United States

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      The Sunday Read: ‘The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets’

      by

      Adrienne Hurst and Dan Powell and Dan Farrell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherIn March 2017, an engineer at G.E. Aviation in Cincinnati received a request on LinkedIn. The engineer, Hua, is in his 40s, tall and athletic, with a boyish face that makes him look a decade younger. He moved to the United States from China in 2003 for graduate studies in structural engineering.The LinkedIn request came from Chen Feng, a school official at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in eastern China. Days later, Chen sent him an email inviting him to the university to give a research presentation. Hua arranged to arrive in May, so he could attend a nephew’s wedding and his college reunion at Harbin Institute of Technology. There was one problem, though: Hua knew that G.E. would deny permission to give the talk if he asked, which he was supposed to do. He went to Nanjing, and flew back to the United States after the presentation. He thought that would be the end of the matter.Many scientists and engineers of Chinese origin in the United States are invited to China to give presentations about their fields. Hua couldn’t have known that his trip to Nanjing would prove to be the start of a series of events that would end up giving the U.S. government an unprecedented look inside China’s widespread and tireless campaign of economic espionage targeting the United States, culminating in the first-ever conviction of a Chinese intelligence official on American soil.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on Twitter: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Emma Kehlbeck, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Elena Hecht, Desiree Ibekwe, Tanya Pérez, Marion Lozano, Naomi Noury, Krish Seenivasan, Corey Schreppel, Kate Winslett and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Mike Benoist, Sam Dolnick, Laura Kim, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Blake Wilson and Ryan Wegner. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Where the Likely 2024 Presidential Contenders Stand on Abortion

      by

      Not quite a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion continues to be one of the main issues shaping American politics.Abortion is not fading as a driving issue in America, coming up again and again everywhere policy is decided: in legislatures, courts, the Oval Office and voting booths.An 11-point liberal victory in a pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race last week was fueled by the issue. Days later, a Texas judge invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone (late Wednesday, an appeals court partly stayed the ruling but imposed some restrictions). And Florida, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely Republican presidential candidate, is poised to ban abortion after six weeks’ gestation.The fallout from the Supreme Court’s revocation of a constitutional right to abortion last year looks poised to be a major issue in the upcoming presidential race. So where do the likely candidates stand?Here is what some of the most prominent contenders, declared and likely, have said and done:Anti-abortion protesters rallying in Indiana last July while lawmakers there debated an abortion ban during a special session.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York TimesPresident BidenPresident Biden condemned the ruling invalidating the approval of mifepristone, which his administration is appealing, and called it “another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk.”Mr. Biden has a complicated history with abortion; before his 2020 presidential campaign, he supported restrictions, including the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for most abortions. But he has since spoken more forcefully in defense of unfettered access, including endorsing congressional codification of the rights Roe v. Wade used to protect.White House officials have said he is not willing to disregard the mifepristone ruling, as some abortion-rights activists have urged.Mr. Biden has said he is planning to run in 2024, but has not formally declared his candidacy.Donald J. TrumpMore than perhaps any other Republican, former President Donald J. Trump is responsible for the current state of abortion access: He appointed three of the six Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and the district judge who invalidated the approval of mifepristone. But lately, he has been loath to talk about it.Last year, Mr. Trump privately expressed concern that the ruling overturning Roe would hurt Republicans — and it did, both in the midterms and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.If elected again, he would be under tremendous pressure from the social conservatives who have fueled the Republican Party for decades — and who helped elect him in 2016 — to support a national ban. He has not said whether he would do so.Ron DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom polls show as the top potential Republican competitor to Mr. Trump, is pushing forward with the Florida Legislature to ban most abortions after six weeks. The bill passed on Thursday and was sent to Mr. DeSantis’s desk. Polls show that most Americans, including Floridians, oppose six-week bans.It is a more aggressive posture than he took last year, when Florida enacted a ban after 15 weeks and Mr. DeSantis — facing re-election in November — did not commit to going further. He made his move after winning re-election by a sweeping margin.Nikki HaleyAt a campaign event in Iowa this week, Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, gestured away from anti-abortion absolutism — saying that she did not “want unelected judges deciding something this personal.”But her comments were muddled: She said she wanted to leave the issue to the states, but at the same time suggested that she would be open to a federal ban if she thought there was momentum for one.“This is about saving as many babies as we can,” she said, while adding that she did not want to play the “game” of specifying when in pregnancy she believed abortion should be allowed.Asa HutchinsonSince starting his presidential campaign this month, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas has said only that he is “proud to stand squarely on my pro-life position” when it comes to abortion.He has not detailed what, if any, federal legislation he would support.Last year, Mr. Hutchinson criticized the lack of an exception for rape and incest in an Arkansas abortion ban he had signed. When he signed it, he said that he wanted the exception but legislators didn’t, and that he accepted their judgment as the will of voters — though a poll last year found that more than 70 percent of Arkansans supported such an exception.Mike PenceA staunch social conservative, former Vice President Mike Pence has been more open than most Republicans about continuing to advertise his opposition to abortion.“Life won again today,” he said in a statement on the mifepristone ruling. “When it approved chemical abortions on demand, the F.D.A. acted carelessly and with blatant disregard for human life.” Last year, Mr. Pence said anti-abortion activists “must not rest” until abortion was outlawed nationwide. Mr. Pence is considering a 2024 run, but has not formally joined the race.Tim ScottSenator Tim Scott of South Carolina repeatedly dodged questions about whether he supported federal restrictions on abortion in the days after announcing a presidential exploratory committee this week.Asked in an interview with CBS News whether he supported a 15-week ban, he called himself “100 percent pro-life.” When the interviewer suggested that his stance indicated he would support a 15-week ban, he replied, “That’s not what I said.”On Thursday, he told WMUR, a New Hampshire news station, that he would support a 20-week ban, but still did not say whether he would back something stricter. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Your Tuesday Briefing: China’s Display of Force Around Taiwan

