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    Nikki Haley Requests Secret Service Protection as She Faces Rising Threats

    Nikki Haley, who has been the target of at least two hoax calls that have sent the authorities rushing to her home, has applied for Secret Service protection as the number of threats against her has increased, a campaign spokeswoman confirmed Monday.After losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and a United Nations ambassador under former President Donald J. Trump, is now his only rival left in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The two have been clashing fiercely on the campaign trail and are headed into a heated primary in her home state on Feb. 24.Mr. Trump’s supporters have been known to attack his political opponents with racist messages, death threats and “swatting” calls, or fake reports of emergencies at their homes. But officials with Ms. Haley’s campaign would not release any more information about the number or kinds of threats she has received. Ms. Haley could also be a target because of her work in Iran as a United Nations ambassador.In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the move, Ms. Haley said only that her team had seen “multiple issues.” “It’s not going to stop me from doing what I need to do,” she said.Presidential candidates typically receive Secret Service protection around the time they win their party’s nomination. In 2007, Barack Obama, then a senator, was assigned protection nine months before voting began in the primaries.Ms. Haley has increased security at her events in recent weeks. In South Carolina, reports filed with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office show that deputies have responded to at least two bogus reports at her home on Kiawah Island since December.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 Couldn’t Shut Down the Border. Can Biden?

    President Biden could take some steps without Congress, but the idea that he has unfettered power to seal off the country is far too simplistic.President Biden is pleading with Congress for new authority to shut down the nation’s overwhelmed southern border, declaring that he has done “all I can do” and urging lawmakers to “give me the power” to fix it.“We don’t have enough agents. We don’t have enough folks. We don’t have enough judges,” Mr. Biden said on Monday. “Why won’t they give me the help?”A Senate bill introduced over the weekend tries to do just that. But it is fiercely opposed by House Republicans, who insist the president has simply failed to wield the power over immigration that he already has.Who’s right?While it is true that there are some steps Mr. Biden could take without Congress, the idea that he has unfettered power to seal the country off is far too simplistic. The United States also has laws that require the government to consider asylum claims from people fleeing persecution. Any attempts to circumvent that would almost certainly face legal challenges.The proposed legislation would clear away legal, practical and financial roadblocks to stiffer enforcement at the border that both parties say they want.Veterans of decades of political and policy debates over immigration said the bill would give Mr. Biden explicit new authority to deny asylum claims, expel people from the country more quickly and keep track of migrants while they are in the United States.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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    Fact-Checking Claims That Senate Bill Allows 5,000 Unauthorized Immigrants a Day

    Republican critics are misrepresenting one provision of a bipartisan deal to suggest that it permits 5,000 illegal crossings a day.Republican critics have quickly twisted one element of a bipartisan compromise bill unveiled on Sunday to misleadingly suggest that it permits 5,000 migrants to enter the country illegally every day.The legislation, which links additional funding in military aid for Ukraine with immigration policy, would more aggressively tamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico.The claim has become a popular talking point, reflecting broader pushback by Republicans who have seized on the border security provisions in the $118.3 billion bill and derided them as too lax.But the bill does not, in fact, authorize immigrants to cross the border illegally. Instead, among other provisions, it would give officials the authority to summarily remove migrants, with little recourse, after a certain number cross: an average of 5,000 encounters per day for a week, or 8,500 in a single day.Here’s a fact check.WHAT WAS SAID“The Biden/Schumer Open Border Bill allows 5,000 immigrants a day into our country.”— House Republicans in a social media post on Monday“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you: It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients — a magnet for more illegal immigration.”— Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, in a social media post on SundayWe 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 Jobs Conundrum: Questions About Wages Persist

    The latest data on jobs and wages are positive on the surface, but a large group of voters are still downbeat about the state of the economy. Jobs seem plentiful, but a large group of voters are feeling downbeat about inflation and the economy.Spencer Platt/Getty Images‘The job’s not quite done’ The U.S. economy is a paradox. Official figures show that growth is solid, jobs are plentiful and wages are climbing, and yet voters are mostly feeling down and giving President Biden little credit.Friday’s jobs data is adding to that split-screen view, with economists pointing out red flags in an otherwise sterling report.The labor market seems to be performing strongly. Employers added 353,000 jobs last month, almost double economists’ forecasts, and an additional 100,000 via revisions in previous months. Average hourly wages rose, too.But that doesn’t necessarily mean workers are more prosperous. For a start, wintry weather shrank the average workweek to 34.1 hours in January. In particular, nonsalaried employees, especially those in retail, construction and the hospitality sectors, worked fewer hours, which probably ate into their pay, Bill Adams, an economist at Comerica Bank, said in a research note.And Goldman Sachs’s wage tracker for U.S. workers fell after Friday’s report on a quarterly annualized basis.Workers are increasingly anxious about changing jobs. Quit rates have fallen to a four-year low, suggesting employees are feeling less confident that they’ll find a better position elsewhere. If this trend persists, it could also put the chill on wage gains that soared during the so-called Great Resignation.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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    Germany Braces for Decades of Confrontation With Russia

