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      Will Trump Get Indicted for Jan. 6?

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      More from our inbox:The Russia-Iran AllianceAn Unreal Foreign PolicyWhen I Realized That ‘Youth Is a Members-Only Club’A Good Divorce Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Has Told Americans Exactly Who He Is,” by Jesse Wegman (Opinion, Oct. 15):I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Wegman’s essay on Donald Trump and his blatant misdeeds, as so masterfully presented by the Jan. 6 committee. But we are approaching two years from Jan. 6 and there are still no indictments resulting from clear evidence of overwhelming criminal conduct by Mr. Trump.The mantra that no one is above the law rings hollow, as any normal person engaging in such Trumpian conduct would be wearing an orange suit by now. What more does the Justice Department or the Georgia prosecutor possibly need to take the action the evidence so clearly demands?I thought that when New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, filed a complaint accusing Donald Trump and his business of fraud that it would give courage to weak-kneed prosecutors to follow suit. Yet we wait and doubt whether the Teflon man will ever be brought to justice. Without such action, future leaders will feel no risk in taking actions that could destroy our democracy.We need indictments and justice, and we need them now!Richard GoetzDelray Beach, Fla.To the Editor:Jesse Wegman is correct to say that the Republican Party “is now infected from coast to coast with proudly ignorant conspiracymongers, wild-eyed election deniers and gun-toting maniacs.”About half of Americans are willing to allow that party to return to power. That half includes not just the unreachable Trump base but also millions of Americans who know that President Biden won the election, are probably opposed to political violence and likely support representative democracy. It is these Americans, who are not deep into delusions, lies and conspiracies, but nonetheless willing to hand power to a Republican Party that is, who currently pose the greatest threat to American democracy.Richard SeagerNew YorkTo the Editor:“Trump Has Told Americans Exactly Who He Is” is true today and has been true ever since he was first a candidate in the 2016 election. He has never shown, or aspired to be, more than what he has shown us right from the start. Sadly, many who follow him think this is fine, and perhaps the Jan. 6 committee’s report illuminating his actions may change some minds. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.As the very wise Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I did, and I haven’t changed my mind.Cathy PutnamConcord, Mass.The Russia-Iran AllianceA drone believed to be Iranian-made nearing its target in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Deadly Message Sent by Drones: It’s Russia and Iran vs. the West” (front page, Oct. 18):Reprising the alliance that killed tens of thousands of noncombatants in Syria, Iran is now supplying Russia with drones used to attack Ukrainian cities and murder their inhabitants. The collaboration between these two vile dictatorships is based only on a mutual contempt for human life, abhorrence of freedom and hatred of the United States.What will it take for the Biden administration to break off its efforts to revive President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, which would only delay, not prevent, the Islamic Republic’s emergence as a nuclear-armed power?Howard F. JaeckelNew YorkAn Unreal Foreign Policy Jhonn Zerpa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:In “The U.S. Cannot Uphold the Fiction That Juan Guaidó Is the President of Venezuela,” (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Oct. 8), William Neuman makes a blunt, but accurate, observation about U.S. policy in Venezuela: It’s incoherent and frankly detached from reality.But Venezuela is hardly an anomaly. U.S. foreign policy is often stuck in an immovable vortex, with inertia and an unwillingness to admit failure the defining features. The foreign policy establishment is either incapable of adapting to situations or is too confident of its ability to will things into existence.While it doesn’t hurt to be ambitious, it also doesn’t hurt to understand the limits of your power. The U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the world, with boundless economic potential and a military second to none, but other countries have independent agency, their own core interests and the resiliency to ensure that those interests are protected.The result is a wide divergence between the grand objectives the U.S. hopes to accomplish and the reality the U.S. operates in. Thus, we see Nicolás Maduro still running Venezuela, Bashar al-Assad sitting comfortably in the presidential palace in Syria and Kim Jong-un of North Korea the leader of a nuclear-weapons state.Instead of seeking to transform the world to its liking, a mountainous undertaking if there ever was one, the U.S. should work within the world that exists. Otherwise, failure is all but assured.Daniel R. DePetrisNew Rochelle, N.Y.The writer is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington.When I Realized That ‘Youth Is a Members-Only Club’ Irving Browning/New-York Historical Society, via Bridgeman ImagesTo the Editor:Pamela Paul’s delightful Oct. 20 column, “Wait, Who Did You Say Is Middle-Aged?,” made me remember the afternoon I drove my two sons — teenagers then — home from school. A song blending Southern and garage rock was playing on the radio.“Mom, bet you don’t know who’s singing,” they dared.“That’s easy,” I said. “It’s Kings of Leon.”My older son gaped at his brother. “How could she know that?” Both were flummoxed, even offended, that I, a woman then in her 50s, got the answer right. Suddenly Kings of Leon, a band they followed, became uncool.I realized then and there that youth is a members-only club. And no amount of worldly knowledge — not even a gentle bribe of chocolate chip cookies, perhaps — could win me the price of admission.Reni RoxasEverett, Wash.A Good Divorce David HuangTo the Editor:Re “A Cure for the Existential Crisis of Married Motherhood,” by Amy Shearn (Sunday Opinion, Oct. 9):Ms. Shearn nails it in her tribute to happy divorced motherhood. The key to that freedom, I would assert, is a good divorce, meaning one that puts children first.It has been my mission since my own divorce 12 years ago to promote the concept of a good divorce, one that makes co-parenting the pinnacle of achievement for couples who must go through this difficult change.A good divorce means attending parent-teacher conferences with your ex, helping your child select a birthday gift for your ex-spouse, and relying on family and friends whenever possible to help ease the transition.My daughter, Grace, gave me the definition of a “good divorce” when she was only 8, saying, “A good divorce is when parents are nice to each other, like you and Daddy.”As Ms. Shearn acknowledges, some divorces are brutal, and for those parents a good divorce might not be realistic. For the rest of us, a good divorce is a goal divorced parents should aspire to, because it is an attainable outcome.Sarah ArmstrongSan FranciscoThe writer is vice president, global marketing operations, at Google and the author of “The Mom’s Guide to a Good Divorce: What to Think Through When Children Are Involved.” More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Disinformation Is Even More Intractable