      by

      Also, President Biden prepares to visit Northern Ireland and Ireland.A Chinese Navy ship near Taiwan yesterday.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesChina’s military show around TaiwanChina sent record numbers of military aircraft, naval ships and an aircraft carrier near Taiwan yesterday on the final day of military exercises. The spectacle capped three days of drills designed to put pressure on the self-governed island.On Monday alone, Taiwan said that 91 Chinese military aircraft had flown into its Air Defense Identification Zone, a buffer that’s broader than Taiwan’s sovereign airspace. That number marked the highest daily total of such Chinese sorties since 2020, when Taiwan began regularly releasing the data. The previous high was 71, set in December and again on Saturday.A first with fighter jets: During the exercises, Chinese J-15 jets took off from the Shandong aircraft carrier deployed near Taiwan’s east coast. The flights appeared to mark the first time that these fighter jets have been tracked entering Taiwan’s zone, an analyst said.China deployed the Shandong to reinforce the country’s claim that it could “surround and encircle” Taiwan, a Taiwan-based researcher said: “That is to say that it can do it on our east coast as well as our west coast.”Context: The drills were in retaliation for a visit to the U.S. by Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen. Still, experts said that the drills were smaller and less menacing than those held after Nancy Pelosi, then the U.S. speaker, visited Taiwan in August.Separately, two of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, were sentenced to 14 and 12 years, some of the lengthiest punishments in years and an indication of how the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, has crushed the last vestiges of dissent.Orangemen, who do not support Irish unification, marked St. Patrick’s Day last month. Andrew Testa for The New York TimesAn Irish welcome for BidenPresident Biden will begin a five-day visit to Northern Ireland and Ireland today. The president, whose family has Irish roots, is known to approach Irish issues from a sentimental rather than a diplomatic perspective. “Being Irish has shaped my entire life,” Biden once said.In Belfast, Biden will celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed 25 years ago and ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.In the U.S., the peace accord is a cherished diplomatic achievement: Bill Clinton mediated between nationalists, who are mostly Catholic and seek a united Ireland, and unionists, who are mostly Protestant and want to stay with the U.K. In 1998, Biden supported the peace process, but his Irish pride has sometimes led him to take sides, critics say.“I think it’s fair to say that Biden is the most Irish of U.S. presidents, except maybe for Kennedy,” an author of a book about Ireland and the White House said.Family ties: Biden’s itinerary in Ireland includes potential visits to not one but two ancestral homes. Locals are preparing to celebrate Biden with all of the fanfare their towns can muster.An eye on 2024: On the eve of his departure, Biden said that he planned to run again for the presidency, though he did not formally announce a campaign.Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said he had decided to put aside his differences with his defense minister.Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated PressNetanyahu reverses firing of ministerBenjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, announced yesterday that he had reinstated his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who had criticized the contentious plan to overhaul Israel’s justice system. Gallant’s ouster set off protests, prompting the government to suspend its judicial plan until the summer.The reversal came amid a wider effort within Israel to project a sense of unity at a time of deep social division and upheaval — and amid fears that Israel’s enemies had been emboldened by the instability created by the judicial plan.Gallant’s reinstatement was greeted with relief in much of Israel. There have been growing calls for a show of strength after a rise in attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, as well as violence in the occupied West Bank. Many Israelis were particularly alarmed by a rare barrage of rockets from Lebanon last week.Context: Gallant was fired after he said the plan to limit the influence of the Supreme Court had provoked disquiet within the military he oversees, and that it was endangering Israel’s national security.