Presidential Election of 2024

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      Cómo gestiona Bluesky, la alternativa a X y Facebook, su crecimiento explosivo

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      En febrero de 2023, media decena de expertos en tecnología presentaron un prototipo de red social a la que solo se podía acceder por invitación. Estrenaron deliberadamente su creación, Bluesky, con poca fanfarria para poder gestionar de cerca su crecimiento.Pero últimamente ha sido todo menos lento.En la última semana, el crecimiento de Bluesky ha estallado, duplicándose con creces hasta superar los 15 millones de usuarios, ya que la gente busca alternativas a X, Facebook y Threads. Se ha disparado hasta los primeros puestos de las tiendas de aplicaciones de Apple y Google como la aplicación gratuita más descargada. Su ascenso ha sido tan rápido que la empresa se ha visto obligada a crecer prácticamente de la noche a la mañana.Los 20 empleados a tiempo completo de Bluesky han estado trabajando sin descanso para hacer frente a los problemas que conlleva el hipercrecimiento: caídas del sitio, fallas en el código y problemas de moderación de contenidos. Y lo que es más importante, han intentado contentar a los primeros usuarios a medida que llegaban nuevos miembros.“Como equipo, estamos orgullosos de nuestra capacidad para crecer rápidamente”, dijo en una entrevista Jay Graber, de 33 años, directora ejecutiva de Bluesky. “Pero siempre hay algunas dificultades mientras creces”. Añadió que la aplicación —que sigue siendo eclipsada por Facebook, Instagram y X— estaba sumando más de un millón de nuevos usuarios al día.Bluesky está surgiendo en medio de la agitación en el mundo de las redes sociales. Después de que Elon Musk comprara Twitter en 2022, lo transformó en X, cambiando muchas de sus funciones y alejando a algunos de sus usuarios más fieles. Threads, una aplicación similar a X que Meta introdujo el año pasado, se basa principalmente en una opaca selección algorítmica que reduce la política de los contenidos que ve la gente. Esto ha provocado que algunas personas se dirijan a otras redes, como Bluesky, para debatir cuestiones sociales candentes.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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      N.Y.C. Helped Migrant Accused of Killing Laken Riley Move to Georgia, Witness Says

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      In other testimony, law enforcement witnesses placed the suspect, José Ibarra, at the scene of Ms. Riley’s killing, mainly through cellphone and GPS tracking data.Details of how the Venezuelan migrant charged with killing Laken Riley ended up in Athens, Ga., came into sharper focus on Monday, the second day of a trial that is being closely followed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.The migrant, José Ibarra, was apprehended by the Border Patrol when he entered the country illegally in 2022 near El Paso. Like many migrants, he was released with temporary permission to stay in the country, and he headed to New York.A former roommate of Mr. Ibarra’s testified that she met Mr. Ibarra last year in New York City and traveled with him to Athens in September 2023 after Mr. Ibarra’s brother told them they could find jobs there.They lived for a while with Mr. Ibarra’s wife and mother-in-law at a Crowne Plaza hotel in Queens that had been converted to a migrant shelter, the roommate, Rosbeli Flores-Bello, said. And for a few weeks, she added, she and Mr. Ibarra lived in a car parked on the street by the hotel.Ms. Flores-Bello said that Mr. Ibarra’s brother Diego had constantly called him in New York, telling him to move to Athens because there were good work opportunities.Laken Riley was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia.Augusta University, via Associated PressWe 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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      Saudi Arabia Is Working to Undercut a Pledge to Quit Fossil Fuels