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      On the morning of July 8, former President Donald J. Trump took to Truth Social, a social media platform he founded with people close to him, to claim that he had in fact won the 2020 presidential vote in Wisconsin, despite all evidence to the contrary.Barely 8,000 people shared that missive on Truth Social, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of responses his posts on Facebook and Twitter had regularly generated before those services suspended his megaphones after the deadly riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.And yet Mr. Trump’s baseless claim pulsed through the public consciousness anyway. It jumped from his app to other social media platforms — not to mention podcasts, talk radio or television.Within 48 hours of Mr. Trump’s post, more than one million people saw his claim on at least dozen other sites. It appeared on Facebook and Twitter, from which he has been banished, but also YouTube, Gab, Parler and Telegram, according to an analysis by The New York Times.The spread of Mr. Trump’s claim illustrates how, ahead of this year’s midterm elections, disinformation has metastasized since experts began raising alarms about the threat. Despite years of efforts by the media, by academics and even by social media companies themselves to address the problem, it is arguably more pervasive and widespread today.“I think the problem is worse than it’s ever been, frankly,” said Nina Jankowicz, an expert on disinformation who briefly led an advisory board within the Department of Homeland Security dedicated to combating misinformation. The creation of the panel set off a furor, prompting her to resign and the group to be dismantled.Not long ago, the fight against disinformation focused on the major social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. When pressed, they often removed troubling content, including misinformation and intentional disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.Today, however, there are dozens of new platforms, including some that pride themselves on not moderating — censoring, as they put it — untrue statements in the name of free speech.Other figures followed Mr. Trump in migrating to these new platforms after being “censored” by Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. They included Michael Flynn, the retired general who served briefly as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser; L. Lin Wood, a pro-Trump lawyer; Naomi Wolf, a feminist author and vaccine skeptic; and assorted adherents of QAnon and the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia.At least 69 million people have joined platforms, like Parler, Gab, Truth Social, Gettr and Rumble, that advertise themselves as conservative alternatives to Big Tech, according to statements by the companies. Though many of those users are ostracized from larger platforms, they continue to spread their views, which often appear in screen shots posted on the sites that barred them.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.“Nothing on the internet exists in a silo,” said Jared Holt, a senior manager on hate and extremism research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “Whatever happens in alt platforms like Gab or Telegram or Truth makes its way back to Facebook and Twitter and others.”Users have migrated to apps like Truth Social after being “censored” by Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.Leon Neal/Getty ImagesThe diffusion of the people who spread disinformation has radicalized political discourse, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, an advocacy group for digital rights and accountability.“Our language and our ecosystems are becoming more caustic online,” she said. The shifts in the disinformation landscape are becoming clear with the new cycle of American elections. In 2016, Russia’s covert campaign to spread false and divisive posts seemed like an aberration in the American political system. Today disinformation, from enemies, foreign and domestic, has become a feature of it.The baseless idea that President Biden was not legitimately elected has gone mainstream among Republican Party members, driving state and county officials to impose new restrictions on casting ballots, often based on mere conspiracy theories percolating in right-wing media.Voters must now sift through not only an ever-growing torrent of lies and falsehoods about candidates and their policies, but also information on when and where to vote. Officials appointed or elected in the name of fighting voter fraud have put themselves in the position to refuse to certify outcomes that are not to their liking.The purveyors of disinformation have also become increasingly sophisticated at sidestepping the major platforms’ rules, while the use of video to spread false claims on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram has made them harder for automated systems to track than text.TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has become a primary battleground in today’s fight against disinformation. A report last month by NewsGuard, an organization that tracks the problem online, showed that nearly 20 percent of videos presented as search results on TikTok contained false or misleading information on topics such as school shootings and Russia’s war in Ukraine.Katie Harbath in Facebook’s “war room,” where election-related content was monitored on the platform, in 2018.Jeff Chiu/Associated Press“People who do this know how to exploit the loopholes,” said Katie Harbath, a former director of public policy at Facebook who now leads Anchor Change, a strategic consultancy.With the midterm elections only weeks away, the major platforms have all pledged to block, label or marginalize anything that violates company policies, including disinformation, hate speech or calls to violence.Still, the cottage industry of experts dedicated to countering disinformation — think tanks, universities and nongovernment organizations — say the industry is not doing enough. The Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University warned last month, for example, that the major platforms continued to amplify “election denialism” in ways that undermined trust in the democratic system.Another challenge is the proliferation of alternative platforms for those falsehoods and even more extreme views.Many of those new platforms have flourished in the wake of Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, though they have not yet reached the size or reach of Facebook and Twitter. They portray Big Tech as beholden to the government, the deep state or the liberal elite.Parler, a social network founded in 2018, was one of the fastest-growing sites — until Apple’s and Google’s app stores kicked it off after the deadly riot on Jan. 6, which was fueled by disinformation and calls for violence online. It has since returned to both stores and begun to rebuild its audience by appealing to those who feel their voices have been silenced.“We believe at Parler that it is up to the individual to decide what he or she thinks is the truth,” Amy Peikoff, the platform’s chief policy officer, said in an interview.She argued that the problem with disinformation or conspiracy theories stemmed from the algorithms that platforms use to keep people glued online — not from the unfettered debate that sites like Parler foster.On Monday, Parler announced that Kanye West had agreed in principle to purchase the platform, a deal that the rapper and fashion designer, now known as Ye, cast in political terms.“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial, we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” he said, according to the company’s statement.Parler’s competitors now are BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social, with each offering itself as sanctuary from the moderating policies of the major platforms on everything from politics to health policy.A new survey by the Pew Research Center found that 15 percent of prominent accounts on those seven platforms had previously been banished from others like Twitter and Facebook.Apps like Gettr market themselves as alternatives to Big Tech.