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificThe Dalai Lama’s office said the actions had been lighthearted.Ashwini Bhatia/Associated PressThe Dalai Lama apologized after a video surfaced online showing him kissing a boy on the lips and then saying to the child, “Suck my tongue.”A group of opposition lawmakers in South Korea denounced the U.S. for spying after leaked documents revealed sensitive information about supplying Ukraine with artillery shells.From Opinion: Se-Woong Koo, a South Korean-born writer, argues that Koreans should forgive Japan for historical wrongs and turn their focus on China.The War in UkraineRussian police officers watched military aircraft fly over the Kremlin in 2020.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesUkraine’s air defenses need a big influx of munitions to keep Russia from changing the course of the war, leaked Pentagon documents suggest.In this video, see how Ukrainian military psychologists are training soldiers to confront trauma.The Morning newsletter is about Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter detained in Russia.Around The WorldItaly sent rescue teams to help about 1,200 migrants aboard two overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean, fueling concern about the volume of people attempting the dangerous crossing from Africa to Europe.A man shot and killed four fellow employees at a bank in Kentucky before he was killed by police.Eight people are missing after a building collapsed in an explosion in Marseille, France.Other Big StoriesSyrian truffles are a prized delicacy.Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTruffle hunting, an economic lifeline in Syria during desperate times, has become a dangerous pursuit: At least 84 people have been killed this season, two groups said, either by land mines, gunmen or after being kidnapped.Bitcoin mines can cause pollution and raise electricity bills for people who live around them.An Asian elephant at a Berlin zoo taught herself to peel bananas.A Morning ReadPreparing har gow, a traditional dumpling, at Shun Lee West.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesWhen a new outpost of Shun Lee, a storied Chinese restaurant in New York City, opened last year, it took only a few bites before fans realized that something was off. Soon, tips flooded the local press. My colleague Katie Rosman dug into the very New York drama, which is at the heart of the history of Chinese food on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.ARTS AND IDEASA check-in line for a flight from New York to Shanghai last week.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesChina: Open, but hard to get toDespite China’s loosened visa rules and relaxed pandemic restrictions, would-be visitors are struggling to book plane tickets: Prices are high, and there are fewer direct flights.That’s partly because airlines have been slow to ramp up their flights. They’re hesitant to add flights when there are practical hurdles: Many visitors need a negative P.C.R. test before departure, consulates are scrambling to handle visa paperwork and about 20 percent of Chinese passports expired during the pandemic.Tensions between the U.S. and China also play a role. During the pandemic, the countries, the world’s two largest economies, suspended each other’s flights in a political tit-for-tat. Airlines need the approval of both countries’ aviation authorities to increase routes.The war in Ukraine is another factor. Russia has banned U.S. and European carriers from its airspace, meaning flights to China now require longer routes with more fuel and flight crew.As a result, families suffer. Jessie Huang, who lives in New Jersey, hopes to visit China this summer but has struggled to find tickets under $2,000. She has not seen her 86-year-old father, who lives on an island off the coast of Shanghai, in seven years. “I’m just missing my family,” she said.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.A reader submitted her French mother’s recipe for tarragon-Cognac roast chicken.What to ReadIn “Calling Ukraine,” an office satire, a lost American expat takes up a job at a call center.What to Watch“Showing Up” is a gently funny portrait of a creative rivalry between two artists.TravelClimate change is making turbulence more common. Fasten your seatbelt.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Deficiency (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. — AmeliaP.S. The Times is inviting illustrators to share their work with our art directors for a portfolio review. Apply here.“The Daily” is on Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House, which has expelled two young Black Democrats.Was this newsletter useful? Send us your feedback at briefing@nytimes.com. More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Virginia Rolls Back Voting Rights for Ex-Felons, Bucking Shaky Bipartisan Trend

