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      Your Wednesday Briefing: A Downed U.S. Drone

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      Also, U.S. markets seem to stabilize and Xi Jinping tightens his control over China’s economy.The U.S. aircraft was an MQ-9 surveillance drone.Fabrizio Villa/Getty ImagesA downed droneA Russian fighter jet struck a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea, U.S. officials said, hitting its propeller and causing its loss in international waters. Russia denied that there had been a collision, saying the drone’s own maneuvers caused it to crash.If a collision is confirmed, it would be the first known physical contact between the two nations’ militaries as a result of the war in Ukraine.U.S. officials said the drone’s operators brought the craft down in the Black Sea after the collision, which the U.S. military said was the result of “reckless” actions by Russian pilots. The U.S. aircraft was conducting “routine operations in international airspace,” an Air Force general said.A White House spokesman said that there had been similar “intercepts” by Russian aircraft in recent weeks, calling them “not an uncommon occurrence,” but that this was the first to result “in the splashing of one of our drones.” He called the behavior of the Russians “unsafe and unprofessional.” Context: Russia’s invasion has turned the Black Sea, which is dominated by the Russian Navy, into a battle zone. Ukraine has attacked Russian naval vessels there, most notably in April, when a Ukrainian missile sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.Response: The State Department summoned Russia’s ambassador in Washington to receive the U.S.’s formal objection over the drone downing.Other updates:Russia pounded towns in the southern Kherson region, Ukrainian officials said, as Ukraine prepared for a counteroffensive.Russia said it would extend a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain, but only for 60 days rather than the 120 sought by Ukraine.Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, said his force would recede after the battle for Bakhmut. The shift coincides with speculation about Prigozhin’s political ambitions.Stocks jumped a day after the turmoil.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockU.S. economy seems to stabilizeMarkets closed up yesterday, after investors seemed to shrug off the recent collapse of two midsize banks and the threat of a crisis appeared to wane. Fresh inflation data, largely in line with expectations, also added to the sense of relief.Stocks: The S&P 500 jumped 1.7 percent yesterday. Midsize banking stocks, which had plummeted on Monday, rebounded.Banks: The Justice Department opened an investigation into the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, my colleagues report.Inflation: It eased to 6 percent on an annual basis, which matched an expected slowdown. But in February inflation rose over the prior month.Now, all eyes are on the Federal Reserve.Some of the inflation details were worrying, including the costs of housing and other goods and services. Generally, that would indicate that the Fed would keep raising rates in hopes of cooling down the economy.But higher interest rates raise costs for companies, and were at the root of the banking stress. Fewer or smaller rate increases could help stocks to rebound after the deep uncertainty set off by the banking crisis.In other business news: Meta will lay off another 10,000 people, roughly 13 percent of its workforce.Xi Jinping was elected to a third term as China’s president on Friday.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesXi reins in the economyXi Jinping is dealing with China’s economic problems the same way that he has approached issues for most of his decade in power: by getting the Communist Party more involved.At the annual gathering of China’s national legislature, which ended Monday, Xi introduced a series of sweeping changes to the regulatory framework that would allow the party to assert more direct control over financial policy and bank regulation.China’s economy, which is growing near its slowest pace in decades, is teetering from a real estate sector in crisis. Xi needs bankers to comply with his vision and allocate capital in the ways that China wants its money spent, without jeopardizing the financial system.Heads are already starting to roll. Last month, Tian Huiyu, the former head of one of China’s biggest commercial lenders, was charged with abuse of power and insider trading. And Bao Fan, a prominent investment banker, vanished.Challenges: The financial sector is struggling to respond to the shaky balance sheets of local governments — overrun with debt after paying for “zero Covid” policies — and banks that lend to them.Related: China will start issuing visas to foreign tourists again today, Reuters reports.Analysis: On “The Ezra Klein Show,” Dan Wang, an expert on U.S.-China competition, explores how China’s growth trajectory halted.THE LATEST NEWSAround the WorldThe three leaders described the naval partnership as a critical way to confront China. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThe leaders of the U.S., Britain and Australia unveiled plans to develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, part of an effort to counter China.Major protests are expected in France today before both houses of Parliament vote tomorrow on President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.The 2026 World Cup will have 48 teams, up from the current 32, and 24 more games.Other Big StoriesCyclone Freddy, a record-breaking storm, killed nearly 200 people in Malawi.A multibillion-dollar oil project led by French and Chinese companies in Uganda and Tanzania could threaten pristine habitats and Lake Victoria, a source of freshwater for 40 million people.In Antakya, a Turkish city hit hard by the earthquake, the damage is so profound that officials estimate that 80 percent of the remaining buildings will need to be demolished.A Morning Read Julio Sosa/The Daily PennsylvanianAmy Wax, a tenured law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has said publicly that “on average, Blacks have lower cognitive ability than whites” and that the U.S. is “better off with fewer Asians.”The university is now grappling with a conundrum: Is she exercising her right to free speech, or should she be fired?Lives lived: Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who helped expose China’s SARS crisis in 2003, was celebrated as a hero, then punished for denouncing the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He died at 91.Masatoshi Ito introduced the American convenience store 7-Eleven to Japan, starting a retail revolution there. He died at 98.ARTS AND IDEASA new chatbotOpenAI unveiled an update to ChatGPT, its revolutionary chatbot, just four months after the program stunned the tech world with its ability to answer complex questions and mimic human emotions. The update, called GPT-4, ups the ante in the lucrative AI arms race.My colleagues tested GPT-4. It’s more precise, but it has a few of the old quirks.Developments: It can achieve impressive scores on standardized tests like the SAT, summarize complex news articles and wow doctors with its medical advice. It can answer questions about images; for example, if it’s given a photo of the inside of a fridge, it can suggest recipes based on what’s inside. Its jokes are almost funny.Challenges: GPT-4 still makes things up, a problem that researchers call “hallucination.” It can’t really talk about the future.“Though it’s an awfully good test taker,” my colleagues write, GPT-4 “is not on the verge of matching human intelligence.”Society: Chatbots are shifting the way we learn and work. But even the most impressive systems tend to complement, not replace, skilled workers. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management is building a system that will serve information from company documents to financial advisers.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookMelina Hammer for The New York TimesStart brining your homemade corned beef so it’s ready for St. Patrick’s Day this Friday.What to ReadIn “Y/N,” a bored young woman in thrall to a K-pop band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.What to WatchIn “Punch,” by the New Zealand writer-director Welby Ings, a young boxer befriends a queer outcast and shifts his priorities.RelationshipsHow to make friends as an introvert.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Gossip (three letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Paul Sonne, who has covered national security for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, is our newest Russia correspondent.“The Daily” is on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.Send us your feedback. You can reach us at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      George Santos Is In a Class of His Own. But Other Politicians Have Embellished Their Resumes, Too.