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty ImagesNearly two-thirds of the users of those platforms said they had found a community of people who share their views, according to the survey. A majority are Republicans or lean Republican.A result of this atomization of social media sources is to reinforce the partisan information bubbles within which millions of Americans live.At least 6 percent of Americans now regularly get news from at least one of these relatively new sites, which often “highlight non-mainstream world views and sometimes offensive language,” according to Pew. One in 10 posts on these platforms that mentioned L.G.B.T.Q. issues involved derisive allegations, the survey found.These new sites are still marginal compared with the bigger platforms; Mr. Trump, for example, has four million followers on Truth Social, compared with 88 million when Twitter kicked him off in 2021.Even so, Mr. Trump has increasingly resumed posting with the vigor he once showed on Twitter. The F.B.I. raid on Mar-a-Lago thrust his latest pronouncements into the eye of the political storm once again.For the major platforms, the financial incentive to attract users — and their clicks — remains powerful and could undo the steps they took in 2021. There is also an ideological component. The emotionally laced appeal to individual liberty in part drove Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, which appears to have been revived after months of legal maneuvering.Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at Meta, Facebook’s parent company, even suggested recently that the platform might reinstate Mr. Trump’s account in 2023 — ahead of what could be another presidential run. Facebook had previously said it would do so only “if the risk to public safety has receded.”Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA study of Truth Social by Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media monitoring group, examined how the platform had become a home for some of the most fringe conspiracy theories. Mr. Trump, who began posting on the platform in April, has increasingly amplified content from QAnon, the online conspiracy theory.He has shared posts from QAnon accounts more than 130 times. QAnon believers promote a vast and complex falsehood that centers on Mr. Trump as a leader battling a cabal of Democratic Party pedophiles. Echoes of such views reverberated through Republican election campaigns across the country during this year’s primaries.Ms. Jankowicz, the disinformation expert, said the nation’s social and political divisions had churned the waves of disinformation.The controversies over how best to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic deepened distrust of government and medical experts, especially among conservatives. Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election led to, but did not end with, the Capitol Hill violence.“They should have brought us together,” Ms. Jankowicz said, referring to the pandemic and the riots. “I thought perhaps they could be kind of this convening power, but they were not.” More

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      Liz Truss’s Quick Resignation Spurs Anger and Bewilderment Among Britons

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      The news of the prime minister’s resignation whipsawed many in Britain, a country already dealing with spiraling inflation and still grappling with the departure of Boris Johnson.LONDON — The fast-paced developments that culminated Thursday with the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss left many Britons in a state of anger and alarm about their country’s future. “We are in an economic crisis, a political crisis, a food crisis — an everything crisis,” said Cristian Cretu, a gas engineer. “Whoever is going to replace her, I don’t think they will make a difference.”Others were dumbfounded at her sudden resignation.“Are you serious?” said Michael Debas, an Uber driver, as he heard the news of Ms. Truss’s resignation on the radio. “This is just crazy. What’s going on in this country?” he said as he began to count the list of Britain’s recent prime ministers on his fingers.In pubs and on the streets of London, as news of the turmoil flashed across screens and cellphones and blared over radios, Britons who had already stared down a year of economic and political turmoil met the latest developments with anxiety and concern about what comes next.“I’m not surprised at all,” Diana Godwin, 61, said of the resignation as she worked at her fruit and vegetable stall in Brixton, in South London. “But who wants to throw their hat into the ring now?”“When they lose the next election, that one will have to be sacked, too,” she said of the governing Conservatives and whoever becomes Britain’s next leader.With the government in chaos, Britons are wondering what the instability atop the government could portend for a country battling double-digit inflation and widening economic malaise.“It feels like the economy could collapse at any moment,” Edward Brusnahan, 53, said. He was in the middle of trying to refinance his apartment so that he could move away from the city. But with the mortgage market disrupted and rates rising sharply, it was no easy task.Consumer prices had risen by 10.1 percent in September from a year earlier, propelled by food prices that soared 14.5 percent in September.Sam Bush for The New York TimesHe said that political leaders had “no vision” to address the nation’s mounting problems and that Britain seemed to be transgressing back to the painful economic malaise of the 1970s.“We’re lurching from crisis to crisis,” he said. Nevertheless, he called Ms. Truss’s decision to quit “the right decision,” saying, “Hopefully they’ll make a better choice this time.”In poorer parts of London, where the pain of rising costs has been more pronounced, there was anger, frustration and exhaustion with the chaos in Britain’s government and the worsening economic news.“I’ve just closed my ears to it all,” said Ms. Godwin, who said that her energy bills had more than doubled recently. “Anyone with any common decency should step down.”“They don’t give a damn about normal, working people,” she added.That sense of government incompetency has also bled into an all-consuming worry about how bad Britain’s economic crisis could get. On Wednesday, the government announced that consumer prices had risen by 10.1 percent in September from a year earlier, propelled by food prices that soared 14.5 percent in Septem“Everything — the cost of living — is too much,” said James Hill, 32, who was fixing an elevator on Thursday morning. With two young children, Mr. Hill said he was working as much overtime as he could, which meant less time with his family.Customers at the clothing stall that Sevin Singh, 39, owns have all but dried up amid Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, and he says he now worries about the future of the 20-year-old family business.Britons who had already stared down a year of economic and political turmoil met the latest developments with anxiety and concern about what comes next.Sam Bush for The New York Times“The government don’t have control anymore. Every day something changes,” said Mr. Singh, as he busied himself on a rainy Thursday morning tending to his collection of women’s turbans and dashiki dresses. Of Ms. Truss, he said, “She was just not good enough for the job, and we urgently need someone who is.”Christopher Egege, who had spent the past few months abroad, returned to London and was stunned at how far prices for everything from eggs to sauces and other foodstuffs had been marked up. If things did not improve, Mr. Egege said he would consider moving back overseas in a few months.Mr. Egege said he believed that Rishi Sunak, Britain’s former chancellor of the Exchequer beaten by Ms. Truss, should have become prime minister. “I don’t understand why they voted for her,” he said referring to Ms. Truss. “Is it down to racism?” (Mr. Sunak’s parents are of Indian heritage.)Ghifftie Bonsu, 47, who was opening her wig shop along with her young son, said she had become numb to Britain’s myriad crises. Customers have dwindled amid the country’s inflationary crisis, and she now worries about the businesses’ future.“I don’t even know where to start,” Ms. Bonsu said of the political turmoil. “They should pick people who are ready and can do the job.” More

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      What Happened With Liz Truss in Britain? A Guide to the Basics.

