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    Biden Administration Considers Protection for Undocumented Spouses of U.S. Citizens

    The steps under consideration include protecting them from deportation and providing access to work permits, according to three officials with knowledge of the discussions.The Biden administration is considering a proposal to protect undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allow them to work in the country legally, according to four officials with knowledge of the discussions.The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said that no final decision had been made and that the shape of the policy was unclear. Any such program could also provide some spouses an easier route to obtain U.S. citizenship.The proposal comes as President Biden has moved to address political liabilities in his immigration policy in recent days.Last week, he moved to bar asylum for migrants crossing into the United States as part of an effort to toughen border enforcement, eliciting criticism from members of his own party. And now, a move to protect undocumented immigrants in the United States could help Mr. Biden address some of the fierce resistance that order elicited and shore up support among immigrant advocates, Latino voters and his progressive base.The program said to be under consideration is known as “parole in place,” which has been used in the past for other populations, like families of military members. It gives undocumented immigrants in the United States protection from deportation for a certain period of time and access to a work permit.Crucially, it also makes it easier for some undocumented immigrants to gain new access to a green card and a path to U.S. citizenship.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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    ‘Music Speaks to Some Deep Need Among Humans’

    More from our inbox:Will Politicians Accept the Election Results?Honoring the DeadFear of CrimeA research team that comprised musicologists, psychologists, linguists, evolutionary biologists and professional musicians recorded songs in 55 languages to find that songs share certain features not found in speech.Album/AlamyTo the Editor:Re “Delving Into the Archaeology of Music” (Science Times, May 21):Virtually all our achievements as a species depend upon humans working together. One human alone, in a state of nature, is a medium-sized animal struggling for survival (and with no use for music). Working in tandem, we produce homes, towns, cities, factories and all the rest.Music is a vital part of that process. Most traditional music is highly functional. It’s used for religious ceremonies, community events, family gatherings, dancing, courtship and labor (keeping workers in sync). Sometimes, as in the case of the Scottish bagpipe, it plays a role in battle.Music is like an intangible thread tying us together. Anything that facilitates human cooperation confers a major survival advantage. It’s no wonder that music, like language, is universal among us.David GoldbergNew YorkTo the Editor:I was interested to read the latest research into music using big data, as your article reports. My late father, David Epstein, a conductor and a professor of music at M.I.T., did a lot of research into musical performance that pointed to how and why music taps into some fundamental human abilities, across cultures.His work focused on tempo/rhythm/pulse, and he uncovered some fascinating features of tempo that were of interest to scientists from many disciplines. One of his main findings (with the use of a stopwatch — not big data!) was that highly skilled musicians have such a fine-tuned sense of rhythm that they can play with the tempo in a piece, take a phrase and stretch it out here, and then speed up somewhere else, landing exactly where they might have if they had played a straight (and boring) metronome tempo through the whole piece. Audiences respond to the drama in that playful interpretation.I don’t think my father ever questioned that music speaks to some deep need among humans — for a language beyond words that allows us to tie our very heartbeats to one another.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 Expected to Blast Trump at Party Dinner in Michigan

    In one of her first campaign appearances since former President Donald J. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records, Vice President Kamala Harris sharply criticized him on Saturday as a “cheater” who believes himself above the law and argued that he should be disqualified for the presidency.Ms. Harris, who headlined a state Democratic Party dinner in downtown Detroit, rebuffed Mr. Trump’s false claims that his trial, like the 2020 presidential election, was “rigged” and defended the judicial process behind his felony conviction.“Simply put, Donald Trump thinks he is above the law,” she said. “This should be disqualifying for anyone who wants to be president of the United States.”The speech on Saturday evening capped a day of campaigning across Michigan, a crucial battleground state. Ms. Harris was accompanied by the actress Octavia Spencer, attending a fund-raiser in Ann Arbor and stopping at a Black-owned bookstore in Ypsilanti.In Detroit, the vice president opened her speech with remarks about the war in Gaza. As she tried to describe the Biden administration’s monthslong efforts to negotiate a cease-fire deal, a protester stood up and shouted at her and was quickly removed from the ballroom. Ms. Harris’s response was stern: “I value and respect your voice, but I’m speaking right now.”She then continued her speech. “We have been working every day to bring an end to this conflict in a way that ensures Israel is secure, brings home all hostages, ends ongoing suffering for Palestinian people and ensures that Palestinians can enjoy their right to self-determination, dignity and freedom,” she said. “As President Biden said last week, it is time for this war to end.”Turning to the election, Ms. Harris, the former top prosecutor of California, accused Mr. Trump of attacking “the foundations of our justice system.” She said that the former president was convicted by a jury of 12 Americans who were selected in part by his defense team, and that his lawyers had a chance to present their side of the evidence.“You know why he complains? Because the reality is cheaters don’t like getting caught,” she said.A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The event took place in a key swing state with heightened stakes. President Biden won Michigan’s primary in February, 81 percent to 13 percent, prevailing over a movement that urged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” on the ballot in protest of his support for Israel. But more than 100,000 voters took that stance against him, among them progressives, young people and many in the state’s large and politically active Arab American community. Mr. Biden’s campaign has also been seeking to shore up its support among Black voters in cities like Detroit.Mr. Trump won Michigan by nearly 11,000 votes in 2016, and lost it to Mr. Biden by more than 150,000 votes in his 2020 re-election bid. Mr. Trump focused on the voting in Michigan in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. More

