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      Elisabeth Kopp, Swiss Politician Who Made History, Dies at 86

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      In 1984 she became the first woman elected to the country’s governing council, but a scandal prevented her from being the first woman to serve as president.Elisabeth Kopp, who in 1984 overcame accusations involving her husband to become the first woman elected to Switzerland’s governing Federal Council — but who could not overcome another scandal a few years later, also related to her husband, and resigned when she had seemed likely to be the country’s first female president — died on April 7 in Zumikon, southeast of Zurich. She was 86.Her death was announced on April 14 by the federal chancellery, The Associated Press reported. The cause was not specified.Mrs. Kopp had been mayor of Zumikon for a decade and had served two terms in Parliament when a retirement opened up a seat on the seven-member Federal Council, which runs the main government departments and whose members take turns serving a one-year term as the country’s president.Mrs. Kopp was one of the more left-leaning members of the conservative Radical Democratic Party, known for her work on environmental issues as well as for advancing women’s causes, and polls showed her to be popular. But the effort to elevate her to the council prompted her political enemies to stir up dirt on her husband, Hans Kopp, a lawyer.The attacks riled Mrs. Kopp’s supporters.“Swiss feminists and liberal politicians have reacted with indignation to press reports that the husband of Switzerland’s first woman candidate for the country’s highest political office was suspended from legal practice for six months in 1972 after charges that he spanked secretaries in his firm,” The Guardian reported in 1984.“In 1971,” the newspaper continued, “a lawyer in Mr. Kopp’s firm said that Mr. Kopp had punished misdemeanors in the office by wielding a bamboo cane on bare bottoms.”His right to practice law was suspended for six months by a Zurich lawyers watchdog commission. But the mudslinging backfired: In early October 1984, Mrs. Kopp won election to the council anyway, with Parliament voting 124 to 95 to select her over a male candidate, Bruno Hunziker. Commentators at the time said that the attempts to undermine Mrs. Kopp’s candidacy probably only strengthened it.Her election was an important moment in the push for women’s equality in Switzerland, a country that had lagged behind most of Europe in that area; women did not gain the right to vote in federal elections there until 1971.Mrs. Kopp was the first woman to serve in the seven-member cabinet. She told The A.P. at the time that her election was a sign that “equality of the sexes is taken seriously now.”But, she said, being a woman in the largely male universe of politics — only about a tenth of the members of Parliament were women at the time — meant extra challenges.“In politics, women must do better than men if they want to succeed,” she said.Mrs. Kopp in 2010. She had been one of the more left-leaning members of the conservative Radical Democratic Party, known for her work on environmental issues as well as for advancing women’s causes.Gaetan Bally/Keystone, via Associated PressEach council member heads a federal department, and during her tenure Mrs. Kopp’s titles included justice minister and interior minister. In 1988, it was her turn to rotate into the vice presidency, and she was duly elected by Parliament late that year. But she never took the post, because of another scandal related to her husband.Reports came to light that Mrs. Kopp, who was minister of justice at the time, had recently tipped off her husband that a company he was involved with was the focus of a money-laundering investigation and urged him to cut his ties, which he did. She at first denied any impropriety — “I wouldn’t like one to think that I could have committed or tolerated wrongdoing,” she said at the time — but she resigned from the council because of what she called “unbearable pressure.”She eventually acknowledged providing information to her husband, and in 1989 she was indicted on charges of violating official secrecy laws. During her trial in February 1990, admirers applauded her as she left the courthouse each day. A Supreme Court jury acquitted her. Had she not resigned, she would have become president that same year.Elisabeth Ikle was born on Dec. 16, 1936, in Zurich to Max and Beatrix Ikle. Her father was a director general of the Swiss National Bank, and her mother helped establish a nursery school.Mrs. Kopp was a skilled figure skater in her youth. She studied law at Zurich University and graduated with honors. She met Mr. Kopp while doing volunteer work on behalf of Hungarians who fled to Switzerland in 1956 after the Soviet Union crushed a popular uprising in Hungary.As interior minister, Mrs. Kopp was often the government’s public voice on immigration — a contentious issue in Switzerland, especially as people from countries like Sri Lanka sought to come there. She was seen by some as taking an anti-immigrant stance, although she said her concern was about “false” asylum seekers — people seeking to move for economic reasons rather than because of political persecution.“This leads to an increase in xenophobia,” she said in 1987, “which makes it harder for us to fulfill our human obligations.”After her political career, Mrs. Kopp did postgraduate studies in European law and human rights law and worked at her husband’s law firm. Mr. Kopp died in 2009. Information about Mrs. Kopp’s survivors was not immediately available.The first woman to serve as Switzerland’s president, Ruth Dreifuss, was elected in December 1998. More

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      Looking Back at Her World War II Secret

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      Ruth Mirsky, who turns 100 today, was a code breaker in the U.S. Navy. “It was very hush-hush,” she remembered.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll meet a World War II code breaker who turns 100 today. We’ll also look at a filing by Representative George Santos that suggests he is already considering running for another term in Congress.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesSomewhere in Rockaway Park, N.Y., is a World War II code breaker who is finally talking.Ruth Mirsky, who turns 100 today, did not say much about breaking codes. She gave almost nothing away, saying things like “it was top-secret work” and “I had a very small part in it.” And “we worked in shifts. We worked around the clock — daytime, nighttime.” Not a word about encryption machines or eureka moments deciphering enemy messages long ago.Mirsky’s birthday comes 80 years after she enlisted in the Navy and became a WAVE, the acronym for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services. She was promptly sent to Washington, where she became one of several thousand women scrambling to unscramble messages intercepted from the Japanese and German military.She worked in the library unit at what became known as the Naval Annex, typing incoming messages on file cards, categorizing them and noting repetitions — recurring letters or phrases that might have been potential clues to encryption. Others have said it was mind-numbing duty, an excruciating search for patterns and ciphers among monotonous columns of numbers and letters, but Mirsky still sounded fascinated.