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      A little over six weeks into her leadership, the British prime minister said she would resign.LONDON — The rapid political collapse of Liz Truss ended as she announced her resignation on Thursday, a little more than six weeks after she became Britain’s leader. Her agenda had floundered, her own party had turned on her and commentators widely speculated on whether she could outlast a head of lettuce. She couldn’t.She had pledged to shoulder through the turmoil despite widespread calls for her resignation. But minute by minute the heat on her grew until there was no path out.If you need to get caught up, here is a guide to the basics.Who is Liz Truss and how did she become prime minister?Ms. Truss was anointed on Sept. 6 to replace Boris Johnson, who was elected by voters in 2019 but who flamed out in spectacular fashion after a series of scandals, forcing him to step down in July.The general public did not elect Ms. Truss — instead, she won a leadership contest among members of her Conservative Party. To replace Mr. Johnson, the party’s members of Parliament narrowed a field of candidates to two, who were then put up to a vote by about 160,000 dues-paying party members. (They’re an unrepresentative group of the nation’s 67 million residents, far more likely to be male, older, middle-class and white.)Ms. Truss, 47, had been Mr. Johnson’s hawkish foreign secretary, a free-market champion and eventual supporter of Brexit (after she changed her mind), winning over the right flank of the party despite her more moderate past. (Before joining the Conservative Party, she was a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats when she was a student at Oxford University.)How did it start to come undone?She was never going to have it easy. As Ms. Truss entered office, the nation was staring down a calamitous economic picture, highlighted by energy bills that were predicted to jump 80 percent in October and jump again in January. It threatened to send millions of Britons, already reeling from inflation and other challenges, spiraling into destitution, unable to heat or power their homes.So it was unwelcome news when her signature economic plans immediately made things worse.Her announced plans for tax cuts, deregulation and borrowing so alarmed global investors that the value of the British pound sank to a record low against the U.S. dollar. The Bank of England stepped in to prop up government bonds, an extraordinary intervention to calm the markets.The response left no doubt that her free-market ambitions were untenable. In a humiliating reversal, she was forced to reverse virtually all of the tax cuts this week, including a much-criticized one on high earners. She fired Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the Exchequer who was the architect of the plan and a close ally, and adopted economic policies favored by the opposition Labour party.“You cannot engage in the sort of U-turn that she has engaged in and retain your political credibility,” said Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool.How did her tenure come under threat?Her concessions did little to mollify a growing rebellion from within her own party, which had the power to topple her in much the same way it toppled Mr. Johnson.The Conservatives — also known as Tories — had seen their popularity decline in public opinion polls after Mr. Johnson’s scandals, and their numbers cratered to staggering new lows as Ms. Truss stumbled. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll this week revealed the lowest approval rating it had ever recorded for a prime minister, with 70 percent disapproving of Ms. Truss, including 67 percent of Conservatives.If a general election were held today, 56 percent would vote for Labour while 20 percent would vote Conservative, the poll found.The Conservative Party’s discontent with Ms. Truss crescendoed in turn, and she was enveloped with a palpable sense of crisis. On Wednesday, it boiled into a frantic fight for her survival — “I’m a fighter and not a quitter,” she said while being grilled by members of Parliament.Then even more chaos broke out. Suella Braverman, Britain’s interior minister, stepped down after an email breach, but took a swipe at Ms. Truss in her resignation letter, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government.” A vote on fracking in Parliament turned into a reported scene of bullying, shouting, physical manhandling and tears. More Conservative members of Parliament openly called for Ms. Truss to step down. Rumors swirled of high-profile resignations. It was difficult to keep up.“In short, it is total, absolute, abject chaos,” a news announcer said on iTV. Charles Walker, a Conservative lawmaker, did not hold back in an interview on BBC.On Thursday, she said she had handed her resignation to the king, with a new leadership election planned within a week.What comes next?Ms. Truss will remain prime minister until her successor is chosen. (Here are the likely front-runners.) In her resignation remarks, Ms. Truss said a leadership election would be completed in the next week, bringing Britain its second unelected leader in a row.The next general election — when the entire public can participate, and the next opportunity for Labour to take control — is not scheduled until January 2025 at the latest. A Conservative leader could call for one earlier, but they would have little reason to do so imminently since polls indicate the party would be wiped out by Labour.Mr. Tonge said one advantage Conservatives have is time — the party could theoretically regain credibility if the economy recovers in the following years, he said.“I don’t think that changing the leader will necessarily save the Conservatives,” he said. “But you can engage in damage limitation by doing so.” More

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      Walker Says His Mental Illness Is Healed. Experts Say It’s Not So Simple.

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      WASHINGTON — Confronting a barrage of accusations about his personal life — including claims he threatened women and paid for an abortion despite his public opposition to the procedure — Herschel Walker has repeatedly invoked his history of mental illness in his defense.“As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health, even wrote a book about it,” Mr. Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, said in a television ad released at the height of the abortion controversy. “And by the grace of God, I’ve overcome it.”In the ad, and on the campaign trail, Mr. Walker, a former football star, does not elaborate. But in his 2008 memoir, “Breaking Free,” he revealed that he had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. He described his 12 “alters” — distinct identities that helped him cope with the trauma of being bullied as a child. He wrote of rage and “out-of-control behavior”; he played Russian roulette with a loaded gun.Now, as he tries to steady a campaign that could determine control of the Senate, Mr. Walker often speaks of these events in religious, not medical, terms. He either denies the accusations or says he does not remember what happened. Still, he casts himself as a redemption story, saying he is a Christian “saved by grace.”But experts say Mr. Walker’s assertion that he has “overcome” the disorder is simplistic at best: Like other mental illnesses, dissociative identity disorder cannot be cured in the classic sense. Psychiatrists say that while patients can learn to manage this disorder — and even live symptom-free for extended periods — the symptoms can recur, often triggered by stress.“You can get better,” said Dr. David Spiegel, a Stanford University psychiatry professor who studies and treats dissociative identity disorder. “But it doesn’t just evaporate.”Dr. Spiegel and other experts interviewed for this article have not treated Mr. Walker and could not speak to the specifics of his case.Mr. Walker’s retelling does not account for other complicating details. Experts say the disorder does not cause violent behavior. Some of the episodes — including an ex-girlfriend’s accusation that he had threatened her — took place after Mr. Walker claimed to have his disorder under control.The Walker campaign did not respond this week to questions about his health history and has not released his medical records.Last Friday night, during a debate with his Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, Mr. Walker said he no longer needed treatment: “I continue to get help if I need help, but I don’t need any help. I’m doing well.