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      Mr. Santos, a Republican representative-elect from Long Island, has admitted to lying about his professional background, educational history and property ownership.With his admission this week that he lied to voters about his credentials, Representative-elect George Santos has catapulted to the top of the list of politicians who have misled the public about their past.Mr. Santos, a New York Republican, fabricated key biographical elements of his background, including misrepresentations of his professional background, educational history and property ownership, in a pattern of deception that was uncovered by The New York Times. He even misrepresented his Jewish heritage.While others have also embellished their backgrounds, including degrees and military honors that they did not receive or distortions about their business acumen and wealth, few have done so in such a wide-ranging manner.Many candidates, confronted over their inconsistencies during their campaigns, have stumbled, including Herschel Walker and J.R. Majewski, two Trump-endorsed Republicans who ran for the Senate and the House during this year’s midterms.Mr. Walker, who lost Georgia’s Senate runoff this month, was dogged by a long trail of accusations that he misrepresented himself. Voters learned about domestic violence allegations, children born outside his marriage, ex-girlfriends who said he urged them to have abortions and more, including questions about where he lived, his academic record and the ceremonial nature of his work with law enforcement.Mr. Majewski promoted himself in his Ohio House race as a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the U.S. Air Force had no record that he served there. He lost in November.Some of the nation’s most prominent presidential candidates have been accused of misrepresenting themselves to voters as well; perhaps none more notably than Donald J. Trump, whose 2016 campaign hinged on a stark exaggeration of his business background. While not as straightforward a deception as Mr. Santos saying he worked somewhere he had not, Mr. Trump presented himself as a successful, self-made businessman and hid evidence he was not, breaking with decades of precedent in refusing to release his tax records. Those records, obtained by The Times after his election, painted a much different picture — one of dubious tax avoidance, huge losses and a life buttressed by an inherited fortune.Prominent Democrats have faced criticisms during presidential campaigns too, backtracking during primary contests after being called out for more minor misrepresentations:Joseph R. Biden Jr. admitted to overstating his academic record in the 1980s: “I exaggerate when I’m angry,” he said at the time. Hillary Clinton conceded that she “misspoke” in 2008 about dodging sniper fire on an airport tarmac during a 1996 visit to Bosnia as first lady, an anecdote she employed to highlight her experience with international crises. And Senator Elizabeth Warren apologized in 2019 for her past claims of Native American ancestry.Most politicians’ transgressions pale in comparison with Mr. Santos’s largely fictional résumé. Voters also didn’t know about his lies before casting their ballots.The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsCovid Myths: Experts say the spread of coronavirus misinformation — particularly on far-right platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. And there are no easy solutions.Midterms Misinformation: Social media platforms struggled to combat false narratives during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, but it appeared most efforts to stoke doubt about the results did not spread widely.A ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check. A New Misinformation Hub?: Misleading edits, fake news stories and deepfake images of politicians are starting to warp reality on TikTok.Here are some other federal office holders who have been accused of being less than forthright during their campaigns, but got elected anyway.Representative Madison Cawthorn, who lost his primary this year, was elected in 2020 despite a discrepancy over his plans to attend the Naval Academy.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesMadison Cawthorn’s 2020 House campaignMadison Cawthorn became the youngest member of the House when he won election in 2020, emerging as the toast of the G.O.P. and its Trump wing. North Carolina voters picked him despite evidence that his claim that the 2014 auto accident that left him partly paralyzed had “derailed” his plans to attend the Naval Academy was untrue.Reporting at the time showed that the Annapolis application of Mr. Cawthorn, who has used a wheelchair since the crash, had previously been rejected. Mr. Cawthorn has declined to answer questions from the news media about the discrepancy or a report that he acknowledged in a 2017 deposition that his application had been denied. A spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Cawthorn, whose term in Congress was marked by multiple scandals, lost the G.O.P. primary in May to Chuck Edwards, a three-term state senator who represents the Republican old guard.Andy Kim’s 2018 House campaignAndy Kim, a Democrat who represents a New Jersey swing district, raised eyebrows during the 2018 campaign when his first television ad promoted him as “a national security officer for Republican and Democratic presidents.”While Mr. Kim had worked as a national security adviser under President Barack Obama, his claim that he had filled a key role in the administration of former President George W. Bush was not as ironclad.A Washington Post fact check found that Mr. Kim had held an entry-level job for five months as a conflict management specialist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.Mr. Kim’s campaign manager at the time defended Mr. Kim, telling The Post that he played a key role as a public servant during the Bush administration that involved working in the agency’s Africa bureau on issues like terrorism in Somalia and genocide in Sudan.Voters did not appear to be too hung up about the claims of Mr. Kim, who last month was elected to a third term in the House.During the 2010 Senate campaign, Senator Marco Rubio described being the son of Cuban immigrants who fled Fidel Castro, but his parents moved to the United States before Castro returned to Cuba.Steve Johnson for The New York TimesMarco Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaignMarco Rubio vaulted onto the national political stage in the late 2000s after a decade-long rise in the Florida Legislature, where he served as House speaker. Central to his ascent and his 2010 election to the Senate was his personal story of being the son of Cuban immigrants, who Mr. Rubio repeatedly said had fled during Fidel Castro’s revolution.But Mr. Rubio’s account did not square with history, PolitiFact determined. In a 2011 analysis, the nonpartisan fact-checking website found Mr. Rubio’s narrative was false because his parents had first moved to the United States in 1956, which was before Castro had returned to Cuba from Mexico and his takeover of the country in 1959.Mr. Rubio said at the time that he had relied on the recollections of his parents, and that he had only recently learned of the inconsistencies in the timeline. He was re-elected in 2016 and again in November.Mark Kirk’s 2010 and 2016 Senate campaignsMark Kirk, who was a five-term House member from Illinois, leaned heavily on his military accomplishments in his 2010 run for the Senate seat once held by Barack Obama. But the Republican’s representation of his service proved to be deeply flawed.Mr. Kirk’s biography listed that he had been awarded the “Intelligence Officer of the Year” while in the Naval Reserve, a prestigious military honor that he never received. He later apologized, but that was not the only discrepancy in his military résumé.In an interview with the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune, Mr. Kirk accepted responsibility for a series of misstatements about his service, including that he had served in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, that he once commanded the Pentagon war room and that he came under fire while flying intelligence missions over Iraq.Mr. Kirk attributed the inaccuracies as resulting from his attempts to translate “Pentagonese” for voters or because of inattention by his campaign to the details of his decades-long military career.Still, Illinois voters elected Mr. Kirk to the Senate in 2010, but he was defeated in 2016 by Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran who lost her legs in the Iraq war. In that race, Mr. Kirk’s website falsely described him as an Iraq war veteran.Richard Blumenthal was a Marine Corps reservist during the Vietnam War, but did not enter combat, as he had suggested.Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesRichard Blumenthal’s 2010 Senate campaignRichard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, misrepresented his military service during the Vietnam War, according to a Times report that rocked his 2010 campaign.Mr. Blumenthal was a Marine Corps reservist but did not enter combat. After the report, he said that he never meant to create the impression that he was a combat veteran and apologized. Mr. Blumenthal insisted that he had misspoken, but said that those occasions were rare and that he had consistently qualified himself as a reservist during the Vietnam era.The misrepresentation did not stop Mr. Blumenthal, Connecticut’s longtime attorney general, from winning the open-seat Senate race against Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling mogul. She spent $50 million in that race and later became a cabinet member under Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly zeroed in on Mr. Blumenthal’s military record.Wes Cooley’s 1994 House campaignWes Cooley, an Oregon Republican, had barely established himself as a freshman representative when his political career began to nosedive amid multiple revelations that he had lied about his military record and academic honors.His problems started when he indicated on a 1994 voters’ pamphlet that he had seen combat as a member of the Army Special Forces in Korea. But the news media in Oregon reported that Mr. Cooley had never deployed for combat or served in the Special Forces. Mr. Cooley was later convicted of lying in an official document about his military record and placed on two years of probation.The Oregonian newspaper also reported that he never received Phi Beta Kappa honors, as he claimed in the same voters’ guide. He also faced accusations that he lied about how long he had been married so that his wife could continue collecting survivor benefits from a previous husband.Mr. Cooley, who abandoned his 1996 re-election campaign, died in 2015. He was 82.Kirsten Noyes More

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      What’s In (and Not In) the $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill

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      A big boost for the military, more aid for Ukraine, a preference for the lobster industry over whales and an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act are among the provisions in the 4,155-page bill lawmakers expect to pass this week.WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in emergency aid to war-torn Ukraine and communities ravaged by natural disasters. A bipartisan proposal to overhaul the archaic law at the heart of former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. And a divisive oceanic policy that will change federal protections for whales in an effort to protect the lobster industry in Maine.In compiling the roughly $1.7 trillion catchall spending package that will keep the government open through September, lawmakers inserted several new funding and legislative proposals to ensure their priorities and policies become law before the end of the year.It includes funding that will guarantee the enactment of policies first authorized in bipartisan legislation approved earlier in this Congress, including money for innovation hubs established in the semiconductor manufacturing law and projects in the infrastructure law. The package also includes a round of earmarks, rebranded as community project funding, that allow lawmakers to redirect funds to specific projects in their states and districts.Here is a look at some of the provisions that would go into effect if enacted.Military spending is the big winner.The Defense Department would see an extraordinary surge in spending when adding its regular 2023 fiscal year budget together with additional funds being allocated to help respond to the war in Ukraine.All together, half of the $1.7 trillion in funding included in the package goes to defense, or a total of $858 billion. It comes after lawmakers bucked a request from President Biden and approved a substantial increase in the annual defense policy bill passed this month.The 2023 budget just for the Defense Department would total $797.6 billion in discretionary spending — a 10 percent increase over last year’s budget — representing an extra $69.3 billion in funds for the Pentagon, which is $36.1 billion above the president’s budget request.Sprinkled throughout the spending bill are hundreds of high-ticket add-ons that Congress wants to make to the president’s original Defense Department budget, such as an additional $17.2 billion for procurement that the Pentagon can largely distribute to military contractors to buy new ships, airplanes, missile systems and other equipment. The overall Pentagon procurement budget with these additional funds would be $162 billion.One of the biggest chunks of that extra money is for shipbuilding — an extra $4 billion that brings the Navy’s overall shipbuilding budget to $31.96 billion. That will allow it to buy 11 new ships, including three guided missile destroyers and two attack submarines.But that is just the start. There is $8.5 billion to buy 61 F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin and another $2.5 billion to buy 15 of Boeing’s new aerial refueling planes known as KC-46 tankers.There is also an extra $27.9 billion to help cover Defense Department costs associated with the war in Ukraine, as part of an emergency aid package to the country. That includes an extra $11.88 billion to replenish U.S. stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine — money that again will largely be used to purchase products from military contractors. That supplemental appropriation also includes $9 billion to assist Ukraine with training, equipment and weapons, as well as an extra $6.98 billion to cover U.S. military operations in Europe.— Eric Lipton and John IsmayMaking it easier (for some) to save for retirement.The package also includes a collection of new rules aimed at helping Americans save for retirement. The bill would require employers to automatically enroll eligible employees in their 401(k) and 403(b) plans, setting aside at least 3 percent, but no more than 10 percent, of their paychecks. Contributions would be increased by one percentage point each year thereafter, until it reaches at least 10 percent (but not more than 15 percent). But this applies only to new employer-provided plans that are started in 2025 and later — existing plans are exempt.Another provision would help lower- and middle-income earners saving for retirement by making changes to an existing tax credit, called the saver’s credit, now available only to those who owe taxes. In its new form, it would amount to a matching contribution, from the federal government, deposited into taxpayers’ retirement accounts.People struggling with student debt would also receive a new perk: Employees making student debt payments would qualify for employer matching contributions in their workplace retirement plan, even if they were not making plan contributions of their own.What to Know About Congress’s Lame-Duck SessionCard 1 of 5A productive stretch. More

