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      A Constitutional Convention? Some Democrats Fear It’s Coming.

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      Some Republicans have said that a constitutional convention is overdue. Many Democratic-led states have rescinded their long-ago calls for one, and California will soon consider whether to do the same.As Republicans prepare to take control of Congress and the White House, among the many scenarios keeping Democrats up at night is an event that many Americans consider a historical relic: a constitutional convention.The 1787 gathering in Philadelphia to write the Constitution was the one and only time state representatives have convened to work on the document.But a simple line in the Constitution allows Congress to convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one. The option has never been used, but most states have long-forgotten requests on the books that could be enough to trigger a new constitutional convention, some scholars and politicians believe.Some Democratic officials are more concerned than ever. In California, a Democratic state senator, Scott Wiener, will introduce legislation on Monday that would rescind the state’s seven active calls for a constitutional convention, the first such move since Donald J. Trump’s election to a second term.Mr. Wiener, who represents San Francisco, and other liberal Democrats believe there is a strong possibility of a “runaway convention.” They say that Republicans could call a convention on the premise, say, of producing an amendment requiring that the federal budget be balanced, then open the door for a free-for-all in which a multitude of other amendments are considered, including some that could restrict abortion access or civil rights.“I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” Mr. Wiener said in an interview.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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      A Chaotic Start

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      We cover the people who will surround Donald Trump in his second term. Donald Trump has named most of the advisers and cabinet officials whom he wants to surround him in a second term. To make sense of the team, I asked for help from three of my colleagues who cover Trump: Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan. Our exchange follows.David: I’ve talked with you three in the past about the likelihood that Trump’s second term would be more consequential than his first because his team would have more experience and more detailed plans. But does his list of cabinet selections make you wonder whether the second term may end up being almost as chaotic as the first? Pete Hegseth (the Fox News host Trump wants to run the Pentagon) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (the pick for Health and Human Services) don’t have much experience operating a bureaucracy.Maggie: There are some people with minimal government experience running large organizations in positions of power, so there will be a basic question about their preparation to oversee complex departments. But cabinet secretaries aren’t the only people who matter.The team that Trump is putting in place, as deputies or chiefs of staff or senior advisers at agencies, are people who’ve proved some form of loyalty to him in other situations. All administrations do that to some degree. This version is much more sweeping.Charlie: For all the chaos of Trump’s first term, he was occasionally constrained — by traditional Republicans in Congress and inside his own administration, by a federal judiciary he had not yet transformed and by career officials. All those constraints will be weaker this time.An important thing is that Trump is planning to reinstate a change from the end of the first administration, one that the Biden administration rolled back. This change, known as Schedule F, would make it easier for cabinet officials to fire career civil servants and replace them with loyalists. So there is reason to believe that the second Trump administration will be more chaotic — but also that it will implement more of his agenda.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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      Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board

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      As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congress who had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.Some members of the advisory board also serve on a presidential Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created in the 1970s after a congressional investigation into abuses by national security agencies and which tries to ferret out illegal spying activities. That group typically includes the larger board’s chair, so it is likely that Mr. Nunes will participate in it as well.The work products of the two boards are usually kept secret. A rare exception came in 2023, when the Biden administration publicly released a report in which the two panels urged Congress to extend an expiring law that authorizes a warrantless surveillance program, but also called for new limits on the F.B.I.’s ability to use information gathered under the program.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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      ABC to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Defamation Suit Brought by Trump

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      The outcome of the lawsuit marks an unusual victory for President-elect Donald J. Trump in his ongoing legal campaign against national news organizations.ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.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 Says He Supports an End to Daylight Savings Time

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump said on social media that the time change is “inconvenient” and that the Republican Party would try to put an end to it.President-elect Donald J. Trump called daylight saving time “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation” in a social media post on Friday and said the Republican Party would try to “eliminate” it, in the latest effort to end the twice-yearly time change.Most states change their time by one hour — in March, when clocks spring forward, and in November, when clocks fall back.Over the years, many elected officials, including Mr. Trump, have expressed support for ending the changes.“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!” Mr. Trump posted on social media in March 2019.He reiterated his support to end the time switches on Friday, posting on X, “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”On social media, there was support for Mr. Trump’s post.Many people called the time changes antiquated. Some noted that daylight saving time would most likely not be eliminated, as his post suggested, but rather would be made permanent, and the time changes would be eliminated.Ending the clock change would require the approval of Congress. There have been many bipartisan efforts to pass such a bill, but all have failed. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but it died in the House. An effort to pass a similar bill in 2023 also failed.The idea behind daylight saving time is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning to the evening, so that people can make more use of daylight.William Willet, an English builder, is credited with popularizing daylight saving time in the early 1900s, when he urged British lawmakers to shift the clocks to benefit the economy. Parliament rejected the proposal in 1909, but then embraced it a few years later under the pressures of World War I.Other countries followed suit in an effort to cut energy costs, including the United States starting in March 1918. But there is no consensus on whether daylight saving time actually does reduce energy use.Small-business owners say that when it stays light after work, people are more likely to go out and spend money. But many Americans consider the time switch a nuisance.Parents say it throws off bedtimes for their children. And no one likes losing an hour of sleep when clocks move forward in March.In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine called for an end to daylight saving time, saying that the change disrupts the body’s natural clock and can cause health issues. More