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    Days After Border Closes for Most Migrants, Manageable Crowds but More Anxiety

    On a hot and humid morning in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, less than a mile from the Rio Grande, one question seemed to linger in the minds of hundreds of people who had arrived Saturday at a shelter for migrants.When would they be able to cross into the United States?The answer remained elusive. At least 1,100 men, women and children, a majority of them from Central America and Venezuela, had arrived at Senda de Vida, a sprawling respite center consisting of makeshift tents and temporary wooden rooms, with hopes of reaching the United States. Instead, many felt stuck in limbo after President Biden signed an executive order that prevents migrants from seeking asylum along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge.The order effectively closed the U.S. border for nearly all asylum seekers as of 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday.Jorge Gomez, 34, from Honduras, rested on Saturday near the U.S.-Mexico border.Paul Ratje for The New York TimesThe full effect of the new rule was difficult to assess three days after Mr. Biden’s announcement, but, as of Saturday, the number of migrants massing at the border showed signs of stabilizing, at least for now, compared with previous years, as many migrants appeared to be heeding the warning that they would be turned away, said Héctor Silva de Luna, a pastor who runs the shelter.During the height of the migration crisis, he welcomed more than 7,000 people, he said. Many now appear to be waiting in the interior of Mexico, in cities like Monterrey and Mexico City, to see what happens. But the migrants at the border like the ones at Mr. de Luna’s shelter are “the ones that will pay the price,” he said, because they are being rejected.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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    As Trump Rallies in the Southwest, Extreme Heat Threatens MAGA Faithful

    Eleven people were treated for heat exhaustion at a recent Trump event in Phoenix. Temperatures for a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday are expected to approach 105 degrees.Political campaigns do their best to control as much as possible: their candidate, their messaging, their surrogates and their schedules. But what to do about the weather?This week, with former President Donald J. Trump holding campaign events in the Southwest, his team is grappling with an extreme heat wave that has threatened the health of some of his most ardent fans.On Thursday, Mr. Trump went to Phoenix for a campaign event at a megachurch, where hopeful attendees waited for hours to enter as the temperature climbed above 110 degrees. The heat was so scorching that some of those waiting collapsed, and 11 people were taken to hospitals to be treated for heat exhaustion.The Trump campaign is taking steps to avoid similar circumstances on Sunday, when Mr. Trump is scheduled to speak at an outdoor rally at noon at a park in Las Vegas. Forecasts expect the temperature to be around 105 degrees.Several supporters of Mr. Trump required treatment for heat-related illness during his event in Phoenix.Jacob Stoll/UGC, via ReutersMuch of the western United States has been contending with a heat wave all week. Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been under an excessive heat warning for days, with afternoon temperatures hovering in the triple digits.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 Woes of Donald Trump Will Never Rise to the Level of Public Tragedy