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.G.O.P. Gains Edge: Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with an advantage as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns, a Times/Siena poll found.Codifying Roe: President Biden pledged that the first bill he would send to Capitol Hill next year if Democrats expand their control of Congress in the midterm elections would be legislation to enshrine abortion rights into law.Florida Senate Race: In the only debate of the contest, exchanges between Senator Marco Rubio and his Democratic challenger, Representative Val Demings, got fiery at times. Here are four takeaways.Aggressive Tactics: Right-wing leaders are calling on election activists to monitor voting in the midterm elections in search of evidence to confirm unfounded theories of election fraud.In an interview with Axios last year, Mr. Walker likened his condition to a broken leg, saying, “I put the cast on. It healed.”A supporter at a Walker campaign event. Mr. Walker casts himself as a redemption story, saying he is a Christian “saved by grace.” Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDemocrats have said Mr. Walker’s description of his mental illness does not fully explain his previous behavior. In a statement, Mr. Warnock’s campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said only that Mr. Walker had “not given Georgians an honest accounting of his violent past.”Health issues have been front and center for other candidates this year; in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate, is facing questions from Republicans about whether he is fit to serve after a stroke. Even Republican strategists say Mr. Walker should answer similar questions.“I think it’s fair, and Herschel obviously thinks it’s a big part of his life,” said Scott Jennings, a former adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader. “If I were Herschel’s campaign I would say Americans live with mental health challenges every day — we just happen to be the first campaign to talk openly about it.”Dissociative identity disorder, known by its acronym D.I.D., is a relatively rare psychiatric condition usually triggered by childhood trauma, including sexual or physical abuse, or war. Studies show it affects about 1 percent of the population, said Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, though “many of those people may have quite mild cases and do not experience problems from it and never come to clinical attention.”It is characterized by changes in behavior that occur when a patient fails to develop a unified sense of self, and instead “disassociates” into competing “self-states” that emerge in different situations. Many patients experience amnesia.Dr. Spiegel drew a comparison to healthy people who opt to act like “a different person” in different settings. But people with dissociative identity disorder, he said, “often don’t experience having choice.”Treatment typically involves intensive therapy; Dr. Spiegel often uses hypnosis, he said. While there is no medication to treat this disorder, some patients take medicine for conditions that occur alongside it, such as depression. Patients are required during treatment to take responsibility for their behavior; Mr. Walker says he has done so.“One of the core aspects of successful treatment for D.I.D. is holding people with the disorder responsible for their behavior, even when they say they don’t remember it, or that another self-state did it,” said Dr. Richard J. Loewenstein, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland and a leading expert in the disorder, which was known as multiple personality disorder until 1994, when the name was changed to reflect a more nuanced understanding of the condition.In his book, written with two ghostwriters, Mr. Walker recounts his childhood as a “daily assault of verbal and sometimes physical abuse” by classmates who thought he was stupid because he stuttered. His doctors later told him he had created other personalities to help him cope.He says his “alters” were at times a positive force, helping him to “forget most of the awful things that had happened to me.” After he understood them, he wrote, he gave them titles.The General, or Coach, oversaw the other identities. The Hero “put on the facade” of a tough guy. The Sentry served as an emotional guard who “never let anyone get really close to me.” The Warrior “loved the physical contact” of football and did not feel pain; in the book, Mr. Walker describes having his wisdom teeth extracted without anesthesia. The Indifferent Daredevil “didn’t care about what other people would think or what was right and wrong.”In a 2014 ESPN documentary. he said he thought that in high school he might join the Marines, because it would give him license to “shoot people.” Instead, he pursued a career in sports. Football became his “coping mechanism.”But after he retired from the Dallas Cowboys in 1997, Mr. Walker wrote, his life spun out of control. He had an extramarital affair. He played Russian roulette, “risking my life with a gun at my head.” (The book does not recount an episode in which his ex-wife, Cindy DeAngelis Grossman, said he put a gun to her head and threatened to “blow my brains out.” Mr. Walker has not denied the allegation, but says he does not remember doing so.)In 2001, Mr. Walker writes, things came to a head when he grew enraged at a car salesman who was late in making a delivery. He could feel “my jaw pulsing and my teeth grinding,” he wrote, as a voice prodded him to pull out his pistol and kill the man. Another voice countered: “No Herschel, that’s wrong. You can’t shoot a man down in cold blood over this.”At that point, Mr. Walker sought help from Jerry Mungadze, a therapist who gave him a diagnosis of D.I.D. and arranged for him to be treated as an outpatient at Del Amo psychiatric hospital in Torrance, Calif., where doctors confirmed the diagnosis, Mr. Walker wrote.Walker has, at times, used his campaign to urge others to speak more candidly about mental illness.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDr. Mungadze, who wrote the introduction to Mr. Walker’s book, has since stirred controversy with his methods. Dr. Mungadze, who holds a doctorate in “counselor education,” according to his website, and is not a medical doctor, specializes in Christian counseling and employs a technique he calls brain mapping, in which he diagnoses patients by asking them to color in a map of a brain. Experts say it has no basis in science.Mr. Walker has not said whether he still sees Dr. Mungadze, who declined an interview request.Dissociative identity disorder has long been the subject of intense debate; some psychiatrists say it is vastly over-diagnosed, and others have questioned whether it exists.Americans are most likely familiar with it from popular culture: It is central to the 1957 film “Three Faces of Eve” and to the 1973 blockbuster book “Sybil,” about a woman with 16 personalities. There is now a growing D.I.D. community on TikTok.In a 2011 book, “Sybil Exposed,” the writer Debbie Nathan reported that the personalities were pressured into existence by the therapist, who was invested in the idea of having a patient with the condition so she could speak about it at professional meetings. She cites a letter in which the real “Sybil” wrote that she was “essentially lying” — only to later recant.“In my view, it’s a metaphor rather than a true condition,” said Dr. Allen J. Frances, chairman emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine. “It’s a way of expressing distress in people who have an internal conflict.”In 1994, while leading a task force that revised the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — often called “psychiatry’s Bible” — Dr. Frances sought to eliminate “multiple personality disorder” from the manual. Instead, the task force changed the name. Dr. Frances said diagnoses often surge when the disorder turns up in popular culture.Dr. Appelbaum, who is also a past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said there was a consensus in the field that D.I.D. is “a real phenomenon, a real disorder.”Admissions of mental illness were once a barrier to a career in politics. In 1972, Thomas Eagleton was forced to drop off the Democratic presidential ticket as George McGovern’s running mate after disclosures that he had been hospitalized for depression and treated with electroshock therapy. But those stigmas are easing, and some mental health experts give Mr. Walker credit for raising awareness.As he campaigns, Mr. Walker has cast himself as a “champion for mental health,” and hits back at critics by saying they are perpetrating a stigma. At Friday night’s debate, he railed against “people like Senator Warnock that demonize mental health.” (Mr. Warnock has introduced a series of bills to expand mental health services.)Then, Mr. Walker turned to the camera, as if to deliver a public service announcement, and declared, “I want to tell everyone out there, you can get help.” More

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      A Shrinking Town at the Center of France’s Culture Wars

