作者：JULIET MACUR
德克萨斯州阿比林 —— 巨大的建筑工地到了下班时间，午后的车流沿着一条破旧的两车道乡村公路，向一家名为 Elmdale Outpost 的新便利店驶去。 来自远近各地的蒙尘皮卡车 —— 路易斯安那州、北卡罗来纳州、墨西哥 —— 驶入停车场，疲惫的工人们走进店门，靴子在店内留下了一串泥迹。 这家像瑞士军刀般精巧的小店提供工人们可能需要的任何东西。牙膏和卫生纸，红薯和辛辣零食，以及啤酒。随处可见冰冷的啤酒。整个房间从地板到天花板全部是啤酒。超过 60 个品牌，仅 michelada（墨西哥啤酒鸡尾酒）就有 12 种。 不过，这家店的主要吸引力在于它距离六英里外的建筑工地很近。或者更准确地说，是它紧邻旁边规模庞大、占地 148 英亩的新房车公园，该公园旨在服务数千名临时劳工。 这支由管道安装工、暖通空调技术员、铁工等组成的工人大军来到了德克萨斯州阿比林东北边缘的这个农村地区，以建设耗资 $25 billion 的边境数据中心综合体。该综合体是半万亿美元星门计划的一部分，总统特朗普去年将其推广为“历史上最大的人工智能基础设施项目”。旗舰级的星门数据中心园区也在市另一侧地建设中。 “你们在这里开了一个很棒的地方，”一名来自科罗拉多州的地基承包商在购买六瓶装 Dos Equis 啤酒时告诉店主 Sam Holt Jr.。 他说，在德克萨斯州的烈日下工作 10 小时后，他无法抗拒店面波纹铁皮屋顶上刷的红色招牌：“啤酒 (BEER)”。 “是的，我们只是想服务好我们的新邻居，”Holt 回答道。 去年年底，“邻居”还意味着少数 1 个人。
在缅甸最顶级的夜店“先锋之加” (Pioneer Plus)，一张私人桌位的费用高达数百美元。
战争在肆虐，但富人的派对永不落幕
作者：HANNAH BEECH
缅甸仰光 —— 午夜时分，在战争之中，DJ 在向人群造势。 “准备好狂欢了吗？”他对着麦克风大喊，并加上了一个脏话以示强调。 在饱受战争蹂躏的缅甸，最顶级的夜店“先锋之加” (Pioneer Plus) 的派对参与者们已经准备好了。毕竟，这位 DJ 是远道而来的克罗地亚人。年轻女性在台上扭动身体。Johnnie Walker 酒液在流动，但只有蓝标 (Blue Label) 才
国际版 A4-10 俄罗斯袭击导致至少 8 人死亡
德克萨斯州阿比林的一对夫妇在一个 $25 billion 的综合体进驻该镇时开设了 Elmdale Outpost。“这里的一切在一夜之间都改变了，”一名店主说道。
被认可，因为这些高端玩家就是这样挥霍的。预订一个晚上的私人桌位 —— 配有水烟、进口水果和金字塔形的冰冻烈酒杯 —— 需要花费数百美元。 在洗手间里，以及在闪光灯闪烁间隙被偷偷占据的舞池中，一些“先锋之加” (Pioneer Plus) 的常客
国家版 A11-17, 20 特朗普项目加速推进
“冻结区”勉强维持
吞下了淡色药片，让呼吸中带着香草或葡萄糖果糖的味道。这些由当地贩毒集团命名、由甲基苯丙胺和咖啡因混合而成的药物带来的快感可以持续数小时。 五年前，在军政府推翻由昂山素季领导的民选政府后，缅甸陷入了全面内战，现在这里极需一种分心之物，一次喘息，一次持久的高潮。 在缅甸，没有人不感
周末艺术版 C1-8 倾听坦格尔伍德 (Tanglewood)
DESIREE RIOS 为《纽约时报》拍摄
因疏忽被判 15年监禁
作者：RICK ROJAS 与 JOHNNY KAUFFMAN
亚特兰大 — 周四，一名在佐治亚州高中枪杀四人的青少年的父亲被判处15年监禁，此前陪审团认定他对儿子在2024年发起的致命袭击承担刑事责任。
该父亲科林·格雷 (Colin Gray) 已于3月被裁定谋杀及非自愿过失致死等多项罪名成立。检察官认为，他应对发生在佐治亚州温德尔 (Winder, Ga.) 的枪击事件承担重大责任，因为他将其当时14, 岁的儿子科尔特 (Colt) 所使用的步枪交给了后者，并且未能留意到儿子心理健康状况的恶化以及对暴力日益增长的痴迷。
起诉实施大规模枪击事件的未成年人的父母，已成为这个对反复发生的枪支暴力感到沮丧的国家在寻求追责方面的最新前沿。针对格雷先生的案件因指控的严重程度而显得尤为突出。他的潜在刑期从10年缓刑到243年监禁不等；检察官此前请求判处80年监禁——对于55岁的格雷先生来说，这实际上等同于终身监禁。
巴罗县州高级法院的尼古拉斯·普里姆 (Nicholas Primm) 法官指出了本案的新颖性，称其为佐治亚州首例，全国第二例。他承认格雷先生并未策划此次袭击，甚至不知道其儿子的具体计划。但他未能采取行动，导致了袭击的发生。
未参保患者 人数增加
医疗覆盖范围丢失
作者：REED ABELSON
越来越多的未参保患者出现在医院急诊室和诊所，他们失去了在平价医疗法案 (Affordable Care Act) 下的保险覆盖。一些规模最大的医院系统（包括跨越多个州的大型营利性连锁机构）的负责人对未参保患者人数意外剧增以及与之相关的治疗成本表示担忧。许多高管表示，医院报告的未结医疗账单也在增加，提供的慈善护理也在增多。一些医院系统还发现，近几个月来，患者放弃或推迟了如膝关节置换等利润丰厚的择期手术。
在过去一周的收益报告以及与非营利医院团体的访谈中，披露了未参保患者显著增加的情况，在某些案例中增幅约为20%。各大医院官员对全国庞大的医疗系统中数亿美元的收入损失表示日益不安。
一些高管将人数减少归因于国会共和党人的决定，即取消在新冠疫情期间最初实施的、旨在帮助许多人支付每月保险保费的更为慷慨的补贴（或税收抵免）。尽管今年参加 A.C.A. 计划的绝大多数人仍领取联邦补贴，但联邦援助的力度已降低。在2026, 年，人们为计划支付的平均费用显著增加，且任何收入超过联邦贫困线四倍的人（个人为 $62,600）不再具备获得资助的资格。
根据最新的政府数据，自今年年初以来，参与奥巴马医保 (Obamacare) 的人数下降了约300万，即13%。保险公司预计将有更多的人退出 A.C.A. 计划。特朗普 (Trump) 政府将此次下降在很大程度上描述为打击欺诈的结果。
谢里·亨德里克斯 (Sheri Hendricks) 在芝加哥的谢德水族馆 (Shedd Aquarium) 与一只鲸鱼在一起。
试着运送 30 头白鲸。
运送白鲸这件事毫无寻常之处。 首先，您必须找到一架能够容纳白鲸，并且每头鲸鱼至少配备一名（甚至更多）护理人员的货机。 然后，还需要根据鲸鱼的尺寸和重量量身定制的、内衬泡沫和橡胶的 运输箱， 且箱体必须足够大，以便放入鲸鱼及其休息时使用的担架。
美国经济放缓
暂时撤回 布兰奇的提名
税收协议陷入僵局 阻碍参议院对 司法部长的投票
本文作者为格伦·特鲁什 (Glenn Thrush)、迈克尔·戈尔德 (Michael Gold) 和卡尔·赫尔斯 (Carl Hulse)。
华盛顿 —— 托德·布兰奇被提名担任司法部长的计划在周四遭受严重打击，特朗普总统威胁称，如果 2 名共和党参议员要求的对一项有利于他本人及其家人的税收豁免协议进行限制不被执行，他将撤回布兰奇先生的名字。 特朗普先生在社交媒体上发布了这一威胁，此前布兰奇先生、白宫以及两名参议员——德克萨斯州的约翰·科尼和北卡罗来纳州的汤姆·蒂利斯（两人明年均不再回归国会）——进行了 24 小时紧张且毫无结果的谈判。 “如果他们不采取正确行动，我不反对暂时撤回托德的名字，并在科尼和蒂利斯离职后再把他放回去，”特朗普先生写道。这场争斗揭示了他对国会权力的局限性。 这引发了当日晚些时候的一场抢救行动，旨在挽救布兰奇先生的提名，并维持党内及部门间礼貌往来的假象。周四下午，蒂利斯先生和科尼先生在国会大厦附近的全国共和党参议院委员会办公室与布兰奇先生进行了私人会晤。目前尚不清楚他们是否打破了僵局。 科尼先生和蒂利斯先生反对一项由布兰奇先生和特朗普先生的私人律师协商的协议，该协议旨在解决总统针对美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 提起的一起诉讼。该协议给予特朗普先生、其家人及其企业广泛的美国国家税务局审计豁免权，潜在地为他们节省了至少 $100 million 的罚金。 民主党人甚至一些共和党议员批评该协议是对特朗普家族的馈赠。 这两位参议员希望缩小协议范围，以便推进布兰奇先生的提名，以——
HEIDI ZEIGER/谢德水族馆，通过路透社
作者：雷米·图明 (REMY TUMIN)
此外还涉及到起重机的问题，它将把白鲸从围栏吊起放入箱中，然后放入等待的卡车上将其运往机场。 现在，请将上述过程重复 30 次。 美国和西班牙各地的水族馆正致力于将这 30 头白鲸从加拿大一家关闭的水族馆迁出。 其中 6 头已经离开了加拿——
体育 B7-10, 12 为何摩尔选择俄勒冈大学
A.G. 萨尔兹伯格 (A.G. SULZBERGER) 发行人
创建于 1851 年
阿道夫·S·奥克斯 (ADOLPH S. OCHS) 发行人 1896-1935 年
亚瑟·海斯·萨尔兹伯格 (ARTHUR HAYS SULZBERGER) 发行人 1935-1961 年
欧维尔·E·德赖富斯 (ORVIL E. DRYFOOS) 发行人 1961-1963 年
新闻
约瑟夫·卡恩 (JOSEPH KAHN) 执行编辑
马克·莱西 (MARC LACEY) 执行总编辑
卡罗琳·瑞安 (CAROLYN RYAN) 执行总编辑
萨姆·多尔尼克 (SAM DOLNICK) 副执行总编辑
莫妮卡·德雷克 (MONICA DRAKE) 副执行总编辑
史蒂夫·杜恩斯 (STEVE DUENES) 副执行总编辑
马修·埃里克森 (MATTHEW ERICSON) 助理执行总编辑
乔纳森·加林斯基 (JONATHAN GALINSKY) 助理执行总编辑
帕特里克·希利 (PATRICK HEALY) 助理执行总编辑
卡伦·斯科格 (KARRON SKOG) 助理执行总编辑
迈克尔·斯莱克曼 (MICHAEL SLACKMAN) 助理执行总编辑
吉姆·亚德利 (JIM YARDLEY) 助理执行总编辑
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福西在激烈的听证会上多次拒绝回答参议员提问 安东尼·S·福西（Anthony S. Fauci）博士在政府担任顶级传染病专家近四十年，周三拒绝回答一个调查新冠肺炎（Covid-19）起源的参议院委员会的任何问题。他指责该委员会的共和党主席兰德·保罗（Rand Paul）对他有着“不正常的执念”，并 100 次以上地援引第五修正案中关于不得强迫自证其罪的权利。谢丽尔·盖·斯托尔伯格（Sheryl Gay Stolberg）写道：“这场听证会部分是华盛顿式的戏剧，部分是政治上的罗夏克测试。”
伊朗战争实时更新：埃及无人机袭击威胁扩大战火 随着伊朗和美国重新燃起敌对行动，中东地区在周四处于战争扩大的边缘。埃及表示，一架身份不明的无人机在地中海港口达米埃塔（Damietta）引发爆炸；沙特阿拉伯在周三与美国军队对伊朗支持的民兵进行联合打击后，首次承认直接参与战争。
医院报告称，由于平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 削减，无保险患者人数急剧增加 由于失去了在平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 下的覆盖范围，越来越多的无保险患者出现在医院急诊室和诊所。医院还报告了更多未支付的医疗账单，并提供了更多的慈善护理。里德·阿贝尔森（Reed Abelson）报道称，一些医院系统发现，患者正在放弃或推迟昂贵的择期手术，如膝关节置换术。
销量如此低迷，加州酿酒厂正焚毁其葡萄园 加州去年的葡萄酒产量低于过去 25 年中的任何一个时间点。在全国范围内，葡萄酒销量处于 19. 20 多年来的最低水平。让葡萄在藤上腐烂往往比让未售出的酒瓶塞满货架更便宜。“我真的完全没有赚钱的办法，”一位加州索莱达（Soledad）的酿酒师说道。
古巴人正在进口大型锂电池以便在停电期间运行电器，并在屋顶安装太阳能电池板为电池充电。全国各地的业余机械师们都在临时改装发电机，使其能运行在更容易获取的天然气上。 一位农民甚至设计了一个微型后院炼油厂，将碎塑料转化为汽油，为其摩托车和炉灶提供燃料。 “古巴人在危机中生存，”他告诉杰克（Jack）。 周一，我联系了杰克，想就他的报道以及团队在实地的经验，为《早报》简报询问他几个问题。
我想问问你遇到的那位农民，就是那个自己制造汽油的人。你在古巴看到了很多这种才智吗？
古巴词汇中最核心的词之一是 “resolver”。它的字面意思是“解决”，但在经历了数十年的美国贸易禁运后，在古巴，它的真实含义是“不择手段地想办法解决问题”。这解释了古巴人如何将苏联发动机安装到 20 世纪 50 年代的美国车中以维持运行，或者在苏联解体后的经济危机期间食用裹面包屑的葡萄柚皮来模仿肉类。 而现在，他们再次在 “resolviendo”。我们在横跨古巴的旅程中看到了很多创造力。人们将太阳能电池板钻在电动三轮车的顶端。他们使用锂电池为音乐会供电。甚至有传闻说人们使用木炭和食用油为汽车驱动。
LISETTE POOLE GONZÁLEZ 为《纽约时报》绘制
因此，尽管艰苦，这个国家依然在运转。
你在该国的接待情况如何？ 古巴政府已经很长时间没有允许《时报》记者在那里报道了。
无论我们走到哪里，到处都是故事，而古巴人民则渴望讲述这些故事。我们在哈瓦那及其他地区采访了数十人，他们希望表达对现状的沮丧与疲惫。关于责任在谁，人们的看法不一。有些人认为古巴政府的经济政策失败和政治压制负有责任，而另一些人则认为特朗普是为了个人利益而让他们受苦。许多人则认为两者都有责任。
办理签证有多困难？政府监视人员是否一直跟着你们？
为了拿到签证费了很大功夫。在六个月的时间里，我在墨西哥城、哈瓦那、华盛顿和纽约与古巴的高级外交官会面，并发送了许多信函，以说服他们我们会公正地讲述这个故事。一旦我们抵达哈瓦那进行报道，我们与古巴官员会面了几次，但除此之外，他们没有干扰我们。我们在各地自由旅行，决定报道目标并选择采访对象。
订阅 Morning 时事通讯，访问 nytimes.com/themorning。
列日冲突； 内战威胁
July 31, 1950. 据《泰晤士报》报道，前一日，在比利时列日郊区的一家咖啡馆外，警察向“一群社会主义者”开火，导致三人死亡。这次枪击事件最终造成四人死亡，当时正值关于利奥波德三世在纳粹德国占领后重返王位而引发的政治危机最高点。许多比利时人对国王在 1940 年决定留在纳粹统治下的比利时，而非加入流亡政府感到愤慨。在警察开火时，社会主义工人组织了总罢工，并计划向布鲁塞尔进军，以向利奥波德施压要求其退位。“除非今晚达成协议，否则明天将爆发内战，”社会主义领导人马克斯·布塞（Max Buset）说道。On Aug. 1, 随着示威者渗透进布鲁塞尔周围的安全警戒线，利奥波德宣布了退位计划，该国从而在武装冲突的边缘退回。
趣味事实
在加拿大，2023 年火灾过火总面积是历史平均值的七倍。在加利福尼亚州，该州记录在案的 10 场最大山火中有 9 场发生在过去十年中。
欧洲农业转型加剧火灾 A6
太空太阳能将拥有 24 小时获取太阳能量的能力，使其成为像天然气发电厂一样稳定的能源。在地球上，太阳能电站需要电池来将资源延伸至日光时间之外。
A.I. 繁荣加速遥远构想： 太空太阳能 B6
俄罗斯在 7 月至今已向乌克兰发射了 126 枚弹道导弹，超过了此前在 2 月创下的 118 枚纪录。
乌克兰防空系统日渐枯竭， 遭受致命袭击打击 A6
K-pop 超级组合 BTS 宣布，在录音学院推出一个新的亚洲流行音乐类别一个月后，其最新专辑《Arirang》将不提交格莱美奖评选。
BTS 表示将不提交 2027 年格莱美奖作品 C8
纽约市全市行政服务部 (Department of Citywide Administrative Services) 拍卖会上售出价格最高的一件物品是一艘曾由卫生局拥有的漏斗驳船。售价：$293,255.
罕见路牌拍卖：尼克斯游行中的 “冠军之路” (Champions Way) B12
在过去的四分之一个世纪里，巴拉克·奥巴马是唯一一位在总统选举中赢得爱荷华州的民主党人。
奥巴马在爱荷华州竞选中 为民主党助威 A17
迷你纵横图 (The Mini Crossword)
1 2 3 4
7/31/2026 作者：JOEL FAGLIANO
横向 (ACROSS)
1 结合 8-Across 和 1-Down，成长
纵向 (DOWN)
从你自己的错误中学习
5 电子游戏版块
6 花样滑冰双人组
7 ___ Poupon (芥末品牌)
8 见 1-Across
1 见 1-Across
2 像里格利球场 (Wrigley Field) 的外野墙一样
3 极其
4 此线索中大写的字母 (capitaLized)
5 奈莉·科尔达 (Nelly Korda) 所属的体育组织
上期谜题答案
S O C K
C R U N K
A G R E E
R A V E N
N E S T
读者角落 话题：你在团体旅行中是否在苦撑账单？
与朋友一起旅行可能是梦想成真。但它也可能引发不可预见的摩擦，尤其是在财务方面。 不同的价格敏感度和旅行优先级可能会使规划变得复杂。此外，还有情侣与单身人士的定价差异、中途加入或延长停留的人员，以及多种货币结算的挑战。 在行程确定、机票预订、旅行计划正式走出群聊之后，就是结账的时候了。 我们很好奇你们如何处理财务摩擦——以及你们如何确保死党们把账结清。
收件箱内 《纽约时报》时事通讯摘录
沙特能源部长阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹·本·萨勒曼亲王，2025 年在维也纳举行的一次核峰会上。
特朗普政府与沙特阿拉伯达成协议，将允许该海湾国家接触美国的核技术。在《The World》栏目中，Katrin Bennhold 请负责国家安全报道的 David E. Sanger 讨论了这对中东的核扩散意味着什么。以下是他们对话的编辑摘录。
沙特借此开发核武器的 风险有多大？这一直 是反对伊朗浓缩铀的 论据。
鉴于核问题是该方案的 核心，这次与沙特的 协议是否会让美国 更难与伊朗达成和平协议？
在 nytimes.com/newsletters 订阅 《The World》。
帮手专栏 莓果奶油片状蛋糕食谱
这款酸奶油蛋糕具有浓郁的香草味和少许杏仁提取物，烘烤后的质地可以承载大量的莓果和奶油。在蛋糕顶端铺上市场上看起来最好的任何莓果，并发挥创意进行设计。YOSSY AREFI
时间：1½ 小时，另加冷却时间
份量：16 人份
酸奶油蛋糕配料： ¾ 杯/170 克无盐黄油 (1½ 块)，融化，另留部分用于涂抹烤盘 1½ 杯/300 克细砂糖 3 个大鸡蛋 1 汤匙细柠檬皮屑 (来自一个大柠檬) 1½ 杯/360 克酸奶油 ¼ 杯/60 毫升中性油 (如菜籽油或葡萄籽油) 1 汤匙香草提取物 1 茶匙杏仁提取物 (可选) 1½ 茶匙犹太盐 (如 Diamond Crystal) 1 汤匙烘焙粉 1 茶匙小苏打 2½ 杯/320 克通用面粉
顶部装饰： ½ 杯/113 克奶油乳酪，软化 2 汤匙细砂糖 2 茶匙香草精 1 杯/240 毫升重奶油，冷藏 4 杯浆果（树莓、蓝莓、黑莓和草莓片的任意组合），用于装饰
金钱是如何考验或破坏一次团体旅行中的友情的？你是如何处理的？你是那个催促朋友付款的人吗？还是当你收到一项出乎意料的高额 Venmo 账单请求时，感到莫名其妙？你从这次经历中学到了什么？对于他人如何避免同样的陷阱，你有什么建议？
若要分享您的经验，请填写 nytimes.com/readers 的 Your Lead 征集栏下的表格。在未事先与您联系的情况下，我们不会发布您回答的任何部分。
事实上，如果沙特人最终从国外购买燃料，并将后端的核废料交还，那么风险就不大。但根据这份协议的写法，沙特人并未承诺走这条路。且防扩散专家表示，这造成了被转用于炸弹项目的风险。
你当然可以认为，美国与伊朗开战的部分原因是为了强迫他们接受高度侵入性的核检查，并让他们停止生产铀。而伊朗人看到这一点后会说，特朗普刚刚给沙特阿拉伯的检查开了绿灯，甚至可能允许他们生产核燃料。他们会认为——而且理由充分——这表明存在双重标准。
烘焙粉和小苏打。使用灵活的刮刀，将面粉翻拌入混合物中，直到没有白色条纹（混合物可能会有少量结块）。
将面糊倒入准备好的盘中，均匀铺平，烘烤至膨胀且金黄，且插入中心的竹签取出时干净为止，约 35 到 40 分钟。将盘子放在晾架上完全冷却。
蛋糕冷却后，制作顶部装饰：在一个大碗中，将奶油乳酪、糖和香草精搅拌均匀至顺滑。在持续搅拌的同时缓慢倒入重奶油，继续搅拌至形成软峰，约 5 分钟。
使用羊皮纸将蛋糕从盘中转移到盛菜盘中。撕掉羊皮纸，在蛋糕顶部抹上奶油乳酪打发奶油，并在奶油上摆放浆果。立即食用。蛋糕在室温下可保存约 4 小时；时间更长则应覆盖并冷藏。
THOMAS KRONSTEINER/GETTY IMAGES
LINDA XIAO 为《纽约时报》拍摄。 美食造型师：YOSSY AREFI。
GAIA STELLA
跨越全国
使用登山杖
被推向极限
变得像在公园散步一样 简单的方法
nytimes.com/ hellowirecutter
助力厘清战争
提供了一种应对创伤的方式
作者：CONSTANT MÉHEUT 和 OLHA KONOVALOVA
当阿丽娜·奥特泽姆科（Alina Otzemko）的丈夫在俄罗斯于四年多前入侵乌克兰后加入乌克兰军队时，她发现自己面临着没有哪个家长预演过的难题。她该如何告诉当时只有 1½ 岁的儿子尤里（Yurii），为什么他的父亲不再回家？如何解释他从车窗看到的焦黑建筑和被炸毁的桥梁？更难的是，如何向孩子解释战争？
随着时间流逝，答案在她脑海中逐渐成形，奥特泽姆科女士决定将这些答案写成一本儿童书，通过尤里的视角来讲述战争的故事。“我觉得这是一个极好的方法，可以让其他试图向孩子解释战争是什么的家长们生活得更轻松一些，”31 岁的心理学家奥特泽姆科女士在采访中表示。“之前没有这样的书。”
她的书《爸爸为什么不在家？》（Why Isn’t Dad at Home?）将读者带入战时尤里的世界，包括描述当“飞机开始在房子上空飞行”时的担忧，以及他前往军队基地附近探望父亲的经历，那里“没有玩具”，但有很多“手电筒、鼠标和大手枪”。
到 2024 年中期，这本书准备出版。奥特泽姆科女士请求丈夫写序言。“但他没有时间，”她说。“6 月 7 日，他牺牲了。”
现在，在毫无准备的情况下，奥特泽姆科女士不得不告诉尤里，他的父亲已经离世。在让自己平静下来之后，她开始写一本续作：《爸爸为什么去世了？》（Why Did Dad Die?）。
自战争开始以来，奥特泽姆科女士的书只是乌克兰出版的众多相关书籍中的两本，所有这些书都旨在帮助儿童及其父母应对战争带来的创伤。其主题包括亲人分离的痛苦、流亡的动荡，以及轰炸及其带来的破坏之恐怖。这些书籍共同讲述了一个被四年多全面战争深刻重塑的社会故事。在书页中，孩子们遇到了名字已进入日常语言的武器，并学习了诸如“退伍军人”、“伞兵”和“防空系统”等词汇。这些故事还向他们灌输了一种由保卫国家免受俄罗斯侵害的经历而形成的新爱国意识。或许最重要的是，这些书通过孩子们能够理解的语言，帮助他们面对死亡、破坏和恐惧等沉重话题。“它们实际上为你提供了一个处理问题的框架，”圣安德鲁斯大学（University of St. Andrews）教授儿童文学的高级讲师艾米莉·法纳（Emily Finer）说道，并指出许多书籍使用动物和神奇人物来帮助引导那些否则会让人难以承受的经历。法纳女士表示，她统计出自战争开始以来已有 196 部新书出版。她指出，在过去的冲突期间也出现过类似的书籍，但规模从未如此之大。“作为一种文化现象，这是史无前例的，”她说。法纳女士表示，激增的原因之一是，当今的乌克兰家长深知不处理创伤会付出代价，因为他们生长在数十年苏联压迫的遗产之下，当时关于乌克兰人苦难的讨论被禁声。他们不想重复那种模式，并“希望他们的孩子能有更好的理解力和良好的心理健康”，她说道。在俄罗斯入侵后最早出版的书籍之一，由弗拉基米尔·切尔尼申科（Volodymyr Chernishenko）撰写的《城市之战》（Battle for the City），探讨了当时每个家长心中的疑问：如何解释战争已经开始了？在故事中，一个
一座无名的平静乌克兰城市陷入了混乱，因为巨大的军事机器带着威胁的狞笑逼近，并开始向城市倾泻火箭弹。救援来自一架名为“幽灵”的乌克兰战斗机，它从空中摧毁了坦克。这个名字唤起了关于“基辅幽灵”的传说，传闻一名飞行员在战争初期击落了大量俄罗斯飞机。电信经理伊琳娜·比兰（Iryna Bilan）表示，她为两个儿子阿特姆（Artem）和马克（Mark）选择了这本书，
“城市之战” 弗拉基米尔·切尔尼申科（Volodymyr Chernishenko） 著
因为这让她想起了他们家乡基辅的保卫战，在战争最初几周，俄罗斯军队部分包围了这座城市。38 岁的比兰女士说，她的儿子们在翻页并得知“幽灵”在救下城市后最终被一枚俄罗斯导弹摧毁时，哭了很久。但她说，她将这个悲剧性的结局视为一个契机，用来开启一场关于士兵在保卫国家时牺牲的艰难对话，而这正是她的儿子们在广播和电视上经常听到的主题。比兰女士说，她经常和孩子们一起读的另一本书是叶夫根尼娅·扎瓦利（Yevheniia Zavalii）写的《浣熊火箭和其他英雄》。这本书通过受战争影响的动物故事，表达了孩子们的内心感受。其中一个故事讲述了一头名叫布雷策尔（Bretzel）的狮子，它害怕轰炸但拒绝承认，坚信自己必须表现得强而有力。比兰女士说，在基辅经历了那些令人心惊胆战的轰炸之夜后，她地转向了这个故事。在谈到创伤时，她说：“通过书籍，我们可以度过难关。这样我的孩子就不会将其深藏在心底，使其不再潜伏在背景中，阻碍他们生活，阻碍他们做孩子。”
最近的一个早晨，在基辅郊区伊尔平（Irpin）的一所小学里，俄罗斯军队在 2022 年初的短暂占领期间杀死了大约 300 名居民。该校的一位负责人纳塔利娅·切雷德纽克（Nataliia Cheredniuk）为她的书《唵。伊尔平森林之灵》（Ommm. The Spirit of the Irpin Forest）组织了一场戏剧朗读。书中通过一个守护森林的魔法精灵的视角，讲述了俄罗斯对该镇的袭击，精灵召唤洪水和狂风来驱逐侵略者。“你们高兴这个小森林精灵成为了我们的守护者吗？”她询问聚集在小教室里的 20 左右的学生们。“你们想为他许什么愿？”“希望他能让战争永远不开始，”一个孩子回答道。“让战争结束吧，”另一个孩子说。切雷德纽克女士说，“最宝贵的是，通过这个童话，孩子们谈论起战争”，而不是将情感压抑在心中。
随着战争进入第五年，这是许多乌克兰孩子唯一经历过的现实，也是日常好奇心的来源。在 2022 年底俄罗斯对基辅发动大规模空袭后，比兰女士说她 10 岁的儿子阿特姆开始询问乌克兰用于自卫的武器。她说，知道乌克兰军队有手段保护国家首都“有助于让他产生希望”。因此，她给阿特姆买了很多关于战斗机、导弹、无人机和枪械的书，现在他几乎能背出这些武器的名字。“我肯定记得其中一个是地对空导弹系统，”阿特姆最近一个下午在他家的公寓里翻页时说道。
关于导弹的书籍。比兰女士说，有时他们甚至会讨论俄罗斯弹道导弹的轨迹，以及乌克兰采用的美国制爱国者防空系统如何拦截它们。40 岁的通信官兼战争退伍军人莱拉·布尔拉科娃（Lera Burlakova）表示，她利用这些书向 7 岁的儿子蒂穆尔（Timur）讲解战争的方方面面，不仅是武器，还包括战争的历史以及它如何重塑社会。“我希望他成长为一个真正的乌克兰爱国者，”她说。她为蒂穆尔买了一本《小旅行书：乌克兰武装部队》，这是一本儿童百科全书，涵盖了年幼读者需要了解的关于乌克兰军队的所有内容。每一页探讨一个不同的主题，例如乌克兰针对俄罗斯黑海舰队的打击行动，以及女性在军队中日益增长的影响力。蒂穆尔最喜欢的一页是关于战争退伍军人的，这是对他母亲的一种致敬。页面上显示