“It was a whole new thing,” she said. “For me it was, anyway.”Their diligence paid off. “Together, this group of Navy women broke and rebroke the fleet code” and “helped keep track of the movements of the Imperial Japanese Navy,” the author Liza Mundy wrote in her book “Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II.The women were instructed not to talk about their secret wartime lives — “it was very hush-hush,” Mirsky told me. When she visited her former boss in New York, she recalled, “he asked me, ‘What are you doing there? The F.B.I. was asking all kinds of questions to find out what kind of a person you were.’”She added: “I couldn’t even tell my fiancé.”We’ll get to him in a moment. Mirsky worked in an installation in Washington that was just off Ward Circle, “which taxi drivers started calling WAVES Circle,” Mundy wrote.Around the time Mirsky arrived in 1943, that installation was a base of operations for 1,500 women, along with just over 900 male officers and enlisted men, according to Mundy, who wrote that by early the next year, there were almost twice as many women and far fewer men. But, in what the writer Meryl Gordon called a “pre-Betty Friedan moment in American life when institutional discrimination was the norm,” the Navy’s pay scale favored the men.Mirsky did not mention that last week. She talked about two brothers, David, whom she had been dating, and Harry, who had been stationed in South Dakota as a radar specialist. “Harry came to see his brother before David’s unit went overseas,” she said. Harry had been injured when he was thrown from a jeep; at one point he had been in a body cast. With David off to the front lines, “Harry asked me if he could write to me from South Dakota, so that’s how it started,” she said.About six months later, Harry’s unit was transferred to Fort Dix, in New Jersey. He remained stateside when the unit went overseas because of the accident. He managed to go to Washington regularly — once without a pass, for which he was punished when he returned to Fort Dix, she said.You can guess what happened. Harry became the fiancé, then the husband. They were married for 39 years, until his death in 1984.She is a regular at a JASA Older Adult Center not far from her apartment center. It organized a birthday party last week, a few days early. “You can’t put 100 candles on a cake,” Mirsky told me, but she blew out 10 or so on the strawberry shortcake that was served. Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato, who represents the area, brought a proclamation and tweeted photos.“I’ve had a happy life,” Mirsky told me. “I feel I’ve done what I wanted, actually.” She mentioned her two children, Stuart Mirsky and Debra Aluisio, who had joined her at the JASA center. She mentioned her five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She double-checked those numbers with her son, counting as they named the names.She talked about playing Scrabble — on an iPad.“It’s a good thing for my mind, I guess,” she said.“Very similar to the codes,” said Aluisio.WeatherIt’s a cloudy, windy day near the mid-40s. The evening is breezy and mostly clear, with temps around the mid-30s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until April 6 (Passover).The latest Metro newsJefferson Siegel for The New York TimesJail supervisor convicted: A jail supervisor who walked away from an inmate after he had hanged himself was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, capping a trial that pointed to the brutal conditions inside New York City’s jails and the persistence of inmate suicides.A city councilman’s apartment hunt: Chi Ossé became the youngest member of the New York City Council when he was sworn in 14 months ago. Now, he faces a challenge: finding an apartment in his district. He called the search “tiring, treacherous, and competitive.”A police department’s troubled history: Najee Seabrooks was shot and killed by police officers in Paterson, N.J., after calling 911 to report that he was experiencing a mental health crisis. A coalition of groups requested a Justice Department inquiry into what it called “widespread unlawful and unconstitutional conduct” by the Paterson police.Santos signals he might run againJonathan Ernst/ReutersLittle more than two months after he assumed office, George Santos signaled that he might want a second term.Santos, the embattled Republican from Long Island who is under scrutiny for lies about his background and questions about his finances, submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission suggesting that he may run for re-election in 2024.My colleague Michael Gold writes that the filing does not necessarily mean that Santos will run, but it does allow him to continue to raise money and spend it on campaign-related expenses, including paying back roughly $700,000 that he lent to his campaign last year.He can also use money he raises for any potential legal fees involving some of the investigations he is facing. Federal prosecutors have been examining his campaign finances and personal business dealings, and last month the House Ethics Committee opened its own inquiry.After The New York Times reported that Santos had lied about graduating from college, working for prestigious Wall Street firms and managing an extensive real estate portfolio, Santos acknowledged that he fabricated parts of his résumé and his biography.But he has denied criminal wrongdoing and has resisted calls to resign, even as some Republicans questioned whether he could serve constituents. Republican officials in Nassau County have said they would avoid taking constituent problems to his office whenever they could. Ten House Republicans have called on Santos to resign, and a poll in January by Siena College found that 78 percent of the voters in his district wanted him to give up his seat, including 71 percent of the Republicans who were questioned.METROPOLITAN diaryClocking inDear Diary:When I was in my early 20s, I worked at a cafe in Park Slope. I used to walk to work in the darkness at 4:30 a.m., lacing up my black sneakers in my Clinton Hill apartment and schlepping past halal trucks on my way as they set up for the day.I always bought a grapefruit from the bodega across the street before starting my shift. The man at the counter would greet me with a wide smile, its warmth washing away the tired feelings left over from the morning trek.Clocking out? I’d ask.Yes, he would say. Clocking in?Yes, I’d say.And then each day, like a mantra, he would singsong to me: “You are beginning your day … and I am ending mine!”— Annabelle LewisIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      The Woman Shaking Up Italian Politics (No, Not the New Prime Minister)

