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How Trump, DeSantis and Haleys Teams Are Thinking About Turnout in Iowa

Follow for live updates on the Iowa caucuses. Nikki Haley’s team predicts Iowans will brave brutal weather to caucus for her. Aides to Ron DeSantis say the subzero temperatures give their candidate an edge because he has the biggest team knocking on doors. And the Trump team says they don’t worry about the cold — former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters will “walk through glass” to caucus for him. The truth: No one really knows what to expect on Monday night when Iowans become the first to weigh in on the 2024 presidential election. An already unpredictable and quirky process is even more so this year, thanks to dangerously cold weather and an unusually uncompetitive contest. Until recently, both the Trump and DeSantis teams had been privately preparing for an enormous turnout of more than 200,000 caucusgoers, a figure that would eclipse the party’s previous record of 187,000 in 2016. But as the winter storm blew in last week, nobody from any of the leading campaigns wanted to attach their names to a firm prediction. The National Weather Service forecast subzero temperatures in Des Moines, with wind chills dropping to as low as minus 30 degrees on Monday.

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Immigration rights groups sue Texas after Abbott signs show your papers bill into law

“These reforms are decades in the making,” said Councilor Brian Worrell, who chaired Tuesday’s hearing at City Hall. The council could vote Wednesday on whether to approve funding for the $82 million pact. Councilors peppered a panel of officials from Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration and the Police Department with questions during the hearing. Will changes to the contract over how details are assigned result in fewer officers on the street? Will the contract help with recruitment? How many police officers would have been terminated in recent years under the new disciplinary provisions? Advertisement “I don’t see less public safety,” in this contract, police Commissioner Michael Cox told councilors. Details of the five-year pact reached between Wu’s administration and the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association were released last week. The contract, for the first time, includes about 30 crimes that would now not be eligible for arbitration, if an officer is indicted for them or if they are featured in a sustained internal department finding. They include murder, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking, human trafficking, armed robbery, and hate crimes. Disciplinary measures related to other allegations of misconduct, such as use of excessive force, would still be subject to arbitration. Currently, a police officer facing any disciplinary matter can seek arbitration, a process sometimes used to overturn orders. Earlier this year, city officials said five members of the department’s current sworn officers were fired only to be rehired through arbitration. The City Council has to approve funding the contract for it to be officially adopted. The changes to police discipline were the focus of much of Tuesday’s hearing. Councilor Gabriela “Gigi” Coletta said she was pleased to see the relinquishing of arbitration rights for certain offenses. Advertisement “That is excellent,” she said. Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune said it was a “rare feat” to have such a provision included in the contract agreement. “I have a lot of cautious optimism about what’s in this agreement,” she said. Councilor Kendra Lara, meanwhile, wanted to know why domestic assault and battery was excluded from the list of offenses. The Wu administration has said it did not get everything it wanted in the contract agreement, and Lou Mandarini, the mayor’s senior adviser for labor policy, said during Tuesday’s hearing he was not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the contract negotiations. The contract includes a 21 percent increase in costs over the five-year period, which includes boosts in salaries, benefits, and incentives, retroactive to the summer of 2020 when the union’s previous contract expired. Cost of living increases means the current average base salary for a patrol officer would increase to nearly $90,000 by the summer of 2025, from the current average of $82,278. That is before overtime and additional income from police detail work, which can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to an officer’s take-home pay. The contract also changes the paid detail system. Under the new deal, which was ratified by the union, if details go unfilled by police officers, they may be offered first to Boston police retirees, Boston Housing Authority officers, and university or college officers, then municipal officers, and civilian contract personnel. About 40 percent of details go unfilled in the city, according to the Wu administration. Advertisement “The goal was to end the monopoly on who can perform details,” said Mandarini. Mandarini said there were specific misconduct cases that “animated” the administration’s approach during the contract talks. Among those was the Patrick Rose case. Last year, Rose, a longtime officer and former president of the patrolmen’s union, pleaded guilty to molesting six children over several decades. In April 2021, The Boston Globe reported that Rose was allowed to keep his badge for 20 years after top department officials determined he more than likely sexually abused a child in 1995. Yet, police officials never recommended that he be fired, records show. Other cases cited by Mandarini included Baltazar DaRosa, who was fired in 2010 for violating department rules in connection with a 2005 killing. He was rehired in 2012 after being acquitted of charges of being an accessory to the slaying. An arbitrator ruled DaRosa was unjustly fired. Mandarini also mentioned Clifton McHale, a Boston police officer who bragged that he intentionally hit citizens with his cruiser during a massive protest in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. McHale was previously suspended for a year in 2005 after being investigated for allegations he sexually assaulted a woman he encountered while working a paid detail at Faneuil Hall. Nicole Taub, the chief of staff and senior adviser for policy and legal affairs for the Police Department, said the contract proposal reaffirms the “police commissioner alone” should have the ability to determine “who is suitable to do the work of a Boston police officer.” Advertisement “We strive to have only the best serving the city,” she told councilors. The contract also ends the practice of allowing officers who finish a detail early to start a second one, preventing officers from collecting double pay for the same period of time. It will also aim to streamline the administration of the detail system. The department has about 2,100 sworn officers. Currently 172 of those officers are out injured, police officials told councilors on Tuesday. In an attempt to simplify the process, the contract calls for an independent medical examiner to settle disagreements between an officer’s doctor and the department’s doctor regarding an individual’s ability to return to work. Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.

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Some Americans will get their student loans canceled in February as Biden accelerates his new plan

Politics Some Americans will get their student loans canceled in February as Biden accelerates his new plan Loan cancellation was originally set to begin in July under the new SAVE repayment plan. President Joe Biden speaks on student loan debt forgiveness, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Oct. 4, 2023, in Washington. AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will start canceling student loans for some borrowers starting in February as part of a new repayment plan that’s taking effect nearly six months ahead of schedule. Loan cancellation was originally set to begin in July under the new SAVE repayment plan, but it’s being accelerated to provide faster relief to borrowers, President Joe Biden said Friday. It’s part of an effort “to act as quickly as possible to give more borrowers breathing room” and move on from their student debt, the Democratic president said in a statement. Borrowers will be eligible for cancellation if they are enrolled in the new SAVE plan, if they originally borrowed $12,000 or less to attend college, and if they have made at least 10 years of payments. The Education Department said it didn’t immediately know how many borrowers will be eligible for cancellation in February. Advertisement: Biden announced the new repayment plan last year alongside a separate plan to cancel up to $20,000 in loans for millions of Americans. The Supreme Court struck down his plan for widespread forgiveness, but the repayment plan has so far escaped that level of legal scrutiny. Republicans in Congress tried unsuccessfully to block the new repayment plan through legislation and a resolution last year. The new plan offers far more generous terms than several other income-driven repayment plans that it’s meant to replace. Previous plans offered cancellation after 20 or 25 years of payments, while the new plan offers it in as little as 10. The new plan also lowers monthly payments for millions of borrowers. Those who took out more than $12,000 will be eligible for cancellation but on a longer timeline. For each $1,000 borrowed beyond $12,000, it adds an additional year of payments on top of 10 years. The maximum repayment period is capped at 20 years for those with only undergraduate loans and 25 years for those with any graduate school loans. The Biden administration says next month’s relief will particularly help Americans who attended community colleges, which generally cost less than four-year universities. The plan aims to place community college students “on a faster track to debt forgiveness than ever before,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. Advertisement: Counterintuitively, those with smaller student loan balances tend to struggle more. It’s driven by millions of Americans who take out student loans but don’t finish degrees, leaving them with the downside of debt without the upside of a higher income. Republicans have railed against the new repayment plan, saying it helps wealthier Americans with college degrees at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t attend college. Some say it’s a backdoor attempt to make community college free, an idea that Biden campaigned on but that failed to win support in Congress. Starting next month, the Education Department says it will automatically wipe away balances for eligible borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan. The department will email borrowers who might be eligible but have not enrolled. Some of the plan’s provisions took hold last summer — it prevents interest from snowballing as long as borrowers make monthly payments, and it makes more Americans eligible to get their monthly bill lowered to $0. Other parts are scheduled to take effect in July, including a change to limit borrowers’ payments to 5% of their discretionary income, down from 10% in previous income-driven repayment plans. The Biden administration is separately pursuing another plan for widespread cancellation. After the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s first plan, he asked the Education Department to try again under a different legal authority. The department has been working on a new proposal that would provide relief to targeted groups of borrowers. Advertisement:

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Maine Law Required That I Act to Disqualify Trump, Secretary of State Says

Here’s a look at the state of the negotiations: What Republicans Want Republicans have said they want to make it more difficult to gain asylum in the United States — a demand that the White House has signaled it is willing to consider. But Republicans say that is not enough. They also want to restore policies that would either rapidly turn people away at the border or force them to wait in Mexico until their asylum case is heard. Former President Donald J. Trump used those methods to effectively shut the border to migrants during his administration. Republicans are seeking to expand a policy known as “expedited removal” to rapidly deport undocumented immigrants. They also want to restrict the use of an immigration policy known as humanitarian parole, which has allowed thousands of Afghans, Ukrainians and others fleeing war and violence to come to the United States. Republicans say the overhaul is necessary to contend with crossings at the border that have surpassed 10,000 per day recently. What the White House Would Consider The White House has signaled that it is open to several Republican proposals, according to Biden administration officials, lawmakers in both parties and people familiar with the matter.

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Kansans Hated Their New License Plate. Now Theyll Vote on a Replacement.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease-fire and hostage release deal that will free 50 hostages, including three Americans. The Israeli government confirmed to Fox News that they approved the deal early on Wednesday. "Tonight, the government approved the outline for the first stage of achieving this goal, according to which at least 50 hostages - women and children - will be released for 4 days, during which there will be a lull in the fighting," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement. "The release of every ten additional hostages will result in an additional day of respite." "The Israeli government, the IDF and the security forces will continue the war in order to return all the hostages, to complete the elimination of Hamas and to ensure that Gaza does not renew any threat to the State of Israel," the statement added. Hamas agreed to the deal, which was brokered by Qatari negotiators, later on Wednesday. The developments come as Israel and Hamas are in the 47th day of the war, which began on Oct. 7 when Palestinian terrorists launched a surprise attack on southern Israel. To date, there have been more than 1,200 Israelis reported killed by Hamas, while the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health is claiming nearly 13,000 civilians have been killed from Israeli military activity in Gaza. Fox News Digital's Greg Norman contributed to this report.

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MBTA cancels morning ferry service Boston ahead of oncoming storm

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority says Monday's morning ferry service is canceled with high wind gusts in the forecast.StormTeam 5 says a storm will produce heavy rain and powerful winds in southern New England from late Sunday night through Monday morning. Wind gusts between 40-50 mph are expected in coastal communities in the Greater Boston area.The MBTA said inbound and outbound trips on the Boston-Hingham Ferry Line are expected to resume at 11 a.m. on Monday.Trips on the Boston-Charlestown Ferry Line, meanwhile, are expected to resume at noon Monday, while trips on the Boston-Logan-Hull-Hingham Ferry Line are expected to resume at 2 p.m. Monday, according to the MBTA.The transit agency said all other MBTA modes of service are expected to operate as scheduled on Monday.MBTA riders are encouraged to sign up for and check T-Alerts for the latest service information. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority says Monday's morning ferry service is canceled with high wind gusts in the forecast. StormTeam 5 says a storm will produce heavy rain and powerful winds in southern New England from late Sunday night through Monday morning. Wind gusts between 40-50 mph are expected in coastal communities in the Greater Boston area. Advertisement The MBTA said inbound and outbound trips on the Boston-Hingham Ferry Line are expected to resume at 11 a.m. on Monday. Trips on the Boston-Charlestown Ferry Line, meanwhile, are expected to resume at noon Monday, while trips on the Boston-Logan-Hull-Hingham Ferry Line are expected to resume at 2 p.m. Monday, according to the MBTA. The transit agency said all other MBTA modes of service are expected to operate as scheduled on Monday. MBTA riders are encouraged to sign up for and check T-Alerts for the latest service information.

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Massachusetts EMS providers blast Department of Public Health over new vaccine regulations

Happy Holidays, everyone. This time of year can be wonderful with all the family and friends in town. But it can also be stressful, and I hope you all are able to take some time to rest during this busy season. And with tomorrow being Christmas Eve, be sure to put to in a good word for my son, Carson, if anyone happens to run into Santa Claus. This month also marks open enrollment season for the Massachusetts Health Connector. This state program can help you find affordable insurance plans as well as connect you with MassHealth should you qualify. During open enrollment, anyone can sign up to try and find more affordable coverage. If you need assistance doing so, my office is readily available.

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American Unions Long Backed Israel. Now, Some Are Protesting It.

“Why are we here?” said Brandon Mancilla, a leader with the United Automobile Workers. Mr. Mancilla faced a crowd of hundreds of union members gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue branch, huddling against the cold as they rallied for a cease-fire in Gaza. “Cease-fire now, solidarity forever!” Mr. Mancilla, 29, said as the crowd cheered, waving union banners and Palestinian flags. “Let’s get more and more unions behind us.” On display in that Dec. 21 protest — which came shortly after the 350,000-member U.A.W. voted to support a cease-fire — was a shift in the American labor movement’s relationship with Israel. For decades, the most prominent American unions were largely supportive of Israel. Today, though, amid a resurgence of the American labor movement, some activists are urging their unions to call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and succeeding — a change that reflects a broader generational shift.

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Opinion | Trump Could Tip an Already Fragile World Order Into Chaos

Their only commonality, Ivanov argued, is an autocratic or dictatorial governance and a shared objective to disrupt and undermine U.S. power. All four actors realize that individually or together they cannot seriously challenge American hegemony or compete with its alliance system, but they can wreak havoc, threaten and weaken resolve in their respective spheres of interest. The re-election of Trump would, in Ivanov’s view, undermine the significant efforts of the Biden administration to rebuild, strengthen and reimagine American alliance system in Europe and Asia — from rallying the Europeans to support Ukraine to a comprehensive strengthening of strategic and military relations with Korea, Australia, Japan and Philippines to balance Chinese power. Ivanov believes Trump would face insurmountable obstacles if he attempted to withdraw from NATO, but that Under Trump, America’s international image in a democratic world is likely to suffer. The biggest risks to U.S. foreign policy are Trump’s disdain for alliances, transactional approach to foreign and security policy, overly aggressive approach to China and Iran, and a more forgiving attitude to Putin and Kim. Pyongyang, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran will cheer his re-election, but its leaders will be quietly anxious about his next moves. Jonathan M. Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement, who is now a scholar at the Middle East Institute, put it this way: Trump’s election would, of course, help Russia, threaten Ukraine and threaten western alliances, starting with NATO itself. Trump has it in for Ukraine, as reflected in the fraying of Ukrainian support within the elements of the Republican congressional caucus that is closest to Trump. Trump has repeatedly expressed his admiration for autocrats. He also already threatened to pull out of NATO during his first term, and attacked democratic European leaders almost as often as he praised the autocratic leadership of China, North Korea, and Russia. Trump is an authoritarian nationalist. He fits right into the mold of the “autocrats,” as in his teasing statement to Sean Hannity — and in a very recent Iowa town hall — that he would only behave in a dictatorial fashion on ‘day one’ of his presidency. While it is inconceivable that Trump could realign the United States with China, Russia and North Korea, Winer wrote, “what he could do is make the U.S. ‘neutral,’ just as the American First movement professed ‘neutrality’ in relation to the fascist threat prior to Pearl Harbor.” Some experts pointed out that Trump could make specific policy decisions that might not appear significant to Americans, but that have great consequence for our allies — consequences that could lead in at least one case to further nuclear proliferation. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, wrote to me in an email that “many in the Republic of Korea national security community are concerned about the North Korean nuclear weapon threat and whether they can really trust the United States security commitment in the aftermath of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, which hit the ROK much harder than I think most Americans realize.” Bennett cited the “fear that if Trump is elected president in 2024, he will talk about removing some U.S. forces from Korea. Whether or not such action actually begins, there is a risk that the Republic of Korea would react to such talk by once again starting a covert nuclear weapon development effort.” James Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring in an email to the perceived threat emanating from the “alliance of autocrats,” observed: If “alliance” is only intended to mean general cooperation among China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, then that is clearly happening. North Korea and Iran are supplying Russia with artillery shells and drones. Russia is supplying China with energy. China is supplying Russia with political cover at various international venues over the war in Ukraine. Lindsay argued: Trump could effectively gut NATO simply by saying he will not come to the aid of NATO allies in the event they are attacked. The power of Article V rests on the belief that alliance members, and specifically, the most powerful alliance member, will act when called upon. Destroy that belief and the organization withers. Walking away from Ukraine would damage the alliance as well even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Member countries would read it as a signal that Trump is abandoning Europe. One of the major risks posed by a second Trump administration, Lindsay wrote, is that Trump’s hostility toward alliances, skepticism about the benefits of cooperation writ large, and his belief in the power of unilateral action will lead him to make foreign policy moves that will unintentionally provide strategic windfalls to China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. The scenario in which he withdraws the United States from NATO or says he will not abide by Article V is the most obvious example. His intent will be to save money and/or free the United States from foreign entanglements. But Vladimir Putin would love to see NATO on the ash heap of history. Lindsay described decisions and policies Trump may consider: It’s easy to imagine other steps Trump might take, given his past actions and current rhetoric, that would similarly give advantage to Beijing, Moscow, Tehran or Pyongyang: abandoning Ukraine; questioning the wisdom of defending Taiwan; terminating the alliance with South Korea; ignoring Iranian aggression in the Middle East; recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power; and imposing a 10 percent, across-the-board tariff on all goods. On a larger scale, it would be difficult to overestimate the degree to which a second Trump term would represent a major upheaval in the tenets underlying postwar American foreign policy.

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Michigan Supreme Court rejects insurrectionist ban case and keeps Trump on 2024 primary ballot

Washington CNN — The Michigan Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot based on the US Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban.” The outcome contrasts with the recent ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court, which kicked Trump off its primary ballot because of his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. With these dueling decisions, the expected appeals to the US Supreme Court become even more critical, especially as the nation races toward the start of the 2024 primaries. Unlike in Colorado, the Michigan lawsuit never reached a trial and was dismissed early on in the process. An intermediate appeals court upheld the decision to toss the case. The Michigan Court of Claims judge who first got the case said state law doesn’t give election officials any leeway to police the eligibility of presidential primary candidates. He also said the case raised a political question that shouldn’t be decided in the courts. His decision was upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, which said: “At the moment, the only event about to occur is the presidential primary election. But as explained, whether Trump is disqualified is irrelevant to his placement on that particular ballot.” Ratified after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment says officials who take an oath to support the Constitution are banned from future office if they “engaged in insurrection.” The provision was used to disqualify thousands of ex-Confederates. But it has only been applied twice since 1919, and the vague wording doesn’t mention the presidency. The Michigan lawsuit was filed in September by an advocacy organization, Free Speech For People, on behalf of a group of voters. It also pursued an unsuccessful 14th Amendment challenge against Trump in Minnesota, and recently filed a new case in Oregon. The Colorado lawsuit was initiated by a separate liberal-leaning group. This story is breaking and will be updated.

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Boston Public Schools: Controversy roils future of English learners education

The British government’s effort to salvage its contentious policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda is drawing attention from the White House, which wants to make sure any revamped legislation does not undermine the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, according to two Biden administration officials. “Definitely all keeping an eye on Northern Ireland,” said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That a British immigration policy involving one-way flights to an East African country would have implications for Northern Ireland is one of the strange, second-order effects of Britain’s membership in the European Convention on Human Rights, an international accord it helped draft after World War II. And the fact that it would catch the eye of Washington speaks to the sensitivity of Northern Ireland in the trans-Atlantic relationship. President Biden, a proud Irish American, has shown a keen interest in the Good Friday Agreement, which was brokered under another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and ended decades of sectarian strife.

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Will reports of vote-buying in Springfield get a hard look from anyone? (Editorial)

If not the FBI, who? Which arm of government will answer the call to determine whether someone interfered with Springfield’s most recent mayoral election by distributing $10 bills outside City Hall on Oct. 28? In sworn statements, five people documented what they believed to be improper and unlawful attempts to pay voters to cast ballots in the Nov. 7 election. Video surveillance outside the building showed Gilfrey T. Gregory, a volunteer with the Justin Hurst campaign, handing people cash.

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Trump Ruling in Colorado Will Test Conservative Approach to Law

Specifically, the clause says that people are ineligible to hold any federal or state office if they took an oath to uphold the Constitution in one of various government roles, including as an “officer of the United States,” and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or aided its enemies. The clause also says a supermajority vote in Congress could waive such a penalty. According to a Congressional Research Service report, a criminal conviction was not seen as necessary: federal prosecutors brought civil actions to oust officials who were former Confederates, and Congress refused to seat certain members under the clause. Congress passed amnesty laws in 1872 and 1898, lifting the penalties on former Confederates. Is the president an ‘officer of the United States’? Mr. Trump is unique among American presidents: He has never held any other public office and only swore an oath to the Constitution as president. That raises the question of whether the disqualification clause covers the oath he took. While as a matter of ordinary speech, a president is clearly an “officer of the United States,” there is a dispute over whether it excludes presidents as a constitutional term of art. In 2021, two conservative legal scholars, Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law Houston and Seth Barrett Tillman of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, published a law review article about the clause arguing on textualist and originalist grounds that a president does not count as an officer of the United States. Among other issues, they focused on language about “officers” in the original Constitution as ratified in 1788 — including language about oaths that can be read as distinguishing appointed executive branch officers from presidents, who are elected. Last summer, two other conservative legal scholars — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — posted a law review article that invoked similar methodology but concluded that Mr. Trump is ineligible for the presidency. “Essentially all the evidence concerning the original textual meaning” of the clause pointed in that direction, the scholars argued. Among other things, they wrote that phrases like “officer of the United States” must be read “sensibly, naturally and in context, without artifice” that would render it a “‘secret code’ loaded with hidden meanings.”

