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      Justice Thomas Denounces ‘the Nastiness and the Lies’ Faced by His Family

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      The statement was among the few public remarks he has made since revelations that he had failed to report lavish gifts and travel from wealthy conservatives.Justice Clarence Thomas denounced on Friday “the nastiness and the lies” that have shadowed him in recent years as public scrutiny has mounted over his wife’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and luxury gifts he has accepted from billionaire friends.It amounted to some of the most extensive public remarks he has made since revelations that he failed to disclose years of lavish trips from wealthy conservatives, like the Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow, including on private jets and a superyacht.“My wife and I, the last two or three years, just the nastiness and the lies,” said Justice Thomas, who did not specify what he was referring to in addressing a full ballroom of lawyers and judges gathered for a judicial conference in Alabama. “There’s certainly been a lot of negativity in our lives, my wife and I, over the last few years, but we choose not to focus on it.”The justice faced calls for recusal after text messages and emails showed that his wife, Virginia Thomas, known as Ginni, sought to overturn the election, appealing to administration officials and lawmakers. Justice Thomas has continued to participate in a number of cases related to the 2020 election, including three about Jan. 6 on the docket this term.The remarks were part of a wide-ranging conversation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference held at a luxury resort on the waters of Mobile Bay, a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico.Interviewed by a former clerk, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, now a federal judge in Florida best known for overturning the Biden administration’s mask mandate, Justice Thomas reminisced about past years on the court, when he said it would have been impossible to imagine anyone leaking opinions. That appeared to be a reference to the 2022 leak of the draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.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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      Yellen to Warn China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports

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      The Treasury secretary, who plans to make her second trip to China soon, will argue that the country’s excess industrial production warps supply chains.The Biden administration is growing increasingly concerned that a glut of heavily subsidized green technology exports from China is distorting global markets and plans to confront Chinese officials about the problem during an upcoming round of economic talks in Beijing.The tension over industrial policy is flaring as the United States invests heavily in production of solar technology and electric vehicle batteries with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, while China pumps money into its factory sector to help stimulate its sluggish economy. President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have sought to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two largest economies, but differences over trade policy, investment restrictions and cyberespionage continue to strain ties.In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will lay out her plans to raise the issue of overcapacity with her Chinese counterparts. At the Suniva solar cell factory in Norcross, Ga., she will warn that China’s export strategy threatens to destabilize global supply chains that are developing around industries such as solar, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries, according to a copy of her prepared remarks reviewed by The New York Times.“China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world,” Ms. Yellen will say. “Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience.”The Treasury secretary is expected to make her second trip to China in the coming weeks. The South China Morning Post reported that she will visit Guangzhou and Beijing in early April. The Treasury Department declined to comment on her travel plans.In her speech in Georgia, Ms. Yellen will compare China’s investments in green energy technology production to what she described as its previous overinvestment in steel and aluminum, saying it created “global spillovers.”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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      Kamala Harris Visits Parkland and Urges States to Adopt Red-Flag Gun Laws

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      At the site of the 2018 school shooting in Florida, the vice president announced federal help for states to limit weapon access for people deemed to be threats.Vice President Kamala Harris stood beside the parents of children killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and announced a new federal resource center to help states implement their red-flag laws.Drew Angerer/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVice President Kamala Harris on Saturday toured the still-bloody and bullet-pocked classroom building in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members in 2018, using the grim backdrop to announce a new federal resource center and to call for stricter enforcement of gun laws.The freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had been preserved as evidence for criminal trials and is set to be demolished this summer. For now, it remains a memorial to one of the most shocking mass shootings in the history of the United States.In remarks after taking her tour and meeting for more than an hour with family members of victims of the attack, Ms. Harris said the experience had been a compelling one.“Let us, through the courage and the call to action of these families, find it in ourselves to consider what they’ve been through as some level of motivation and inspiration for all of us,” she said.“This school is soon going to be torn down,” the vice president added. “But the memory of it will never be erased.”Ms. Harris said the attack, carried out by a former student with a history of mental health and behavior problems, should prompt officials around the country to embrace local red-flag laws. These allow courts to temporarily seize firearms and other dangerous weapons when they believe a person may be a threat to themselves or others. The Parkland shooter had purchased his gun legally.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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      Putin Plays Down Threat of Nuclear War in Pre-Election State TV Interview