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      Daughter of Italian and Jewish American parents, Elly Schlein wants to remake the center-left opposition to Giorgia Meloni, if only her party can survive it.ROME — Growing up in Switzerland, Elly Schlein felt a little lost.“I was the black sheep. Because my brother and sister seemed to be more sure of what they would do,” the politician recalled. She watched Italian neorealist cinema and American comedies, played Philip Glass on the piano, pet her dwarf bunny named after Freddie Mercury, listened to the Cranberries and ultimately got involved in her school’s politics. “It took a lot more time for me to find my way,” she said.Last weekend, Ms. Schlein, 37, found her way into the center of the debate about the future of the European left when she stunned the liberal establishment and reordered Italy’s political landscape by winning a primary election to become the first woman to lead the country’s center-left Democratic Party. She is promising, she said in her new office headquarters on Wednesday, to “change deeply” a party in the midst of an identity crisis.It is hard to embody change in Italy more than Ms. Schlein.A woman in a relationship with a woman, she is the daughter of a Jewish American father; granddaughter of an Italian antifascist partisan; proud native of Lugano, Switzerland; former volunteer for Barack Obama; collaborator on an award-winning documentary about Albanian refugees; fan of “Naked Gun” movies; shredder of Green Day chords on her electric guitar; and fervent progressive eager to make common international cause with “A.O.C.,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.With her election, Ms. Schlein has catapulted Italy, which long seemed a Country for Old Men, into markedly different territory. A female opposition leader now is pitted against the first female prime minister, the right-wing nationalist Giorgia Meloni.Ms. Schlein grew up in Lugano, Switzerland, and described herself as the “black sheep” of her family. Andrea Wyner for The New York Times“It’s a different scenario now,” said Ms. Schlein, who had the professorial air of her professor parents as she leafed through newspapers. “And an interesting one, because I’ve always said that we don’t need just a female leadership. We need a feminist leadership.”The two women could hardly be more different. Ms. Meloni, who called Ms. Schlein to congratulate her, was raised by a single mother in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, was a youth activist in post-Fascist parties and came to prominence on an anti-migrant, Italy-first platform. Her battle cry: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m a Christian!”Explore The Times’s Saturday ProfilesThey are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.Going Gray: The prominent news anchor Lisa LaFlamme was unceremoniously dismissed not long after she stopped dyeing her hair — setting off debates across Canada.Reclaiming His Voice: While on a rescue mission in Ukraine, an aspiring opera singer was shot in the lungs. His recovery is a marvel of medicine, chance and his own spirit.A Marxist Mayor: A Communist politician in Graz, Austria, wants to redistribute wealth. A focus on housing, her own modest lifestyle and a hard childhood have helped her popularity.Cleaning Up Senegal: Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. His goal? Ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags.Princess Rita: A Texas rancher’s daughter landed a dream role as a Roman princess. A battle over the estate of her late husband has soured the reality.Ms. Schlein — who has Italian, Swiss and American passports — said she didn’t understand how being “a woman, a mother and a Christian helps Italians to pay their bills.” She added: “I am a woman. I love another woman. I am not a mother, but I am not less of a woman for this.”She argued that Ms. Meloni represented an ideology that viewed women merely for their reproductive and child-rearing roles. Ms. Meloni has “never described herself as an antifascist,” Ms. Schlein said, arguing that she instead threw red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies making it harder to save migrants at sea.Such liberal red meat is likely to sate the base of progressives and young voters that Ms. Schlein brought into the Democratic Party fold in last Sunday’s primary. But it did little for the left in the election Ms. Meloni won easily in September. Ms. Schlein’s party now has about half the support of Ms. Meloni’s.Moderate critics within Ms. Schlein’s own deeply divided party fear that she will fold its big tent by forfeiting the political center, driving the party to the far left, gutting it of its reputation for sober competence, and blending it with — or feeding it to — the reinvigorated, populist Five Star Movement.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni at a rally in September, in Rome. Ms. Schlein has criticized the prime minister for hurling red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies on migrants.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesBut Ms. Schlein is not convinced that denizens of an Italian middle even exist. “Where are they today?” she asked in her perfect English, noting that “when somebody had tried to represent them with new political options, it never went really well.” Instead, she saw the way forward as making “clear who we want to represent” — struggling Italians.She said she would spread “environmentalist and feminist” solutions to endemic Italian problems such as female unemployment and inequality in “clearly a patriarchal country.” She would make amends for “the mistakes made in the past,” especially during the leadership of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which led her to quit the Democratic Party nearly a decade ago.She would reintroduce labor protections, tax the rich, reconnect with trade unions, invest in a greener economy and push for gay and immigrant rights. This week, she visited the site of a deadly shipwreck of migrants in Calabria and effectively interrogated Ms. Meloni’s interior minister for appearing to blame the victims.“Rights, civil rights and social rights, for us are strictly interconnected,” she said in the interview, adding, “The left lost in the moment it became shy on these issues.”One major change on her agenda is to put her party in a position to win elections by making alliances with partners who agreed on critical progressive issues, such as the support of a universal income.“Five Star, of course,” she said. “They have a lot of support.”But Giuseppe Conte, the leader of Five Star, which has demonstrated a strong illiberal streak over recent years, was the prime minister who signed off on the crackdown of migrant rescue ships at sea. He has emerged as Italy’s main opponent to Ms. Meloni’s vow to keep sending weapons to Ukraine.Ms. Schlein with her assistant in her temporary office at the party headquarters in Rome.Massimo Berruti for The New York TimesFive Star’s position on Ukraine, Ms. Schlein said, “I don’t agree on.” She described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia and noted it had voted to send arms over the next year, because “it’s necessary now.”Supporters of Ukraine, however, worry about Ms. Schlein’s ongoing commitment because of her talk of being a “pacifist” and what some consider her naïve argument that Europe somehow needed to convince China to force Russia to end the war.But she said she feels a personal connection to Ukraine. Her grandfather was from Ukraine, she said, and after he emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Elizabeth, N.J., his family back home was almost certainly wiped out in the Holocaust. Her Italian grandfather, who eventually became a Socialist lawmaker, refused