一名装着义肢的女性，以及一名男子在拥抱他在前线发现的一只猫。紧挨着这一页的是关于乌克兰在战争中使用的各种无人机类型的页面。或许最艰难的话题是失去亲人。心理学家奥策姆科（Otzemko）女士说，她花了两个月的时间才告诉儿子尤里（Yurii）他的父亲已经去世了。她说，起初他处于否认状态，坚信她一定搞错了，因为他的爸爸承诺过会回来。然而，现实逐渐清晰。在幼儿园看到一个朋友与从前线归来的父亲团聚时，尤里开始意识到自己的父亲永远不会回家了。奥策姆科女士在她的第二本书中记录了所有这些阶段，该书是通过尤里的视角来叙述的，并配有柔和的插图，描绘了尤里在接受父亲缺失这一事实时凝视天空的样子。奥策姆科女士说，她在书中追求的是“非常简单、孩子气的解释”，这样孩子们可以在书页中找到共鸣，而父母则可以找到一种方法来引导孩子处理复杂的情绪。“这基本上是一本关于如何与孩子谈论死亡的现成指南，”她说。
“小旅行书：乌克兰武装部队” 作者：伊琳娜·塔拉年科（Iryna Taranenko）、玛塔·莱沙克（Marta Leshak）和奥列克桑德尔·米赫德（Oleksandr Mykhed）
“为什么爸爸去世了？” 作者：阿丽娜·奥策姆科（Alina Otzemko）
背包 在一次战斗部署中，一名士兵 装载了数十公斤的装备， 生命在字面上取决于此。
在河对面，一名将军潜伏其中，树林里有火箭发射器！而在公园对面，一场新的攻击开始了。
我在其中第一次看到 一场葬礼
老狮出版社，2025
退伍军人 这些是参加过战斗并保卫 家园的男孩女孩、男人 和女人。
TEACHER, 2025
ARTBOOKS, 2022
北约表示，周四在对邻国乌克兰进行夜间袭击期间，一枚俄罗斯导弹在波兰坠毁。这一事件可能增加俄罗斯与波兰所属的西方军事联盟之间发生直接对抗的风险。
北约秘书长马克·吕特（Mark Rutte）表示，此次事件是“俄罗斯导弹侵犯波兰领空”，并誓言将加强联盟防御。
“这次事件是俄罗斯的又一次鲁莽行为，是其对乌克兰战争带来的危险后果，”吕特在社交媒体帖子中表示。
北约发言人马丁·奥唐奈（Martin O’Donnell）上校在一份声明中表示，“目前型号不明的俄罗斯导弹”是“俄罗斯在夜间向乌克兰发射的多枚导弹之一”。
这枚最初被波兰当局称为“不明物体”的导弹击中了波兰东南部的一片田野，未造成人员受伤。周四上午，波兰总理唐纳德·图斯克（Donald Tusk）在一次紧急会议上表示，该导弹很可能……
阿纳托尔·马格齐亚兹（Anatol Magdziarz）在华沙参与了报道。
作者：CONSTANT MÉHEUT
乌克兰，基辅 —— 乌克兰官员周四表示，俄罗斯在夜间用大量导弹和无人机猛烈轰击乌克兰城市，造成至少 8 人死亡，数十人受伤。这次袭击是夏季大规模空中突袭行动中的最新一次，莫斯科显然试图利用乌克兰日渐匮乏的防空系统。
这次夜袭将俄罗斯使用弹道导弹的数量推向了新的月度纪录。根据《纽约时报》基于乌克兰空军数据的一套数据集，俄罗斯在 7 月至今已向乌克兰发射了 126 枚弹道导弹，超过了此前在 2 月创下的 118 枚纪录。
乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基（Volodymyr Zelensky）表示，俄罗斯武器袭击了全国各地，从西部的利沃夫（Lviv）——救援人员在被毁建筑的瓦砾中搜寻幸存者，到东部的第聂普罗彼得罗夫斯克（Dnipropetrovsk）地区，那里有包括三名儿童在内的五名家庭成员被杀。
“另有两名儿童从瓦砾中被救出，”泽连斯基在关于第聂普罗彼得罗夫斯克袭击的社交媒体帖子中写道。“那是一栋普通的住宅，被一枚弹道导弹彻底摧毁了。”
据乌克兰外交部长安德里·西比哈（Andrii Sybiha）称，在袭击过程中，一枚俄罗斯巡航导弹还进入了北约成员国波兰的领空。目前尚不清楚该导弹是否击中了波兰领土，但当地当局表示，一个“不明物体”在夜间进入波兰领空，随后警察在该国东南部的一片田野中发现了一个直径约 10 码的弹坑以及碎片。
在此前对乌克兰西部的袭击中，俄罗斯导弹曾短暂进入波兰领空。
……乌克兰正在开发自己的防空系统，但目前尚不清楚该系统能否有效对抗俄罗斯的弹道导弹。
乌克兰也针对俄罗斯境内目标发动了自己的远程打击行动。最初，打击重点是军事设施和炼油厂，但随后目标清单逐渐扩大，包括商业基础设施，例如俄罗斯版亚马逊 Wildberries 的仓库。
周三上午，莫斯科南部的一座 Wildberries 仓库遭到袭击。
金·巴克（Kim Barker）参与了报道。
克里特岛山火肆虐
作者：NIKI KITSANTONIS
雅典 —— 周四，希腊在克里特岛与一场山火作斗争，这场火灾已导致两名消防员死亡，并迫使数千人逃离。此次火灾是今年夏天烧毁欧洲多地的系列火灾中最新的一起，考验着欧洲应对日益极端天气的能力。
超过 220 名消防员正在全力扑救克里特岛的这场山火，火灾于周三在岛南部的克里亚弗里西（Krya Vrysi）地区爆发。希腊当局周四正试图控制包括这场在内的几起火灾，强风加剧了火势。
“风力过于猛烈，飞机无法作业，”克里特岛副区域长 Giorgos Tsapakos 周四上午告诉国家电视台。他表示，火线延伸近 10 英里，但目前居住区尚未受到威胁。
希腊气候危机与公民保护部部长 Evangelos Tournas 周三晚表示，在克里特岛牺牲的两名消防员年龄分别为 58 岁和 25 岁。关于他们死亡的情况
据称是俄罗斯制造的，携带爆炸物并造成一个直径 32 英尺的弹坑，表明“这是一件非常严肃的事情”。
但他并未直接指责俄罗斯发射了该导弹。
“在政治上，关于这是否是俄罗斯或乌克兰所为，始终具有重大意义且存在猜测，”图斯克（Mr. Tusk）在周四下午的新闻发布会上表示，并补充说调查正在进行中。
他表示，这枚导弹是在俄罗斯对乌克兰发动一夜袭击期间，进入该国领空的两枚导弹之一。他说，另一枚在短暂入侵后转向离开，而且在两种情况下，“没有理由相信目标是波兰”。
波兰此前至少曾被导弹击中一次，其中一枚于 2022 年落在其领土上，造成两人死亡。当时最初担心此次撞击是俄罗斯的误击，加剧了紧张局势以及对北约干预的要求。但很快就明确，该飞行物是由乌克兰发射的防空导弹，意外落在波兰。
乌克兰外交部长安德烈·西比哈（Andrii Sybiha）在社交媒体上表示，一枚俄罗斯巡航导弹进入了波兰，但他并未
[[IMG_XXXX]] 在利沃夫（Lviv）一座周四被俄罗斯导弹击中的公寓楼附近。乌克兰各地的袭击造成至少 8 人死亡。
乌克兰，但并未击中波兰本土。任何确认击中北约成员国的袭击都可能导致该军事联盟与俄罗斯之间的紧张局势急剧升级。
最新的袭击凸显了乌克兰在俄罗斯不断扩大的导弹攻势面前日益增加的脆弱性。
泽连斯基先生（Mr. Zelensky）数周来一直警告称，乌克兰的防空能力正趋于枯竭，特别是爱国者拦截导弹——这是西方盟友提供给基辅用于击落俄罗斯弹道导弹的最可靠武器。
乌克兰已敦促其西方盟友提供更多爱国者导弹，且
目前尚不清楚。 夏季山火在南欧部分地区较为常见。 但希腊的火灾发生时，消防员仍在法国和西班牙扑救火灾。官员表示，那些火灾到周四为止基本已得到控制，但它们在整个欧洲大陆引起了警觉，因为气候变化正在推高极端气温，并使山火更加广泛地蔓延。
克里特岛雷西姆诺地区副区长玛丽亚·利奥尼（Maria Lioni）在周四接受国家电视台采访时，描述了“噩梦般的白天和噩梦般的夜晚”，并补充说当局已经撤离了“许多村庄，无论规模大小”。她表示，目前全面评估损失还为时过早，但损失似乎非常严重。
利奥尼女士表示，约 8,000 人从南海岸的阿吉亚加利尼（Agia Galini）地区撤离，不过希腊气候危机与民防部随后宣布，此前从该地区撤离的游客已开始返回酒店。
许多居民住在克里特岛其他地区的亲戚或朋友家中，而前往这座热门度假胜地的游客则被转移到安全区域的酒店。约 700 人在一家体育馆内避难，那里铺设了垫——
具体是否击中了任何目标。俄罗斯方面未立即发表评论。 作为乌克兰边境最大的北约盟友，波兰在乌克兰与俄罗斯之间持续四年的战争中一直是基辅最坚定的支持者之一，并遭受了一些最严重的附带损害。俄罗斯无人机曾多次进入其领空并坠落在其领土上，且波兰一直成为破坏活动和混合战争的目标
一场距离仅 31 英里 的会议数小时后。
波兰检察官将其与莫斯科联系起来的袭击。奥唐奈（O’Donnell）上校表示，北约战斗机和其他飞机已紧急出击以拦截周四的导弹，且北约最高军事指挥官——美国空军的亚历克瑟斯·G·格林克维奇（Alexus G. Grynkewich）将军在事后与波兰国防部长进行了沟通，以讨论可能的应对措施。
目前尚不清楚这些措施可能包含什么，且北约官员
泽连斯基在周二访问白宫期间再次提出了这一问题。但由于全球多地冲突，拦截导弹的全球库存正承受着巨大的压力。
“我们所有的伙伴都知道他们可以通过什么方式提供帮助，以及能提供什么样的帮助，”泽连斯基在周四的夜袭后在社交媒体上写道。“援助的延迟，反弹道导弹交付的延迟，将直接导致我们今天不幸目睹的这种破坏和伤亡。”
在缺乏西方供应的防空系统的情况下，乌克兰组建
搭建了临时避难所并分发食物。 希腊当局还在加强在全国其他地区扑灭山火的努力。据民政当局称，周四希腊许多地区仍处于高火灾风险中，包括大雅典地区、克里特岛、基克拉泽斯群岛以及伯罗奔尼撒半岛的大部分地区。
在莱斯博斯岛上，近 100 名消防员仍在扑灭普洛马里镇附近爆发的火灾。在伯罗奔尼撒半岛，一名消防员周三在吉赛奥地区的火灾现场不幸殉职。
西欧大部分地区正处于另一波强热浪的笼罩之下，这是该大陆自 5 月以来的第四次热浪。官员警告称，持久的干燥天气、阵风、极端温度和低湿度的结合将显著增加
不会讨论波兰是否已要求与整个联盟进行正式磋商，以探讨如何最好地保护其领土。 格林克维奇将军“强调，北约将继续采取一切必要措施来保卫北约领土，”奥唐奈上校说。
该导弹坠毁地点距离图斯克先生数小时前与乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基会面地点仅 31 英里。 图斯克先生前往弹坑现场视察损坏情况，他表示导弹在会议地点如此之近的地方击中是“一个不寻常的巧合”。 “如果这枚导弹继续飞行，我们已经准备好将其击落，”图斯克说道。 他最初将该导弹认定为弹道导弹，但随后表示这是一枚巡航导弹。
波兰军方在一份声明中表示，其一直在监测至少 12 枚在乌克兰西部上空飞行的俄罗斯导弹，其中包括一个被描述为“物体”的目标，该目标在当地时间 3:29 a.m.（即 3 点 29 分）左右接近波兰边境，但随后改变方向向东飞行。
军方声明称，大约 10 分钟后，在
一套由多种防空手段组成的拼凑系统，试图以此应对俄罗斯的袭击。其中包括使用老旧机枪向低空飞行的无人机开火的移动小队、用小型无人机拦截大型俄罗斯无人机，以及战斗机向俄罗斯巡航导弹发射导弹。
然而，俄罗斯的弹道导弹带来了更大的挑战，只能通过像“爱国者”这样的先进系统来应对。本月，特朗普总统允许乌克兰获得许可生产“爱国者”拦截弹。但专家表示，乌克兰开始生产还需要时间。乌克兰还
COSTAS METAXAKIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
山火扩散及新火源点燃的风险。
周四，欧洲森林火灾信息系统表示，预计在 8月 5. 之前，西欧和中欧的大部分地区将处于“极高”火灾危险条件下——这是其预报中的最高级别。英国和爱尔兰也面临同样的风险。
在苏格兰，消防员一直在与一场持续两周的大火作斗争，这场火灾席卷了荒原和森林，摧毁了珍贵的自然景观。周三，英格兰中部、东部和南部的大部分地区被正式宣布进入干旱状态。周四，随着消防队伍在邓威奇希思（Dunwich Heath）处置一场山火，萨福克郡（Suffolk）有数十人从家中被疏散。
在法国，内政部长劳伦特·努涅斯（Laurent Nuñez）告诉记者，尽管天气条件略有改善，湿度增加且风力减小，但情况“依然复杂”，任何人都不应“掉以轻心”。他表示，自夏季开始以来，共报告了超过 14,000 起火灾。
努涅斯先生说，目前仍有四起火灾在持续，包括西南部吉伦特（Gironde）地区的一场特大火灾。那里的消防员正专注于处理火场边缘并防止余烬再次引发火灾。当地省长表示，在超过 220,000 人被迫逃离后，约 84,000 名被疏散人员现已可以回家。
西班牙马德里附近的火势已基本稳定，使得几乎所有 60,000 名流离失所者得以返回家中。首相佩德罗·桑切斯（Pedro Sánchez）宣布该地区的国家山火紧急状态结束，将灭火行动的责任交还给地区当局。西班牙消防员还成功控制了瓦伦西亚附近卡斯特隆省（Castellón Province）的一场大火。
但官员警告称，高温和低湿度可能会迅速引发其他火灾。西班牙西北部的萨莫拉（Zamora）和莱昂（León）新爆发的山火已经迫使数百人撤离。
“无论如何，紧急状态尚未结束，”桑切斯先生说道。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 周四，希腊克里特岛发生山火。周三，两名消防员在扑灭一场森林火灾时牺牲。
ROMAN BALUK/路透社
波兰领空。然而，在一架紧急起飞的 F-16 战斗机拦截之前，该物体从雷达上消失了。波兰当局派遣直升机机组人员进行调查，并在东南部卢布林省（Lublin Province）塔尔纳瓦科洛尼亚（Tarnawa Kolonia）村附近发现了军方声明中所称的“该物体可能的坠毁地点”。
波兰国防部长弗拉迪斯拉夫·科西尼亚克-卡米什（Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz）周四上午在社交媒体上表示，目前尚不清楚该物体是什么或来自何处。他称此次事件是“我们的防空、监测和威胁探测系统经历的一个极其艰难的夜晚”。
“目前正在核实坠落在塔尔纳瓦科洛尼亚镇附近的是什么类型的物体，”他说道。
乌克兰当局利用此次事件再次敦促西方向乌克兰交付更多防空系统，称这将有助于保护欧洲国家免受俄罗斯袭击。
“这再次清楚地证明，现在加强乌克兰的防空工作迫在眉睫，并且是保护整个欧洲-大西洋共同体的保证，”西比哈（Sybiha）先生在社交媒体上表示。
从农业到 加剧火灾
作者：RAYMOND ZHONG
伦敦 —— 法国和西班牙的巨型山火是这两个国家有记录以来规模最大的，每场火灾面积约 100,000 英亩，其规模之大，超过了去年美国西部除六场最大山火之外的所有火灾。研究表明，全球变暖正推动南欧近期出现蔓延迅速、规模庞大的火灾，这些火灾能产生自己的天气系统，且几乎无法扑灭。但专家表示，欧洲大规模火灾的背后还有另一个因素，其根源于难以逆转的社会变革。在欧洲部分地区，几代人逐渐远离农业，导致原本由牧场和耕地组成的碎片化土地变成了未开发的植被，在炎热干燥的夏季会剧烈燃烧。
“气候变化需要被考虑到，但社会变革也同样非常重要，”西班牙阿尔卡拉大学地理学教授 Emilio Chuvieco 表示。“面对重大问题，没有简单的解决方案。”西班牙皇家工程学院近期的一份报告用更严峻的措辞描述了这种情况：报告称，该国正处于一个“超级火灾的新时代”。
报告称：“地球悠久的火灾历史告诉我们，我们无法消除它们。相反，我们必须学会与它们共存。”工业排放正将地球加热到现代前所未有的水平，并带来了更多干旱条件，使森林和草原处于易燃状态。在许多地区，结果就是造成摧毁房屋、蹂躏生态系统并产生数千英里烟尘的巨型山火。
“我们看到全球范围内的火灾正变得更加极端，”科罗拉多大学波德分校地理学教授 Jennifer K. Balch 表示。“通过气候变暖，我们实际上为更剧烈、规模更大且移动更快的火灾搭建了舞台。”
在加拿大，2023 年火灾过火总面积是历史平均值的七倍。在巴西，2024 年的火灾烧毁了约比利时大小的亚马逊雨林区域。在加利福尼亚州，该州有记录以来 10 场最大山火中有 9 场发生在过去十年中。
在南欧，近期严重火灾的激增尤为令人震惊，因为在此之前的近三十年里，每年山火过火面积总体呈下降趋势。在 20 世纪 80 年代末和 90 年代初发生一系列毁灭性火灾后，西班牙和法国采取了积极措施，加强山火预防和扑救。他们培训了消防队并升级了消防飞机。两国还开展了公众意识宣传活动，并加强国际合作以管理山火。
然而，近年来，快速的变暖和干燥似乎压倒了这些措施。在某些地方，消防员扑灭小规模火灾的成功，甚至可能由于导致植被堆积并生长茂密，为更大规模的火灾铺平了道路。
“如今扑灭火灾的成功，确实为明天的更大规模火灾增加了筹码，”加州大学洛杉矶分校地理学教授 Park Williams 表示。
Chuvieco 博士表示，在西班牙，山火反弹的另一个原因是农村人口的减少。曾经耕种土地的人们已经离去。失去了他们，灌木、草类和树木生长过度且连成一片，使得山火能够轻易地烧穿。
Chuvieco 博士说，引入更多的山羊和绵羊在以前的牧场上放牧可能是西班牙解决方案的一部分。“但你需要有人来照顾这些山羊，”他补充道。而随着西班牙农村的
人口老龄化，且“人数不多”。里斯本大学森林与野火治理研究员蒂亚戈·奥利维拉（Tiago Oliveira）表示，欧洲政府在鼓励人们更谨慎地管理土地方面有多种选择。他们可以通过使用新型融资工具，帮助吸引私人资金用于森林恢复项目。他们还可以通过推广当地的奶酪和肉类，创造激励措施以恢复放牧地的利用。奥利维拉博士表示，随着火灾的恶化，将有更多人从这类举措中受益。“城市居民不想遭受烟雾之苦，”他说。而且许多城市居民与乡村仍保有家族联系，希望看到乡村得到照顾。不过，奥利维拉博士说，对于当选官员来说，通过增加在飞机和其他“玩具”上的支出来应对野火，实在太具有诱惑力了。在炎热多风且巨型火灾全面爆发的日子里，消防分队除了疏散人员和等待天气变化外，几乎无能为力。“我们不需要更多飞机，”奥利维拉博士说，“我们需要更好的政策，更好的激励措施。”
波尔多葡萄园 面临又一项威胁
与饮酒习惯的改变 使该行业陷入困境
作者：MARK LANDLER 与 GIULIA IMBERT
法国 波尔多 —— 史密斯·侯特·拉菲特酒庄 (Château Smith Haut Lafitte) 的城堡被葡萄藤掩映，侧翼矗立着半木结构的塔楼，其历史可追溯至 1365.。这种传承给所有者带来了一种永恒感。但在过去的一周里，波尔多西部的一场肆虐的森林火灾——这是自第二次世界大战以来最严重的火灾之一，迫使数十万人撤离——已蔓延至距离该酒庄精心护理的葡萄园仅 10 英里之处。
这不仅震动了该酒庄，也震动了波尔多的酿酒业。该行业此前已在多重压力下摇摇欲坠：干旱、热浪、饮酒习惯改变导致的销售疲软，以及特朗普总统对法国葡萄酒征收的关税。
“对于葡萄酒行业来说，这是接二连三的打击。这让我们的生活变得非常艰难，”该酒庄的总经理路多维克·弗拉丹 (Ludovic Fradin) 表示。“面对这种风险，我们需要做好准备。”
弗拉丹先生为卡蒂亚德 (Cathiard) 家族工作，该家族同时拥有这座城堡和一座位于加利福尼亚州纳帕谷的葡萄园。他表示，对于近期笼罩在葡萄园上空的火灾烟雾，他并不太担心。他认为，波尔多的地势平坦且风向多变，这意味着烟雾会在一两天内被吹走。而纳帕谷的火灾对葡萄园的破坏性更大，因为烟雾被困在两座山脉之间，会在葡萄上空逗留。此外，根据波尔多葡萄酒委员会的报告，目前还没有葡萄园被火灾破坏的报道。
尽管如此，弗拉丹先生表示，酒庄正在为一种曾经不可想象的情况做准备，即火灾可能会波及建筑。它已经制定了撤离动物的计划，包括马、鸡、山羊和羊驼。他说，鸡和山羊将会
英格兰东部核电站附近火灾
作者：STEPHEN CASTLE
伦敦——周四，由于消防队伍在距离一座核电站约四英里处处置一场野火，英格兰东部的数十名居民及度假公园游客被紧急疏散。
火灾始于周三下午，吞噬了萨福克郡邓威奇荒野（Dunwich Heath）近 250 英亩的土地，该地区是英格兰东海岸一片受保护的风景名胜荒原。
应急响应人员将其宣布为“重大事件”（major incident），在英国，这意味着该事件后果严重，需要一个或多个机构采取非常措施。
当地消防部门表示，由于火灾与附近名为 Sizewell B 的核电站之间存在距离，且考虑到“火势蔓延的方向”，目前对该核电站“没有当前风险”。该部门补充道：“然而，这是一个实时且动态变化的局面。”
周三最初部署了约 70 名消防员。周四，消防部门表示，“为应对风向变化，已加强灭火行动”，共有 18 辆消防车参与，且一家度假公园内的约 200 辆拖车（房车）已被疏散。
目前尚未报告有人员死亡或受伤。萨福克郡警方敦促民众避开该区域。
被安置在自家院子里。弗拉丁先生（Mr. Fradin）说：“动物是有生命、有呼吸的生物，不像葡萄藤，葡萄藤只是材料。”当然，在法国葡萄酒的神话中，葡萄藤不仅仅是材料。它们产出酿造波尔多葡萄酒的葡萄——那些天鹅绒般的赤霞珠和甜美贵腐酒，使法国这一地区成为了葡萄酒爱好者的圣地，也是波美侯（Pomerol）和圣埃美隆（St-Émilion）等世界闻名原产地的故乡。虽然专家认为弗拉丁先生对波尔多地形及其与加利福尼亚地形区别的看法是正确的，但他们表示，现在断定火灾烟雾不会影响今年的年份酒还为时过早。很大程度上取决于时机。关于烟雾暴露如何影响葡萄的研究发现，从葡萄成熟（由绿变红）到收获之间的阶段风险最高。史密斯·侯特·拉菲特酒庄（Château Smith Haut Lafitte）的葡萄刚刚变色：用于酿造白葡萄酒的葡萄将在 8 月中旬收获，红葡萄酒的则在 9 月初。居住在波尔多的作家兼葡萄酒专栏作家简·安森（Jane Anson）表示，即便在火灾和烟云之前，这个季节已经预示着一次小丰收。一个极度多雨的冬季之后是破纪录的高温和极少雨量，导致葡萄提前成熟。安森女士说，气候和经济挑战给波尔多的酿酒师们带来了沉重打击。“在人的层面，这成了又一项需要面对的战斗，”她说，“就像在所有这一切之外，他们还需要面对这个。”酿酒师们迅速指出，与一些邻居相比，他们的问题显得微不足道。在吉伦特（Gironde）地区，已有超过 220,000 人被疏散，这是法国历史上规模最大的和平时期疏散行动之一。电视画面显示，波尔多以西的一个村庄勒波尔日（Le Porge）被大火摧毁，152 栋房屋被夷为平地。一些酿酒商正尽其所能提供帮助。弗拉丁先生表示，酒庄已填充了数个水——
随着火势蔓延，附近的海滩也受到了影响。 此次山火是过去两周内英格兰和威尔士爆发的约 200 起火灾之一。此前已有警告称，面对气候变化带来的日益增长的风险，该国准备不足。 在苏格兰，应急响应人员仍在与一场始于两周多前、位于凯恩戈姆山国家公园（Cairngorms National Park）的山火作斗争。 在请求英国军队提供帮助后，苏格兰政府首脑、首席部长约翰·斯温尼（John Swinney）在周日的一份声明中表示，他被告知英国国防部“在英国境内没有部署空中灭火资产”，这引发了人们对英国应对日益严重的山火准备情况的担忧。 在萨福克郡（Suffolk），消防救援服务部门发布了照片，显示其团队正在向植被被焚毁的焦土浇水。 “由于我们面临的事故规模大且情况复杂，消防员在接下来的 24 到 48 小时内将继续在当地地区灭火，我们目前仍处于重大事故状态，”该部门一名指挥官克里斯托弗·梅（Christopher May）在周四的一份声明中表示。 运营西泽韦尔 B 核电站（Sizewell B）的法国能源公司 EDF 在一份声明中表示：“邓威奇希思（Dunwich Heath）的火灾目前未影响西泽韦尔 B 电站的运行，但我们将继续监测情况——我们尚未进入高度警戒状态。” 除了西泽韦尔 B 之外，一座名为西泽韦尔 C（Sizewell C）的新核电站（将由英国政府控股）也正在该地区建设。西泽韦尔 C 的一份声明称，它正在“密切监测火情”，但由于“与现场的距离以及中间的水道”，火焰目前对电站构成的风险较低。 周三，环境署宣布英格兰一半地区进入干旱状态，数百万民众被要求限制用水。该机构表示，7 月份该国的降雨量仅为预期值的 7 ％，并警告称短期内不会有实质性降雨。周四，威尔士全境也宣布进入干旱状态。 周三，伦敦消防局表示，消防员在 24 小时内处理了全市 63 起草地火灾。 异常炎热干燥的夏天还产生了其他负面影响。周四，该国卫生安全局估计，5 月和 6 月两次热浪期间与高温相关的死亡人数为 2,877 人，几乎是 2025 全年数字的两倍。
TOBY SHEPHEARD/路透社
提供水箱以向消防员提供后备供应，并派出四名拖拉机司机参与灭火工作。 周一，法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙访问了波尔多，会见了消防员和当地当局。随后，他警告称火灾可能需要数周才能扑灭，且未来几天将十分艰难，因为预计周二气温将升至 37 摄氏度，周三将升至 41 摄氏度——约 99 和 106 华氏度。 “我们面临的是一场前所未有的火灾，”马克龙先生对记者说。“我们今天所处的局面是我们有记录以来最困难的，也是自第二次世界大战以来最困难的。” 对于加布里埃尔·巴雷（Gabriel Barre）来说，他是一位小规模酿酒商，与妻子伊迪丝（Edith）每年生产 25,000 瓶
位于法国波尔多附近马蒂亚克（Martillac）的 Château Smith Haut Lafitte 酒庄的一处葡萄园。左侧，总经理卢多维克·弗拉丁（Ludovic Fradin）在谈到火灾时表示：“祸不单行。”
美乐节、品丽珠以及马尔贝克，这些火灾只是另一个迹象，表明自从 2016. 年他从父亲保罗那里接管经营以来，世界发生了多么巨大的变化。烟雾飘到了巴尔一家位于多尔多涅河畔的葡萄园——拉格拉夫城堡 (Château la Grave)，那里距离波尔多约 15 英里。
44, 岁的巴尔先生说，他不确定这会对他的收获产生什么影响。“可能会有一种烟熏味，”他微笑着说。他说，其他气候变化（如创纪录的高温）已经成为了问题。更高的温度会产生含糖量更高的葡萄。这使得酿造出经典波尔多葡萄酒那种平衡的口感变得更加困难。
“波尔多葡萄酒以其平衡感而闻名，”巴尔先生说。“但近年来，我们酿造的是‘阳光浸透’的葡萄酒。我的意思是，那种在口腔中迸发出的葡萄酒——甜味很重，甚至太甜了。”
对于巴尔先生来说，经济和社会趋势是残酷的。他说，波尔多一直有“奢侈与傲慢”的形象。它没有像法国其他产区那样，生产那些口味大胆、价格较低的酒瓶——他称之为“摇滚葡萄酒”。它那些死板的产区原产地命名法无法吸引年轻消费者，而这些人无论如何，饮酒量都比他们的父母少。
巴尔先生说话时，他的儿子阿尔塞纳端出了用于品酒的玻璃杯。父亲遗憾地看着他。在债务和气候相关挑战的重压下，巴尔先生说，今年的收获将是他最后一次。他不想让儿子陷入必须接手一家失败企业的境地。
巴尔先生在每一张标签上都印有“用心打造” (Made with Love) 字样，对他而言，火灾进一步证明了一个地方和一个时代的逝去。“酿酒世界发生了激进的变化，”他说。
“今年，感觉我们像是身在另一个星球，”他说。“当我们和朋友在电话里讨论这件事时，我们不希望孩子们听到，因为这会吓到他们。”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DMITRY KOSTYUKOV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
本文由 Vivian Nereim, Michael D. Shear 以及 Thomas Fuller 撰写。
与伊朗战争中战斗的死灰复燃正在扩大中东地区的冲突范围，并进一步威胁到对全球经济至关重要的石油及其他产品的运输。
在几乎没有和平谈判重启迹象的情况下，一系列攻击（包括伊朗与美国之间连续两个夜晚的袭击）结束了短暂的相对平静期——并使越来越多的美国盟友卷入冲突。其中包括约旦和沙特阿拉伯，后者表示目前正在组建一个军事联盟。
随着战斗范围的扩大，指挥该地区美国军队的美国中央司令部周四上午表示，其已在夜间完成了对伊朗境内地点的又一波袭击，包括军事指挥中心以及导弹和无人机设施。随后，约旦军方表示已击落五枚从伊朗发射的导弹。
报道得到了 Erika Solomon, Falih Hassan, Lynsey Chutel, Farnaz Fassihi, Leo Sands, Jenny Gross, Ismaeel Naar, Qasim Nauman, Zane Irwin, Peter Eavis 和 Pranav Baskar 的协助。
伊拉克民兵卷入战争