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      Mastriano’s Time at War College Draws Scrutiny in Governor’s Race

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      The crowning chapter of Doug Mastriano’s military career — a stint on the faculty of the U.S. Army War College — has flared up in his campaign for Pennsylvania governor.Two former professors at the War College in Carlisle, Pa., publicly declared Mr. Mastriano unfit for public office. A photograph surfaced of Mr. Mastriano posing in a Confederate uniform with other faculty. And Mr. Mastriano’s Ph.D. dissertation has been criticized as deeply flawed, with a former academic adviser saying his doctorate rests “on very shaky grounds.”Mr. Mastriano — the Republican nominee for governor in a crucial battleground state — received his Ph.D. in history from the University of New Brunswick in Canada in 2013, the year after he joined the faculty of the War College. His research focused on a World War I hero, Sgt. Alvin York, who credited his exploits killing and capturing German soldiers to divine intervention and who inspired the 1941 Gary Cooper movie “Sergeant York.”“I think Mastriano really likes that story because York became the kind of spiritual warrior that Mastriano sees himself as being,” said Jeffrey Scott Brown, a history professor at the University of New Brunswick who advised Mr. Mastriano but objected to his academic techniques. Dr. Brown’s criticisms included Mr. Mastriano’s amateur archaeological sleuthing on a French battlefield and his credulity in accepting divine intervention to explain Sergeant York’s heroics.“I’ve been concerned about this for a decade,” Dr. Brown said in an interview.Mr. Mastriano, who has a policy of not interacting with the news media except for right-wing outlets, did not respond to detailed questions sent to his campaign.Struggling with poor fund-raising and a strategy of courting only the Trump-centric base, Mr. Mastriano is trailing his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, by double digits in polling.On Friday, Mr. Mastriano held a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., with Jack Posobiec, a far-right provocateur and Navy veteran who helped spread the “PizzaGate” hoax — the false rumor in 2016 that Hillary Clinton and other Democratic officials were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington pizza parlor. “We’re going to shock all the prognosticators,” Mr. Mastriano told a crowd of about 350, according to The Erie Times-News. He added, “We’re going to take our state back by storm.”Mr. Mastriano, 58, capped off a three-decade military career by teaching for five years at the War College, which educates top officers in graduate studies focused on leadership and military-civilian relations.Two former faculty colleagues said his role as a candidate and state senator in two areas — spreading lies about the results of the 2020 election, and marching on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — violated his military oath.“The officer corps is sworn to defend the Constitution rather than any one person or president,” Tami Davis Biddle, who was chair of the War College’s faculty council, wrote in an opinion article for a Harrisburg newspaper. “None of its members is entitled to toy with insurrection, treat Jan. 6 as legitimate protest, or follow election deniers who would undercut our most important political institutions.”In an interview, Dr. Biddle, who retired last year, said: “If you’re going to say the 2020 election was won by Trump, that was simply not true. To lobby for keeping Trump in office when he had lost an election was outrageous.”Mr. Mastriano, who led the charge in Pennsylvania to overturn President Biden’s election, pushed to have the State Legislature appoint a slate of false electors. He organized buses to take protesters to Washington on Jan. 6 and bypassed police barricades breached by other marchers. He has said that as governor he could decertify voting machines at will and might require all Pennsylvania voters to re-register in order to cast ballots.Another former War College faculty member, Rick Coplen, a West Point graduate and a combat veteran, said Mr. Mastriano had tried to “undermine our democracy.”Mr. Coplen was a professor of economic development at the War College for a decade. He accused Mr. Mastriano of “helping former President Trump in trying to overthrow the legitimate, clearly understood and agreed-upon electoral results.” His concerns were reported earlier by The Philadelphia Inquirer.Mr. Coplen ran unsuccessfully this year in the Democratic primary for a congressional seat in South Central Pennsylvania. He said his criticism of Mr. Mastriano was not motivated by partisanship.“This is about the fundamental stuff of American democracy,” he said in an interview. “When I was 18 years old, like my fellow West Point cadets, I raised my right hand and pledged the same oath to the U.S. Constitution. That’s most important, regardless of party.”Dr. Brown, at the University of New Brunswick, was a member of the examining board for Mr. Mastriano’s dissertation.He objected to Mr. Mastriano’s field research in France that claimed to precisely identify the location of Sergeant York’s heroics, which Dr. Brown said was conducted amateurishly with members of Mr. Mastriano’s son’s Boy Scout troop. He also objected to assertions in the dissertation that Sergeant York was protected by the hand of God. On Page 223 of his dissertation, Mr. Mastriano writes, “The idea that York survived the carnage because of Divine Intervention also speaks of a miracle.”Sgt. Alvin York in 1919.U.S. Army, via Associated PressDr. Brown said such a statement was unscholarly. “You’re allowed to discuss someone’s belief — that York believed there was literal divine intervention,” Dr. Brown said. “But to present it as settled historical fact is not acceptable for professional historians.”Another scholar, James Gregory, a history graduate student at the University of Oklahoma, has identified what he says are multiple errors in Mr. Mastriano’s treatise. After he reported 35 problematic passages to the University of New Brunswick, Mr. Mastriano added 21 corrections in 2021. But Mr. Gregory insisted there were many more issues that, in his view, added up to academic dishonesty.Dr. Brown shared documents he wrote in 2013 spelling out his own objections, including an email he said was sent to Mr. Mastriano’s dissertation supervisor raising “serious misgivings.” Nonetheless, the Ph.D. was granted. Dr. Brown’s name appears on the dissertation, which, he said, surprised him because he had been told he was no longer needed on the evaluation committee.The University of New Brunswick, which released the dissertation last month under pressure, said in a statement it could not discuss Mr. Mastriano’s degree without his consent. It added that two independent academics would review the university’s procedures to ensure that its granting of doctorates meets “the highest standard.” More

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      Should Candidates Be Transparent About Their Health?