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      A plan to revitalize the town of Callac by bringing in skilled immigrants has divided it and made it an emblem of a nation’s anxiety over its identity and decline.CALLAC, France — A shrinking town set among cow pastures in Brittany seems an unlikely setting for France’s soul searching over immigration and identity.The main square is named after the date in 1944 that local resistance fighters were rounded up by Nazi soldiers, many never seen again. It offers a cafe run by a social club, a museum dedicated to the Brittany spaniel and a hefty serving of rural flight — forlorn empty buildings, their grills pulled down and windows shuttered, some for decades.So when town council members heard of a program that could renovate the dilapidated buildings and fill much-needed jobs such as nurses’ aides and builders by bringing in skilled refugees, it seemed like a winning lottery ticket.“It hit me like lightning,” said Laure-Line Inderbitzin, a deputy mayor. “It sees refugees not as charity, but an opportunity.”As in many towns across France, Callac’s population has been in slow decline for decades.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut what town leaders saw as a chance for rejuvenation, others saw as evidence of a “great replacement” of native French people that has become a touchstone of anger and anxiety, particularly on the hard right.In no time, tiny Callac, a town of just 2,200, was divided, the focus of national attention and the scene of competing protests for and against the plan. Today it sits at the intersection of complex issues that have bedeviled France for many years: how to deal with mounting numbers of migrants arriving in the country and how to breathe new life into withering towns, before it is too late.As in many towns across France, Callac’s population has been in slow decline since the end of the Trente Glorieuses, the 30-year postwar growth stretch when living standards and wages rose. Today, around half the people who remain are retirees. The biggest employer is the nursing home.A wander around downtown reveals dozens of empty storefronts, where florists, dry-cleaners and photo studios once stood. The town’s last dental office announced in July it was closing — the stress of continually turning new patients away, when her patient list topped 9,000, was too much for Françoise Méheut.“I am selling, and no one is buying,” said Françoise Méheut, a dentist in Callac. “If there was a dentist among the refugees, I would be thrilled.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesShe stopped sleeping, she burst into tears over the dental chair and she turned to antidepressants before finally deciding to retire early.“It’s a catastrophe,” Dr. Méheut said. “I have the impression of abandoning people.”“I am selling, and no one is buying,” she added of her business. “If there was a dentist among the refugees, I would be thrilled.”While many in town say there are no jobs, the council did a survey and found the opposite — 75 unfilled salaried jobs, from nursing assistants to contractors, despite the local 18 percent unemployment rate.The council still hopes to carry out its plan in cooperation with the Merci Endowment Fund, an organization created by a wealthy Parisian family that had made its fortune in high-end children’s clothing and wanted to give back.In 2016, the matriarch of the family volunteered to host an Afghan refugee in the family mansion near the Eiffel Tower. Her three sons, seeing the joy he brought to their mother’s life and the talents he offered, wanted to expand the idea broadly.The Merci fund has already bought the building where the town’s last book store closed in August. It now plans to reopen the store for the community, while housing a first family of asylum seekers in the upstairs apartment.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“The idea is to create a win-win situation,” said the eldest son, Benoit Cohen, a French filmmaker and author who wrote a book about the experience called “Mohammad, My Mother and Me.”“They will help revitalize the village.”The Merci project has proposed handpicking asylum seekers, recruiting for skills as well as a desire to live in the countryside. Then, the Cohens promise to develop a wraparound program to help them assimilate, with local French courses and apartments in refurbished buildings.The plan also called for new community spaces and training programs for all — locals and refugees together — something that most excited Ms. Inderbitzin, the project’s local champion on the council and a teacher in the local middle school.The town has more than 50 nonprofit clubs and associations, including one that runs the local cinema, and another that delivers food to hungry families in town.The town council recently bought a former school, and announced it planned to convert it into the “heart” of the Merci project.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Social development for all — that’s in Callac’s genes,” said Ms. Inderbitzin. “It’s a virtuous circle. They could bring lots of energy, culture, youth.”Not everyone is as excited at that prospect. A petition launched by three residents opposing the project has more than 10,000 signatures — many from far beyond Callac.But even in town, some grumble about lack of consultation or transparency. They worry Callac will lose its Frenchness and will trade its small-town tranquillity for big-city problems. Others question the motives of a rich family in Paris meddling in their rural home.“We aren’t lab rats. We aren’t here for them to experiment on,” said Danielle Le Men, a retired teacher in town who is starting a community group to stop the project, which she fears will bring “radical Islam” to the community.Catching wind of the dispute, the right-wing anti-immigrant party Reconquest, run by the failed presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, organized a protest in September, warning the project would bring dangerous insecurity and complaining that it would introduce halal stores and girls in head scarves.“We aren’t lab rats. We aren’t here for them to experiment on,” said Danielle Le Men, a retired teacher in town who is launching a community group to stop the project.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesA block away, counterprotesters crowded the main square. “To the fascists who wave the red banner of a hypothetical replacement,” Murielle Lepvraud, a local politician with the radical left France Unbowed party, told the crowd, “I respond, yes, your ideas will soon be replaced.”More than 100 shield-wielding riot police officers kept the groups apart.Even many of those who have experienced Callac’s decline firsthand remain unconvinced.“All the young people left, because there are no jobs here,” said Siegried Leleu, serving glasses of kir and beer to a thin crowd of white-haired gentlemen gathered around her bar, Les Marronniers, on a Friday afternoon.There was a time, she said, when she offered billiards and karaoke and kept the taps running late. But with the town’s youth departed, she recalibrated her closing time to match her remaining clientele’s schedule — 8 p.m.“Why would we give jobs to outsiders?” she said. “We should help people here first.”“All the young people left, because there are no jobs here,” said Siegried Leleu, right.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesStanding on the street outside his small bar, which doubles as a cluttered antiques store, her neighbor, Paul Le Contellac, assessed the proposal from another angle.His uncle married a refugee who had fled Spain with her family during the civil war and found shelter in this village. Later, when France was occupied by Nazi Germany, his grandmother harbored resistance fighters in her attic.“This is a town that has always welcomed refugees,” said Mr. Le Contellac. “Callac is not ugly, but it’s not pretty either. It needs some new energy.”While immigration may hold the potential to do that, the issue remains hotly contested, even while the migration crisis had been dampened by the pandemic.“This is a town that has always welcomed refugees,” said Paul Le Contellac. “Callac is not ugly, but it’s not pretty either. It needs some new energy.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesToday, as the pandemic appears to wane, the number of asylum seekers arriving to France is climbing again, threatening to restore the issue’s volatility.Since the height of the migration crisis several years ago, the government of President Emmanuel Macron has attempted to split the difference on its immigration policy.On the one hand, it has aimed to deter asylum applicants by increasing police at the border and by cutting back some state services.On the other, for those who are accepted as refugees, it has poured resources into French lessons and employment programs to ease their integration.The government has also tried to disperse asylum seekers outside of Paris, where services are strained, housing is hard to find and large tent camps have sprung up.Recently, Mr. Macron announced that he wanted to formalize the policy in a new immigration bill, sending asylum seekers from the dense urban centers, already plagued with social and economic problems, to the “rural areas, that are losing people.”The plan is a lot like that being put in place already in Callac, which, paradoxically, has been receiving refugee families since 2015, about 40 people at present, with little or no notice, like many small French towns.Mohammed Ebrahim, right, and his wife, Rabiha Khalil, second left, both of Kurdish origin, arrived from Lebanon nearly a year ago. Callac has been receiving refugee families since 2015.