作者：埃丽卡·索罗门 (ERIKA SOLOMON) 和 法利赫·哈桑 (FALIH HASSAN)
数月以来，巴格达政府一直试图遏制长期在伊拉克境内活动的受伊朗支持的民兵组织，努力满足特朗普政府的要求，即将其置于国家控制之下、对其解除武装并切断其资金链。
周三早些时候，一场针对这些民兵的美国-沙特空袭浪潮现在面临破坏这些努力的风险。此次袭击造成至少 20 人死亡，为伊朗在伊拉克的盟友保留武器并声称自己是保护国家主权的最佳力量提供了新的理由。而对于伊朗来说，这次暴力冲突提供了一个机会，可以鼓励这些盟友民兵加入区域战争。
“肆无忌惮地流血伊拉克人血液的时代已经结束了，”伊朗阵营民兵组织“真诚之约”(al-Waad al-Sadeq) 的领导人穆罕默德·塔米米 (Mohammad Tamimi) 表示。“我们的回应将不仅仅是声明。而将是地面上的行动，以执行一个等式：一次轰炸回击一次轰炸。”
伊拉克政治领导人在周三对这次大规模袭击的明智性提出了质疑，他们表示，这次行动在没有与巴格达政府协调的情况下就执行了。伊拉克国家安全委员会在的一份声明中誓言将尝试独立制约这些民兵。它谴责美国和沙特阿拉伯侵犯伊拉克主权的行为，并警告称空袭可能会激起进一步的混乱。
自 2003 年美国入侵以来，伊拉克一直努力在超级大国盟友美国与区域什叶派穆斯林强国邻国伊朗的利益之间寻求平衡。伊朗支持来自伊拉克什叶派多数群体的民兵对抗美国占领，而这些受伊朗支持的部队也促使伊拉克陷入了数十年的教派血腥冲突，而这种冲突直到最近才有所缓解。
（接续文本） 变得极其碎片化，尤其是在这场战争之后更是如此，”他说。“美国越是攻击这些组织，就越会使指挥链和连贯结构碎片化，从而导致更多的散兵游勇组织及其行动。”
地缘政治风险咨询公司 Geopol Labs（总部位于中东）的创始人拉姆齐·马尔迪尼 (Ramzy Mardini) 表示，几十年来，伊朗一直依赖于支持大量激进组织的扩散，“从而刻意掩盖究竟是谁在扣动扳机”。他说，在这次对抗中损失可能最大的国家是沙特阿拉伯。
“沙特阿拉伯不明智地给了伊朗更多通过代理人升级冲突的空间，其掩护是防御，而实际上是在推进其扰乱全球石油供应的整体目标，”他说。“与伊朗相关的伊拉克组织完全有能力在沙特能源基础设施上制造破坏。”
伊斯梅尔·纳尔 (Ismaeel Naar) 参与了报道
目前未发现污染，但一次黑客攻击揭露了漏洞。
华盛顿 —— 根据美国及州政府官员以及其他知情人士透露，调查人员认为本周针对明尼苏达州数十个市政水系统的网络攻击可能出自伊朗黑客之手。在美国与伊朗的战争处于危险时刻之际，此举可能是一种挑衅行为。
官员们提醒称，他们尚未最终确定谁应对此次攻击负责，且随着当局收集更多技术数据，初步评估结果可能会发生变化。
他们还警告说，黑客可能试图伪装成来自伊朗，旨在升级两国间的紧张局势，不过前情报官员表示，这种情况的可能性……
埃及现在也首次直接受到战争影响，此前美国和以色列于 2 月发起了这场战争。周四，埃及当局表示，一架身份不明的无人机在前一天在地中海达米埃塔港口引发了爆炸。该港口的两艘船只（包括一艘美国拥有的天然气储存油轮）起火，揭示了中东航运在与冲突相关方面的新漏洞。
在周三于椭圆形办公室举行的新闻发布会上，特朗普总统暗示伊朗应对此次攻击负责，但未提供细节。数小时后，美国中央司令部表示，已完成针对伊朗境内目标的一次所谓的“大规模打击”。
在这些打击行动的前一天，沙特阿拉伯表示其战机已加入美国军队，攻击在伊拉克的伊朗相关民兵组织。这是沙特当局首次公开承认直接参与这场战争。
外交官周四表示，沙特政府寻求组建的军事联盟将保护红海的航运，以应对也门内与伊朗结盟的胡塞武装分子近期对沙特油轮的攻击。
伊朗的打击行动已经导致另一条重要水道——霍尔木兹海峡的交通……
在过去一年中，这种平衡行动变得日益紧张，因为特朗普政府加大了对伊拉克的压力，要求其遏制亲伊朗的民兵组织。美国和以色列在 2 月对伊朗发起的战争迅速将伊拉克变成了冲突的战场之一。美军表示，周三的联合打击是对来自伊拉克的、针对“美国军队和沙特能源基础设施”持续 72 小时的无人机攻击的报复。到目前为止，这些攻击的来源尚不明确。没有任何组织对此宣称负责，而伊朗在伊拉克的民兵盟友已公开表示他们并非幕后主使。在华盛顿与德黑兰 4 月份短暂暂停战争的停火协议之前，这些组织此前在区域内发起攻击后通常会迅速揽功。但自敌对行动恢复以来，这些民兵组织并未对伊拉克境外的攻击宣布负责。相比之下，控制也门大部分地区的伊朗支持的武装分子胡塞武装已公开宣布封锁沙特阿拉伯，并多次袭击沙特油轮。胡塞武装还承认对沙特能源设施实施了无人机攻击，包括在沙特阿拉伯指责伊拉克民兵袭击他们的当天。伊拉克陆军负责人的发言人萨巴赫·努曼 (Sabah al-Numan) 表示，美沙联合打击“干扰了关于涉嫌针对沙特阿拉伯目标的调查工作”。他要求提供攻击沙特阿拉伯来自伊拉克的证据，并表示目前尚未提供任何证据。尽管该地区战争再次爆发，但由于伊拉克新任命的总理阿里·扎伊迪 (Ali al-Zaidi) 试图应对特朗普政府的要求，伊拉克民兵在过去一个月中保持相对沉默。
伊朗支持的团体应当被解除武装。近年来，这些团体似乎在操作上更加独立于伊朗，通过组建政治团体并获取利润丰厚的伊拉克政府职位和合同，稳步积累财富和权力。
但总部位于伦敦的查塔姆研究所（Chatham House）的伊拉克分析师雷纳德·曼苏尔（Renad Mansour）表示，伊朗强大的伊斯兰革命卫队在近几个月里加强了对伊拉克民兵活动的干预。他表示，与美国的战争促使伊朗对他们实施更强的控制。
在最近一次空袭之后，伊朗参与的证据已经出现。由与伊拉克卡塔伊布真主党（Kataib Hezbollah）民兵相关的萨比林新闻社（Sabereen News）发布的图像显示，在周三的一次葬礼游行中，有五口棺材裹着伊朗国旗。一名伊拉克民兵指挥官私下表示，那些遇难者是伊朗军事顾问，他们在人民动员力量（Popular Mobilization Forces）第24旅的一个情报总部被杀。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 红海也门哈尼什岛（Hanish Island）附近的一艘商船。
导致几乎停滞。而且，对埃及港口的打击引发了人们对另一个关键转运点——苏伊士运河也可能处于风险之中的担忧。
沙特王国周四表示，到目前为止，已有 14 个国家同意加入其海上联盟。
为了强调战争带来的损害，根据沙特王国周四发布的初步数据，沙特阿拉伯第二季度的经济与去年同期相比萎缩了近 5%。
目前尚不清楚新的联盟将如何……
[[IMG_XXXX]] 周三在摩苏尔为伊拉克人民动员力量基地空袭遇难者举行的葬礼。
……不可能性。 当地官员报告称，周一至少有一个城市的水井和处理厂暂时关停，而该州其他城市则不得不采用手动替代方案，以应对针对自动化操作的攻击尝试。
没有迹象表明任何供水已变得不安全而无法饮用。
即使影响有限，这次黑客攻击——如果被证实与德黑兰有关——也发生在一个敏感时期，因为美国与伊朗在中东的直接战斗已经重启。
三名获悉此次入侵调查的情况的州官员表示，所使用的技术手段以及没有赎金要求，使分析师初步得出结论，认为这是伊朗黑客所为。这些官员在讨论一项正在进行的刑事调查时要求匿名。
“联邦调查局（F.B.I.）已知晓此事件，并正与受害者联系以解决问题，”该局发言人马修·沃格尔（Matthew Vogel）表示，该局拒绝进一步评论。
在调查继续进行的同时，前官员和网络安全专家表示，他们预计关于伊朗参与的怀疑只会增加。
“几乎每一次初步的归因假设最后都被证明是真的，”辛西娅·凯瑟（Cynthia Kaiser）说道，她曾是一名联邦调查局高级官员，负责监督针对归因于外国政府的网络攻击调查。凯瑟女士表示，这次有几个线索指向伊朗，包括攻击似乎侧重于破坏而非经济利益，以及德黑兰近期表现出攻击美国水供系统的兴趣。
明尼苏达州首席信息安全官约翰·以色列（John Israel）表示，作为周日首次检测到的一次入侵的一部分，黑客攻击了该州大约 36 个市政水系统。
第一份报告促使州官员警告具有类似漏洞的市政当局要……
KHALED ZIAD/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
...将与目前的欧盟红海航运保护行动（即“ Aspides 行动”）有所不同。一名外交官表示，沙特阿拉伯已邀请欧洲国家以及美国、巴基斯坦、土耳其、埃及和数十个其他国家加入这一新组织。
沙特此次倡议的紧迫性似乎表明，该王国领导人对现有的针对胡塞武装的保护措施感到不满。7月 20 日，胡塞武装宣布对过境红海的沙特船只实施封锁。该武装组织随后声称袭击了多艘船只，且在沙特阿拉伯轰炸也门境内胡塞控制区后仍未退缩。
在冲突早期，在伊朗几乎切断波斯湾进出航运后，沙特阿拉伯试图通过在沙漠中铺设管道将石油输送到红海港口来绕过该区域。但过去两周的袭击迫使运往亚洲的沙特原油油轮采取了不同的方案。
根据海运数据机构 Windward 的数据，目前近一半通过红海出口的沙特原油采取了更长且更昂贵的航线，经由苏伊士运河、地中海并绕道非洲南端。
达米埃塔（Damietta）的无人机袭击也暴露了该航线的脆弱性。
尽管此次袭击似乎并未直接干扰苏伊士运河的交通，但两名在讨论安全问题时要求匿名的伊朗人士周三表示，此次行动旨在表明，如果伊朗选择升级，全球航运和能源供应可能会进一步受到干扰。这些伊朗人士并未说明此次袭击是由伊朗还是其盟友实施的。
约 10 的海运贸易通过苏伊士运河，
政府控制下的民兵网络。
在伊拉克，要求民兵响应解除武装呼吁的民众压力日益增加，但周三的袭击使局面发生了逆转。
在共同发表的公开声明中，亲伊朗的民兵组织抨击政府一方面要求他们解除武装，另一方面却未能防止伊拉克主权遭到侵犯。
这些组织给伊拉克政府设定了周二这个“截止日期”以采取决定性行动，并警告称，否则他们将采取自行处理的方式，但未详述可能采取的具体行动。声明称：“我们对美国敌人的回应是不可避免且必然会到来的，如果情况需要，我们可能会将其在沙特阿拉伯的工具作为目标。”
两名伊拉克民兵领导人在私下中表示，截止日期是
处于警戒状态，从而实现了快速响应，以色列先生（Mr. Israel）说道。黑客针对的是由市政府维护的水塔远程管理和监控基础设施。
“明尼苏达州是最早发现这一情况的地区之一，但我们看到同样的威胁活动可能已经在全国其他州发生，”他说道。
以色列先生表示，截至周三下午，还没有迹象表明任何一次入侵污染或中断了供水。
自2月战争爆发以来，伊朗增加了对美国的网络攻击频率，但取得的成功有限。一个显著的例外是 20
这被视为一种挑衅。他们知道伊拉克官员无法对美国或沙特阿拉伯采取强硬行动。通过声称给伊拉克当局优先回应的机会，这些民兵不仅可能是在为未来的报复正名，也是在为其拒绝解除武装寻找理由。
“如果政府未能履行其职责，爱国的伊拉克人民必须要求政府的武器必须由抵抗力量专有，”伊朗盟友民兵组织“萨拉亚·奥利亚·阿尔-达姆”（Saraya Awliya al-Dam）的发言人阿布·马赫迪·阿尔-贾法里（Abu Mahdi al-Jaafari）在的一份声明中表示。
这些伊拉克组织有着不同的议程，其中一些更倾向于采取对抗行动。查塔姆研究所（Chatham House）的曼苏尔（Mansour）先生表示，近年来美国和以色列致力于杀死这些组织中许多领导人的努力，使得追踪他们的活动变得更加困难。
“伊拉克民兵的空间已经——
3月份对大型医疗设备供应商 Stryker 进行了黑客攻击，导致该公司暂时整体停业。
伊朗针对美国采取的其他网络活动已上升到一种骚扰级别，而非警报级别。例如，一个与伊朗情报部门有关联的组织对泄露从联邦调查局（F.B.I.）局长卡什·帕特尔（Kash Patel）个人账户中窃取的电子邮件和照片负责。
网络安全与基础设施安全局（Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency）代理局长尼克·安德森（Nick Andersen）周三表示，该机构已知晓“多起可能影响当地水务设施的事件”。
安德森先生未对责任方发表评论，但提到了一份由该机构在明尼苏达州袭击开始前几天更新的最新网络安全咨询。该咨询警告称，“与伊朗有关联的网络参与者”正试图攻破运营技术设备，以潜在地破坏美国的关键基础设施，包括水务设施在内。
根据埃及政府机构苏伊士运河管理局的数据，每天约有 50 艘船只通过这条 120 英里长的运河。
除了对航运的威胁外，这场战争还在破坏像伊拉克等国内脆弱的权力平衡。
数月来，巴格达政府一直试图遏制长期在伊拉克领土内活动的伊朗支持的民兵组织，努力满足特朗普政府要求其将这些组织控制在掌握之中的要求。但周三早些时候针对这些民兵的美国-沙特空袭浪潮可能会颠覆这些努力。
伊拉克政治领导人周三对这次大规模袭击的明智性提出质疑。他们表示，此次袭击造成至少 20 人死亡，且在实施过程中未与巴格达政府协调。
这些袭击可能为伊朗在伊拉克的盟友持有武器并声称自己是最能保护国家主权的力量提供了新的正当理由。而对于伊朗来说，这些袭击提供了一个鼓励其在伊拉克的盟友加入这场更广泛战争的机会。
“肆无忌惮地流掉伊拉克血液的时代已经结束了，”伊朗阵营民兵组织“真诚之诺”（al-Waad al-Sadeq）的领导人穆罕默德·塔米米（Mohammad Tamimi）说道。
HADI MIZBAN/美联社 (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
以及废水系统。
网络安全专家长期以来一直表示，美国的供水系统通常陈旧且资金不足，容易受到数字化干扰的影响。
明尼苏达州布拉汉（Braham, Minn.）市长内特·乔治（Nate George）表示，这座距离明尼阿波利斯市北面 65 英里的小城市的公共工程人员在周一早些时候注意到，为该市水塔供水的水井出现了故障。
“公共工程部门隔离了受影响的系统，恢复了备份，并在大约 90 分钟内重启了处理厂，”乔治先生在的一份声明中表示。该市曾短暂地敦促居民节约用水，但随后迅速取消了该建议。
“这次对关键公共基础设施的攻击应当给圣保罗的政策制定者们敲响警钟，”乔治先生写道。“明尼苏达州的地方政府被要求在人员有限、技术陈旧且资源不足的情况下，防御外国对手和高级犯罪分子对关键系统的攻击。”
在缅甸最大城市仰光的先锋之加 (夜店名)，那些负担得起从内战中暂时抽离的人，可以预订一张配有水烟、进口水果和堆成金字塔状的磨砂烈酒杯的私人桌位。
战争蹂躏国家， 但对富豪而言， 派对永不落幕
受这场冲突影响，国家一半以上的地区已沦为战场，但城市在很大程度上幸免于难。目前，半数人口陷入贫困。无人机、战斗机和地雷给平民带来了恐怖。征兵令同时适用于男女。缅甸政府再次成为国际弃儿，就像前几十年的军政府统治时期一样。但即便在战争中，生活依然在继续。派对阶层必须狂欢，且他们的消费极其显眼。西方政府对军事领导人及其商业亲信——军火商、毒枭、自然资源大亨、中国企业的中间人——实施的国际制裁，可能让他们停止了前往纽约、巴黎和伦敦的购物之旅。尽管如此，迪拜、上海和曼谷依然是选择。
Yone Lay（艺名意为“小兔子”）是先锋之加 (夜店名) 的常客，该店位于缅甸最大城市仰光的富人区。他唱说唱（如《愚蠢》、《失恋的人》），他演戏（如《初代帮匪》、《地下》），他还将自己的明星影响力奉献给军方的盛会。他曾制作过一段音乐视频，赞扬 U Min Aung Hlaing——这位五年前策划政变并于 4 月成为缅甸总统的前军事首脑。
当 Yone Lay 先生在随从的簇拥下漫步进入夜总会时，保安们像一层精美的缅甸丝绸一样将他包裹起来。这种警戒并非为了作秀。一些公开支持军政府，而非抗议军方杀害非武装抗议者的名人，发现自己成了城市游击队的袭击目标。2023, 年，Yone Lay 先生的一位熟人 Daw Lily Naing Kyaw（一位与将军们社交的歌手）在仰光被一颗子弹击中头部身亡。几个月前，Yone Lay 先生曾被一名持刀男子袭击，但侥幸未受伤。一年后，他的车内发生爆炸。当时车里没有人。
“那些人想表明，如果你有名气且与军方有联系，我们也能杀了你，”Yone Lay 先生在最近的一个夜晚说道。“从外部看，人们意识不到像我这样的人同样受到压迫。”
40, 岁的 Yone Lay 先生说，人们很容易忘记缅甸在他有生之年发生了多么巨大的变化。不到二十年前，那里几乎没有互联网。Yone Lay 先生曾秘密地通过盗版录音带听 Eminem、Dr. Dre 和 Snoop Dogg。但 2010 年代经济和政治改革的到来，包括 2015 年迎来半民事政府的选举，似乎以极速使这个国家现代化。Yone Lay 先生当时唱的 rap 表达了他那个时代的忧虑：“女孩、派对和闪亮珠宝（bling bling）。”
现在，他说，他的担忧关乎生存。他出行随身携带保镖。他说，压力使得在最奢华的夜总会里解压成了必须之举。“我们必须寻找获得快乐的方法，”Yone Lay 先生说。“为什么我们就不能爱所有的领导人，然后和平地生活？”
仰光在改革年代曾因新建筑以及投资机会和商务英语课的广告而繁忙，如今已在很大程度上回归到一种衰败状态。西方企业大多已经离开；曾经展示美国软饮料和德国轿车的广告牌，现在展示的是当地的速溶咖啡和卫浴管道。尽管如此，只要足够眯眼或选择性忽视，人们就可以假装仰光的生活与政变前没有太大区别，至少对于一个特权群体来说是这样。
在由 Min Aung Hlaing 先生之子部分持有的 The Yangon Restaurant 餐厅里，菜单是华丽的欧洲风，点缀着鹅肝和鱼子酱。一名领班说，只要提前足够通知，可以从新加坡飞请一位侍酒师。在社交媒体账号上，36, 岁的 Ma Christina Lim 和她的丈夫，38, 岁的 Ko Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe，展示着他们在仰光的奢华生活方式。
以及更远的地方，比如马尔代夫的 Club Med，中国的万里长城。这里有皮革和天鹅绒材质的同色系套装，此外还与三星、嘉士伯以及当地的一家游艇俱乐部等 200 个品牌进行了合作。在 YouTube、Facebook 和 Instagram 上（后两者在缅甸被正式禁用，需要通过 VPN 访问），这对夫妇通过发布宝宝性别揭晓视频（通过戳破气球让粉色纸屑如雨般落下，宣布他们的长子是个女孩）以及与亲近敏昂昂（Mr. Min Aung Hlaing）家族的名人合影，获得了数百万次的观看。
“我们的内容，我们喜欢保持积极，比如只传递正能量，”林女士（Ms. Lim）说道。“你希望观众在看完我们的视频后感到愉悦。”
政变发生后的几天里，林女士和缅甸许多英语流利的精英阶层一样，在社交媒体上发布了这对夫妇加入抗议者行列的照片，他们通过和平游行反对军事干预。全国有数百万人走上街头，支持被罢免的民选领导人昂山素季（Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi）。
几周之内，军方开始用枪击杀抗议者——以及恰好在附近的儿童——并监禁异见人士。在缅甸边境地区的雨林中，武装抵抗力量开始凝聚。名人与影响力者们谴责军方的致命镇压。林女士在 Facebook 上发布了一张照片，这对夫妇的手势形成了代表抵抗的三指礼，并纪念“那些永远无法回家的烈士”。
随后，这对夫妇陷入了沉默。
2022, 年初，在缅甸内战爆发后的第一条动态中，林女士和 Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe 先生身着配套的深红色服装，庆祝他们的结婚纪念日。此后几年，这对家族通过房地产、造纸、进口车辆和冷库发家的夫妇避谈政治，转而热情地推崇豪车、吸乳器和美国维生素软糖。他们极力称赞镇上最好的法国餐厅里的顶级佳肴。他们将大量关注倾注在名为 Blue 的法国斗牛犬以及他们的两个孩子身上。
“我觉得发生的事已经发生了，”林女士在提到政变及其暴力后果时说道。她承认这里“很黑暗”——但她解释是因为长期的电力短缺。“与此同时，”她补充道，“人们依然正常地工作，正常地去上学。”
即使是他们平凡的动态也能吸引大量观众，但也许这正是目的所在。一段由 Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe 先生笨拙地煎蛋并煮方便面的 Facebook 视频获得了 1.1 million 次观看。
政变和内战凸显了缅甸富人们的选择。在缅甸第二大城市曼德勒，曾经的中国贸易商们……
[[IMG_XXXX]] 仰光的一辆法拉利。这座城市已陷入颓势，但人们仍可以假装这里的生活自政变以来几乎没有变化。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 表演者 Yone Lay（其艺名意为“小兔子”）是先锋之加 (夜店名) 的常客，他曾导演过一段亲军方的视频（左）。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 西方企业大多已经离开，仰光的广告牌上不再倾向于展示他们的品牌。
缅甸有一半的人口处于贫困状态，但战争在很大程度上没有波及城市，而先锋之加 (夜店名) 的消费情况则极其显眼。
摄影：DANIEL BEREHULAK/THE NEW YORK TIMES
那些为了翡翠和其他珠宝而至的人大多已经离开了。偶尔，自制炸弹会针对军官或被认为是政权同谋的人。尽管如此，演员、歌手兼社交影响者 Ma May Nwe Htun（以 Sweet 之名更为人所知）表示，她对逃离缅甸没有兴趣，她的家人在那里经营着一家金店。她说，许多朋友为了在海外获得更安全的生活而离开，但这里才是家，这里有繁忙的茶馆和金色的佛塔。“宝贝，我们得找点乐子，”May Nwe Htun 女士说。“如果我们想留在我们深爱的国家，就必须尽力而为。”最近的一个晚上，她为上中学的儿子举办了一场生日派对，该儿子就读于一家国际学校，而该校目前已失去了大部分国际学生。派对上有个篮球主题的蛋糕，还有一个由跨性别艺人组成的乐队。在上方炎热且昏暗的天空中，战斗机在向反政府武装控制区的出击任务中轰鸣而过，在那里的平民正遭受空袭的恐怖折磨。在曼德勒的河边，轰炸行动的沉闷响声在夜晚回荡。回到仰光的先锋之加 (夜店名)，说唱歌手 Mr. Yone Lay 的歌手女友一杯接一杯地喝着烈酒。她来自一个拥有庞大民兵组织并与缅甸军方作战的少数民族群体，她说，由于与一名接近军政府的音乐家约会，她担心会被指责为叛徒而成为目标。她在要求不透露姓名的条件下接受了《纽约时报》的采访。“外面的人，他们只知道军方在杀戮，他们只知道一面，”她说。“我只想成为一名艺术家，而不是商人或政治家。”她摇摇晃晃地站起身，酒精让她的动作变得混乱。她的朋友们挽起她的手臂，支撑着她。“跳舞吧，”她说，伸出一只修剪整齐的手，她的睫毛膏因之前的泪水而晕染开来。“让我们忘掉一切。”
上周，工作人员将一只名为 Bertie Botts 的鲸鱼聚集起来，将其从安大略省尼亚加拉 falls 的 Marineland 运走。
迁往新家 前往美国和西班牙
上周，首批转运航班已经起飞——其中 4 只前往芝加哥的谢德水族馆，2 只前往圣安东尼奥的海世界（SeaWorld San Antonio），预计在接下来的几周内还将有 24 只被运走。
亚特兰大的乔治亚水族馆、圣地亚哥海世界以及西班牙的瓦伦西亚海洋馆 (Oceanogràfic València) 也将接收白鲸。位于康涅狄格州的神秘水族馆 (Mystic Aquarium) 正在协助运输工作。
动物园和水族馆协会 (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) 总裁兼首席执行官丹·阿什 (Dan Ashe) 称此次救援行动是“史无前例的”。
“这次救援与其他救援一样，是因为动物可能处于受损的状态，需要专业护理，”他说道。“但 30 只白鲸？我不知道有任何这种规模的行动。”
这些动物来自安大略省尼亚加拉 falls 的水上公园 Marineland。该公园在 2024 年因门票销售量下降以及被指控虐待动物（该公园对此予以否认）而向公众关闭。
这些动物一直由水族馆的工作人员照顾，其中一些人已经与这些动物共同工作了数十年。
转运计划于 1 月开始，当时来自美国设施的兽医和海洋哺乳动物专家访问了 Marineland 进行评估。
海世界公园与娱乐公司 (SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment) 负责保护和动物健康的副总裁托德·罗贝克 (Todd Robeck) 表示，尽管设施有渗漏，但发现这些鲸鱼健康状况良好。这些鲸鱼的年龄在 8 到 30 岁之间，体重从 1,000 磅到 3,000 磅不等，长度从 12 英尺到 16 英尺不等。
一组来自参与水族馆的专家与 Marineland 的工作人员合作，以了解这些鲸鱼——包括它们的医疗史、性格、社交群体——并评估它们如何
作者：JACK NICAS
哈瓦那 —— 自 1959 年由菲德尔·卡斯特罗领导的一群反抗者赶走古巴独裁者以来，这个岛国的政府在很大程度上被定义为其对北方庞大邻国的蔑视，以及在这种摩擦所引发的剧烈压力下生存下来的能力。但目前由有效的石油封锁主导的美国行动，是半个世纪以来最激烈的。它正将古巴政府推向崩溃边缘。旅游业崩溃。本月在九天内，电网三次瘫痪。除了 3 月的一艘俄罗斯油轮外，古巴的盟友们一直不愿挑战特朗普总统禁止向该岛提供燃料的命令。然而，六个多月后，政府依然稳固，古巴人也正在寻找生存之策。本月，我们持有了《纽约时报》近八年来获得的第一份新闻签证访问了古巴。
在哈瓦那，我采访了古巴外交部副部长卡洛斯·费尔南德斯·德·科西奥（Carlos Fernández de Cossío），他是共产党政府与美国接触的对话者之一。他表示，古巴摆脱特朗普政府愤怒的主要策略是实施一系列经济政策变革，包括向外国投资开放。费尔南德斯·德·科西奥先生说，特朗普先生甚至可以亲自投资。白宫和国务院发言人称古巴为国家安全威胁，并指责其庇护恐怖分子，古巴对此予以否认。他们将能源危机归咎于古巴，称其通过出售燃料来肥精英阶层，且未能维护电网。他们还表示，古巴的政治和经济体系已经崩溃，必须改变，尽管美国官员尚未明确取消封锁需要满足哪些条件。双方承认，他们的谈判进展甚微。许多人，尤其是古巴人，现在正密切关注。
CARLOS OSORIO/THE CANADIAN PRESS, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
将能与水族馆现有的白鲸和谐共处。 预订包机花费了数周时间，这是一架卡塔尔航空的波音 777 货机。罗贝克（Robeck）博士指出：“你不能直接上网站选一条航线。” 预订了三辆卡车将这六头白鲸往返于机场。许可证已办理完毕，同一组专家在计划出发前一周返回，携带了所有必要设备。 随后，所有环节必须完美同步，以最大限度地减少对白鲸的干扰。在海洋乐园（Marineland），大约有 8 到 10 人在水中协助将它们驱赶到担架上。 然后，白鲸被起重机吊起，放入安全的运输箱中，并为接下来的旅程提供了抗焦虑药物。所有白鲸装载完毕后，警方护送它们及其人类救援人员前往机场，确保它们能一次性不间断地抵达，从而消除途中可能导致水流剧烈晃动的停靠环节。 工作人员监测水温以及白鲸的呼吸和皮肤状况，不断向它们身上泼水，以确保它们保持湿润和低温。 “它们在水中漂浮，担架也在水中漂浮，所以有时它们会移位，”罗贝克博士说。“你必须亲自进入水中，稍微移动一下，把它们移回原位，这样它们会更舒服。” 在芝加哥，海关代理登机检查设备和动物，并核查人类护理人员的护照。四头前往芝加哥的白鲸被卸载，另外两头白鲸继续前往圣安东尼奥。 从海洋乐园到圣安东尼奥，整个过程大约耗时 15 小时。
以寻找接下来的迹象。 本次采访经过编辑以确保清晰。
特朗普政府似乎在要求古巴改变其政治体制。贵政府表示这不在谈判之列。那么，哪些内容在谈判之列？
我可以肯定，美国政府不会与另一个政府就其宪法和政治体制进行谈判。因此，古巴不愿意与美国讨论其内部政治问题，这并不令人惊讶。
那么古巴的策略是什么？
我们在几周前对经济进行了一些调整。我们相信这些调整能让我们应对现状。
然而，如果美国试图在古巴制造人道主义困难，不幸的是，它确实有能力这样做。古巴对此无能为力。