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      More from our inbox:Revised Drone RulesLiving in Political FearPreparing for Future PandemicsHow Fossil Fuel Donations Sway Climate PoliticsLt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania greets supporters following a Senate campaign rally.Kriston Jae Bethel/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Candidates Must Disclose Medical Issues,” by Lawrence K. Altman (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 30):Dr. Altman correctly calls for the full disclosure of medical issues by major candidates, especially presidential. He has championed this cause for years, but his voice has gone unheeded.The most famous candidate health cover-up was J.F.K.’s adrenal insufficiency, Addison’s disease. But John McCain’s recurrent melanoma, Bill Bradley’s atrial fibrillation, Joe Biden’s cerebral aneurysm in his 1988 campaign and Bernie Sanders’s significant coronary disease requiring a stent were all either downplayed or denied.The most egregious example of health misrepresentation was in 1992, when Paul Tsongas and his physicians declared he was cured of his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was not. If he had been elected president rather than Bill Clinton, he would have required ongoing cancer treatments while in office, which would have compromised his ability to fulfill his duties. He died on Jan. 18, 1997.With the likelihood of one or more candidates over 75 running for president in 2024, the case for full medical disclosure is more compelling than ever. The country would be well served to remember the advice given by William Safire in 1987, when he wrote, “The president’s body is not wholly his own; that is why we go to such lengths to protect it.”Kevin R. LoughlinBostonThe writer is a retired urologic surgeon and a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School.To the Editor:I would like to respectfully disagree that candidates owe their voters full medical transparency. Confidentiality of medical records exists for good reason, and to throw it away — citing confusion over John Fetterman’s health in the Pennsylvania Senate campaign — is the wrong approach.For example: Does a female candidate owe it to voters to reveal whether she has ever had an abortion? Some would argue yes, she should. I would argue that it’s none of the voters’ business.What else should a candidate reveal? Therapist’s notes? Past substance use?A real-life example is Thomas Eagleton, who was tapped to be George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 until it was revealed that he had undergone electroshock therapy for depression 12 years earlier. Because of this, he was dropped from the ticket.In the U.S., we are extremely fortunate to have the rights we have, including a right to privacy. We should not be looking for ways to chip away at these rights.Gregory FedynyshynMalden, Mass.Revised Drone RulesAn Air Force Predator drone, right, returning from a mission in the Persian Gulf region in 2016. The new policy suggests that the United States intends to launch fewer drone strikes away from recognized war zones.John Moore/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Rules on Counterterrorism Drone Strikes, Eased by Trump, Are Tightened by Biden” (news article, Oct. 8):Are we supposed to be assured that the United States is now acting ethically, legally and judiciously with President Biden’s revised drone assassination policy?Our clandestine killing of terrorist leaders outside conventional war zones only provokes greater risk for American citizens and soul-searching trauma for drone operators thousands of miles way. It deeply stains our own sense of national righteousness.This is not a policy that needs to be reformed. It’s a policy that should be abandoned for ethical, tactical and practical reasons.Dave PasinskiFayetteville, N.Y.Living in Political FearHouse and Senate leaders have their own security details, including plainclothes officers and armored vehicles, but it can be more difficult for others to obtain such protection.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Lawmakers Fearing the Worst as Intimidation Tactics Grow” (front page, Oct. 2):The appalling acrimony and threats directed against duly elected representatives have a chilling trickle-down effect to citizens as well. I recently received what I considered a banal lawn sign from the League of Women Voters. One side states, “Vote — Our Democracy Depends on It,” and the other, “Vote 411 — Election Information You Need.”In other election years, I would have placed it on my lawn without thinking twice. But after the Jan. 6 insurrection, I’m hesitant. Even though I live in a mostly progressive, blue-voting Westchester community, I know that many of my neighbors hold other political beliefs. There are a surprising number of “Blue Lives Matter” banners and “1776” flags in my neighborhood, which make me wonder how many of these neighbors doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 election.I worry that displaying a message that our democracy depends on voting would be more of a red flag than a civic reminder.And I am ashamed that in our current fractious, and dangerously degraded, political climate, my fear will keep me from exercising my political beliefs.Merri RosenbergArdsley, N.Y.Preparing for Future Pandemics Brynn Anderson/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Unprepared for Covid and Monkeypox. And the Next Outbreak, Too” (news analysis, Oct. 1):Apoorva Mandavilli highlights an important issue when she writes that the United States “remains wholly unprepared to combat new pathogens.”Governments do need to be ready for future pandemics when they hit, but their priority must be preventing them in the first place. We know that most infectious diseases can be traced to pathogen transmission between wildlife and people, particularly in our increasingly degraded and exploited natural world.Governments across the globe must prioritize efforts to reduce the risks of future pathogen spillovers, including via trade and at wildlife markets.A critical first step is recognizing the intrinsic links between the health of humans, animals and the ecosystem, and acknowledging the foundational importance of an intact and functioning environment to our well-being.A new international treaty or agreement can help bring governments together to catalyze needed change. With several hundred thousand yet undiscovered viruses in wildlife that can potentially infect humans, this is not the time to ignore the science and avoid action.The adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is now truer than ever.Susan LiebermanChris WalzerDr. Lieberman is the vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Dr. Walzer is its executive director for health.How Fossil Fuel Donations Sway Climate PoliticsFrom left, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and two senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, in 2019.Kevin Lamarque/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Republicans Talk About Rebuilding, but Not the Cause of Climate Change” (news article, Oct. 5):Large political contributions from fossil fuel interests are blocking federal action against climate change even in Florida, one of the areas most vulnerable to hurricanes. Its vulnerability is fueled by warmer oceans along with storm surges worsened by rising seas and downpours increased by a warmer atmosphere that holds more moisture.The United States could become the world leader in battling climate change, inspiring and helping other countries to do more while creating millions of jobs. Incredibly, Florida’s Republican governor and two senators have voted against action to mitigate climate change.Why? “If you’re from Florida, you should be leading on climate and environmental policy, and Republicans are still reticent to do that because they’re worried about primary politics,” Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from South Florida, is quoted as saying.That is, Republicans who stray from the fossil fuel line will face a primary opponent well funded by fossil fuel interests.Public funding of election campaigns must replace big contributions if we want our democracy to stop being distorted. Indeed, if we want to safeguard our planet.Richard BarsantiWestern Springs, Ill. More

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      New Generation of Combat Vets, Eyeing House, Strike From the Right