      by

      State after state has eased restrictions on voting for former felons in recent years. But Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s reversal suggests growing wariness on the right.WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, states around the country have steadily chipped away at one of the biggest roadblocks to voting in the United States — laws on the books that bar former felons from casting a ballot.But there are now signs that trend could be reversing.Last month, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican who took office a year ago, revealed that he had rescinded a policy of automatically restoring voting rights to residents who have completed felony sentences.In a February hearing, North Carolina’s Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Republican majority, appeared deeply skeptical that a lower court had constitutional authority when it restored voting rights last year to people who had completed their sentences. A ruling is expected soon.And then there’s Florida — whose Republican-dominated Legislature effectively nullified a citizen ballot initiative granting voting rights to a huge number of former felons in 2020. That left all three states on a path toward rolling back state policies on restoring voting rights for former felons close to where they were 50 and even 100 years ago.Experts say that Virginia’s reversal, which does not affect people who have had their rights already restored, is unlikely to represent a dramatic change in the long-term trend among states toward loosening restrictions on voting by people with felony records. Such restrictions still deny the vote to some 4.6 million voting-age Americans — one in 50 potential voters. But that number is down nearly 25 percent since 2016.Last month, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, signed legislation expanding voting rights for former felons in the state, and the New Mexico State Legislature, also Democratic, enacted a law doing the same.What is clear, though, is that a shaky bipartisan consensus — that those who have paid their debts to society should be able to cast a ballot — has eroded, as political polarization has risen. The action by Mr. Youngkin is especially notable because it leaves Virginia as the only state in the nation that disenfranchises everyone who commits a felony. Under the State Constitution, a former felon’s rights can be restored only with the governor’s authorization.“We’d reached a point for the first time in recent memory, maybe ever, where there was not a single state in the country that disenfranchised everyone,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “It is disappointing that on an issue in Virginia that had gotten support from both sides of the aisle, they do seem to be taking a step backwards.”The backtracking spotlights the often-overlooked significance — legally and also politically — of a practice that has likely had a far greater impact on access to the ballot than more notorious voter suppression measures have.Voting rights battles are usually fought over cogs in the election machinery — ID requirements, drop boxes, absentee ballots — that can make it easy or hard to vote, depending on how much sand is tossed into them. The extent to which those battles shrink or expand the pool of voters is often impossible to measure.Not so with restoring the vote to former felons: Minnesota’s new law gives about 56,000 people access to the ballot; the North Carolina court ruling last year made another 56,000 eligible. The law awaiting the signature of New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, would add another 11,000 to the list.The rollbacks, however, are significant. In 2020, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature enacted a law that effectively negated a 2018 citizen ballot initiative that restored voting rights to perhaps 934,000 residents, according to the latest estimate. The law limits the vote only to former felons who pay all court costs, restitution and other fees, a yearslong task for many, made surpassingly difficult by the state’s jumbled record-keeping on court cases.That legislative change not only halted the nation’s largest rights-restoration effort but also led to the arrest — in what Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, billed as a crackdown on fraud — of 20 former felons who had registered or voted illegally — many, if not all, out of confusion over their eligibility.In Virginia, governors have used their constitutional powers to restore the vote to more than 300,000 former felons since Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, first made restoration automatic for some in 2013. Two Democratic governors, Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, expanded that policy to include anyone freed from prison.By the time Mr. Northam left office in January 2022, a huge backlog of people eligible for restoration had been wiped out, said Kelly Thomasson, the official who handled rights restoration during Mr. Northam’s tenure as governor, in an interview. She said that roughly 1,000 to 2,000 newly eligible felons were being released from prison each month.After succeeding Mr. Northam, Mr. Youngkin initially restored voting rights to nearly 3,500 people in just his first four months in office. But that pace slowed dramatically to just 800 others in the next five months.A spokeswoman for Mr. Youngkin, Macaulay Porter, said in a statement that the governor “firmly believes in the importance of second chances for Virginians who have made mistakes,” and that he judges individual cases based on the law and the “unique elements of each situation.”She did not respond to requests to explain why new grants dropped sharply, or whether Republican resistance to restoring voting played a role in that decline.Although a Republican state legislator had once led Minnesota’s effort to give the vote to former felons, the policy became law this year with only a handful of Republican votes. In 2020, the Republican governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, used her executive power to implement an automatic restoration policy much like the one Virginia had in place before Mr. Youngkin changed it.Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa reacts after signing an executive order granting former felons the right to vote in August 2020.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressBut Iowa, Virginia and Kentucky, another Republican state whose governors’ executive orders have loosened restrictive restoration policies temporarily, have been unable to win legislators’ support for amendments to state constitutions that would make those orders permanent.Some experts say that the resistance stems in part from the common but questionable belief among Republican partisans that allowing former felons to vote would boost Democratic turnout.Although an outsize share of those who complete felony sentences are members of minority groups that broadly tend to vote Democratic, most felons are white, and those with their demographic characteristics — below-average income and education, to name two — increasingly skew Republican.Disenfranchisement has complex legal roots, including the 14th Amendment, which, in addition to granting citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to formerly enslaved people, forbids withholding the right to vote “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime.”In Virginia, there are also antecedents that reflect the state’s history of suppressing the African American vote. The policy on rights restoration that Mr. Youngkin revived is rooted in a 1902 Virginia constitutional convention in which keeping Black residents from voting was an overriding priority.Experts say the potentially fleeting nature of executive actions like those in Kentucky — where Gov. Andy Beshear now automatically restores voting rights to former felons who had committed nonviolent crimes — and in Virginia sows confusion about voting rights. Critics say that bestowing a basic civic privilege becomes subject to the political whim of whoever is governor.Virginians who complete their prison sentences this year may wonder why those who left prison in 2021 are more entitled to cast a ballot than they are, said Christopher Uggen, a University of Minnesota sociologist and an expert on the disenfranchisement of former felons.“It harkens to an era when the king can give a thumbs up or thumbs down,” he said. “We wouldn’t necessarily accept this if it were happening in another area.”Kirsten Noyes More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Politics Complicates Chinese Reaction to U.S. Visit by Taiwan’s President