to wear the “black shirts of the Fascists” during his graduation and “was an antifascist lawyer” who, she said, would “defend Jews in trials.”That family history has made her keenly sensitive to “what nationalism has brought to the European continent,” she said, adding, with a reference to the Russian president, “This war is a nationalist war from Putin.”Ms. Schlein was herself not raised Jewish, though she called herself “particularly proud” of her Jewish ancestry. In a friendly interview during the campaign, she told an Italian website that her last name and pronounced nose, what she considers her defining physical feature, attracted odious anti-Semitic attacks. But, she noted, the nose was not Jewish, but “typically Etruscan.”The Colosseum lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in Rome, in February. Ms. Schlein described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressAsked about that comment, Ms. Schlein’s verbosity stalled. “I wouldn’t go back to that,” she said. “No, thanks.” When pressed on what an Etruscan nose looked like, she threw her hands up and acknowledged, “They don’t even exist!”The point, she said, was that she learned that being a “woman,” and “an L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ person” and “very proudly the daughter of a Jewish father” made her a prime target “from the extreme right or also from my extreme left sometimes.” Ms. Schlein declined in the interview to discuss her family or her partner in further detail.Ms. Schlein said addressing such injustices drew her into politics. A star pupil in her Lugano high school, she said, she wanted to take her talents to Italy, “because I’ve always felt that this country, the country of my mother, has strong potential that only needs to be freed.”She went to art school in Bologna. Then she dropped film for law and went from campus politics to the real thing — making powerful friends, gaining fluency in social media and doing stints in the European and Italian Parliaments along the way. When she quit the Democratic Party to protest the loss of its liberal way, she supported a movement to “occupy” the party.Now she occupies the leadership headquarters near the Spanish Steps, and after a short walk toward Ms. Meloni’s palace, Ms. Schlein, the progressive no one saw coming, entertained taking that place over, too.“Well,” she said. “We’ll see.” More

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      Biden vs. Putin Over the War in Ukraine

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      More from our inbox:Promoting Known Lies at Fox NewsDon Lemon’s Comment About WomenMake Election Day a HolidayA Gap in U.S.-Philippine History Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesDmitry Astakhov/Sputnik, via ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Putin Pulls Back From Nuclear Arms Treaty, Signaling Sharper Break With West” (nytimes.com, Feb. 21):In a major speech to the Russian people on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin said Russia was suspending its participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. Under this key treaty, both the U.S. and Russia are permitted to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites.Mr. Putin’s threat is an apparent attempt to scare the U.S. into reducing or suspending our arms and monetary support to Ukraine. He knows that his huge nuclear arsenal cannot be unleashed without provoking a potential nuclear Armageddon that could ultimately destroy Russia and end his regime.Nevertheless, he has long tried to use his nuclear cache as a “sword of Damocles,” to dissuade the U.S. from providing Ukraine with arms that could be used to inflict damage directly upon the Russian homeland.Mr. Putin’s bombast will not deter President Biden. As the president’s dramatic visit to Kyiv on Monday demonstrated so vividly and so powerfully, he stands unequivocally with Ukraine, and his personal support and commitment to Ukraine remain undiminished. The American people’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause may not be quite as robust, and that is why the president’s visit is so symbolically important to help boost our national resolve to stay the course.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.To the Editor:Re “Long, Risky Night for Biden on Way to a Besieged Kyiv” (front page, Feb. 21):The best form of leadership is that of leading by example. President Biden’s visit to Kyiv was both an act of courage and an action that spoke more loudly and eloquently than any speech could have about the United States’ support for Ukraine.Charles R. Cronin Jr.Hempstead, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “The U.S. Can’t Go ‘Wobbly’ on Ukraine,” by David French (column, Feb. 20):I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. French’s statement: “On the war’s anniversary it’s time for a concerted effort to persuade Americans of a single idea: We should support Ukraine as much as it takes, as long as it takes, until the Russian military suffers a decisive, unmistakable defeat.”Mr. French lays out all the arguments for staying the course. The similarities between this conflict and the beginning of World War II are too obvious to ignore.The megalomaniac Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to wreak the havoc that his blood brother Hitler unleashed. To withdraw support now would be an incredible mistake that would lead to even more bloodshed. Remember Neville Chamberlain.Bill GottdenkerMountainside, N.J.To the Editor:David French and the rest of us need to stare one fact in the face: As long as Russia has nuclear weapons available for use (even starting small), we cannot “win” the war in Ukraine. We used them; why do we think that the Kremlin would not?Mr. French believes that it is an empty threat: Nuclear powers “rattle the nuclear saber to deter an effective response.”How myopic can we be, especially when pushing the line that Vladimir Putin is a madman? If we can’t think straight, why do we think Mr. Putin can?Tom RoeperAmherst, Mass.Promoting Known Lies at Fox NewsTo the Editor:Re “Fox Stars Voiced Voter Fraud Doubts” (Business, Feb. 17):Internal Fox News text messages showing that Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, urged on by Fox management, continued to promote known lies about the election in order to compete with Newsmax and protect profits shows these individuals and their network for what they are. A greedy and despicable operation that is willing to lie to its gullible audience to make money, knowing full well that the lies were fanning the flames of insurrection, violence and distrust of American democracy.The advertisers who continue to support them are not worthy of our business.David S. ElkindGreenwich, Conn.Don Lemon’s Comment About Women Mike Coppola/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “CNN Anchor Is Rebuked for Remarks on Women” (Business, Feb. 18):Don Lemon, CNN’s morning-show anchor, has been widely criticized for his assertion that Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate, “isn’t in her prime.”When challenged by his female co-anchors, he replied: “I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it.”So I did. The first hit says “in your prime” is an idiom that means “in the best, most successful, most productive stage,” so clearly Nikki Haley is in fact in her prime.There continues to be rampant discrimination against women in the workplace not only with respect to compensation, but also with respect to appearance.