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      Ocasio-Cortez and Others Rally With Summer Lee Ahead of Primary

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      A high-energy crowd rallied on Sunday in Pittsburgh to support Representative Summer Lee, a left-leaning congresswoman whose primary on Tuesday is a high-profile test whether she can stave off a challenge aimed in part at her stance over the war in Gaza.Headlining the event were Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the progressive lawmaker, and Justin Jones, the Tennessee state representative who rose to stardom when he was briefly ousted for protesting inaction on state gun legislation.Speakers framed Ms. Lee’s race, in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, as crucial to building a movement for working people and to fighting what they cast as billionaire influence in the race.The rally with several hundred supporters drew a small group of protesters who held signs outside the headquarters of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers to criticize Ms. Lee and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s stances on the war in Israel and Gaza. Ms. Lee’s primary is one of the first down-ballot electoral tests of the Israel-Gaza conflict this year.“To fight for common sense in the House is to often be alone. I have seen Summer walk alone,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “On Tuesday, what we must do is show her and show the world and show the people in that big white house that she is not alone.”“It’s not about winning — it’s about winning big,” she added.Ms. Lee won a close primary in 2022 against a moderate challenger on her way to become the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress. She has garnered broad support from Democrats this year. Even so, she has also faced pressure within her district after becoming one of the first members of Congress to call for an immediate cease-fire, just over a week after Hamas attacked Israel, and Israel responded with a military assault on 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Surveillance Law Section 702 Keeps Us Safe

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      This is an extraordinarily dangerous time for the United States and our allies. Israel’s unpreparedness on Oct. 7 shows that even powerful nations can be surprised in catastrophic ways. Fortunately, Congress, in a rare bipartisan act, voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key intelligence power that provides critical information on hostile states and threats ranging from terrorism to fentanyl trafficking.Civil libertarians argued that the surveillance bill erodes Americans’ privacy rights and pointed to examples when American citizens got entangled in investigations. Importantly, the latest version of the bill adds dozens of legal safeguards around the surveillance in question — the most expansive privacy reform to the legislation in its history. The result preserves critical intelligence powers while protecting Americans’ privacy rights in our complex digital age.At the center of the debate is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Originally passed in 1978, it demanded that investigators gain an order from a special court to surveil foreign agents inside the United States. Collecting the communications of foreigners abroad did not require court approval.That line blurred in the digital age. Many foreign nationals rely on American providers such as Google and Meta, which route or store data in the United States, raising questions as to whether the rules apply to where the targets are or where their data is collected. In 2008, Congress addressed that conundrum with Section 702. Instead of requiring the government to seek court orders for each foreign target, that provision requires yearly judicial approval of the rules that govern the program as a whole. That way, the government can efficiently obtain from communication providers the calls and messages of large numbers of foreign targets — 246,073 in 2022 alone.Since then, Section 702 has supplied extraordinary insight into foreign dangers, including military threats, theft of American trade secrets, terrorism, hacking and fentanyl trafficking. In 2022 intelligence from 702 helped the government find and kill the Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, one of the terrorists responsible for Sept. 11. Almost 60 percent of the articles in the president’s daily intelligence briefing include information from Section 702.Although Section 702 can be used only to target foreigners abroad, it does include Americans when they interact with foreign targets. Not only is such incidental collection inevitable in today’s globalized world; it can be vital to U.S. security. If a terrorist or spy abroad is communicating with someone here, our government must find out why.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’s Trial Challenge: Being Stripped of Control

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      The mundanity of the courtroom has all but swallowed Donald Trump, who for decades has sought to project an image of bigness and a sense of power.“Sir, can you please have a seat.”Donald J. Trump had stood up to leave the Manhattan criminal courtroom as Justice Juan M. Merchan was wrapping up a scheduling discussion on Tuesday.But the judge had not yet adjourned the court or left the bench. Mr. Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the owner of his own company, is used to setting his own pace. Still, when Justice Merchan admonished him to sit back down, the former president did so without saying a word.The moment underscored a central reality for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. For the next six weeks, a man who values control and tries to shape environments and outcomes to his will is in control of very little.Everything about the circumstances in which the former president comes to court every day to sit as the defendant in the People v. Donald J. Trump at 100 Centre Street is repellent to him. The trapped-in-amber surroundings that evoke New York City’s more crime-ridden past. The lack of control. The details of a case in which he is accused of falsifying business records to conceal a payoff to a porn star to keep her claims of an affair with him from emerging in the 2016 election.Mr. Trump in court on Friday.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesOf the four criminal cases Mr. Trump is facing, this is the one that is the most acutely personal. And people close to him are blunt when privately discussing his reaction: He looks around each day and cannot believe he has to be there.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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      How Mike Johnson Got to ‘Yes’ on Aid to Ukraine