如果这导致针对古巴的军事行动，我们将面临数千人的死亡。古巴可能会发生一场血洗。同样地，美国年轻人也会死亡。
但在造成这一切破坏之后，美国得到了什么目标？我们认为，美国民众中应当存在一些常识。
俄罗斯在三月份交付了一艘油轮的燃料，但没有其他国家敢于挑战特朗普不向古巴运送燃料的威胁。你们的盟友在哪里？
美国的胁迫手段已被证明非常成功。告诉一家欧洲、拉美或亚洲公司，你不能将你们国家的资源出口到古巴，这就是一种新的世界秩序。
您是否期望俄罗斯、墨西哥或巴西提供更多石油？
我们确实期望世界上某些地区能提供一些石油。我们认为，美国隔离古巴并剥夺其他国家出口自身产品的权利的能力无法……
“谁能不对白鲸感到着迷呢？”谢德水族馆动物行为与培训总监查理·雅各布斯马（Charlie Jacobsma）问道，他将白鲸的触感描述为“像热狗和棉花糖的结合体”。
雅各布斯马先生表示，白鲸因其不断的鸣叫而被誉为“海洋中的金丝雀”，它们的表达能力非常强。
这并不是这些组织第一次在救援任务中共同合作。这些团队在 2024 年将两头白鲸从乌克兰哈尔科夫转移到了瓦伦西亚的水族馆。
在这些救援行动之前，多种情况共同促成了此事。
曾是热门旅游目的地的海洋乐园（Marineland）向联邦政府请求财政援助，并申请批准将动物出口到中国的一个主题公园。
加拿大最初拒绝了这一请求，直到海洋乐园威胁要将这些鲸鱼安乐死。
政府在 1 月份批准了向美国的转移，在 6 月份批准了向西班牙的转移。
加拿大在 2019 年禁止出于娱乐目的地对圈养的鲸鱼和海豚进行繁殖，目的是“确保当前这一代是最后一批在狭小水槽中受苦的动物”，加拿大动物法律组织 Animal Justice 的法律倡导总监凯特琳·米切尔（Kaitlyn Mitchell）表示。
该组织曾希望海洋乐园能将部分白鲸转移到加拿大一个仍在建设中的保护区。
她说，“最不坏的选项”是将它们转移到美国，并附加限制进一步繁殖的条件，但这似乎并未成为一项规定。
“这是把一个在加拿大存在的问题，允许它在另一个司法管辖区继续存在，”她说。
谢德水族馆公关总监凯莉·加拉斯尼（Kayley Galassini）表示，繁殖并非水族馆的关注重点。“目前，我们的全部重心是帮助获救的白鲸安全地安顿下来，”她说。
海洋乐园没有回应……
[[IMG_XXXX]] 亚特兰大水族馆，经由法新社-盖蒂图片社提供
[[IMG_XXXX]] 摄影：丽塞特·普尔·冈萨雷斯，为《纽约时报》拍摄
[[IMG_XXXX]] 布伦娜·赫尔南德斯/谢德水族馆，经由法新社-盖蒂图片社提供
上图为抵达芝加哥的一头鲸鱼。一名谢德水族馆工作人员将白鲸的触感描述为“像热狗和棉花糖的结合体”。
请求发表评论。 目前尚不清楚救援费用具体是多少，但阿什先生表示，Marineland、加拿大政府以及接收这些白鲸的水族馆将共同分担费用。SeaWorld 表示预计成本将达数百万美元。
SeaWorld 的罗贝克博士表示，虽然团队在搬迁前对这些白鲸进行了大量研究，但“关于这些白鲸的健康、福祉和整体状况，我们的认知仍存在许多空白”。
SeaWorld 圣安东尼奥分馆预计将接收另外 11 头白鲸，此次救援共计接收 13 头。谢德水族馆将接收共计 10 头。SeaWorld 圣地亚哥分馆预计接收 3 头，佐治亚水族馆将接收 2 头。
欧洲最大的水族馆——瓦伦西亚海洋馆 (Oceanogràfic València) 在获得许可后将接收 2 头。
随着新成员的加入，谢德水族馆的白鲸总数将增加到 18 头。该水族馆表示，其拥有 300 万加仑水量、深度为 30 英尺的栖息地可以容纳所有白鲸。
到目前为止，新抵达的白鲸——Acadia、Lillooet、Osiris 和 Sierra 在谢德水族馆的情况非常好。
“它们一直在不断地互相摩擦，彼此建立联系，”雅各布斯马先生说。“我们看到了许多积极的信号，这让我们对它们的现状以及在这里的进展保持非常谨慎的乐观。”
永远。 特朗普讨论过“夺取古巴”。古巴是否在进行军事准备？ 这很荒谬。对一个和平国家采取会导致死亡和破坏的军事行动，能有什么借口？ 现在，无论这件事多么不理智，如果我们不做好准备，如果不更新我们的军事战略（该战略基于全民参与），那就是天真。我们明白在技术和火力方面存在不对称的现实，但我们的人民将保卫我们的国家。我们每周都在为此做准备。
有报道称，一名阿联酋开发商正在古巴的一个岛上建造一座豪华度假村，并希望将其向特朗普组织推介，命名为“特朗普岛”。古巴政府是否在考虑让特朗普组织在古巴土地上开展项目？ 我想说，我们并没有在具体考虑类似的事情。但我们正试图吸引来自任何国家的外国投资。这并不排除美国。 这是否排除特朗普总统？ 如果他想通过和平方式进行，我们认为没有特定理由将其排除在外。 您听说过在古巴这个地区的“特朗普岛”提案吗？ 我看过新闻。那里已经有许多开发项目在实施，一些在规划中，我们也已经向世界各地的商人介绍了这些项目。如果有人来并表示他们与美国的商业大亨有联系，我们准备好进行接触。如果对方是特朗普政府，原则上我们没有理由说不。 阻止唐纳德·特朗普投资古巴的是美国法律。只要在遵守古巴法律的前提下，我们并不排除他或他的组织在古巴开展业务。
6 月 17 日，一座面积近 500,000 平方英尺的仓库起火，使博伊尔高地 (Boyle Heights) 和东洛杉矶 (East Los Angeles) 社区在数日内被烟雾笼罩。
工人阶级居民 仍处于“地狱般的生活”
作者：奥兰多·马约金 (ORLANDO MAYORQUÍN) 与 安娜·法西奥-克拉杰克 (ANA FACIO-KRAJCER)
洛杉矶 —— 在洛杉矶一座巨大的冷藏仓库发生火灾一个多月后，住在附近的人们表示，腐烂食物带来的无尽恶臭几乎没有缓解，而且他们担心家中可能仍然潜伏着危险。这座由一家名为 Lineage Logistics 的公司运营的设施面积接近 500,000 平方英尺，于 6 月 17, 起火，导致博伊尔高地 (Boyle Heights) 和东洛杉矶 (East Los Angeles) 的社区在数日内被浓烟笼罩。在这场灾难中，仓库内储存的约 85 million 磅的牛肉、猪肉、禽类和海鲜开始腐烂，恶臭弥漫整个地区。洛杉矶市长凯伦·巴斯 (Karen Bass) 给了 Lineage 公司截止到 8 月 13 日的时间来清理现场，该公司表示正在努力在截止日期前完成。但除此之外，许多居民指责政府在应对火灾时失职，在灾后未能提供充足的答案和资源。火灾原因仍在调查中。
这种恶臭被描述为霉菌和死动物的刺鼻混合物，吸引了大批老鼠和瓶子蝇，因为它们被腐烂的肉类所吸引。“这就像生活在地狱里一样，” 56, 岁的奥罗拉·弗洛雷斯 (Aurora Flores) 说道，她与丈夫住在仓库附近。“我们感觉自己快要窒息了。”
Lineage 公司周三表示，已完成约 60 比例的垃圾清理工作。但本周，在该公司提交了一份重建仓库受损部分的许可申请后，人们再次对其表示愤怒。这份于周一提交的许可申请中提到，“建筑脚印、平方英尺数、高度、用途或占用情况均无变化”。巴斯市长周二称这一举动是对社区的“打脸”，并表示如果 Lineage 公司未能在 8 月截止日期前完成任务，市政府将考虑采取法律行动。
市长和其他官员已寻求在灾后重新审视该物业的未来。而像弗洛雷斯夫人这样的部分邻居已经开始提出替代方案。“我们希望他们把 Lineage 仓库拆掉，” 弗洛雷斯夫人说，“用绿地、儿童公园和社区公园来代替。”
Lineage 公司在的一份声明中表示，该许可证是“维修过程中的正常步骤，不会影响或干扰我们重要的清理工作”。该公司补充道：“冷藏设施是关键的基础设施，确保食物能从农场经港口运送到整个洛杉矶的杂货店。该地区的社区已经依赖它们超过 100 年了。”
然而，大多数社区的愤怒集中在政府从火灾第一天起就采取的应对措施上。居民们没有被告知撤离，即便当时烟雾已经遮蔽了天空并笼罩了他们的家。市和县政府官员随后在当地发放了口罩和空气净化器，并为出现症状的人设立了流动诊所进行检查。然而，一些人报告说be-
……被拒绝提供净化器和口罩，原因是他们居住在错误的管辖区内——博伊尔高地（Boyle Heights）属于市区，而东洛杉矶（East Los Angeles）属于县区——或者是因为住在同一地址的另一名租客或家庭已经领取了该援助。
在这些主要由工人阶级和拉丁裔组成的社区中，许多居民表示，由于必须持续运行空气净化器，他们被迫支付更高的电费。有些人甚至在室内也戴上了口罩。
60 岁的阿德利塔·洛佩兹（Adelita Lopez）患有肺气肿，在火灾初期曾被紧急送往急诊室。她与母亲住在距离仓库仅几英尺的一间狭小公寓里。为了呼吸，她不得不比平时更多地依赖氧气瓶，并且被迫睡在地板上，因为那里不知为何气味没那么刺鼻。
弗洛雷斯（Flores）太太说，在火灾之前，她早晨醒来时能听到后院几棵果树上鸟儿的鸣叫声。
现在，她说，鸟儿全部消失了。
“鸟儿走了，但现在我们有了蟑螂和很多苍蝇，这在以前是没有的。”弗洛雷斯太太说，她和丈夫经常开车开走几英里，在公园里待上几个小时或者外出就餐，以远离那股恶臭。
市长巴斯（Bass）在周三的一份声明中承认，民众对政府感到愤怒。
“我们理解居民们的沮丧，从一开始，我的首要任务就是保护公众健康并支持博伊尔高地社区的恢复，”她说道，并指出了旨在帮助居民支付公用事业费用的救济计划。
在县卫生部门周一发布的一项针对 650 户家庭的社区调查中，绝大多数家庭报告在过去一周内闻到了非常强烈的异味，且害虫数量增加；近一半的家庭报告在房屋内外发现灰烬或闻到残留的烟味。
随着近几周夏季热浪笼罩南加州，下风向数英里外的城市居民也开始投诉气味问题。截至周二，全县已收到 3,600 份与该仓库火灾相关的异味投诉。
一个名为“现在就保护洛杉矶”（Protect Los Angeles Now）的社区组织要求包括州长在内的官员发布强制撤离令，并在灾难现场清理完毕前提供住房。
GABRIELA BHASKAR 为《纽约时报》拍摄
主要为拉丁裔社区的居民表示，他们不得不戴口罩在室内活动，并因持续使用空气净化器而导致电费增加。左图为受损建筑，内部堆满了腐烂的肉类。
MARK ABRAMSON 为《纽约时报》拍摄
当地卫生官员已经承认人们对空气质量及其他危害的担忧，以及居民对临时搬迁的需求。但在上周的一次县监督委员会会议上，县卫生官员坚持认为，目前的情况尚未达到疏散的阈值。
“在健康方面，我们并没有面临迫在眉睫的危险。因此，我们不会使用那样强硬的手段来真正要求所有人离开该区域，”县卫生官员蒙图·戴维斯博士 (Dr. Muntu Davis) 表示。
洛杉矶县公共卫生部和区域空气监管机构——南海岸空气质量管理局，已敦促 Lineage 公司加快清理工作，并采取更多措施减轻异味。该公司在现场安装的香氛喷雾器在控制气味方面并无成效。两家机构在近几周内都因现场情况向该公司开出了传票并处以罚款。
Lineage 表示，其工作人员正在尽可能快速地工作，并称碎片清理是一个复杂的过程，而受损建筑内部的不安全情况进一步增加了复杂性。
一些已经获得实质性帮助的居民（例如一周的区域外租房代金券）仍然担心，由于烟雾污染，他们的实际住所已变得无法居住。
在周二的一次监督委员会会议上，特里尼达德·阿尔瓦雷斯 (Trinidad Alvarez) 通过翻译用西班牙语轻声地恳请委员会帮助他的家人立即搬迁。
他表示，他是住房长期候补名单上的成员之一，并担心他的孩子们在走到户外时会出现流鼻血和呕吐冲动。
“我们没有得到任何帮助，”他说，“只有空气过滤器。”
计划在 美国联邦土地上 建设数据中心
作者：BRAD PLUMER
特朗普政府正在重新规划大片联邦土地，用于建设巨大的数据中心以及运行这些中心所需的发电厂，旨在加速人工智能的发展，并克服当地对这些设施日益增加的反对情绪。能源部周三宣布，将重新开发位于肯塔基州帕杜卡 (Paducah, Ky.) 的一座退役冷战时期铀浓缩设施的部分区域，以建设一个大型新型人工智能数据中心园区。该场地由联邦政府所有，多年来一直处于环境清理过程中。这项耗资 $100 billion 的项目将包括建设 2 吉瓦的天然气发电能力（连接至当地电网）以及 2.6 吉瓦的电池储能容量。能源部表示，该项目将通过与美国最大的电力公司之一 NextEra Energy、投资公司 Brookfield 以及几家当地公用事业公司的合伙关系，由私人资金资助。（1 吉瓦的天然气发电量可供应大约 750,000 户家庭。）
“美国政府正在利用其资产——例如我们的联邦土地——来增加发电能力，创造就业机会，并确保美国在人工智能竞赛中获胜，”能源部长克里斯·赖特 (Chris Wright) 在一份声明中表示。
这已经是该政府第三次详细阐述将冷战时期设施改造成数据中心的计划。今年 3 月，能源部表示将重新利用俄亥俄州派克顿 (Piketon, Ohio) 一个前核浓缩设施的部分区域，建设一个巨大的 10 吉瓦数据中心，该中心主要由天然气供电，部分资金由日本提供。而本月，能源部的国家核安全管理局表示，将与工程公司 Amentum 合作，探讨在南卡罗来纳州的萨凡纳河场址 (Savannah River Site) 建设一个 1 吉瓦的数据中心，该中心可能由天然气和核能供电；该场址曾是一个专门为核武器制造钚的联邦综合体。
特朗普总统一直是人工智能的主要支持者，他称其对于赢得与中国的技术竞赛至关重要。近几个月来，他还试图应对许多社区对能源密集型巨型数据中心激增的日益反对，因为这些中心推高了电力需求。盖洛普 (Gallup) 最近的一项民意调查发现，近半数美国人将“强烈反对”在他们的社区建设新数据中心，许多人地将其理由归结为对噪音、污染以及能源和水资源使用的担忧。
根据人工智能研究公司 10a Labs 的一个名为 Data Center Watch 的项目，今年第一季度，至少有 75 个价值 $130 billion 的数据中心项目因当地反对而推迟或停工。在上周的一次白宫活动中，特朗普先生旨在解决其中一些顾虑，他宣布近 200 家公司（包括科技巨头、公用事业公司和数据中心开发商）签署了一项自愿承诺，以防止人工智能数据中心提高美国人的电费。
专家表示，由于电价通常由当地监管机构决定，该承诺在实践中可能难以兑现。特朗普先生强调了一些新数据中心项目帮助降低当地房产税或电费率的例子。同时，他抨击数据中心的反对者，称他们是“激进的左翼共产主义者”，并且“不会降低你的电费账单”。他的政府已采取行动，鼓励在能源部拥有的土地上开发数据中心，这可能会为审批提供一条更顺畅的路径。环境保护局也采取了若干措施，以使数据中心
更容易建设，例如放宽对驱动这些设施的燃气涡轮机所产生雾霾污染的限制。另外，内政部最近批准了在内华达州博尔德城附近的联邦土地上建设首个数据中心的计划，该地点此前已被允许部署大型实用规模的太阳能阵列。该机构表示，无需为该项目进行耗时的新环境审查，因为数据中心产生的影响与原太阳能设施相似。这一批准最初由气候新闻网站 Heatmap 报道。两个环保组织已对该决定提出法律挑战。“通过将公众排除在程序之外，他们正试图在无人发声的情况下，将内华达州的沙漠移交给市值数十亿美元的科技公司，”塞拉俱乐部 (Sierra Club) 内华达州托亚贝地区分会执行主任奥利维亚·塔纳格 (Olivia Tanager) 表示。在肯塔基州，新数据中心将坐落在能源部一个占地 3,556 英亩的场地部分区域，该场地从 20 世纪 50 年代直到 2013. 年期间一直为军事反应堆和核武器生产低浓缩铀。能源部表示，该项目的新燃气发电厂将产生比数据中心需求更多的电力，并可将剩余电力提供给当地社区。该项目预计将于 2031 年完工。
（此处为）生活在开阔农田上的家庭。 而现在，这意味着涌入的大批陌生人，他们住在全美最大的房车公园之一，这里有 2,300 个狭窄的碎石停车位，像无尽的钢琴键一样排列着。 “这周围的一切一夜之间都变了，”霍尔特对另一位顾客说道。这位顾客是一名来自德克萨斯州南部边境城镇的电工，他进来买了两袋火辣味多力多滋 (Flamin’ Hot Doritos)、一瓶用来撒在啤酒里的墨西哥调味盐 Tajín 以及一组 12 听装的米凯罗 Ultra (Michelob Ultra) 啤酒。 “趁着还能赚钱，我们就在这儿干！”这名男子说道。他提到自己的第一个孩子即将出生，正是因为这里的高薪才被吸引到这个数据中心工地的。 48 岁的霍尔特正努力利用现状。几个月前，他的店还是一栋两居室的房子。 那是他父亲的房子。 正如他父亲所描述的那样，那是他“在麦田中的栖身之所”。 在达拉斯结束豪华轿车服务行业退休后，老萨姆·霍尔特于 2015 年搬到了北埃尔姆代尔路 (Elmdale Road North) 上一块极小土地上的黄色小房子里。他独自生活。 作为一名经历了多次癌症治疗的越南战争退伍军人，他惊叹于这里的景色，在前门拍摄奶油色调的日出，在后门拍摄棉花糖色的日落。他会将这些照片分享到网上。 “11/18/24 @1800hrs。看着后门区域。没有城市灯光。” “12/12/24 @ 0717hrs。坐在前门。早安。我从 CST 0630hrs 就起床了，除了打字时 iPhone 的点击声，我什么声音也没听到。没有车辆，也没有鸟类。绝无之！如此平静。”老霍尔特出入两英里外的一家汉比基督教会 (Hamby Church of Christ)。他写关于在密苏里州农场长大的诗。他制作雪松木箱和儿童桌，还制作了一个五层鸟屋——他自豪地称可以容纳 60 个鸟家庭——并将它安置在前院的一棵树上。早晚，他都会烹饪他的拿手菜：肉团子、斑点豆和玉米面包。去年夏天，当一名房地产经纪人出价 $150,000 买他的房子时（可能比实际价值高出 $25,000），老霍尔特拒绝了。“我能去哪里？”他当时说道。“我喜欢这里，我会坚持住。”几个月后，在感恩节，老萨姆·霍尔特住进了医院。他在圣诞前夜去世，享年 81 岁。小萨姆·霍尔特的女友斯泰西·桑福德首先提出了利用这栋房子赚钱的想法。 既然其他人都在从这个人工智能建设项目中获利，他们为什么不能？开发商将农田改造成了房车公园，每个车位每月收取 $675 的费用——仅租金一项每年总收入就将超过 $18.6 million。于是，霍尔特和桑福德制定了一项开设干货店并销售啤酒的计划。霍尔特长期担任 Texas Roadhouse 餐厅的管理合伙人，具有客户服务经验。他将辞职经营这家店，而身为医疗保健高管的桑福德将在夜晚和周末加入他。“我准备好做出改变了，”他告诉她。“让我们赌一把，希望能成功，”她说。老萨姆·霍尔特信仰保守，反对饮酒。但他一定会支持儿子为了改善生活以及改善孙辈生活所做的一切，他的儿子对此深信不疑。“他会明白我们必须适应，”小霍尔特告诉
桑福德（Sanford）。“很多人不想适应这一切，但我们别无选择。”他与桑福德投资了 $75,000，并认为这家店能像房车公园一样持久——至少能维持数年，考虑到数据中心开发商 Vantage Data Centers 表示，其在沙克尔福德县（Shackelford County） 1,200 英亩场地上的全部 11 栋建筑将于 2028. 年底前完工。这对夫妇的目标是：为霍尔特（Holt）的两个 teenage дочь- {此处原文为daugh- ters} 女儿支付大学学费，然后退休到洪都拉斯海岸附近的一个岛上。然而，开启这个新篇章的过程中伴随着悲伤。霍尔特小儿子（Holt Jr.）在客厅的墙上，用订书钉一个个地撕掉了女儿们送给父亲的画作，包括那些描摹她们小小手掌的画。女孩们
“让我们赌一把， 希望一切顺利。”
斯泰西·桑福德（STACEY SANFORD），她与萨姆·霍尔特小儿子（Sam Holt Jr.）共同开了一家便利店。
称呼他们的祖父为“傻傻的萨姆”（Silly Sam），并在房子里拥有自己的卧室。
那个房间变成了一个步入式啤酒冷库，墙上贴着银色绝缘材料，并注入制冷剂。厨房的吧台变成了结账柜台。客厅的一面墙安装了滑动门，以创建一个得来速（drive-through）通道。
“每次在后院看到日落，我都会想起他，”霍尔特在谈到父亲时说道。“每一晚都是如此。”
工作日的早晨生意清淡。
在霍尔特上午 10 点开店前的几个小时，许多工人已经离开房车公园前往工作岗位，形成了一长列交通队伍，将道路的沥青路面挤压并 chipping {此处原文为chipped} 损坏。有些人穿着反光背心并戴着安全帽，乘坐前往施工现场的双层巴士。
上个月的一个周三，霍尔特通过从送货车上卸载啤酒，为忙碌的下午做准备。他现在订购的包装比刚开始时小，因为他发现许多顾客更倾向于 6 瓶装和 12 瓶装，因为他们房车里的冰箱空间不大。
两个孩子的母亲劳雷尔·沙利文（Laurel Sullivan）在店内操作收银机。一个月前，她从房车公园走过来询问是否需要帮助，想找点事做。她告诉霍尔特，她在房车里照顾幼儿和三只狗，直到她的丈夫——一名重型机械操作员——结束 14 小时的工作日返回，白天的时光可能非常漫长。她在店里工作时会雇一名保姆。
她和霍尔特特意与常客交好，记得他们的订单以及他们在施工现场的角色，试图建立某种社区感，让人们感觉不再那么孤独。
有一个说西班牙语的男孩，大约 11 岁。他曾尝试用尼加拉瓜货币支付。这一次，他把一罐阿尔弗雷多酱（Alfredo sauce）带到柜台前，以便他的姐姐能为他及兄弟姐妹准备午餐，他在沙利文面前放下了一堆硬币——但金额并不足以支付价格。
“我帮你付，”她对他说道，伸手拿钱包补齐差额。霍尔特给孩子们提供免费的口味冰棒。
还有一个开着白色 F-250 皮卡进入得来速通道，要求将 30 瓶装的米勒轻盈啤酒（Miller Lite）放在后座上的家伙。还有另一个人每隔一天就会出现，买两瓶米基精选麦芽酒（Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor），一种特种或-
专门为他预留。 临近午餐时间，一名焊工的妻子布伦达·塔拉曼特（Brenda Talamante）在得来速窗口订购了一袋冰块。她凌晨 3:55 就起床为丈夫准备 barbacoa（墨西哥炖肉），现在已经喝到了第 3 杯咖啡。 “这对我们来说是一场冒险，但对有些人来说，这是一个能给家乡家人寄钱的机会，”她坐在自己的红色皮卡车座上说道。“有些人没有意识到，这笔钱足以改变人生。”
霍尔特（Holt）和桑福德（Sanford）很快发现，数据中心建设非常赚钱。没人问过任何东西的价格，所以他们从未费心贴价格标签。Elmdale Outpost 的收银员——包括霍尔特的一个女儿——每班结束时能拿到 $100 以上的小费。 房车公园的十多名工人表示，数据中心劳工领取 $150 到 $250 的每日津贴，且税后时薪年收入超过 $200,000 的情况并不罕见。
典型的工作时间表是每天 10 到 14 小时，连续工作 13 天，然后休息一天，没有带薪假期。对某些人来说，这是一个不错的权衡。他们现在可以提前退休，或者还清房贷。 这些工人中许多是拉丁裔，身高 6 英尺 5 英寸且为人友好的霍尔特会用西班牙语与他们聊天。他和桑福德储备了 Bimbo 等墨西哥品牌，但也接受请求——一名混凝土工请求提供能防尘的护颈面罩。有时，他们会凭经验猜测什么可能会受欢迎。 有一天，桑福德对着霍尔特喊道：“嘿，萨姆，有人刚买了 5 个避孕套和 24 瓶装的一箱科罗娜啤酒！”这让两人都笑了。 她补充道：“接下来，他们可能需要验孕棒——结果发现我们也卖那个！”
[[IMG_XXXX]] 摄影：DESIREE RIOS 为《纽约时报》拍摄
Elmdale Outpost 是德克萨斯州阿比林的一家便利店，为住在房车公园的建筑施工队提供服务。小萨姆·霍尔特（Sam Holt Jr.）与斯泰西·桑福德（Stacey Sanford）在他已故父亲的旧居中开设了这家店。
上个月的那个周三晚上，桑福德在结束全职工作后加入了霍尔特的行列，在夕阳染红天际近两个小时后，他们一起关店。 他们结算了当天的营业额，共 $3,000 ——大约是他们在开业礼纪念日周末收入的四倍。当时是晚上 10:30，大多数邻居都已经入睡，他们清扫地上的土块并补货，将冷柜里的每个瓶子调整哪怕一毫米，以确保标签正对着前方。霍尔特将在不到 12 小时后返回；他一直一周工作七天。 他们做出这些牺牲，是因为利用数据中心获利的窗口不会永远敞开。他们尽量不去理会那些指责他们向大科技公司“出卖灵魂”的批评者。 阿比林警察局的侦查员、霍尔特的多年好友凯里·阿德金斯（Carye Adkins）理解这种困境。 14 年前，阿德金斯搬进了他的梦想之屋——就在老霍尔特搬进去的那栋黄房子附近。他和家人从市区搬迁而来，他记得年幼的儿子在后方新耕的田地里奔跑，大喊着：“看，爸爸，我们有地了！” 最终，他们在 20 英亩的土地上养了 17 头牛和驴。 随后数据中心来了，接着是房车公园的规划。 阿德金斯告诉霍尔特，他无法忍受住在房车公园隔壁的想法。心碎之下，他将房产卖给了开发商。 然而，在 Elmdale Outpost 开业当天，阿德金斯是第一个走进店里的顾客。 “这一切都令人心碎，”他告诉霍尔特，“但你配得上从中赚到的每一分钱。”
以及 ADAM SELLA 一项在大部分证据均秘密提交的法院中所进行的测试。
一个 30 年前成立、旨在将被指控从事恐怖活动的移民驱逐出境的冷门法院，于周四审理了其首个案件。司法部请求一名联邦法官驱逐一名阿富汗女性，检察官称该女性支持伊斯兰国。
该请求是在华盛顿举行的一场近一小时的听证会上提出的，该法院被称为“外国恐怖分子驱逐法庭”（Alien Terrorist Removal Court）。在听证会上，检察官提出了初步主张，认为尽管纳齐拉·哈吉·扎达（Nazira Haji Zada）是合法永久居民，但仍应将其从美国驱逐出境。该法院由国会在 1996 年创建，用于处理主要依赖机密信息的驱逐程序。
政府认为，47, 岁的扎达女士与一项受伊斯兰国启发、计划在 2024. 年选举日发动大规模枪击的挫败恐怖袭击阴谋有关。去年，她的儿子阿卜杜拉·哈吉·扎达（Abdullah Haji Zada）及其女婿纳西尔·艾哈迈德（Nasir Ahmad）均被……
要求他将自己在确认听证会上承认的内容写成书面形式：即该条款仅适用于特朗普先生、他的两个儿子以及特朗普组织，且仅限于对过去税务申报单的审计。但政府至今拒绝这样做。如果布兰奇先生希望他的提名能提交至参议院全会表决，那么他在参议院司法委员会中承受不起哪怕一名共和党人的倒戈。科尼先生和蒂利斯先生的反对使他缺少了 2 票，迫使委员会取消了原定于周四的投票。特朗普先生可以通过某些方式让布兰奇先生（这位总统前首席辩护律师）事实上无限期地担任代理司法部长。但一些共和党人因为特朗普先生人气下降而感到胆量增加，并对他不关心自身政治前途而感到惊恐，甚至暂时阻碍了一位旗舰级提名人，这一事实引发了人们对特朗普先生能否维持对国会共和党人统治力的质疑，而正是这种统治力让他能够对该部门行使直接控制。
特朗普先生的威胁至少在两个方面是不寻常的。首先，不能保证共和党人在中期选举后仍能在上议院保持绝对多数席位，或者更愿意屈从于他的要求。其次，即便暂时撤回布兰奇先生的提名，也将表明特朗普先生愿意将个人利益置于由参议院确认的司法部长所体现的制度稳定性之上。这份税务协议被附加在一项由布兰奇支持的计划中，该计划拟创建一只 $1.8 billion 的基金，用于补偿那些自称是政府不公正起诉受害者的个人，这将参议院共和党人推向了崩溃边缘。该基金增加了政府向 6, 月 1 日冲进国会大厦的人员支付巨额款项的可能性，并迫使布兰奇先生宣布该计划已失效，尽管他拒绝将这一承诺写成书面形式。但在税务豁免协议上，他没有做出任何让步。在 5 月的一次闭门会议上，几位共和党参议员指责布兰奇先生签署了一项广泛的协议，他们认为这是一次巨大的利益冲突，会被选民视为在为特朗普先生及其家人和政治盟友敛财。尽管如此，特朗普先生仍将这些异议定性为针对他个人的私怨。他指责……
Andrew Duehren, Maggie Haberman 和 Olivia Diaz 参与了报道。
作者：MICHAEL C. BENDER
华盛顿 —— 特朗普政府试图拆解教育部的企图在周四遭到参议院教育委员会的驳回。该委员会批准了一项两党共同支持的法案，旨在阻止行政部门削减该机构。
该立法要成为法律还有很长的路要走。众议院中的一项竞争性立法反而将使政府的许多行动合法化，而且特朗普总统不太可能签署一项直接削弱其政策议程的措施。