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      A class of political newcomers with remarkable military records are challenging old ideas about interventionism — and the assumption that electing veterans is a way to bring back bipartisanship.In early 2019, as the Defense Department’s bureaucracy seemed to be slow-walking then-President Donald J. Trump’s order to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, Joe Kent, a C.I.A. paramilitary officer, called his wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician who was still in Syria working against the Islamic State.“‘Make sure you’re not the last person to die in a war that everyone’s already forgotten about,’” Mr. Kent said he told his wife. “And that’s exactly what happened,” he added bitterly.The suicide bombing that killed Ms. Kent and three other service members days later set off a chain of events — including a somber encounter with Mr. Trump — that has propelled Mr. Kent from a storied combat career to single parenthood, from comparing notes with other antiwar veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to making increasingly loud pronouncements that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that the Jan. 6 rioters are political prisoners.In five weeks, Mr. Kent, 42, a candidate for a House seat in Washington State that was long represented by a soft-spoken moderate Republican, may well be elected to Congress. And he is far from alone.A new breed of veterans, many with remarkable biographies and undeniable stories of heroism, are running for the House on the far right of the Republican Party, challenging old assumptions that adding veterans to Congress — men and women who fought for the country and defended the Constitution — would foster bipartisanship and cooperation. At the same time, they are embracing anti-interventionist military and foreign policies that, since the end of World War II, have been associated more with the Democratic left than the mainline G.O.P. Alek Skarlatos, 30, a Republican candidate in Oregon, helped thwart a terrorist attack on a packed train bound for Paris, was honored by President Barack Obama and played himself in a Clint Eastwood movie about the incident. Mr. Skarlatos now says the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been used as an excuse “to demonize Trump supporters.”Eli Crane, 42, running in a Republican-leaning House district in Arizona, saw five wartime deployments with SEAL Team 3 over 13 years — as a sniper, manning machine-gun turrets and running kill-or-capture missions with the Delta Force against high-value targets, some in Falluja. Mr. Crane presses the false case that the 2020 election was stolen.And Derrick Van Orden, 53, who is favored to win a House seat in Wisconsin, retired as a Navy SEAL senior chief after combat deployments in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Central and South America. Mr. Van Orden was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, hoping to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s election.Derrick Van Orden at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Waukesha, Wis., in August.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBeyond their right-wing leanings, all share in common a deep skepticism about U.S. interventionism, borne of years of fighting in the post-9/11 war on terrorism and the belief that their sacrifices only gave rise to more instability and repression wherever the United States put boots on the ground.Where earlier generations of combat veterans in Congress became die-hard defenders of a global military footprint, the new cohort is unafraid to launch ad hominem attacks on the men who still lead U.S. forces.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Arizona’s Governor’s Race: Democrats are openly expressing their alarm that Katie Hobbs, the party’s nominee for governor in the state, is fumbling a chance to defeat Kari Lake in one of the most closely watched races.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but members of his party have learned to tolerate his behavior.“I worked for Milley. I worked for Austin. I worked for Mattis,” said Don Bolduc, 60, the retired brigadier general challenging Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, of Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current and former defense secretaries Lloyd Austin and Jim Mattis. “Their concerns centered around the military-industrial complex and maintaining the military-industrial complex, so as three- and four-star generals, they can roll right into very lucrative jobs.”Mr. Austin and Mr. Mattis declined to comment. A defense official close to Gen. Milley said, “there isn’t a shred of evidence indicating Gen. Milley has been concerned with maintaining the military industrial complex and has no plans to seek employment in the defense industry after retirement.”No one has questioned these men’s valor, as some have questioned that of another pro-Trump House candidate, J.R. Majewski of Ohio, who appears to have exaggerated his combat record.But their pivots to the far right have confounded other veterans, especially those who have long pressed former service members to run for office as problem-solving moderates less vulnerable to shifting partisan winds. Organizations like New Politics, and With Honor Action were founded in the past decade on the notion that records of service would promote cooperation in government. That ideal is under assault.“When you think about the faith of the mission, listen, this is hard,” said Rye Barcott, founder and chief executive officer of With Honor Action. “I mean, the trends have certainly gotten worse.”Democratic veterans, however, see the newer veteran candidates’ willingness to embrace Mr. Trump’s lies as a precursor to totalitarianism, and in contravention of their service. “We all took the same oath,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine who saw some of the worst combat of the Iraq war. “We all understand the Constitution of United States, and some of these men are really leaning into outright fascism.”The candidates insist their views were informed by their combat experiences and demonstrate wisdom, not radicalization.Eli Crane saw five wartime deployments with SEAL Team 3 over 13 years.Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressMr. Crane said that he witnessed overseas the lengths to which people would go to seize and hold power, and that this fed his belief that Democrats had somehow rigged the 2020 election in President Biden’s favor. “I think that we’re foolish if we’re not willing to be skeptical of our own system,” he said.For Mr. Kent, the journey to the Trumpian right was both long and surprisingly short..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Inspired to join the Army at 13 by the Black Hawk battle in Somalia, he enlisted at 17 and applied for the Special Forces just before Sept. 11, 2001. Two years later he was in Iraq, where he fought in Falluja, hunted down members of Saddam Hussein’s government and briefed intelligence and State Department officers on the deteriorating war.By 2011, as U.S. forces were preparing to leave, he said, he told General Austin, then the Army commander in Iraq, that the United States’ support of “this Iranian-proxy, Shia government is going to result in Al Qaeda in Iraq.”But it was his wife’s death in Syria that pushed Mr. Kent, by then in the C.I.A., into the arms of Trumpism. “She was there because unelected bureaucrats decided to slow-roll” Mr. Trump’s withdrawal orders, he said. “You can disobey an order from a president fairly easily, because he’s so far up from the ground level, simply by dragging your feet. And that’s a lot of what happened.”Shannon M. Kent was killed during a suicide bombing in Syria.ReutersAt Dover Air Force Base, he met Mr. Trump, who was there to pay his respects to the bodies of those killed in Syria. Mr. Kent expressed his support for the president’s efforts to withdraw from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Within days, he was consulting with the White House and volunteering for Veterans for Trump.In a video he made for the Koch-funded Concerned Veterans for America decrying the post-9/11 wars, he appears as a bearded, longhaired grieving father.Today, clean-cut and square-jawed, he is seen by many as a right-wing radical, ready to connect what he calls the lies that dragged his nation into war and the stories he tells of stolen elections, political prisoners who attacked the Capitol, and the slippery slope to nuclear war that the Biden administration is on in Ukraine.