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      Running for President Is Not a Hobby

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      Think I have something good to report, people. No, it’s not about how to get your kids Taylor Swift tickets in Tokyo.My news is that Dean Phillips is not going to run as a third-party candidate for president.“No! No!” he assured me when I asked him the big question this week.OK, you’re thinking that you’ve had more thrilling news from the grocer on banana prices. But follow along for a minute.Phillips is a representative from Minnesota who campaigned very energetically in the New Hampshire presidential primary. People there were a tad piqued by the Democrats’ decision to move the first official party vote to South Carolina. Despite all that rancor, Phillips, who, unlike President Biden, was on the ballot, got about 24,000 votes to Biden’s nearly 80,000 write-ins.But he’s marching on. “Look at the data,” he said. (I discovered during our phone interview that Phillips says “Look at the data” a lot.) “I’m from the business world. It’s time to come out with a new product.”If you want to run for president and it doesn’t look as if your party is going to nominate you, you have two real choices. You can do what Phillips is doing: keep competing in the primaries and hope voters will embrace your message. Or you can get yourself on the ballot in November as a third-party candidate.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?  More

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      Jean Carnahan, First Woman to Represent Missouri in U.S. Senate, Dies at 90

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      Ms. Carnahan was appointed to the seat after her husband was posthumously elected to it just weeks after he was killed in a plane crash in 2000.Jean Carnahan, who in 2001 became the first woman to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate after being appointed to fill her husband’s seat following his posthumous election, died on Tuesday. She was 90.Her family released a statement saying that Ms. Carnahan died following a brief illness.“Mom passed peacefully after a long and rich life,” the statement said, without specifying the cause of death. “She was a fearless trailblazer. She was brilliant, creative, compassionate and dedicated to her family and her fellow Missourians,” her family said in the statement.Ms. Carnahan, the wife of Mel Carnahan, was appointed to the U.S. Senate from Missouri in December 2000, following the posthumous election of her husband, who was killed just weeks beforehand with their son and a longtime aide in a plane crash. She was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2001.Ms. Carnahan, a moderate Democrat who had never held public office before being appointed to fill in for her husband, served for nearly two years. She lost to Jim Talent, a Republican, by 22,000 votes in November 2002.Following her defeat, Ms. Carnahan told The New York Times that despite the tumult and heartache she had endured, she had always pushed bitterness aside. “It’s an acid in your life that corrodes your soul,” she told The Times.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Major Layoffs at Fair Fight, Voting Rights Group Founded by Stacey Abrams

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      Fair Fight, the liberal voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams, is laying off most of its staff and scaling back its efforts in response to mounting debts incurred by court battles.Lauren Groh-Wargo, who led the organization before stepping down to manage Ms. Abrams’s second unsuccessful run for governor in Georgia in 2022, said she was returning as interim chief executive to lead the cuts, including laying off 20 employees — or 75 percent of the current staff.She added that Fair Fight was $2.5 million in debt with only $1.9 million cash on hand. Fair Fight raised some $100 million from 2018 to 2021.The cuts, in a decision made by the group’s board, would decimate a prominent liberal group that was once a fund-raising powerhouse for Democrats. The news was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Fair Fight has been involved in drawn-out legal battles over voting rights — for example, against a right-wing group, True the Vote, that sought in 2020 to remove some 250,000 registered voters in Georgia from voter rolls ahead of runoff elections for the state’s two Senate seats. A federal court ruled narrowly in favor of True the Vote this month.Fair Fight lost another court battle against the state of Georgia in early 2023, having claimed that restrictions on voter registration and absentee ballots violated voting rights. The group was ordered to pay more than $231,000 to cover the state’s legal fees.Ms. Abrams, at one point considered one of the nation’s most influential Democrats, founded Fair Fight after losing her first run for governor against Brian Kemp in 2018, but has not recently been involved with the group. Her efforts at building Democratic infrastructure in Georgia and driving voter turnout among the state’s people of color culminated in Democrats’ flipping both of Georgia’s Senate seats on Jan. 6, 2021.Ms. Abrams then lost her rematch against Mr. Kemp in 2022, and liberal grass-roots organizers and activist groups in Georgia, including Fair Fight, warned late last year that national financial support for their efforts had dried up ahead of the 2024 election. More

