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      Crowds for Raisi Show Support for Iranian State, Supreme Leader Says

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      Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed to the turnout at memorials for Iran’s president at a time when external critics say popular backing for the Islamic Republic has weakened.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday that the large crowds of mourners who took to the streets of Iranian cities this past week to honor the country’s deceased president, Ebrahim Raisi, were proof of widespread popular support for the Islamic Republic and its system of religious governance.Ayatollah Khamenei had declared five days of mourning after Mr. Raisi, 63, was killed in a helicopter crash along with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and five others last weekend. Video from the Iranian news media in recent days showed large processions in honor of the dead, and crowds packed in to listen outside the University of Tehran on loudspeakers as Mr. Khamenei led the funeral service for Mr. Raisi on Wednesday.“This mourning has proved to the world that the people are loyal to the president of the republic and to all who embody the principles of the Islamic Revolution,” Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese news channel, quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as saying on Saturday of Mr. Raisi, who had been considered a likely successor as supreme leader.“The majestic funeral that Iran witnessed proved that the people are alive,” the ayatollah added, according to Al Mayadeen, which has long reported closely on Iran and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group.The Iranian state news agency IRNA also reported sentiments to that effect by Mr. Khamenei, although it did not directly quote him. The ayatollah was speaking at a memorial event for Mr. Raisi and the other victims at the Imam Khomeini Hosseinieh, an important religious site in the capital, Tehran, where Mr. Khamenei regularly holds meetings.Funeral observances for Mr. Raisi and the others began on Tuesday with a procession in Tabriz, the closest large city to the crash site in northwestern Iran. Their bodies were then taken to the holy city of Qom and to Tehran before the funeral.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Anti-Trump Republicans Worried About the Biden Campaign

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      Some G.O.P. Trump opponents want to hear more from the Biden campaign. It says it’s on it.Earlier this week, a couple of former Republican members of Congress sent an email to dozens of fellow G.O.P. retirees with a clear and urgent subject line.“Join the Republicans for Biden,” it said. “PLEASE.”The email invited the former lawmakers to a virtual meeting next week with members of President Biden’s campaign team — a meeting that, for many of them, would be their first official interaction with Biden’s re-election campaign since it kicked off last year.Some recipients were quick to offer their help. But multiple people who received the email said it had kicked off a private airing of frustrations among Republicans who, despite publicly supporting Biden in 2020, and in some cases risking their political future to take on Trump, said they had been largely ignored by the campaign and an administration they didn’t always agree with.“A lot of us are wrestling with, how can we support him when he’s gone so far to the left?” said former Representative Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, who endorsed Biden in 2020 but said he was “unlikely” to do so again.Back in 2020, a steady stream of Republicans stepped forward and endorsed Biden, representing a narrow but important slice of the electorate: anti-Trump Republicans. That group took a hit this week when Nikki Haley, Trump’s last rival standing in the Republican primary, said she planned to vote for him — a man she frequently described as dangerous.Now, even as Trump lays out a vision for a presidency that could be even more radical than his first, the Republican opposition is in an uneasy place. Some Republicans blame the Biden campaign, saying they’ve heard practically nothing from an operation they think could use their help. And they worry that the omission represents a broader failure to bring moderate Republicans into the fold.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the UK Election on July 4

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      Why does this election matter?How does Britain vote?What are the main issues?Who is running, and who is likely to win?When will we find out the results?Where can I find more information?Why does this election matter?The general election on July 4 is a pivotal moment for Britain after 14 years of government by the Conservative Party. The last full parliamentary election was in December 2019, when Boris Johnson won a landslide victory for the Conservatives, propelled by his charisma and a promise to “Get Brexit done” after the country’s decision to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum.A lot has changed since then. In July, voters will give their verdict on five tumultuous years of government that have spanned the coronavirus pandemic, the troubled implementation of Brexit, the “Partygate” scandal around Mr. Johnson’s rule-breaking during pandemic lockdowns and the disastrous six-week tenure of Prime Minister Liz Truss.The Parliament in London. Voters in each of the country’s 650 constituencies will select a candidate to represent them as a member of Parliament.Hollie Adams/ReutersPolls suggest that the center-left Labour Party is set to return to power after more than a decade in opposition, which would bring a fundamental realignment to British politics.How does Britain vote?The United Kingdom — which consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales — is divided into 650 constituencies.Voters in each constituency select a candidate to represent them as a member of Parliament, and the political party that wins the most seats usually forms the next government. That party’s leader also becomes prime minister.

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      Un escenario colapsa en mitin de Álvarez Máynez en México

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      El fuerte viento provocó el colapso en el norte del país mientras un aspirante presidencial hacía campaña por una candidata local, según las autoridades. Decenas de personas resultaron heridas.Footage widely shared on social media shows strong winds buffeting the stage as it collapses.Daniel Becerril/ReutersUn escenario en el norte de México, donde un aspirante presidencial estaba haciendo campaña para una candidata local, se derrumbó después de una ráfaga de viento que sopló en la noche del miércoles, dejando al menos nueve personas muertas y al menos otras 60 heridas, dijo un gobernador del estado.El escenario se derrumbó en San Pedro Garza García, un municipio de Monterrey, en el estado de Nuevo León, durante un acto al que asistían el candidato progresista Jorge Álvarez Máynez y otros miembros del partido Movimiento Ciudadano. El derrumbe fue provocado por el fuerte viento, según informó el presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, en las redes sociales.El viento se levantó repentinamente cuando los candidatos estaban cantando eslóganes de campaña en el escenario, según muestran los videos publicados en las redes sociales. Cuando la iluminación del escenario se estrelló contra el suelo, la gente se precipitó fuera del escenario para evitar ser aplastada. Otros entre la multitud huyeron gritando, algunos sujetándose unos a otros por el intenso viento. More