“People can easily dismiss that and say, ‘Oh, he’s just a tinfoil hat conspiracy guy,’ but when you break down the nitty-gritty details of all of these different things, and the results that they’ve had on our country, I think it’s worth looking into,” Mr. Kent said.His former campaign manager, Byron Sanford, dismissed Mr. Kent’s candidacy as a “revenge tour” for the death of his wife — who, Mr. Kent said, was both more pro-Trump and more political than Mr. Kent was at the time she was killed.Mr. Kent had no problem with that. “If people want to characterize it as a revenge tour, yeah, I mean, I’d say it’s more of a populist uprising against the establishment,” he said. “But you know, call it what you will.”For Mr. Bolduc, the Senate nominee in New Hampshire, the ideological shift has been more dramatic. He was one of the first Americans to make contact with Hamid Karzai, who was installed as Afghanistan’s president shortly after the U.S. invasion, and was an outspoken defender of him. In 2018, just after Gen. Bolduc’s retirement, he decried the Trump White House in The Daily Beast for “exacerbating divisiveness by not demonstrating patience and restraint, not listening to experts, attacking people for their opinions, ruining reputations, threatening institutions, abusing the media, and leading people to question our position as a beacon for promoting democracy throughout the world.”Don Bolduc, center, with supporters at the American Legion in Laconia, N.H., in September.John Tully for The New York TimesNow, he tells voters the United States needs to avoid Iran, has done enough in Ukraine, and should undertake a wholesale re-evaluation of its posture in the world.Mr. Bolduc contends that the interventionist views of former Senator John McCain and successors like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — a belief in projecting power to solve problems — arose from a belief in what he called “the military easy button.”“My generation of combat veterans think the exact opposite,” he said.Mr. Crane shares those views, especially on Ukraine, which he says President Biden is defending more vigorously than he is the United States’ southern border. And he, too, sees capitalism driving interventionism — a view once pushed by intellectuals on the left.“It’s foolish, even dangerous when the industrial-military complex is driving or heavily influencing policy,” he said in an interview. “They make a lot more money when we’re at war.”Not everyone in that generation is of the same mind.Zach Nunn, a Republican challenging Representative Cindy Axne of Iowa, has used his Air Force combat record to burnish his credentials, but after deployments in Afghanistan, North Africa and as an election monitor in Ukraine, he has not soured on the projection of force around the globe — or on bipartisan cooperation.Mr. Nunn speaks at length of a battle in Afghanistan in which he flew reconnaissance, providing “a canopy of freedom” for special operations forces by watching enemy positions and calling in airstrikes.“We ended up doing three midair refuelings, we were out there for over 18 hours, and by the end of it, we had multiple ridgeline strikes and had kept the Taliban at bay long enough that the Special Operations Forces team was able to evac,” Mr. Nunn said.What his experience did not do was breed cynicism or push him to the political margins of his party. Mr. Nunn speaks proudly of his work on cybersecurity in the Obama White House and working with the Biden administration to get allies out of Afghanistan after the military’s pullout. He says his combat experience gave him an appreciation for Americans from all walks of life and political beliefs.Zach Nunn with his family after winning the Republican nomination for Iowa’s Third Congressional District in June. Bryon Houlgrave/The Des Moines Register, via Associated Press“It didn’t matter what our political belief was, it was all about, hey, we’re going to protect each other’s six and complete this mission,” he said, using military jargon for watching a comrade’s back.Mr. Barcott, of With Honor Action, argued that the new crop of right-wing veterans should not be seen as representing the political attitudes of former service members writ large. With Honor Action still asks veterans running for office to pledge to bring civility to Congress, participate in cross-partisan veterans groups, meet one-on-one with a member of the opposing party at least once a month and work with a member of the other party on one “substantial piece of legislation a year” while co-sponsoring other bipartisan bills.But finding veterans willing to make that pledge has become more difficult.By Mr. Barcott’s count, 685 veterans ran for the House or Senate this cycle. With Honor endorsed only 26 from both parties, many of them incumbents. Three Republican incumbents it had once endorsed, Representatives Mike Garcia of California, Greg Steube of Florida and Dan Crenshaw of Texas, were dropped for actions deemed out of keeping with the group’s mission.Several Democrats with national security backgrounds, like Representatives Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, are running explicitly on their service records to bolster their bipartisan bona fides.But more partisan veterans groups say this year’s candidates are pointing out a central fallacy: “People say if we just elect more veterans to Congress, things will be hunky dory, but there’s no precedent for that, no data that suggests veterans act different from anyone else,” said Dan Caldwell, an adviser to the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America.Mr. Kent was more cutting about organizations that ostensibly back veterans bound for bipartisanship but refused to back him.“It’s a gimmick,” he said, dismissing the groups as hawkish interventionists. “It’s just another way to get the neoconservative, neoliberal ideology furthered by wrapping it in the valor of service. Our service.” More

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      In the House, These National Security Democrats Face Political Peril

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      A group of lawmakers who have pushed centrist foreign policy goals, many of them elected in the blue wave of 2018, are confronting troublesome re-election bids.They played a decisive role in kicking off Donald Trump’s first impeachment. They’ve pushed hard for centrist foreign policy goals, working with Republicans whenever the stars aligned. And they’ve been persistent critics of their own team, taking calculated potshots at President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they try to cast themselves as pillars of political independence.Now, with the midterm elections less than a month away, as many as half a dozen of the moderate national security Democrats in the House are in peril, and maybe more.Many of them were elected amid the anti-Trump blue wave of 2018, in districts that Democrats might otherwise have struggled to win.Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst who is fluent in Arabic and Swahili, has established herself as one of the top intelligence experts on Capitol Hill. Republicans have identified Slotkin as a top target this year.Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia still speaks in the argot of a former Navy commander and decorates her House office with photographs of the submarines and cruisers that populate the country’s largest naval base, in nearby Norfolk. During last year’s race for governor of Virginia, the winner, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, would have won Luria’s district by double digits. Her opponent, State Senator Jen Kiggans, is another Navy veteran and could easily unseat her.Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a retired Marine, is clinging to the most pro-Trump district held by a Democrat anywhere in the country. Golden squeaked into office in part because his Republican opponent, Bruce Poliquin, misplayed the state’s ranked-choice voting system, a mistake Poliquin seems to be rectifying during this year’s rematch.Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia is a former C.I.A. officer who has supplied some of the most memorable lines criticizing her party’s perceived leftward lurch. Although Spanberger’s seat in suburban Northern Virginia is now considered safer after Virginia’s redistricting cycle, her team says it is taking no chances.And Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, a puckish former State Department official and human rights expert, has nudged the Biden administration to welcome more Afghan refugees, provide more help to Ukraine and seize the yachts of Russian oligarchs. Malinowski, whose Trump-leaning district grew slightly redder after New Jersey redid its maps, faces a stiff challenge from Thomas Kean Jr., who nearly defeated him in 2020.Together, they represent a fading tradition: the quaint notion that politics stops at the water’s edge. And all of them are vulnerable to being washed out in a red tide this fall. Their potential ousters, as well as a number of key retirements, threaten to hollow out decades of national experience in Congress at a time of great turmoil abroad.“They bring a lot of expertise to the table, which is really useful to have in-house on oversight committees rather than having to rely on the agencies all the time,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona who fought in the Iraq war.Gallego, a member of the Armed Services Committee, added that experience working for the military or the C.I.A. exposed Democratic politicians to Americans from an array of working-class and rural backgrounds — which, he said, gave them valuable insights into the politics of those types of communities.