and 1940s, back when people lived much shorter lives. Mr. Adenauer, the first leader of West Germany, actually served until age 87. We haven’t lived through anything like World War II, but as we convulse through two decades of staggering technological change, that might explain the resurgence of some older and familiar leaders over the last decade. Maybe rather than resenting this generational hold on power that Mr. Biden represents, some segment of people is relieved by the continuity that he offers, and by his distance from our daily lives.It’s complicated to leave office when you have real power. If you were Mr. Sanders (81) or Mitt Romney (75), why would you walk away? Mr. Sanders and Mr. Romney retain their essential selves as public figures — they don’t seem especially changed by age. Neither has said whether he’s going to run again. But if they still feel vital and able, and they are in a position of actual agency and responsibility, then it’s hard to see why they should leave public life.The risk, though, registers at a different pitch with the presidency. Even if we’re not expecting the president to catch a bullet in his teeth or something, we have 100 senators and one president. Hundreds of federal judges, and nine Supreme Court justices. Some stuff matters more than others.This was a problem even at the very beginning of the country’s history. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal arose about how to proceed if the president were unable to serve. According to James Madison’s notes, the delegate John Dickinson asked “What is the extent of the term ‘disability’ & who is to be the judge of it?” Nobody’s ever precisely resolved this dilemma, even with the 25th Amendment.Mr. Biden could be wrong. He could lose the election because of the way voters perceive his age, or he could make it to a second term only to suffer a serious illness in office. Would the country default to a discomfort with visible age and slant one way on Mr. Biden, or take a more nuanced view?In the fall, while thinking over some of these concerns, I saw Senator John Fetterman speak to a large Saturday afternoon crowd in an indoor sports complex in Scranton, Pa. Mr. Fetterman isn’t old — he’s 53 — but he did suffer a stroke and begin recovery while campaigning for office.That day in Scranton, though he moved fluidly and alertly, he struggled some with the cadence of his speech, which was mostly one-liners about Dr. Mehmet Oz. But the event opened up into a gentler moment when he asked, “How many one [sic] of you in your own life have had a serious health challenge? Hands. Personally. Any of you?” Tons of hands went silently up from the synthetic grass. “How many of your parents?” Nearly all the remaining hands went up and stayed up while he ticked off a few other close relations. Though this eventually segued into another joke about Mr. Oz, the silent, serious quality of this call-response was not how the campaign often played online and in the media, where Mr. Fetterman’s condition became a weapon to be bashed over him. The politics of health and age can be brutal.Last week, Mr. Fetterman entered Walter Reed medical center to treat depression. Annie Karni reported that Mr. Fetterman’s recovery has continued to be challenging as he adjusts to new accommodations and limitations. Though he initially faced criticism for not disclosing enough about his condition, over the last several months he has been public about the changes he has gone through and the accommodations he requires, and about depression, something millions of people face but politicians have rarely disclosed.Aging is different than depression or stroke recovery; but like those experiences, there is no shame in aging, and there’s also no suggesting that everything’s easy about it. The choice for Mr. Biden is only an elevated version of the one many people deal with: When will you know it’s time to retire or step back, and when to keep going? All of us are aging, gaining and losing capacities in ways we may not even be aware of.There’s no automatic test that will prove someone is “too old,” and even if there were, nobody would want to take it.You can drive yourself crazy with war games about the ways an election could go. What if Mr. Biden were to run and face a much younger candidate, instead of Mr. Trump? What if he stepped aside in favor of a younger potential successor who then lost to Mr. Trump, invalidating the entire premise of Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign?All that there is, in the end, is Mr. Biden’s request — to trust that he is right about himself. He’s been right before, and may well be right again. But the reason this question lingers is the unstable ground of the answer: The source of what makes people worry about the president is also the source of his power and appeal.Ms. Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.The 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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Mexico Hobbles Election Agency That Helped End One-Party Rule

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      The changes come ahead of a presidential election next year and are part of a pattern of challenges to democratic institutions across the Western Hemisphere.Mexican lawmakers passed sweeping measures overhauling the nation’s electoral agency on Wednesday, dealing a blow to the institution that oversees voting and that helped push the country away from one-party rule two decades ago.The changes, which will cut the electoral agency’s staff, diminish its autonomy and limit its ability to punish politicians for breaking electoral laws, are the most significant in a series of moves by the Mexican president to undermine the country’s fragile institutions — part of a pattern of challenges to democratic norms across the Western Hemisphere.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose party and its allies control Congress, argues that the measures will save millions of dollars and make voting more efficient. The new rules also seek to make it easier for Mexicans who live abroad to cast online ballots.But critics — including some who have worked alongside the president — say the overhaul is an attempt to weaken a key pillar of Mexico’s democracy. The leader of the president’s party in the Senate has called it unconstitutional.Now, another test looms: The Supreme Court, which has increasingly become a target of the president’s ire, is expected to hear a challenge to the measures in the coming months.If the changes stand, electoral officials say it will become difficult to carry out free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential contest next year.