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      Donald Trump and the ‘Dune’ Messiah Have Some Things in Common

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      It is fitting that the biggest movie in the world this year is the story of a messiah gone wrong.I’m speaking, of course, about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” sequel, the story of a savior who broke bad in a specific way: He manipulated prophecy to unleash the religious fervor of an entire people against a hated foe.The “Dune” movies present a beautifully shot, marvelously acted, fantastical tale set in a distant future, but they’re very much grounded in the dark reality of human nature here and now. When people are angry and afraid, they will look for a savior. When that anger and fear is latched to faith and prophecy, they will yearn for a religious crusade.There’s a version of this same story playing out in the United States, but because the anger and fear are so overwrought, the prophecies so silly, and the savior so patently absurd, we may be missing the religious and cultural significance of the moment. A significant part of American Christianity is spiraling out of control.The signs are everywhere. First, there’s the behavior of the savior himself, Donald Trump. On Monday of Holy Week, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, posting on Truth Social that he received a “beautiful” note from a supporter saying that it was “ironic” that “Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”On Tuesday, he took to Truth Social to sell a $60 “God Bless the USA Bible” (the “only Bible endorsed by President Trump”), an edition of the King James Bible that also includes America’s founding documents. “Christians are under siege,” he said. The Judeo-Christian foundation of America is “under attack,” Trump claimed, before declaring a new variant on an old theme: “We must make America pray again.”Two weeks ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, told a Christian gathering that Democrats “want full and complete destruction of the United States of America.” Kirk is a powerful Trump ally. He has millions of followers on social media and is hoping to raise more than $100 million in 2024 to help mobilize voters for Trump.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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      Revisiting Florida 2000 and the Butterfly Effect

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      The evidence is strong that Al Gore would have won had it not been for an infamous ballot design in Palm Beach County.Theresa LePore, who designed Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot, with old ballots three years after the 2000 election. David FriedmanWe’re still in a post-primary lull before the campaign starts to heat up — and before Donald J. Trump goes on trial. Here are a few quick notes to end the week.Joe Lieberman and the butterfly ballotJoe Lieberman, the former Democratic senator, died this week at 82. He was Al Gore’s vice-presidential nominee in 2000, when the Gore-Lieberman ticket came less than 600 Florida votes away from winning the White House.We’ll never know what would have happened if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to continue. But I don’t think it’s always appreciated that we probably do know that Mr. Gore would have won Florida, and therefore the presidency, if it weren’t for the infamous “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County.If you don’t remember — it has been a while — the butterfly ballot was very unusual. Candidates were listed on both sides of the ballot, and voters cast a ballot by punching a corresponding hole in the middle. What made it so unusual was that the ordering of the candidates on the ballot didn’t have the same logic as the corresponding punch hole: George W. Bush and Mr. Gore were the first two candidates listed on the left-hand side, but they corresponded to the first and third hole on the punch. The second punch corresponded with the first candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot: the paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, running as a Reform Party candidate.After the election, many voters from Palm Beach claimed they had inadvertently voted for Mr. Buchanan when they meant to vote for Mr. Gore. This is clear in the data. Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than he did on the other side of the county line. Indeed, Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than any politically or demographically comparable area in the country.You can see this pattern quite clearly in this map, courtesy of Matthew C. Isbell, a Democratic data strategist and consultant: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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      For Cesar Conde, NBC’s News Chief, Corporate Polish Meets Partisan Reality

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      Cesar Conde, a leader with an M.B.A. but a limited journalism background, is facing the toughest scrutiny of his career.Cesar Conde is not the typical leader of a major news institution.A Wharton-trained executive who revived the fortunes of Telemundo and sits on the boards of Pepsi and Walmart, Mr. Conde had limited experience in journalism when, in 2020, he became the chairman of NBC’s sprawling news division, including MSNBC, CNBC and franchises like “Meet the Press,” “Nightly News” and the “Today” show.Now he is trying to navigate the biggest crisis of his tenure: a journalistic firestorm that prompted an open revolt among his stars and has fueled internal questions about just how neatly Mr. Conde’s corporate experience and ambitions gel with the unique challenges of the news business.The rapid hiring and dismissal of Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, stunned network journalists over the past week, with many asking why Mr. Conde and his deputies had brought on someone who had vilified NBC and advanced former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The blowback facing Mr. Conde, 50, a former fellow in George W. Bush’s White House who prides himself on having an even-keeled, nonpartisan reputation, is coming from both sides of the aisle. Left-leaning fans of MSNBC felt betrayed, and Republican officials are mocking NBC as biased, even threatening to bar its reporters from this summer’s nominating convention.At elite retreats like the Aspen Ideas Festival, Mr. Conde, who declined to be interviewed, likes to say he runs “the largest news organization in the country.” As he heads into the scrutiny of a general-election campaign, he is discovering just how hard that job can be.Two of Mr. Conde’s newsroom leaders — Rebecca Blumenstein, the NBC News president of editorial, and Carrie Budoff Brown, who oversees political coverage — recommended Ms. McDaniel to Mr. Conde; Rashida Jones, the MSNBC president, also signed off, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Conde trusted the judgment of his top journalists, the people said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Fund-Raiser and Trump Visit to New York Preview Clashes to Come

