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    Private Schools Group Apologizes After Claims of Antisemitism at Event

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    After criticism from Jewish groups over speeches at a conference, the president of the National Association of Independent Schools said future addresses would be vetted.A prominent national private schools group has apologized for remarks some speakers made at a conference about diversity and inclusion earlier this month, after leaders of several Jewish organizations condemned the comments as antisemitic.The speakers, whose remarks were recorded, characterized Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist project. They were addressing an annual gathering of students and educators held by the National Association of Independent Schools, which includes about 1,700 private schools across the United States, including 60 Jewish day schools. The event, known as the People of Color Conference, has been held for nearly four decades and focuses on helping schools create inclusive communities.Some of New York City’s most prestigious private schools sent delegations to the conference, including the Dalton School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which sent 48 administrators, faculty and staff members, according to its website.The leaders of several Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, denounced the remarks in an open letter to the association sent last Wednesday. Citing complaints from attendees, the letter described the atmosphere at the conference, held in Denver from Dec. 4 to Dec. 7 and attended by about 8,000 adults and students, as “toxic.” Some Jewish students were frightened, the letter said, to the point that some who were wearing Star of David jewelry felt compelled to hide it.“No student should ever be made to feel this way because of their identity,” said the letter, which was signed by the A.D.L.’s chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt, as well as three chief executives of prominent Jewish groups, Paul Bernstein of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools; Ted Deutch of the American Jewish Committee; and Eric Fingerhut of the Jewish Federations of North America.In response to the criticism, Debra Wilson, the association’s president, issued an apology and said that future speakers’ addresses would be vetted. “That any student would feel the need to conceal their identity at our conference is antithetical to our mission and our values,” Ms. Wilson wrote.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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      Read President Yoon’s Speech Apologizing for Declaring Martial Law in South Korea

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      President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea delivered the following televised address on Saturday morning:My fellow citizens,I declared emergency martial law at 11 p.m. on Dec. 3. About two hours later, at around 1 a.m. on Dec. 4, I ordered the withdrawal of the armed forces in accordance with the National Assembly’s resolution to lift martial law, and lifted martial law after a late-night cabinet meeting.The declaration of martial law was born out of desperation as the president, the ultimate head of state, but it caused anxiety and discomfort to the people in the process. I am deeply sorry for this, and I sincerely apologize to the people who must have been greatly surprised.I will not dodge my legal and political responsibility for this declaration of martial law. There is talk of martial law being imposed again, but let me be clear: There will never be a second martial law.My fellow citizens, I will entrust my party with the task of stabilizing the country, including my term in office. My party and the government will be responsible for the management of the country’s affairs in the future.I would like to bow my head and apologize once again for the worry I caused to the people. More

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      In First Post-Election Speech, Obama Calls for ‘Forging Alliances and Building Coalitions’

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      “Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success,” the former president said in the speech in Chicago.In his first speech since the presidential election in November, Barack Obama urged Americans who want democracy to survive to look for ways to compromise, engage with the other side, turn away from identity politics and build relationships with unlikely potential allies.“Pluralism is not about holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya,’” Mr. Obama said in Chicago on Thursday. “It is not about abandoning your convictions and folding when things get tough. It is about recognizing that, in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances and building coalitions, and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke, but the waking.”He added: “Purity tests are not a recipe for long-term success.”Billed as an address on “the power of pluralism,” the speech — a road map of sorts for political survival for liberals in a second term for Donald J. Trump — was delivered before hundreds of people as part of an annual Democracy Forum put on by the Obama Foundation, a private nonprofit entity that is led by Mr. Obama.Mr. Obama opened the speech with an acknowledgment that when he told friends of the focus of this year’s forum, the topic drew groans and eye rolls.“We’ve just been through a fierce, hard-fought election, and it’s fair to say that it did not turn out as they had hoped,” said Mr. Obama, who had, along with his wife, Michelle, campaigned intensely for Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, in the final weeks.For Mr. Obama’s friends, he said, talk of bridging differences in a bitterly divided country seemed like an academic exercise.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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      Cuatro de los comentarios más dispersos de Trump esta semana