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      Despite endorsing the declaration at last year’s U.N. climate summit, officials have tried to eliminate the same language in at least five U.N. forums, diplomats said.As United Nations climate talks enter their final week in Azerbaijan and G20 leaders gather in Brazil, diplomats from Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, are working to foil any agreement that renews a pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, negotiators said.“Maybe they’ve been emboldened by Trump’s victory, but they are acting with abandon here,” said Alden Meyer, senior associate with E3G, a London-based climate research organization, who is at the talks in Azerbaijan. “They’re just being a wrecking ball.”Negotiators say it’s part of a year-long campaign by Saudi Arabia to foil an agreement made last year by 200 nations to move away from oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.Saudi Arabia was one of the signatories to that deal, but has been working ever since to bury that pledge and make sure it’s not repeated in any new global agreements, according to five diplomats who requested anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.With varying degrees of success, the Saudis have opposed transition language in at least five U.N. resolutions this year, the diplomats said. The Saudis fought it at a United Nations nuclear conference, at a summit of small island nations, during discussions of a U.N. blueprint for tackling global challenges, at a biodiversity summit and at a meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers in Washington in October, according to the diplomats.Saudi government officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The election of Donald J. Trump has cast a pall over the climate negotiations in Azerbaijan, known as COP29. Mr. Trump has promised to withdraw the United States from the global fight against climate change and increase the American production of fossil fuels, which is already at record levels. That may be emboldening Saudi officials at the current climate talks, analysts say. On Saturday, Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of the board at Saudi Aramco, the state petroleum company, sat ringside with Mr. Trump at a U.F.C. fight in Madison Square Garden in New York City.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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      COP29 Climate Talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, Head Into Final Stretch

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      Senior ministers are arriving in an effort to break a deadlock over the summit’s main goal: funding to help lower-income countries hit hard by global warming.More than halfway through the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiators from nearly 200 countries remain far apart on a number of the key issues up for debate.As nations try to agree on a plan to provide potentially trillions of dollars to developing countries suffering from the effects of climate change, divisions remain over how much money should be made available, what kind of financing efforts should count toward the overall goal and how recipient countries should gain access to the funds.Negotiations often go into overtime. But with just four days to go, many attendees fear that this could be the first summit since the Copenhagen talks in 2009 to conclude without a deal.“There is a high risk this could collapse,” said a senior negotiator for a major European country, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, pleaded on Monday with countries to stop fighting and to reach a deal.He warned against a dynamic “where groups of parties dig in and refuse to move on one issue, until others move elsewhere.” He added, “This is a recipe for going literally nowhere.”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 Race to Lead Trump’s Treasury Dept. Is Becoming a Cliffhanger

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      Howard Lutnick? Scott Bessent? Marc Rowan? Kevin Warsh? The president-elect’s list of candidates has grown longer, clouding the future of the department.Who will get the key to head up the Treasury Department?Kevin Lamarque/ReutersRowan and Warsh shake up Treasury raceFew of the unfilled positions in Donald Trump’s cabinet are as important as Treasury secretary. But the question of who will fill the role is only getting cloudier.Allies of two candidates, Howard Lutnick, the transition co-chair, and Scott Bessent, a top economic adviser, publicly stumped for them this weekend. But The Times reports that the president-elect himself wants somebody “big” for the role and is now considering Marc Rowan, the C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor.Elon Musk, Dan Loeb and others are weighing in. Musk threw his support behind Lutnick over the weekend, calling Bessent “business as usual,” an especially cutting criticism in the Trump camp. That said, The Times reports that Trump has privately griped about Lutnick hanging around too much and potentially manipulating the transition process for his own benefit.Loeb backed Bessent, arguing that choosing Lutnick might rattle investors, including in the $28 trillion market for Treasury bonds and notes. That said, Bessent is also being floated for positions such as chair of the White House’s National Economic Council.Trump has told associates that he is impressed by Rowan, The Times reports. The president-elect tends to value wealth and status on Wall Street, and Rowan, a co-founder of Apollo who helped turn the firm into a $733 billion investment giant, has plenty of both.Rowan would be likely to reassure many on Wall Street, particularly given how unorthodox some of the other cabinet choices have been. But it’s unclear whether he would want to take such a public role, especially given his current work at Apollo. (How hard it would be to extricate Rowan from any “key man” provisions in the firm’s funds is another question.)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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      Elon Musk’s Political Influence