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.These Democrats have also balanced out what some like-minded experts said was a risk that, in reaction to Trump’s foreign policy, the party might have drifted toward politically self-destructive isolationism at a time when voters were worried by the president’s seeming solicitousness toward authoritarian leaders in China, Russia and North Korea.“What they did is they served as ballast within the Democratic Party when there were some pretty loud voices that were trying to pull the Democrats off the cliff and into oblivion,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.Katulis pointed to a failed attempt by progressives last year to strip funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system, a move that the national security Democrats and pro-Israel groups quashed.Win or lose, change is on the horizon for DemocratsThree senior Democrats on the Armed Services Committee are also retiring: Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Jim Langevin of Rhode Island and Jackie Speier of California. So no matter what happens in November, decades of experience and interest in foreign policy on the left will be leaving Congress.And though other national security-minded Democrats, like Representatives Andy Kim and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, have been drawn into safer districts, a wave election for Republicans could threaten some of those seats, too.A Republican takeover of the House, moreover, would put the party in charge of important oversight committees, such as the intelligence panel, a platform Democrats used under Representative Adam Schiff of California to carry out investigations of the Trump administration. Those inquiries made news, damaged the president politically and ultimately helped lead to his first impeachment.If Republicans gain control of the House, even Democrats who survive the election will find themselves relatively powerless to help steer the country’s foreign policy, forced to play defense as their opponents control the agenda on the House floor and within each committee.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has already vowed to begin investigations of the Biden administration in retaliation for what Democrats did during the Trump years.That’s no idle threat.Under President Barack Obama, Republicans seized on the administration’s handling of the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, to damage the future political prospects of two senior Democratic leaders: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who went on to run for president in 2016, and Susan Rice, who served as United Nations ambassador and national security adviser. Rice’s appearances on Sunday talk shows to discuss the Benghazi attack hobbled her chances of succeeding Clinton and may have helped scuttle her opportunity to become Biden’s running mate in 2020.Highly politicized oversight of foreign policy has been known to jump-start political careers, too.One of the ringleaders of the Benghazi oversight push, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, issued a report that went beyond the criticisms of his fellow Republicans toward the Obama administration. His prominence on the issue caught the eye of Trump, who named him C.I.A. director and later secretary of state. Pompeo, a vocal critic of Biden’s foreign policy, is now widely understood to be considering a presidential bid in 2024.What to readIn races across the nation, Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck write, Republican candidates are “waffling on their abortion positions, denying past behavior or simply trying to avoid a topic that has long been a bedrock principle of American conservatism.”Los Angeles has been rocked by the leak of a secretly recorded private discussion in which three members of the City Council used racist insults and slurs. One of the council members resigned on Wednesday, Jill Cowan and Shawn Hubler report.The conservative activist Leonard Leo, who has led efforts to appoint conservatives to federal courts, has quietly built a sprawling network and raised huge sums of money to challenge liberal values. Read Kenneth Vogel’s investigation.Online misinformation about the midterm elections is swirling in immigrant communities, researchers say, in even more languages, on more topics and across more digital platforms than it did in 2020. Tiffany Hsu explains.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      J.R. Majewski’s Claims About His Military Record Unravel Further

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      The political tailspin of J.R. Majewski, a Republican House candidate in northern Ohio, appears to be worsening one week after the Air Force said it could not corroborate his repeated claims that he served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the Air Force demoted Mr. Majewski in September 2001 for driving drunk at Kadena Air Base in Japan. Mr. Majewski’s campaign had previously told the news organization that involvement in a “brawl” was the reason he could not re-enlist in the Air Force after his initial four years. The A.P. cited military records it had obtained since its initial reporting last week on Mr. Majewski’s inconsistencies about his service, including where he served.A campaign spokeswoman for Mr. Majewski, 42, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday about his demotion. In a statement to The A.P., Mr. Majewski acknowledged that he was punished for drunken driving, though he did not address why his campaign previously said his demotion was the result of a fight.“This mistake is now more than 20 years old,” Mr. Majewski said in the statement. “I’m sure we’ve all done something as young adults that we look back on and wonder, ‘What was I thinking?’ And I’m sure our parents and grandparents share these sentiments.”The drip of revelations has sent Mr. Majewski, who has been heralded by former President Donald J. Trump, into damage-control mode.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.On Sept. 22, not long after Mr. Majewski was accused of misrepresenting himself as a combat veteran, the National Republican Congressional Committee canceled television ads it had booked to support him in the final six weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks campaign advertising.The following day, Mr. Majewski insisted that he was staying in his race against longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat. He said that records of his deployment to Afghanistan were “classified” and posted a photo on Twitter of an undated document that he claimed supported this contention, but military experts have pointed out to The A.P. that there are several other steps that Mr. Majewski could take to back up his claims, including having a supervisor or peer vouch for him.According to a record of punishment proceedings obtained by The A.P., Mr. Majewski was demoted from the rank of airman first class to basic airman after being stopped for drunken driving on Sept. 8, 2001, at the gate of the Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. It made no reference to a fight as contributing to Mr. Majewski’s demotion.Mr. Majewski’s disciplinary report was not immediately available on Thursday from the National Archives.Mr. Majewski was deployed for six months in 2002 to Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, according to Air Force records The New York Times examined last week.The A.P. noted that he worked as a “passenger operations specialist” while he was in Qatar, helping to load and unload planes. In addition to Air Force records, the news organization used information that it had obtained through a public records request from the National Archives, which provided Mr. Majewski’s record to The Times on Wednesday. Those records made no mention of Afghanistan.The inconsistencies in Mr. Majewski’s public accounts of his military service brought renewed scrutiny to the candidate, who had already faced questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 siege and sympathies for the QAnon conspiracy movement.The role detailed in Mr. Majewski’s military records contrasted sharply with his repeated claims on social media and right-wing podcasts that he was in Afghanistan.After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, Mr. Majewski chided President Biden over the chaotic exit of forces there, saying in a tweet, “I’d gladly suit up and go back to Afghanistan tonight and give my best to save those Americans who were abandoned.”He also mentioned Afghanistan during a February 2021 appearance on a podcast platform that has drawn scrutiny for promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation.“I lost my grandmother when I was in Afghanistan, and I didn’t get to see her funeral,” he said. More