“Lookism” — the importance of appearing youthful — hurts women far more than men. In an AARP poll, nearly two-thirds of women age 50 and older report age discrimination.Mr. Lemon’s comments underscore the need for continued workplace training on implicit bias, with the goal of promoting a culture of meritocracy. Effective leadership comes from people of all ages, all genders and all races.Kathleen McCartneyNorthampton, Mass.The writer is the president of Smith College.Make Election Day a Holiday David Zalubowski/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Washington Would Hate Presidents’ Day,” by Alexis Coe (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 20):Ms. Coe’s persuasive criticism of Presidents’ Day provides an additional argument for a vital reform. Subtract Presidents’ Day from the list of federal holidays and add Election Day — perhaps restyled as Democracy Day.Many other countries make national elections a holiday from work obligations, thus significantly expanding citizen participation in voting. Let’s do the same here.Now placed close to Election Day, Veterans Day could be moved to February to balance the calendar, preserving a good reason for a holiday break in February, while giving citizens a federal holiday to vote in November without adding yet another holiday to the calendar.George Washington would likely smile from Mount Rushmore at the change. After all, he was a veteran too!Eric W. OrtsPhiladelphiaThe writer is a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.A Gap in U.S.-Philippine HistoryFerdinand Marcos Sr. and President Richard Nixon in 1969 in Manila.Bettmann/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Curse of the Philippines’ Geography,” by Gina Apostol (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 8), responding to the news that the U.S. military would expand its presence in that country:I totally understand where Ms. Apostol’s opinion piece comes from. I remember how the U.S. (particularly under Richard Nixon) looked the other way regarding Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s authoritarian rule. But she does not readily acknowledge the other side of the coin regarding U.S. behavior toward the Philippines.During World War II, many U.S. servicemen lost their lives trying to remove the occupation of the Japanese military from their islands.I believe that U.S. foreign policy under President Biden is correct and necessary in trying to push aside China’s influence in Asia. And his interest in doing so can hardly be called an occupation. It is called mutual self-interest.Paula TwillingEvanston, Ill. More

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      Haley Walks Treacherous Road for G.O.P. Women

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      EXETER, N.H. — According to Nikki Haley, bullies are best subdued by a counter kick — in heels. Achieving a new vision for the country requires the leadership of a “tough-as-nails woman.” And generational change starts with putting a “badass woman in the White House.”In ways both overt and subtle, Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, is setting up her 2024 presidential bid as the latest test of the Republican Party’s attitudes about female leaders. No woman has ever won a state Republican presidential primary, let alone the party’s nomination — and Ms. Haley is the first one to mount a bid since former President Donald J. Trump, who regularly attacked women in extraordinarily graphic and vulgar terms, rose to the head of the party.The early days of Ms. Haley’s campaign, which she announced on Tuesday, quickly illustrated the challenges facing Republican women. For decades, female leaders in both parties have struggled with what political scientists call the double bind — the difficulty of proving one’s strength and competence, while meeting voters’ expectations of warmth, or of being “likable enough,” as former President Barack Obama once said of Hillary Clinton during a 2008 primary debate.But for Republican women, that double bind comes with a twist. There are conservative voters who harbor traditional views about femininity while expecting their candidates to seem “tough.” Several strategists suggested Republican primary voters would have little patience if a female candidate were to level accusations of sexism toward another Republican. And Mr. Trump, who remains a powerful figure in the party and is running again, has already attacked Ms. Haley with criticism some view as gendered.Strategists say Ms. Haley must try to win over conservatives who have traditional views of femininity but also expect candidates to appear tough.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesEven before she entered the race, Mr. Trump dismissed Ms. Haley as “overly ambitious,” which struck some observers as sexist. And soon after her official announcement, he suggested her appointment as U.N. ambassador was less a reflection of her credentials than of his desire to see her male lieutenant governor take over as governor. She also confronted a male CNN anchor, who asserted that Ms. Haley and women her age — 51, decades younger than Mr. Trump or President Biden — were past their “prime.”Ms. Haley, who could be joined by other female contenders, including Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, is operating within a G.O.P. that has often dismissed debate about identity as the purview of the left, and has, in many corners, increasingly lambasted discussions of gender and race as “wokeness.”During her campaign trail debut this past week, Ms. Haley played into this trend, promoting a country that is “strong and proud, not weak and woke.” And while she winked at the history-making potential of her candidacy — “I will simply say this: May the best woman win” — she was quick to distance herself from “identity politics.”“I don’t believe in that. And I don’t believe in glass ceilings, either. I believe in creating a country where anyone can do anything,” she said Wednesday while campaigning in Charleston, S.C.Ms. Haley faces many hurdles that have nothing to do with gender. Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is generally seen as Mr. Trump’s strongest potential adversary, lead her significantly in early polling. And her occasional criticisms of Mr. Trump, after serving in his administration and often heaping praise on him, may leave her ill-defined in the eyes of voters.Many prominent women in the party — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — have risen by emulating Mr. Trump’s hard-right politics.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMany of the most prominent women in the party — Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conspiracy theory-minded Republican from Georgia; Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee; Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of the House Republican conference — have risen by emulating or embracing Mr. Trump’s hard-right politics, not by challenging him.“If you want to know, what do you have to do to be an influential woman in the G.O.P. today, compare Marjorie Taylor Greene to Liz Cheney,” said Jennifer Horn, the former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party who now considers herself an independent. “Which one of them actually brings gravitas and experience and genuine commitment to democracy to the table? And which one of them is currently serving in Congress?”Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More