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      Intelligence, politics and personal considerations converted the Republican speaker, who had largely opposed aid to Ukraine as a rank-and-file member, into the key figure pushing it through Congress.Speaker Mike Johnson successfully defied the anti-interventionalist wing of the Republican Party and got the House to approve a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesFor weeks after the Senate passed a sprawling aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Speaker Mike Johnson agonized over whether and how the House would take up funding legislation that would almost certainly infuriate the right wing of his party and could cost him his job.He huddled with top national security officials, including William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, in the Oval Office to discuss classified intelligence. He met repeatedly with broad factions of Republicans in both swing and deep red districts, and considered their voters’ attitudes toward funding Ukraine. He thought about his son, who is set to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall.And finally, when his plan to work with Democrats to clear the way for aiding Ukraine met with an outpouring of venom from ultraconservatives already threatening to depose him, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, knelt and prayed for guidance.“I want to be on the right side of history,” Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, recalled the speaker telling him.Mr. Johnson’s decision to risk his speakership to push the $95 billion foreign aid bill through the House on Saturday was the culmination of a remarkable personal and political arc for the Louisiana Republican. It was also an improbable outcome for a man plucked from relative obscurity last fall by the hard right — which had just deposed a speaker they deemed a traitor to their agenda — to be the speaker of a deeply dysfunctional House.As a rank-and-file hard-liner, Mr. Johnson had largely opposed efforts to fund Kyiv’s war effort. And early in his speakership, he declared he would never allow the matter to come to a vote until his party’s border demands were met.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 Rally in North Carolina Is Canceled for Storms

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      After former President Donald J. Trump sat in a courtroom in New York for much of the last week, Saturday night was supposed to herald a return to the campaign trail and the large rallies where he often gives long, freewheeling speeches.With thousands gathered on the tarmac at an airport in Wilmington, N.C., Mr. Trump’s campaign was building anticipation. Two hours before he was set to speak, the campaign sent a fund-raising blast with a message from Mr. Trump: “They can’t keep me off stage! Did they think I would run and hide?”Ninety minutes later, the skies darkened to charcoal and lightning flashed. As thunderstorms swept toward the area and the National Weather Service issued watches and warnings concerning dangerous winds and hail, the rally was canceled over safety concerns.“We’ll make up for this very quickly at another time,” Mr. Trump said on a call he made into the rally that was broadcast over the speakers. “We’ll do it as quick as possible. I’m devastated that this could happen.”But the cancellation, which Mr. Trump indicated was out of his hands, highlights the challenges that he may face as he tries to balance his presidential campaign with a criminal trial that will keep him busy through May.For much of the last week, Mr. Trump’s public comments had been limited to social media posts and remarks to reporters outside the courtroom. His only campaign stop was at a bodega in New York City, in a state he overwhelmingly lost in the last two elections and that is not expected to be in play in November.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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      Mike Johnson, Like Pence, Does What Passes for Brave in Today’s GOP: His Job