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      The epicenter of the presidential campaign shifted to New York on Thursday, as the incumbent president and three of his predecessors descended on the area for dueling events that illustrated the kinds of political clashes that could come to define the general election.For Democrats, it was a high-profile, celebrity-studded fund-raiser for President Biden in Manhattan. On Long Island, former President Donald J. Trump attended a wake for a New York City officer who was killed during a traffic stop on Monday. Together, the day’s events struck an unusual contrast in a general election campaign that has so far been largely defined by appearances in courtrooms and at small, invitation-only events.Mr. Biden, along with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, appeared before 5,000 donors at a Radio City Music Hall event that campaign aides said raised $25 million. The eye-popping number set a record for a single political event, according to the aides, and offered a star-studded show of Democratic unity as the president heads into a difficult re-election campaign.The three Democratic presidents spent much of their time in New York City wrapped in the glitz of their celebrity supporters. Tieless and in matching white shirts, they sat for an interview on a celebrity podcast, were roasted by the comedian Mindy Kaling and interviewed by Stephen Colbert, a late-night host.Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, made his own appearance in the area several hours earlier, at a funeral home on Long Island surrounded by hundreds of police officers and family members of the slain officer. While not officially a campaign stop, aides used the appearance to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Biden, attacking the Democrats for spending their evening with donors and celebrities. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has spent far more time battling in court than in battleground states.Former President Donald J. Trump attending a wake for a New York City police officer on Long Island.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWe 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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      U.S. Officials Order Better Tracking of a Political Flashpoint: America’s Diversity

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      New survey questions in federal forms will draw a more detailed portrait of racial and ethnic origins. Officials point to the benefits, but the changes could face a conservative backlash.The Biden administration ordered changes to a range of federal surveys on Thursday to gather more detailed information about the nation’s ethnic and racial makeup.The changes — the first in decades to standard questions that the government asks about race and ethnicity — would produce by far the most detailed portrait of the nation’s ancestral palette ever compiled. And a new option will be available for the first time allowing respondents to identify as part of a new category, Middle Eastern or North African ancestry.But the changes also have the potential to rankle conservatives who believe that the nation’s focus on diversity has already gone too far.An American Puzzle: Fitting Race in a BoxCensus categories for race and ethnicity have shaped how the nation sees itself. Here’s how they have changed over the last 230 years.The revisions, released after 21 months of study and public comment, apply not just to the Census Bureau, but across the government, to forms as varied as the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Health Interview Survey and applications for Social Security cards. They take effect this month, but federal agencies will be allowed years to fully implement them.Current surveys contain a separate option for people of ethnic Hispanic and Latino descent to claim that identity, followed by another question that offers multiple options for respondents to choose one or more races.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Last Coal-Fired Power Plants in New England Are to Close

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      The company that owns the Merrimack and Schiller stations in New Hampshire plans to turn them into solar farms and battery storage for offshore wind.The last two coal-fired power plants in New England are set to close by 2025 and 2028, ending the use of a fossil fuel that supplied electricity to the region for more than 50 years.The decision to close the Merrimack and Schiller stations, both in New Hampshire, makes New England the second region in the country, after the Pacific Northwest, to stop burning coal.Environmentalists waged a five-year legal battle against the New Hampshire plants, saying that the owner had discharged warm water from steam turbines into a nearby river without cooling it first to match the natural temperature.In a settlement reached on Wednesday with the Sierra Club and the Conservative Law Foundation, Granite Shore Power, the owner of the plants, agreed that Schiller would not run after Dec. 31, 2025 and that Merrimack would cease operations no later than June 2028.“This announcement is the culmination of years of persistence and dedication from so many people across New England,” said Gina McCarthy, a former national climate adviser to President Biden and former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration who is now a senior adviser at Bloomberg Philanthropies, which supports efforts to phase out coal.“I’m wicked proud to live in New England today and be here,” Ms. McCarthy said. “Every day, we’re showing the rest of the country that we will secure our clean energy future without compromising.”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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      Democrat Running on Abortion and I.V.F. Access Wins Special Election in Alabama

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      Marilyn Lands, a Democrat, won a special election Tuesday for a State House seat in Alabama after campaigning on access to abortion and in vitro fertilization, underscoring the continued political potency of reproductive rights.Ms. Lands defeated her Republican opponent, Teddy Powell, by about 25 percentage points — an extraordinary margin in a swing district where she lost by seven points in 2022. The special election was called when David Cole, the Republican who had held the seat, resigned and pleaded guilty to voter fraud.“Today, Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation,” Ms. Lands, a licensed counselor, said Tuesday night. “Our legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to I.V.F. and protect the right to contraception.”Her election, in the largely suburban House District 10 in northern Alabama, does not change the balance of power in the state; Republicans still hold supermajorities in both its House and its Senate. And the race was small, with only about 6,000 votes cast.But the outcome and the margin add further evidence to the pile of election results over the nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that abortion, and, now, I.V.F., is a reliably motivating issue. Democrats are counting on abortion rights in 2024 to continue to help power wins in key states.Alabama has banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest. And last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were people with rights — upending I.V.F. care, which typically involves creating multiple embryos but implanting only one at a time, and indefinitely freezing or sometimes destroying those left over.In response to the backlash over that ruling, the Alabama Legislature passed a law giving I.V.F. clinics criminal and civil immunity and Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed it. It did not address embryos’ legal status.Mr. Powell, the Republican candidate, avoided talking about abortion and I.V.F. during the campaign, focusing instead on issues including education and local infrastructure. That strategy, which many national candidates have also adopted over the past two years, does not appear to have been effective.Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, called Ms. Lands’s victory “a harbinger of things to come.”“Republicans across the country have been put on notice that there are consequences to attacks on I.V.F.,” Ms. Williams said.President Biden’s re-election campaign, which is planning to focus heavily on abortion as well, also highlighted the result, calling it a “major warning sign” for former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, has indicated that he is likely to support a 15-week federal abortion ban.“Voters will not stand for his attacks on reproductive health care,” Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement. More

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      Yellen to Warn China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports

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