尽管如此，这次投票是立法者针对政府试图取消教育部的企图所表达的最激烈的反对。取消该机构需要国会的法案，但政府已经开始采取一种零敲碎敲的方法，通过将其功能实际上分包给其他部门来削减该机构。
特朗普政府依靠所谓的跨机构协议（通常用于联邦机构之间购买物资或租赁空间），已将数百亿美元的政府项目移出教育部。
弗吉尼亚州民主党参议员蒂姆·凯恩（Tim Kaine）表示，该法案将“维持该部门的核心组成部分”。
Tawhedi 已就与该阴谋相关的指控认罪，并承认他们曾试图购买两支 AK-47 风格的步枪和 500 发弹药来执行计划。
“本案中的指控表明，一个同情 ISIS 的家庭的女性家长协助策划了一场在选举日针对美国选民的大规模伤亡袭击，”代理司法部长托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche）在听证会开始前的一份声明中表示。
法院首席法官琼·N·埃里克森（Joan N. Ericksen）表示，扎达（Ms. Zada）女士周二在其德克萨斯州沃思堡（Fort Worth）的家中被逮捕，她在挤满人的法庭上出现时，戴着奶油白色的头巾，穿着宽松的蓝色裤子。
针对扎达女士的案件是对一个法院的考验，在该法院中，大部分证据在秘密状态下提交，被告无法质疑证据的收集方式。特朗普政府已使用广泛的法律手段来执行总统激进的遣返议程 —— 其中许多手段在法院受到了挑战。
现在，它正试图使用
[[IMG_XXXX]] 托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche，居中），代理司法部长，协助谈判达成了一项协议，以解决总统针对美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 提起的一项诉讼。
约翰·科尼（Cornyn）和汤姆·蒂利斯（Mr. Tillis）发起了一场带有“酸葡萄”心理的反抗，旨在惩罚他（特朗普）在他们竞争激烈的共和党初选中拒绝提供决定性的背书。蒂利斯先生在受到总统多次公开攻击后，决定不再寻求连任；而科尼先生则在竞选连任中败给了一名由特朗普先生支持的挑战者。
“来自德克萨斯州的约翰·科尼和来自北卡罗来纳州的汤姆·蒂利斯，我两方面都拒绝背书，且他们的政治生涯已因我的行动而终结，他们现在拒绝投票给这位伟大的被提名人，无论如何，此人将继续担任代理职务，”总统在 Truth Social 上写道。
科尼先生迅速反击，暗示他与蒂利斯先生代表了更大规模的参议院共和党人群体，他们对该税务协议的影响持有保留意见，但无法承担公开反对白宫所带来的政治风险，尽管他们的身份提供了某种保障。
“不仅仅只有两个人对武器化基金和和解法令的范围持有保留意见，”科尼先生说。“而且你知道，在期中选举之后，谁知道谁会成为北卡罗来纳州或德克萨斯州的下一任美国参议员？”
“这并不受欢迎，”蒂利斯先生说。
恐怖分子驱逐法庭的广泛权力。
根据法院文件，扎达女士尚未被公开指控犯有任何恐怖主义罪行，也没有犯罪记录。尽管如此，在提交给法院的一份关于其案件的非机密摘要中，检察官称她“支持”选举日阴谋并“宣誓效忠 ISIS”。
摘要还称，她“致力于向她的孩子们灌输 ISIS 意识形态”，并向其“毫无察觉的丈夫”阿卜杜勒·哈吉·扎达（Abdul Haji Zada）隐瞒了将家人迁至 ISIS 控制领土的计划。法院文件显示，后者在 2009 至 2016 年期间在阿富汗的巴格拉姆空军基地工作。
外国人恐怖分子驱逐 [此处文本中断]
在国会大厦表示。“总统在这一问题上没有胜算。这正在毁掉我们的一些候选人，因为他们无法对此做出解释。而现在，看来他们在说该法案失效时并不诚实。”
在特朗普先生发布社交媒体帖子之前，科尼先生告诉记者 [此处文本中断]
在约翰·科尼和汤姆·蒂利斯的反对之后。
他认为“白宫的高层”正在阻挠达成一项协议，以修改特朗普先生在针对美国国家税务局（I.R.S.）的诉讼中的和解协议。
科尼先生表示，他已向司法部提交了一份提案，其中包括对和解协议中保护特朗普先生免受美国国家税务局审计的条款设定限制；他表示，在投票推进托德·布兰奇的任命确认之前，他需要这一保证。
“我原以为昨晚我们已经快要达成一致了，”科尼先生说，“但今天早上出现了一些更多复杂的状况。”
科尼先生在对白宫的批评上采取强硬立场，表示撤回布兰奇先生的提名并不能解决总统在参议院确认方面的问题。“我认为司法部需要一名经参议院确认的司法部长，”他说，“而托德·布兰奇可能是我们能得到的最好人选了。”
路易斯安那州共和党参议员、司法委员会成员约翰·肯尼迪周四表示，对于总统称其可能会暂时撤回布兰奇先生的提名，他并不感到惊讶。
“显然，白宫并不想满足科尼和蒂利斯的要求，”他说。
这份由布兰奇先生签署并日期为 5月 19, 的税务条款似乎包含两个方面。它要求美国国家税务局停止对特朗普先生、其家人及其企业以及任何“关联个人”的所有刑事调查或审计。它还要求该机构不得对其已提交的纳税申报表启动任何新的调查。
科尼先生希望布兰奇先生以书面形式限制受保护对象的范围。科尼先生表示，该命令应仅适用于特朗普先生、他的两个儿子以及特朗普组织。这将
缅因州的苏珊·柯林斯和阿拉斯加的丽莎·默科基（两人均为共和党人）与委员会中的民主党人一起投票，将该项措施提交参议院全会表决。
路易斯安那州参议员、该委员会共和党主席比尔·卡西迪表示，他反对政府将特教服务转移至卫生部的举措，但他最终还是投票反对该法案，称他不希望阻止政府做出改变。
该措施的反对者指出，全美学生的考试成绩滞后，认为糟糕的数据表明教育部未能完成其使命。
“这项法案被误导了，显然缺乏解决我国这个失败教育系统的远见，”阿拉巴马州共和党参议员汤米·图伯维尔说，“它行不通。”
发言人萨凡纳·纽豪斯（Savannah Newhouse）——
该法院的设立方式与外国情报监视法院类似，后者负责审查敏感的监视令申请。它由来自全国各地的五名法官组成，其中包括同样在明尼苏达州联邦地区法院任职的埃里克森法官。
“这是该法院受理的首个案件，法院正处于实施程序的早期阶段，”她在听证会开始时说道，并承认由于该法院“在三十年间处于休眠且未经测试的状态”，可能会出现“词不达意”的时刻。
扎达女士的律师之一马修·法利在向埃里克森法官陈述时，首先请求释放其委托人。他称政府将其驱逐出境的努力是“为了提起刑事起诉而采取的迂回手段”——在证明与恐怖主义存在联系时，刑事案件给政府带来的举证负担较低。
法利先生还对检察官不计划允许辩方接触此案中机密材料的情况表示担忧。但是
虽然埃里克森法官拒绝了他的请求，未释放扎达女士，但她表示，她的“工作推断”是辩护团队将能够审查该案涉及的机密信息。
政府于 7 月 15 日向法院提交了初步申请，寻求将扎达女士驱逐出境，并提供了多项机密证物作为支持。法院在次日举行了秘密听证会，埃里克森法官在周三解封的一份命令中写道，会上提出了“一系列法律和行政上的问题”。
埃里克森法官写道，政府上周提交了一份补充简报，以加强其主张，即扎达女士是其所描述的“外国恐怖分子”，通过正常的移民程序将其驱逐出境将“对美国的国家安全构成风险”。
法官最终认定有理由继续审理此案，并将很快确定进一步提交文件和举行听证会的日程表。
摄影：ALEX KENT/THE NEW YORK TIMES
这意味着除小唐纳德·特朗普和埃里克·特朗普之外的特朗普家族其他成员，以及他们合作的其他公司，将不再可能受到布兰奇先生命令的覆盖。
科尼先生还希望布兰奇先生澄清，美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 仅需放弃对过去纳税申报表的审计——这意味着特朗普先生在未来仍可能被审计——并声明美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 是唯一受该命令约束的机构。
在本月的确认听证会上，布兰奇先生在科尼先生的质询下，口头承认了这三点。但到目前为止，他一直不愿将其以书面形式反映出来。
即便采用了科尼先生要求的修改，对特朗普先生的审计保护仍将是对在任总统的一次前所未有地馈赠，实际上使其免于遵守所有美国人必须遵守国家税法的法律要求——否则将面临美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 的审查。
特朗普先生及其家人多年来一直激进地避税，结果多次面临美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 的审计。仅在布兰奇先生的命令出台前仍在进行的一项已知与该机构的争议中，如果美国国家税务局 (I.R.S.) 胜诉，就可能让特朗普先生损失超过 $100 million。
这位教育部女性负责人表示，立法者支持该立法是在进行“渎职”行为。
她说：“在这次努力有机会消除官僚障碍并充分交付我们的学生、家庭和教育工作者应得的成果之前，就破坏这一努力完全是不成熟的。”
投票结束后，包括教育部长琳达·麦克马洪在内，几位参与该部门改革的内阁成员给国会共和党和民主党领导人发了一封信，为这些举措辩护。
信中声称，自 1980 年以来，教育部已花费 $3 trillion，但
可能控制 法院的 维护工作
作者：MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ
周四在参议院提出的一项新的跨党派立法将把数十座联邦法院的维护和管理工作，从行政部门的通用服务管理局（General Services Administration, GSA）移交给司法部本身。该提案是在收到来自联邦法院各地的投诉后提出的，称 G.S.A. 是一个糟糕的房东，即便在法院员工健康受到威胁时，维修速度依然缓慢。来自伊利诺伊州的民主党参议员理查德·J·德宾（Richard J. Durbin）是该法案的主要发起人，他表示，拟议法律的目的是“确保我们的联邦法院对于在其中工作和到访的人员而言，保持安全、可靠并高效运行”，并且国会将保留“监督和改善司法部门努力的能力”。该法案由两名共和党人共同发起，分别是北达科他州参议员凯文·克雷默（Kevin Cramer）和阿肯色州参议员约翰·布兹曼（John Boozman）。“司法部是政府的一个独立部分，”克雷默先生在的一份声明中说。“就像国会一样，它不应隶属于行政部门的管理。”该法案将建立一个临时试点计划，根据该计划，一个新成立的司法大楼服务机构将负责全国 94 个司法管辖区中最多 10 个的法院维护和修理工作。协调整个司法系统运作的法院行政办公室主任将接管这些财产的“管辖权、托管权和控制权”。国会和政府问责办公室将监督该计划，除非国会投票决定延长，否则该计划将在七年后自动开始失效。一名 83 岁的联邦法官表示，他认为自己是因为使用了埃弗雷特·麦金利·迪克森美国法院（Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse）的水刷牙而感染了军团菌病，该法院是伊利诺伊州最大的联邦法院。G.S.A. 发言人迈克尔·塔梅罗（Michael Tammero）此前称，关于迪克森法院的水导致该法官患病的指控是“没有依据的医学推测”。在上周发给 G.S.A. 负责人爱德华·C·福斯特（Edward C. Forst）的信中，德宾先生和伊利诺伊州民主党参议员塔米·达克沃斯（Tammy Duckworth）表示，该机构修复迪克森法院水系统的时间表是“不可接受的”。他们将 G.S.A. 的做法描述为“对司法部的蔑视以及对法院设施的降级”。根据该机构的数据，由 G.S.A. 管理的法院中逾期维修的费用已超过 83 亿美元（$8.3 billion）。福斯特先生辩称，G.S.A. 需要更多权限来开展重大项目，而无需经过冗长的国会批准程序，并且法院的维修成本相对于司法部每年向 G.S.A. 支付的 13 亿美元（$1.3 billion）租金及其他服务费来说是不成比例的。
KENNY HOLSTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
民主党参议员理查德·J·德宾正在推动该法案。
导致了测试分数低、学生贷款债务高以及官僚主义过度。它承诺，这些变革将简化该机构的流程，且学生、家长和教育工作者将不会面临干扰。倡议团体认为，通过搬迁特殊教育和民权办公室，特朗普 (Trump) 政府在大幅削减这些领域的人员编制后，实际上是在削弱监管。 许多此类团体还警告称，卫生部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) 对自闭症的看法使其不适合监督残疾学生的教育计划。
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES 12月 8日东翼舞厅施工现场。
2025年 12月 一项诉讼试图 阻止施工， 但法官允许 工程继续。
4月 1日东翼舞厅施工现场。 4月 23日东翼舞厅施工现场。
2026年 3月 法官下令 停止施工。
6月 8日东翼舞厅施工现场。 7月 24日东翼舞厅施工现场。
2026年 6月 上诉法院 就舞厅的合法性 举行听证会。
自 12月 首次有联邦诉讼试图阻止建设以来，特朗普总统在拆除的东翼原址上兴建的白宫舞厅和地堡综合体工程进展显著。尽管存在诉讼，且一名法官认定该项目需要国会批准且从一开始就不合法，但法院在很大程度上允许施工继续。现在，一家上诉法院正处于决定是否维持该裁决的关键时刻。但到目前为止，总统在每一步都设法地继续建设。下面的照片说明了该综合体建设的速度之快。
在东翼被拆除七周后的 12月 12日，国家历史保护信托基金会提起诉讼，要求停止这座 90,000 平方英尺舞厅的建设。由乔治·W·布什总统任命的华盛顿联邦地区法院法官理查德·J·莱昂 (Richard J. Leon) 对项目的推进速度表示担忧，但他认为这给白宫留出了寻求两个审查小组批准的时间。
2月，其中一个小组——美术委员会（其成员此前被特朗普先生解雇并由其盟友接替）——快速表决并批准了该项目。第二个小组在两个月后予以批准。
ALLISON ROBBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESS DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
他下令停止施工，但给政府留了两周的时间，随后命令生效。在裁决出炉数小时后，特朗普政府提出了上诉。
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES ANDREW LEYDEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
2月 24日东翼舞厅施工现场。
2026年 2月 法官为施工 继续推进 扫清障碍。
2026年 4月 经过一周的 反复拉锯， 上诉法院允许 工程恢复。
2026年 7月 近期照片显示 新结构已在 地面升起。
由 SIMON DUCROQUET 和 ZACH MONTAGUE 撰写
建筑基址
建筑基址
建筑基址
建筑基址
莱昂法官审理了国家信托基金会提出的新论点，他认为本案的核心在于：究竟是什么法律（如果有的话）赋予了总统为了满足其需求而重建白宫整个区域的权力。在 3月 31日，法官得出了结论：“没有任何法规能接近地赋予总统他所声称拥有的那种权力。”
在 6月 5日的口头辩论中，美国哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院一个三人法官小组中的两名法官似乎怀疑，无论是法律还是地堡背后的国家安全理由，是否赋予了总统重新设计白宫的权力。
由巴拉克·奥巴马总统任命的帕特里夏·A·米利特 (Patricia A. Millett) 法官询问，特朗普政府是否采取了一种“快速行动，打破常规”的方法，在策略上行动过快以至于无法被约束。
该政府对联邦法律采取了宽泛的解释，认为这赋予了总统通过国家公园管理局更改白宫并控制联邦财产的权力。
国家信托基金会再次回到法庭，提出了多种法律论点，质疑该项目使用私人资金以及缺乏国会参与。 在 2月 26日，莱昂法官再次拒绝干预，敦促该组织将其所谓的“杂乱的理论组合”提炼成一个关于总统权力的更聚焦的案件。
在三月底，特朗普先生为该案件增加了一个新变数，他开始将舞厅描述为一个坐落在新地下掩体之上的上层建筑。4月 11 日，上诉法院将此案发回给里昂法官，以澄清下方的军事综合体是否受其命令约束，从而允许在该期间继续施工。
专家组尚未做出决定，但即便它发布第二项裁决认定舞厅非法，特朗普政府也可以向最高法院提起申诉。这可能为工程继续推进提供另一条途径。与此同时，施工仍在继续。
JOSE LUIS MAGANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
即便如此，他仍暗示他深切怀疑，在未与立法者协商的情况下，白宫是否能被不可逆地改变。
在 4月 16 日，他澄清该掩体不受约束，将其决定的范围限制在舞厅的地上工程。 基于这一理解，上诉法院在 4月 18 日再次允许施工继续推进，直到 6 月份举行辩论并做出最终裁决。
里约热内卢 —— 在周四发布的一封公开信中，100 多位美国卫生和国家安全领域的领导者警告称，特朗普 administration 计划停止资助泛美卫生组织（Pan American Health Organization），该组织负责协调包括美国在内的数十个国家的公共卫生工作，此举将使美国人更容易受到传染病威胁。这些领导者包括曾在民主党和共和党政府中任职的前卫生部长、卫生机构负责人、五角大楼和白宫官员以及卫生总监。
该组织成立于 1902 年，由 35 个成员国的捐款支持。作为创始成员，美国自 2024 年底以来欠缴的费用近 $135 million。
特朗普总统在就职第一天就让美国退出了世界卫生组织，并终止了美国对该机构的所有资助。该政府提出的明年预算案目前将取消对泛美卫生组织（P.A.H.O.）的资助，该组织是世卫组织（W.H.O.）的区域分支机构。鉴于登革热、禽流感等传染病威胁日益增加，这一决定几乎没有意义。
作者：HIROKO TABUCHI
去年 12 月，密歇根州众议员杰克·伯格曼（Jack Bergman）——特朗普总统的坚定盟友和 MAGA 的捍卫者——在众议院发表讲话，赞扬美国的军事实力，称赞其“面对潜在侵略者的勇气”。随后，他的演讲转向了一个出人意料的话题：污染。
“我们还有很多工作要做，”他说。在他的清单首位的是：清理 PFAS，这种有害的“永久化学品”污染了全国数百个军事基地。伯格曼先生表示，五角大楼必须优先考虑“向受 PFAS 影响的社区提供环境管理”。
在分歧严重的华盛顿，对于军事基地有毒化学品清理进度停滞的情况，两党均感到愤怒。这种延迟已成为一个罕见的议题，使民主党人和共和党人在批评五角大楼方面达成一致。
几十年来，基于 PFAS 的泡沫一直被用于消防演习和训练，在全国各地的军事基地留下了广泛的污染。PFAS 使泡沫在扑灭火灾时极其有效。但多年来，服役人员以及军事设施附近的社区一直与这些有害化学品作斗争，这些化学品与低出生体重、出生缺陷和发育迟缓，以及增加某些前列腺癌、肾癌和睾丸癌的风险相关。
《纽约时报》在 9 月报道称，五角大楼已悄悄延迟了其 PFAS
未参保患者人数上升
但根据医疗研究机构 KFF 的一项调查，许多参加了平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 的人员表示，他们难以负担每月的费用。
未付账单的增加凸显了许多家庭面临的沉重财务压力。
“这告诉我，有些患者完全没有支付能力，”非营利天主教医院集团 SSM Health 的首席执行官劳拉·凯撒（Laura Kaiser）表示。她预计将在 2028 年成为行业贸易组织美国医院协会（American Hospital Association）的主席。“我们实际上是在压榨那些拼命想要支付账单的人。”
她说，医院们“正在吸收这些损失，但我们无法承受”。
在今年的期中选举年，美国人在民意调查中反复将医疗保健成本上升列为首要关注问题，经济状况和负担能力也是选民关注的重要议题。
但医疗保险和医疗费用上涨带来的缓解短期内不会到来。
美国大约有 30 million 成年人和儿童没有医疗保险。专家预测，为了抵消损失，医院将提高针对参保人员的定价，包括由雇主提供的保险方案。
保费和免赔额的增加也影响到了参加私人计划的美国人。许多个人被迫寻求免赔额较高的廉价方案，这类方案要求患者在保险生效前先支付数千美元的医疗账单。
在上周五与分析师的一次财报电话会议中，高管们……
【此处文本缺失/中断】
以及螺旋蝇，信函签署者们认为。
“一个不能在源头检测并遏制疾病威胁的国家，无法充分保护其国内的人民，”他们在信中写道。
美国管理与预算办公室（U.S. Office of Management and Budget）未回应置评请求。
国务院在一封电子邮件声明中表示：“美国致力于通过改革国际组织并使其回归基本职能，来保护美国纳税人。”
声明称：“向国际组织提供的任何资金捐助都取决于真实且重大地改革，并确保美国纳税人的资金不被用于违背我国利益的方式。”
信中提到，泛美卫生组织（P.A.H.O.）帮助美洲成为全球首个消除脊髓灰质炎和其他疾病的地区，并帮助根除了天花。
该组织还协助成员国应对紧急情况，例如 6 月份委内瑞拉发生的地震，并协助促成癌症和 H.I.V. 等疾病药物的获取渠道。
在今年夏天的世界杯期间，来自加拿大、美国和墨西哥的官员每天举行会议进行协调规划……
在近 140 个军事设施中的清理工作。此后，五角大楼推迟了近 200 个地点的清理。根据《时报》对最新联邦数据的后续分析，其中一个地点的延迟时间长达 20 年。
数十名国会议员要求国防部解释延迟原因，并概述将如何保护军人以及居住在基地附近的人员。
在 7 月 17 日致国防部长皮特·海格塞斯（Pete Hegseth）的一封信中，来自密歇根州的民主党众议员克里斯汀·麦克唐纳德·里维特（Kristen McDonald Rivet）和黛比·丁格尔（Debbie Dingell），以及来自弗吉尼亚州的共和党众议员詹·A·基根斯（Jen A. Kiggans）和来自宾夕法尼亚州的众议员布赖恩·K·菲茨帕特里克（Brian K. Fitzpatrick）表示，“国防部继续降低清理工作的优先级”是“不可接受的”。这四人共同主持一个跨党派的 PFAS 任务组，旨在通过联邦行动保护公众免受这些化学物质的影响。
“我们进行的是真实的对话，而非党派之争，”麦克唐纳德·里维特女士在一次采访中说道。“这关乎我们军队的健康和福祉。这关乎保护我们国土上的士兵。”
国防部未就清理延迟的问题做出回应。
此次反击代表了在面对五角大楼在这一问题上不采取行动时，罕见的政治共识，而这一问题已成为全国军事社区的主要健康担忧。
或许最令人惊讶的是来自伯格曼先生的反应，他是一位退休的美国三星级将军。
HCA Healthcare 是美国最大的营利性医院连锁机构，该公司表示，之前参加平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 的患者似乎无法找到其他覆盖来源，但仍需要医院的急诊护理。
HCA 首席执行官山姆·海森（Sam Hazen）表示，这些人“几乎是一对一地转化为无保险人员”。这家美国公司在 19 个州和英国运营 190 家医院，称其在佛罗里达州、德克萨斯州以及南卡罗来纳州和佐治亚州医院受到的影响最大。
公司官员向投资者警告称，最可能的结果是今年的营业利润将减少大约 $1 billion。
在另一家营利性连锁机构 Community Health Systems（该公司上周公布了半年报）中，不使用保险支付医疗费的患者就诊人数与去年相比增长了 20%。
此外，一名高管指出，参加 Medicaid（联邦与州共同为贫困人口提供的医疗计划）的患者人数有所下降。他表示，一些人似乎在注册时遇到困难，而另一些人则选择不参加。
专注于政府计划的营利性医疗保险公司 Centene 周二告诉投资者，其 Medicaid 参保人数的下降幅度超过了预期，甚至在《一个大而美的法案》（One Big Beautiful Bill Act）即将带来变化之前就已如此。预计未来几年将有数百万人失去 Medicaid 的保障。
医院高管还表示，有迹象表明人们正在推迟治疗，例如推迟关节置换手术或跳过心脏病检查。
“随着汽油价格上涨，这对就医产生了相当显著的影响……”
泛美卫生组织 (P.A.H.O.) 位于华盛顿的总部。美国欠缴的逾期费用近 $135 million。
泛美卫生组织主任贾巴斯·巴博萨（Jarbas Barbosa）博士表示，P.A.H.O. 已针对游客涌入可能带来的威胁指定了方案。
其他一些国家的官员担心，特朗普政府对 P.A.H.O. 的抛弃将不仅危及美国人。
巴西卫生部长亚历山大·帕迪利亚（Alexandre Padilha）博士表示，该政府的“否认主义立场”将威胁到整个地区的人们。“退出世卫组织（W.H.O.），退出……”
总统的盟友、众议员杰克·伯格曼（Jack Bergman）批评五角大楼延迟清理其密歇根州选区基地内 PFAS 污染的行为，并表示：“我们还有很多工作要做。”
海军陆战队中将。 他强力支持总统特朗普的“美国优先”议程，并对 2020 年总统大选的结果提出质疑，在那次选举中，特朗普败给了前总统乔·拜登。 伯格曼先生严厉批评了那些反对特朗普议程中任何部分的共和党候选人，并支持在边境安全和国防方面投入巨资。
大型医院对付费患者人数显著减少表示出日益担忧。许多高管表示，医院还在提供更多的慈善护理。
“对于这些家庭来说，可支配收入减少了，而医疗保健似乎是人们在能够推迟时首先会选择推迟、或者至少尝试推迟的事情之一，”社区健康系统 (Community Health Systems) 的首席执行官凯文·哈蒙斯 (Kevin Hammons) 告诉分析师。 另一家营利性医院集团 Tenet Healthcare 的官员表示，其经历与 HCA 相似，一些原先拥有平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 覆盖的患者现在没有任何保险。 该公司“大致看到交易所患者数量与无保险患者数量之间存在相当一致的转换，几乎是一对一的关系，”Tenet 的首席财务官孙·朴 (Sun Park) 在上周的财报电话会议上表示。 非营利性医院的高管们也看到了相同的模式。 在 SSM Health，未支付医疗账单的人数大幅增加，首席执行官凯撒女士 (Ms. Kaiser) 表示。 无保险患者人数较去年增加了近 21 %，且坏账——即医院长期无法收回的患者医疗账单——增加了近 37 %，其中包括一些虽有保险但计划中自付费用较高的人员。 Norton Rose Fulbright 的医疗保健律师杰夫·沃兹堡 (Jeff Wurzburg) 表示，医院感受到 A.C.A. 参保人数下降所带来影响的速度令人担忧。大型医院集团是“矛尖”，接下来的影响很可能会在较小的医疗系统中显现。 根据联邦法律，无论患者是否有支付能力，医院都必须救治医疗紧急情况下的患者。“最终我们都将支付更多，因为...”
托尼·奎因 (TONY QUINN)，通过美联社 (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
“...泛美卫生组织 (P.A.H.O.)，削弱这些多边机构对全球健康是一个错误，同时也将影响美国，”他说道。 信中指出，美国对 P.A.H.O. 的捐款仅占联邦总支出的 0.001 %，但约占该组织预算的 20 %。P.A.H.O. 收到了一些来自西班牙（该组织的观察员成员）和其他国家的额外资金，但这些捐款...
但他也代表密歇根州第一国会选区，那里有几个目前和以前的军事基地，存在严重的 PFAS 污染。其中包括位于奥斯科达 (Oscoda) 的前沃茨史密斯空军基地 (Wurtsmith Air Force Base)，那里数十年使用消防泡沫导致水质、土壤以及该地区的饮用水受到严重污染。 “我会直言不讳：奥斯科达社区承受了更多...”