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Trump, Attacked for Echoing Hitler, Says He Never Read Mein Kampf

Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his widely condemned comment that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” rebuffing criticism that the language echoed Adolf Hitler by insisting that he had never read the Nazi dictator’s autobiographical manifesto. Mr. Trump did not repeat the exact phrase, which has drawn criticism since he first uttered it in an interview with a right-leaning website and then repeated it at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday. But he said on Tuesday night in a speech in Iowa that undocumented immigrants from Africa, Asia and South America were “destroying the blood of our country,” before alluding to his previous comments. “That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country,” Mr. Trump continued. “They don’t like it when I said that. And I never read ‘Mein Kampf.’ They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that.’”

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In Iowa, Nikki Haley Has the Attention of Democrats and Independents

With temperatures threatening to dip below zero in Iowa on Monday, some of the voters preparing to caucus for Nikki Haley have already overcome a different hurdle: a long history of voting for Democrats. At recent campaign events across Iowa, a number of Democrats and left-leaning independents said they saw Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, as a reasonable Republican who could move the country away from bitter partisanship and restore civility in national discourse. Many were drawn to her pledges to unite the country, and to work across the aisle on thorny issues such as abortion. Others are simply motivated by a fear of former President Donald J. Trump’s candidacy and the possibility that he will beat President Biden and regain the White House. Joseph E. Brown Sr., who served two terms as an Iowa state senator in the 1970s and ’80s, said he was a registered Democrat for 50 years until he switched parties last month so that he could caucus for Ms. Haley. “Now that I have my Republican card, I have to go visit my father’s gravesite here in town and apologize,” said Mr. Brown, who lives in Clinton, Iowa. He added that his father, a staunch Democrat and World War II veteran, always voted a straight party ticket.

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As Congress Weighs Aid to Israel, Some Democrats Want Strings Attached

Follow live news updates on the Israel-Hamas war. Democrats in Congress are clashing with each other and the Biden administration over a push from the left that would attach conditions to an emergency infusion of security aid for Israel during its war with Hamas, the latest reflection of a growing rift within the party over support for the Jewish state. The debate is a striking departure from longstanding practice on Capitol Hill, where for decades, lawmakers have approved huge amounts of military funding for Israel with few strings attached. Now, as Israel battles Hamas in a conflict whose civilian death toll has soared, a growing number of Democrats are voicing worry about how American dollars will be used. The issue could come to a head on the Senate floor as early as next week, when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has said the chamber could begin work on a legislative package including the aid measure. The disagreements among Democrats simmered behind closed doors on Capitol Hill and at the White House on Tuesday. At the White House, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, huddled with roughly 20 Democratic senators who have raised concerns about how Israel might use U.S. assistance on the battlefield. Later, at a private party lunch in the Capitol, several of the same Democrats argued to their colleagues that any aid package should increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza and ensure that Israel do more to avoid civilian casualties.

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McCarthy, Laboring to Adjust to Life After the Speakership, Eyes Exiting Congress

“When you spend two decades building something, it’s difficult to end that chapter,” said Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, one of Mr. McCarthy’s closest friends in Congress. “His life has been building the Republican majority and attaining the third-highest office in the land. It is difficult for any mortal to deal with an abrupt end and determine his next chapter.” But the current chapter has grown increasingly untenable for him. As he has made his way around the Capitol contemplating his options for the future and cycling through various stages of grief over his merciless political downfall, Mr. McCarthy has retained small perks from his old life that serve mostly as painful reminders of all that has been taken away. He still has the kind of security detail furnished to the person second in line to the presidency, but he has been removed from the speaker’s suite of offices in the middle of the Capitol that serve as the building’s power center. He has participated in high-profile engagements, such as a recent speech to the Oxford Union and an interview at the New York Times DealBook summit, but those were booked before his ouster. Many colleagues still consider him a skillful convener of people with institutional knowledge about the workings of a Republican majority he helped build. But his inexperienced successor, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has not sought him out for any advice on managing the fractious Republican conference. And Mr. McCarthy has had to watch from the sidelines as Mr. Johnson has made some of the same choices that led to his own downfall — such as working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown — and, at least so far, paid little price. Mr. McCarthy has labored to acclimate. “After any stressful situation, it takes a while for the body to normalize,” Mr. McHenry said of the former speaker. “And when you talk about the extremes of political ambition, which is required to attain the speakership, it is even more dramatic to wring those chemicals out of your body to return to being a normal human.”

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Indian Envoy Hails Relationship With Russia, Bypassing Western Pressure

As India presses its neutrality in the war in Ukraine, the Indian foreign minister sought to reinforce its diplomatic and economic ties with Russia ahead of his expected meeting on Wednesday with President Vladimir V. Putin. From the start of Russia’s war, India has taken a neutral stance, citing its longtime ties with Moscow and insisting on its right to navigate a multipolar world its own way. Russia has long been the most important military supplier for India, and as international sanctions in response to the war began constricting Russian oil sales, India rapidly expanded its purchases to become one of the chief buyers of discounted Russian petroleum. In doing so, India has frustrated American efforts to isolate Russia since the war began in 2022, providing a much-needed financial boost to Moscow’s coffers. India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who met with his Russian counterpart in Moscow, said that he would discuss “the state of multilateralism and the building of a multipolar world order.”

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Bloomberg and Crypto Billionaire Among Donors to Adamss Legal Defense

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called for the government to back a hostage deal, while saying that he will continue the war on Hamas. The Israeli government said Wednesday morning that it would uphold a brief cease-fire in Gaza if Hamas freed 50 of the hostages it captured during its assault last month on Israel. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a WhatsApp message early Wednesday, includes a pause of at least four days in the fighting in Gaza. If it holds, it would be the longest halt in hostilities since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks prompted Israel to begin its bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. “The Israeli government is committed to the return of all abductees home,” the government said. It added: “Tonight, the government approved the outline for the first stage of achieving this goal, according to which at least 50 abductees — women and children — will be released for 4 days, during which there will be a lull in the fighting. The release of every 10 additional abductees will result in an additional day of respite.” The deal cannot be enacted until Thursday at the earliest, to allow time for Israeli judges to review potential legal challenges to the prisoner release, according to Israeli officials. Until the cease-fire begins, the situation is likely to remain fluid. Hamas and Qatar, the lead mediators of the deal, did not immediately comment. Hamas and its allies in Gaza captured about 240 hostages during their raid on southern Israel on Oct. 7, which also killed an estimated 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials. Israel has responded with thousands of airstrikes and invaded Gaza with ground forces, killing roughly 13,000 people in the fighting, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory. Under the terms of the deal, Israel would release 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails if Hamas released 50 hostages held captive in Gaza, according to two Israeli officials who requested to speak anonymously in order to discuss a sensitive matter more freely. But the government’s official statement did not include this detail. Both officials said the arrangement would likely be spread over at least four days and would involve roughly 10 hostages being released each day in exchange for roughly 30 prisoners. The time frame could be extended if more hostages are released, the officials said. Fighting would cease during that time, Israeli troops would remain in their current positions, and Israel would refrain from flying surveillance aircraft over Gaza for six hours a day, the officials said. Civilians currently in southern Gaza will not be allowed to return to the north, the officials added. Israel and Hamas have been negotiating indirectly for weeks over the roughly 240 hostages taken to Gaza in the Hamas attacks on southern Israel. A deal had seemed within reach on a few occasions only for the negotiations to stall or fall apart. Earlier on Tuesday, Hamas had signaled that they would be prepared to accept a cease-fire if Israel also agreed to it. “The ball is now in the occupation’s court,” Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader, told reporters in Beirut on Tuesday night, referring to Israel. “Hopefully, we are approaching this cease-fire — if the occupation wants it,” he added. Earlier in the day, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, told the Reuters news agency that the armed group was “close to reaching a truce agreement” with Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to destroy Hamas, but it has also come under domestic pressure to free the hostages. A brief cease-fire could allow Israel to achieve part of the latter objective before returning to the former. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Tuesday night that Israel’s campaign to prevent Hamas from controlling any part of Gaza would continue after the cease-fire. “We are at war, and we’ll continue this war until we meet all our objectives: dismantling Hamas, returning our hostages, and ensuring that in Gaza there will be no one that threatens Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said. A pause in the fighting — however brief — could bring some measure of relief to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where health authorities say that more than 12,000 people have been killed in Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion. More than one million Gazans have been displaced, and civilians are running perilously low on basic human necessities like food and water. As part of its offensive against Hamas, Israel has cut off electricity to Gaza and blocked the delivery of most fuel, saying it could be diverted for the armed group’s use. Edward Wong , Aaron Boxerman and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

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The Carters Hometown Mourns for the Love of a Lifetime

Most abortion opponents did not expect the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the passage of state abortion bans to lead to the expansion of legal abortion in much of the United States. But this in fact is what happened: While 16 states ban most or virtually all abortions a year and a half after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in June 2022, abortion numbers went up in states where it is legal. As anti-abortion groups prepare for their annual March for Life on Friday, they face the reality that the past year brought a string of defeats for their cause, with abortion-rights supporters winning victories in every abortion referendum submitted to voters, even in conservative states. Opponents of abortion are now on the defensive. That’s largely because their strategy has focused on passing bans, which have been politically polarizing and have alienated members of the Democratic Party — a party that only a few decades ago included many supporters of the pro-life cause. It didn’t have to be this way. As a historian of the anti-abortion movement and abortion politics, I wrote in early 2021 that the end of Roe may “only marginally reduce the number of legal abortions” in the United States and “at worst, may lead to a pro-choice Democratic backlash that will expand the number of legal abortions.”

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Speaker fight: Next GOP leader has a couple paths to success

But such thinking allows McCarthy to wriggle out of any blame for his fate — and suggests the next House speaker is automatically set up to fail. That’s not the case. For the record, 210 Republicans — or 96 percent of the Republican conference — voted to keep McCarthy as speaker. So the fact that eight Republicans could paralyze one of the country’s main legislative bodies was a clear sign that politics is broken. The moment after Kevin McCarthy became the first House speaker voted out of the role came the hand-wringing analysis that at such a fractious moment in the Republican party, no one could possibly do the job. Advertisement McCarthy didn’t create the mess that is the House Republicans, many of whom are more interested in trolling than governing. Indeed, McCarthy’s ouster on Tuesday was just the most extreme action of a movement that’s been going on for a dozen years dating back to the Tea Party era. Get Today in Politics A digest of the top political stories from the Globe, sent to your inbox Monday-Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Since then almost every Republican House speaker has been held captive by that wing of the party. “Almost” is the keyword there because one of them wasn’t. More on him later. To understand how the next speaker can succeed we need to recognize why McCarthy went down. First, he single-handedly welcomed Donald Trump back into the fold as de facto Republican Party leader after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. That move empowered the MAGA wing of the party — the very people who would humiliate McCarthy from the moment the first ballot for speaker was cast. Second, he gave up a lot of his power just to land the job. Third, McCarthy had a deep belief, as he said Tuesday in his candid press conference, that House Republicans should only negotiate with House Republicans. That is what truly ended his speakership. Advertisement So let’s talk about the next House speaker and how they might not just stay in office but govern effectively, including avoiding a government shutdown in November. None of those initially exploring a run for speaker — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, or Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern — would have the power to suggest the party dump Trump immediately. Even if Trump is sitting in a courtroom, he remains one of the most dominant non-incumbent presidential candidates in history. No new Republican speaker can change that nor would they likely even try. Here are two other paths for the next speaker: Be Paul Ryan, not Kevin McCarthy Paul Ryan, who was speaker from 2015-2019, had a very unconventional path to the job. While he chaired the powerful budget committee, he was not a majority leader or even a whip on the leadership team. He was, however, a former vice presidential nominee suddenly back in the House. Ryan became speaker much in the same way that the next speaker will take over. Then-House Speaker John Boehner faced a similar motion to vacate brought by a single member. Boehner quit in October 2015 instead of sticking around to see if he would win. Instead of quickly announcing he would run for speaker, Ryan had people draft him to run. He said he would do it, and unite the warring factions, as long his Republican colleagues agreed to certain things that would let him do his job instead of always fighting internal battles. They agreed. Ryan then held the job until Republicans lost the House in 2018, a natural moment when many speakers retire. Advertisement In this case, anyone running for speaker should have their own set of demands before taking the chair. It’s not hard to imagine what one demand might be: raising the number of people needed to request a motion to vacate. They might suggest it could be, say, more than eight, the number who ousted McCarthy. Once elected speaker, pivot to be a dealmaker For all the talk about a broken political system and MAGA extremism, few utter the simple fact that McCarthy would still be speaker if just four Democrats had voted for him. Sure, Democrats as a full block could have saved McCarthy, but he only needed four he could offer something to: a plum committee assignment, a vote on a bill, funding for a certain project back home. Indeed, there are five Democrats representing districts Trump won, giving some members, like Maine’s Jared Golden, another opportunity to appear bipartisan back home. The next speaker, if they want to keep the job, can either say and promise anything to become the speaker and immediately figure out a way to work with either all Democrats or just enough Democrats to stay in power. This doesn’t mean becoming centrist. After all, McCarthy did have a majority of Republicans and Democrats vote for the debt ceiling and the resolution last weekend to keep the government open. If the next speaker can create a governing coalition, that person might be able to stay in office and business can actually get done. Advertisement James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him @jamespindell and on Instagram @jameswpindell.

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Biden Hosts Angolas President, Seeking to Strengthen Africa Ties

President Biden hosted President João Lourenço of Angola at the White House on Thursday, promoting a major U.S. investment in the country as he tries to shore up his pledge to revitalize relations with African nations. The visit marked three decades of diplomatic relations between the countries, and the two leaders discussed cooperation on critical issues such as trade, energy, climate and a $1 billion U.S.-backed infrastructure project that would aid Angola’s economy. But it came as the administration has faced questions about the United States’ commitment to the continent as plans for a long-promised visit by Mr. Biden — originally expected this year — remain up in the air. Mr. Biden made the pledge nearly a year ago at a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, during which he convened delegations of 49 nations for the first time in eight years. At the summit, Mr. Biden declared that the United States “is all in on Africa’s future,” and made a litany of promises for how it would demonstrate its commitment, including telling leaders that he was “looking forward to seeing many of you in your home countries.” On Thursday, Mr. Biden appeared to try to kick-start that commitment again at a critical time. The United States lags behind major countries like Russia and China in competing for influence on the continent, which has become an increasingly important sphere of global competition, with the fastest-growing, youngest population in the world.

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A Battle Over Chinas Reproductive Future Is Underway - The New York Times

More than two years ago, lawmakers approved billions of dollars to build out a national electric vehicle charging network in the hopes of encouraging more drivers to switch to cleaner cars. The money, included in the bipartisan infrastructure law, was intended to help assure drivers they could reliably travel longer distances without running out of power. But a robust federal charging network is still years away. Only two states — Ohio and New York — have opened any charging stations so far. A handful of others have broken ground on projects in recent weeks, with the aim of completing them in early 2024. In total, 28 states, plus Puerto Rico, have either awarded contracts to build chargers or started accepting bids for projects as of Dec. 15. The rest are much further behind on starting construction. Broad availability of chargers is critical for the Biden administration’s goal of getting electric vehicles to make up half of new car sales by 2030. Americans routinely cite “range anxiety” as one of the biggest impediments to buying an E.V. About 80 percent of respondents cited concerns about a lack of charging stations as a reason not to purchase an electric vehicle, according to an April survey from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The Biden administration is trying to entice consumers to buy electric vehicles both by offering tax credits of up to $7,500 and promising to build out a national backbone of high-speed chargers. That network is meant to give drivers the assurance that they could reach a reliable charger every 50 miles along major roads and highways.

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On Jan. 6 Anniversary, Trump Repeats Lie That 2020 Election Was Stolen

State lawmakers are pushing new legislation that would finally set deadlines for electrifying the Commuter Rail, four years after the MBTA committed to the project. Much of the testimony at a roughly four-hour Joint Committee on Transportation hearing Monday focused on the proposed bill, which would require electrification of the entire Commuter Rail system by Dec. 31, 2035. Electrification of three lines that serve “environmental justice populations” — Fairmount from South Station to Readville, Newburyport/Rockport from North Station to Beverly and the entire Providence/Stoughton Line — would occur first, by Dec. 31, 2024, the bill states. “From our end, there is no policy in place right now that sets deadlines for this; there’s nothing in the statute,” state Sen. Brendan Crighton, who filed the Senate version of the bill and co-chairs the joint committee, told the Herald. “I think that this administration has put a lot more focus on electrifying rail so I’m confident they’re doing a lot of these things already. But I think deadlines are important when we’re dealing with an issue as urgent as this,” he added. Crighton put forward similar legislation last session, but the deadlines for Commuter Rail electrification, included as amendments for a climate bill that passed, “did not come out in conference committee,” he said. He, along with state Reps. Steven Owens and Jennifer Armini, refiled the deadlines as Senate and House bills this session “with the hopes of passing it to law,” Crighton said. The bills also dictate that the MBTA and its Commuter Rail operator, Keolis, must ensure that zero-emission infrastructure is in place to meet the deadlines for electrification. The three “environmental justice” lines were also prioritized for early electrification by the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board in November 2019, but until this year, there had not been much movement since that vote. Crighton, in addition to crediting the Healey administration for putting more of an emphasis on the project, pointed to the MBTA’s efforts to prioritize Commuter Rail electrification in the fiscal year 2024-28 Capital Investment Plan. The plan does not lay out the estimated cost for electrification, and discussion at the day’s committee hearing did not pinpoint a solid number, which Crighton said would be dependent on “a lot of variables,” such as replacing existing diesel locomotives, inflation, and the cost of construction. Last January, his office estimated that electrifying the Stoughton, Fairmount, and entirety of the Newburyport/Rockport lines would cost roughly $493 million, based on inflation-adjusted Amtrak electrification costs. That figure did not include the cost of new “zero-emission” trains, which, according to the bill, include “electric multiple units, electric battery chargers, trolleybus and railway catenary wire, and other equipment to support the operation of electric vehicles.” An MBTA board presentation in June 2022 pointed to the agency favoring a lower-cost hybrid approach, where overhead catenary lines would charge battery-electric trains while moving so they can move offline and in tunnels over bridges, where it was deemed to be too expensive to install wiring. In their testimony, Owens and Armini both discussed the harmful effects of diesel train emissions in today’s Commuter Rail system. This air pollution, Owens said, triggers asthma attacks, worsens heart conditions, has been linked to lung cancer in children, and impacts residents of color in Massachusetts at a “26-36%” higher rate than what white residents are exposed to. The bill seeks to tackle those disparities by ensuring that Commuter Rail lines in so-called environmental justice communities, which have a high population of minorities and non-English speakers and a low median income, are electrified first, Owens said. “The difference between a dream and a goal is a deadline,” Armini said. “This bill gives the Legislature the opportunity to express a much-needed sense of urgency. It gives us the chance to right historic wrongs and to clean the air currently endangering the health of the next generation.”

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Supreme Court declines to issue expedited ruling on Trump immunity case

The 10x10 New Play Festival, featuring 10 plays, each 10 minutes in length, begins its 13th award-winning performance run at Barrington Stage, Feb. 15 to March 10. The short plays run the gamut from comedy to tragedy, the serious, the comic, and occasionally, the outrageous. Brent Askari and Jessica Provenz are among the playwrights. Alan Paul and Matthew Penn share the directing duties, and 10x10 vets Peggy Pharr Wilson, Robert Zukerman, and Matt Neely are returning as cast members The festival sells out, even before the plays are announced and the cast is revealed. For details: www.barringtonstageco.org. “The Big Broadcast” is a recreation of a 1940s live radio show, complete with jazz and swing and songs of the day, commercials, and sketches. Created and directed by Mark Gionfriddo, and featuring the Jazz Ensembles of Mount Holyoke College, this event has been a signature event at Mount Holyoke for years. This year’s performances are on March 9, at Chapin Auditorium. Brian Lapis returns as emcee Fred Kelley. For details: www.mtholyoke.edu/academics/arts-mount-holyoke/music-ensembles/jazz-ensembles.

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Trump wins Iowa, Fox News Decision Desk predicts DeSantis will take second place

Trump predicts ‘tremendous night’ in Iowa caucuses DES MOINES, Iowa – Former President Donald Trump is optimistic about his showing in Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, which lead off the Republican presidential nominating calendar. “I think we’re going to have a tremendous night tonight. The people are fantastic. I’ve never seen spirit like they have,” Trump told reporters as he departed the Fort Des Moines hotel on Monday afternoon. Trump is the commanding front-runner in the polls in Iowa and in national surveys in the GOP nomination race as he makes his third straight White House run. He made history last year as the first former or current president to be indicted for a crime, but his four indictments, including charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss, have only fueled his support among Republican voters. Trump stood at 50% support or higher in a slew of polls over the past month in Iowa. Additionally, he was at 48% support in the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom/NBC News poll of likely Republican caucusgoers that was released Saturday night. Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who are battling for a distant second place in Iowa, stood at 20% and 16% in the new survey, respectively. The closely-watched and highly-anticipated survey, conducted by longtime pollster Ann Selzer, has a well-earned tradition of accuracy in past GOP presidential caucuses, and it is considered by many as the gold standard in Iowa polling. As he departed the hotel, Trump also noted that “we’ve won it twice as you know.” He appeared to be pointing to his carrying Iowa in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. But Trump narrowly lost the Iowa Republican caucuses eight years ago to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The DeSantis and Haley campaigns and their top surrogates and allies in recent days have been spotlighting the high expectations Trump faces in Monday night’s caucuses and have framed anything under 50% support for the former president in Iowa as a setback. "I think it's going to be bad for President Trump if he doesn't come in over 50. He's not meeting expectations that the media and the polls have been putting out for the past several months," Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds – the top DeSantis surrogate in the Hawkeye State – argued in an interview Monday morning on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." However, Trump and his campaign are taking aim at the high expectations he faces in Iowa. "No one has ever won the Iowa caucus by more than 12%," Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita told Fox News Digital on Saturday. "I think the public polls are a little rich." Trump, speaking with reporters on Sunday, said "there seems to be something about 50%." "I think they're doing it so that they can set a high expectation. So if we end up with 49%, which would be about 25 points bigger than anyone else ever got, they can say, he had a failure, it was a failure. You know fake news," he argued.