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMohammad Ebrahim heard the noise of the warring protests from his living room window, but had no idea what the commotion was about — certainly not about him, his wife and four children, who arrived a year ago.Kurds who escaped Al Qaeda in Syria, they have felt nothing but welcome, flashing photos on their cellphones of community meals and celebrations they have been invited to. But the perks of village hospitality are offset by the logistics of living in the countryside without a car. Training, medical appointments, even regular French classes are all far away.When he hears the plan to offer wraparound services and school in Callac, Mr. Ebrahim smiles broadly. “Then we could go to French class every day,” he said.Callac may now prove to be a testing ground of whether a more structured approach can work and divisions be overcome.“This became about French politics,” says Sylvie Lagrue, a local volunteer who drives refugees to doctor’s appointments and helps them set up their internet. “Now, everyone hopes this will quiet down, and we continue with the program.”Though the project still has no official budget, timeline or target number of asylum seekers to be resettled, the town council nevertheless is tiptoeing ahead.It recently bought a hulking abandoned stone school, rising like a ghost in the middle of town, and announced it planned to convert it into the “heart” of the project — with a refugee reception area, as well as a community nursery and a co-working space.The Merci fund has already bought the building where the town’s last book store closed in August. It now plans to reopen the store for the community, while housing a first family of asylum seekers in the upstairs apartment.“The beginning has to be slow,” Mr. Cohen said. “We have to see if it works. We don’t want to scare people.”The town of Callac, in Brittany’s countryside.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times More

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      The State of the Midterms

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      The midterm elections are less than three weeks away. We explain the state of the races for the House and Senate.Midterm elections can tell us a lot about American political life. They’re a referendum on the party in power, a chance to take the political temperature of the country and a glimpse into the anxieties and hopes of voters.But those are things we’ll know a lot more about after Election Day. For the next three weeks, all anyone really wants to know is: Who’s going to win?For Democrats, keeping their trifecta of power — the Senate, the House and the White House — would mean bucking decades of history. In Washington, it’s practically an ironclad rule that the president’s party loses seats in midterm elections.These are not conventional times, though. The country is still recovering from a pandemic and a siege on the Capitol. The Supreme Court overturned nearly a half-century of federal abortion rights, and the former president and his supporters still refuse to admit that they lost the last election. As the executive editor of The Times wrote in this newsletter last month, the two parties disagree not just on their vision for the country but also on democracy itself.The midterm race has reflected this uncertainty. In the spring, all signs pointed toward a Republican wave. The dynamic changed this summer — with the Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights, passage of Democratic legislation and falling gas prices — raising Democratic hopes of making some gains. Now, economic anxiety has deepened as gas prices ticked back up and inflation remains high. And America looks headed toward divided government.Today, I’m going to explain where the election stands, and why House races are shaping up in Republicans’ favor, while the Senate is anything but conclusive.The HouseIn the House, elections tend to rise and fall with the national tides, with individual members rarely able to combat the larger political trends. This year, that’s bad news for Democrats, who worry that their party may have peaked a few weeks too early.There’s an expectation among both parties that a new Republican majority will take office in January. (Some lobbyists are already planning for this.) To win control of the House, Republicans need to pick up five seats on net. They might gain three from redistricting alone, according to some estimates.Democrats are also defending a greater number of vulnerable seats. Republicans have a good chance of flipping nine Democratic seats, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Only two Republican seats are expected to change into Democratic hands. And two-thirds of the races Cook considers “tossups” — that is, too close to safely predict — are in districts held by Democrats.A Republican win would be in line with recent history. In 2006, George W. Bush described the 31-seat Democratic wave in the House as a “thumping.” Four years later, Barack Obama experienced a “shellacking” with a 63-seat Republican gain. In 2018, during Donald Trump’s presidency, Democrats picked up 41 seats.While President Biden’s approval rating has risen in recent months, it’s still below 50 percent, and in many states he’s less popular than his party’s candidates. Perhaps because of that, Biden has not held a campaign rally since before Labor Day.The SenateUnlike House races, Senate contests can rise and fall much more on personality — or as Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s Republican leader, put it last month, on “candidate quality.”Several inexperienced, Trump-friendly Republican candidates — Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona, Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and J.D. Vance in Ohio — won their primaries this year. Their stumbles have given Democrats a boost, making the Senate more competitive.But Senate races aren’t immune from the national mood. As polls find voters putting more emphasis on the economy than on abortion, Republicans have improved their standing in a few key races, such as in Nevada and Wisconsin. Some strategists also attribute the change to a deluge of ads hammering their opponents over crime.And two of the races remain extremely volatile. In Georgia, Walker, an opponent of abortion, has spent the past couple weeks grappling with revelations that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion. And in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, spent months away from the campaign trail while recovering from a stroke. (His doctor said yesterday that Fetterman had shown some lingering effects but was recovering well.)In the most recent public polling, the majority of competitive races remain very tight. And Democrats’ advantage in the Senate is so narrow that Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to flip the chamber.The bottom lineDemocrats are relieved that they do not seem to be headed, at least right now, toward a repeat of the deep losses of 2010. But many have begun expressing a sense of gloom — and have cracked gallows jokes that the party’s uptick would have been better timed for September than July.My advice: Prepare for a long election night. Or weeks, if the results end up hinging on a Georgia runoff race in December.More election newsSenator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will campaign in eight states before the midterms, an effort to energize progressive voters.A new election crimes office in Florida arrested people who appeared confused about their voting rights.In the On Politics newsletter, Blake Hounshell explains how Republicans are pouring money into newly competitive House races.Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican running for re-election, is urging his supporters to report suspected voting problems.Representative Lee Zeldin, a Trump ally who voted to overturn the 2020 election results, hopes to become governor of New York.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineA recently shelled building in Donetsk, in a Russian-controlled region of Ukraine.Alexander Ermochenko/ReutersVladimir Putin, Russia’s president, declared martial law in four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine.Russia has redeployed military hardware and troops that were in Syria.Ukraine will reduce electricity use after Russian attacks knocked out a third of its power stations.PoliticsIn a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election, Trump submitted voter fraud information even after his lawyers had told him it was incorrect, a federal judge said.Trump made bigoted remarks about Jews and Persians at an event last year, including asking a filmmaker whether he was “a good Jewish character.”