      by

      For Beijing, showing displeasure too openly carries risks, particularly of harming the chances for its preferred party in Taiwan’s coming presidential election.China fired off a volley of condemnations on Thursday after Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, met the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, but it held off from the kind of military escalation that threatened a crisis last summer, when Mr. McCarthy’s predecessor visited Taiwan.China’s angry reaction to the meeting between Ms. Tsai and Mr. McCarthy in California followed weeks of warnings from Beijing, which treats Taiwan as an illegitimate breakaway region whose leaders should be shunned abroad. Despite the combative words, any retaliation by Beijing in coming days may be tempered by the difficult calculations facing China’s leader, Xi Jinping, including over Taiwan’s coming presidential race.Soon after the meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, China’s ministry of defense, foreign ministry and other offices in Beijing issued warnings to Taiwan and the United States.“Do not go down this dark path of ‘riding on the back of the U.S. to seek independence,” said the Chinese Communist Party’s office for Taiwan policy. “Any bid for ‘independence’ will be smashed to pieces by the power of sons and daughters of China opposed to ‘independence’ and advancing unification.”So far though, Beijing’s pugnacious language has not been matched by a big military response like the one last year. After the previous speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan in August in a show of solidarity, China’s People’s Liberation Army held days of miliary exercises simulating a blockade of Taiwan.Early Thursday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense detected one Chinese military plane that entered the “air defense identification zone” off Taiwan — an informal area where aircraft are supposed to declare their presence — and three Chinese navy vessels in seas off the island. Last year, China announced its blockade exercise on the same day that Ms. Pelosi arrived in Taipei.Taiwan military vessels docked at a Navy base in Suao, Taiwan, on Thursday.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times“China is not doing the kind of saber rattling that they were doing before the Pelosi visit. They haven’t set the stage in the same way,” said Patrick M. Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, who attended a closed-door speech Ms. Tsai gave in New York last week. “They’re going to have their hands close around the throat of Taiwan, but we’ll have to see how they squeeze.”Mr. Xi, anointed last month to a third term as president, wants to deter Taiwan from high-level contacts abroad. Yet he is also trying to improve China’s relations with Western governments, restore economic growth and aid the chances of his favored party in Taiwan’s presidential election in January. An extended military crisis over Taiwan could hurt all three goals, especially the last one.“On the one hand, there’s a desire to signal to Taiwan, to the U.S. and also to Taiwan voters, that efforts to raise Taiwan’s international profile are unacceptable from China’s standpoint,” said Scott L. Kastner, a professor of politics at the University of Maryland. But, he added, “on balance the incentives are for the People’s Republic of China to act with more restraint than usual in the run-up to the election.”China’s ties with Europe, Australia and other Western governments have been damaged by disputes over Covid, Chinese political influence abroad, and Mr. Xi’s ties to Russia. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is in China this week, and he is among the European leaders who Mr. Xi hopes can be coaxed away from Washington’s hard line on China.President Emmanuel Macron of France is welcomed by Chinese Premier Minister Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday in Beijing.Pool photo by Thibault CamusA menacing display by the People’s Liberation Army could also hurt the presidential hopes of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Nationalists, which favors stronger ties with China. Ms. Tsai must step down next year, and a crisis in the Taiwan Strait could help galvanize support for her Democratic Progressive Party and undercut the Nationalists’ case for more cooperation with Beijing.“Beijing will want to visibly register its displeasure, lest its leaders be accused at home of tolerating Taiwan’s efforts to move further away from China,” said Ryan Hass, a former adviser on China policy to President Obama and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “At the same time, Beijing also will want to preserve some headroom for further escalation should future circumstances require.”In Beijing and Taipei, memories linger of 1995, when Lee Teng-hui, then president of Taiwan, gave a speech celebrating Taiwan’s democratic transformation while visiting the United States. China condemned Mr. Lee’s visit and responded with military exercises that resumed in 1996. President Lee soundly won another term that year, despite Beijing’s missiles.President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan delivering a lecture at his alma mater, Cornell University, in 1995. Bob Strong/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2020, Ms. Tsai rebounded from low approval ratings to win a second term after a Beijing-backed crackdown on protests in Hong Kong repulsed voters in Taiwan.“Beijing likely has learned from past experience that whenever it uses tough fire-and-fury rhetoric around Taiwan’s presidential election, usually that invites voter backlash,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist with the Taiwan Studies Program of the Australian National University in Canberra.Still, if Taiwanese voters felt that Ms. Tsai was goading Beijing, that could hurt her standing and her party’s image. Her trip to the United States reflected her careful calculus: She sought to deepen Taiwan’s ties with Washington, while avoiding giving China an excuse for a new round of threatening military exercises.In California, Ms. Tsai thanked the Republican and Democrat lawmakers who attended. “Their presence and unwavering support reassure the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated,” she said, standing next to Mr. McCarthy.Ms. Tsai and Mr. McCarthy at a news conference at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesMany in Taiwan, especially supporters of Ms. Tsai’s government, believe that such meetings are important, despite Beijing’s warnings.“Taiwan is already very alone, and it’s very dangerous if we don’t show we have friends, especially the United States,” said Kao Teng-sheng, a businessman in Chiayi, a city in southern Taiwan, who previously ran a factory in southern China. “If she did not meet McCarthy, that would also be dangerous for Taiwan. It would look like we are panicking.”Taiwan’s presidential race is likely to come down to a contest between the Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te, currently the vice president, and a Nationalist contender, possibly Hou You-yi, the popular mayor of New Taipei City. Beijing would prefer a Nationalist leader in Taipei, and over recent days has been hosting, and feting, Ma Ying-jeou, the previous Nationalist president.“In military threats, China’s attitude won’t soften, but it will also invite those like Ma Ying-jeou to China,” said I-Chung Lai, a former director of the China affairs section of the Democratic Progressive Party and now a senior adviser to the Taiwan Thinktank in Tapei.Beijing’s dismal relations with Washington may also factor into Mr. Xi’s calculations. At a summit in November, he and President Biden tried to rein in tensions over technology bans, military rivalry, human rights, and Chinese support for Russia.U.S. President Biden meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThose efforts stalled in February after the Biden administration revealed that a Chinese surveillance balloon was floating over the United States, and Mr. Xi affirmed his support for Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, during a summit in Moscow, despite the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A new crisis over Taiwan could push the strains between Beijing and Washington to a dangerous limit.Some Taiwanese analysts have said that China may announce some military exercises around Taiwan after Mr. Ma, the visiting former president, returns to Taipei on Friday.Even with Taiwan’s looming election, “if the Chinese Communist Party faces what it believes is a violation of its very core fundamental positions or interests, then it seems it won’t go soft on Taiwan,” said Huang Kwei-Bo, a professor of international relations at the National Chengchi University in Taipei who is a former deputy secretary-general of the Nationalist Party. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Supporter Convicted in 2016 Scheme to Suppress Votes for Clinton