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Opinion | Is Poor Economic Sentiment All About MAGA?

A roundup of conversations we're having daily on the site. Subscribe to the Reckon Daily for stories centering marginalized communities and speaking to the under-covered issues of the moment. Immigrant rights organizations are suing Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law on Monday that will allow local law enforcement to arrest anyone suspected of entering the state without federal authorization. Advocates say it is one of the most “extreme” immigration bills in the country. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit on Tuesday stating the law is unconstitutional and contradicts federal immigration policy. The County of El Paso, Texas; Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and nonprofit American Gateways are also challenging the legislation. “The fear that this stokes in communities, that’s the point of legislation like this,” Aron Thorn, senior attorney for the Beyond Borders Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, told Reckon. “Millions of Texans in really robust border communities — folks who have lived here for many years — are right to be concerned about what it will look like for them when this goes into effect.” Texas Senate Bill 4 has been referred to by immigrant advocates as a “show your papers” law that will cause racial profiling. The legislation has received massive pushback from immigrant rights groups and leaders and is expected to set up a “showdown” between the state and federal government heading into next year. Three new state laws were created under the bill, creating new offenses that can only be committed by people designated as “aliens,” according to the ACLU. These charges include: illegal entry from a foreign nation, illegal reentry by certain noncitizens and refusal to comply with an order to leave the country and carry misdemeanor and second-degree felony penalties. Texas judges could immediately deport arrested undocumented people “in lieu of continuing the prosecution.” Enforcement is prohibited on school grounds, places of religious worship and healthcare facilities. If not blocked by courts, the law will go into effect on March 5. “Under this novel system, the State of Texas has created its own immigration entry and re-entry crimes,” the complaint reads. “The federal government has no role in, and no control over, Texas’s scheme.” Advocates believe enforcement will impact not just border communities but all Texans across the state, with people of color more at risk of arrest, jailing and deportation. “We’re suing to block one of the most extreme anti-immigrant bills in the country,” said Adriana Piñon, the legal director of the ACLU of Texas, in a statement. “Time and time again, elected officials in Texas have ignored their constituents and opted for white supremacist rhetoric and mass incarceration instead.” Abbott, like other Republican governors, has been embroiled in a battle with the Biden Administration over U.S. immigration policy, with “migrant encounters” at the U.S.-Mexico border this year reaching a new historic high at 2.5 million, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Advocates said people have been used as pawns, with Texas bussing more than 80,000 refugees to states like California and New York as of December. On Tuesday, an appeals court barred border patrol from removing razor wire along the Rio Grande, signifying a win for Abbott’s policies to deter migration into the state. The barriers force migrants to go through concertina wire, putting them at risk of bodily injury. Texas Congressional Democrats and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in a letter on Monday urged the U.S. Department of Justice to pursue legal action to prevent enforcement of SB 4 citing concerns over violations of due process rights, asylum case obstruction and endangerment. “SB 4 is an unlawful attempt to engage in federal immigration enforcement. This law will also interfere with federal efforts to create a safe, humane, and orderly system at the border,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. Advocates in Texas and in neighboring states have issued a travel advisory because of “anti-immigrant actions.” Greg Chen, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said immigration policies like this could negatively impact people all across the nation, including families and communities of mixed statuses. “We’re no longer just in this phase of border management,” he said on Friday during a press conference with other immigration advocates. “People could be deported without due process and it’s important to realize that this will be family separation version 2.0.” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that his government will challenge the law, which he called “inhumane,” Reuters reported. The Mexican government has opposed the legislation since prior to its signing, calling it an “anti-immigrant measure that aims to stop the flow of migrants by criminalizing them” in a November news release.

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Inspector General to Investigate Handling of Austins Hospitalization

Mr. Austin, 70, was in severe pain and rushed to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Jan. 1. He was put in intensive care after complications from a surgery he underwent on Dec. 22 to remove his prostate, the hospital disclosed this week. But several senior aides at the Defense Department did not learn of the secretary’s hospitalization until the next day, Jan. 2. The White House was not notified until Jan. 4, a major breach in protocol at the highest national security levels. Further complicating matters, neither Pentagon nor White House officials learned until Tuesday that Mr. Austin had been diagnosed with cancer last month. “It’s not good,” John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman and a former Pentagon spokesman, told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. “It’s certainly not good, which is why we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” While Mr. Biden’s aides said this week that he would not fire Mr. Austin, they acknowledged the breakdown in communications and moved to assert new discipline over the administration. Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff, ordered a review of procedures and sent a directive to cabinet secretaries making clear that they are to inform the White House when they are unable to perform their duties. The episode has raised questions about Mr. Austin’s credibility as well as his department’s overall competence. The Pentagon’s shifting stories, put forth by junior officials seeking to protect their boss, have not helped matters. The stark breach of protocol has also lessened the overall credibility of the Defense Department, lawmakers and current and former U.S. officials said, with both the White House and Congress.

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As Biden lambastes Trump for Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Mass. Dems have their say

President Joe Biden warned Friday that Donald Trump’s efforts to retake the White House in 2024 pose a grave threat to the country, the day before the third anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol by then-President Trump’s supporters aiming to keep him in power. Speaking near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington and the Continental Army spent a bleak winter nearly 250 years ago, Biden said that Jan. 6 2021, marked a moment where “we nearly lost America — lost it all.” He said the presidential race — a likely rematch with Trump, who is the far and away GOP frontrunner — is “all about” whether American democracy will survive. The speech, the president’s first political event of the election year, was intended to clarify the expected choice for voters this fall. Biden, who reentered political life because he felt he was best capable of defeating Trump in 2020, believes focusing on defending democracy to be central for persuading voters to reject Trump once again. “We all know who Donald Trump is,” Biden said. “The question we have to answer is who are we?” Biden, laid out Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, as a mob of the Republican’s supporters overran the building while lawmakers were counting Electoral College votes that certified Democrat Biden’s win. More than 100 police officers were bloodied, beaten and attacked by the rioters who overwhelmed authorities to break into the building. Hundreds of people were charged, including many from Massachusetts, in connection with the violence. “What’s Trump done? He’s called these insurrectionists ‘patriots,’” Biden said, “and he promised to pardon them if he returns to office.” He excoriated Trump for “glorifying” rather than condemning political violence At least nine people who were at the Capitol that day died during or after the rioting, including several officers who died of suicide, a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber, and three other Trump supporters who authorities said suffered medical emergencies. Biden said that by “trying to rewrite the facts of Jan. 6, Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election.” Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his loss to Biden and three other felony cases, argues that Biden and top Democrats are themselves seeking to undermine democracy by using the legal system to thwart the campaign of his chief rival. “Donald Trump’s campaign is about him,” Biden said, saying it was Trump’s aim to get retribution on his political enemies. “Not America. Not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.” He added: “There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do.” ‘We should listen before it’s too late’ In a statement, U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-2nd District, called the attack on the Capitol “a day of violence and rage.” But it was “not just an attack on the United States Capitol building. It was a coordinated attack on democracy, led by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans in Congress who wanted to certify that the former president had won—even though he had lost,” the Massachusetts Democrat continued. “Since that day, over 1,000 people have been arrested in all 50 states on charges that include viciously beating police officers, causing millions of dollars in damage, and engaging in a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government,” McGovern said. “The history of the world is filled with democracies that have come and gone. Let’s stop pretending it can’t happen here. Donald Trump has made crystal clear that he idolizes authoritarians like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. He said he wants to be a dictator ‘on day one,’” McGovern continued. “He now calls his political rivals ‘vermin’—echoing the language of Mussolini and Hitler. He openly advocates for white supremacy, claiming that immigrants ‘poison the blood’ of our country. It all has one logical endpoint: violence. Trump has told us who he is and what he is going to do. We should listen before it’s too late.” In a post to X, formerly Twitter, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-6th District, a former Marine, said that American democracy “doesn’t exist on its own. It has always relied on brave, patriotic, truth-telling volunteers to fight for its preservation and success. “We all need to do our patriotic duty -- to sideline extremism and protect our most sacred institutions from the wrath of Trump,” he said. Our democracy doesn't exist on its own. It has always relied on brave, patriotic, truth-telling volunteers to fight for its preservation and success. We all need to do our patriotic duty -- to sideline extremism and protect our most sacred institutions from the wrath of Trump. https://t.co/q3Ma8yBWpE — Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) January 5, 2024 House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-5th District, reshared a post by former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who said that “January 6th reminds us that our democratic institutions are only as strong as the courage and commitment of those entrusted with their care.” And while it’s been three years since “Trump abused his position to stoke the flames of violence at the United States Capitol, our outrage and resolve to never let it happen again has not diminished,” Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairperson Steve Kerrigan said in a statement. Trump “acted like a dictator when he encouraged his supporters to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power,” Kerrigan continued. “His actions on January 6, 2021 were disgraceful and undoubtedly criminal, as our justice system will now decide. As the campaigns switch into high gear, we hope this sad day in our history will serve as a reminder of Donald Trump’s disregard for our Constitution and the rule of law.” Biden’s nod to U.S. history Before his remarks, Biden, joined by his wife Jill, participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Valley Forge National Arch, which honors the troops who camped there from December 1777 to June 1778. He also toured the home that served as Washington’s headquarters. Biden invoked Washington’s decision to resign his commission as the leader of the Continental Army after American independence was won — and the painting commemorating that moment that resides in the Capitol Rotunda — to cast Trump as unworthy of Washington’s legacy. “He could have held onto that power as long as he wanted,” Biden said of Washington. “But that wasn’t the America he and the American troops of Valley Forge had fought for. In America, our leaders don’t hold on to power relentlessly. Our leaders return power to the people – willingly.” Although the chaos of Jan. 6 came down on members of both political parties, it is being remembered in a largely polarized fashion now, like other aspects of political life in a divided country. In the days after the attack, 52% of U.S. adults said Trump bore a lot of responsibility for Jan. 6, according to the Pew Research Center. By early 2022, that had declined to 43%. The number of Americans who said Trump bore no responsibility increased from 24% in 2021 to 32% in 2022. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released this week found that about 7 in 10 Republicans say too much is being made of the attack. Just 18% of GOP supporters say that protesters who entered the Capitol were “mostly violent,” down from 26% in 2021, while 77% of Democrats and 54% of independents say the protesters were mostly violent, essentially unchanged from 2021. Biden said that “politics, fear, money” have led many Republicans to abandon their criticism of Trump after the Jan. 6 attack. “These MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump and Jan. 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy,” Biden said. “They’ve made their choice. Now the rest of us – Democrats, Independents, mainstream Republicans – we have to make our choice. I know mine. And I believe I know America’s.” Biden has frequently invoked the dangers of Jan. 6 since his 2021 inauguration on the same Capitol steps where police officers were struggling to battle back rioters just two weeks earlier. On the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, Biden had stood in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, a historic spot where the House of Representatives used to meet before the Civil War. On Jan. 6, rioters filled the area, some looking for lawmakers who had run for cover. “They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people,” Biden said of the rioters. “They were looking to deny the will of the people.” On the second anniversary, Biden presented the nation’s second highest civilian award to 12 people who were involved in defending the Capitol during the attack. Friday’s appearance included supporters and young people motivated by the attack to get involved in politics, campaign advisers said.

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The Iowa Caucuses, and 100 Days of War in Gaza

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about five minutes.

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In a Setback for Beijing, Taiwan Elects Lai Ching-te as President

The Taiwanese politician Lai Ching-te has for years been reviled by China’s Communist Party as a dangerous foe who, by its account, could drag the two sides into a war by pressing for full independence for his island democracy. Right up to Saturday, when millions of Taiwanese voted for their next president, an official Beijing news outlet warned that Mr. Lai could take Taiwan “on a path of no return.” Yet, despite China’s months of menacing warnings of a “war or peace” choice for Taiwan’s voters, Mr. Lai was elected president. Mr. Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, secured 40 percent of the votes in the election, giving his Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., a third term in a row in the presidential office. No party has achieved more than two successive terms since Taiwan began holding direct, democratic elections for its president in 1996. At a D.P.P. gathering outside its headquarters in Taipei, thousands of supporters, many waving pink and green flags, cheered as Mr. Lai’s lead grew during the counting of the votes, which was displayed on a large screen on an outdoor stage.

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George Santos Is Kicked Out of Congress in a Historic Vote

George Santos, the New York Republican congressman whose tapestry of lies and schemes made him a figure of national ridicule and the subject of a 23-count federal indictment, was expelled from the House on Friday after a decisive bipartisan vote by his peers. The move consigned Mr. Santos, who over the course of his short political career invented ties to the Holocaust, Sept. 11 and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, to a genuine place in history: He is the first person to be expelled from the House without first being convicted of a federal crime or supporting the Confederacy. Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana announced the tally to a hushed House chamber: The measure, which required a two-thirds majority, passed with 311 lawmakers in favor of expulsion, including 105 Republicans, and 114 against. Two members voted present. “The new whole number of the House is 434,” a downcast Mr. Johnson announced, confirming that with Mr. Santos’s ouster, the already paper-thin margin of Republican control had shrunk to three votes.

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Israeli Mothers Knew Their Sons Would Serve. But They Didnt Expect War.

The six mothers had gathered in a Jerusalem home on a recent Friday to prepare challah, the braided bread that Jews eat on the Sabbath. After they recited a blessing that is part of the ritual, each woman added a prayer of her own. “I just want everybody to come back alive and in one piece, mentally and physically,” said one, her voice breaking. “May they return in peace,” said another, wiping away tears. “With this challah, I want to bless my three sons who are in the army and all the soldiers,” said Ruthie Tick, who had convened the mothers so they could comfort one another. Collectively, they had 10 sons serving in the Israeli Army, either in Gaza fighting Hamas in response to the group’s incursion and deadly rampage on Oct. 7, or in the north, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia has been launching missiles at Israel from Lebanon. No sooner had the women finished praying than a WhatsApp message appeared on Rebecca Haviv’s cellphone. “I’m gonna be without a phone soon,” wrote her son, Adam, a 29-year-old combat soldier on reserve duty. “Love you so much, ma, and will be in touch.”

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US military shoots down missile in Red Sea fired from Houthi-controlled area of Yemen

Displaced Palestinians gather outside makeshift shelters in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on Sunday. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/AP Displaced Gazans spending their days in makeshift tents or huddled around outdoor fires have told CNN about the additional hardships winter has brought. Temperatures have dropped close to zero in the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, and there have been several winter storms passing through, bringing heavy rainfall to the region. Ayman Jamal, who moved his family to Deir al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip from Shujaiya in the north, showed CNN inside his tent. Its walls consist of thin nylon sheeting attached to a rudimentary wooden structure; there are gaps between the sheeting where the rain can get in. There is no groundsheet to offer protection from the damp ground — just compacted, sandy earth. "It was extremely cold last night. We couldn't sleep, moving from one place to another inside the tent. The rain seemed to follow us wherever we went,” Jamal told CNN. “My children were freezing.” In another corner, ten children, all under 10 years old, gathered around a pot filled with water being heated by a simple charcoal fire. They were barefoot, and raised their hands to the steam to keep warm. “All of us are sick and no one cares. We don’t have any medicine,” one of them said. “We are so dirty. We haven't taken a bath in a long time. Please stop this for a little while,” she added. The United Nations estimates about 85% of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people have been displaced by the war.

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Could Abortion Rights Rescue Red-State Democrats in the Senate?

Before she decided to bar former President Donald J. Trump from Maine’s primary ballot, Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state, was not known for courting controversy. She began her career in public office as a state senator in 2016, winning in a politically mixed district. She prided herself on finding common ground with Republicans, an approach she said was shaped by growing up in a politically diverse family. As the former head of the state’s American Civil Liberties Union, Ms. Bellows did not shy away from divisive issues. But her ballot decision on Thursday was perhaps the weightiest and most politically fraught that she had faced — and it sparked loud rebukes from Republicans in Maine and beyond. In an interview on Friday, Ms. Bellows defended her decision, arguing that Mr. Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol made it necessary to exclude him from the ballot next year.

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Tessa R. Murphy-Romboletti first woman chosen as Holyoke City Council president

Last week, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas revealed a new license plate design for the state’s motor vehicles. But after nearly a week of bipartisan criticism from constituents and politicians alike, she has yielded to dissent. Ms. Kelly, a Democrat, announced on Tuesday that the new design, which was black, gold and midnight blue, would be pulled and that the state’s voters would help choose the next design. “Elected officials should be responsive to their constituents, which is why we are adjusting the process so Kansans can provide direct input on our state’s next license plate,” she said in a statement. Ms. Kelly’s announcement was met largely with relief, as words of gratitude poured in. The state’s tourism and revenue departments put together the proposed license plate, with input from a design firm and law enforcement, said a spokeswoman for Ms. Kelly, who had given feedback on and approved the final design. It included a wheat-yellow background with text in black and midnight blue with the phrase “to the stars” — the English translation of part of the state’s Latin motto — across the bottom.

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Maine secretary of state says Donald Trump cannot appear on ballot

Maine’s Democratic secretary of state on Thursday removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, becoming the first election official to take action unilaterally as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Trump remains eligible to continue his campaign. The decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows follows a December ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court that booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether Trump is barred by the Civil War-era provision, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine’s state court system, and it is likely that the nation’s highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot there and in the other states. In Oregon, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said last month she would not bar Trump from appearing on primary ballots after receiving legal guidance from the state’s department of justice. Bellows found that Trump could no longer run for his prior job because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol violated Section 3, which bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.” Bellows made the ruling after some state residents, including a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, challenged Trump’s position on the ballot. “I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.” The Trump campaign immediately slammed the ruling. “We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. Thursday’s ruling demonstrates the need for the nation’s highest court, which has never ruled on Section 3, to clarify what states can do. While Maine has just four electoral votes, it’s one of two states to split them. Trump won one of Maine’s electors in 2020, so having him off the ballot there should he emerge as the Republican general election candidate could have outsized implications in a race that is expected to be narrowly decided. That’s in contrast to Colorado, which Trump lost by 13 percentage points in 2020 and where he wasn’t expected to compete in November if he wins the Republican presidential nomination. In her decision, Bellows acknowledged that the Supreme Court will probably have the final word but said it was important she did her official duty. That won her praise from a group of prominent Maine voters who filed the petition forcing her to consider the case. “Secretary Bellows showed great courage in her ruling, and we look forward to helping her defend her judicious and correct decision in court. No elected official is above the law or our constitution, and today’s ruling reaffirms this most important of American principles,” Republican Kimberly Rosen, independent Thomas Saviello and Democrat Ethan Strimling said in a statement.