“There might be somebody else I’d prefer more,” Mike Pence said when asked if he would vote for Trump in 2024.The Biden administration is granting $2.8 billion to companies to expand electric-vehicle battery production.Other Big StoriesLiz Truss, Britain’s prime minister, was forced to dismiss one of her most senior cabinet ministers, heightening a government crisis.Social Security will allow people to select the gender they identify with.Suzanne Scott, the C.E.O. of Fox News, is at the center of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network.The actress Anna May Wong will become the first Asian American to appear on U.S. currency.A property developer is pitching a casino for Times Square.OpinionsEl Paso is a blue-leaning, majority-Latino city. It’s busing migrants elsewhere, too, Megan Stack writes.China’s zero-Covid campaign is another attempt to control citizens, Ai Weiwei argues.MORNING READSCaitlin Covington is the “president of fall.”Kelly Burgess for The New York TimesChristian Girl Autumn: Meet the woman behind the meme.Travel: Spend 36 hours in Milan.Art: How did a Baptist minister come to own hundreds of Edward Hoppers?‘Pillars of Creation’: Stunning images from the James Webb Space Telescope.Ask Well: Can e-cigarettes help you quit smoking?Advice from Wirecutter: Accessories for coffee and tea drinkers.Lives Lived: After becoming chairman of the New York Stock Exchange at 39, Ralph DeNunzio stepped down from the securities firm Kidder, Peabody & Company following an insider-trading scandal. He died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICAstros, Padres win: Houston took a 1-0 series lead in the A.L.C.S. with a 4-2 win over the Yankees last night, while San Diego came back from a 4-0 deficit to even the N.L.C.S. with Philadelphia. In The Times, Tyler Kepner recaps the Phillies-Padres game.The contending Pelicans? New Orleans made its case as N.B.A. darling last night with a huge 130-108 win in Brooklyn over Kevin Durant and the Nets. Zion Williamson, playing for the first time in more than a year, scored 25 points.Dolphins QB talks concussion: Tua Tagovailoa said he didn’t remember “being carted off” during Miami’s Week 4 loss against Cincinnati, in which he suffered a concussion that prompted a leaguewide controversy. He’ll return to the field this Sunday.ARTS AND IDEAS Illustration by Mohamad AbdouniBeirut’s drag iconsStars like Dolly Parton, Madonna and Whitney Houston inspired a generation of American drag queens to take the stage. In Beirut’s growing drag scene, Arab pop icons are the muses, too.In their outfits and performances, Beirut’s drag queens evoke sequin-clad singers like Haifa Wehbe, Sabah and Sherihan, who broadcast camp and glamour across the Arab world for decades. Their stage looks ensure “Arab representation in drag culture,” Anya Kneez, a queen, said.Anya gets messages from aspiring drag queens all over the Arab world. “This is what I want to see,” she said. “I want to see young Arab queers coming out and doing their thing.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookMark Weinberg for The New York TimesThese candy apples are spiced with cinnamon and vanilla.What to ReadThe latest John Irving saga is 900 pages of sex, secrets and absent fathers.Where to GoCanada’s Gaspé Peninsula feels like the edge of the world.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was intimacy. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Afternoon activity + A (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. Applications are open for the Times Fellowship and the new Local Investigations Fellowship programs.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about midterm polling. On the Modern Love podcast, 56 years of loving. On “The Run-Up,” is Wisconsin the future of America?Matthew Cullen, Natasha Frost, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Politician, Thy Name Is Hypocrite

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      What’s worse — politicians passing a bad law or politicians passing a bad law while attempting to make it look reasonable with meaningless window dressing?You wind up in the same place, but I’ve gotta go with the jerks who pretend.Let’s take, oh, I don’t know, abortion. Sure, lawmakers who vote to ban it know they’re imposing some voters’ religious beliefs on the whole nation. But maybe they can make it look kinda fair.For instance Mark Ronchetti, who’s running for governor in New Mexico, was “strongly pro-life” until the uproar following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe. Now, his campaign website says he’s looking for a “middle ground” that would allow abortions “in cases involving rape, incest and when a mother’s life is at risk.”That’s a very popular spin. The public’s rejection of the court’s ruling, plus the stunning vote for abortion rights in a recent statewide referendum in Kansas, has left politicians looking for some way to dodge the anti-choice label. Without, um, actually changing. “I am pro-life, and make no apologies for that. But I also understand that this is a representative democracy,” said Tim Michels, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, when he embraced the rape-and-incest dodge.Mehmet Oz, who’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, used to support abortion access back when he wanted the world to call him “Dr. Oz.” But now that his day job is being a conservative Republican, he’s “100 percent pro-life.” Nevertheless, he still feels there should be an exception for cases of … rape and incest.We’ve come a long — OK, we’ve come at least a little way from the time, a decade ago, when Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, argued it was impossible for a woman to get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” And Akin did lose that race.The backtracking can get pretty creative — or desperate, depending on your perspective. In New Hampshire, Don Bolduc, who’s running for the Senate, was strongly anti-choice before he won the Republican primary. (“Killing babies is unbelievably irresponsible.”)Now, Bolduc the nominee feels a federal abortion ban “doesn’t make sense” and complains that he’s not getting the proper respect for his position. Which is that it’s a state issue. And that his opponent, Senator Maggie Hassan, should “get over it.”These days, it’s hard to sell an across-the-board rule that doesn’t take victims of forced sex into account. In Ohio recently, Senate candidate J.D. Vance tried to stick to his anti-abortion guns, but did back down a smidge when questioned about whether that 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who was taken out of state for an abortion should have been forced to have a baby.And then Vance quickly changed the subject, pointing out that the man accused of raping her was an “illegal alien.” This is an excellent reminder that in this election season there is virtually no problem that Republicans can’t find a way of connecting to the Mexican border.As sympathetic as all rape victims are, the exemption rule would not have much impact. No one knows exactly what proportion of pregnancies are caused by rape and incest, but the number “looks very, very small,” Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute told me.And what about, say, a young woman who’s already a teenage mother, working the night shift at a fast-food outlet, whose boyfriend’s condom failed? No suggestion for any special mercy there. You can’t help thinking the big difference is a desire to punish any woman who wanted to have sex.Another popular method of dodging the abortion issue is fiddling with timelines. Blake Masters, the ever-fascinating Arizona Senate candidate, originally opposed abortion from the moment of conception. (“I think it’s demonic.”) Now his revamped website just calls for a national ban once a woman is six months pregnant.And we will stop here very, very briefly to mention that the number of six-month abortions is infinitesimal.Whenever this issue comes up, I remember my school days, which involved Catholic education from kindergarten through college. Wonderful world in many ways, but there wasn’t much concern about keeping religion out of public policy. Especially when it came to abortion. Any attempt to stop the pregnancy from the moment of conception on was murder.That’s still Catholic dogma, you know. Politicians who think they can dodge the issue with their rape-and-incest exceptions appear to ignore the fact that as the church sees it, an embryo that’s the product of a rape still counts as worthy of protection.It took me quite a while to get my head around the abortion issue and I have sympathy for people who have strong religious opposition to ending a pregnancy.Some folks who hold to that dogma try to encourage pregnant women to have their babies by providing counseling, financial support and adoption services, all of which is great as long as the woman in question isn’t being forced to join the program.But anti-abortion laws are basically an attempt to impose one group’s religion on the country as a whole. It’s flat-out unconstitutional, no matter how Justice Samuel Alito feels.And the rape-or-incest exception isn’t humanitarian. It’s a meaningless rhetorical ploy intended to allow politicians to have it both ways.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