    Leaders are sounding alarms about growing threats, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz is wary of pushing the Kremlin, and his own ambivalent public, too far.Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia — and that they must speedily rebuild the country’s military in case Vladimir V. Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.Russia’s military, he has said in a series of recent interviews with German news media, is fully occupied with Ukraine. But if there is a truce, and Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO’s unity.“Nobody knows how or whether this will last,” Mr. Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.Mr. Pistorius’s public warnings reflect a significant shift at the top levels of leadership in a country that has shunned a strong military since the end of the Cold War. The alarm is growing louder, but the German public remains unconvinced that the security of Germany and Europe has been fundamentally threatened by a newly aggressive Russia.The defense minister’s post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Mr. Pistorius’s status as one of the country’s most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others — including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz — do not enjoy.As Mr. Scholz prepares to meet President Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Mr. Putin’s Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Mr. Putin prevail there.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 Trump’s Not-So-Swift Brain

    It’s easy to imagine what’s going through Donald Trump’s head right now. I can hear his interior monologue all the way from Mar-a-Lago. He’s fulminating, working himself up to another epic meltdown, like he had over Nikki Haley the night he won the New Hampshire primary. The thoughts pinballing through Trump’s cortex might be something like this:“I like Taylor Swift. I do. She’s made a career of revenge, which gets my Complete and Total Endorsement. She’s beautiful, just my type, unlike that wack job E. Jean Carroll and her sick lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.“Rachel Maddow is not getting my money for that penthouse and shopping spree E. Jean promised her on MSDNC. Rachel wears the same outfit every day anyway. Besides, I don’t have $83 million. My third-rate lawyers drained the money I siphoned from my donors. I thought everyone knew I made that up about being a billionaire.“I’ll tell you what: The idea that Taylor Swift is more popular than me is a joke. Her fans are 13 years old. They can’t even vote.“In the Rigged and Stolen election of 2020, I got the most votes of any president in history. She doesn’t have more fans than me. She doesn’t! And my fans are more committed. Swifties won’t stand in line as long as mine. They’ve never broken into the Capitol for her. Oh, what a beautiful day that was.“Now let me just tell you, I’m two for two, dominating in Iowa and New Hampshire, great, great, fantastic states, very special places. Every place we go we have tens of thousands of people outside every arena. They have to build larger arenas in this country just for me, right?“Taylor seems like a nice girl, a little too wholesome for my taste. She did a Diet Coke ad and I like Diet Coke. She even got Birdbrain to take her daughter to a concert. And sure, I have a Taylor friendship “BFF” bracelet. Who doesn’t? That neurotic dope Maureen Dowd once compared me to a 13-year-old girl. SHE DOESN’T KNOW ME!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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    Biden Finds Support but Also Protests in Michigan

    The president’s Michigan trip underscored the fresh challenges he faces this year.President Biden’s visit to Michigan yesterday had all the hallmarks of a vintage Scranton Joe event, as he talked to United Automobile Workers members about his love of cars and affinity for the labor movement.But if the appearance was a throwback to previous campaigns — and a reminder of his historical appeal to a multiracial bloc of working-class voters — the Michigan trip itself underscored the fresh challenges Biden faces this year.Michigan is home to many Arab American and Muslim voters, who were once a solid Biden constituency but are now livid about the president’s support of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.Pro-Palestinian groups protested his visit, carrying signs that called for voters to “abandon Biden.” Demonstrators chanted “Genocide Joe” and “How many kids have you killed today?” outside a campaign stop later in the day, my colleague Michael Shear reported.Some Arab American community leaders, including the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, recently declined a meeting with Biden’s campaign manager. And a group of activists is planning to encourage Michiganders to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s primaries on Feb. 27.“If we can demonstrate our political power and discontent through as many uncommitted votes as possible in the Michigan Democratic primaries, then the hope is that Biden would feel more at risk of losing Michigan in the general election,” said Layla Elabed, the campaign manager for the effort, who is a sister of Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. She hopes that would prompt him to “shift his policy to support a cease-fire, at least” and to urge restrictions on military aid to Israel.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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    Prosecutors in Documents Case Reject Trump’s Claims of Bias

    The office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, pushed back on the former president’s assertions that his prosecution was motivated by animosity toward him in intelligence agencies.Federal prosecutors pushed back on Friday against former President Donald J. Trump’s contention that his prosecution over the handling of classified documents was motivated by a longstanding bias against him among the intelligence agencies and other government officials.The pushback by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, came in a 67-page court filing. The filing was intended to argue against Mr. Trump’s requests for additional discovery materials in the classified documents case.When Mr. Trump’s lawyers made those requests for materials last month, they signaled that they planned to place accusations that the intelligence community and other members of the so-called deep state were biased against Mr. Trump at the heart of their defense.But Mr. Smith’s team said that the former president’s requests for additional information were “based on speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.”Some of Mr. Trump’s demands for discovery were so ambiguous “that it is difficult to decipher what they seek,” the prosecutors wrote, while others, they added, “reflect pure conjecture detached from the facts surrounding this prosecution.”Discovery disputes can be contentious in criminal cases as defense lawyers push for as much information as they can get and prosecutors seek to limit access to materials that they believe are irrelevant.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