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Beacon Hill standoff: After days, lawmakers move $3 billion spending bill

The bill stalled three separate times since Thursday after House Republicans used a procedural move to halt informal sessions, which are typically sparsely attended. The rules of informal sessions, which prohibit roll call votes and debate, can often empower a single lawmaker to derail legislation, which the GOP did by challenging whether enough of the chamber’s 159 representatives were present for a vote. Governor Maura Healey almost immediately signed the legislation, ending days of partisan drama. Democratic leaders and the House’s small GOP caucus blamed each other for slowing a bill that touches everyone from homeless and migrant families to state employee paychecks. Massachusetts lawmakers on Monday passed an overdue $3 billion spending bill after dozens of Democrats showed up for informal House and Senate sessions to break a GOP logjam in chambers they firmly control. Advertisement But not on Monday. With more than 100 lawmakers present for the House’s initial count, lawmakers established a rare quorum for the informal sitting. That allowed Democrats to sidestep the parliamentary hurdle Republicans had previously used, and vote, 105-14, to give initial approval to the $3 billion package. Hours later, the Senate did the same, voting 20-3 along party lines. The House and Senate then quickly took two procedural votes and sent the bill to the governor’s desk. Healey signed it 18 minutes later — rare speed for such major legislation. In a statement, Healey said she was “grateful to our colleagues in the Legislature for their partnership.” “The bottom line is, the supplemental budget is done,” state Senate President Karen E. Spilka told reporters Monday while standing alongside minority leader Bruce E. Tarr, a Gloucester Republican. She said legislative leaders spent hours “working out this deal” that includes a range of critical spending. “It’s a win-win for everybody.” Prior to Monday’s breakthrough, lawmakers had passed more blame than actual legislation, with Democrats accusing Republicans of being obstructionists and the small GOP caucus needling the controlling party for not taking simple steps — including getting enough lawmakers to simply show up — to pass the bill. Advertisement Republicans had opposed the bill’s provision providing $250 million for the state’s overwhelmed emergency shelter system, arguing it included no measures to stem the flow of migrant families that have overwhelmed the program. House minority leader Bradley H. Jones said Monday that Democrats bore responsibility for the bill not moving more quickly, in part because they failed to reach a deal on the bill before closing out formal sessions for the year last month. “You guys control the House, Senate, and governor’s office. No excuses. Don’t try to put this off on anybody else,” Jones said of Democrats. “If you want to see why this didn’t happen in a timely fashion, grab a mirror and look at it.” Asked later for his response, House Speaker Ron Mariano said, “Maybe we should.” But he said Republicans still have to bear responsibility for holding the bill up. He said he did not put out a formal request to Democrats compelling them to attend Monday’s session, saying there was “frustration” building over the delays. “After the third strike, it was time to end it,” the Quincy Democrat said. “[Republicans] had three shots. I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish. Obviously nothing much has changed — except that the checks will go out three days later.” Advertisement Pressure had been mounting for weeks on lawmakers to act. Without a deal, the state has been unable to tie up the loose ends of the fiscal year that ended June 30 — a commonplace step that in recent years Democratic leaders have let slip later and later after the close of the fiscal year. It dedicates nearly $400 million to fund union contracts covering tens of thousands of state employees — some of which were agreed to months ago — and sets aside millions of dollars to help cover damages from catastrophic floods and other natural disasters. The package pours $250 million into the state’s emergency shelter system, and mandates that Healey use up to $50 million of the allotment to create overflow shelters for homeless families with nowhere else to go. The administration last month began limiting how many people could stay in the shelter system, pushing those shut out by the new 7,500-family cap to a newly created waitlist. The package requires Healey to open overflow sites by Dec. 31, and keep them “operational” until the end of the fiscal year. There were 7,532 families in the system as of Monday, according to state data. Supporters of the bill were relieved that it finally passed. Andrea Park, an advocate and staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, stayed at the State House through the early hours of Nov. 16 when lawmakers failed to reach a deal on shelter funding in their final formal session of the year. Advertisement ”Obviously, it’s very frustrating,” she said of the delay. “It felt so consequential right now. What’s happening right now is very real. … There’s over 100 families on the [emergency shelter] waitlist.” Labor leaders, who previously lambasted Democratic leaders for not reaching an agreement sooner, had turned their fire in recent days on Republicans. Jones, of North Reading, said the situation has “highlighted the dysfunction on Beacon Hill [and] highlighted the shortcomings of a one-party monopoly.” “It’s done a disservice to the taxpayers of the Commonwealth,” he said. “We made a good attempt the last few days to highlight in a responsible way … some of the shortcomings without being obstructive. I know my Democratic colleagues will disagree. Our very existence to them is obstructive. I disagree. I think it’s necessary for a healthy democracy.” Even as the spending bill neared approval, lawmakers harped on its slow crawl. On the Senate floor, Tarr, the minority leader, highlighted the 78 days between the governor filing the spending bill and negotiators reaching a compromise in mid-November. ”It is common for us to focus on the end of the process and feel a certain sense of urgency,” the Gloucester Republican said, using a poster board to illustrate the timeline. “When in fact oftentimes, the constraints of time are inflicted upon us by our own actions or our own inactions.” Senators didn’t shy away from taking digs at the House during its short debate Monday. State Senator Michael Rodrigues, the chamber’s budget chief, said in a floor speech that if they got the bill to the governor and she signed it on Monday — which indeed happened — then the thousands of state employees who negotiated raises could see bigger paychecks as early as Dec. 22. Advertisement The Westport Democrat added, however, that because of delays “down the hall” — a reference to the House — they likely will not see retroactive pay until early January. Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout. Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.

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Defense Bill Agreement Angers Hard Right, Posing a Threat to Johnson

But the Democrat-led Senate passed a far more restrained version, and in closed-door talks between the two chambers, House negotiators abandoned almost all of their most extreme policy dictates, including one that would have banned drag shows on military bases. The compromise package, which was released late Wednesday, prompted cries of betrayal by right-wing Republicans, who were further incensed to discover that it included an extension of a warrantless surveillance program many of them believe has been abused to spy on Americans. Now Mr. Johnson is bracing for a rebellion over the bill on the right that is all but unavoidable. House action is expected as soon as next week, after approval of the legislation in the Senate, which took its first steps on Thursday toward considering it. Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who was elected speaker in October, is keenly aware that his predecessor was ousted by Republican hard-liners angry that he had cut deals with Democrats, and who believed he had not catered enough to the demands of his conservative base. In theory, he could face the same fate under House rules that allow a single lawmaker to call a snap vote to remove the speaker, though Republicans appear to have no appetite for a repeat of the damaging episode. Mr. Johnson, a staunch conservative, initially enjoyed a measure of leeway from right-wing lawmakers who always distrusted and disliked former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Last month, many of them argued that the new speaker deserved time to get his bearings, and mostly refrained from criticizing him for working with Democrats to pass a stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown that lacked any of the spending cuts or policy changes they wanted. But their response to the defense bill compromise suggests they are losing patience with Mr. Johnson.

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Opinion | Trump Dreams of Economic Disaster

Indeed, housing advocates say the Somerville City Council’s vote last month makes it the first city in the region to fully legalize Boston’s famous stacked housing type, which define dense neighborhoods across the region’s inner ring of suburbs. And yet their ubiquity hides a baffling fact: a new triple-decker hasn’t been fully legal to build in the city — or across much of Greater Boston — in decades, following widespread bans of their construction. Now, prodded by a state law aimed at addressing Massachusetts’ housing crisis, Somerville recently removed key restrictions on triple-deckers, changes officials hope will lead to construction of the beloved structures. Triple-deckers are a cornerstone of Somerville. From Winter Hill to Davis Square, you’ll find the three-story, three-unit homes sprinkled in between cozy two-families and traditional single-family houses everywhere. Advertisement “I love triple-deckers,” said Matthew McLaughlin, a Somerville city councilor who led the effort. “We’re allowing more housing, but we’re also allowing a historical structure, a culturally significant structure, to be built again.” While it is not clear how many new triple-deckers will sprout from the rules, if many at all, the vote represents an important moment for the region, which has had a complicated relationship with the structures ever since they were banned in most cities and towns in the early 1900s amid the anti-immigrant movement. Somerville’s changes are in line with a national trend in which cities and states are looking to encourage more moderate-density housing by relaxing zoning rules. The new rules are fairly straightforward: Any three-unit building is now legal citywide by right, without requiring special approval from city zoning boards, and some of the old rules that made them difficult to build are gone. The city technically re-legalized triple deckers during a zoning overhaul in 2019, but property owners could only build a triple-decker if it was next to an existing one, and if they made one of its three units income-restricted. A few city councilors at the time felt the restrictions, especially the ones requiring affordability, were important, said McLaughlin. Advertisement But since that rule passed, just three people pulled permits to build one of the structures. All three eventually backed away from the projects. A driving force behind the recent change, councilors said, was the state’s MBTA Communities law, which requires cities and towns to zone for more housing near transit. While suburbs like Newton and Milton have been embroiled in heated fights over whether, and how, to comply with the law, Somerville, an already densely populated city, saw relatively little controversy over its vote. The law’s end-of-year deadline to submit new zoning to the state was the extra push Somerville needed to get the new rules across the finish line, officials said. “We thought this approach just made sense,” said City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen. “These new rules essentially just legalize what Somerville already looks like.” Some councilors expect property owners may take advantage of the rules to tack a third unit onto existing two-family buildings. Triple-deckers on Albion Street in Somerville. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Not everyone supported the change. At city council meetings in recent months, some residents were concerned that the structures would eat up open space in the city or lead to overcrowding in already-dense neighborhoods. More than anything, critics were concerned about the council removing the affordability requirement. Somerville, a previously working class city, has transformed into one of the most expensive places to live in Massachusetts. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment there is $2,500, according to Zillow. Advertisement Some residents thought allowing buildings without any affordable units would worsen the problem, with developers building only at expensive rates. But supporters of the change hope any new units, regardless of their price, will help boost the city’s housing supply and slow skyrocketing costs. “We certainly heard what some folks were saying, but we tried the affordability requirement, and they weren’t getting built,” said Ewen-Campen. “This was the best way to give the city a shot at building some triple-deckers again.” Somerville’s new rules could amount to something of an experiment, testing whether the structures can be resurrected as the beacon of affordability they once were. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, triple-deckers were built in abundance across the region. They represented a unique opportunity for working class families. The buildings were relatively dense and cheap to build, so families, often immigrant families, purchased the structures as multi-generational homes or to rent the other units for extra income. A view of a triple decker on Clarendon Ave. in Somerville. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Eventually, state lawmakers passed the Tenement Act in 1912, a local option rule to ban the structures with roots in the anti-immigrant movement, and many cities and towns adopted it in quick succession. And in the decades to follow, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, cities and towns tightened their zoning rules, and have been adding on layers ever since, making it all but impossible to build the triple-decker, said Jeff Byrnes, a member of the pro-housing group Somerville YIMBY (which stands for Yes In My Backyard). Advertisement The structures, though, have stood the test of time. In many neighborhoods, they are some of what housing advocates call the last “naturally occurring affordable housing,” which rent below market rates without government subsidies. Odds are the new three-story structures won’t be nearly as affordable as their older counterparts, Byrnes said, because construction costs have become exorbitant and market rents are sky high. But the units might rent for cheaper than single-family homes and some new-construction apartments and condominiums. “The idea is that we’re hoping to see more of these structures that so many people love,” said Byrnes. “They’re not going to be naturally affordable anymore, but it is going to mean more homes across the city, even if it is a modest number.” Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.

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How Much Power Should Government Experts Have?

Ambulance services across Massachusetts are required to submit the vaccination status of their employees annually to the state Department of Public Health under a new regulation that EMS providers say is a “blatant overreach.” The state Public Health Council in September adopted a series of regulations regarding COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, clumping licensed ambulance services together with health care facilities where patients reside or are treated. Most fire departments across the state operate licensed ambulance services, and EMS providers say the new regulation adds an additional “significant unfunded burden” to their plate. Ambulance services are now mandated to require and maintain proof of each employee’s current vaccination status against COVID-19 and the flu or the “individual’s exemption statement,” and they need to run a central tracking system. The data then must be submitted to the state every year. DPH sent a memo to EMS providers last week outlining steps needed to fulfill the regulations which also mandate services to “ensure all personnel are vaccinated annually with seasonal influenza vaccine,” barring exemptions. Rich MacKinnon, Jr., president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, sent a letter to union members shortly after DPH released the advisory, vowing to work with legal counsel and fight on their behalf. “This regulation is a blatant overreach by DPH,” he wrote, while also clarifying that the state has confirmed “multiple times” that the new rule is not a vaccine mandate. The regulations started to take shape after the state and federal COVID-19 public health emergencies ended in May. They reflect how DPH has incorporated COVID-19 response and management into a broader respiratory illness prevention and mitigation strategy, according to officials. EMS providers are now mandated to provide or arrange for vaccinations of all personnel “who cannot provide proof of current immunization against influenza unless an individual is exempt.” They must inform personnel about the “risks and benefits of influenza vaccine,” too. An objective was to “Close pre-existing gaps and inconsistencies in vaccine requirements, by including all health care facilities and Emergency Medical Service providers in this process, as all serve vulnerable and immunocompromised patients.” The regulations apply to all individuals who either work at or visit EMS facilities, including independent contractors, students and volunteers, whether or not they provide direct care. Individuals are allowed to decline the vaccine under the regulations, but if they do, they must take mitigation measures and sign a statement that they are exempt from vaccination and are aware of the pros and cons of the shots. MacKinnon, in a letter to DPH in August, said in order for fire departments to track vaccination states, a full-time staffer would have to be dedicated to the task alone. He highlighted how the regulations as a whole could “cause unintended consequences.” “Some of the decisions that DPH and (Office of Emergency Medical Services) make, they sometimes don’t realize how it’s going to trigger bargaining within the actual communities that we work for,” MacKinnon told the Herald on Thursday. Providers who administer vaccinations across the state are already mandated to report data to the Massachusetts Immunization Information System, a practice that has been followed since 2011, Easthampton Fire Chief Christopher Norris wrote in a letter to DPH over the summer. “Given the purpose and scope of this statewide database already in place,” Norris wrote, “the documentation and reporting requirements of these proposed changes to the regulations would provide absolutely no additional value or information that isn’t already being made available to the Commonwealth.” J. Dominic Singh, executive director of the Western Massachusetts Emergency Medical Services Committee, believes providing or arranging for employees to be vaccinated in his region could be particularly daunting. Many EMS agencies there are small, either part-time/on-call services or fully volunteer in nature, meaning they would have to contract with work-health clinics or hospitals to meet that requirement, Singh told DPH. “In the Western Massachusetts area facilities of this type are geographically far apart,” he wrote in a letter. “The financial commitment in paying for the vaccine administration would be an additional significant unfunded burden on already cash-strapped EMS agencies.”

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Poll: Americans sour on primary election process, major political parties

By Nicholas Riccardi and Linley Sanders WASHINGTON (AP) — With the GOP presidential primaries just about to start, many Republicans aren’t certain that votes will be counted correctly in their contest, as pessimism spreads about the future of both the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. About one-third of Republicans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that votes in the Republican primary elections and caucuses will be counted correctly. About three in 10 Republicans report a “moderate” amount of confidence, and 32% say they have “only a little” or “none at all.” In contrast, 72% of Democrats have high confidence their party will count votes accurately in its primary contests. Democrats are also slightly more likely than Republicans to have a high level of confidence in the Republican Party’s vote count being accurate. Republicans continue to be broadly doubtful about votes being counted accurately — in the early contests or beyond them. About one-quarter of Republicans say they have at least “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2024 presidential election will be counted accurately, significantly lower than Democrats. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults overall (46%) believe the same, which is in line with an AP-NORC poll conducted in June. The skepticism among Republicans comes after years of former President Donald Trump falsely blaming his 2020 loss on election fraud. Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed. “Nothing will be fair because the last election was rigged,” said Julie Duggan, 32, of Chicago, a Trump voter, referring to 2020. “I don’t trust any of them at this point.” The AP-NORC poll found a widespread lack of trust in both major political parties among U.S. adults overall. About one-quarter of U.S. adults say they have “only a little” confidence or “none at all” that both the Democratic Party and Republican Party have a fair process for selecting a presidential nominee. About half of independents have that low level of confidence in both party’s processes, compared with one-quarter of Republicans and 19% of Democrats. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults — 46% — say they are pessimistic about the way the country’s leaders are chosen. About half of U.S. adults are pessimistic about the future of the Republican Party, including one-third of Republicans and 45% of independents. The poll found 45% of U.S. adults are pessimistic about the future of the Democratic Party, including about one-quarter of Democrats and 41% of independents. Former President Donald Trump listens as he speaks with reporters while in flight after a campaign rally at Waco Regional Airport in Texas on March 25. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)AP “The way they’re spending our money, sending it all over the world and not protecting our people here in the United States of America,” said Gary Jackson, a 65-year-old retired trucker and Republican in Boise, Idaho. “Right now, I’m not impressed with either party.” Christine Allen, a political independent in Gambrills, Md., sees her state’s last governor, Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican, as a model for the country. But Hogan refused to run in the GOP presidential primary, which she sees as emblematic of how the two-party system prevents talented leaders from holding office, “Everybody right now is a bunch of children, stomping their feet until they get their way,” Allen, 44, said. “Everybody’s at fault here. There’s no winners.” Nonetheless, Allen thinks the primaries will be fair. “They’re fairer than the Electoral College,” she said. Even those who identify with the two political parties are uneasy about whom their organizations will nominate. A recent AP-NORC poll found that Democrats and Republicans are also not especially confident that their party’s primary contests will result in a candidate who can win the general election in November. Additionally, there are some doubts on both sides that the emerging candidates will represent their party’s views or Americans overall. Only three in 10 Democrats say they are confident the Democratic party’s process will result in a candidate whose views represent most Americans. About one-quarter of Democrats believe the process will produce a candidate whose views represent their own. Similarly, about three in 10 Republicans say the GOP process will produce a candidate who represents a majority of Americans. About one-third of Republicans expect they’ll get a nominee whose views represent their own. Mark Richards, a 33-year-old middle school teacher in Toledo, Ohio, and a Democrat, said he expects President Joe Biden will be nominated again by the party, despite his low job approval numbers. The incumbent faces only token opposition in the Democratic presidential primary. “I feel like there’s got to be someone better out there, but I don’t think another Democrat is going to unseat Joe Biden,” Richards said. Though Richards thinks the primaries will be fair and the votes accurately counted, he sees the nominating system as inherently flawed. “It’s all about money, who can get the most money from PACs and Super PACs,” he said, referring to political committees that donate to candidates or spend millions of dollars on their behalf. The poll of 1,074 adults was conducted Nov. 30–Dec. 4, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4%.

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Westfield council votes local funds for traffic light at new elementary school

WESTFIELD — Though some expressed disappointment it wasn’t being funded by the construction project, Westfield city councilors agreed on Thursday to spend $1.66 million in local funds to install a traffic light near the new elementary school. The light will be at Franklin and Smith streets. The money will come from free cash, which is funds left over from previous years’ budgets. The traffic light was originally priced at $2.06 million, but Councilor Richard Sullivan Jr. said the council’s Finance Committee, on which he sits, had recommended the reduction in the amount. He said the city Engineering Department’s original estimate for the work was $1.2 million, with a large $800,000 contingency in case bids came in over budget. All eight bids were around $1.2 million, however, and the engineer agreed $400,000 would be a sufficient contingency fund to meet unexpected costs during the construction.

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Opinion | A Trump Conviction Could Cost Him Enough Voters to Tip the Election

Recent general-election polling has generally shown Donald Trump maintaining a slight lead over President Biden. Yet many of those polls also reveal an Achilles’ heel for Mr. Trump that has the potential to change the shape of the race. It relates to Mr. Trump’s legal troubles: If he is criminally convicted by a jury of his peers, voters say they are likely to punish him for it. A trial on criminal charges is not guaranteed, and if there is a trial, neither is a conviction. But if Mr. Trump is tried and convicted, a mountain of public opinion data suggests voters would turn away from the former president. Still likely to be completed before Election Day remains the special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution of Mr. Trump for allegedly scheming to overturn the 2020 election. That trial had been set to start on March 4, 2024, but that date has been put on hold, pending appellate review of the trial court’s rejection of Mr. Trump‘s presidential immunity. On Friday the Supreme Court declined Mr. Smith’s request for immediate review of the question, but the appeal is still headed to the high court on a rocket docket. That is because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral argument on Jan. 9 and will probably issue a decision within days of that, setting up a prompt return to the Supreme Court. Moreover, with three other criminal cases also set for trial in 2024, it is entirely possible that Mr. Trump will have at least one criminal conviction before November 2024.

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Principles at Stake in Push to Disqualify Trump: Will of Voters and Rule of Law

Supreme Court justices have life tenure in the hope that their work will be independent of political influence, and, under the principle of the rule of law, it would be illegitimate for them to torque their interpretation of the Constitution with an eye toward political consequences. Under the rule of law, the Constitution and federal statutes apply equally to everybody, and no one’s power, wealth, political influence or other special status puts him or her above the law. But under the principle of democracy, the government’s legitimacy stems from the fact that voters decided whom to put in charge. The prospect of unelected judges denying voters the opportunity to make their own decision about Mr. Trump’s political future has given pause even to some of his critics who fervently hope Americans will reject him at the ballot box. Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that even if one thinks that Mr. Trump’s actions rendered him unfit for office in line with the 14th Amendment, there are other — and less alarmingly novel — systems that could have addressed that problem before it reached the courts. These would have freed the Republican Party to have a starkly different primary contest, he said. “The problem is that we’re just not set up for this — we’ve run through the safety nets,” Mr. Vladeck said. “We’ve been spared from this problem in the few prior episodes where it could have arisen by different sets of constraints. And so now we’re in this position because those backstops have failed.” Had nine more Republican senators voted to convict Mr. Trump at his Jan. 6 impeachment trial, he would be ineligible to hold future office anyway, said Mr. Vladeck, who wrote a column about the complications of the Colorado court’s ruling titled “The Law and High Politics of Disqualifying President Trump.” And if more Republican voters were repelled by Mr. Trump’s attempt to secure an unelected second term, his political career would be over as a practical matter.

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Opinion | The Weather in Iowa Is Not the Only Thing That Is Bitterly Cold

Bret Stephens: Gail, we are conversing on the eve of the Iowa caucuses — not yet knowing who came in second but not in much doubt about who’ll come in first. I’m trying to remember the last time the Republican winner went on to win the nomination: Ted Cruz in 2016? Rick Santorum in 2012? Mike Huckabee in 2008? Losers all. Assuming Donald Trump wins, that might even be a good omen. Gail Collins: And don’t forget, Trump won Iowa in 2020, when he was an incumbent president looking for a second term; that didn’t turn out all that well for him, either. Bret: Not that I’m rooting for him to win in Iowa. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Gail: I like the way we’re starting out! Now tell me how you think the other Republicans are doing. Especially your fave, Nikki Haley. Bret: Her zinger in the debate with Ron DeSantis — “You’re so desperate. You’re just so desperate” — could be turned into a country music hit by Miranda Lambert. Or maybe Carly Simon: “You’re so desperate, you probably think this race is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

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Ron DeSantiss Campaign Trail Quirk: The Word Do

All humans have oddities in the ways they speak. But those of presidential candidates are exposed more than most. All day, the candidates talk. And talk. And talk. Sometimes in scripted stump speeches, sometimes in off-the-cuff remarks to voters and the news media. And few talk more than Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who, in trying to make up his deficit in the polls, will on a typical day host five events for voters, sit for three interviews on television and hold a gaggle with reporters. Over the weeks and months on the campaign trail, one of Mr. DeSantis’s most curious verbal quirks has become clear: the way he sometimes uses the word “do.” During a CNN debate last week, Mr. DeSantis pledged to help seniors afford prescription drugs. “I want seniors to be able to do,” he said.