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      How Covid Played a Role in Jacinda Ardern’s Resignation

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      In a part of the world where coronavirus restrictions lingered, Jacinda Ardern struggled to get beyond her association with pandemic policy.Jacinda Ardern explained her decision to step down as New Zealand’s prime minister on Thursday with a plea for understanding and rare political directness — the same attributes that helped make her a global emblem of anti-Trump liberalism, then a target of the toxic divisions amplified by the coronavirus pandemic.Ms. Ardern, 42, fought back tears as she announced at a news conference that she would resign in early February ahead of New Zealand’s election in October.“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice,” she said. “It is that simple.”Ms. Ardern’s sudden departure before the end of her second term came as a surprise to the country and the world. New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in 150 years, she was a leader of a small nation who reached celebrity status with the speed of a pop star.Her youth, pronounced feminism and emphasis on a “politics of kindness” made her look to many like a welcome alternative to bombastic male leaders, creating a phenomenon known as “Jacindamania.”Her time in office, however, was mostly shaped by crisis management, including the 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch, the deadly White Island volcanic eruption a few months later and Covid-19 soon after that.The pandemic in particular seemed to play to her strengths as a clear and unifying communicator — until extended lockdowns and vaccine mandates hurt the economy, fueled conspiracy theories and spurred a backlash. In a part of the world where Covid restrictions lingered, Ms. Ardern has struggled to get beyond her association with pandemic policy.“People personally invested in her, that has alway been a part of her appeal,” said Richard Shaw, a politics professor at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.“She became a totem,” he added. “She became the personification of a particular response to the pandemic, which people in the far-flung margins of the internet and the not so far-flung margins used against her.”A coronavirus-related lockdown in Wellington in April 2020. As the virus spread, New Zealand closed its borders and imposed severe restrictions.Mark Tantrum/Getty ImagesThe country’s initial goal was audacious: Ms. Ardern and a handful of prominent epidemiologists who were advising the government held out hope for eliminating the virus and keeping it entirely out of New Zealand. In early 2020, she helped coax the country — “our team of five million,” she said — to go along with shuttered international borders and a lockdown so severe that even retrieving a lost cricket ball from a neighbor’s yard was banned.When new, more transmissible variants made that impossible, Ms. Ardern’s team pivoted but struggled to get vaccines quickly. Strict vaccination mandates then kept people from activities like work, eating out and getting haircuts.Dr. Simon Thornley, an epidemiologist at the University of Auckland and a frequent and controversial critic of the government’s Covid response, said many New Zealanders were surprised by what they saw as her willingness to pit the vaccinated against the unvaccinated.“The disillusionment around the vaccine mandates was important,” Dr. Thornley said. “The creation of a two-class society and that predictions didn’t come out as they were meant to be, or as they were forecast to be in terms of elimination — that was a turning point.”Ms. Ardern became a target, internally and abroad, for those who saw vaccine mandates as a violation of individual rights. Online, conspiracy theories, misinformation and personal attacks bloomed: Threats against Ms. Ardern have increased greatly over the past few years, especially from anti-vaccination groups.The tension escalated last February. Inspired in part by protests in the United States and Canada, a crowd of protesters camped on the Parliament grounds in Wellington for more than three weeks, pitching tents and using parked cars to block traffic.The police eventually forced out the demonstrators, clashing violently with many of them, leading to more than 120 arrests.Protesters gathering near Parliament grounds in Wellington last March to demonstrate against coronavirus restrictions and mandates.Dave Lintott/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe scenes shocked a nation unaccustomed to such violence. Some blamed demonstrators, others the police and the government.“It certainly was a dark day in New Zealand history,” Dr. Thornley said.Dylan Reeve, a New Zealand author and journalist who wrote a book on the spread of misinformation in the country, said that the prime minister’s international profile probably played a role in the conspiracist narratives about her.“The fact that she suddenly had such a large international profile and was widely hailed for her reaction really seemed to provide a boost for local conspiracy theorists,” he said. “They found support for the anti-Ardern ideas from like-minded individuals globally at a level that was probably out of scale with New Zealand’s typical prominence internationally.”The attacks did not cease even as the worst of the pandemic receded. This month, Roger J. Stone Jr., the former Trump adviser, condemned Ms. Ardern for her Covid approach, which he described as “the jackboot of authoritarianism.”In her speech on Thursday, Ms. Ardern did not mention any particular group of critics, nor did she name a replacement, but she did acknowledge that she could not help but be affected by the strain of her job and the difficult era when she governed.“I know there will be much discussion in the aftermath of this decision as to what the so-called real reason was,” she said, adding: “The only interesting angle you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, that I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time. And for me, it’s time.”Suze Wilson, a leadership scholar at Massey University in New Zealand, said Ms. Ardern should be taken at her word. She said that the abuse could not and should not be separated from her gender.