      by

      The federal prosecution of Douglass Mackey turned on the question of when free speech turns into dirty tricks.Months before the 2016 presidential election, people intent on swaying the outcome were communicating in private Twitter groups with names like “War Room” and “Infowars Madman.”The participants included obscure figures and notorious online trolls, many of whom concealed their real identities. There were fans of Donald J. Trump and avowed haters of Hillary Clinton, all working toward a Republican victory while celebrating the “meme magic” they employed to circulate lies and attacks.According to federal prosecutors, one man, Douglass Mackey, crossed a line from political speech to criminal conduct when he posted images to Twitter that resembled campaign ads for Mrs. Clinton and falsely stated that people could vote simply by texting “Hillary” to a certain phone number.On Friday, after just over four days of deliberation, a jury in Brooklyn found Mr. Mackey guilty of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote. He is scheduled to be sentenced in August and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.Mr. Mackey, wearing a gray suit, white shirt and pink tie, was stoic as the verdict was read. His lawyer, Andrew J. Frisch, suggested that his client would appeal.“This case presents an unusual array of appellate issues that are exceptionally strong,” Mr. Frisch said, adding: “I’m confident about the way forward.”Breon Peace, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement that by convicting Mr. Mackey the jury had rejected “his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.”Mr. Mackey posted one image showing a Black woman and a sign reading “African Americans for Hillary” a day after writing on Twitter about limiting turnout among Black voters. Another image, in Spanish, showed a woman looking at her phone.Both images, posted a week before the election, were accompanied by the hashtag #ImWithHer, which was used by the Clinton campaign. Both also included logos that looked like the campaign’s, and fine print saying they had been paid for by “Hillary for President.”Prosecutors said about 5,000 people sent texts to the number shown in the deceptive images.Mr. Mackey, 33, who grew up in Vermont, attended Middlebury College and once lived in Manhattan, testified in his own defense. He said he was in dozens of private online groups before the election but did not pay close attention to everything discussed in them.While testifying, Mr. Mackey said he found the vote-by-text images on an online message board and posted them with little thought. He added that he had not meant to trick anyone but wanted to “see what happens.”“Maybe even the media will pick it up, the Clinton campaign,” he testified, adding that the images might “rile them up, get under their skin, get them off their message that they wanted to push.”Mr. Mackey was seen, according to evidence, as someone who could marshal followers and move the national conversation. He used the pseudonym “Ricky Vaughn,” the name of a character in the movie “Major League.”In early 2016, the Ricky Vaughn account was included on a list of the top 150 election influencers compiled by a research group with the M.I.T. Media Lab, ranking ahead of NBC News, Drudge Report and Glenn Beck.As Mr. Mackey’s trial approached, people sympathetic to him claimed that he was being prosecuted unfairly. The defense sought to have his case dismissed, saying that the voting memes were protected by the First Amendment. But a judge denied that request, writing that the case was about conspiracy and injury, not speech.The star prosecution witness, a Twitter user known as Microchip, helped direct online attacks against Mrs. Clinton in 2016, but began cooperating with the F.B.I. two years later. He testified that the private groups that he and Mr. Mackey took part in had the goal of “destroying Hillary Clinton.”Communications from the groups provided a glimpse into a shadowy world of crass motives and dirty tricks in which anti-Clinton activists developed propaganda, spread falsehoods and exulted in their impact.Evidence showed that participants had shared memes about voting by social media, tried to figure out what font a Clinton ad used and circulated hashtags. One, #DraftOurDaughters, was posted on Twitter along with images suggesting that Mrs. Clinton would start wars and conscript women to fight them. Mr. Mackey advanced another, #NeverVote, that he wrote was meant to be spread in “Black social spaces.”During the trial, Mr. Frisch described his client’s posts as part of a rambunctious online discourse.“Speech regulates itself,” Mr. Frisch told jurors in his summation. “These memes were a bad idea and the marketplace of ideas killed them almost immediately.”Prosecutors countered that the false-voting images were part of an orchestrated effort to affect the election through deceit, adding that criminal activity cannot hide behind the First Amendment.“You can’t use speech to trick people out of their sacred right to vote,” one prosecutor, William J. Gullotta, told jurors.Prosecutors drew upon statements by Mr. Mackey, who wrote that the 2016 election was on “a knife’s edge,” to argue that he had tried to help Mr. Trump by suppressing votes.“Trump should write off the Black vote,” Mr. Mackey wrote at one point. “And just focus on depressing their turnout.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      With Judicial Overhaul Paused, U.S. Softens Tone on Netanyahu