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      The Russian leader struck a softer tone in an interview with state television than in last month’s state-of-the-nation address. He is aiming to project stability before this weekend’s vote.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia tried to play down fears of nuclear war in an interview released on Wednesday and denied having considered using weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine, aiming to bolster his domestic image as a guarantor of stability before the Russian presidential election this weekend.In a lengthy interview released by Russian state television, Mr. Putin struck a softer tone than in his state-of-the-nation address last month, when he said that the West risked nuclear conflict with Russia if it intervened more directly in Ukraine. In the interview, Mr. Putin described the United States as seeking to avoid such a conflict, even as he warned that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons if its “sovereignty and independence” were threatened.“I don’t think that everything is rushing head-on here,” Mr. Putin said when asked whether Washington and Moscow were headed for a showdown. He added that even though the United States was modernizing its nuclear force, “this doesn’t mean, in my view, that they are ready to start this nuclear war tomorrow.”“If they want it — what can we do? We’re ready,” Mr. Putin said.The comments appeared aimed in large part at the Russian electorate, coming two days before polls open in the presidential election, which runs from Friday to Sunday. While Mr. Putin is all but assured to win a fifth term, the Kremlin is keen to drive up turnout to present the vote as a stamp of approval for the president and his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, critics of Mr. Putin have increasingly taken aim at what he has long presented as perhaps his biggest domestic selling point: the notion that he brought security and stability after Russia’s chaotic 1990s. Russians appear particularly nervous about the prospect of nuclear conflict; 55 percent of respondents told an independent pollster in January that they feared a new world war.But in his dealings with the West, Mr. Putin sees the threat of Russia’s enormous nuclear arsenal as one of his most effective instruments. He has repeatedly made reference to that arsenal when trying to deter Western nations from more actively supporting Ukraine, most recently in his Feb. 29 annual address, when he portrayed the deployment of forces from NATO countries to Ukraine as a step that would lead to nuclear war and the “destruction of civilization.” 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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      Inside CNN’s Debate Over Airing Trump’s Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

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      Tensions within CNN over coverage of former President Donald J. Trump burst into the open on Thursday during an internal call with the network’s journalists, as an executive candidly questioned the approach of the channel’s new chief executive, Mark Thompson.CNN aired roughly 10 minutes of Mr. Trump’s victory speech after he won the Iowa caucuses on Monday before cutting away. The decision to cut him off prompted derision from the former president and his allies, although critics on the left questioned why CNN had taken Mr. Trump live in the first place, given his tendency to spread falsehoods and conspiracies. MSNBC chose not to take any of his remarks live.Mr. Thompson opened his morning conference call on Thursday by acknowledging a debate within his newsroom, saying he believed the network had a journalistic obligation to broadcast the remarks of the leading Republican candidate for president.After a period of silence, a senior vice president of programming, Jim Murphy, jumped in, telling Mr. Thompson that the network had given Mr. Trump too much airtime when the network aired Mr. Trump’s live news conference last week after his civil fraud trial. Mr. Murphy said that CNN should cover Mr. Trump’s comments when he makes news, not when he is repeating political talking points.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?  More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Campaign Trail Quirk: The Word ‘Do’