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      No Evidence Drones in Northeast Are a Threat, Officials Say

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      Numerous sightings of flying objects in recent weeks have raised alarm, but federal law enforcement officials say that at least some were manned aircraft, such as airplanes or helicopters.After reviewing thousands of tips, federal law enforcement officials on Saturday reaffirmed that mysterious drones spotted in the Northeast in recent weeks pose no national security threat and in most cases are not even drones.Investigators reviewing video footage and interviews with witnesses have so far determined that at least some of the roaming objects were manned aircraft, such as airplanes or helicopters, that were misidentified as drones, according to officials from the F.B.I., Department of Homeland Security and Federal Aviation Administration, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity on Saturday because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Federal officials have received nearly 5,000 tips on drone sightings in recent weeks and deemed only 100 of them worthy of further investigation, an F.BI. official said.The rise of the drone sightings have caused alarm in communities across the Northeast. Here, what appear to be multiple drones over Bernardsville, N.J., earlier this month.Brian Glenn, via Associated PressThe U.S. officials said they had confirmed drone sightings over military bases in New Jersey, including Picatinny Arsenal, but they had no evidence the devices were operated by a foreign government or authority. U.S. national security officials have not been able to identify the operators of the drones.The rise of the drone sightings have caused alarm in communities in the Northeast as residents have increasingly looked to the sky with a cellphone in hand, hoping to learn more about the floating devices. State and local leaders have accused the Biden administration of not taking the drone sightings seriously. The airborne devices have captured the attention of Americans 22 months after a giant Chinese spy balloon drifted over the United States, causing a diplomatic crisis. President Biden eventually ordered it shot down.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 Brings Hegseth to Watch Army-Navy Game

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump made a public show of support for his choice to lead the Defense Department.President-elect Donald J. Trump attended the annual Army-Navy football game in Maryland on Saturday with Pete Hegseth, his embattled choice for defense secretary, sending a message of support ahead of Senate confirmation hearings that are likely to take place next month.Allies and aides of Mr. Trump’s posted video of the president-elect and Mr. Hegseth on the social media site X. In one video, the two men, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, can be seen standing for the national anthem.In another video, Mr. Trump can be seen arriving in a suite at the stadium, pumping his fist into the air as fans cheer and applaud his presence at the game.The Army-Navy game pits the football teams of the two military services against each other in one of the highlights of the college football season. Saturday’s game was the 125th meeting of the rivals — the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen. They played at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., the home of the Washington Commanders football team.National politicians rarely take sides in the rivalry. The service academy team with the best record at the end of the season wins the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.But the game is often a good place for a president to be seen looking patriotic. President Barack Obama attended the 112th game between the two teams in 2011, and performed the coin toss at the beginning of the game to determine who had the first possession of the ball. The next year, in 2012, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. attended the game.Mr. Trump has spent most of his time since Election Day out of the spotlight as he assembles the personnel he wants to fill his new government and plans actions he will take when he assumes office next month.Mr. Trump was also accompanied at the game by Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car. Other allies of Mr. Trump’s, including Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson, were also at the game.Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and military veteran, faces numerous questions about his qualifications to head the Defense Department, allegations of personal misconduct toward women and reports that he has abused alcohol while on the job. He has called the accusations baseless and has vowed not to withdraw from consideration.Mr. Trump initially appeared willing to consider an alternative choice for defense secretary if Mr. Hegseth proved too controversial. But even as several senators voiced concern about Mr. Hegseth, the president-elect issued a statement forcefully backing Mr. Hegseth for the job.The appearance of the two men at the football game appeared calculated to put to rest any questions about whether Mr. Trump still supports Mr. Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. More

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      U.S. Will Allow California to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars, Officials Say

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      California and 11 other states want to halt the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to stop them.The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission soon after taking office, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era climate policies. “California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Mr. Trump has said. “I will terminate that.”The state is expected to fight any revocation, setting up a consequential legal battle with the new administration.“California has long led the nation in pioneering climate policies and innovation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, earlier this year. “Those efforts will continue for years to come.”He has described the ban as the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine.Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has for decades allowed California, which has historically had the most polluted air in the nation, to enact tougher clean air standards than those set by the federal government. Federal law also allows other states under certain circumstances to adopt California’s standards as their own.The waiver can be used to rein in toxic, smog-causing pollutants like soot, nitrogen dioxide and ozone that lead to asthma and lung disease. But California officials have also been using the waiver to curb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, a chief cause of global warming. Gas-powered cars and other forms of transportation are the biggest source of carbon dioxide generated by the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More