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      El expresidente dice que le gusta tejer una trama al saltar de un tema a otro. Pero hay quienes ven algo más preocupante en sus divagaciones.Uno de los principios del mundo Trump es que ser considerado aburrido es un pecado más mortal que estar equivocado.En campaña, el expresidente Donald Trump a menudo lo interpreta como que debe salirse del guion y desviarse del mensaje. Sus críticos dicen que esos desvíos son una señal preocupante de su incoherencia y plantean dudas sobre su edad y su salud cognitiva. Muchos de sus partidarios y aliados consideran que su forma circular de hablar, que él llama “la trama”, es entretenida y no alarmante. El debate partidista sobre las implicaciones del discurso serpenteante de Trump solo se ha intensificado en la fase final de la contienda.Aquí cuatro ejemplos de las divagaciones de Trump en esta última semana.Niños en edad escolar le preguntaron por los héroes de su infancia. Él terminó hablando del muro fronterizoEra una pregunta suave, de un niño de 10 años. La respuesta de Trump fue más bien un tiro sin rumbo.Un grupo de niños hizo preguntas a Trump el viernes en Fox & Friends. Cuando le pidieron que nombrara a su presidente favorito cuando era niño, Trump citó primero a quien había sido elegido cuando él tenía 34 años (Ronald Reagan). Luego se aventuró en terrenos sorprendentes, incluido el tema favorito de todos los niños, el acuerdo comercial revisado del TLCAN, conocido como el Tratado de Libre Comercio entre Estados Unidos, México y Canadá.DANIEL: Presidente Trump, soy Daniel. Y tengo 10 años. Y soy de Tennessee. ¿Cuál era su presidente favorito cuando era pequeño?DONALD TRUMP: Me gustaba Ronald Reagan. Pensaba que era… mira… no me encantaba su política comercial. Yo soy muy bueno en comercio, he hecho grandes acuerdos comerciales para nosotros, e, TLCAN. Ese no era su punto fuerte, pero Ronald Reagan tenía una gran dignidad. Podías decir: “Ahí está nuestro presidente”, más que cualquiera de los otros. Realmente, cualquiera de los otros. Los grandes presidentes… bueno, Lincoln fue probablemente un gran presidente. Aunque siempre he dicho, ¿por qué no se resolvió? ¿Sabes? Soy un tipo que… no tiene sentido que tuviéramos una guerra civil.BRIAN KILMEADE, copresentador de Fox & Friends: Bueno, la mitad del país se fue antes de que él llegara.TRUMP: Sí, sí. Pero casi dirías, como, ¿por qué no fue eso —como ejemplo, lo de Ucrania nunca habría sucedido y Rusia si yo fuera presidente. Israel nunca habría ocurrido. El 7 de octubre nunca habría ocurrido. Como sabes, Irán estaba en bancarrota, querían hacer un trato. Les dije: “Nadie compra petróleo a Irán, están, están acabados, ya saben, no pueden hacer tratos con Estados Unidos”. Nadie compraba petróleo a Irán. Vinieron, querían hacer un trato y ahora tienen 300.000 millones de dólares en