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Chris Christie to drop from GOP race at N.H. town hall, source tells AP

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is planning to announce he’s dropping his Republican presidential bid at his New Hampshire town hall on Wednesday night. That’s according to a person with direct knowledge of the former New Jersey governor’s plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions. Christie has been under intense pressure to exit the Republican presidential primary race as critics of Donald Trump work to unify behind a viable alternative to the former president. Christie is scheduled to host a town hall meeting in Windham at 5 p.m., hours before two of his rivals, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, meet for the fifth GOP presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. It is the only debate that Christie did not qualify for. The news comes as a surprise, given that Christie had staked the success of his campaign on New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, which is less than two weeks away. He had insisted as recently as Tuesday night that he had no plans to leave the race, rebuffing growing calls for him to step aside as he continued to cast himself as the only candidate willing to directly take on the former president. “I would be happy to get out of the way for someone who is actually running against Donald Trump,” he said at a town hall in Rochester, New Hampshire, while arguing that none of his rivals had stepped up to the plate. “I’m famous enough. ... I’ve got plenty of titles. ... The only reason to do this is to win,” he added. “So I’d be happy to get out of the way for somebody if they actually were going against Donald Trump.” But Christie faced a stark reality: While recent polls showed him reaching the double digits in New Hampshire, Haley shows signs of momentum. A CNN/UNH poll conducted in the state this week found Trump’s lead down to the single digits, with 4 in 10 likely Republican primary voters choosing Trump and about one-third now choosing Haley.

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House approves impeachment inquiry into President Biden as Republicans rally behind investigation

There was a time, Rosalynn Carter once confessed, when she dreaded going back to Plains, her tiny Georgia hometown. Actually, she was furious about it. She was enjoying her life as a young sailor’s wife, relishing the freedom and sense of adventure that came from being so far from home. But then, her husband, Jimmy, decided without consulting her that he was quitting the U.S. Navy and moving them back to Plains to take over his family’s peanut business. “I had been self-sufficient and independent from my mother and Jimmy’s mother,” Mrs. Carter, who died on Sunday at the age of 96, recalled several years ago in an interview. “And I knew that if I went home, I was going to have to come back to them.” The anger faded. Eventually, she said, no matter where she was in the world, she was always eager to get home to Plains. But that long-ago conflict turned out to be pivotal: Her husband, who would go on to become the nation’s 39th president, realized she was not just along for the ride. They were partners.

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Why More Chinese Are Risking Danger in Southern Border Crossings to U.S.

Three years to the day that supporters of Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, Mr. Trump said yet again that the mob had been acting “peacefully and patriotically.” He called for the release of people imprisoned for their actions that day, and he criticized the congressional committee that investigated the attack as “fake.” Speaking to crowds of several hundred people at two events on Saturday in Iowa, Mr. Trump,who faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, made only passing references to the riot, focusing much of his speeches instead on criticizing President Biden’s policies. But at his second event, Mr. Trump — who has repeatedly referred to the people serving sentences in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as “hostages” — called on Mr. Biden to free them. More than 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, 170 have been convicted of crimes at trial and more than 700 have pleaded guilty. “Release the J6 hostages, Joe,” Mr. Trump said in Clinton, Iowa. “Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”

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The State of Play in Iowa: What to Know About the G.O.P. Presidential Caucuses

But Iowa loves to surprise. Just ask former President Barack Obama, who delivered a crucial blow to Hillary Clinton in 2008. Or Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who surged over the December holidays to win the contest that same year. Obviously, it didn’t work out that well for Huckabee, who lost the nomination to Senator John McCain. In fact, Iowa has a terrible record of picking the Republican Party nominee. In the seven contested Republican races since 1980, the Iowa winner has captured the party’s nomination only twice: Senator Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996 and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas in 2000. Even in competitive years, fewer than 200,000 Iowans typically participate in their party’s caucuses. That number could be even lower this year, given the subzero temperatures forecast for next Monday night. The race for second As often the case with Iowa, the stakes this year go beyond a simple victory. For Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, a strong second-place finish would catapult her campaign into the New Hampshire primary with the most coveted of political narratives: momentum. For Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose standing in the race has slipped, this is make-or-break. If he doesn’t come close to either Haley or Trump, it will become increasingly difficult for DeSantis to justify continuing his bid for the G.O.P. nomination. Trump’s speeches have focused on how he expects to roundly defeat President Biden in November. But in recent days, he has taken aim at Haley, accusing her of being “in the pocket” of “establishment donors,” and of being a “globalist,” my colleague Shane Goldmacher reported this weekend.

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Healey outlines ongoing priorities to address housing costs, MBTA in 1st State of the Commonwealth speech

Politics Healey outlines ongoing priorities to address housing costs, MBTA in 1st State of the Commonwealth speech “Today, Massachusetts is more affordable, more competitive, and more equitable than it was a year ago.” Gov. Maura Healey at her inauguration last year. Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday delivered her first State of the Commonwealth address since taking office last year, highlighting steps taken by her administration during her first year as governor and outlining her agenda to address a range of ongoing challenges in her second year, including the MBTA, housing costs, and climate change. “We set high goals for our first year in office,” Healey said. “I stood here one year ago and made promises. And because we came together, and we acted with urgency, we delivered results. We met every one of our goals. Today, Massachusetts is more affordable, more competitive, and more equitable than it was a year ago. And the state of our Commonwealth, like the spirit of our people, is stronger than ever.” Advertisement: Healey said the budget proposal she will file next week will reflect her administration’s ongoing priorities of lowering the cost of housing and child care, “strengthening schools,” addressing congestion on the state’s roadways and the failings of the railways, helping businesses, and meeting the climate crisis. “This is the work ahead of us, and there’s no time to wait,” Healey said. The governor said all the work starts with housing, calling it “the biggest challenge we face.” She said in the year ahead her administration will focus on passing her Affordable Homes Act, which, if passed by the Legislature, would be the largest housing investment in state history and create tens of thousands of new homes. “This isn’t just a few unlucky people,” Healey said. “It’s the heart of our workforce. It’s the soul of our communities. It’s the future of our state. We have to act and we have to act now, to make it easier for everyone to find affordable places to live.” During her speech, the governor also announced several new initiatives for 2024, including launching a new early literacy strategy, reauthorizing the Life Sciences Initiative, initiating a new climate tech initiative, and increasing funding for roads, bridges, and the MBTA in the state budget. Advertisement: Acknowledging the frustrations MBTA riders have faced in recent years with unsafe conditions, shutdowns, and slowdowns, Healey said there is “still a long way to go” in fixing the system. “I want to thank T riders for your patience as the work continues,” Healey said. “We are committed to making your commutes better. And I can share with you tonight: our budget proposal next week will offer transformative investments to improve all the ways we get around in Massachusetts. We’ll increase funding for local roads and bridges to record levels, with special investments dedicated to rural communities. We’ll double our support for MBTA operations, and tackle deferred maintenance, to build a system worthy of our economy. And we will establish a permanent, reduced fare for low-income T riders; and continue affordable options at regional transit authorities.” Watch the governor’s full speech below:

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Israel-Hamas War Netanyahu and Biden Voice Divisions Over Wars Next Steps

Palestinians collecting water in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Monday. Access to clean water and food is scarce in the overcrowded shelters. Infectious diseases are ravaging the population of Gaza, health officials and aid organizations said on Monday, citing cold, wet weather; overcrowding in shelters; scarce food; dirty water; and little medicine. Adding to the crisis in the enclave after more than two months of war, those who become ill have extremely limited treatment options, as hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients injured in airstrikes. “We are all sick,” said Samah al-Farra, a 46-year-old mother of 10 struggling to care for her family in a camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, in southern Gaza. “All of my kids have a high fever and a stomach virus.” While the collapse of Gaza’s health system has made it challenging to track exact numbers, the World Health Organization has reported at least 369,000 cases of infectious diseases since the war began, using data collected from the Gaza Health Ministry and UNRWA, the U.N. agency that cares for Palestinians — a staggering increase from before the war. And even the W.H.O.’s extraordinarily high number fails to capture the scale of the crisis: Shannon Barkley, the health systems team lead at the World Health Organization’s offices in Gaza and the West Bank, said it does not include cases in northern Gaza, where the war has destroyed many buildings and what remains of the health system is overwhelmed. The most common diseases raging through Gaza are respiratory infections, Ms. Barkley said, ranging from colds to pneumonia. Even normally mild illnesses can pose grave risks to Palestinians, especially children, older adults and the immunocompromised, given the dire living conditions, she said. Ms. al-Farra, speaking by phone, said her family had been sleeping on the ground since they fled Khan Younis, a city just to the north of Rafah, a week ago. For the last three days, Ms. al-Farra said, she and her children have had high fevers and suffered from persistent diarrhea and vomiting. Like many others in the battered enclave, Ms. al-Farra said that she and her family had been drinking the same foul-smelling water that they used to wash themselves. “When I wash my hands, I feel like they get dirtier, not cleaner,” she said. Her youngest child, 6-year-old Hala, spent the majority of the last three days sleeping and was too weak to ask for food after weeks of going hungry, Ms. al-Farra said. “She used to beg for more food, but now she can’t even keep anything down,” she said. Her 9-year-old son, Mohammad, has been having seizures, likely from his fever, she added. The Israeli military announced on Monday that it was opening a second security checkpoint at the Kerem Shalom Crossing — on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt — to screen humanitarian aid arriving via Egypt, a move meant to allow more food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment into Gaza. Aid organizations have said that the rate of aid coming into Gaza since the collapse of a temporary cease-fire earlier a week and a half ago has been far from enough. Hospitals that are still considered to be functioning are focused on providing critical care for patients with trauma injuries from airstrikes, according to Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial, an emergency coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, who was speaking from Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza. But many of those patients receive postoperative care in unsanitary conditions, resulting in severe infections, she said. Image Displaced Palestinians in temporary housing near U.N. warehouses in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Infectious diseases are spreading because of unsanitary conditions in overcrowded shelters. Credit... Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images And the primary health care system in central Gaza has completely collapsed, she said, leaving those in need of basic medical care without treatment. “There’s a very big focus on the wounded and the injured patients, but it’s the entirety of the health care system that is just being brought to the ground,” she said. One Gazan, Ameera Malkash, 40, said that when she first took her pale and jaundiced son, Suliman, to a hospital in Khan Younis last month, it was overrun with casualties from airstrikes that day. They were not able to see a doctor. They tried again the next day, she said by phone, and the doctor told them it was hepatitis A — a liver infection caused by a highly contagious virus that spreads easily through contaminated water. Suliman was supposed to quarantine, but there were no rooms left in the hospital, Ms. Malkash said, so they had little choice but to go back to a shelter crammed with thousands of other people. Last week, the Palestinian Authority’s health minister, Mai Alkaila, said about 1,000 cases of hepatitis A had been recorded in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry is based in the West Bank and operates separately from the health ministry in Gaza. Dr. Marwan al-Hamase, the director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, said on Sunday that his small facility was accommodating hundreds of displaced people, and that they were sleeping on floors where wounded people were also being treated. Those floors have not been cleaned in weeks, he said, because “we are unable to find cleaning products.” Malnutrition has become “beyond control,” and anemia and dehydration cases among children have nearly tripled, Dr. al-Hamase said. Milena Murr, a spokeswoman for the relief agency Mercy Corps, said that when her colleagues in Gaza fled their homes two months ago, they did not prepare for weather that has turned cold and rainy. Many did not bring blankets, jackets or warm clothes. Displaced people taking refuge in U.N.-run shelters have been sharing bathrooms without running water. And fecal matter accumulating on the streets can contribute to the spread of disease and further contaminate water sources, Ms. Barkley, of the W.H.O., said. Firas al-Darby, 17, who is at a U.N. school-turned-shelter in the south, said that he’d had a fungal infection all over his body for weeks. “Bacteria, filth, disease and epidemics are all over the school,” he said. Hala al-Farra also had a skin rash, her mother said, as well as lice. Ms. al-Farra added that she was considering cutting off Hala’s hair because she could not afford shampoo. “I have no idea how I will help my kids,” said Mr. al-Farra. “I’m now going around knocking on people’s homes and begging for clean water.” Abu Bakr Bashir and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

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Political Pressures on Biden Helped Drive Secret Cell of Aides in Hostage Talks

Aides said the president was also hopeful that the hostage release could be an early step toward a broader peace in the region once the immediate crisis ends. In an opinion article published in The Washington Post on Sunday, Mr. Biden described how far his ambitions stretch beyond the four-day pause in fighting agreed to on Tuesday. “Our goal should not be simply to stop the war for today,” he wrote. “It should be to end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence, and build something stronger in Gaza and across the Middle East so that history does not keep repeating itself.” Mr. Biden and his top aides have repeatedly said they do not tell Israel how to respond to the slaughter of 1,200 people inside their country, and Mr. Netanyahu made it clear on Tuesday that he intended to resume military operations against Hamas as soon as the hostages were freed in accordance with the deal. “The war will continue,” Mr. Netanyahu said. But some senior American officials have signaled they would not be disappointed if the pause became a more permanent cease-fire. If the White House tries to use the hostage deal to press for a longer-term cease-fire and start moving toward the bigger questions about occupation and a two-state solution, that could put Mr. Biden on another collision course with Mr. Netanyahu when the fighting is scheduled to resume. A top administration official, who briefed reporters on Tuesday in the hours before the deal was finalized, said the pause in fighting was a step toward an eventual push for peace. But the official cautioned that such a possibility was a long way off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a deal that had not yet been finalized. In the short term, the president and his aides say they are focused on ensuring that Hamas lives up to the promises the militant group made during weeks of negotiations that often seemed destined to fail. The first sign of progress came in late October, when U.S. officials received word through intermediaries in Qatar and Egypt that Hamas could accept a deal to release women and children. In return, they wanted Israel to free Palestinian prisoners, pause the fighting, and delay a ground invasion. With Israeli troops massing outside Gaza, officials in Israel and the United States debated whether to accept the deal. Israeli officials did not think Hamas was serious about the offer and refused to delay the ground offensive. Hamas refused to provide any proof of life about the hostages. Negotiations stalled. At the White House, Mr. Biden and his foreign policy team kept pressing. On Nov. 14, hope swelled again after Mr. Netanyahu called the president to say he could accept the latest offer from Hamas. But just hours after the call, Israeli military forces stormed Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which they said served as a Hamas command center. Suddenly, communications between Hamas and the officials in Qatar and Egypt went silent. When Hamas resurfaced hours later, they made it clear: The deal was off. For several days, the militant group demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from the hospital, which Israel refused. It took several days for the talks to resume, following a call from Mr. Biden to the emir of Qatar. Administration officials continued pressing Israel and, through the intermediaries, Hamas. After Mr. Biden’s call, top aides, including the director of the C.I.A., met with the emir in Qatar to go over the latest draft — a six-page text with detailed steps for implementation on both sides. Within a week, the diplomatic pressure paid off. On Tuesday evening, as the Israeli cabinet took its final vote to approve the deal, Mr. Biden headed out of Washington for a five-day Thanksgiving vacation with his family on the island of Nantucket. The Israeli decision, announced by Mr. Netanyahu’s office, would allow for a pause of at least four days in the fighting in Gaza. If it holds, it will be the longest halt in hostilities since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks prompted Israel to begin its bombardment of Gaza. In a statement on Tuesday night, Mr. Biden pledged to work with regional leaders “to ensure this deal is carried through in its entirety,” adding, “It is important that all aspects of this deal be fully implemented.” But even with the deal in place, Mr. Biden faces challenges ahead. There are still Americans being held hostage in Gaza, and the tensions in the United States, and within his own party, show few signs of diminishing. Officials said they were keenly aware that the horror for the families of those still in captivity in Gaza will not end until their loved ones are home. For Mr. Biden, it could not happen soon enough. “As president, I have no higher priority than ensuring the safety of Americans held hostage around the world,” Mr. Biden said in his statement, adding, “Today’s deal should bring home additional American hostages, and I will not stop until they are all released.”

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tries Creating Own Party to Get on Ballot in 6 States

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, announced on Tuesday that he had filed paperwork to create his own political party in six states — an effort to get his name on the ballot with fewer voter signatures than would be required for an unaffiliated candidate. Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer turned anti-vaccine activist who has promoted conspiracy theories and right-wing misinformation, is seeking to form a “We the People” party in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina as well as a “Texas Independent Party.” Election offices in North Carolina, Delaware and Hawaii confirmed that they had received the campaign’s applications for a new party, as did the Texas secretary of state’s office. Officials in California did not respond to inquiries, and an official in Mississippi said the office had not received a filing. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said that forming parties in those six states would reduce the number of signatures he needed to get on the ballot in all 50 states by 330,000 — about a third of the previous total.

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Three things to know about Boston Mayor Michelle Wus electeds of color party gaffe

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu made headlines this week for hosting a holiday party dedicated to elected officials of color. Attendees at the party included state Sen. Liz Miranda, D-2nd Suffolk, state Rep. Christopher Worrell, D-5th Suffolk, and Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden. The party has been a long tradition that the city has held, but an email gaffe cast a pall over the celebration for some. Here are three things to know about Wu’s “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” email mishap. So what did the email say? On Tuesday, Wu’s office was accidentally sent out an email to every member of City Council, inviting them to the “Electeds of Color Holiday Party,” according to NBC Boston, the media outlet that first broke the news. Fifteen minutes later, Wu’s office sent another email apologizing for the email, NBC Boston reported. The party was intended for elected officials of color, the mayor said. “I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding a Holiday Party for tomorrow,” the follow-up message said, according to NBC Boston. “I did send that to everyone by accident, I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so.” How did Mayor Wu explain her email gaffe? Wu was quick to explain the email gaffe, saying that the “Electeds of Color Holiday Party,” was a longstanding tradition and one of the many holiday celebrations the city throws each year, according to the Boston Globe. “There are many, many events that are private events for all different sorts of groups, so we’ve clarified that and look forward to seeing everyone at one of the dozens of other opportunities to celebrate the holidays together,” Wu told NBC Boston on Wednesday. “I think we all have been in a position at one point where an email went out and there was a mistake in the recipients, so there was truly just an honest mistake that happened in issuing the invitation,” the mayor added. Are people upset over the ‘Electeds of Color Holiday Party?’ Wu’s explanation didn’t stop some people from feeling frustrated over a private holiday dinner party. Howie Carr, a conservative columnist for the Boston Herald, described Wu’s “electeds of color” holiday party as the mayor celebrating a “non-white Christmas”. “What if the reverse had happened – what if a white mayor had held a whites-only party at a city-owned building, after specifically disinviting all the non-white members of the City Council?” Carr wrote. City Councilors Frank Baker and Sharon Durkan, who are both white, said they did not take any offense to Wu’s holiday party, the Boston Globe reported. “It’s a really busy season!” Durkan said in a statement to the Globe. “As a new elected official, I’ve been inundated with invites to holiday events. I’m not the least bit offended to not be included in this long-standing get together. What is new this season is how many elected officials of color represent our City and State. Let’s be clear, that’s an amazing thing and I hope attendees had a blast last night.” In a post, on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo seemed to make fun of people’s outrage. “Never let facts get in the way of some manufactured outrage,” Ricardo wrote. “Electeds of Color has existed for over a decade and the holiday party is an annual tradition. Wait until someone tells them about the Congressional Black Caucus or MA Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. The horror!!”

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Brazils Congress Weakens Protection of Indigenous Lands, Defying Lula

The economy is good, but Americans feel bad about it. Or do they? The more I look into it, the more I’m convinced that much of what looks like poor public perception about the economy is actually just Republicans angry that Donald Trump isn’t still president. Last year was a very good one for the U.S. economy. Job growth was strong, unemployment remained near a 50-year low and inflation plunged. Some reports I’ve seen suggest that this favorable combination was somehow paradoxical and contrary to economic theory. In fact, however, it’s exactly what textbook economics says to expect in an economy experiencing an improvement in its productive capacity. And I do mean textbook economics. Here’s a figure from one of the leading introductory economics textbooks — OK, Krugman and Wells, seventh edition (forthcoming) — on the effects of adverse and favorable “supply shocks”:

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Republican Tempers Flare as Speaker Fight Continues, Paralyzing the House

Follow our live coverage for the House Speaker Vote. House Republicans spent Thursday fighting among themselves in closed-door meetings, trading blame and insults and casting about for a way forward as they failed again to coalesce around a speaker candidate. It was a day of uncertainty and whiplash on Capitol Hill, and the House remained paralyzed as war raged overseas and a government shutdown grew near. House members were unable to act on even the most basic of legislation while President Biden prepared to request a $100 billion emergency national security spending package that included aid for Israel and Ukraine and would need congressional approval. By Thursday evening, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right Republican nominee for speaker, appeared no closer to winning the post after meeting with some of the 22 mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers opposed to his candidacy. Nevertheless, Mr. Jordan said he would push for another vote to become speaker, scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m., even though he was bleeding support and calls were increasing for him to step aside. “He needed to know there is no way forward for his speakership,” Representative John Rutherford of Florida, one of the holdouts, told reporters after meeting with Mr. Jordan.