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      All humans have oddities in the ways they speak. But those of presidential candidates are exposed more than most. All day, the candidates talk. And talk. And talk. Sometimes in scripted stump speeches, sometimes in off-the-cuff remarks to voters and the news media.And few talk more than Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who, in trying to make up his deficit in the polls, will on a typical day host five events for voters, sit for three interviews on television and hold a gaggle with reporters.Over the weeks and months on the campaign trail, one of Mr. DeSantis’s most curious verbal quirks has become clear: the way he sometimes uses the word “do.”During a CNN debate last week, Mr. DeSantis pledged to help seniors afford prescription drugs.“I want seniors to be able to do,” he said.Not “do” something. Just do. There is no word missing. That’s the full quote. In Mr. DeSantis’s parlance, the verb does not always require a direct object.Similarly, at a barbecue restaurant in Ames, Iowa, the next day, he said that as president he would defund the United Nations. “You’re going to see a lot of changes into how we do,” he vowed.Discussing the freezing weather with a crowd of Iowans, the Florida-born Mr. DeSantis remarked that once the temperature fell below zero, “with the windchill on just your exposed skin, it really, really starts to do.”And when a voter in Decorah asked if he would move the Department of Agriculture’s headquarters to Iowa, the governor said yes — in his typical fashion.“Iowa has first dibs on the Department of Agriculture,” a grinning Mr. DeSantis replied. “You guys want it, we’re going to do!”For Mr. DeSantis, who pitches himself as a take-charge, get-it-done leader, “do” is not just a verb. It can be an idea, a promise, a way to solve the problems that bedevil America. All of us can — and should — do.Of course, Mr. DeSantis also uses the word in the more traditional sense. But ask him if he thinks his rigorous campaigning schedule will help him win the Iowa caucuses on Monday?“I’ve done it right, I think Iowans appreciate that,” he said. “And we’re going to do.” More

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      Should Biden Really Run Again? He Prolongs an Awkward Conversation.

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      The president and his team have waved away Democrats’ worries about his bid for another term. But this week, he has drawn new attention to the question of what is best for the party.President Biden has a way of explaining away his gaffes that can let him defuse the situation without causing himself long-term political damage.“No one ever doubts I mean what I say,” he often says. The problem, he admits, is that “sometimes I say all that I mean.”So it went this week when Mr. Biden told donors on Tuesday night near Boston that “I’m not sure I’d be running” if former President Donald J. Trump were not trying to reclaim the Oval Office.It was a forehead-slapping moment for a president whose drooping approval ratings have forced him to turn his re-election campaign into a referendum on his predecessor, and a reminder that the political forecast for the next 11 months suggests America will be inundated with two candidates most of the country doesn’t want.Within hours, Mr. Biden walked back the sentiment. After returning to the White House, he approached reporters and said he wouldn’t drop out of the race even if Mr. Trump did so.Then came Wednesday.After delivering a speech urging Congress to pass a multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine, Mr. Biden walked away and reporters shouted questions at him.One grabbed his attention: Could any other Democrat defeat Mr. Trump?The president could have left and closed the door. The chatter about his 2024 decision would have been put to bed, at least for this week. But he could not resist. Once again, he reminded America why Democratic allies, and not Mr. Biden himself, are often viewed as his best messengers.“Probably 50” Democrats could beat Mr. Trump, he said. Then, seeming to laugh off his remark with a wry smile, he added, “I’m not the only one who could defeat him, but I will defeat him.”Whether Mr. Biden was joking, or again accidentally saying all that he meant, is for him to know. But his perhaps-too-candid moments, combined with many voters’ dissatisfaction about his performance, have worked to undercut his rationale for running — that he is the indispensable Democrat best positioned to keep Mr. Trump out of the White House, protect democracy and retain the “soul of America.”If he’s not indispensable, it opens the door to an uncomfortable question from skeptics in his party: Why not let some other Democrat have a chance to run for president?The reasons Mr. Biden is running again are fairly obvious. He considered a presidential bid in 1984, mounted his first White House campaign four years later, served for eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president, wanted to run in 2016 and finally won the nation’s top office in 2020.People who think about running for president for 36 years tend not to give up the White House without a fight. No president since Rutherford B. Hayes has served the four full years of his first term and then declined to run again.Mr. Biden had left some Democratic voters under the impression that he might gracefully step aside: During his 2020 campaign, he stood on a Detroit stage with three next-generation Democrats — Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan — and said, “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else.”But his own ambition and the enormous political advantage of incumbency always suggested he would seek to remain president into his mid-80s.Former Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a devoted Biden supporter who has known him since the early 1980s, said voters she heard from in Southern California were far more interested in stopping Mr. Trump from returning to power than they were worried about Mr. Biden’s age or competence.“They say, ‘We’ve got to win this,’” Ms. Boxer said. “They don’t talk so much about Joe. They say our democracy is on the line. They just assume it will be Joe.”Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s first chief of staff, allowed in an interview on Thursday that “it is possible that there are other Democrats in America who could beat Trump.” But because Mr. Biden is the only one to have actually done it, Mr. Klain said, he has the best chance to do so again. Mr. Klain said he did not know who the 50 Democrats mentioned by Mr. Biden were.“This is a life-or-death moment for democracy, and we need someone who has beaten Trump before,” Mr. Klain said.Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesman, dismissed any close reading of Mr. Biden’s latest comments. The campaign, Mr. Munoz said, would not be “distracted by the same Beltway narratives that President Biden has proven wrong for years.”And Mr. Biden’s latest verbal adventures didn’t exactly prompt a reckoning in Democratic politics. Most simply rolled their eyes at his struggle to keep the political conversation on favorable terrain — especially during a week in which Mr. Trump pledged not to be a dictator “except for Day 1.”“He’s one of the most honest people you’re ever going to meet in terms of expressing what he is feeling at the moment,” former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota said of Mr. Biden, with whom he served for 18 years in the Senate. “There isn’t a politician alive that hasn’t wanted to reframe things. We all do it.”Mr. Trump, at age 77, has not exactly been a smooth operator himself. He has long strayed off message, and has his own growing record of verbal slips. He has confused Mr. Biden with Mr. Obama, suggested America is on the verge of entering World War II, praised Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, and told supporters not to worry about voting.David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist who helped choose Mr. Biden to be Mr. Obama’s running mate in 2008, said it was understood at the time that Mr. Biden’s occasional deviation from the prescribed political script was part of the package.He said Mr. Biden’s gaffes gave him an authenticity in the minds of voters that other veteran Washington politicians lacked, even if they caused a few headaches for Mr. Obama and his aides.“Joe Biden has been a guy who has spoken his mind for 50 years in politics,” said Mr. Axelrod, who has repeatedly suggested that the president’s age will be a top concern for voters in 2024. “Sometimes that’s gotten him into some hot water, but it’s also part of a whole package of a guy who is authentic and willing to say exactly what he’s thinking.” More