“She’s talking about not really having anything left in the tank, and I think part of what’s probably contributed to that is just the disgusting level of sexist and misogynistic abuse to what she has been subjected,” Professor Wilson said.Ms. Ardern arriving for prayers near Al Noor mosque in Christchurch in March 2019. Her time in office was partly shaped by her response to an attack at mosques.Kai Schwoerer/Getty ImagesIn the pubs and parks of Christchurch on Thursday, New Zealanders seemed divided. In a city where Ms. Ardern was widely praised for her unifying response to the mass murder of 51 people at two mosques by a white supremacist, there were complaints about unfulfilled promises around nuts-and-bolts issues such as the cost of housing.Tony McPherson, 72, who lives near one of the mosques that was attacked nearly four years ago, described the departing prime minister as someone who had “a very good talk, but not enough walk.”He said she fell short on “housing, health care” and had “made an absolute hash on immigration,” arguing that many businesses had large staff shortages because of a delayed reopening of borders after the lockdowns.Economic issues are front and center for many voters. Polls show Ms. Ardern’s Labour Party has been trailing the center-right National Party, led by Christopher Luxon, a former aviation executive.On the deck of Wilson’s Sports Bar, a Christchurch pub, Shelley Smith, 52, a motel manager, said she was “surprised” at the news of Ms. Ardern’s resignation. She praised her for suppressing the community spread of the coronavirus in 2020, despite the effects on the New Zealand economy. Asked how she would remember Ms. Ardern, she replied: “as a person’s person.”That appeal may have faded, but many New Zealanders do not expect Ms. Ardern to disappear for long. Helen Clark, a former prime minister who was a mentor to Ms. Ardern, followed up her time in office by focusing on international issues with many global organizations.“I don’t know she’ll be lost to the world,” Professor Shaw said of Ms. Ardern. “She may get a bigger platform.”Emanuel Stoakes More

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      Women Are on the March

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      Perhaps you missed the big news: In 2023, there will be a record-breaking 12 women serving as governors around the nation. Way over the previous record of … nine.And your reaction is:Hey, that’s 24 percent — not bad.That’s less than a quarter!Are any of them going to run for president? And does that mean we have to discuss Kamala Harris? Because I’m really not sure. …OK, one thing at a time, please. Just think of 2023 as the Year of Women Governors.Even so, we’ve still got a way to go. Eighteen states have yet to select a woman governor, ever. California! Pennsylvania! And Florida — really Florida, there’s a limit to how much time we’ve got to complain about you.New York elected a woman for the first time last month, a development that began when then-Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul was propelled into the job because of Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal. Sorry, Andrew, but history may well recall this as your final gift to New Yorkers.Arizona hasn’t gotten enough attention — electing Katie Hobbs as its fifth female governor kept it the national record-holder. Good work, guys! It was also one of the states with a woman-vs.-woman race, although being Arizona, it featured a crazy subplot. Kari Lake, the defeated Republican Trumpophile, is taking the whole thing to court.It’s important to admit that while the quantity of female governors expands, the quality is … varied. Current incumbents include the newly re-elected Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose attitude toward Covid vaccination has been, at best, deeply unenthusiastic. (Noem spent $5 million of pandemic relief funds on ads to promote tourism.)On the other side, there’s Michigan’s current governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who led the Democrats to a monster statewide sweep last month. She went through a lot to do it — remember when a group called Wolverine Watchmen plotted to kidnap her and put her on trial for treason?Our female governors, both incumbent and newly elected, have a wide ideological range, but it’s very possible they’ll still be more conscious of women’s issues — like child care and sexual assault — than would a group of men from similar political backgrounds.And abortion rights — although some, like Noem, are definitely not on that boat. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision mobilized female voters so much in the fall that you’d think we’d be seeing more women out there carrying the flag in the governors’ races.“It may well have come down too late to see candidacies emerge as a result,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, who’s hoping the surge will still be coming.If so, it’ll be the next chapter in a saga that goes back a century — the first two women ever elected governor won their jobs in 1925, in Wyoming and Texas.The Wyoming winner, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was the widow of the prior governor. When he died, his party nominated her to succeed him before she’d decided to run. She won anyhow and apparently liked the job. Ross ran for re-election and lost but went on to forge a successful career as director of the U.S. Mint. Wyoming, however, has never since chosen a woman as governor. Get a move on, Wyoming.The other woman who became governor a century ago was a little less, um, encouraging. Texas’ Miriam “Ma” Ferguson also succeeded her husband — who was, in this case, impeached. “Ma” basically vowed to carry on her husband’s not-totally-reputable practices. Elect her, she promised voters, and get “two for the price of one.” That, you may remember, is what Bill Clinton said when he ran for president in 1992 — pick him and get Hillary as well.It worked a lot better for the couple from Arkansas than it did for the couple in Texas. Ma Ferguson won, and voters got a governor who pardoned an average of 100 convicts a month. Most did not appear to be worthy of release on any basis other than cold cash. But hey, she was definitely carrying on a family tradition.The first woman elected governor in her own right was Ella Grasso in Connecticut. That was in 1974 and I was in Hartford at the time, starting out my career covering the state legislature. My clients were little papers who forked over a tiny bit of money to hear what their lawmakers were up to. The regular pressroom decreed there was no room for any newcomers, and I was dispatched — along with my partner, Trish Hall — to work out of the Capitol attic.The other facilities in said attic included a men-only bar for legislators. The 35 women in the legislature at the time didn’t seem upset about discrimination when it came to access to drinking quarters. Possibly because the facility in question, known as the Hawaiian Room, was a dark, moldy space with dusty plastic leis hanging from the ceiling.But I did complain about having to work in the attic, and one night when I was there alone — it was really pretty late — Ella Grasso herself showed up to check the accommodations. As she was walking down the narrow room, a bat flew down from the ceiling and into her hair.She took it very well.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Warnock’s Narrow Victory Over Walker in Georgia