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Vivek Ramaswamy suspends his 2024 Republican presidential bid and endorses rival Donald Trump

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday and endorsed former President Donald Trump after a disappointing finish in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses. Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old political novice who sought to replicate Trump’s rise as a bombastic, wealthy outsider, said, “As of this moment we are going to suspend this presidential campaign. There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.” During the campaign, he needled his opponents but praised Trump as “the best president of the 21st century.” He argued, though, that Republicans should opt for “fresh legs” and “take our America First agenda to the next level.” The approach, including his call for “revolution,” vaulted Ramaswamy into the mix of candidates vying to overtake Trump — or at least become a viable alternative. His decision to drop out, though, becomes the latest confirmation that the former president, even at 77 years old and under multiple criminal indictments, still dominates Republican politics and remains the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination for the third consecutive time. Ramaswamy’s failure also affirms how difficult it is for any Republican other than Trump to push the bounds of party orthodoxy, as the first-time candidate found little political reward for positions such as his opposition to aid for Israel and Ukraine. The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy entered politics at the highest level after making hundreds of millions of dollars at the intersection of hedge funds and pharmaceutical research, a career he charted and built while graduating from Harvard University and then Yale Law School. He brought to his campaign the same brash approach he used to coax money from investors even when the drugs he touted never made it to the market. __ By BILL BARROW Associated Press

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Trump Meets With Teamsters President as Union Weighs 2024 Endorsement

Sean M. O’Brien, the general president of the Teamsters union, sat down with former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday at Mr. Trump’s seaside mansion, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the union, said the meeting was simply one of a series of meetings the Teamsters plan to have with all the presidential candidates. But this particular meeting, which the union detailed in a lengthy post on social media that was accompanied by a picture of Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Trump, came at a remarkable moment. At a public hearing in November, Senator Markwayne Mullin, a staunchly pro-Trump Republican from Oklahoma, called Mr. O’Brien a “thug,” a “bully” and a coward, and challenged him to a fight. President Biden has called himself the most pro-union president in history, as have several leaders of organized labor, and the Teamsters endorsed his candidacy in 2020. In December, Mr. Biden issued an executive order mandating what are known as project labor agreements — which establish fixed work, wage and labor standards at construction sites — for all federal contracts exceeding $35 million. That order was a potential boon to the Teamsters union, which is likely to control transportation at many of those sites and would have to be brought into contract talks as funds from Mr. Biden’s signature domestic achievements start to flow.

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Its a monster election year. Dont let the horse race distract you.

In the opening minutes of a debate during Sherrod Brown’s successful 2006 campaign for Senate, the Republican incumbent attacked him over “partial-birth abortion,” a phrase often weaponized by conservatives at the time to paint Democrats as somewhere between immoral and murderous. Mr. Brown, a Democrat from northeast Ohio in the House at the time, glanced at his notes. He opposed “late-term abortion,” he said in a measured voice. He denounced the mere idea that Congress would limit any procedure that could “save a woman’s health.” With that, he quickly pivoted. Mr. Brown used the rest of his time to burnish his political brand as a blue-collar economic populist. Nearly 18 years later, abortion will again be a central point of contention as Senator Brown fights for re-election against one of three Republicans trying to unseat him next year. One difference, other than that his shaggy dark hair is now shaded with gray, is that he is preparing to fully lean into his defense of abortion rights.

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New session, new local officials ring in 2024 for state senator (Letter)

HOLYOKE — In a historic 7-6 vote, Tessa R. Murphy-Romboletti will succeed outgoing City Council President Todd McGee as the first woman to hold the leadership post in Holyoke. Murphy-Romboletti beat longtime Councilor Kevin A. Jourdain for the president’s chair in a vote among her peers after an inauguration and swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. “It is historic for Holyoke, for the first time ever a woman has been elected as the City Council president. It has been over 150 years, and there are seven women on the council. It is exciting,” said Councilor Patricia C. Devine, who joins this year’s panel. “We have an amazing City Council, and we are slowly beginning to look like the community we serve, but we still have more work to do,” Murphy-Romboletti told The Republican. The president is responsible for setting the tone for the entire body at large, Murphy-Romboletti noted. “The City Council president doesn’t debate, and you have to be OK with that to be an affective City Council president,” she said. Murphy-Romboletti said the newly elected City Council shows her that others are feeling empowered to make a difference and have put themselves out there as public officials. She said she will be thinking long-term about exercising impartiality and fairness. “I want to see the City Council come together to work and treat each other with respect and dignity,” she said.

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McCarthy announces he won't run for re-election after being ousted as speaker

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election after being ousted as House Speaker. McCarthy made the announcement in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. "No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country. It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways. I know my work is only getting started," McCarthy wrote. "I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office. The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders." This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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Lauren Boebert, Far-Right Firebrand, Is Switching House Districts in Colorado

Now that abortion is restricted and affirmative action is hobbled, the conservative legal movement has set its sights on a third precedent: Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The 1984 decision, one of the most cited in American law but largely unknown to the public, bolstered the power of executive agencies that regulate the environment, the marketplace, the work force, the airwaves and countless other aspects of modern life. Overturning it has been a key goal of the right and is part of a project to demolish the “administrative state.” A decision rejecting Chevron would threaten regulations covering — just for starters — health care, consumer safety, government benefit programs and climate change. (My colleague Charlie Savage has written more on the possible implications.) After three and a half hours of lively arguments on Wednesday that appeared to divide the justices along the usual lines, it seemed that the court’s conservative majority was prepared to limit or even eliminate the precedent.

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Trump Pushes Pro-Police Agenda, With a Big Exception: His Criminal Cases

The National Weather Service has released a prediction of a strong geomagnetic storm beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, during which some of Massachusetts may be able to see the northern lights. The northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, are not often seen this far south, but the extent of the storm has the line of visibility drawing a line directly through the state, meaning much of Western Massachusetts and north Eastern Massachusetts should be able to view it on the northern horizon. “Auroras may be visible as far south as Illinois and Oregon Thursday night/early Friday morning,” the Weather Service reported on X, formerly known as Twitter. A National Weather Service forecast shows the extent of the northern lights expected to be visible on Thursday, Nov. 30, through the early morning hours of Friday, Dec. 1, 2023. (National Weather Service)National Weather Service To best see the northern lights, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommends that the best time to view aurora is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. “Find a place where you can see to the north (or south if you are in the southern hemisphere). Given the right vantage point, say for example on top of a hill in the northern hemisphere with an unobstructed view toward the north, a person can see the aurora even when it is 1,000 km (600 miles) further north,” the NOAA explains. It must also be dark for space watchers to see the aurora, the NOAA notes. The federal agency recommends going out at night to view the display and getting away from the lights of the city and full moon.

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Editorial: Basic incomes basic question who will pay?

There were an estimated 249 million cases of malaria around the globe last year, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, significantly more than before the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase of five million over 2021. Malaria remains a top killer of children. Those new cases were concentrated in just five countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Papua-New Guinea. Climate change was a direct contributor in three of them, said Dr. Daniel Ngamije, who directs the W.H.O. malaria program. In July 2022, massive flooding left more than a third of Pakistan underwater and displaced 33 million people. An explosion of mosquitoes soon followed. The country reported 3.1 million confirmed cases of malaria that year, compared with 275,000 the year before, with a fivefold increase in the rate of transmission. “With the very heavy monsoons we expected these consequences, but not up to this magnitude,” said Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar, director of Pakistan’s national malaria control program.

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Amid Dismal Polling and Some Voter Anger, Dont Expect Biden to Shift His Strategy

For weeks, polls have shown President Biden trailing his likely challenger, former President Donald J. Trump. Protesters have streamed through Washington, demanding that Mr. Biden call for a cease-fire in Gaza. Groups of key voters, including young people and voters of color, have suggested that they might not support Mr. Biden in the 2024 election. With so many troubling signals, what is a president seeking re-election to do? The answer, according to people in Mr. Biden’s orbit, is to stay the course. Several officials in the Biden campaign and the White House are adamant that unflattering polls and vocal criticism from key constituents over Gaza, immigration and other issues simply have not been enough to shift a strategy that is centered on comparing the Biden agenda with policies favored by Republicans. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would turn up the volume on that battle cry beginning in 2024.

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Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the Missouri woman who persuaded an online boyfriend to kill her mother after she had forced her to pretend for years that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses, was released Thursday, Dec. 28 from prison on parole. Blanchard was released early in the day from the Chillicothe Correctional Center, said Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections. Blanchard was granted parole after serving 85% of her original sentence, Pojmann said. Blanchard’s case sparked national tabloid interest after reports emerged that her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, who was slain in 2015, had essentially kept her daughter prisoner, forcing her to use a wheelchair and feeding tube. It turned out that Gypsy Blanchard, now 32, was perfectly healthy, not developmentally delayed as her friends had always believed. Her mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents or caregivers seek sympathy through the exaggerated or made-up illnesses of their children, said her trial attorney, Michael Stanfield. “People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention,” he said. Through the ruse, the mother and daughter met country star Miranda Lambert and received charitable donations, a trip to Disney World and even a home near Springfield from Habitat for Humanity. Stanfield said Gypsy Blanchard’s mother was able to dupe doctors by telling them her daughter’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. If they asked too many questions, she just found a new physician, shaving the girl’s head to back up her story. Among the unnecessary procedures Gypsy Blanchard underwent was the removal of her salivary glands. Her mother convinced doctors it was necessary by using topical anesthetic to cause drooling. Gypsy Blanchard, who had little schooling or contact with anyone but her mother, also was misled, especially when she was younger, Stanfield said. “The doctors seem to confirm everything that you’re being told. The outside world is telling you that your mother is a wonderful, loving, caring person. What other idea can you have?” Stanfield said. But then the abuse became more physical, Stanfield said. Gypsy testified that her mother beat her and chained her to a bed. Slowly, Gypsy also was beginning to understand that she wasn’t as sick as her mom said. “I wanted to be free of her hold on me,” Gypsy testified at the 2018 trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin, who is serving a life sentence in the killing. She went on to add: “I talked him into it.” When she took the stand at his trial, prosecutors already had cut her a deal because of the abuse she had endured. In exchange for pleading guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The first-degree murder charge she initially faced would have meant a life term. “Nick was so in love with her and so obsessed with her that he would do anything,” Godejohn’s trial attorney Dewayne Perry argued in court, saying his client has autism and was manipulated. Prosecutors, however, argued that he was motivated by sex and a desire to be with Gypsy Blanchard, whom he met on a Christian dating website. According to the probable cause statement, Gypsy Blanchard supplied the knife and hid in a bathroom while Godejohn repeatedly stabbed her mother. The two ultimately made their way by bus to Wisconsin, where they were arrested. She has been incarcerated since then at a state women’s prison in Chillicothe. “Things are not always as they appear,” said Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott as the strange revelations began to emerge. Even Gypsy’s age was a lie. Her mother had said she was younger to make it easier to perpetuate the fraud, and got away with it because Gypsy was so small: just 4 feet, 11 inches (150 centimeters) tall. Law enforcement was initially so confused that the original court documents listed three different ages for her, with the youngest being 19. She was 23. Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson described it as “one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases we have seen.” Stanfield recalled that the first time he met Gypsy, she got out of breath walking the 75 yards (69 meters) from the elevator to the room where he talked to her. He described her as malnourished and physically frail. “I can honestly say I’ve rarely had a client who looks exceedingly better after doing a fairly long prison sentence,” Stanfield said. “Prison is generally not a place where you become happy and healthy. And I say that because, to me, that’s kind of the evidence to the rest of the world as to just how bad what Gypsy was going through really was.” Gypsy Blanchard later said it wasn’t until her arrest that she realized how healthy she was. But it took time. Eventually, she got married while behind bars to Ryan Scott Anderson, now 37, of Saint Charles, Louisiana. The bizarre case was the subject of the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act” and an upcoming Lifetime docuseries “The Prison Confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.” Daytime television psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw interviewed her from prison. The novel “Darling Rose Gold” draws upon the story for its premise and Blanchard’s own account, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom” is set for publication next month. Amid the media storm, corrections department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said no in-person coverage of her release on Thursday would be allowed “in the interest of protecting safety, security and privacy.”

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75 Years Later, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials Still Reverberate - The New York Times

Unlike at the Nuremberg trial, where the rules of international law were shaped by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, the Tokyo court also gave significant authority to anticolonial judges and prosecutors from developing countries. One of the most influential judges, Mei Ruao of China, disgusted at the British Empire, privately scorned “the nonsense of these imperialist white supremacists.” Although the United States wanted to skew the trial toward aggression against the United States at Pearl Harbor, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. potentate ruling Allied-occupied Japan, rapidly lost patience with the tribunal, allowing it to be steered by other Allied governments. Chinese and Philippine prosecutors assembled a massive compilation of Japan’s atrocities and sexual violence. Rather than resolving wartime grievances, though, the Tokyo trial remains an occasion for patriotic quarrels across East Asia to this day. Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, pursues territorial disputes with Japan while remonstrating about World War II. When conservative Japanese politicians visit or pay tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo, which honors Japan’s war dead as well as Tojo and 13 other Class A war criminals, Chinese citizens recoil with state-sanctioned disgust. South Koreans seethe against an officially pacifist Japan that is hardly poised for imperialist backsliding. For their part, Japanese nationalists, including many in the country’s dominant conservative party, denounce the trial as “victors’ justice” and exalt the lengthy dissent by the Indian judge, Radhabinod Pal, which supported acquittal for Tojo and all the other defendants. The Tokyo trial is consequential not because of long-defunct Wilsonian daydreams about a world pacified by international law, but because it misfired and fizzled. While Japanese leaders have repeatedly apologized for the crimes of World War II, there is no Japanese equivalent to the near-universal national repentance of Germany today. The international lawyers and human rights activists who extol Nuremberg usually see Tokyo as an embarrassment best forgotten. The Tokyo trial is important precisely because it remains so controversial. If Nuremberg is remembered as a metaphor for moral clarity, then Tokyo represents a dive into murk. There are several reasons for the contested legacy of Tokyo. Although the Tokyo trial was far more international than Nuremberg, its judges proved incapable of unity. There were dissents from the Dutch, French and Indian judges, while the Australian chief judge and the Philippine judge wrote concurring opinions. After the judgment, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed American defense lawyers to make oral arguments about the legitimacy of the Tokyo court, but then ruled that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over an international tribunal. All of this apparent indecision from the Allied powers undermined the judgment, making many Japanese wonder if justice had really been done. Beyond the legal problems, the Tokyo trial was undercut by military imperatives and international realpolitik. Fearing the bloodshed from a ground invasion of Japan, the Truman administration had ended the Pacific War with a tacit negotiation — which, as political scientists have demonstrated, is how almost all wars end. This was a brutal arrangement, brought about by firebombing, blockade, advancing armies and atomic bombs, but a negotiation all the same. After the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Truman administration cut an implicit deal to quietly spare Emperor Hirohito from overthrow or prosecution as a war criminal. This helped induce Japan to surrender at last, and the emperor proved helpful in legitimizing the subsequent American-led occupation. Yet Hirohito’s enduring presence on the throne and the revival of conservative elites around him permanently muddied postwar debates about Japan’s culpability, making possible a view that Japan had fought a patriotic and perhaps legitimate war.

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Opinion | Theres a Bomb Under the Table

Alfred Hitchcock explained the nature of cinematic terror with a story about the bomb under the table. People are sitting around a table having a mundane conversation about baseball when — boom! — a bomb goes off, instantly killing everyone. You’ve momentarily surprised the audience. But what if, Hitchcock asked, we are shown beforehand that the bomb is there? “In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret,” Hitchcock explained to his fellow director François Truffaut. While everyone is just sitting around chatting, the viewer wants to shout: “Don’t sit there talking about baseball! There’s a bomb!” “The conclusion,” Hitchcock said, “is that whenever possible the public must be informed.” I bring this up because we know there’s a bomb under the table — the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency. And we have a fairly good idea of the crippling destruction that will ensue. Yet here we are, still talking about baseball. “A shadow looms over the world,” The Economist noted in a recent editorial about the year ahead. “That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probably is beginning to sink in.”

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Gay resigns: Penny Pritzker faces scrutiny as Harvard board leader

Pritzker graduated from Harvard in 1981 with a bachelor of arts degree in economics and has worked in real estate, hospitality, and financial services. She was an early and prominent financial backer of Barack Obama’s candidacy for president and later served as US commerce secretary in his administration from 2013 to 2017. Penny Pritzker, 64, is a former US commerce secretary and philanthropist from Chicago and an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune. Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, is the governor of Illinois. Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday as the president of Harvard turns the spotlight now to the Harvard Corporation’s senior fellow who led the search committee that chose Gay, the first Black person to lead the nation’s most prestigious university. Advertisement Pritzker was chair of the presidential search committee that selected Gay, who succeeded Lawrence Bacow, who stepped down in June. In a letter announcing Gay’s appointment, Pritzker described the new president as having a “rare blend of incisiveness and inclusiveness, intellectual range and strategic savvy, institutional ambition and personal humility, a respect for enduring ideals and a talent for catalyzing change.” Gay’s brief tenure was shaped by crises over her response to the Israel-Hamas war, testimony at a congressional hearing over campus antisemitism, and a plagiarism scandal over some of her academic research. The Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing board, and Pritzker’s role in Gay’s selection, have since come under scrutiny. Harvard University did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening. Pritzker has been a member of the Harvard Corporation since 2018. (The board functions much like a board of trustees at other universities.) She is the first female senior fellow in the corporation’s 372-year history. She was elected to the position in February 2022. In the role, she leads the 13-member corporation board, whose members are not paid. Advertisement She was appointed months after she donated $100 million to the university for a new building for the economics department. Her tenure began July 1, 2022. When Pritzker’s appointment as senior fellow was announced, Bacow praised her “extraordinary mix of qualities” and “distinguished service across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, far-reaching experience as a board member and civic leader, and a decades-long devotion to Harvard and our highest aspirations. “She cares deeply about inclusion and opportunity, and about the power of education to change lives for the better,” Bacow said. “We will be fortunate to have someone of Penny’s experience, judgment, dedication, and breadth of interests as our new senior fellow.” Pritzker was previously elected to the university’s Board of Overseers in 2002 and served until 2008. She has a net worth of more than $3 billion and Forbes named her one of the 100 most powerful women in the world in 2009. Pritzker also earned a law degree and MBA from Stanford University in 1985. She has founded or co-founded PSP Partners, a global private investment firm, Pritzker Realty Group, Artemis Real Estate Partners and Inspired Capital. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Pritzker identifies as a “Business builder. Entrepreneur. Optimist. Proud mom and wife. Triathlete.” She has not posted on the account since May. In September, Pritzker was appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery. She is married to Bryan Traubert, an ophthalmologist. They have two adult children. Advertisement Pritzker and her husband established the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation which focuses on physical activity for young people and increasing economic opportunity in Chicago. Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.

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Lowry: Jack Smith takes aim at 2024 election

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3 Contentious Exchanges at the College Antisemitism Hearing

On Tuesday, the presidents of three leading American universities — Claudine Gay of Harvard, Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania — were at the center of a contentious congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses. In one of the most notable exchanges, the leaders of the schools were pressed on whether they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews. Their responses — “It is a context-dependent decision,” Ms. Magill answered at one point — drew widespread criticism. But the administrators faced a barrage of other pointed questions at the hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee, mainly from Republicans, who adopted a prosecutorial tone as they pushed for more definitive answers. Here are some of those exchanges: On chants for intifada on Harvard’s campus In one instance, Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, pressed Ms. Gay over whether the university condoned chants of “intifada” on its campus.

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Israeli hostages and their families rejoice after their release from captivity

“Did you miss me? Did you think about Dad?” Asher asked his daughters — Raz, 4, and Aviv, 2 — to which his wife murmurs: “All the time.” Yoni Asher, whose wife, Doron, and two daughters were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, was reunited with them Friday. In a video released by the Schneider children’s hospital Saturday, Asher can be seen embracing his wife and children on a hospital bed. The 13 Israeli hostages freed Friday after being abducted in the Hamas-led surprise attack last month have begun reuniting with their families, ending nearly seven weeks of uncertainty and fear over their fates in the Gaza Strip. Advertisement “I dreamed that we went home,” Raz said. “Your dream came true,” Asher said with a smile. “We’re home, we’re going to our home soon.” In another video released by the hospital, Ohad Munder Zichri, 9, runs down a hospital hallway into his father’s arms. His family also shared images of the bespectacled Ohad — abducted along with his mother, Keren, and grandmother Ruti from Nir Oz — playing with a Rubik’s cube. Thirteen Israeli hostages were released in Friday’s exchange, the first group of roughly 50 expected to be freed from captivity under the terms of Israel’s cease-fire with Hamas. At least 150 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are slated for release from Israeli jails as part of the deal. Gilat Livni, who is overseeing the treatment of the returned child hostages at Schneider, said the four Israeli children who had returned were “overall in generally good condition” despite their ordeal. “Both the mothers and the children are speaking, telling stories and sharing their experiences,” Livni told reporters, calling it “astonishing and emotional.” For many families — even for those whose loved ones were released — the joy at their liberation was mixed with profound sadness for the more than 200 hostages believed to remain in the Gaza Strip. Some families were split up, with women and children sent home even as male relatives remained behind — including Ohad’s grandfather Avraham. Advertisement “We’re happy, but we’re not celebrating. There are still other hostages in captivity,” Roy Zichri, Ohad’s brother, said in a video statement. “We need to keep up the struggle until all the hostages are freed, every last one,” he added. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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White House Delays a Decision on Banning Menthol Cigarettes

The Biden administration delayed a decision on Wednesday about whether it would ban menthol cigarettes amid intense lobbying from tobacco companies, convenience stores and industry-backed groups that contend that billions of dollars in sales and jobs will be lost. The proposal has also generated concerns that Black smokers will become the targets of aggressive police tactics, although some Black leaders, top lawmakers and government officials dispute that and say that tobacco companies are financing and fueling those fears. The plan to eliminate menthol cigarettes has been years in the making. The Food and Drug Administration formally proposed an official rule last year, aimed at reducing health disparities, citing statistics that an estimated 85 percent of Black smokers prefer menthol brands. Black men especially face outsize health risks, including high rates of smoking-related lung cancer and death. In recent months, dozens of groups have had appointments with administration officials to discuss the proposal. Tobacco companies and convenience store groups fighting the ban have aligned with the National Action Network, founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, to advance the argument about the potential for racial targeting by the police. The group attended a large meeting with tobacco lobbyists and top administration officials on Nov. 20.