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      Nikki Haley Says She Doesn’t Agree With Trump ‘Vermin’ Comments

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      Her reaction, which came six days after the former president first made the remarks, came in response to a question from one of her supporters while campaigning in Iowa.Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is rising in the polls in the Republican presidential race, criticized former President Donald J. Trump for vowing to root out his political opponents like “vermin.”“I don’t agree with that statement,” Ms. Haley said at a town-hall event in Newton, Iowa. “Any more than I agree when he said Hezbollah was smart, or any more than I agree when he hit Netanyahu when his country was on its knees after all that brutality.”Ms. Haley’s response, which came six days after Mr. Trump made the remarks at a Veterans Day address in Claremont, N.H., was prompted by a question from Daniel Beintema, 63, a supporter of Ms. Haley who was concerned about the spread of “hate and division” and how little attention Mr. Trump’s comments received from Republican officials.Mr. Trump’s rhetoric — particularly the use of the word “vermin” — was condemned by President Biden’s campaign and other Democrats, as well as by historians, for its echoes with the dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by fascist dictators like Hitler and Benito Mussolini.“When somebody that’s a leader in the Republican Party uses words of divisiveness and hatred, calling people vermin — and just because they oppose what you’re doing or where they come from, who they are,” Mr. Beintema said in an interview after the event. “And the Republican Party backed away from that, like, ‘Well, I’m not going to make a comment on that.’ I think that’s important.”The town-hall exchange reflected the careful criticism of Mr. Trump that has seeped into Ms. Haley’s stump speeches on the campaign trail. She has focused on the former president’s mercurial and scandal-prone nature, something she says would be a liability both for Republicans at the polls and in the Oval Office.“You look at the elections from last week or two weeks ago, we lost again. That’s chaos,” Ms. Haley said speaking to voters on Friday. She added: “We can’t have the world on fire and be dealing with chaos. We just can’t. We won’t survive it.”The critical comments also come as Ms. Haley is surging in the polls in Iowa and other early voting states. Voters who plan to caucus for her in Iowa have said it is because of her foreign policy experience, her strong performance in the debates and her commitment to speaking what she calls “hard truths.”“She is willing to not avoid tough subjects that are going to potentially offend people who would show up for her,” said Mark Timmerman, 62, a resident of Clive, Iowa, who traveled to see Ms. Haley in Ankeny on Friday. “She will tell the truth.” More