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      Norfolk Southern Agrees to Try Out Federal Safety Reporting Program

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      The company, which operated the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, is the first major freight railroad to join a federal program that allows workers to report safety issues.Norfolk Southern, the operator of the freight train carrying toxic chemicals that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, nearly a year ago, has agreed to participate in a federal program that allows employees to report safety issues confidentially, the company and federal officials announced on Monday.In the aftermath of the derailment, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called on Norfolk Southern and the nation’s other major freight railroads to join the program, one of a series of steps he urged them to take to improve safety.The railroads committed in March to participating, but in the months that followed, they pushed for changes to the program to address concerns about how it functions. None of the largest freight rail companies, known as Class I railroads, had officially agreed to join until the announcement on Monday.Norfolk Southern’s participation in the program, known as the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, or C3RS, will be limited in scope. The railroad will carry out a one-year pilot program that will apply to about 1,000 employees in Atlanta; Elkhart, Ind.; and Roanoke, Va., who are members of two unions, a small fraction of the company’s work force of roughly 20,000 people.“Norfolk Southern has taken a good first step, and it’s time for the other Class I railroads to back up their talk with action and make good on their promises to join this close call reporting system and keep America’s rail network safe,” Mr. Buttigieg said in a statement.Alan H. Shaw, the chief executive of Norfolk Southern, said in a statement that the company was “committed to setting the gold standard for rail safety, and we are proud to be the first Class I railroad to deliver on our promise to co-develop and launch a C3RS program.”The federal program, which is modeled after a similar one for pilots and other aviation personnel, allows railroad employees to report safety issues without worrying about potential discipline. But the freight rail companies raised concerns that workers might be able to take advantage of the program as a way to shield themselves from punishment after making dangerous mistakes.The Association of American Railroads, an industry group, said on Monday that the other major freight rail companies were still committed to joining the program.“This commitment remains unchanged,” said Jessica Kahanek, a spokeswoman for the group. She added, “A.A.R. and its member railroads collectively and individually have engaged in good-faith conversations with the administration and rail labor about strengthening the program.” More

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      Pelosi Wants F.B.I. to Investigate Pro-Palestinian Protesters

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      The former House speaker suggested without offering evidence that some protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza had financial ties to Russia and Vladimir V. Putin.Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the former House speaker, on Sunday called for the F.B.I. to investigate protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, suggesting without evidence that some activists may have ties to Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin.“For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message,” Ms. Pelosi said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.”When pressed on whether she believed some of the demonstrators were “Russian plants,” Ms. Pelosi said: “Seeds or plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.”Ms. Pelosi, who was first elected speaker in 2007 and again in 2019, led House Democrats for 20 years before stepping aside for Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader. Still, she remains influential among congressional Democrats. Her remarks appear to be the first time a prominent U.S. politician has publicly suggested Russia may be backing cease-fire protests to help foment division among Democrats.The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned Ms. Pelosi’s comments as “an unsubstantiated smear” and “downright authoritarian.”“Her comments once again show the negative impact of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by those supporting Israeli apartheid,” Nihad Awad, the group’s national executive director, said in a statement. “Instead of baselessly smearing those Americans as Russian collaborators, former House Speaker Pelosi and other political leaders should respect the will of the American people by calling for an end to the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza.”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?  More

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      House Republicans Release Impeachment Charges Against Mayorkas