efectivo. Biden ha estado —y ella, ella es, no sé si estuvo involucrada en ello, pero ella es, ella es terrible. Oye, mira, recuerda esto, ella era la zarina de la frontera, nunca fue allí.Era la zarina de la frontera y la Patrulla Fronteriza, lo único que tienes que recordar, es que la Patrulla Fronteriza dio el respaldo más fuerte que nadie haya visto jamás: él es el mejor que hay y que nunca ha habido —es el mejor presidente, el mejor en la frontera, y ella es terrible. Esa era su política. Y estos tipos son geniales, por cierto. Son geniales— los conoces bien del programa. Tenemos el mejor respaldo y eso realmente lo dice todo. Y creo que la frontera es más importante que la inflación y la economía.Ya sabes, veo tus encuestas donde dicen que la economía y la inflación son lo primero y lo segundo. Y luego dicen —siempre dicen, como lo tercero— creo que la frontera es lo más importante. Fui elegido en 2016 por la frontera. Hice un gran trabajo. Ni siquiera pude mencionarlo después porque a nadie le importaba porque lo hice —se arregló. Teníamos una gran frontera. Luego la echaron a perder y tengo que volver a hacerlo. La diferencia es que esta vez es mucho peor. Porque están dejando entrar en el país a millones de personas que no deberían estar aquí.LAWRENCE JONES, copresentador de Fox & Friends: presidente, tenemos una divertida…TRUMP: pero lo arreglaremos.JONES: tenemos a un niño de 6 años de Massachusetts y quiere saber cuál es tu animal favorito.Cuando se le preguntó por la inflación, se refirió a su enfado con la experiencia universitaria de Alexandria Ocasio-CortezEl martes, John Micklethwait, editor en jefe de Bloomberg News, preguntó a Trump sobre el dólar y si sus políticas harían subir la inflación. Trump produjo una novela verbal, cuyo primer capítulo se refería más a los estudios universitarios de la representante Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez que a la macroeconomía.Trump con el editor en jefe de Bloomberg, John Micklethwait, durante una entrevista en Chicago el martes. Jim Vondruska para The New York TimesTRUMP: Sí, tuve cuatro años sin inflación. Tuve cuatro años sin inflación. Tuve cuatro años. Es mejor que eso. Y Biden, quien no tiene ni idea de dónde demonios está, ¿ok? Biden estuvo dos años sin inflación porque lo heredó de mí. Y entonces empezaron a gastar dinero como marineros borrachos. Gastaron tanto dinero. Era tan ridículo el dinero que gastaban. Estaban gastando en la Nueva Estafa Verde, una Nueva Estafa Verde, el Nuevo Trato Verde. Lo concibió AOC, más tres. Ni siquiera estudió medio ambiente en la universidad. Fue a una buena universidad. Salió. Simplemente dijo: la Nueva Estafa Verde. Se limitó a nombrar todas estas cosas.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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      Four of Trump’s Most Meandering Remarks This Week