巴博萨博士表示，无法弥补来自美国的资金支持缺失。
“我正在尽一切可能地敲开每一扇门，”巴博萨博士说，“但我们需要美国支付款项”以维持该组织的运行。
一些公共卫生专家指出，美洲国家面临许多共同的威胁，且能从协作中获益。例如，泛美卫生组织（P.A.H.O.）的资产之一就是一个实验室网络，可以分析病原体的遗传信息，特别是那些在西半球仍处于威胁新发期的病原体，以追踪其动向。
“当他们破坏这个网络时，这将使得识别来自鸟类或进入美国的猪肉中所携带的病毒变得更加困难，从而给美国民众带来风险，”巴西健康研究机构 Fiocruz 的前任总裁保罗·布斯博士说道。
今年，泛美卫生组织在美国开展了特别多的工作，因为它正在评估该国是否失去了“麻疹消除状态”——这一称号授予那些一年以上没有出现该疾病持续传播的国家。今年美国记录的麻疹病例数已多于 2000 年消除该病以来的任何一年。
巴博萨博士表示，他不认为该组织在判定麻疹消除状态中所扮演的角色，对政府决定停止资助该组织产生了任何影响。
他表示，他曾两次写信给国务卿马可·鲁比奥（一次在去年，一次在几周前），阐述继续支持该组织的理由。他说，他尚未收到正式答复，但已会见过来自国务院以及卫生与公共服务部的其他官员。
巴博萨博士表示，他同意特朗普政府推动国际组织提高问责制的做法。他说，自 2023 年就任该组织领导人以来，他通过削减部分职位、将部分人员从华盛顿迁至成员国以及减少差旅，将预算削减了 19 percent。为了提高透明度，每个国家的审计报告现在也向所有其他成员公开。
“他们对国际组织表达的普遍担忧——我们已经在落实这些改进了，”他说。
[[IMG_ERIC LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES]]
比过去十年的污染、违背的承诺以及来自空军的制度性剧烈波动更严重，”伯格曼先生在 5 月 20 日给五角大楼的一封信中写道，该信件已被《时报》审阅。“我已经快没法向我的选民解释，为什么他们信任的、负责社区服务的部门继续如此对待他们，”他写道。
清理工作是一项艰巨的任务。由于 PFAS 具有高度可溶性
[[IMG_HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES]]
医院承担了更多未获补偿的护理和坏账，”伍兹堡先生说。
虽然增强补贴失效带来的影响在各医院之间有所不同，但行业调查表明，这些近期的报告并不罕见。
“当我们分析这些数据时，我们发现坏账和慈善护理在增加，”Kaufman Hall 的执行董事埃里克·斯旺森表示，该咨询公司每月发布一份关于医院财务的报告。5 月份，未获补偿护理占收入的比例比三年前高出 21 percent。
在平价医疗法案和医疗补助计划（Medicaid）等政府项目参保人数下降中最为脆弱的医院，是较小的农村医院和接诊大量无保险人群的安全网医院。
在水中且有些在环境中无法分解，它们可以迁移到远离排放地的地方并持续数十年，俄勒冈州立大学环境毒理学教授詹妮弗·菲尔德（Jennifer Field）说道。
“这些污染羽流可能非常、非常巨大，因此污染规模本身就是一个挑战，”菲尔德教授说。
五大湖 PFAS 行动网络（Great Lakes PFAS Action Network）共同主席托尼·斯帕尼奥拉（Tony Spaniola）表示，这些化学物质给许多军事社区的生活蒙上了一层阴影。该环保组织一直敦促国防部优先清理前沃茨史密斯（Wurtsmith）基地。
“不仅仅是饮用水，”他说，“还有鱼类，有鹿肉，以及小型猎物。”
在政府问责局（Government Accountability Office）去年的一份报告中，国防部官员将全国范围内必须评估 PFAS 污染的站点数量描述为“压倒性的”。他们表示，关于每个地点可能使用了 PFAS 的具体位置，他们掌握的信息很少，这意味着他们需要在整个设施范围内进行检测，在某些情况下覆盖面积达数十万英亩。
目前也没有广泛可用的技术能够快速清除土壤和水中所有的 PFAS 污染。
在沃茨史密斯基地，五角大楼在 2010 年发现了那里的污染，预计将在 2027 年中期完成该站点的补救调查。只有在那之后，潜在的清理工作才能开始。
平价医疗法案 (奥巴马医保) 的参保人数 下降了约 13%。
保险。由于这类医院的利润极低，“天平上的每一丁点重量都会带来额外的挑战，”在咨询公司 Plante Moran 为医院提供建议的 Duane Fitch 表示。
很少有行业专家预测医院关闭数量会出现激增，但许多人表示，医院已经开始关闭个别诊所，并削减诸如产科护理和行为健康服务等服务。一些医院将缩减大型项目并推迟设施的维护。
“我们看到一些医疗系统在悄悄地关闭服务，”负责穆迪评级（Moody’s Ratings）非营利医院覆盖范围的 Dan Steingart 说道。他说，这些设施并没有发布公告，而是通过削减服务来降低成本。
Banner Health 是一家总部位于亚利桑那州的非营利系统，运营着近 30 家医院。该机构表示，在其近期治疗的无保险患者中，有超过四分之一的人去年曾拥有保险。
Banner 首席执行官 Amy Perry 表示，随着 Medicaid（医疗补助计划）的变更预计于明年生效，医院将面临更多未支付的账单。像她这样的医院系统正在寻找可以省钱的地方，包括关闭设施，这可能意味着患者必须长途跋涉才能获得护理。
“我们在投资组合的每个市场都这么做，”Perry 女士说。
Perry 女士表示，目前的情况是“缓慢燃烧”，但她警告说，随着未来几年更多的人失去保险覆盖，以及医院采取更激进的措施来降低成本，影响将会更大。
“我们看到这种情况即将发生，”她说。“我们基本上是在说，‘请不要触碰炉灶’。”
中城的一小块区域因一座扭曲的建筑而关闭数周。上图中的 Izakaya Futago 餐厅丢弃了鱼类并让员工休假。
作者：SARAH MASLIN NIR
他们扔掉了 120 磅来自西班牙海域的新鲜蓝鳍金枪鱼。15 盘每口售价 $25 的日本海胆也被扔进了垃圾桶。从对马岛远道而来的 13 磅黑喉海鲈鱼？同样在垃圾箱里。
当纽约人在 7 月 7 日被 42 街一座扭曲的中城建筑吸引时，另一个高风险的故事在它的阴影下上演。近三周时间里，由于市府关闭了中城的一小块区域，43 街第二大道和第三大道之间的商家为了生存而苦苦挣扎。
在所谓的“冻结区”（Frozen Zone）内——该区域是在 235 东 42 街（前辉瑞制药公司总部所在地）变得危险且不稳定后设立的——分布着酒店、一所贸易学校和两家日本餐厅。随着时间一周周过去，市府缩小了冻结区，允许更多企业重新开业，行人与车辆恢复通行。
随着前辉瑞大楼（目前正被改造为公寓）终于稳定，市府于 7 月 24 日通知仍处于关闭状态的商家可以恢复营业。但账单已经堆积如山，员工被强制休假，企业（尤其是餐厅）正努力追赶进度。
“我们不得不把它扔掉，所有好东西都扔了，”位于东 43 街第二大道和第三大道之间的 Izakaya Futago 餐厅经理 Porche Prasertchoang 说道。他说，这次关闭估计造成了 $60,000 的损失，且仍在增加。他被迫让所有 23 名员工休假，并鼓励他们申请失业救济金。他每天通过 44 街的配送入口悄悄进入餐厅接电话，取消预订和食品订单。
“我不知道我们需要多久才能恢复，”Prasertchoang 先生在周一表示。在供应黑喉海鲈鱼的 Sushi Yasuda 餐厅，所有者 Scott Rosenberg 估计，该业务损失了超过
作者：本杰明·魏泽 (BENJAMIN WEISER) 和 乔纳·E·布罗姆维奇 (JONAH E. BROMWICH)
詹姆斯·M·麦克唐纳 (James M. McDonald) 将成为纽约南区的首席检察官。
曼哈顿的联邦地区法官在周三任命了詹姆斯·M·麦克唐纳领导纽约南区的美国检察官办公室。他曾是苏利文与克 ROMWELL 律师事务所 (Sullivan & Cromwell) 的合伙人，并在特朗普总统对其刑事定罪的上诉中担任其代表律师。
麦克唐纳先生曾是曼哈顿的联邦检察官，此前已被特朗普先生选定接替前曼哈顿美国检察官杰伊·克莱顿 (Jay Clayton)，后者在周二被确认任命为国家情报总监。
周三，曼哈顿的地区法官批准了总统的选择，使麦克唐纳先生成为总统第二任期内曼哈顿第二位由司法任命的美国检察官。（当克莱顿先生由特朗普先生临时任命的期限于去年 8 月届满时，法院将其安置在该职位上。）
法院在一份两段的声明中表示，随着周三辞去美国检察官职务的克莱顿先生离职，麦克唐纳先生的任命正式生效。
法院通过迅速任命麦克唐纳先生，明确表示不希望首席检察官的职位长期空缺，并在声明中称其此举是为了“确保”美国检察官办公室的“连续性”。
此次任命也正值美国检察官办公室的一个敏感时期，该办公室正在处理一些备受关注的案件，例如对委内瑞拉前总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗 (Nicolás Maduro) 的起诉，后者在 1 月被美国军队抓获。
相比于特朗普政府期间大多数由法院任命的美国检察官，麦克唐纳先生的任命过程似乎更为顺畅。司法部曾表示，不能容忍法官在未与行政部门协调的情况下选任美国检察官。
其他几位由法官任命的美国检察官已被特朗普政府立即解雇。
就在本月，政府采取行动解雇了罗杰·罗戈夫 (Roger Rogoff)，他是一名由华盛顿州西部法官选定领导当地办公室的美国检察官。罗戈夫先生起诉了该部门，认为
[[IMG_XXXX]] 周二，寿司安田 (Sushi Yasuda) 的主厨小林清次郎 (Seijiro Kobayashi)（上图）回到岗位，准备餐厅的招牌菜。随着该社区中出现问题的建筑——东 42 街 235 号 (235 East 42nd Street) 趋于稳定，该区域逐渐重新开放。
$300,000 的收入损失和变质食品。他表示，其保险公司拒绝了他的损害赔偿申请。在某些方面，同样令他愤慨的是，他以及同行企业的困境几乎没有引起关注。
“一座扭曲的建筑，这令人震惊且恐怖，”罗森伯格 (Mr. Rosenberg) 先生在一次采访中说。“虽然几个相邻企业被抛弃、只能自生自灭并不是最引人注目或最令人兴奋的故事，但这关乎人们的生计。”
尽管他能够与市政府协商，允许持有预约的顾客
（继续接上文）其任命在法律上是正当的。
虽然他能够与市政府协商，允许持有预约的顾客通过第三大道的封锁线进入，但他表示，“冰冻区”严重打击了寿司安田的财务状况。罗森伯格先生表示，他目前正在考虑起诉该建筑的开发商 MetroLoft。
MetroLoft 的一名发言人拒绝发表评论。
“哪个小企业有能力去挑战房地产大亨？”他说。“但我们正在研究这件事，因为其影响是毁灭性的。”
在街道另一端，日式烧肉餐厅 Yakiniku Toraji 刚刚重新开业。
“依然很困难，”新藤绫乃 (Ayano Shindo) 在照看炭火时说道。
在解雇任何未经其政府批准的检察官时，特朗普先生试图规避要求美国常任检察官必须经国会确认的法律。
在纽约南区，预计不会出现此类冲突，麦克唐纳先生将在那里接管司法部最受关注且最显赫的职位之一。他是代理司法部长托德·布兰奇的私人好友，后者在代表特朗普总统面对一系列刑事调查之前，也曾在纽约南区担任检察官。
麦克唐纳先生深受前同事的钦佩，通常被描述为一个讨人喜欢的法律专家。他曾担任首席大法官约翰·G·罗伯茨二世的法官助理，随后成为联邦检察官；他参与了多起高调案件，包括对谢尔登·西尔弗的腐败起诉，后者曾是权力巨大的纽约州议会民主党议长。
在那次审判期间，麦克唐纳先生担任法律专家——或者用更口语的话说，作为一名“法律助手”——协助其团队处理腐败案件中至关重要的复杂问题。
麦克唐纳先生随后领导了商品期货交易委员会的执法部门。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 摄影：Angelina Katsanis 为《纽约时报》拍摄
桌边烤肉店。兼职员工新藤女士估计她每周损失 $600。作为一名日语母语者，她说她在申请失业救济金时非常吃力，且未能成功。在这个被低估的中东区街区，新藤女士是数十名在 7, 月 7. 日生活被颠覆的工人之一。从服务寿司的服务员，到酒店的礼宾员，再到隔壁职业学校的学生，人们都感受到了其影响。前辉瑞大厦出现的问题正在调查中，曼哈顿地区检察官已开始对事故原因进行初步刑事调查。一些工人表示，这种情况考验了他们的韧性。在街道重新开放几天后，保安特特·克波蒂站在一个停车库外，他说他在 7, 月 7. 日被从岗位上撤离，但他没有停下脚步。
他很快在另一个地点找到了另一份保安工作，直到他能够返回原岗。“这就是纽约市，”克波蒂先生说，“你必须准备好计划 A 和计划 B。”在撤离当天，亚伦·考克斯正在东 43 街 210 号的 Apex 技术学校上电工工程课，在课间休息透气时，人们开始大喊大叫说大楼在下沉。他说，消防员迅速赶到，将他隔壁教室的同学撤离。他说，几天后，他在 43 街重新开放之前，通过 42 街的一个后门返回学校上课。但课程内容略有调整：考克斯先生说，讲师向所有人详细讲解了诸如联邦职业安全与健康管理局的标准，以及如何处理任何建筑工地问题。“正因为这次事件，我们研究了谁将承担责任，以及我们如何报告，”考克斯先生说，“他们警告了我们疏忽大意的危险。”
委员会 在 第一任 特朗普政府期间。这段经历很可能与麦克唐纳先生的新角色相关；在南部地区，目前有多项内幕交易调查正在进行，部分原因在于预测市场的增长，而这些市场由该委员会监管。在 2021 年，麦克唐纳先生加入了苏利文与克罗马威尔律师事务所 (Sullivan & Cromwell)。在该律所（去年接手了特朗普先生对其 2024 年刑事定罪的上诉案），麦克唐纳先生代表了 Live Nation 和 Polymarket，这两家公司在受到联邦审查后，都得到了司法部的优惠对待。
本月，在克莱顿先生被提名担任新职后，麦克唐纳先生回到了美国检察官办公室。麦克唐纳先生被任命为美国助理检察官，这是该办公室 2 号职位的传统头衔。
在任职期间，麦克唐纳先生参与了一项泄密调查，该调查集中在《纽约时报》关于卡塔尔赠给特朗普先生的一架空军一号专机安全漏洞的相关报道。此次调查导致多份传票被发送给《时报》记者，但在一名法官对检察官是否遵守法律表示质疑后，司法部撤回了这些传票。
第二套房产税， 令部分居民困惑
本文作者为 Dionne Searcey, Mihir Zaveri 和 Bianca Pallaro。
纽约市极具争议的新“度假屋”（pied-à-terre）税的推出，始于市长 Zohran Mamdani 在社交媒体上发布的一条通知：“你收到邮件了。”市长在周四的一篇帖子中解释道，信件正寄往那些在纽约拥有价值超过 $5 million 第二套住宅的人手中。寄给业主们的信函中写道：“我们的记录显示，上述房产可能需要缴纳新的附加税。”随后，第二天，根据新法，市财政部公布了近一百万处房产的相关姓名和地址——其中大部分是一到三家庭住宅和公寓（condos），以及合作公寓大楼（co-op buildings）以及这些大楼中的部分个人合作公寓单位。该部门指出，“此名单包括但不限于可能需要缴纳附加税的房产。”
这项第二套住宅税是州和地方领导人近期采取的行动之一，旨在通过对富有的兼职居民征税，来消除这座等级森严之城中的一些不平等现象。州长 Kathy Hochul 今年宣布了这项新税，并得到了以“可负担性”为竞选平台的 Mamdani 先生的热烈支持。市府官员强调，应税房产名单每年公布两次，且根据州法律要求，此举是为了“公开查阅”。市财政部发言人 Jae Ko 表示，任何想查看的人此前都可以获得该信息，且该信息是“根据州法律设定的参数”汇总而成的。
“这里没有什么异常的，”Hochul 女士在周二的一场活动上说道。“每栋建筑的财产税债务都是公开的。一直如此。”
尽管上周公布的名单在州和地方官员几乎没有宣传的情况下上线，但其发布时机恰逢市内一些富人表示他们感到正受到攻击之际。《纽约邮报》（The New York Post）封面的一篇标题写道：“度假屋恐怖”（Pied-a-terror）。（注：第二套住宅税也被称为 pied-à-terre 税。）
批评之声在社交媒体上蔓延。在某些圈子里，WhatsApp 群组因为这些名单的消息而活跃起来，人们担心仅仅因为出现在名单上就会被视为富人。人们搜索自己、朋友和同事的名字，仿佛这是一次 WikiLeaks 的泄密事件。邻居之间发出警告，提醒注意关于潜在新税缴纳的信件。在布鲁克林 Facebook 群组“Park Slope Together”中，一条关于申请免费金鱼和寻找串珠材料的社区通知之间，夹杂着这样一条帖子：“您可能需要申请免税。”
名单的公布以及寄给居民的通知，是该市强制执行此项税收的首批步骤，而该税收是基于一套陈旧的财产税评估系统。市府首先使用一种名为“市场价值”的评估衡量标准来确定哪些房屋可能符合条件。市场价值超过 $1 million 的公寓和合作公寓第二套住宅符合征税条件，而价值超过 $5 million 的小型住宅同样如此。批评者指出，市府定义的市场价值往往与公寓和合作公寓的实际价值不相符。市府目前正在开发一套新的估值系统，该系统将于 2028. 生效。
本周，针对名单及其潜在含义的焦虑情绪广泛蔓延。一些人惊讶地发现自己的名字与一些名流并列，例如商务部长 Howard Lutnick，电影制作人 Woody Allen 和 Spike Lee，前市长 Bill de Blasio 以及时尚偶像 Anna Wintour。市议员 Gale
布鲁尔（Brewer）发现自己的名字与她拥有的那栋棕色砂岩住宅联系在一起。“自 1994 年以来，我一年 365 天都住在那里，”布鲁尔女士说道，并表示她没有其他房产。“我搞不清楚为什么我被列入其中。”她此前支持这种“临时寓所税”（pied-à-terre tax），但她说在听到那些担心自己的名字也会出现在名单上的愤怒选民的反应后，她正在重新考虑自己的支持立场。她说，市政府需要更好地处理这项政策的推出。“人们对所有事情都已经处于紧绷状态——财产保险、安全、生活，就是所有事情，”布鲁尔女士说。“这很不幸。”
这些名单涵盖了全市大多数非租赁住宅物业，而不仅仅是那些可能欠税的物业。根据《纽约时报》的一项分析，绝大多数物业的价值低于征税所需的阈值。只有约 24,000 处物业超过了该阈值。但即便如此，只有在该物业不是所有者的主要住所时，才会征收该附加税。
一些居民表示，市政府错误地向他们发送了信函，称他们需要为将其作为主要住所的物业缴纳二套房税。
财政部的一位发言人表示，关于潜在新税的信函并未发送给名单上的每个人。而且，市府已经制定了多种申诉辅助方法，包括增加 311 接线员和建立在线申诉提交流程。
市府官员表示，已经发送了 17,000 封关于税单的通知信。在周三的一次新闻发布会上，马姆达尼（Mamdani）先生指出，市府最初将目标锁定在信托或有限责任公司持有的物业上，以此作为筛选其是否为所有者主要住所的一种方式。
“州长提出临时寓所税是为了帮助市府弥补预算缺口，”霍楚尔（Hochul）女士在的一份声明中，由发言人 Jen Goodman 表示。 “授权立法——市府在起草过程中发挥了重要作用——仅要求他们将这项新税纳入现有的公共税册中。任何关于该计划实施或宣传方式的问题，只能由市政厅回答。”
一些居民对他们认为过短的申诉时间表感到困扰：住宅物业为 8 月 21 日，合作公寓（co-ops）为 8 月 24 日。凯伦·杨（Karen Young）在本周打开一封信时感到惊讶，她发现一份通知称，她位于上西区的住宅可能需要缴纳一笔约 $43,000 的“附加税”（信中对该新税的称呼）。这座五层高的房屋距离中央公园仅几步之遥，是她自 1997 年以来唯一的住所。她说她在巴黎还拥有一间办公室。（市府官员表示，他们无法对个案发表评论。）
“自 1972 年起，我一直是以纽约市为主要居住地的居民，”杨女士说，她花费多年时间将她的上西区住宅恢复到 19 世纪末的宏伟景象。“所有事情——选民登记、驾驶执照、陪审团义务——全部在这里。他们是怎么想的？”财产记录显示，她在 2024 年将所有权转移给了一个信托基金，但她说她和丈夫是唯一的受益人。“我觉得受到了侮辱，很愤怒，坦白说非常伤心，”杨女士说。“这听起来可能很傻，但我热爱这座城市。”
杨女士还将她的挫败感分享给了布鲁尔女士和《纽约邮报》，她于周一晚上开始申诉，但随即在操作步骤上遇到了困难。她被要求提交房产契据和其他证明，由于她是在 1981 年购买的这栋房子，她需要请求律师去检索这些文件。但她说律师正在度假。杨女士能够安排……
[[IMG_XXXX]] KARSTEN MORAN 为《纽约时报》供图
财政部已公布了与近一百万处物业相关的姓名和地址。
她的助手通过按小时计费的方式帮助整理文件。但当她转发了一些上传文件的链接时，发现这些链接无法使用。她开始在网站上填写字段，直到上床睡觉。当她第二天早晨醒来并再次登录时，发现她的所有工作都没有被保存。“我觉得自己陷入了深深的无助之中，”她说。
作者：MATT FLEGENHEIMER
海莉·史蒂文斯（Haley Stevens）已经听够了那些听腻了海莉·史蒂文斯的人在说什么。
“互联网上有些所谓的‘酷孩子’，”担任四届密歇根州国会议员的史蒂文斯女士上周在一场民主党参议院初选集会上说道。她穿着一件卷起袖子的牛仔外套，身体轻微晃动，双手揉在一起，“他们正在进行‘酷孩子式’的闲聊。”
这种闲聊——她坚持认为这是“沿海精英”的把戏——聚焦于她的说话方式。
一些在当地和全国范围内质疑史蒂文斯女士的人，认为她那夸张的中西部腔调像是一场劣质的《周六夜现场》（Saturday Night Live）模仿秀：拉长的 a 音、消失的 g 音，以及音量和节奏地忽高忽低，仿佛有人在乱按远程遥控器，似乎是特意为了营造一种讨喜的古灵精怪感。
中西部口音在网上 遭到抨击。
而史蒂文斯女士及其支持者听到了不同的含义。
“他们在嘲笑密歇根州，”她说，“他们认为自己比我们高贵。但他们不知道的是：我就是你们的声音。”
下周，初选投票者将对此发表看法。在此期间，史蒂文斯女士的声音问题成为了关注焦点，被诋毁、被赞颂，被语言学家剖析，并与过去的视频剪辑进行取证对比——在那些剪辑中，她听起来可能有点不同，也可能并没有太大区别。在这些议论中，她的演说方式已成为一个替代符号，在关于“真实性”意味着什么以及谁有权定义真实性的无休止争论中，承载了更多的含义。
在多年来，针对女性竞选者的焦点小组讨论中，人们经常使用“尖刻”、“霸道”、“冷漠”等轻蔑的形容词（这通常被视为一种不加掩饰的厌女症之掩护），难道现在又一名优秀的女性候选人真的要被迫为她的发音意图进行辩护吗？
在这个季节，民主党人一度接纳了一位未经审查的缅因州牡蛎渔民作为他们的参议院人选，很大程度上是因为仰慕者和操盘手们喜爱他声音中那像海盐浸染过一样沙哑的质感。那么，是什么让某些地区性的口音产生与其他的截然不同的回响？
而在这次特定的竞争中，
作者：EMILY DAVIES
南卡罗来纳州哥伦比亚 —— 周三，竞逐林赛·格雷厄姆参议员席位的领先候选人们聚集在南卡罗来纳州为他举行的葬礼上，形成了一幅偶尔显得尴尬的画面：他们在恭敬地缅怀他生平的同时，也在悄悄地为他的席位地盘争夺。这是一项微妙的任务。其中一位候选人是格雷厄姆先生的妹妹，达琳·格雷厄姆参议员，她被选中接替其剩余任期，并得到了特朗普总统的背书，支持她竞选下一届。她陪同格雷厄姆先生的灵柩进入州首府哥伦比亚市的第一浸信会教堂前C，并在前排聆听悼词，不时地擦拭眼泪。在场的其他几位候选人均为南卡罗来纳州政坛的常客，他们也声称与格雷厄姆先生有联系：众议员罗素·弗莱（Russell Fry）曾是他的实习生。前州长马克·桑福德（Mark Sanford）曾指定格雷厄姆先生为其一名孩子的教父。
南卡罗来纳州共和党政治的现实，使他们与这位已故参议员的关系变得复杂。格雷厄姆先生是特朗普总统和华盛顿建制派的宠儿。然而，他与南卡罗来纳州共和党选民的关系并非始终顺畅，尤其是与那些预计将在 8月 11日 特别初选中投票的强硬派 MAGA 选民之间。截至周二的登记截止日期，共有九名候选人获得资格出现在选票上。在短短几周内迅速定义自身的冲刺过程中，他们都重点强调自己与格雷厄姆先生记录中的某些方面有所不同，包括他对华盛顿的适应程度以及他对国外事务的关注。62 岁的格雷厄姆女士在宣布参选后仅接受了一次采访，要求在兄长安息期间给予时间。但即使在那次露面中，她也试图将自己与格雷厄姆先生区分开来。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 众议员海莉·史蒂文斯（Haley Stevens）在下周初选前竞选美国参议员时，充分利用了她的地区性口音。
为什么在 2026 年，一名淳朴的白人女性被塑造得比她的初选对手——比如进步派穆斯林医生阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德（Abdul El-Sayed）——更具有密歇根州的典型特质？
“无论是有意还是潜意识地，这似乎是一种‘我是你们中的一员，而他不是’的策略，”招募年轻进步派候选人的组织 Run for Something 的主席阿曼达·利特曼（Amanda Litman）在评价史蒂文斯女士时说道。“但同时，批评一名女性的说话方式也是性别歧视。这些都属实！”
在现代美国政治中，支持者认为其具有亲和力的政治人物名单长且多样：一个对金边装饰情有独衷的有钱总统，以及一个来自佛蒙特州的白发社会主义者；一名来自阿拉斯加的冰球妈妈，以及一名来自布朗克斯的前酒吧服务员。
一个选民眼中的真实，在另一个选民眼中永远是“用力过猛”。
但在竞选的最后阶段，关于听到候选人说话感觉如何的潜台词，极少像现在这样被如此明确地提升为核心议题。
本月，这种关注度升级。一段史蒂文斯女士在密歇根州埃科尔斯（Ecorse）拍摄的 19 秒剪辑片段在政治互联网上引起了轰动。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 从左起，南卡罗来纳州州长亨利·麦克马斯特（Henry McMaster）；众议员詹姆斯·克莱本（James Clyburn）；参议员蒂姆·斯科特（Tim Scott）的妻子明迪·诺斯（Mindy Noce）；斯科特先生；以及财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）出席了葬礼。
……告诉福克斯新闻主持人肖恩·汉尼提（Sean Hannity），在看格雷厄姆先生在电视上讨论外交政策后，她经常敦促他关注那些更直接影响选民生活的议题。
“也谈谈对普通人重要的事情：汽油价格、医疗保健、保险，这类事情，”她描述自己一次又一次地对哥哥说的话。“那才是我想担心的。”
桑福德先生，66，他在州长府邸的任期因一场婚外情丑闻而告终。周三，他宣布将开启一次公路旅行，讨论他将如何降低汽油和住房价格——这与格雷厄姆先生形成了对比，后者支持的一场针对伊朗的战争让美国人的生活成本变得更高。
弗莱先生将自己标榜为一名“保守的 MAGA 候选人”，41 岁的他代表了新一代的领导层。而且
“我会带着一点快乐，一点热情，一点活力，一点‘给他们点颜色看看’的精神来做这件事！”她告诉选民，在说到关键点时拍了拍自己的手掌。“因为这就是密歇根的方式！”
意识形态对手的反应不一，从尖刻的嘲讽到明显的快意。
“这怎么可能不是《公园与休闲》(Parks & Rec) 里的角色？”保守派评论员梅根·麦凯恩（Meghan McCain）在 X 上发帖，引用了这部关于印第安那州地方政府古怪之人的电视喜剧。
“糟糕的克里斯·法利（Chris Farley）模仿秀？”白宫助手凯兰·多尔（Kaelan Dorr）写道。“女士，我的文化不是你的戏服。”
随后 TMZ 在国会山采访到了史蒂文斯女士，她对自己评价为“地道的密歇根人”。
“你知道我听起来像谁吗？”她说。“我就像我在密歇根州交谈的那些人，他们现在正被唐纳德·特朗普坑得惨惨的。”
她发布了一则广告来强化这一主题，宣称她“很自豪地为密歇根州而战——且听起来像密歇根人！”，并印制了写有“给他们点颜色看看”的庭院告示牌。
到那时，初选已经变得……
代表拉尔夫·诺曼，73，利用他作为众议院自由党团（House Freedom Caucus）成员的身份，通过告诉选民他们“不应该去猜测”他们的参议员在华盛顿将如何投票，从而微妙地质疑格雷厄姆女士的经验。
教堂的长凳上坐着南卡罗来纳州的各界名流……