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      We explore Musk’s agenda and ideology. Over the course of the 2024 presidential campaign, Elon Musk went from dark-money donor to high-profile surrogate to unofficial chief of staff. He camped out at Mar-a-Lago after the election with the Trump family and hopped on Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president. He’s even played diplomat, meeting secretly in New York with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.Last week, the president-elect named Musk to co-lead a department focused on government efficiency, a role that will put him in a position to recommend the hiring and firing of federal workers and the restructuring of entire agencies. But it’s clear that Musk’s influence could reach far beyond even this.He and Trump are in sync on a lot of issues (immigration, trans rights). And although they diverge on some others (climate change and policies that push people toward electric vehicles), the world’s richest person has now allied himself with the leader of the free world whom he helped install in office, creating a political partnership unlike anything America has ever seen.In today’s newsletter, we will look at Musk’s agenda and ideology — and at what his influence in the new administration could mean for both him and the country.Big government dealsMusk previewed plans for his new job on the campaign trail.He said that the federal government’s $6.8 trillion budget should be slashed by at least $2 trillion and acknowledged that such draconian cuts would “necessarily involve some temporary hardship.” Slashing and burning is certainly one of his hallmarks: He laid off 80 percent of X’s staff after buying the company — then called Twitter — in late 2022.Musk has a lot to gain from a second Trump administration. His businesses are already entangled with the federal government, which awarded them $3 billion in contracts across numerous agencies last year. His rocket company, SpaceX, launches military satellites and shuttles astronauts to the International Space Station. Even before the election, Musk asked Trump to hire SpaceX employees at the Defense Department, presumably to further strengthen their ties.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Stands by Defense Pick Who Says Encounter With Woman Was Not Sexual Assault

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      A detailed memo sent to the Trump transition team claims the incident occurred when Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for defense secretary, spoke in Monterey, Calif., in 2017.President-elect Donald J. Trump has told advisers he is standing by his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, after the transition team was jolted by an allegation he had sexually assaulted a woman in an interaction he insists was consensual.Mr. Trump made his view plain to aides after a conversation with Mr. Hegseth days ago, after the team learned that a woman had accused him of assault in 2017, according to two people briefed on the discussion. They also learned that Mr. Hegseth had entered into a financial settlement with the woman that had a confidentiality clause.On Sunday, Steven Cheung, the president-elect’s communications director, did not address Mr. Trump’s thinking, but said, “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration.”He added, “Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation” by the Senate.Last week, the Monterey Police Department in California said it had investigated an allegation of sexual assault involving Mr. Hegseth in 2017 at the address of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. The statement released by the police said the department had filed no charges against Mr. Hegseth.Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday that Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, was his choice to lead the Pentagon, setting off a wave of resistance from many corners of Washington. Mr. Hegseth has criticized some in the Pentagon leadership as too “woke,” and he pushed for Mr. Trump to intervene when he was president on behalf of three members of the military accused or convicted of war crimes, which Mr. Trump did.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Picks Brendan Carr to Lead F.C.C.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, naming a veteran Republican regulator who has publicly agreed with the incoming administration’s promises to slash regulation, go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias.Mr. Carr, who currently sits on the commission, is expected to shake up a quiet agency that licenses airwaves for radio and TV, regulates phone costs, and promotes the spread of home internet. Before the election, Mr. Trump indicated he wanted the agency to strip broadcasters like NBC and CBS of their licensing for unfair coverage.Mr. Carr, 45, was the author of a chapter on the F.C.C. in the conservative Project 2025 planning document, in which he argued that the agency should also regulate the largest tech companies, such as Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft.“The censorship cartel must be dismantled,” Mr. Carr said last week in a post on X.Mr. Carr could drastically reshape the independent agency, expanding its mandate and wielding it as a political weapon for the right, telecommunications attorneys and analysts said. They predicted Mr. Carr would test the legal limits of the agency’s power by pushing to oversee companies like Meta and Google, setting up a fierce battle with Silicon Valley.Mr. Carr has “proposed to do a lot of things he has no jurisdiction to do and in other cases he’s blatantly misreading the rules,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive of the nonpartisan public interest group Free Press.“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.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