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      More from our inbox:Trump’s Very Bad DayThe Crypto IllusionEncourage BreastfeedingFood Buying That Reflects Our Values Nicole Craine for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Warnock Victory Hands Democrats 51st Seat in Senate” (front page, Dec. 7):Although I am relieved that Senator Raphael Warnock prevailed in the Georgia runoff, I am absolutely disgusted that this election was so close.We have lost our way as a country when we do not see that political leadership takes skill; knowledge of the law, the Constitution and history; the ability to negotiate and cooperate; and a worldview that is larger than your own.I would not be at all qualified to play professional football, and it was clear from the start that Herschel Walker did not have the knowledge or skill to be a U.S. senator.Dawn MenkenPortland, Ore.The writer is the author of “Facilitating a More Perfect Union: A Guide for Politicians and Leaders.”To the Editor:I have new respect for Herschel Walker: He gave a concession speech. He declared that he lost. He called on his supporters to respect their elected officials and to believe in America. He said he had no excuses for his loss because he put up a good fight. This probably reflects both who he is and his football heritage — you win but also lose games fair and square.He may have helped us back to the old pre-Trump norms. We may disagree with his views and abhor his scandals, but the most important thing is that he believes in democracy. Let’s hope Donald Trump watched that concession speech.When Mr. Walker said, “I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all,” it could be the biggest takeaway of the election.James AdlerCambridge, Mass.To the Editor:Raphael Warnock was extremely lucky to win the Senate race in Georgia — lucky because he faced an opponent plagued by ignorance, myriad character flaws and an endorsement by Donald Trump. Almost certainly, a moderate Republican, Black or white, could have defeated Mr. Warnock, perhaps by a margin as large as the seven-plus percentage points that Brian Kemp scored over Stacey Abrams for the Georgia governorship just four weeks earlier.I am very happy about Mr. Warnock’s win, but it should not be interpreted as signaling a major shift in the political landscape of Georgia.Peter S. AllenProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:Every time the Republicans lose an election — most recently Tuesday in Georgia — the Times coverage predicts that the party will engage in “soul-searching,” suggesting that the G.O.P. has a desire to change course. Yet, again and again, the party persists in its pandering to far-right, anti-democratic forces of white nationalism and heteropatriarchy.The G.O.P. has made its soul abundantly clear. Perhaps some Republican voters have done their own soul-searching and decided to reject what their party has become.Pamela J. GriffithBrooklynTo the Editor:As a liberal Democrat I am very pleased with the results of the Georgia runoff and most of the rest of the 2022 U.S. Senate results in competitive races. How do we make sure that Donald Trump continues to influence the choice of Republican candidates for Senate in 2024?Michael G. RaitenBoynton Beach, Fla.Trump’s Very Bad Day Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Tuesday was a Trumpian negative hat trick: a defeat in the Senate runoff in Georgia, the conviction of the Trump Organization on tax fraud and other crimes, and a report of grand jury subpoenas from the special counsel to local officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.Of course the Republican Party has neglected to take any prior offramps to dump Donald Trump, most notably Jan. 6, so unfortunately the latest Trump failures will probably go by the wayside too. And the G.O.P. of yore — the party of Lincoln, T.R. and Ike — will continue to be the clown car it has become.Bill MutterperlBeverly Hills, Calif.The Crypto IllusionFederal authorities are trying to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against the founder of the crypto firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, and others over the company’s collapse.Winnie Au for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “‘It Just Angers Me.’ Crypto Crisis Drains Small Investors’ Savings” (front page, Dec. 6):Is it too early, or far too late, to suggest that “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” in relation to the FTX and BlockFi difficulties? Should this concern be extended to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general?There was a time when people earned the coins in their wallets from the sweat on their brow rather than from a computer program most people can’t understand that creates imaginary coins to be stored in wallets that seem easy to rob or lose. It is, however, sad to read of people who have lost so much in such a short time.As a teacher, I wasn’t that well paid, and so I saved as much as I could to buy a house and set myself up for retirement by sensible, boring approaches. But the gains to be made from Bitcoin are in its questionable uses or in realizing the increase in its value before it drops. For me it seems to have no actual value or use, and I doubt that I am the only one who thinks that.It’s time for me to forget the world of imaginary computer profits and go back to a boring life on my unicorn farm.Dennis FitzgeraldMelbourne, AustraliaEncourage Breastfeeding Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What It Really Takes to Breastfeed a Baby” (news article, Dec. 6):As a pediatrician who spends many hours with new mothers and their babies discussing the challenges and difficulties that come with breastfeeding, I felt that this article was not as positive as it should have been. It focused on following mothers who were having a hard time keeping up their breastfeeding.These days, any literature or news related to breastfeeding should only be encouraging new mothers to breastfeed, not scaring them away from doing it and making it sound so hard while working and raising other children.In my practice, I share my own personal experiences of breastfeeding my three children, each for a year, while working in a busy pediatrics office. My stories are useful and effective in making the breastfeeding experience achievable to the new moms I meet.We need to reverse the steady decline of breastfeeding mothers in this country.Naomi JackmanPort Washington, N.Y.Food Buying That Reflects Our Values Pavel PopovTo the Editor:Re “Help Black Farmers This Holiday Season,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom (column, Nov. 30):New York State’s food procurement laws are an extension of the disenfranchisement of Black farmers. Provisions require that municipalities contract with farmers who sell their produce at the “lowest” cost. This often comes at the expense of small, hyperlocal farmers and bars them from entering negotiations for public contracts — meaning that opportunities to support historically marginalized food producers are currently limited in New York.The Good Food New York bill would democratize local food purchasing decisions by allowing municipalities to galvanize around racial equity, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, nutrition, local economies and workers’ rights — and contract with producers that uphold these values.It is more critical than ever to rectify the wrongs of this country’s past and prepare for a future where the strength of our food systems and supply chains will be tested by the consequences of climate change. New York State legislators, we are counting on you to make the right decision for our food futures.Ribka GetachewTaylor PateNew YorkThe writers are, respectively, director and campaign manager of the NY Good Food Purchasing Program Campaign for Community Food Advocates. More