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      In the Republican Party of 2024, styled in the image of former President Donald J. Trump, a norm-preserving, consensus-driven act — even a basic one — can be a career-ending offense.The accolades directed at Speaker Mike Johnson in recent days for finally defying the right wing of his party and allowing an aid bill for Ukraine to move through the House might have seemed a tad excessive.After all, a speaker’s entire job is to move legislation through the House, and as Saturday’s vote to pass the bill demonstrated, the Ukraine measure had overwhelming support. But Mr. Johnson’s feat was not so different from that of another embattled Republican who faced a difficult choice under immense pressure from hard-right Republicans and was saluted as a hero for simply doing his job: former Vice President Mike Pence.When Mr. Pence refused former President Donald J. Trump’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election results as he presided over the electoral vote count by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 — even as an angry mob with baseball bats and pepper spray invaded the Capitol and chanted “hang Mike Pence” — the normally unremarkable act of performing the duties in a vice president’s job description was hailed as courageous.Mr. Pence and now Mr. Johnson represent the most high-profile examples of a stark political reality: In today’s Republican Party, subsumed by Mr. Trump, taking the norm-preserving, consensus-driven path can spell the end of your political career.Mr. Johnson and Mr. Pence, both mild-mannered, extremely conservative evangelical Christians who have put their faith at the center of their politics, occupy a similar space in their party. They have both gone through contortions to accommodate Mr. Trump and the forces he unleashed in their party, which in turn have ultimately come after them. Mr. Pence spent four years dutifully serving the former president and defending all of his words and actions. Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, played a lead role in trying to overturn the election results on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Vice President Mike Pence refused to accede to President Donald J. Trump’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election results as he presided over the certification of the electoral college votes on Jan. 6, 2021, even after a mob assaulted the Capitol. Anna Moneymaker 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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      Ukraine Aid Bill Clears Critical Hurdle in the House as Democrats Supply the Votes

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      Democrats stepped in to support bringing the aid package to the floor, in a remarkable breach of custom on a key vote that paved the way for its passage.The House took a critical step on Friday toward approving a long-stalled package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, as Democrats supplied the crucial votes to push the legislation past Republican opposition so that it could be considered on the floor.The 316-94 vote cleared the way for the House to bring up the aid package, teeing up separate votes on Saturday on each of its parts. But passage of those measures, each of which enjoys bipartisan support from different coalitions, was not in doubt, making Friday’s action the key indicator that the legislation will have the backing needed to prevail.The rule for considering the bill — historically a straight party-line vote — passed with more Democratic than Republican support, but it also won a majority of G.O.P. votes, making it clear that despite a pocket of deep resistance from the far right, there is broad bipartisan backing for the $95.3 billion package.The vote was an enormous victory in the long effort to fund to Ukraine as it battles against Russian aggression, a major priority of President Biden that has met with bitter resistance from the right. It was a triumph against the forces of isolationism within the G.O.P. and a major moment of bipartisan consensus in a Congress that for the past year has been mostly defined by its dysfunction.But it came only after Speaker Mike Johnson, who put his own job on the line to push through the plan over his party’s objections, was forced to turn to Democrats in a significant breach of custom in the House, further imperiling his position even as he paved the way for the legislation to be voted on and approved.On the House floor, Democrats held back their votes until it was clear there was not enough Republican support for the measure to pass without their backing, and then their “yes” votes began pouring in. Ultimately, 165 Democrats voted for the measure, more than the 149 Republicans who supported it.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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      No Bias Found in F.B.I. Report on Catholic Extremists

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      Republicans claimed the bureau’s memo was evidence of an anti-conservative strain among F.B.I. ranks, but an internal investigation failed to uncover any “malicious intent.”A memo by the F.B.I. warning of possible threats posed by “radical-traditionalist” Catholics violated professional standards but showed “no evidence of malicious intent,” according to an internal Justice Department inquiry made public on Thursday.Republicans have seized on the 11-page memo, which was leaked early last year, as a talking point. They have pointed to the document to sharply criticize the bureau and suggested, without evidence, that it was part of a broader campaign by the Biden administration to persecute Catholics and conservatives over their beliefs.The memo was quickly withdrawn after being leaked, and top law enforcement officials have repeatedly distanced themselves from it.The assessment by the Justice Department’s watchdog found that agents in the F.B.I.’s office in Richmond, Va., improperly conflated the religious beliefs of activists with the likelihood they would engage in domestic terrorism, making it appear as if they were being targeted for the faith.But after a 120-day review of the incident ordered by Congress, Michael E. Horowitz, the department’s inspector general — drawing from the F.B.I. report and interviews conducted by his own investigators — found no evidence that “anyone ordered or directed” anyone to investigate Catholics because of their religion.A statement from the F.B.I. on Thursday said the inspector general’s review aligned with the bureau’s own accounting.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