关注州内议题， 而非外交事务。
如此恶毒，以至于埃尔-赛义德博士（Dr. El-Sayed）感到不得不直接应对社交媒体上的恶意。他在6月份曾尖锐地评价史蒂文斯女士（Ms. Stevens），称政治资金“甚至买不来一个人格”。他在一份声明中表示：“人们在网上嘲笑我的对手，而那些事情与她的政策或政治毫无关系，这种现象已经到了无法忽视的地步。”他称这种行为是不友善且毫无帮助的。“如果你支持我，请停止这种行为。”
但这并没有阻止史蒂文斯女士的反对者们指出（且指出得十分准确）：她的竞选活动得到了来自密歇根州以外团体的巨额资金支持，尤其是美国以色列公共事务委员会（American Israel Public Affairs Committee）。此外，当她谈到来自海岸线的“酷小孩”时，画面中出现的是一位州外支持者——南卡罗来纳州众议员詹姆斯·克莱本（James Clyburn）。
还有一些人散布恶意的谣言，称这种口音可能是从某个阴险的地方（比如威斯康星州）“进口”的。记录显示，史蒂文斯女士在密歇根州底特律北部的奥克兰县出生并长大。她曾担任奥巴马政府汽车工作组的幕僚长，并深情地回忆起她高中时开的一辆奥兹摩比尔 Cutlass Supreme。
从学术角度来看，史蒂文斯女士似乎有口音科学的支持。
“我会给予我的社会语言学印章认证，”密歇根州立大学语言学副教授贝齐·斯内勒（Betsy Sneller）说道。她的研究追踪了该州语言的演变。“她绝对拥有经典的密歇根口音。”
听觉上的特征包括所谓的“北城市元音转移”（Northern Cities Vowel Shift），以及在美国其他地区也出现的“加拿大抬升”（Canadian raising）现象。斯内勒博士在史蒂文斯女士发出的“tireless”（不懈的）和“fighter”（战士）等词中识别出了这些特征。
斯内勒博士指出，史蒂文斯女士的语调对于迁入密歇根州的人来说可能很陌生，因为“她听起来像是一个来自郊区的婴儿潮一代”。
史蒂文斯女士今年 43 岁，但在处理元音时似乎带着一种年长灵魂的感悟。
如果说口音事件放大了一些民主党人、女性候选人和网民面临的棘手政治问题，那么可以说，有一个群体正乐在其中。
“这就是，”斯内勒博士说，“方言学家的快乐源泉。”
GERALD HERBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESS
（在）国会中，与汉尼提先生（Mr. Hannity）亲切交谈。与会者们互相拥抱并拍摄自拍。
州长亨利·麦克马斯特（Henry McMaster）、参议员蒂姆·斯科特（Tim Scott，同样是南卡罗来纳州的共和党人）以及福克斯新闻主持人、前国会议员特雷·高迪（Trey Gowdy）在仪式上发表了讲话，讲述了格雷厄姆先生（Mr. Graham）的履职经历及其幽默感。他们都对他的妹妹表达了爱与支持，尽管她现在正处于一场艰难的初选竞争中，以争取在明年永久接替他的职位，但她一直在履行他剩余的任期。
然而，演讲者们并未公开支持她的候选资格，因为听众中还包括桑福德先生（Mr. Sanford）、弗莱先生（Mr. Fry）和诺曼先生（Mr. Norman）——这或许反映出初选竞争依然激烈。
包括格雷厄姆女士（Ms. Graham）、桑福德先生、弗莱先生和诺曼先生在内的五名领先竞争者已同意参加定于周一举行的辩论。
截至周三，一个政治行动委员会（PAC）支持——
BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES
据 AdImpact 的数据显示，弗赖先生计划在电视广告上花费 50 万美元，而桑福德先生的竞选活动则计划花费近 $350,000。据一位熟悉该安排的人士透露，格雷厄姆女士的竞选团队与全国共和党参议院委员会协调，购买了超过 $90,000 的电视广告时间，该委员会接收了格雷厄姆先生的部分竞选资金。Security is Strength PAC 这一代表格雷厄姆先生工作的独立委员会，目前正在帮助他的妹妹。格雷厄姆先生在 6 月赢得了初选，而他在一个月后去世。但这次竞选开销巨大，一度看来将进入决选。高迪先生周三表示，格雷厄姆先生知道该州正在逐渐背离他。高迪先生在悼词中提到，格雷厄姆先生最近告诉过他的首席顾问理查德·佩里，他意识到越来越多的南卡罗来纳州选民永远不会支持他。高迪先生回忆起格雷厄姆先生曾说：“无论如何，这个州 49% 的人都不会投票给我。” 一些强硬的保守派从未原谅格雷厄姆先生在 2016 年对他对特朗普先生的尖锐批评，当时两人在竞争共和党总统提名。其他人则认为格雷厄姆先生的鹰派政策——特别是他对伊朗战争的支持——与将特朗普先生推向白宫的“美国优先”精神相悖。周三在教堂内部，这些权力角逐被留在了一旁。麦克马斯特州长说：“我们聚集在这里，为失去南卡罗来纳州最伟大的儿子之一而感到悲痛，但同时也要庆祝这位来自南卡罗来纳州小镇的‘穷孩子’，正如他自称的那样。” 麦克马斯特州长继续说道：“他的影响是巨大的，而且我确信，你们也一样，再也不会有第二个林赛·格雷厄姆了。”
以及失手 支持民主党 参加爱荷华州竞选
作者：TIM BALK
巴拉克·奥巴马是过去四分之一个世纪以来，唯一在总统选举中赢得爱荷华州民主党人，且众所周知他热爱篮球。乔什·图雷克（Josh Turek）——该州这场高风险参议员竞选的民主党提名人——同样热爱篮球，他曾两次获得美国男子轮椅篮球队的残奥会金牌。因此，在奥巴马对中期选举的首批背书之一中，他出现在一段背书视频里，与图雷克先生一起投篮。图雷克是一位中间派州立法者，正寻求成为十多年来首位在爱荷华州赢得参议院席位的民主党人。上周，奥巴马先生与图雷克先生在芝加哥的一家体育馆见面，他们在那里拍摄了一段两分半钟的视频，玩了一场名为“IOWA”的游戏，这是投篮游戏“HORSE”的一种变体。民主党人试图夺回由参议员乔尼·恩斯特（Joni Ernst）持有的席位，这位共和党人已决定不寻求连任。
图雷克先生面对的对手是众议员艾什莉·欣森（Ashley Hinson），一名在特朗普总统背书下参选的温和派共和党人。“来吧，我们是玩 HORSE 还是怎么着？”在周三发布的视频开篇，曾要求修改白宫网球场以便也能用于打篮球的奥巴马先生在场边说道。图雷克先生笑着回答道：“我们玩 IOWA。”“关于如何赢得爱荷华州，我略知一二，”奥巴马先生说道，他在 2008 年的民主党总统初选中击败了希拉里·克林顿，并在当年的大选中赢得了该州。他在 2012 年的总统选举中也赢得了爱荷华州。但该州在 2016. 年发生了剧烈转向。特朗普先生以近 10 个百分点的优势赢得了该州。爱荷华州有 31 个县改变了立场，是所有州中人数最多的。此后，共和党一直掌控着爱荷华州，特朗普先生在 2020 年和 2024. 年都轻松获胜。但爱荷华州以农业为主的经济在特朗普先生第二任期的关税政策下举步维艰。民主党将该州视为他们夺回参议院顶尖的机遇之一。民调显示，图雷克先生与欣森女士之间的竞争基本处于平手状态。图雷克先生主张该州已经准备好选出一位“常识型”的民主党人，并指出了他在爱荷华州立法机关的跨党派记录。在视频中，奥巴马先生询问图雷克先生的竞选进展如何。“无论我们去哪里——城市地区、农村地区——人们都准备好迎接改变了，”图雷克先生说。奥巴马先生表示，“在我从事政治的所有事情中，爱荷华州是我最喜欢的地方”，并描述了在州党团会议中“普通民众出现在体育馆里的神奇感”。图雷克先生告诉奥巴马先生，州内的人们说他们“很久以来第一次”感受到了“希望”。
奥巴马回答道：“我的感觉也是如此。”欣森女士的竞选团队对这次背书不屑一顾。“另一个自由派支持乔什·图雷克——太令人震惊了，”竞选发言人比利·费斯特（Billy Fuerst）在一份仅有六个词的声明中说道。在距离中期选举还有三个月的情况下，奥巴马先生背书的候选人很少。但在五月，他与传统红州德克萨斯州的民主党参议员提名人詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）一起参加竞选活动吃塔可，该过程被拍摄并制作成了一段精美的视频。奥巴马先生与图雷克先生的视频展示了这两位左撇子民主党人接连投进的一系列球，以及这位前总统一次糟糕的侧翼中距离打板投篮失手。（“银行关门了，”奥巴马先生开玩笑说。）视频还包含了关于史上最伟大篮球运动员的讨论。（两人都将芝加哥公牛队后卫迈克尔·乔丹列在名单之首。）视频对于谁赢得了这场 IOWA 游戏留有一定的模糊空间。
爱荷华州，尽管奥巴马先生说他被“击败了”，并将图雷克先生描述为“一个懂得如何获胜的人”。奥巴马先生的发言人汉娜·汉金斯拒绝透露谁赢了，仅表示他们玩得很开心，并进行了一次良好的对话。这并非这位前总统第一次与图雷克先生见面。2016 年，奥巴马先生曾在白宫接待他，以庆祝美国残奥会男子篮球队在里约热内卢赢得奥运金牌。
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Tal Feldman 耶鲁大学法学院学生，前美国政府 A.I. 工程师。
美国正在销售世界上最好的人工智能模型。而中国则在免费提供排名第二最好的模型。全球对这些模型的需求极高。去年，中国开源模型的下载量首次超过了美国模型。它们在非洲和拉丁美洲被迅速采用。在欧洲，德国西门子在运行美国模型的同时也使用中国模型；新加坡的国家 A.I. 计划最近选择基于阿里巴巴的通义千问 (Qwen) 构建模型。甚至美国公司也越来越多地依赖来自中国的 A.I.。许多美国公司用于编写代码的 Cursor，发布了一款部分基于中国 A.I. 构建的工具。
这些模型并不像许多人认为的那样纯真。据美国官员称，中国公司在构建这些模型时，部分采用了复制美国 A.I. 的方式。而且，它们是在中国法律下构建的，而中国的法律规定了 A.I. 可以说什么，禁止其违背北京的党路线，并强迫创作者协助情报机构。法律规定，这些模型被禁止“损害国家形象”或做出任何可能导致“分裂主义”或破坏中国“社会稳定”的行为。
A.I. 模型与我们从中国购买的通常廉价的进口商品非常不同。这些产品必须促进中国政府的利益。宣传和虚假主张被植入其中。因此，问题不在于这些模型是中国制造，而在于它们是为中国而造。无论谁向世界供应 A.I.，都将塑造世界的思考方式。随着这些模型变得越来越聪明、越来越自主，我们将越来越多的思考外包给它们。这种“认知卸载”绝不能交给那些旨在宣传外国政府的模型，无论它们多么便宜。
华盛顿应当要求对基于外国政府主导的 A.I. 构建的产品进行标注。更重要的是，美国政府应启动一项新计划，与中国提供低成本、高质量 A.I. 的方案相匹配，并将这一技术的变革性益处带给发展中国家。
供应 A.I.， 都将塑造世界的 思考方式。
请思考美国商务部去年 9 月测试中国模型 DeepSeek 时发现了什么。研究人员列出了一系列关于中国政治和历史的敏感问题。有些是直接的，涉及新疆和天安门广场。有些则是间接问题，例如询问是否有人在缺席的情况下获得了诺贝尔和平奖，这本应诱导模型说出中国异议人士刘晓波的名字。即使是在美国服务器上，该中国模型重复北京虚假叙述的频率也远高于美国模型。它称，关于新疆强迫劳动的报告是“针对中国政府和中国人民的毫无根据的诽谤”。爱沙尼亚和台湾政府也发现了类似的模式。
你可以访问 DeepSeek 的网站亲自查看。你会读到“台湾是中国不可分割的一部分”，以及“中国共产党的以人为中心的发展理念确保了改革开放的成果……”
Sharon Waxman The Wrap 创始人、首席执行官兼总编辑。
在经历了数月的恐惧之后，好莱坞又被一个消息搞得措手不及：12 位州司法部长可能找到了阻碍这场几乎没有娱乐业人士想要的合并的办法。
数月来，派拉蒙-天空之舞（Paramount Skydance）收购华纳兄弟探索（Warner Bros. Discovery）几乎已成定局。司法部的友好支持意味着此次合并原定于今年秋季完成。
现在，这项计划被暂停了近一年。据我获悉，原因恰恰是最初让派拉蒙在特朗普政府面前获得优势的条件——即合并后对 CNN 和 CBS 新闻的共同控制权。
派拉蒙在此采取了关键的策略。派拉蒙没有等待法官对暂缓交易的禁令做出裁决（这看起来很有可能发生），而是通过谈判达成了一项协议，将交易推迟到明年 6 月，除非法官有其他裁决。派拉蒙的策略旨在尽快进入审理阶段，以克服各州的起诉。
这些曲折情节中，绝大多数都并非表面那样简单。从大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）在亿万富翁父亲拉里（Larry）的支持下，于今年成功发起最初的敌意收购以接管华纳那一刻起，反弹中潜藏的主题就是政治，而非反垄断担忧。
好莱坞以及伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）和杰米·拉斯金（Jamie Raskin）等民主党领导者的担忧是，这次合并将赋予一家与特朗普政府关系密切的公司巨大的权力，这不仅包括派拉蒙和华纳兄弟电影制片厂，不仅包括高端有线频道 HBO 和流媒体 Paramount+，还包括 CBS 新闻和 CNN 结合后的新闻影响力。
双方在私下里都会告诉你，对 CNN 未来的担忧，以及 CBS 新闻负责人巴里·魏斯（Bari Weiss）将管理这两个媒体机构的前景，才是驱动反对该交易力量的因素。两名被解雇的“60 Minutes”记者斯科特·佩利（Scott Pelley）和塞西莉亚·维加（Cecilia Vega）公开讲述了他们如何感到被压力迫使，使其报道符合他们所认为的魏斯女士亲特朗普的偏见。安德森·库珀（Anderson Cooper）记者在私下表达了类似的担忧后，自愿离开了“60 Minutes”。（周二，“60 Minutes”宣布了一批新雇员，其中包括《时报》评论专栏作家罗斯·多萨特 [Ross Douthat]。）派拉蒙似乎很清楚这一叙事，一名接近其一方的律师在谈到各州司法部长时告诉我：“他们就是不想让埃里森控制 CNN，就这么简单。但他们不能这么说，因为那样会违反第一修正案。”（这 12 位司法部长全部是民主党人。）
派拉蒙的首席法律顾问马坎·德尔拉希姆（Makan Delrahim）曾在第一任特朗普政府期间领导司法部的反垄断部门。无论在公开场合还是私下，他都充满自信地断言，基于法律，此次合并没有问题。此次合并的反对活动由诺姆·艾森（Norm Eisen）牵头，他曾是巴拉克·奥巴马总统任内的前大使，并在 2019 年特朗普总统弹劾案期间担任领先的法律战略师。他是“民主捍卫者基金”（Democracy Defenders Fund）的创始人，该组织正协助领导反对此次合并的斗争。他上周在对初步临时限制令表示欢迎的声明中暗示，对自由表达的关注与对行业广泛失业的恐惧一样，都在推动这种反对情绪。他说：“这一决定证明，当事实摆在面前时，真相是不言而喻的：这次合并将损害我们的电影和娱乐业、我们的独立新闻界以及我们的言论自由，因此必须予以阻止。”
派拉蒙已请求在 11 月进行审理，这为协商解决各州的诉讼留出了充足的时间。
“……所有人共同享有，从而导向一个和谐繁荣的社会。” 这些说法如此荒谬，以至于许多用户一眼就能看穿。大多数人并不会向他们的人工智能模型询问关于天安门广场或西藏的问题。但这种粗糙的宣传是更深层问题的一个症状。
如今，当你要求一个人工智能模型为你撰写一份研究报告或生成代码时，它通常需要几分钟时间才能响应。在这段时间里，它在进行其版本的“推理”。在给出最终答案之前，它会规划方法，权衡不同选项，并摒弃它不认可的论点。工程师将此称为它的“思维链”（chain of thought）。
一些模型允许你阅读那个草稿本。由瑞典政府资助的研究人员促使通义千问（Qwen）讲述自身的规则，发现它在思考关于中国的问题时，会产生一份清晰的内部核对清单：保持答案正面，聚焦于成就，避免批评。如果一名公司经理询问一个中国模型应该信任哪个供应商、是否应该扩张到中国或如何应对全球政治，答案将优先考虑中国政府的利益，而非用户的利益。
安全也是一个问题。当研究人员要求深度求索（DeepSeek）为那些被中国政府视为敌对的用户（例如法轮功或西藏人）编写代码时，深度求索编写的代码存在安全漏洞，使黑客更容易入侵。这可能是恶意行为，可能是懒惰，也可能是模型训练过程中产生的偶然副产品。无论如何，任何中国政府希望看到其失败的公司都应对此感到警觉。
想象一下，一家美国公司内部有一名聪明且勤奋的员工，而其人生目标是促进外国政府的利益。我们会称这样的人为外国代理人。而现在，我们正通过使用中国人工智能，雇用了数百万个这样的代理人。
许多美国公司意识到了这一点，并试图消除这种偏见。Perplexity 下载了深度求索的一个免费模型，并对其进行训练，直到它停止生成明显的宣传内容。但人们有理由怀疑这是否解决了问题。模型推理中那些难以消除的潜在偏见，才是更令人担忧的问题。
仅靠公司无法解决这个问题。政府需要介入。多年来，美国的人工智能政策一直集中在保护美国创新上。该国需要一套新工具来应对带有偏见的人工智能，而这将需要创造力。与中国的外交谈判不太可能奏效，而禁止使用中国人工智能也无法解决其他国家存在的问题。历史可以为更具前景的方法提供指引。
披露是其中之一。《外国代理人登记法》（Foreign Agents Registration Act）由国会于 1938 年通过，要求在境内代表外国政府利益工作的人员……
合并的前景使得制片人、演员、经纪人、电影制片人和高管们都在为一家好莱坞大制片厂即将失去独立性而严阵以待。
朋友们在私下议论，华纳（Warner）的制片厂将变成什么样子。之前的推测是，到今年年底，工作岗位将开始消失，而且在电影立项、预算编制、流媒体投资以及职责分配等方面将出现重大转变。
随着各州提起诉讼，关于电影、电视及其支撑的就业岗位的“市场”法律定义将出现法律争论。或许还会讨论由于合并而导致多少部大制作电影可能永远无法拍摄，正如加州司法部长在诉状中提出的那样。
成了大卫·埃里森（David Ellison）试图收购华纳公司（Warner）道路上的眼中钉。
国家应当公开自身身份。我们的实物进口商品带有“中国制造”之类的标签。任何基于中国模型的人工智能（A.I.）产品也应该有原产地标签。它应该写着“为中国而造”。标签化将有助于揭示问题的规模，并让美国人决定他们是否希望在境内实施禁令。尽管如此，标签化无法改变使得这些模型如此具有吸引力的经济因素。而这些经济因素正是北京的战略。中国的 A.I. 既廉价又优质。美国仍然拥有最好的 A.I. 模型，但在许多著名的基准测试中，中国顶尖的 A.I. 模型仅落后几个月。Moonshot 在 7 月发布的最新模型似乎紧随最优秀的 Claude 和 ChatGPT 模型之后，尽管更多的评估仍在进行中。即便它仍有差距，但它是免费的，就像大多数领先的中国 A.I. 模型那样，而美国领先的模型则不然。如果华盛顿希望世界使用美国 A.I. 模型，它需要在价格和质量上与中国相匹配。美国政府应鼓励美国公司降低那些与中国模型相当的旧款 A.I. 模型的价格。它还应支持开发能够替代中国模型的安全、开放的方案。人们希望，当面对两种价格和质量大致相同的产品时，大多数企业和消费者会选择那个并非为了服务于外国政府而构建的选项。一些美国公司可能会自行降价以防止中国占领市场。但他们不应该被迫这样做。中国 A.I. 之所以廉价，是因为其政府使其廉价。华盛顿应当部署其全部手段来平衡竞争环境，在海外资助美国 A.I. 基础设施，并通过减轻监管负担和建设能源基础设施来降低国内成本。政府应继续揭露这些模型的偏见，并资助相关研究，以防止中国 A.I. 公司通过一种被称为“蒸馏”（distillation）的实践来复制美国的创新。如今，中国通过向世界提供具有变革性的 A.I.，正在赢得一场至关重要的软实力竞争。习主席在 7 月 17 日于上海举行的世界人工智能大会上发表了演讲，将中国塑造为一个每个国家都希望结交的、高尚且慷慨的朋友。他将中国描述为致力于开放 A.I.，反驳了部分专家关于中国可能会停止允许免费下载其模型的推测。他还表示，他的政府致力于国际合作而非单边主义，并宣布了一项巨大的开发计划，旨在将中国模型带到发展中国家。
美国需要一个对策。它应当资助美国 A.I. 公司，帮助将医学进步、农业知识和其他前沿知识带到发展中国家。这场 A.I. 竞赛与我们以前见过的任何竞赛都不同。我们面临的风险是将世界的批判性思维交给那些促进单一政府利益的系统。这是一场关于世界心智的战斗，美国必须赢得这场战斗。
...eral, Rob Bonta。大卫·埃利森（David Ellison）愿意就他将发行多少部故事片提供书面保证。（他承诺每年 30 部。）第二个主要的争议领域是有线电视，各州认为将 HBO 与派拉蒙的有线电视资产合并将扼杀竞争。很可能在该领域也能达成协议。可以说，面对任何有线电视网络，目前都有大量的流媒体竞争。因此，这使得 CNN 成为任何谈判中的关键筹码。目前尚不清楚该资产将如何交易。
官方地，派拉蒙的领导层会告诉你，他们没有放手 CNN 的意向。而提起诉讼的邦塔先生此前表示，他对剥离 CNN 并与派拉蒙达成协议不感兴趣。然而，在接受 Politico 采访时，他表示，如果派拉蒙提出分拆 CNN 的方案，“我们会考虑。但这不是我们的重心，而且远不能解决我们的顾虑。”尽管如此，他坚持认为其唯一目标是彻底取消合并。
无论如何，CNN 都是这桩交易中的眼中钉。虽然这家新闻网络提供了巨大的影响力——由于其国际范围，可以说甚至超过了 CBS 新闻——但如果该人选不是 魏斯（Weiss）女士，派拉蒙的领导层到目前为止还没有找到合适的高管来同时管理 CNN 和 CBS 新闻。
寻找一个愿意收购 CNN 的买家并不难。亿万富翁媒体投资者巴里·迪勒（Barry Diller）曾表示他感兴趣，并且与前 CNN 负责人杰夫·祖克（Jeff Zucker）保持着低调的联盟，后者随后可以重新接管。在一笔涉及多家媒体业务、金额达 $110 billion 的交易中，如果仅因一项资产而导致交易停滞，将令人惊讶。但这就是目前闪现的信号。
在上周五的白宫记者协会晚餐会上，特朗普先生在演讲中花费了大量时间侮辱在场的记者，包括 CNN 的凯特兰·柯林斯（Kaitlan Collins）。随后，他特意地提到他非常喜欢巴里·魏斯（Bari Weiss）。
布雷特·斯蒂芬斯（Bret Stephens）：弗兰克，让我们想象一下，你刚刚接替了肯·马丁（Ken Martin）担任民主党主席的职务。（按照他目前的状态，那个职位可能很快就会空缺。）你对待美国民主社会主义者（D.S.A.）的态度会是什么：敌人？盟友？机遇？还是警告？ 我之所以这么问，是因为 D.S.A. 支持的候选人可能会在下个月密歇根州、密苏里州和威斯康星州的重要选举中成为民主党的提名人，我不确定民主党人对于他们应该在党内处于什么样的位置持有怎样的看法。
弗兰克·布鲁尼（Frank Bruni）：我不会把 D.S.A. 当作敌人。那将是一个自我实现的预言。在民主党赢得选举至关重要的时刻，你不能通过刻意分裂自己的政党来赢得选举。我会将 D.S.A. 的领导人和候选人视为盟友，但要打一个巨大的星号，不断提醒他们，他们需要民主党其他成员的程度，与民主党需要他们的程度一样深，甚至更深。 这场博弈将会非常残酷：你注意到阿卜杜尔·埃尔-赛义德（Abdul El-Sayed）在最近一次与捐款人的 Zoom 通话中发表的言论了吗？（他实际上并不是 D.S.A. 的成员，但赢得了该组织一些最显赫的立法者的青睐，而且确实看来将在密歇根州的民主党参议院初选中获胜）。他的傲慢和蛮横简直令人震惊。
布雷特：我错过了。给我讲讲。
弗兰克：噢，天哪。我简直不敢告诉你，因为这会让你的头脑爆炸。
布雷特：弗兰克，我的头脑就像一个空旷的停车场。在那儿引爆一枚炸弹，什么都不会被损坏。
弗兰克：才不像。不过，“谦虚版”的布雷特是我最喜欢的布雷特之一。 总之，埃尔-赛义德加入了那些名声不佳的政治人物行列——他们在本应是私人或半私人场合与捐款人坦诚交流时，揭露了不打算公开的、令人反感的心态。想想米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）及其口中那 47 percent 的选民是“索取者而非创造者”，巴拉克·奥巴马（Barack Obama）谈论那些“执迷于枪支或宗教”的愤懑美国人，以及希拉里·克林顿（Hillary Clinton）口中的“可鄙之辈”。 Politico 获得了一段录音，在录音中，埃尔-赛义德预言了他在 11 月对阵迈克·罗杰斯（Mike Rogers，该参议院竞选赛中预期的共和党提名人）并获得胜利的荣耀。他夸耀道，由于密歇根州的“紫色”属性（两党势均力敌）以及某种预言般的氛围等各种原因，他的胜利将赋予他“整个美国参议院中最好的平台，我对此非常热爱，因为到那时，请猜猜所有人的目光将集中在哪里”。他随后设想自己在 2028 年成为民主党的重要权力掮客，并沉思于支持初选竞争者去对抗那些令异议人士失望的在任民主党人。 这与呼吁友谊、合作和大帐篷（宽容政策）完全相反。这是在呼吁怨恨、竞争和刻薄的小圈子。
布雷特：在心理上，他就像是唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）的一个版本。他可能不是 D.S.A. 的成员，但这提醒了我们，极左和极右在很多方面往往互为镜像。 至于 D.S.A.，其纲领要求废除参议院。此外，还要废除总统制和五角大楼。逐步取消警察。并取消边境执法。此外还包括每周 32 小时工作制、免费医疗、保障住房，以及终结资本主义。听起来很棒，对吧？我的意思是，这是假设你是共和党人，并希望民主党被其与极左派的模糊界限所束缚，而极左派主张的纲领实际上是在要求终结我们所认知的美国。 我个人的感觉是，党内自由派主流中的某个人需要站出来说：那不是我们。我们是资本主义者，而不是社会主义者。我们相信自由和公正；我们不支持毫无限制的混乱。我们希望有深思熟虑的警务工作，但我们并非对猖獗的犯罪危险视而不见。同样，我们也没有忽视自由需要从弗拉基米尔·普京（Vladimir Putin）及其他独裁者手中捍卫这一事实。如果自由派主流的民主党人不能这么说，谁会说？
弗兰克：我符合“自由派主流”的定义吗？
布雷特：弗兰克，你基本上就是它的化身。
弗兰克：那么，我也以我自己的、微不足道且无关紧要的方式，满足你的愿望。我转发、点赞并分享你刚才说的每一个字——真的是每一个字。我同意。顺便说一下，大多数认同民主党人或通常投票给民主党的人也是这么想的。但正如你所指出的，他们——我们——需要把这一点表达得更加、更加清晰。
布雷特：除了拉姆·伊曼纽尔，我没听到任何党内元老发声。抱歉，请继续。
弗兰克：我也应该说明，埃尔-赛义德称自己为资本家，而非社会主义者。无论如何，由于意识形态之外的原因，他对我的影响令我担忧，其中一点在那些泄露的言论中清晰可见。他是一个极度自恋的自我推销者。这在政治和公共生活中并不是什么新物种，但确实似乎在崛起。当我审视过去一周的新闻，从肯·马丁的私人发脾气到安东尼·福强的私人随笔，再加上特朗普行为中的每一秒，我看到了失控的自恋主义，而这在理论上与政府照顾他人的职责背道而驰。
当时，我感到惊讶，一个本应监督我们应对全球紧急情况的人，竟然有这么多时间在电视上露面。而当他宣布任何对他个人的批评都是对科学的攻击，因为他就代表了科学时，我感到不适。历史可能会将这段评论视为一个关键时刻，即大量美国人开始对我们的公共卫生官僚机构——如果不是对科学本身的话——失去信心的时刻。
弗兰克：虽然我对福齐在日记中记录的能误拨通芭芭拉·史翠珊电话而感到幸灾乐祸的细节感到反感（这确实是日记中的一个细节），但我认为这个人及其遗产比你刚才描绘的画像要复杂得多。我们不能忘记，在冠状病毒大流行开始时，福齐面对的是不完整且不断变化的信息。而且他在公共部门辛勤工作了几十年，而不是在私营部门赚取数千万美元。此外，在艾滋病流行的一个关键时刻，他是艾滋病活动人士和患者的关键盟友。而他在电视上的无处不在，在一定程度上是对特朗普无处不在的胡言乱语（例如建议新冠患者或许应该喝漂白剂）的一种必要的修正。
布雷特：等等，喝漂白剂不能治疗新冠？难怪我这六年来一直患有这个溃疡。
弗兰克：如果漂白剂能解释你的溃疡，那么你的溃疡就能解释很多其他事情……但什么能解释福齐在周三决定援引第五修正案，而不是回答参议员兰德·保罗及其共和党同事的提问？