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Conservative Justices Appear Skeptical of Agencies Regulatory Power

Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed inclined on Wednesday to limit or even overturn a key precedent that has empowered executive agencies, threatening regulations in countless areas, including the environment, health care and consumer safety. Each side warned of devastating consequences should it lose, underscoring how the court’s decision in a highly technical case could reverberate across wide swaths of American life. Overruling the precedent, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices, would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.” But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh responded that there were in fact “shocks to the system every four or eight years when a new administration comes in, whether it’s communications law or securities law or competition law or environmental law.”

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Gaza War Has Buoyed Egypts Leader Ahead of Presidential Vote

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt woke up on Oct. 7 remarkably unpopular for someone considered a shoo-in for a third term — guaranteed by his authoritarian grip on the country to dominate elections that begin on Sunday, but badly damaged by a slow-motion economic collapse. The ensuing weeks have eclipsed all of that, with war displacing financial worries as the top item on many Egyptians’ minds, lips and social media feeds. For Western partners and Persian Gulf backers, the crisis has also highlighted Egypt’s vital role as a conduit for humanitarian aid to Gaza and a mediator between Israel and Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that led the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and set off the war. Mr. el-Sisi, a former general with a knack for outlasting setbacks, appeared to have caught yet another break, one that has allowed him to position himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause at home and an indispensable regional leader abroad. In Cairo these days, a widespread boycott of Western companies associated with support for Israel has transformed the simple act of serving a Pepsi into a serious faux pas. Egyptians struggling to cover the basics after nearly two years of record-setting inflation have opened their wallets to help victims of the Gaza war.

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Vivek Ramaswamy suspends his 2024 Republican presidential bid and endorses rival Donald Trump

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday and endorsed former President Donald Trump after a disappointing finish in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses. Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old political novice who sought to replicate Trump’s rise as a bombastic, wealthy outsider, said, “As of this moment we are going to suspend this presidential campaign. There’s no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don’t want to see happen in this country.” During the campaign, he needled his opponents but praised Trump as “the best president of the 21st century.” He argued, though, that Republicans should opt for “fresh legs” and “take our America First agenda to the next level.” The approach, including his call for “revolution,” vaulted Ramaswamy into the mix of candidates vying to overtake Trump — or at least become a viable alternative. His decision to drop out, though, becomes the latest confirmation that the former president, even at 77 years old and under multiple criminal indictments, still dominates Republican politics and remains the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination for the third consecutive time. Ramaswamy’s failure also affirms how difficult it is for any Republican other than Trump to push the bounds of party orthodoxy, as the first-time candidate found little political reward for positions such as his opposition to aid for Israel and Ukraine. The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy entered politics at the highest level after making hundreds of millions of dollars at the intersection of hedge funds and pharmaceutical research, a career he charted and built while graduating from Harvard University and then Yale Law School. He brought to his campaign the same brash approach he used to coax money from investors even when the drugs he touted never made it to the market. __ By BILL BARROW Associated Press

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Ignore Trump? Democrats Now Want Him Plastered All Over the News.

When Donald J. Trump left the White House, Democrats didn’t want to hear another word from him. President Biden dismissed him as “the former guy.” A party-wide consensus held that he was best left ignored. Three years later, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign and Democratic officials across the party’s spectrum have landed on a new solution to his political slump: More Trump. Criticizing the news media for giving Mr. Trump a platform is out. Quietly pining for major networks to again broadcast live coverage of Trump campaign rallies is in. Behind the improbable longing for the former president to gobble up political oxygen again is Democrats’ yearslong dependence on the Trump outrage machine. Since his ascent, Mr. Trump has been a one-man Democratic turnout operation, uniting an otherwise fractured opposition and fueling victories in three straight election cycles. Now, Democrats worry that the fever of Trump fatigue has passed, and that some voters are softening toward a man they once loathed. Many others may simply be paying little attention, as Mr. Trump’s share of the daily national conversation has diminished, despite the occasional interruption of campaign-trail pronouncements like his recent vow to “root out” political opponents like “vermin.”

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Opinion | The Progressive Case for Bidenomics

Oh, and unit labor costs are up only 1.6 percent over the past year, another indicator that inflation is coming under control. Another report showed that unfilled job openings are down. Last year many economists were arguing that the high level of vacancies meant that we needed high unemployment to control inflation. That gap has now largely disappeared, one of many signs that the economy is healing from the disruptions brought on by the Covid pandemic. And this process of healing explains why we’ve been able to get inflation down without a recession or a surge in unemployment. Nonetheless, many Americans continue to have very negative views of the economy. Some of this may reflect the fact that while inflation has come way down, prices are still high compared with the recent past. This effect may wear off over time; as I wrote not long ago, there has to be some statute of limitations on how far back people look for their sense of what things should cost. One interesting recent analysis suggests that it takes around two years for lower inflation to be reflected in consumer sentiment, in which case Americans might be feeling better about the economy in time for next year’s elections. On the other hand, inflation has been a global phenomenon, but the huge gap between favorable economic indicators and grim public perceptions is unique to the United States, where people believe many bad things about the economy that simply aren’t true. I can report from experience that talking about these issues with people on the right is basically impossible. Point out that most workers’ earnings have significantly outpaced inflation since the eve of the pandemic, and they’ll say you’re a member of the elite who has no idea what things really cost. Point out that Americans are more likely than not to express positive views about their family’s own financial situation and that strong consumer spending belies claims that families are suffering, and they’ll say you’re a snob telling people how to feel. It’s a no-win situation.

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Mass. Gov. Healey files $1.2B plan to recapitalize Bay States IT efforts

Saying funds for critical projects are running out, Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday announced plans for $1.2 billion in IT capital investments for the executive branch, municipalities and public higher education over a five-year period. Healey filed the FutureTech Act, a bill meant to keep “large, transformative” information technology projects on track once existing bond authorization for the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security is “completely exhausted” in fiscal 2025, the governor’s office said. Asked whether the bill’s size is justified amid budget reductions and revenue headwinds, Healey told reporters, “Oh, absolutely.” “It’s not only justifiable, it’s absolutely imperative. I mean, we need to make investments in our technology,” Healey said at a press conference. “It’s like anything else, you know. If you don’t take care of your house and you don’t take care of your foundation, things crumble and fall apart,” Healey added. “They become a lot more expensive to fix later on, and they don’t meet the times that we’re in. This is absolutely essential investment in infrastructure, and as governor, I’m committed to making sure that Massachusetts leads the way, as we should, when it comes to technology -- that will improve people’s lives, that will improve the way we engage with businesses, with residents, and deliver service.” The $1.23 billion proposal, spanning fiscal years 2025 through 2029, would support integrated constituent services and cybersecurity projects, while also funding investments in artificial intelligence technology. A provision in the bill carves out $400 million for health and human services projects, which will enable the administration to seek some federal reimbursements and apply the money to IT projects, according to Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz. Investments include $120 million for managing financial, payroll and human resources functions across the executive branch; $110 million to improve user experiences across state agencies; $30 million to modernize health records; $13 million to improve student financial aid access for higher education; $12 million to modernize child care financial assistance platforms; and $25 million for future AI projects. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll touted the bill’s investment of $30 million for municipal fiber networks and $25 million for a competitive local grant program to support IT innovations. “I think we all understand the role that technology plays in delivering governmental services, and it really does impact the quality of life for people, for business, for access,” Driscoll said. Debt service payments in the state’s annual operating budget provide the fuel for ongoing capital spending and projects. “We need to think long term, and we need to think about what authorizations need to be in place over those years. With respect to the operating budget, sure, we budget for debt service, and we size our debt service based on what our plan of borrowing is over those periods of time,” Gorzkowicz said. “We do a five-year capital plan that we update every year and make revisions as necessary, but this is separate than the operating budget.” At the press conference in the governor’s office lobby, Amy O’Leary, executive director of advocacy and policy organization Strategies for Children, applauded the bill’s investment to streamline child care financial assistance infrastructure, including updating waitlist, case management and subsidy systems. “By updating the outdated technology system, we expect that EEC will be able to serve families more effectively and equitably, and to pay providers in a more timely fashion for financial stability,” O’Leary said of the Department of Early Education and Care. While revenues halfway into the fiscal year are $769 million less than budget writers anticipated, Healey said the commonwealth’s bond rating is “extremely high.” Gorzkowicz, asked whether he was concerned about the revenue shortfall affecting the state’s ability to borrow more money in the future, said officials monitor the bond rating “very carefully.” “We’re in the market now to issue some debt, and so we work very closely with the treasurer’s office and all three of the rating agencies. You know, I think what the rating agencies look for is swift and decisive action -- they want to make sure that we’re on top of it, and that we’re managing it responsibly,” the administration’s budget czar said. “And I think that action that the administration took yesterday show exactly that. It shows that we’re monitoring the situation. We’re taking action when action is necessary to do proper belt-tightening. We’re preserving the state’s rainy day fund,” Gorzkowicz observed.

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Democrats in Congress Weigh Calls for Cease-Fire Amid Pressure From the Left

Democrats in Congress, torn between their support for Israel in its war with Hamas and concern about civilian suffering in Gaza, are struggling with how far to go in calling for measures to mitigate civilian casualties as the left wing of the party escalates pressure for a cease-fire. In recent days, several House and Senate Democrats have urged temporary humanitarian pauses to facilitate aid deliveries of food, water and fuel to the Gaza Strip, echoing the Biden administration. They have argued that the pauses are necessary to keep an already dire humanitarian crisis from worsening, and to negotiate the release of more than 200 hostages, including Americans, being held in Gaza since Hamas waged a bloody attack on civilians and soldiers in southern Israel on Oct. 7. But few have embraced progressive Democrats’ demands for a complete and lasting cease-fire, even as pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets over the weekend to demand a total cessation of hostilities. Most Democrats, including some of Congress’s most influential liberal leaders, have argued that a full cease-fire would give Hamas time to regroup and launch another assault on Israel. “You’ve got to have a pause in the bombing. You’ve got to take care of the immediate disaster. Israel’s got to change its strategy,” Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and a prominent Jewish progressive, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I don’t know how you can have a cease-fire — permanent cease-fire — with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel.” The comments drew a backlash from some progressive activists that highlighted the cross pressures Democrats are dealing with on the issue. Their dilemma, which mirrors the one President Biden has been facing as he confronts growing hostility on the left to his backing of Israel, could carry political consequences for the party overall. Democrats will be heavily reliant on strong support and turnout among their liberal core supporters in their push to hold the White House and the Senate, and win control of the House, in the 2024 elections. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois last week became the first Democratic senator to call for a cease-fire, which he said he would support under certain conditions, including Hamas first agreeing to release hostages. His decision reflected a shift underway on Capitol Hill that has coincided with changes in Mr. Biden’s public messaging on Israel. Mr. Biden has been resolute about declaring that the United States stands in solidarity with Israel. But in the last several days, he and top administration officials have emphasized their efforts to persuade Israeli officials of the need for humanitarian pauses to allow the United Nations to deliver aid to civilians. The change in tone comes as progressive polls indicate that a majority of Democratic voters favor a cease-fire, as well as evidence that younger people and people of color are critical of the Biden administration’s stance on the war. Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and the only Palestinian American in Congress, put a sharp point on the disconnect last week in a video that accused Mr. Biden of supporting a genocide in Gaza and threatened him with electoral consequences in 2024 if he failed to call for a cease-fire. “Mr. President, the American people are not with you on this one,” Ms. Tlaib said. International law defines genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in times of war or peace. Top Israeli officials have said they are targeting Hamas, not the Palestinian people. The video also featured pro-Palestinian protesters in Michigan chanting “from the river to the sea,” a rallying cry referring to the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that many regard as calling for the eradication of Israel. The backlash from other Democrats to the slogan, which the Anti-Defamation League considers antisemitic, was severe. Representative Elissa Slotkin, also a Michigan Democrat, insisted in a series of posts on the social media platform X that Ms. Tlaib apologize. “None of us, especially elected leaders, should amplify language that inflames a tense situation & makes it harder for our communities to find common ground,” wrote Ms. Slotkin, a centrist who is Jewish. “If I knew that a phrase I’d used had hurt any of my constituents, I would apologize & retract it, no matter its origin. I’d ask the same from you.” Mr. Biden has requested that humanitarian aid for Palestinians be part of any package to send military assistance to Israel. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, also criticized Ms. Tlaib’s use of the slogan, as well as her calls for a cease-fire. “This phrase means eradicating Israel and Jews. Period,” she wrote in a post on X. “Only a return of hostages, eliminating Hamas and liberating Gaza from oppressive terror will save civilian lives and secure the peace, justice and dignity you seek.” Ms. Tlaib defended the slogan as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.” In a statement, she also accused her colleagues of focusing on pillorying her at the expense of saving lives.

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Rep. Lori Trahan takes place in key Democratic Caucus position ahead of 2024 election

Massachusetts Congresswoman Lori Trahan just took a step up into a prime position as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communication Commission, the main messaging arm of the Democratic House Caucus. What message does she want voters to hear ahead of the 2024 election year? Rep. Trahan joined Radio Boston to talk about her new role.

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Much of the Green Line will be closed (again) for most of January. Here's what to know

Much of the Green Line will be closed (again) for most of January. Here's what to know Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here. It’s a new year! While we get to work on the resolutions you all suggested for Boston in 2024 (mine is fewer rainy weekends), here’s a look at what’s ahead during this first week of the year: The MBTA is resolving to get rid of slow zones in 2024 — and that effort begins with another big Green Line closure covering over two-thirds of January. Starting tomorrow, the T shuts down trolley service between North Station and Kenmore, as well as the entire southern leg of E branch and part of the B branch (out to Babcock Street). The closure runs through Jan. 12, and will be followed shortly after by another identical 13-day diversion from Jan. 16 to 28. In other words, it’s basically one long closure running almost all of January, with a Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend break in the middle. (Just keep repeating the mantra: “short-term pain for long-term wins.”) How to get around it: The two shutdowns are mostly the same as the Green Line shutdown that happened just over a month ago, with one small difference: Shuttle buses will drop off riders directly at Back Bay station (rather than Copley) so they can take the Orange Line if they’re going downtown. Otherwise, you can still refer to our guide to the previous Green Line diversion for a branch-by-branch breakdown of your transportation options. (The commuter rail will again be free between South Station and Lansdowne, as will the 39 and 57 buses.) What else: The T also scheduled more Green Line Extension shutdowns so contractors can finish fixing the defective tracks. The plan includes two weekend shutdowns this month (Jan. 6-7 and Jan. 20-21) and nighttime closures starting at 8:45 p.m. on most weekdays — though those don’t start until next week. Click here for the T’s full guide to all the Green Line and Green Line Extension disruptions and detours this month. January 2024 Green Line closures. (Image courtesy of the MBTA) The Boston City Council officially has a new leader: Ruthzee Louijeune was elected by her colleagues yesterday to be the chamber’s new president. The at-large councilor and Hyde Park native — who was the top vote-getter in November’s election — is the first Haitian-American and third Black woman to serve as Council president. Why it matters: The Council president has the power to give fellow councilors (or strip them of) committee leadership positions, as well as lead meetings. The council president also steps in as acting mayor if the mayor goes out of town or leaves office. Zoom out: After two divisive and messy years, the Council swore in four new members yesterday, and Louijeune tried to ring in 2024 on a unifying note. WBUR’s Arielle Gray has more here. The minimum wage went up yesterday in four New England states — though not Massachusetts. For the first time since 2018, the Bay State will see no bump in its minimum wage. In fact, Connecticut is taking the lead in New England’s minimum wage race, after tying its rate to inflation. While the minimum wage will remain at $15-an-hour here, Connecticut’s will go up to $15.69. What’s next: WBUR’s Zeninjor Enwemeka reports some labor advocates are expected to ramp up their push for a $20-an-hour minimum wage in Massachusetts this year. After forgoing a 2024 ballot campaign, supporters are focusing their advocacy on the State House. (That said, there is a potential 2024 ballot question that would raise Massachusetts’ tipped minimum wage.) Ballot battles: President Joe Biden’s two long-shot Democratic primary challengers will be on the ballot in Massachusetts after all. Secretary of State Bill Galvin announced yesterday that Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson are both nationally recognizable candidates and will be on the March 5 primary ballot — even after the state Democratic party only submitted Biden’s name. Next steps: Galvin will hold the random drawing for the order of names on the state’s presidential primary ballots today at 11 a.m. Buses in the New Bedford and Fall River area are free for the next six months. Thanks to a state grant, the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority is eliminating its $1.50-per-ride fare for all of its routes through June. Check out the schedules here. P.S.— CitySpace is kicking off the New Year with a Tiziana Dearing-led discussion this Thursday about the industrial wellness complex and principles for genuine self-care. Check out the full 2024 winter lineup to see all the events coming up this season and snag your tickets early!

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The Way Geert Wilders Won - The New York Times

Did Donald Trump just say that he’s hoping for an economic crash? Not exactly. But what he did say was arguably even worse, especially once you put it in context. And Trump’s evident panic over recent good economic news deepens what is, for me, the biggest conundrum of American politics: Why have so many people joined — and stayed in — a personality cult built around a man who poses an existential threat to our nation’s democracy and is also personally a complete blowhard? So what did Trump actually say on Monday? Strictly speaking, he didn’t call for a crash, he predicted one, positing that the economy is running on “fumes” — and that he hopes the inevitable crash will happen this year, “because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.” If you think about it, this isn’t at all what a man who believes himself to be a brilliant economic manager and supposedly cares about the nation’s welfare should say. What he should have said instead is something like this: My opponent’s policies have set us on the path to disaster, but I hope the disaster doesn’t come until I’m in office — because I don’t want the American people to suffer unnecessarily, and, because I’m a very stable genius, I alone can fix it.

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Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis Battle for Iowa - The New York Times

Patriots coach Bill Belichick will be the guest picker when ESPN’s “College GameDay” makes it way to Foxborough this Saturday for the Army-Navy game at Gillette Stadium. He’ll join Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso on the weekly show to select who they think will win major college football games that day. Army-Navy is the only FBS game on Saturday, so Belichick’s pick load will be light. The 24th-year head coach grew up in Annapolis, Md., where the Naval Academy is located. He was four years old when his father, Steve, started as a scout for Navy’s football team, and the elder Belichick spent 33 years on Navy’s staff.

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Iceland Scrambles to Shelter Residents Made Homeless by Volcanic Eruption

Brazilian officials served up an array of plans and figures at the recent COP28 climate summit in Dubai, presenting itself as a world leader, on track to protect its forests and the people who live there. But on Thursday, Brazil’s Congress approved a law that threatens Indigenous people’s rights to most of the land they inhabit or claim, potentially opening vast territories to deforestation, farming and mining. The new law requires that Indigenous people must provide concrete evidence that they occupied the land they claim on Oct. 5, 1988, when the country’s current Constitution was enacted — a requirement that many of them have little or no hope of meeting. Under the new rule, not only can Indigenous land claims currently going through the legal process be thrown out for lacking such documentation, but established legal protections for Indigenous territories can also be challenged in court and rescinded.

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Opinion | The Cease-Fire Now Imposture

The House on Wednesday authorized the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, with every Republican rallying behind the politically charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the president. The 221-212 party-line vote put the entire House Republican conference on record in support of an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial. Authorizing the monthslong inquiry ensures that the impeachment investigation extends well into 2024, when Biden will be running for reelection and seems likely to be squaring off against former President Donald Trump — who was twice impeached during his time in the White House. Trump has pushed his GOP allies in Congress to move swiftly on impeaching Biden, part of his broader calls for vengeance and retribution against his political enemies. The decision to hold a vote came as House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team faced growing pressure to show progress in what has become a nearly yearlong probe centered around the business dealings of Biden's family members. While their investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. Ahead of the vote, Johnson called it “the next necessary step" and acknowledged there are “a lot of people who are frustrated this hasn’t moved faster.“ The congressman from Louisiana was elected speaker of the House. Here are some things to know about the Republican representative. In a recent statement, the White House called the whole process a “baseless fishing expedition” that Republicans are pushing ahead with “despite the fact that members of their own party have admitted there is no evidence to support impeaching President Biden.” House Democrats rose in opposition to the inquiry resolution Wednesday. “This whole thing is an extreme political stunt. It has no credibility, no legitimacy, and no integrity. It is a sideshow," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said during a floor debate. Some House Republicans, particularly those hailing from politically divided districts, had been hesitant in recent weeks to take any vote on Biden's impeachment, fearing a significant political cost. But GOP leaders have made the case in recent weeks that the resolution is only a step in the process, not a decision to impeach Biden. That message seems to have won over skeptics. “As we have said numerous times before, voting in favor of an impeachment inquiry does not equal impeachment,” Rep. Tom Emmer, a member of the GOP leadership team, said at a news conference Tuesday. Emmer said Republicans “will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, and if they uncover evidence of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, then and only then will the next steps towards impeachment proceedings be considered.” Most of the Republicans reluctant to back the impeachment push have also been swayed by leadership's recent argument that authorizing the inquiry will give them better legal standing as the White House has questioned the legal and constitutional basis for their requests for information. A letter last month from a top White House attorney to Republican committee leaders portrayed the GOP investigation as overzealous and illegitimate because the chamber had not yet authorized a formal impeachment inquiry by a vote of the full House. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, also wrote that when Trump faced the prospect of impeachment by a Democratic-led House in 2019, Johnson had said at the time that any inquiry without a House vote would be a “sham.” Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said this week that while there was no evidence to impeach the president, “that’s also not what the vote this week would be about.” “We have had enough political impeachments in this country,” he said. “I don’t like the stonewalling the administration has done, but listen, if we don’t have the receipts, that should constrain what the House does long-term.” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has long been opposed to moving forward with impeachment, said that the White House questioning the legitimacy of the inquiry without a formal vote helped gain his support. “I can defend an inquiry right now,” he told reporters this week. "Let's see what they find out.” House Democrats remained unified in their opposition to the impeachment process, saying it is a farce used by the GOP to take attention away from Trump and his legal woes. “You don’t initiate an impeachment process unless there’s real evidence of impeachable offenses,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who oversaw the two impeachments into Trump. “There is none here. None.” Democrats and the White House have repeatedly defended the president and his administration's cooperation with the investigation thus far, saying it has already made a massive trove of documents available. Congressional investigators have obtained nearly 40,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records and dozens of hours of testimony from key witnesses, including several high-ranking Justice Department officials currently tasked with investigating the president's son, Hunter Biden. While Republicans say their inquiry is ultimately focused on the president himself, they have taken particular interest in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, from which they accuse the president of personally benefiting. Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation on whistleblower allegations of interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into the younger Biden's taxes and his gun use. Hunter Biden is currently facing criminal charges in two states from the special counsel investigation. He’s charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. Special counsel David Weiss filed additional charges last week, alleging he failed to pay about $1.4 million in taxes over a three-year period. Democrats have conceded that while the president's son is not perfect, he is a private citizen who is already being held accountable by the justice system. “I mean, there’s a lot of evidence that Hunter Biden did a lot of improper things. He’s been indicted, he’ll stand trial,” Nadler said. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the president did anything improper.” Hunter Biden arrived for a rare public statement outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, saying he would not be appearing for his scheduled private deposition that morning. The president's son defended himself against years of GOP attacks and said his father has had no financial involvement in his business affairs. His attorney has offered for Biden to testify publicly, citing concerns about Republicans manipulating any private testimony. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say,” Biden said outside the Capitol. “What are they afraid of? I am here.” GOP lawmakers said that since Hunter Biden did not appear, they will begin contempt of Congress proceedings against him. “He just got into more trouble today,” Rep. James Comer, the House Oversight Committee chairman, told reporters Wednesday.