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      Hochul Visits an Ancestral Home, 3,000 Miles From the Governor’s Mansion

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      After meeting the pope and the mayors of Rome, London and Dublin, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York paused to reconnect with her past.For much of her whirlwind tour in Europe, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York focused on looking forward for solutions to worldwide crises like global warming and a lack of affordable housing.But as she visited County Kerry, Ireland, Ms. Hochul paused to linger in the past.Here in Kilshannig, a small fishing village on a remote stretch of sandy beach, the governor is still known as Kathleen Courtney, the granddaughter of John Courtney and Mary Browne, who emigrated separately to the United States as teenagers over a century ago in search of greater opportunity.They would later meet in Chicago, where they married before moving to Buffalo, the governor’s hometown, to work at the steel mill there. Every so often, as money and time allowed, the family would make the trip back to the Maharees, a peninsula that juts off Ireland’s west coast and contains three small towns: Fahamore, Kilshannig and Candeehy.On Sunday, around 100 local residents, county council members and relatives gathered in Spillane’s Bar in Fahamore for a civic reception to honor Ms. Hochul. Almost everyone who crowded into the low-ceilinged pub looking for a selfie or a handshake with their distinguished American guest claimed to share ancestry with the governor through her grandparents.“My mother and her grandmother were first cousins,” said Mary Harrington-McKenna, 75, who lives in the town. “It’s very exciting to have our cousin, the governor of New York, visit where her grandparents came from.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taiwan, on China’s Doorstep, Is Dealing With TikTok Its Own Way

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      The island democracy was early to ban TikTok on government phones, and the ruling party refuses to use it. But a U.S.-style ban is not under consideration.As it is in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island’s 23 million residents.People post videos of themselves shopping for trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographed dances and debate whether the sticky rice dumplings are better in Taiwan’s north or south.Taiwanese users of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also served the kind of pro-China content that the U.S. Congress cited as a reason it passed a law that could result in a ban of TikTok in America.One recent example is a video showing a Republican congressman, Rob Wittman of Virginia, stoking fears that a vote for the ruling party in Taiwan’s January election would prompt a flood of American weapons to aid the island democracy in a possible conflict with China, which claims it as part of its territory. The video was flagged as fake by a fact-checking organization, and TikTok took it down.About 80 miles from China’s coast, Taiwan is particularly exposed to the possibility of TikTok’s being used as a source of geopolitical propaganda. Taiwan has been bombarded with digital disinformation for decades, much of it traced back to China.But unlike Congress, the government in Taiwan is not contemplating legislation that could end in a ban of TikTok.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Calls to Pause Slovakia’s E.U. Election Campaigning Raise Questions

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      Calls are growing in Slovakia for political parties to suspend campaigning for the European Union elections, just three weeks away, in the wake of the assassination attempt on the prime minister in the sharply polarized country.The president-elect of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, and others say the step is necessary to avoid further inflammatory political discourse, which has escalated further since the shooting that left Prime Minister Robert Fico badly wounded. At least one party, the opposition Progress Slovakia party, said it would immediately suspend its campaign, to help “end the spiral of attacks and blame.”The local news media reported that another party, the Christian Democratic Movement, had also paused campaigning.It is not clear how long such suspensions would last or what that would mean for Slovakia’s participation in the E.U. elections, which happen every five years. Voters across the European Union will elect 720 European Parliament representatives, with polling scheduled to take place in all 27 of the bloc’s members from June 6 to 9. Slovak voters are set to cast their ballots on June 8.Candidates for E.U. elections come mostly from established national parties, so voters tend to be familiar with their agendas. A temporary suspension in campaigning would therefore not necessarily affect Slovakian voters’ ability to decide whom they support, provided that campaigning does resume and that elections are held as planned.Officials at the European Parliament and the European Commission did not respond to requests for comment on the calls to suspend campaigning and whether it could have an impact on the bloc’s voting.National electoral authorities are responsible for handling the voting, and the results are managed locally. The number of members of the European Parliament each country gets to elect depends on the country’s population size. The largest, Germany, gets the most lawmakers — 96 in total. Slovakia, significantly smaller, will elect 15 members of the European Parliament. More

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      Macron Moves to Declare State of Emergency in New Caledonia

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      The French authorities have undertaken a “massive” mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out over a constitutional amendment that changes voting rules in the South Pacific territory.Protesters burned cars and businesses in New Caledonia’s capital after France’s Parliament approved a change to the territory’s voting rules.Delphine Mayeur/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Emmanuel Macron of France convened a crisis meeting on Wednesday and moved to declare a state of emergency in New Caledonia after deadly riots in the semiautonomous French Pacific territory that has long sought independence.The French authorities have undertaken what they called a “massive” mobilization of security forces since violent protests broke out in New Caledonia this week over a proposed amendment to the French Constitution that would change voting rules in the territory. A vote in France’s Parliament approving the amendment on Tuesday ignited riots overnight that left three people dead.Mr. Macron met Wednesday with his Defense and National Security Council about the situation, according to a statement from his office. It said he had expressed “strong emotion” over the deaths and gratitude to French security forces. It also said he had requested that a state of emergency be declared for the territory at the afternoon cabinet meeting.“All violence is intolerable and will be subject to a relentless response” to ensure that order is restored, the statement said, adding that Mr. Macron had welcomed appeals for calm from officials.France annexed New Caledonia, a smattering of islands with a population of about 270,000, in 1853. The prospect of independence has fueled decades of tensions in the territory.After armed conflict claimed dozens of lives there in the 1980s — an uprising known as “the Events” — the French government promised change. The territory has held three independence referendums since 2018; all have been voted down.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More