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      The articles accuse the homeland security secretary of refusing to uphold the law and breaching the public trust in his handling of immigration. A House committee is scheduled to approve them on Tuesday.House Republicans on Sunday released two articles of impeachment against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, charging President Biden’s top immigration official with refusing to uphold the law and breaching the public trust in his handling of a surge of migration at the U.S. border with Mexico.Leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee laid out their case against Mr. Mayorkas ahead of a Tuesday meeting to approve the charges, paving the way for a quick House vote as soon as early next month to impeach him. It would be the culmination of Republicans’ attacks on Mr. Biden’s immigration policies and an extraordinary move given an emerging consensus among legal scholars that Mr. Mayorkas’s actions do not constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.The push comes as House Republicans, egged on by former President Donald J. Trump, dig in against a bipartisan border compromise Mr. Mayorkas helped to negotiate with a group of senators, which Mr. Biden has vowed to sign. House G.O.P. lawmakers have dismissed the agreement as too weak and argued that they cannot trust Mr. Biden to crack down on migration now when he has failed to in the past.The charges against Mr. Mayorkas, should they be approved by full the House, are all but certain to fizzle in the Democratic-led Senate, where Mr. Mayorkas would stand trial and a two-thirds majority would be needed to convict and remove him. But the process would yield a remarkable election-year political spectacle, effectively putting Mr. Biden’s immigration record on trial as Mr. Trump, who has made a border crackdown his signature issue, seeks to clinch the Republican presidential nomination to run against him.The first impeachment article essentially brands the Biden administration’s border policies an official crime. It accuses Mr. Mayorkas of willfully and systematically flouting laws requiring migrants to be detained by carrying out “catch and release” policies that allow some to stay in the United States pending court proceedings and others fleeing certain war-torn and economically ravaged countries to live and work in the country temporarily. Immigration laws grant the president broad leeway to do both.The second article charges Mr. Mayorkas with lying to Congress about whether the border was secure and obstructing lawmakers’ efforts to investigate him.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?  More

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      Nikki Haley Isn’t Going Anywhere

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      What is Nikki Haley doing? What are her real intentions? Those questions have dominated every aspect of her candidacy.So much of what’s been said about Ms. Haley the last few months has been about what she’ll do after she loses — even that the original premise of the campaign must have contained hidden ambitions or total delusion. There’s been an assumption, even from would-be allies, that there must be another angle to the campaign, that she must want the vice presidency.That’s partly because, in her speeches, Ms. Haley often resists giving her listeners satisfaction, withholding the obvious point, allowing them to fill in what they want, both to Ms. Haley’s benefit and peril. She did not make a strong moral case against Donald Trump last year.But here we are after her big loss in New Hampshire, framed by many as the definitive end. Right now, Ms. Haley’s unwillingness to publicly engage with the obvious works differently, reveals different things.For instance, in a hotel ballroom by the Charleston, S.C., airport, with people decked out in “SC ❤️ NH” stickers, cheerfully wanting something they and everybody else know they probably won’t get, she proceeded as normal, giving that homecoming crowd primarily her normal remarks. She layered in critiques of Mr. Trump that dealt with inarguable surface realities, like how he talked about her the night before rather than about solutions to the nation’s problems: “He didn’t talk about the American people once; he talked about revenge!” (When she ran through a variety of problems he could have talked about, one woman yelled, “He don’t know!”)Insofar as she engaged with the obvious, literal reason that people in the room seemed so amped — that she was still in the race — it was this: “You know, the political elites, in this state and around the country, have said that we just need to let Donald Trump have this.” That was clearly what people in the room, who dropped into a long “noooo,” had come to hear discussed.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?  More

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      The International Court of Justice’s Ruling on Israel Tests International Law

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      Over the past month, we’ve watched an astonishing, high-stakes global drama play out in The Hague. A group of countries from the poorer, less powerful bloc some call the Global South, led by South Africa, dragged the government of Israel and by extension its rich, powerful allies into the top court of that order, and accused Israel of prosecuting a brutal war in Gaza that is “genocidal in character.”The responses to this presentation from the leading nations of the Western rules-based order were quick and blunt.“Completely unjustified and wrong,” said a statement from Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister.“Meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the United States National Security Council.“The accusation has no basis in fact,” a German government spokesman said, adding that Germany opposed the “political instrumentalization” of the genocide statute.But on Friday, that court had its say, issuing a sober and careful provisional ruling that doubled as a rebuke to those dismissals. In granting provisional measures, the court affirmed that some of South Africa’s allegations were plausible, and called on Israel to take immediate steps to protect civilians, increase the amount of humanitarian aid and punish officials who engaged in violent and incendiary speech. The court stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, but it granted South Africa’s request for provisional measures to prevent further civilian death. For the most part, the court ruled in favor of the Global South. Accusing the state created in the aftermath of the slaughter that required the coinage of the term genocide is a serious step. Scholars of genocide have raised alarms about statements from Israeli leaders and its conduct in the war while stopping short of calling the killing genocide. Some have welcomed South Africa’s application as a necessary step to preventing genocide.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?  More