      by

      News that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be welcomed in Washington came a day after the Israeli leader delayed plans to limit the power of the courts and signaled a calmer atmosphere.In a sign of easing tensions in Israel after the suspension of a contentious judicial overhaul, the United States ambassador to Israel said on Tuesday that President Biden would host the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington in the coming months, but did not specify a date.The possibility of such a meeting, long coveted by Mr. Netanyahu, came after other shifts in tone overnight from the Biden administration, as Washington signaled its support for Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to delay the divisive judicial plan.But the news did not suggest a complete reset after weeks of fraught relations: The ambassador, Thomas R. Nides, said that no date had been fixed for any meeting, leaving open the possibility that it could be delayed if Mr. Netanyahu pushed ahead with the plan after a delay.The news was nevertheless one of several signs on Tuesday that emotions were calming across Israel after concerns over the judicial overhaul had set off civil unrest on a scale rarely seen in the country and had exacerbated tensions with the Biden administration.After Mr. Netanyahu’s reversal, the country’s leading union called off a general strike, hospitals resumed full services after reducing them in protest on Monday, and the main airport began to allow outbound flights again after putting them on hold a day earlier.But suspicion and disappointment on both sides remained. Protesters feared that the government would resume the overhaul after only a superficial delay, and some demonstrations were still scheduled for Tuesday. And some government supporters complained that their views and goals had been crushed despite right-wing parties’ winning a majority in an election last November.The comments from Mr. Nides came the morning after Mr. Netanyahu made a last-minute decision to delay the overhaul. Opponents to the government plan had begun a general strike that shut down large parts of the Israeli economy, shuttering universities and schools, stopping outgoing flights, and pausing nonurgent medical services.Protesters in Jerusalem rallying against the proposed judicial overhaul on Monday. Israel had been gripped by turmoil in recent days as mass demonstrations and strikes swept across the country.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesThe Biden administration had avoided extending an invitation to Mr. Netanyahu in recent weeks as officials in Washington grew increasingly concerned about the pace of the judicial overhaul, its effect on Israeli social cohesion and its consequences for Israeli democracy — as well as about the Netanyahu government’s policies in the occupied West Bank.“There’s no question that the prime minister will come and see President Biden,” Mr. Nides said in an interview on Tuesday morning on Israeli radio.“He obviously will be coming,” Mr. Nides said, adding, “I assume after Passover.” The Jewish festival of Passover ends on April 13.Reached by phone, Mr. Nides said that no fixed date had been set for the visit. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not issue a response.Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to delay the judicial overhaul, days before its enactment, led to the postponement of several further protests this week. Opponents of the overhaul still fear he could reinstate it later in the year and say they will not hesitate to organize further demonstrations if he reverses course again. Opposition lawmakers accused the government of playing a double game by delaying the legislation while also taking procedural measures that would make it swifter to vote on the package in Parliament in the future. The coalition said that was simply a technical move.More generally among the opposition, there was a sense of relief.“This morning, we are allowed to rejoice a little,” Nadav Eyal, a columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, a major centrist broadsheet, wrote on Tuesday morning. “Israeli democracy may die one day,” he added. “But it will not happen this week, nor this month, nor this spring.”Nonetheless, many in the opposition remain worried that the overhaul has been delayed but not scrapped entirely. There were also fears about Mr. Netanyahu’s promise to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister for national security, that he would consider creating a national guard under Mr. Ben-Gvir’s control.Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli minister for national security, in Jerusalem on Monday night.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesCritics warned that if Mr. Netanyahu followed through on that proposal, made after Mr. Ben-Gvir agreed to remain in the government despite the delay to the overhaul, it would effectively place a paramilitary body under the control of a man convicted of racist incitement and support for a terrorist group.In a statement, Mr. Ben-Gvir said that the body — which has yet to be created — would prevent rioting and “strengthen security and governance in the country.”There was also uncertainty about the future of Yoav Gallant, the defense minister fired by Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday night after Mr. Gallant called for a halt to the overhaul.Mr. Gallant’s dismissal has not formally taken effect, and Israeli commentators speculated that Mr. Netanyahu may yet allow him to keep his job.Among government supporters, there were feelings of uncertainty, disappointment and resentment at Mr. Netanyahu’s inability to push through the legislation, even though right-wing parties had won a majority in Parliament in the general election in November.“At school they told me that Israel is a democracy,” Evyatar Cohen, a commentator for Srugim, a right-wing news outlet, wrote. “They said that as soon as I reach the age of 18 I can go to the polls and influence the future of the country, its character and goals.”Government supporters organized small protests overnight, with some attacking journalists and an Arab taxi driver, and chanting against Arabs. Some formed a roadblock in northern Israel, stopping drivers from an area associated with the centrist opposition.Gabby Sobelman More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Your Thursday Briefing: U.S. Raises Interest Rates