    When a Manhattan jury found Donald J. Trump guilty, it should have sent shock waves through the nation. Yet, though the trial and conviction of a former president was unprecedented in American history, it seems most people couldn’t have cared less. As Michelle Goldberg recently noted, only 16 percent of respondents to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll said they had followed the first few weeks of the trial very closely, and when asked how they felt, many replied, “bored.”In its way, that must have annoyed Mr. Trump: how insulting, that no one would care. There was media coverage, but no frenzy, no rallies around the world in protest when he was convicted. But to win in the court of public opinion, Mr. Trump must now transform a trial in a run-down Manhattan courtroom from a shoulder shrug into an unforgettable event, with a story powerful enough to keep his supporters energized, if not outraged, and to drum up sympathy from the undecideds.For months, Mr. Trump has been laying the groundwork, spinning his tale of tyranny and martyrdom (his own of course) and styling himself as the victim of an administration that has to play dirty to eliminate a rival as formidable as he. That story of persecution has only grown louder in recent days. Moments after hearing the jury pronounce him guilty, he predictably called the trial “rigged,” the judge “conflicted,” and a trial by jury as well as government institutions like the justice system irrelevant compared with the verdict that galvanized voters will presumably hand him in November. Politics, not the law, is his métier, and history is not his concern. His preoccupation, and his talent, is storytelling.Instinctively he grasps the kind of broader stories that break through from the courtroom to the public. These stories fueled what pundits, particularly in the 20th century, frequently dubbed the “trial of the century” — trials that captured the hearts and minds of the public, that sold newspapers, and that would grip the whole nation, if not the world, with their cultural significance. Each of these trials riveted the country by bringing to the foreground moral values and failings that affected all Americans.Take the Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee in 1925, about a new law that barred the theory of evolution from being taught in public schools, which became a showdown between a three-time presidential candidate, the eloquent politician William Jennings Bryan, and the famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow. Covered day after day on the front page of newspapers coast to coast, it even found its way into Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises.” The issue here was faith and reason, or what passes for both, and whether government could mandate belief. A young high school teacher, John Scopes, purposefully broke the recently passed law “to show,” as the brilliant attorney Arthur Garfield Hays argued, “that such laws result in hate and intolerance, that they are conceived in bigotry and born in ignorance — ignorance of the Bible, of religion, of history, and of science.”There was the trial of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants accused of robbery and murder in Massachusetts, which caused such international indignation that rallies against their execution were held from London to Johannesburg. Edna St. Vincent Millay published a poem titled “Justice Denied in Massachusetts” in The New York Times to protest the handling of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and Felix Frankfurter called the misrepresentations, suppressions and misquotations of its presiding judge disgraceful.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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    Kari Lake Delivered a Speech in Front of a Confederate Flag

    Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, delivered a speech in front of a Confederate flag at a Trump-themed merchandise store in Show Low, Ariz., last week.Footage of the speech, which was obtained by The New York Times, showed Ms. Lake on May 31 repeating lies about the 2020 election’s having been stolen from former President Donald J. Trump as she stood in front of a Confederate battle standard hanging in the store. The flag has become the one most associated with the Confederacy in the modern era.“I am the only person running for U.S. Senate, either Republican or Democrat, who truly believes there was fraud in the election in 2020 — does anyone else here believe that?” Ms. Lake said to cheers and applause. She later added: “We are still fighting. We have more fight in us. We have a lot of cases going.”The store, known as the Trumped Store, sells a variety of pro-Trump and 2020 election-denier merchandise as well as the Confederate battle flag and the Confederate national flag. The store also sells merchandise with slogans attacking President Biden, including “Let’s Go Brandon” and “F.J.B.,” which stands for a phrase that includes an expletive. A number of products also feature the phrase “Trump won,” in support of Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.In a statement, the Lake campaign defended her appearance at the store by saying: “Kari went to a store. The New York Times published an op-ed from the terrorist organization the Taliban. Do you approve of the Taliban?” In another statement, to The Guardian, which earlier reported Ms. Lake’s appearance at the store, the campaign said: “The Kari Lake campaign does not respond to British propaganda outlets. We stopped doing that in 1776.”The local news media in Arizona had also reported on Ms. Lake’s appearance at the Trumped Store earlier this week.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 Defends Vow to Prosecute Rivals, Saying ‘Sometimes Revenge Can Be Justified’

    Former President Donald J. Trump has in recent days been escalating his suggestions that he could prosecute his political enemies if elected in November.In interviews broadcast on Thursday and earlier this week, Mr. Trump’s remarks demonstrated how he is trying to put his legal troubles on the ballot as a referendum on the American justice system and the rule of law. His allies in the Republican Party have also joined his calls for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony convictions by a jury in a New York court on 34 charges.Mr. Trump was offered several opportunities by sympathetic interviewers in recent days to clarify or walk back his previous statements. Mr. Trump instead defended his position, saying at points that “I don’t want to look naïve” and that “sometimes revenge can be justified.”Dr. Phil McGraw, the television host and a self-described donor to Mr. Trump’s campaign, brought up the former president’s previous statements in an interview that ran on Thursday and gave him an opportunity to say, as Dr. McGraw put it: “Enough is enough. Too much is too much. This is a race to the bottom, and it stops here. It stops now.”Mr. Trump initially responded, “I’m OK with that,” but then added, “Sometimes, I’m sure in certain moments I wouldn’t be, you know, when you go through what I’ve been through.”Then, when Dr. McGraw said that revenge and retribution were unhealthy for the country and that Mr. Trump did not have time to “get even,” the former president replied: “Revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified Phil, I have to be honest — sometimes it can.”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