“What’s at play is whether we’re going to have a country with democratic institutions and the rule of law,” said Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, who served in the interior ministry under Mr. López Obrador. “What’s at risk is whether the vote will be respected.”The watchdog, called the National Electoral Institute, earned international acclaim for facilitating clean elections in Mexico, paving the way for the opposition to win the presidency in 2000 after decades of rule by a single party.Demonstrators marching against the electoral changes proposed by Mr. López Obrador in November.Luis Cortes/ReutersYet since losing a presidential election in 2006 by less than 1 percent of the vote, Mr. López Obrador has repeatedly argued, without evidence, that the watchdog actually perpetrated electoral fraud — a claim that resembles voter-fraud conspiracy theories in the United States and Brazil.The Mexican leader’s skepticism about the 2006 election was even echoed last year by the American ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who told The New York Times that he, too, had questions about the results’ legitimacy.President Biden’s top Latin America adviser later clarified that the administration recognized the outcome of that contest. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico has been sending reports to Washington assessing potential threats to democracy in the country, according to three U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.But while some lawmakers have expressed concern about the electoral changes, the Biden administration has said little about the issue in public.The American government sees little advantage in provoking Mr. López Obrador, and has faith that Mexican institutions are capable of defending themselves, several U.S. officials said.The Mexican president remains extremely popular, and his Morena party is ahead in 2024 presidential election polls. One of Mr. López Obrador’s political protégés is likely to be the party’s candidate.That dynamic has many in Mexico wondering: Why push for changes that could raise doubts about the legitimacy of an election his party is favored to win?“We were looking to save money, without affecting the work of the I.N.E.,” Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, the president’s spokesman, said in an interview, using an acronym for the watchdog. The president has a “zero deficit” policy of austerity, he said, and would prefer to spend public money on “social investments, in health, education, and infrastructure.”Indigenous vendors selling handicrafts during Mr. López Obrador’s rally in Mexico City last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. López Obrador has said he wants to make a bloated bureaucracy leaner.“The electoral system will be improved,” Mr. López Obrador said in December. “They are going to shrink some areas so that more can be done with less.”Many agree that spending could be trimmed, but say the changes adopted on Wednesday strike at the heart of the watchdog’s most fundamental role: overseeing the vote.Electoral officials say the overhaul will force them to eliminate thousands of jobs — including the vast majority of workers who organize elections at the local level and install polling stations across the country. The changes also limit the agency’s control over its own spending and prevent it from disqualifying candidates for campaign spending violations.Uuc Kib Espadas, a member of the watchdog’s governing council, said the changes could result in “the failure to install a significant number of polling stations, depriving thousands or hundreds of thousands of people of the right to vote.”Mr. Ramírez Cuevas called those concerns “an exaggeration” and said “there won’t be massive layoffs” at the watchdog.But the Mexican president has not hidden his disdain for the institution his party is now targeting.After electoral officials confirmed his defeat in 2006, Mr. López Obrador led thousands of supporters in protests that paralyzed the capital for weeks. He eventually led his followers off the streets, but never stopped talking about what he calls “the fraud” of 2006.Mr. López Obrador surrounded by supporters during his rally last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times“He’s resentful of the electoral authority,” said Mr. Alcocer Villanueva, the former interior ministry official. “That resentment makes him act irrationally on this issue.”Mr. López Obrador did not always seem determined to pare down the electoral body.Mr. Alcocer Villanueva said that when he was chief of staff to the interior minister, from 2018 to 2021, he and his team proposed studying possible electoral changes, but the president said it was not one of his priorities.Then the electoral watchdog started to get in the way of the president’s agenda.In 2021, the agency disqualified two candidates from his party from running for office for failing to declare relatively small campaign contributions — decisions that some within the institution questioned.“It was a disproportionate sanction,” said Mr. Espadas Ancona.Soon, the president began spending a lot more time talking about the watchdog — usually negatively. In 2022, he mentioned it in daily news conferences more than twice as often as he did in 2019, according to the agency.He has denounced the agency as “rotten” and “undemocratic” and made a punching bag out of its leader — a lawyer named Lorenzo Córdova — calling him “a fraud without principles.”Mr. López Obrador has railed against Mexican electoral authorities since his failed presidential bid in 2006, when he lost by less than 1 percent of the vote.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. Córdova, who was appointed by Mexico’s Congress, has taken center stage in his own defense, responding directly to the president in a torrent of media interviews and news conferences. “It is a very clear political strategy, to sell the I.N.E. as a biased, partial authority,” Mr. Córdova said in an interview, referring to the agency by its initials. “What is our dilemma as an authority? How do we handle it? If we say nothing, publicly, we are validating the president’s statements.”The president’s critics have cheered Mr. Córdova’s willingness to take him on. But some in Mexico question whether Mr. Córdova has struck the right balance.“He shouldn’t respond to the president so viscerally and with so much anger,” said Luis Carlos Ugalde, who led the agency from 2003 to 2007, adding: “It generates a stronger desire from the other side, from Morena, to attack and destroy the institute.”Mr. Córdova stood by his approach.“It’s very easy to judge from the outside,” Mr. Córdova said. “It’s been me who’s had to lead this institution in the worst moment.”Mr. Córdova’s term will expire in April. Congress, controlled by the president’s party, will elect four new members of the watchdog’s governing body.Oscar Lopez More