      by

      Also, China and Russia grow closer and the U.S. waits for news of a possible Donald Trump indictment.Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, signaled that officials were still focused on fighting inflation. T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesThe Fed raises rates amid turmoilThe U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter-point as officials tried to balance the risk of runaway inflation with the threat of turmoil in the banking system.The decision was one of the most closely watched in years, and the conflicting forces had left investors and economists guessing what central bankers would do. The Fed raised rates to a range of 4.75 to 5 percent — matching last month’s increase in size — and the central bank projected one more rate increase in 2023 to 5.1 percent. Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, said that officials “considered” pausing interest rates because of the banking problems but noted that the economic data had been strong. He added that the American banking system was “sound and resilient.”He also called Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed earlier this month, an “outlier,” trying to cast its problems as unique. He said it was not a reason to panic about the banking system, even as he acknowledged the need for better supervision and regulation.Context: This is the ninth rate increase in a year. The Fed has been rapidly raising its interest rate since March 2022, making borrowing money more expensive in hopes of cooling inflation.Markets: Wall Street stocks dropped as investors balked at the Fed’s decision.Journalists waited for updates outside of the criminal court in Manhattan.Anna Watts for The New York TimesAwaiting a Trump indictmentAmericans are awaiting news of a possible indictment of Donald Trump, which could come as early as today. Criminal charges against the former president have been hotly anticipated since at least Saturday, when Trump, with no direct knowledge, declared that he would be arrested on Tuesday.The grand jury in the case against Trump did not meet yesterday as expected, and it may still hear from another witness before being asked to vote on an indictment. Prosecutors have signaled that criminal charges against the former president are likely. The prospect that Trump, who is running for re-election, could face criminal charges is extraordinary. No sitting or former American president has ever been indicted. This case, which hinges on an untested legal theory, is just one of several criminal investigations he faces.Case details: The charges most likely center on how Trump handled reimbursing a lawyer for a hush-money payment of $130,000 to the porn star Stormy Daniels during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the payout was a federal crime because it was done by falsifying business records. It could also be considered an improper donation to Trump’s campaign — a violation of election law.Trump’s response: Trump has referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt” against him. Those who have spent time with Trump in recent days say he has often appeared significantly disconnected from the severity of his potential legal woes.What’s next: The timing of any potential indictment is unknown, and an arrest would not immediately follow. If Trump were convicted of a felony, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, but prison time would not be mandatory.President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin used the pomp of the visit to celebrate their close ties.Vladimir Astapkovich/SputnikChina-Russia versus the U.S.China’s leader, Xi Jinping, wrapped up a three-day summit in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin that showed the two superpowers aligned in countering American dominance and a Western-led world order.The summit demonstrated that Xi remains focused on shoring up ties with Moscow to gird against what he sees as a long U.S. “containment” effort to block China’s rise. The leaders laid out their vision for the world in a joint statement that covered an array of topics, including Taiwan and climate change — and often depicted the U.S. as the obstacle to a better, fairer world. They also endorsed an expanded role for China’s currency, the renminbi, a step that would tie Russia’s economy closer to China’s. A broader use of the currency among China’s allies, including in Iran and North Korea, could make it easier to conduct transactions without worrying about sanctions linked to the dollar.Ukraine: The two leaders did not reveal any progress toward achieving peace in Ukraine. Leadership: The two declared their admiration for each other’s authoritarian rule. Xi even endorsed Putin for another term. THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificRhona Wise/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJapan beat the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic, 3-2. See the final moment.China approved its first Covid vaccine that uses mRNA — a technology considered among the most effective the world has to offer.A report analyzing a swab from Wuhan strengthens the case that illegally traded wild animals ignited the coronavirus pandemic.Around the WorldUgandan legislators debated the bill this week.Abubaker Lubowa/ReutersUganda passed a strict anti-gay bill that can bring punishments as severe as the death penalty and that calls for life in prison for anyone engaging in gay sex. Facing a hearing that could curtail his political career, Britain’s former prime minister Boris Johnson denied lying to Parliament about parties held at Downing Street during lockdowns.TikTok’s C.E.O. will testify before U.S. lawmakers today, as tensions over the Chinese-owned app come to a head.Analysts and residents say gangs have taken over most of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.The War in Ukraine The I.M.F. agreed to a $15.6 billion loan for Ukraine.President Volodymyr Zelensky visited troops on the frontline near Bakhmut.The Russian authorities in occupied Crimea reported a second day of drone attacks.A Morning ReadRenovations to a stained glass window in the Qibli Mosque inside the Aqsa compound.Afif Amireh for The New York TimesThe artisans who maintain the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem — known to Jews as the Temple Mount — are struggling to keep up with repairs after clashes. They are also bracing for more unrest: Ramadan is starting and Passover is just a few weeks away, raising worries that the larger numbers of visitors to the contested site will increase the possibility of clashes.“This takes months to finish, and in one minute, in one kick, all this hard work goes,” said one man who works in stained glass.SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAHeavy winds damaged a road that connects two cities in Malawi.Thoko Chikondi/Associated PressA record-setting stormAs southeast Africa begins to recover from Cyclone Freddy, scientists are taking a closer look at whether the storm could be a sign of things to come on a warming planet.Cyclone Freddy lashed three countries, hitting Madagascar and Mozambique twice. When it moved inland last week, heavy rain and mudslides devastated Malawi, killing 438 people. The storm was remarkable for a couple of reasons. One is longevity. It lasted 36 days, by one measure, and underwent rapid intensification cycles at least seven times, quickly waning and then intensifying. Freddy is now the longest-lasting tropical cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere, and experts from the World Meteorological Organization are working to determine whether it is the longest-lasting storm in history.Freddy was also remarkable for its range. The storm traveled more than 4,000 miles from the northern coast of Australia to the southeast coast of Africa.Understanding the links between climate change and individual storms requires complex research, but scientists know in general that global warming is leading to bigger, wetter storms.“A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, who studies tropical cyclones at the World Meteorological Organization. “We expect that tropical cyclones will bring more intense rainfall.” — Lynsey Chutel, a Briefings writer in Johannesburg PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York TimesA recipe for Ramadan: Qatayef asafiri, sweet stuffed pancakes drizzled with syrup.What to Read“Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs” by Kerry Howley explores how the erosion of privacy has fueled conspiracy theories and the national security state.What to WatchOur selection of five science fiction films includes a trippy Japanese time-loop and an Italian remake of the 2021 Australian film “Long Story Short.”Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Exchange (four 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. Our visual journalists won 34 awards in the Pictures of the Year International Awards.“The Daily” is on the roots of the banking crisis.We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to briefing@nytimes.com. More