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      One of the truisms of Trump World is that being viewed as boring is a sin more deadly than being wrong.On the campaign trail, former President Donald J. Trump often takes that to mean he must go off-script and veer off message. His critics say such detours are a troubling sign of his incoherence and raise questions about his age and cognitive health. Many of his supporters and allies see his circular way of speaking, which he calls “the weave,” as entertaining and not alarming. The partisan debate over the implications of Mr. Trump’s meandering speech has only intensified in the final stage of the race.Here are four examples of Mr. Trump’s rambling from just this past week.Schoolchildren asked him about boyhood heroes. He ended up at the border wall.It was a softball question, from a 10-year-old. Mr. Trump’s response was more of a knuckleball.A group of children asked Mr. Trump questions on Friday on “Fox & Friends.” Asked to name his favorite president when he was a child, Mr. Trump at first cited one who was elected when he was 34 (Ronald Reagan). Then he ventured onto surprising terrain, including every child’s favorite subject, the revised NAFTA trade deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.DANIEL: President Trump, I’m Daniel. And I’m 10. And I’m from Tennessee. What was your favorite president when you were little?DONALD TRUMP: So I liked Ronald Reagan. I thought he was, um, look — I did not love his trade policy. I’m a very good trade — I have made some great trade deals for us — the U.S.M.C.A. That wasn’t his strength, but he had a great dignity about him, Ronald Reagan. You could say, “There’s our president,” more than any of the others. Really, any of the others. Uh, great presidents — well, Lincoln was probably a great president. Although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled? You know? I’m a guy that — it doesn’t make sense we had a civil war.BRIAN KILMEADE, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Well, half the country left before he got there.TRUMP: Yeah, yeah. But you’d almost say, like, why wasn’t that — as an example, Ukraine would have never happened and Russia if I were president. Israel would have never happened. Oct. 7 would have never happened. As you know, Iran was broke, they wanted to make a deal. I told, “Anybody buys any oil from Iran, it’s, you’re, you’re finished, you know, you can’t deal with the United States.” Nobody was buying oil from Iran. They came, they wanted to make a deal — now they have $300 billion in cash. Biden has been — and her, she’s, I don’t know if she was involved in it, but she’s, she’s terrible. Hey, look, remember this, she was the border czar, she never went there.She was border czar and the Border Patrol, the one thing you have to remember, the Border Patrol gave strongest endorsement that anybody has ever seen: He’s the best there is, there has never been — he’s the greatest president, the greatest at the border, and she’s terrible. That was their policy. And these guys are great, by the way. These are great — you know them well from the show. We got the best endorsement and that really says it all. And I think the border is the bigger thing than inflation and the economy.You know, I watch your polling where it says the economy and inflation are No. 1, 2. And then it says — always says, like, the three — I think the border is bigger. I got elected in 2016 on the border. I did a great job. I couldn’t even mention it after that because nobody cared because I did — it was fixed. We had a great border. Then they blew it, and I have to do it again. The difference is, it’s much worse this time. Because they are allowing millions of people into the country that shouldn’t be here.LAWRENCE JONES, “Fox & Friends” co-host: Mr. President, we’ve got a fun one —TRUMP: But we’ll fix it.JONES: We’ve got a 6-year-old from Massachusetts and he wants to know about your favorite animal.Asked about inflation, he roamed to his annoyance with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s college experience.On Tuesday, John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of Bloomberg News, asked Mr. Trump about the dollar and whether his policies would drive up inflation. Mr. Trump produced a verbal novel, the first chapter of which touched more on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s undergraduate studies than on macroeconomics.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 Leaps to Trump’s Side in Rally Appearance