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More Hostages Were Released From Gaza

Gao Zhibin and his daughter left Beijing on Feb. 24 for a better life, a safer one. Over the next 35 days, by airplane, train, boat, bus and foot, they traveled through nine countries. By the time they touched American soil in late March, Mr. Gao had lost 30 pounds. The most harrowing part of their journey was trekking through the brutal jungle in Panama known as the Darién Gap. On the first day, said Mr. Gao, 39, he had sunstroke. The second day, his feet swelled. Dehydrated and weakened, he threw away his tent, a moisture-resistant sleeping pad and his change of clothes. Then his 13-year-old daughter got sick. She lay on the ground, vomiting, with her face pale, her forehead feverish, her hands on her stomach. Mr. Gao said he thought she might have drunk dirty water. Dragging themselves through the muddy, treacherous rainforests of the Darién Gap, they took a break every 10 minutes. They didn’t get to their destination, a camp site in Panama, until 9 p.m. Mr. Gao said he felt he had no choice but to leave China. “I think we will only be safe by coming to the U.S.,” he said, adding that he believed that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, could lead the country to famine and possibly war. “It’s a rare opportunity to protect me and my family,” he said.

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House Censures Jamaal Bowman for False Fire Alarm

I have no idea how I got to my office this morning. I mean, I do know: I walked to the tube station near my house, got on a train, transferred a few stops later to another one, got off near my office and then walked in, making the briefest of stops at a coffee shop to pick up a breakfast sandwich on the way. But that list of steps describes the limit of my knowledge. I have no idea who opened the tube station, or what it takes to keep it functioning. (Or, for that matter, why one of its turnstiles was stuck half open, bleeping a plaintive alarm about its situation to no one in particular.) I do not know how to drive a train, and certainly not how to maintain one. And I’m sure the people of London are very grateful that I have never had to consider how to dig a subway tunnel or lay a rail line. And yet if those things had not happened in the correct order, as designed by experts and carried out by professionals, the city would shut down. This week that shutdown nearly happened, in fact, because of a transport strike that was called off at the last moment. This is the magical thing about institutions: They exist so that complex processes can become automatic, so that large groups of people can collaborate without having to create new systems for doing so, and so people like me can rely on expertise without possessing that expertise even a tiny bit.

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Brexiteers Vowed to Take Back Control of U.K. Borders. What Happened?

for state senator (Letter) Happy New Year! I hope everyone was able to ring it in safely. Now that the holidays are over, I’m looking forward to all that we will accomplish in 2024! This week marked more than just a date change. The cities of Westfield, Agawam, Chicopee, Easthampton, Holyoke and West Springfield held their inaugural ceremonies, swearing in their new city councilors, school committee members, and mayors. The town of Agawam welcomed Chris Johnson as their new mayor and I’m looking forward to working alongside him as well as with all municipal elected officials to best benefit our region.

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How the Supreme Court may rule on Trumps presidential run

Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right House Republican, announced on Wednesday that she would run in a more conservative district in Colorado — seeking to increase her chances after a strong primary challenger emerged in her district. The move — from the Third Congressional District to the Fourth — will thrust Ms. Boebert into a crowded primary to replace Representative Ken Buck, a conservative who is not seeking re-election. She has fervently promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. Mr. Buck attributed his decision not to run in part to the widespread belief in his party of these false claims — as well as to the refusal of many of his Republican colleagues to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. In a video posted on social media, Ms. Boebert said that the move was a “fresh start,” alluding to a “pretty difficult year for me and my family,” pointing to her divorce. “It’s the right move for me personally, and it’s the right decision for those who support our conservative movement,” Ms. Boebert said. In September, then in the midst of finalizing the divorce, she was caught on a security camera vaping and groping her date shortly before being ejected from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” for causing a disturbance.

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The House Authorized Its Impeachment Inquiry Against Biden. Now What?

The system is expected to arrive shortly after midnight Saturday and persist into daytime hours, forecasters at the weather service office in Norton wrote Friday morning. “A robust winter storm will impact southern New England late this evening throughout the overnight,” forecasters wrote Friday. “Strong wind gusts are expected along the coast, which enhances the coastal flooding potential, fresh water/river flooding, and dangerous marine conditions.” Another wave of rainfall is expected in Massachusetts and Rhode Island early Saturday that could lead to more flooding along rivers and streams and in coastal communities -- and more snow in Northern New England, the National Weather Service said Friday. Advertisement But before the rain comes, winds will strengthen and gusts between 35 and 55 miles per hour are possible until the system fades away on Saturday, forecasters said. A flood warning is in effect for 11 rivers and streams in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including the Charles River in Dover, the Pawcatuck River in Westerly, the Pawtuxet River at Cranston and the Assabet River in Maynard, forecasters wrote. “Another powerful storm system then impacts the region tonight into Saturday, bringing a renewed or worsened risk for areal and river flooding, strong southeast winds and coastal flooding,’' forecasters wrote Friday. A flood warning is also in effect for coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island timed to the 10 a.m. high tide on Saturday. The NWS said 2- to 3-foot surges will cause waves to wash onto shoreline roads. The stormy weather comes just days after the region endured a major rain event that generated flooding in some coastal communities and in Rhode Island. The new wave of rain means that rivers and streams already above flood stage or nearing flood stage won’t be easing, forecasters wrote. Ferry service could be impacted The Steamship Authority on Friday issued a travel advisory warning of possible service cancellations on its Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard ferries Saturday and Sunday due to expected wind gusts of over 40 miles per hour. The authority said it would waive change and cancellation fees for travel scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Advertisement “Please continue to monitor the forecast if you are traveling with us,” the authority said. It advised those using the ferries to check the authority’s website for updates, the latest cancellations or to change a reservation. New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine About 3 to 8 inches of fresh snow is expected from this storm in ski country up north. “Once again enough cold air looks to be in place for most areas to start as snow, with a wintry mix more likely in southern New Hampshire and the far southern Maine coast, but these will quickly transition to rain from north to south before sunrise,” NWS meteorologists in Gray, Maine said. Expected snowfall for New Hampshire. NWS A winter weather advisory has been issued for portions of New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine from Friday night until noon, Saturday. Parts of central and northern New Hampshire and central and western Maine are forecast to see between 4 and 8 inches of snow while sections of eastern Vermont are expecting about 3 to 6 inches with a “light glaze” of ice accumulations, according to forecasters at the NWS. Up to a foot of snow is anticipated in the higher elevations. Expected snowfall for Vermont. NWS The forecast for Sunday calls for a cold and breezy day. Advertisement This is a developing story. John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him @JREbosglobe.

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The Threat of a Wider War in the Middle East

A storm is expected to hit Massachusetts Sunday night into Monday, bringing potentially strong winds and heavy rain, according to the National Weather Service. Rainfall is expected to begin late Sunday night into early Monday morning with the strongest winds in the late morning or early afternoon on Monday, the weather service said. The conditions may last into the middle of next week, with coastal flooding along the South Coast a possibility. The National Weather Service also has a high wind watch for the Eastern coast of Massachusetts from Sunday night to Monday evening with South winds from 30 to 40 mph with the potential for gusts up to 55 mph. The wind gusts has the potential to blow down trees and power lines with potential power outages. Before the storm hits, dry and mild conditions will otherwise remain into the weekend. Saturday will be above normal temperatures with a mix of clouds and sun.

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A Russian Village Buries a Soldier, and Tries to Make Sense of the War

If you weren’t in Dorchester at Massachusetts State Lottery headquarters claiming a big prize on Tuesday, then where were you? Probably waiting out the snowstorm at home, like many Bay Staters — except for three lottery winners, who claimed one $4 million and two $1 million lottery prizes on Jan. 16. The $4 million prize was from the “100X Cash” scratch ticket game, which costs $10 to play. It was sold in Peabody from a shop called Summit Variety. As of Jan. 17, there’s just one $4 million grand prize remaining to be claimed. One of the $1 million prizes claimed was from the lottery’s new “Gold Mine 50X” scratch ticket, which was released last Tuesday and was the first grand prize to be claimed. The winning ticket was sold in Leominster from Russell’s Package Store. The other $1 million lottery prize was from the “$4,000,000 Bonus Loot” scratch ticket game, and the winning ticket had been sold in Dracut from a shop called Dracut Convenience. Overall, there were at least 628 lottery prizes worth $600 or more won or claimed in Massachusetts on Tuesday, including 18 in Springfield and 32 in Worcester. The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of all the winning tickets each day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600.

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In L.A. District Attorney Race, Rhetoric Shifts From Reform to Fear

Politics Trump transformed the Supreme Court. Now the justices could decide his political and legal future. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being thrust into the middle of two cases carrying enormous political implications just weeks before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses. Former President Donald Trump speaks during a commit to caucus rally, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023, in Waterloo, Iowa. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump touts his transformation of the U.S. Supreme Court as one of his presidency’s greatest accomplishments. Now his legal and political future may lie in the hands of the court he pushed to the right. With three Trump-appointed justices leading a conservative majority, the court is being thrust into the middle of two cases carrying enormous political implications just weeks before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses. The outcomes of the legal fights could dictate whether the Republican presidential primary front-runner stands trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and whether he has a shot to retake to the White House next November. Advertisement: “The Supreme Court now is really in a sticky wicket, of historical proportions, of constitutional dimensions, to a degree that I don’t think we’ve ever really seen before,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Trump’s lawyers plan to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a decision Tuesday barring him from Colorado’s ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from holding office. The Colorado Supreme Court ruling is the first time in history the provision has been used to try to prohibit someone from running for the presidency. “It’s a political mess the Supreme Court may have a hard time avoiding,” said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor. It comes as the justices are separately weighing a request from special counsel Jack Smith to take up and rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Prosecutors are hoping the justices will act swiftly to answer whether Trump is immune from prosecution in order to prevent delays that could push the trial — currently scheduled to begin on March 4 — until after next year’s presidential election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case. Advertisement: The three justices appointed by Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were among more than 230 federal judges installed under Trump as part of a GOP push to transform the ideological leanings of the bench. His impact on the high court has been seen in rulings rescinding the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, setting new standards for evaluating guns laws and striking down affirmative action in college admissions. “This is a court that is already a lightning rod in our contemporary political discourse. A court that is viewed quite skeptically by a large swath of the American electorate,” Vladeck said. But he added, “It’s also a court that has not bent over backwards for Trump.” For example, in January 2022, the high court rebuffed Trump’s attempt to withhold presidential documents sought by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The justices also allowed Trump’s tax returns to be handed over to a congressional committee after his refusal to release them touched off a yearslong legal fight. The Supreme Court was also thrust into the middle of a presidential election more than 20 years ago, in the razor-thin contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush. In 2000, the justices ruled 5-4 to stop a state court-ordered recount of the vote in Florida, a ruling that effectively settled the election in favor of Bush since neither candidate could muster an Electoral College majority without Florida. Advertisement: But that case came after the votes were cast. And in 2023, “the general political instability in the United States makes the situation now much more precarious,” wrote Rick Hasen, an election-law expert and professor at the UCLA School of Law, on the Election Law Blog. It’s far from certain that the Supreme Court will decide now to take up Trump’s immunity claims in the election interference case, which were rejected by the trial court judge in a ruling that declared the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.” Smith is asking the Supreme Court to bypass the federal appeals court in Washington, which has expedited its own review of the decision. So the Supreme Court may wait to get involved until after the appeals court judges hear the case. Trump’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court on Wednesday not to intervene before the appeals court rules, writing that the case “presents momentous, historic questions” that require careful consideration. The Colorado Supreme Court put its decision on hold until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots. Mario Nicolais, one of the Colorado attorneys on the case, said the “Supreme Court can move just as fast as it wants, and if they want to hear this before Jan. 5 they can.” It’s possible the high court will try to dodge the issue and not decide the merits of the Colorado case. Gerhardt said the justices may say that the matter is left to the states or Congress. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says: “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House” undo the disqualification of someone found to have “engaged in insurrection.” Advertisement: “It would be like kicking the hornet’s nest for the court to get into the merits of this,” Gerhardt said. “It’s a political hot potato. And the court generally tries to avoid taking on sort of hot-button issues that are political by nature … And the easier route for the court is to just say ‘somebody else has got the responsibility, not us.’” But the Supreme Court may feel compelled to answer the issues at the heart of the case now. “There’ll be a lot of political instability if we go through a whole election season not knowing if one of two major candidates is disqualified from serving,” Hasen said. “It’s hard to fathom the kind of world we’re living in, where not only a serious candidate, but a leading candidate, of one of the political parties is in so much legal jeopardy.” Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporters Nicholas Riccardi and Brittany Peterson in Denver contributed.

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5 Takeaways From Trumps Runaway Victory in the Iowa Caucuses

Trump mopped up support everywhere. As his rivals spent weeks campaigning across the state, Mr. Trump flew into Iowa only about a dozen times. Key Republican figures in the state, including Gov. Kim Reynolds and top evangelical leaders, endorsed his rivals. Yet by the time Mr. Trump took the stage for his victory speech, he appeared on track to win 98 of the state’s 99 counties, with him and Ms. Haley neck and neck in the final one. Mr. Trump’s sweep of the caucuses was broad and deep. He outperformed Mr. DeSantis in conservative strongholds, including northwest Iowa, which is home to many evangelical voters who were heavily courted by the Florida governor. And even in more moderate suburban counties surrounding Des Moines, which were considered favorable terrain for Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump won, albeit with far tighter margins. The technology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who cast himself as a younger heir to Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement, captured less than 8 percent of votes. He quickly suspended his campaign and endorsed Mr. Trump on Monday evening. Much of the battle in Iowa had been over expectations: Would Mr. Trump win more than 50 percent of the vote? Even as he bragged about his huge advantage in polls, his aides tried to lower the bar to a winning margin of 12 percentage points, the biggest recorded in a competitive Republican presidential race in the state. With the former president finishing at 51 percent to Mr. DeSantis’s 21 percent and Ms. Haley’s 19 percent, he exceeded both markers. DeSantis won a Pyrrhic fight for second. Though he edged out Ms. Haley for second, it’s hard to see a clear path forward for Mr. DeSantis — and it’s unclear how long he will have enough money to forge ahead.

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Crime Is Nonpartisan

This is not to say Republican leadership leads to more crime. You can find examples of blue states and cities doing worse than Florida, and of other red states and cities doing better. Looking at all the data, it is hard to make much of any connection between political partisanship and crime. To put it another way, prominent Republicans are misrepresenting the country’s crime problem. Comparing places The Republican claim is rooted in a real pattern. Big cities generally have higher crime rates than rural and suburban areas, thanks to their density and other factors. Democrats run most big cities because urban areas tend to contain more liberal voters. So when looking at the places with the most murders, you’ll often find Democratic-run cities. But that is not the whole story. Take the 20 largest U.S. cities. The 16 run by Democratic mayors had 12.3 murders for every 100,000 people. The three Republican-run cities — Jacksonville, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City — had a rate of 11.4. There is a difference, but it is small. (I’m focused on murders because the data for them is more reliable than for other crimes, which go underreported.) Those rates mask a lot of variation. In a ranked list of murders for all 20 cities, the three Republican-run cities fall around the middle. Some blue cities — such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle — have roughly half the murder rates as their red counterparts, while the rates in other blue cities, like Philadelphia, Indianapolis and Chicago, are two to three times as high. That variation is the point: Whether a big city is run by Democrats or Republicans has little influence on its murder rate.

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Talk About Abortion, Dont Talk About Trump: Governors Give Biden Advice

It would be too simple to conclude that the Dutch have suddenly turned into right-wingers on all issues; 74 percent voted for parties other than Mr. Wilders’s and the two others on the far right. Still, even some younger urban people fell prey to his stigmatization of migrants. “He is a straight talker and tells it like it is,” a 23-year-old Rotterdam waitress told The Guardian. Others expressed concern over the cost of living. Mr. Wilders has promised to bring down housing prices by building more apartments (as has virtually every other party) and to prioritize Dutch citizens for public housing. The country needs housing, but it also needs migrants. With a low fertility rate and 114 open jobs for every 100 unemployed people, Dutch people need to either throw away the birth control and wait 20 years or accept that some of these jobs are going to have to be filled by people born elsewhere. But these policy decisions must first await the formation of a cabinet. Mr. Wilders does not have a record of working well with others; coalitions typically require smaller parties to shave off their more extreme positions, which Mr. Wilders has in the past refused to do. His Party for Freedom hasn’t been in government since 2012 — and the head of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, announced Friday morning she would not join a cabinet with Mr. Wilders. That means he needs to bring in more, smaller parties, which is tougher to negotiate, or to lead a minority cabinet, which requires going to other parties later when the coalition wants to pass particular legislation. Neither bodes well for his ability to govern. Should he fail to form a government, Mr. Timmermans of Green Left-Labor would be given a chance. Ms. Yesilgoz-Zegerius’s participation is more assured in that case, but D66 would probably need to join as well, and its leader, Rob Jetten, seems to have particular disdain for his counterpart in the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. Though he was referring to agricultural policy specifically, words spoken to me by Harold Zoet, who sits in a provincial statehouse representing a new farmer-oriented party that hopes to join Mr. Wilders’s coalition, when I interviewed him last month, apply here as well. “We need to do it together,” he said. “We have to be more forward-thinking and listen to people everywhere.” Perhaps there is hope yet for the polder model.

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House Declares Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism, Dividing Democrats

Our colleagues in the newsroom mentioned in a story last month how, in Iowa over the summer, he interrupted a 15-year-old who was asking about mental health and the military by making a joke about her age. I was actually there for that exchange. The person had self-deprecatingly mentioned that maybe her question didn’t matter because she was too young to vote, then he cut in to make a joke that this didn’t stop the Democrats from trying to let her vote, just as she was saying she has depression and anxiety and started asking a thoughtful question about mental health and military recruitment. Mental health for young people and military recruitment are huge problems. But he started talking about how the military has requirements for a reason, before finally saying that in his experience, people were still able to serve well and he’d take a look at the issue. In my notes, I just wrote “BAD ANSWER.” Patrick: All caps. I know you — you’ve seen a lot over the years — that’s bad. Katherine: So I think the persona is probably part of it. But I also really wonder about the policy platform itself. The idea is supposed to be “getting all the meat off the bone,” as DeSantis puts it, and turning all the stuff Trump talks about into a reality. I think there’s a theory of the case that people just don’t like the idea of stuff being banned by the government, whether that’s about abortion or books or choices for their kids — even if a voter, for instance, might disapprove of abortion as a practice. If DeSantis were in this chat, I’m sure he’d dispute the idea that there’s book banning in Florida, but that’s its own kind of issue in campaigns. If you’re explaining and defending in lawyerly ways, that’s not always what a voter wants to hear. Or maybe it’s that people who love Trump love Trump and don’t need an alternative. What do you think? Patrick: DeSantis has a high opinion of himself and started off the race amid great expectations for his candidacy, and I think he’s sort of the classic candidate who doesn’t live up to the billing. He won a big re-election victory in 2022 against a very weak Democratic opponent and looked like a guy who relished picking fights and winning ruthlessly (Disney, educators, pro-choice people, gay and trans kids). Then he got in the race and quickly showed himself to be stiff and awkward and, perhaps worst of all for his brand, a wimp in the face of Trump’s attacks. He got trolled by that plane at the Iowa State Fair; he would say benign things about Trump while Trump would basically label him as a pedophile in high heels. He kept up that weird grin and little feints as Trump executed brass-knuckles, full-Jeb takedowns. In our most recent Times Opinion focus group, two voters said they were interested in DeSantis early on but found him too conservative and too stilted in the end. Now maybe Iowa Republican caucusgoers will surprise us, but DeSantis came in wanting to beat Trump and now is trying to hang on against Haley.