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      Elon Musk, the billionaire head of Tesla and SpaceX, strode onto the stage to cheers at Donald J. Trump’s rally on Saturday night, lifted his arms above his head and jumped into the air — twice — exposing his navel as his shirt rode up.Wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt underneath a sport coat, he nodded to his black “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA,” he said.Mr. Musk publicly endorsed Mr. Trump in the minutes after a gunman tried to kill the former president on July 13 in Butler, Pa., in a post on X, the social media platform he owns. So when Mr. Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally at the same venue where he was attacked, he brought Mr. Musk along.In addition to bouncing up and down onstage, he urged the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — an echo of the words Mr. Trump had uttered after the attack.The crowd seemed to know Mr. Musk, who drew cheers as he was introduced by the former president. Mr. Trump lavished praise on Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, for building an American car company and saving “free speech” with X.”President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution,” Mr. Musk said, after bounding to the mic with his hands in the air. “He must win to preserve democracy in America.”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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      ‘Run, Kamala, Run’: Mention of Harris’s Father Was a Rare Homage to a Fleeting Figure

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      In her convention speech, Kamala Harris told of being inspired by her father, a prominent economist who was otherwise largely a footnote in her personal story.“Run, Kamala, run.”When Dr. Donald J. Harris uttered those words to his young daughter more than 50 years ago, he was encouraging her to whip freely through the parks of Oakland, Calif., not seek the highest elected office in the country. But in her address accepting the nomination as the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said it was these words that helped inspire her.“From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless,” Ms. Harris said.It was a rare homage to her father, a prominent economist but fleeting figure in her life who has largely been a footnote in her personal and political story. The first Black scholar to receive tenure in Stanford University’s economics department, Dr. Harris remains a professor emeritus there, and turned 86 the day after his daughter gave the most important speech of her life at the Democratic National Convention. He was not among the family members who accompanied Ms. Harris to the convention.Donald Harris held his daughter Kamala in 1965.Kamala Harris campaign, via Associated PressHer relationship with her father is a closely guarded part of Ms. Harris’s life about which she has spoken only sparingly. Her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” referenced him only a handful of times. But in presenting herself as a nominee who understands the American dream through the complex lenses of personal, familial and social struggles, Ms. Harris tapped into the totality of the experiences that forged her.That included when her parents divorced — or, as she would write in her memoir, “they stopped being kind to each other”— when she was in elementary school.“My father remained a part of our lives,” Ms. Harris wrote. “We would see him on weekends and spend summers with him in Palo Alto. But it was my mother who took charge of our upbringing. She was the one most responsible for shaping us into the women we would become.”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, Appealing to Bitcoin Fans, Vows U.S. Will Be ‘Crypto Capital of the Planet’

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      Former President Donald J. Trump vowed on Saturday that he would turn the United States into a “Bitcoin superpower” if returned to the White House, wielding much of the same rhetoric of persecution that he has applied to himself and his supporters to appeal to cryptocurrency enthusiasts who want to see less regulation.“Sadly, we see the attacks on crypto,” Mr. Trump told a gathering of cryptocurrency fans in Nashville. “It’s a part of a much larger pattern that’s being carried out by the same left-wing fascists to weaponize government against any threat to their power. They’ve done it to me.”He added that, if he were elected, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s anti-crypto crusade will be over” and that “the moment I’m sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization ends against your industry.”Mr. Trump has been competing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, for the support of cryptocurrency holders, and his remarks represented one of his most direct pitches yet.Three large crypto firms have invested about $150 million to elect pro-crypto candidates in congressional races. In his speech, Mr. Trump promoted himself as “the first major party nominee in American history to accept donations in Bitcoin and crypto,” adding that his campaign has raised $25 million from cryptocurrency donations in the last two months.The former president offered promises of sweeping deregulation and the establishment of a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile.”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 Beginning of Biden’s Long Goodbye

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      In a speech from the Oval Office, President Biden said it was time to “pass the torch to a new generation.” But he said nothing about his own age or capacity that led so many Democrats to desert him.He always knew that he would be delivering a speech like this. He just thought, or hoped, that it would be more than four years from now. Yet while it was not technically a farewell address, with six months still to go in office and more presidenting to do, it was the beginning of Joe Biden’s long goodbye.Mr. Biden’s address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night was all Joe, love him or hate him — the paeans to American exceptionalism, the evocations of family, the selective boasting about his record, the favorite lofty phrases about an “inflection point” and “saving our democracy,” and yes, the soft, raspy old man’s voice that no longer commands the room the way it once did.What there was not much of was introspection about how he had gotten to this moment of indignity. He may be focused on the soul of America, but he revealed little of his own. Indeed, if there has been much soul searching over these past days and weeks of personal and political trauma that led to this reluctant end of his storied half-century political career, the search has been called off. Or at least the results were not reported.He said it was time to “pass the torch to a new generation,” but said nothing about his own age, health or capacity that led so many Democrats to desert him since the calamitous debate on June 27. He did not describe the journey from supreme confidence that he and he alone could beat former President Donald J. Trump to the conclusion that in fact he could not. He offered no elaboration on how he had finally decided to give up his bid for a second term, but at the same time, he held back any bitterness he may have felt.Instead, it was an opportunity for a reset, to tell his story again on his own terms and recast the narrative as he starts to exit the stage. In his first extended public comments since dropping out, he tried to remind voters who had grown weary or wary of him why most of them had liked him in the first place and maybe, just maybe, to begin to shape his place in history.“My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years,” he said with pictures of his family visible behind him. “Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pa., and in Claymont, Del., one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as the president of the United States. But here I am.”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