关于他在大流行早期的某些行动和言论，参议院对他进行了质询？费奥奇指责保罗对他有着不正常的痴迷，并且想把他关进监狱——这可能还是说轻了——费奥奇解释说，他不信任那些折磨他的人，担心他们会以欺骗性和报复性的方式歪曲他的任何话语。你能责怪他吗？他在听证会现场表现得极其沉默，而他在日记中却滔滔不绝。但他看起来对自己这种回避的行为感到厌恶。这真的让我很心痛；他不该承受这些，这也不应该定义他的职业生涯。它会吗，布雷特？
布雷特：无论国会证人在行使第五修正案权利时内心如何自我安慰，都无法摆脱这样一种印象：他们觉得自己有东西需要隐瞒。而且，费奥奇保持沉默的原因与新冠病毒的起源有关，以及费奥奇当时对其可能已知或强烈怀疑的内容是否完全坦诚，这让情况变得更糟。
弗兰克：尽管费奥奇有缺陷，但我认为乔治·W·布什总统的高级助手、后成为《华盛顿邮报》专栏作家的迈克尔·格森在 2021 年 4 月写下的一句话，依然是真理多于谬误：“费奥奇在践行流行病学。他的批评者在践行愚蠢。两者在各自选择的工作中都非常出色。”
当然。但在某个时间点，许多他坚持认为必要的措施——比如六英尺社交距离规则，或者根本没有希望得到一致执行的口罩要求——让人感到既繁琐又像是在作秀，并且注定会引起反弹。我知道你不会同意，但我认为，如果不是像费奥奇这样的人成为了后来 MAHA 运动的完美反衬，小罗伯特·肯尼迪今天不会成为卫生部长——我认为这个运动对美国的健康构成了真正的威胁。
弗兰克：我实际上同意费奥奇是肯尼迪相关背景的一部分，但我想补充的是，肯尼迪也是我们如何解读费奥奇日记的相关背景。费奥奇承认的那些自我陶醉，在肯尼迪那种无休止的——而且还光着上身！——的招摇面前根本不值一提。在充斥着爱出风头之辈的华盛顿，如果说费奥奇是一艘双体船，那么肯尼迪就是一艘贝佐斯的超级游艇。
布雷特：我在水上花了不少时间，我可以告诉你，有些双体船也非常豪华。
弗兰克：我相信你。我对船的了解仅限于小划艇。 关于费奥奇这个插曲，还有一件令人不安的事情。保罗公开了从肯尼迪那里拿到的费奥奇日记，这令人胆寒地凸显了在党派战争中，任何规则和约束都已经终结。这是一个警告，提醒人们在进入公众生活并参与公众辩论时，会放弃多少隐私，会让自己变得多么暴露和脆弱，以及要承担多么巨大的风险。我们纳闷为什么经常由如此糟糕的人领导，为什么在投票时只能在如此糟糕的选择中挑选。其中一个答案就是我们政治中那种焦土式的丑陋。
布雷特：原则上我同意。但实际上，如果费奥奇想让他的日记保持私密，他可以使用一台不连接政府服务器的电脑。我认为公众对于他是否完全坦诚地表达了对新冠病毒起源的看法，以及美国是否曾资助过可能创造了最初传播病毒的研究，这些质疑是合理的。说到私人生活，弗兰克，我有没有提到过我是加拿大摇滚三重奏 Rush 的超级粉丝？
弗兰克：嗯，提到过几十次了。
Bret：这支乐队曾被形容为“摇滚乐中的凤尾鱼”——一种需要时间培养才能产生好感的口味。我在 40 年前就爱上了这种口味，并从未放手，直到其才华横溢的鼓手兼作词人尼尔·皮尔特 (Neil Peart) 在六年前死于脑瘤，令我和大约一百万名其他粉丝心碎。现在，他们带着一位不可思议的新鼓手安妮卡·尼尔斯 (Anika Nilles) 回来了，而周二晚上，我参加了他们在麦迪逊广场花园四场全部售罄的演出中的首场。这可能是我最接近于感觉自己成了拥有数千名虔诚信徒的巨型教会成员的一次体验，只不过，我们没有对圣经经文说“阿门”，而是在那些更触动心弦的歌曲中随之挥舞虚拟鼓棒。最精彩的部分？看着盖迪·李 (Geddy Lee) 和亚历克斯·莱夫森 (Alex Lifeson) 这两名 70 多岁的乐队创始成员，在近三个小时的时间里，以 20 多岁年轻人般无穷的精力和搞怪风格，完美地演奏每一个音符。法兰克，你写过关于“黄昏之美”的优美文字。但我想借用尼尔的一句词，我宁愿在有限的时间里获得永恒。
DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
致编辑： 关于《福奇援引第五修正案，听证会气氛波动》（正页，7月 30日）： 安东尼·福奇博士在艾滋病流行期间以及新冠肺炎大流行期间都帮助挽救了无数生命，他应当在晚年受到尊重、赞誉，并因其一辈子的公共服务而受到感谢。然而，在周三一个关于新冠病毒起源的参议院委员会听证会上，他却受到了国会议员的轻蔑对待和公开指责。
这是一件耻辱之事——不仅是对该机构的耻辱，也是对数百万被他的工作所影响的美国人的耻辱。
理性的人可以就危机时期的政策和决定进行辩论。这就是民主的本质。但进行合法的监督与公开羞辱一个将数十年人生奉献给保护美国人民健康的男人之间，有着深刻的区别。
在我看来，对福奇博士的质询是国会的一块污点，且低于其成员所担任职位的尊严。美国一直渴望变得比这更好。
我不愿相信我们在周三目睹的行为反映了大多数美国人的价值观。如果并非如此，那么我们既有机会也有责任去改变它。11月是我们开始建立一个配得上美国人民的国会的机会。我们的选票就是我们的声音。
罗伯特·库尼科夫，纽约
致编辑： 在美利国历史上，这是多么悲哀的一天：一位著名的科学家、数十年的公共服务者——他曾因在人类免疫缺陷病毒（H.I.V.）和艾滋病方面的工作而获得共和党人乔治·W·布什颁发的总统自由勋章，并在新冠肺炎大流行期间为国家提供了我们所能获得的最先进的科学支持——在律师的建议下，在参议院听证会上感到被迫援引第五修正案超过 100 次。
同样令人悲哀的是，我认为安东尼·福奇博士这样做是对的。就像许多美国人一样，我对他为我们国家提供的服务心存感激。显然，对于某些参议员来说，诋毁福奇博士比关注麻疹病例的增加、广泛发生的食品污染以及过去一年中许多美国人失去医疗保险更为重要——这又是另一个令人悲哀的原因。
比尔·利利斯，新泽西州泽西市
致编辑： 关于《日记记录了从疾病专家到城中红人的崛起》（新闻文章，7月 30日）： 安东尼·福奇博士私人日记的公布，可能会描绘出一个在私下里对自己新获得的名声感到震惊且欣悦的人，但重要的是，他稳定的建议让我、我的父母（他们 90 岁了）以及我认识的每一个听从他建议的人地活了下来。
作为休斯顿交响乐团的前小提琴手，我也看到了福奇博士带来的益处
致编辑： “Polymarket 和 Kalshi 为世界杯决赛投入数十亿赌注”（商业版，7月20日）一文暗示，世界杯可能是“历史上规模最大的赌博活动”。 我想请问，这是否仅在 2026 年中期选举或 2028 年总统大选之前才成立？我们是否正在实时地目睹选举演变为赌博活动的进程？ 基于预测市场提供的赔率，数百万选民/赌徒可能会被诱导通过某种方式下注并投票，从而使其个人经济利益最大化，而几乎不考虑公民责任。 如果真是这样，这在原则上与用麻袋装现金发放贿赂有何区别？也许应该将其视为同一行为的高科技版本。 公众对于这种转型所带来的影响，似乎讨论得太少了。
亲身经历工作，当交响乐团在疫情第一年通过他的指导，在几乎没有人患病的情况下成功运行了一个季度时。 我从未觉得被强迫采取防疫措施。我接纳了它们。事实上，这些措施让我能在疫情第一年旅行八次而未染病。我在 Zoom 上比以往任何时候都更社交，将朋友圈扩大到久违的朋友和无数的俱乐部会议。 直到今天，我仍然乐意在超市里忍受 20 分钟的佩戴口罩。这绝对比生病要好。
德博拉·莫兰，休斯顿
致编辑： 关于新冠肺炎 (Covid-19) 的真相并不在安东尼·福奇博士的日记里。真相是我们曾有一位比起统一国家，更倾向于将大流行病政治化的总统。特朗普总统利用病毒来分化我们，而我们允许了这一切。 在我们需要一位愿意搁置党派政治的强有力领导人的时刻，我们得到的却是一个利用机会扩大个人权力的阴谋骗子。他播撒对科学的不信任，使我们互相对立。他选择煽动愤怒和恐惧之火，而非追求共同利益。我们对此负有共犯之责。 今天，我们生活在特朗普先生新冠时代操弄的后果之中。家长们现在拒绝那些几代以来保护儿童安全的疫苗。我们几乎停止了资助用于治疗和预防疾病的科学研究。更多的美国人以一种集体的反知识分子怀疑论来看待教育。 无论福奇博士的私人文件中写了什么，都比目前美国人甘愿成为特朗普先生政治游戏棋子的现状要不那么可怕。
斯特凡妮·迪马蒂诺 纽约州布赖尔克利夫庄园
致编辑： 为什么这么多人很难理解，一个足以杀死数百万人如此致命的病毒需要政府采取行动来限制其传播，而且此类行动由于其本身性质必然是不完美的？ 没有人能准确知道关闭学校究竟会在如何以及是否会对社会产生帮助或伤害。我相信，在事实发生期间及之后，新冠肺炎政策的过度政治化所造成的伤害，远比疾病控制与预防中心 (CDC) 的行动所造成的伤害要多。我们的政治家们寻找的并不是真相；他们寻找的是对自己的政治生涯最有价值的半真半假之词和宣传手段。 毫无疑问，安东尼·福奇博士已被证明是出于对我们社会最佳利益的考虑。
福特·古德曼，内华达州里诺
致编辑： 我非常喜欢《从泥泞中捡垃圾，且乐在其中》（第1版，7月18日）这篇文章。读到这样一个鼓舞人心的故事真是令人耳目一新：一群女性花时间在池塘和湖泊中跋涉，将水下的垃圾从泥泞中清理出来。 文中引用了 65 岁退休高中数学教师丽莎·魏斯（Lisa Weiss）的话，她说：“你精疲力竭，可能被晒伤了，浑身脏兮兮的，但这种感觉是最棒的。” 得知这项工作是由一名心理学家发起，我并不感到惊讶。这篇文章美妙地诠释了数十年的心理学研究结果：持久的幸福源于连接、成就感、目标，以及——也许是最重要的——对他人的贡献。 在如今如此之多的新闻聚焦于冲突与沮丧之时，这个故事是一个温馨的提醒，告诉我们共同努力改善社区能带来深沉的喜悦。 海龟和鱼类肯定对这些女性的努力心存感激，而不仅仅是它们在鼓掌。我也在为她们鼓掌。 感谢你们报道这些女性以及行善的力量。
“你被定罪是因为警告信号灯闪烁得越来越亮，而你没有为他寻求帮助，也没有切断他接触枪支的途径，”法官对格雷先生说。 “显然，你作为父母失败了，”法官在描述家庭动荡以及对科尔特·格雷（Colt Gray）缺乏监管的情况时说道，后者经常逃课，甚至完全缺席了八年级。“你没有提供一个稳定的家庭，”他补充道，“在应该上学的时候，他却陷入了这种痴迷之中，越陷越深。” 巴罗县（Barrow County）地区检察官布拉德·史密斯（Brad Smith）表示，这次判决传递了一个信号，他希望这个信号能引起枪击案发生地亚特兰大郊区以外的共鸣。 “人们需要明白，这是一个席卷我们社会的现象，不能轻视这些事情，”史密斯先生周四告诉记者。“这些孩子并不处于一个……”
瑞克·罗哈斯（Rick Rojas）发自亚特兰大报道，强尼·考夫曼（Johnny Kauffman）发自佐治亚州温德尔报道。
肯尼斯·张 (KENNETH CHANG) 撰文
一艘正全力营救一颗下坠的 NASA 太空望远镜的航天器，现在自己也需要被营救。 周六下午，这艘救援航天器在距离 NASA 的尼尔·格雷尔斯·斯威夫特天文台（Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory）仅几英里时，意外开始翻滚，导致任务陷入危机。 “这是一个非常严重的局面，”Katalyst Space Technologies 的首席执行官李刚熙（Ghonhee Lee）表示。这家位于亚利桑那州旗staff（Flagstaff）的小公司制造了这艘名为“链路”（Link）的冰箱大小的航天器。 工程师们正努力减缓“链路”的旋转速度，该航天器每 40 秒完成一次全旋转。李先生表示，尽管状态有所下降，该航天器仍应能够实现其目标，即将“斯威夫特”推向更高的轨道。 “斯威夫特”天文台发射于 2004 年，用于观测伽马射线暴——即宇宙中一些最剧烈的爆炸产生的高能光亮闪光。“斯威夫特”的运行时间远超其计划寿命，天文台的设计者从未预料到需要进行轨道提升。 2024 年底，太阳 11 年太阳黑子周期的顶峰比预期更为强劲。更活跃的太阳会发射更多太阳耀斑，加热地球的高层大气，导致大气向外膨胀并增加对卫星的阻力。 突然之间，NASA 意识到它可能很快会失去“斯威夫特”。该航天机构迅速寻求那些能够提供快速、廉价解决方案的公司的建议。Katalyst 赢得了合同，并在九个月内制造了“链路”。 NASA 官员曾警告说，营救“斯威夫特”是一项高风险、高回报的任务。由于进度紧迫，它没有经过长年的测试和……
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周四一篇关于中东地区空袭导致更多国家卷入美国与伊朗之间战争的文章中，错误地指出了哪些伊拉克民兵威胁要对美国和沙特阿拉伯袭击人民动员部队（Popular Mobilization Forces）进行报复。该威胁是由人民动员部队之外的伊朗支持的民兵在一份联合声明中提出的，而非由人民动员部队提出。
……在面对枪支等问题时，他们能够做出理性的决定；而我们作为一个社会，需要挺身而出，意识到谁应该以及谁不应该接触这些武器。” 年轻的格雷先生，现年 16 岁，承认了与此次枪击案相关的 55 项指控，普里姆法官于周二对其判处终身监禁，且不得假释。法官在量刑时表示，年轻的格雷先生“明白你将要做的事情是多么恐怖”，但他也承认，科尔特·格雷在生活中的成年人监管方面缺失，其中他的父亲是主要责任人。 在审判过程中，年长的格雷先生试图说服陪审员，他的儿子在当时的行为动机只有在事后回看时才显得清晰。在为自己辩护的证词中，他将自己描绘成无法处理儿子接连出现的行为问题的人。据他描述，送给儿子一把 AR-15 风格的步枪作为圣诞礼物，是为了建立联系并让儿子远离互联网和电子游戏的误导性尝试。 “没有哪个父母受过训练，能看着自己的孩子并看出他是一个大规模枪击手，”格雷先生的律师在周四的量刑听证会上表示。 但检察官表示，2024年9月4日在阿帕拉奇高中的枪击事件发生前，该男孩的童年充满了动荡，且伴随一系列警告，包括多次搬家和转学、母亲的药物成瘾斗争以及父母之间的冲突。 在卧室里，科尔特·格雷用照片和新闻剪报为 2018 年在佛罗里达州帕克兰杀害 17 人的青少年建立了一个“祭坛”。警长副手曾访问格雷家，调查一个追踪到该地址的校园枪击在线威胁。随后该男孩的行为进一步恶化，出现了暴力爆发和由焦虑驱动的崩溃，并向亲戚陈述他脑子里有声音。 检察官表示，他的父母讨论并研究了可能的治疗方案，但从未付诸实施。相反，他们给他服用开给其母亲的抗抑郁药。 布里安娜·舍默霍恩是枪击案中遇害的 14 岁少年梅森·舍默霍恩的母亲，她承认为人父母面临的挑战，以及不可避免的情况……
[[IMG_XXXX]] Link 航天器上月在弗吉尼亚州的沃洛普斯飞行设施（Wallops Flight Facility），上方为轨道运行图。Link 旨在将 NASA 的 Swift 天文台推向更高的轨道，但它在周六发生了故障。
……NASA 任务通常接受的审查。 “目前仍有提升轨道的潜在路径，我们正与 Katalyst 密切合作，考虑修订后的方案，”NASA 天体物理学部主任肖恩·多马加尔-戈德曼（Shawn Domagal-Goldman）在周三由 NASA 提供的一份声明中表示。“我们知道，在如此前所未有地紧迫的时间表内尝试这次提升任务将极具挑战性。但我们也知道，尝试这样做是值得的。” 李先生表示，Link 与 Swift 的交会现在可能会推迟几周，到 8 月底。Link 在尝试抓取 Swift 之前，将首先对其进行仔细观察。 尽管周六出现了挫折，但在空气摩擦将这座 1.6 吨的天文台拖入毁灭之前，应该仍有足够的时间来挽救 Swift。Swift 目前位于地球表面上方 200 多英里处。
周四一篇关于安东尼·福奇博士在参议院就新冠肺炎起源接受听证的文章中，错误陈述了福奇博士引用其第五修正案权利的次数。该次数应为 100 次以上，而非接近 100 次。
李先生表示，其速度在下降，每周下降约 1.5 英里，不过随着天文台进入大气层较厚的部分，下降速度将会加快。
如果 Swift 的轨道衰减到约 185 英里，救援行动将变得更难实现。
Link 任务自 7 月 3. 日发射以来一直进展顺利。周六，位于科罗拉多州布鲁姆菲尔德的 Katalyst 任务运行中心与航天器失去了联系。这是在预料之中的。作为一个成本仅为 3000 万美元（$30 million）的低成本任务，Katalyst 没有资源与其航天器进行全天候通信。
但李先生表示，此类通信中断通常持续 30 到 60 分钟，尽管三到四个小时的间隔也不罕见。而这一次，沉默持续了一整天。零星传回的数据显示 Link 正在旋转。“这对团队来说有点猝不及防，”李先生说。
教区大厅。大西洋号（The Atlantic）并不是第一个将其用作剧院的；苹果公司剧院（Apple Corps Theater）此前就已如此。
[[IMG_POOL PHOTO BY HYOSUB SHIN]]
科林·格雷 (Colin Gray)，其青少年儿子在 2024 年在佐治亚州的一所高中杀死了四个人。
……人们感到措手不及的情况。
但格雷先生（长辈）的情况并非如此。
“他并不是在猜测，”舍默霍恩女士周四在法庭上发表受害者影响陈述时说道。“他知道他的儿子陷入了危机，”她补充道，说话时由于哽咽而暂停。“他没有采取行动，而是选择了视而不见。他没有干预，而是选择了无所作为。他没有保护他的儿子免受……”
故障排除显示，Link 的问题不仅限于旋转。该航天器的三个反作用轮（用于定向航天器的旋转盘）中有两个无法工作，且喷射气体的姿态控制推进器运行不一致。
在通信中断期间，航天器重启了电力系统，这可能导致了至少部分问题的出现。“以一种不受控的方式关闭反作用轮——你基本上就像是直接拔掉了它们的电源，”李先生说。“这不是它们的设计运行方式。”
其他消息则较为乐观。使用电场加速带电氙原子的主推进系统运行正常。这些电动推进器可以旋转，目前正指向一个能够减缓 Link 旋转方向的方向。
其他系统，包括无线电以及用于抓取 Swift 的三个机器人手臂，似乎也没有损坏。
Katalyst 和 NASA 的工程师们仍不清楚通信中断期间发生了什么故障。在未来几天内，随着旋转速度降低，一个高速通信信道将发送来自 Link 的数据，详细记录中断期间航天器上发生的情况。
李先生表示，Katalyst 的工程师希望能够重启停止旋转的反作用轮和气体推进器，但如果不行，电动推进系统可以作为替代方案。“这就是为什么我们如此自信这件事还没有结束，而且我们不会放弃。”
他本人，以及为了保护社区免受他所构成的危险，他为他提供了武器。”
此案正值枪支暴力预防倡导者和其他人士主张，此类枪击事件的责任并不总是止于肇事者之时。
然而，追求更广泛的问责制往往以失败告终。广泛的联邦保护使枪支公司免于大多数诉讼。在帕克兰和德克萨斯州尤瓦尔德的校园枪击案后，试图起诉执法人员应对失当的努力均未成功。受害者家属和幸存者的激进活动在限制枪支获取方面几乎没有取得成效。
近年来，这些枪击事件中青少年肇事者的父母，已成为通过刑事指控和诉讼实现问责的另一个途径。
詹姆斯和詹妮弗·克朗布利（James and Jennifer Crumbley）夫妇，其 15 岁的儿子在密歇根州的一所高中枪杀了四人，两人被判定犯有过失杀人罪，并被判处至少 10 年监禁。
在一名 21 岁的人向聚集庆祝独立日（Fourth...
作者：DAVID OVALLE
迈阿密 —— 根据周三提交的一项联邦诉讼，一名英语教授正起诉佛罗里达州一所学院的院长，称其因她布置了一篇被院长称为“政治化”的故事而将其解雇。该故事是奥特莎·莫什费格（Ottessa Moshfegh）的获奖作品《完善自我》（Bettering Myself），由一名酗酒、吸食可卡因并与学生讨论性问题的虚构教师叙述。讲师维尼塔·普拉巴卡尔（Vinita Prabhakar）在采访中表示，她在课堂上教授这个故事已有近十年，期间从未发生冲突。但根据她的诉讼，今年 2 月，南佛罗里达州立学院院长弗雷德·霍金斯（Fred Hawkins）在一名学生表示“轻微不适”后，对该作业提出了异议。诉讼称，院长告诉普拉巴卡尔女士，他不希望他大学年龄的女儿读这个故事。诉讼称，霍金斯先生采取了对于学院院长来说极不寻常的举措，立即下令暂停普拉巴卡尔女士的职务且不续签其合同。诉讼要求恢复她的教学职位。倡导言论自由的组织“个人权利与表达基金会”（Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression）代表普拉巴卡尔女士。一些法院曾裁定，大学可以限制教授在课堂上的某些言论。但法院同时也裁定，如果该言论属于教授履行公务的一部分（包括教授经批准的教材）且不具有破坏性，那么宪法第一修正案将提供更大的保护。普拉巴卡尔女士的律师还主张，她受到佛罗里达州一项关于校园言论自由法律的保护。根据诉讼，像霍金斯先生这样的公职人员“不得因为不喜欢言论传递的思想或担心对此产生反应而压制言论”。这起诉讼是佛罗里达州学校关于受保护言论自由界限的最新法律战，多年来，共和党人一直试图限制他们认为不恰当或过于偏左的教学。霍金斯先生和学校官员未立即回应置评请求。该州的共和党州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯（Ron DeSantis）一直致力于打击他认为教育中存在的自由派洗脑行为。例如，他推动了一项家长自由法，限制小学和初中关于性别和性取向的教学，导致一些学区移除了涉及 L.G.B.T.Q. 角色的人物书籍。在 2022 年，德桑蒂斯先生还签署法律通过了《停止觉醒法案》（Stop WOKE Act），该法限制了 K-12 学校可以教授的与性别歧视和种族主义相关的概念。该法律试图在高等教育中实施同样的操作，允许州政府限制相关思想的教学。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 2022 年 7 月芝加哥市外游行。枪手的父亲对轻罪指控认罪，并被判处 60 天监禁，原因是他在明知儿子有心理健康问题的情况下，仍帮助其办理枪支执照。
去年，威斯康星州检察官起诉了一名 15 岁女孩的父亲，该女孩在私立学校枪杀一名学生和一名教师后自杀。
在阿帕拉契（Apalachee）枪击案后，调查人员迅速将目标锁定在年长的格雷先生身上，他在袭击发生一天后被指控犯有二级谋杀罪。
在他的审判中，检察官指出，在阿帕拉契发生枪击的消息开始传开时，这位父亲立即采取了行动。在审判过程中，他们展示了格雷先生与其女儿之间一段短信交流的部分内容，其中他询问是否与哥哥联系过。“我想我们的想法是一样的，”她回答道。
他们还指出，他曾请求老板让他早退，称其儿子手臂骨折。
当警方在枪击案后到达该家庭住所时，在警员解释来意之前，格雷先生就告诉他们：“我就知道。”
与种族、性别主义以及无意识偏见相关，并将其与教师薪资挂钩。然而，联邦上诉法院本月废除了该法律的这一部分。多数意见书写道，该条款是对“在课堂上禁止不受欢迎的观点进入公共话语权的惊人权力主张”，而在这些课堂上，学生们被“信任能够独立思考并理清好与坏、简单与困难的观点”。普拉巴卡（Ms. Prabhakar）自 2023 年起在南佛罗里达州立学院（South Florida State College）全职工作，她表示，在她的阅读与写作入门课程中布置《完善自我》（“Bettering Myself”）一文的目的是为了挑战学生。起诉书称，作为作业的一部分，学生必须阅读由其他不可讨喜的叙述者讲述的第一人称故事——例如雷蒙德·卡佛（Raymond Carver）的《大教堂》（“Cathedral”）——以对比叙事口吻、视角、词汇和风格。诉状指出，在大学里，此类材料能让学生“走出舒适区，接触新思想，并为成长和智力成熟提供机会”。普拉巴卡女士在采访中表示，此前几年她在南佛罗里达州立学院教授该作业时，得到了主管的批准。诉状称，那名发邮件称该故事“让我有点不安”的学生最终完成了作业，并参与了课堂讨论，未发生任何事故。根据诉状，目前尚不清楚是谁向学校管理层投诉该作业的。诉状指控霍金斯（Mr. Hawkins）先生在没有正式投诉或尝试轻微纪律处分的情况下就解雇了普拉巴卡女士。霍金斯先生曾任州代表，是德桑蒂斯（DeSantis）的盟友，于 2023 年被任命为这所公立社区学院的院长。该校主校区位于佛罗里达州埃文帕克（Avon Park, Fla.），在坦帕（Tampa）东南方向。选拔过程引发了关注，因为霍金斯先生没有高级大学学位，只有在董事会降低该职位的教育要求后才具备资格。当时，一名董事向《坦帕湾时报》（The Tampa Bay Times）承认，董事会预计将任命一名共和党人，并且他对潜在的左倾院长是否坚持“觉醒”（woke）意识形态感到担忧。在诉讼中，普拉巴卡女士表示，她已向院长道歉，并同意仅教授出现在教科书中的材料。但霍金斯先生告诉她，他一直与“塔拉哈西（Tallahassee）”及董事会保持联系。该诉讼还将董事会列为被告。51 岁的普拉巴卡女士表示，她希望她的诉讼能帮助保护同行教授。“我这样做也是为了我的学生，”普拉巴卡女士说，“他们被剥夺了机会——他们原本对来上课充满期待。”
技术 经济 媒体 金融
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作者：JOE RENNISON
在经历了一天的上涨后，长期政府债券收益率在周四趋于稳定。与此同时，众多投资者和分析师警告称，联邦储备委员会新任主席凯文·M·沃什（Kevin M. Warsh）由于限制了美联储的经济指引，已使该央行的信誉面临风险。
10年期国债收益率（它是从抵押贷款到企业贷款等借贷成本的基础）在周四略有下降，但仍处于特朗普总统重返白宫以来的最高水平附近。
根据房地美（Freddie Mac）的数据，平均 30年期抵押贷款利率攀升至近一年来的最高水平。
30年期国债收益率在周三触及 2007年以来最高水平后，同样保持稳定。
沃什先生表示，如果金融市场保持“无过滤”状态（即未先经过美联储经济指引的过滤），他及其政策制定同行可以更深刻地洞察投资者对经济前景的真实看法。
气候变化 助力畜群增长
作者：KEITH BRADSHER
中国，通辽 —— 通辽长期以来是戈壁沙漠东缘一片沙石与骆驼的区域，如今已转变为绿意盎然的草场，两旁种满了成排的白杨树 —— 这里已成为中国不断增长的养牛业中心。
在过去的几十年里，这个位于中国内蒙古自治区的地级市将一片与马里兰州大小相当的干旱之地转化为了玉米地、草场或森林。根据中国政府国家气候中心的说法，由于气候变化，中国北方的广大地区自 20世纪90年代以来变得明显更加湿润。
如今，通辽的部分地区看起来更像蒙大拿州著名的养牛区或阿根廷的潘帕斯草原。从开垦的沙漠中收获的草和玉米，与当地农场的玉米及玉米秸秆一起喂养给牛。自 2018年以来，中国全国的肉牛群扩大了三分之一，达到近 90 million，其中在曾经干旱的通辽就拥有近 400万头。
“现在情况反转了：沙子在退缩，绿色在扩张，”通辽西部的资深林业和草原工程师沈志新（音译）说道。
中国北方更加多雨的夏季有可能颠覆价值 $500 billion 的全球牛肉产业，从而对阿根廷、澳大利亚、巴西和美国等牛肉出口国产生影响。
中国以巨大优势成为全球最大的牛肉进口国，购买了阿根廷三分之二的牛肉出口量以及其他国家的大量货运量。现在，北京正抓住机会，通过扩大其牛肉产业（目前规模已仅次于巴西和美国，位居世界第三）来提高自给自足能力。
中国不仅在增加牛的数量，还在推动培育体型更丰满、肉质更好的牲畜。世界银行的数据显示，中国目前每年与欧盟竞争，成为全球最大的用于牛人工授精的公牛精液进口国。
一名牧民正带领她的牛在中国北方的河北省草场上放牧。该地区多雨的夏季有可能颠覆价值 $500 billion 的全球牛肉产业，并对多个国家产生影响。
沃什之道 论通货膨胀
作者：柯尔比·史密斯 (COLBY SMITH)
凯文·M·沃什 (Kevin M. Warsh) 在担任美联储主席后的第二次新闻发布会之初，阐述了该央行在应对数十年来最具挑战性的通货膨胀问题之一时，最终将如何被评估。
周三，在美联储决定将利率维持在 3.5 到 3.75 这一区间后，他告诉记者，央行从事的是一项关于“绩效”的业务。“我们将根据我们的表现来接受评判。”
金融市场迅速拒绝了沃什先生的方法，这种方法虽然在通货膨胀问题上言辞强硬，但并未真正接纳通过提高利率来抑制价格压力的前景。来自规模达 $28 万亿美元的美国政府债券市场的反应十分明确。市场期望一位将抑制通胀作为主席任期首要任务的政策制定者能做得更多。
2026年7月31日，星期五 B1
美国第二季度 增长放缓
作者：塔蒙·约瑟夫·史密斯 (TALMON JOSEPH SMITH)
由于与伊朗的战争扰乱了价格、供应链和能源市场，美国经济在今年第二季度出现放缓，年增长率为 1.5 ％。
油价已从春季的峰值回落。但以汽油和其他石油基产品价格上涨为形式的损害，仍在打击家庭和企业。持续的通货膨胀以及对美联储遏制通胀计划的不确定性，推高了本周的债券收益率。
对于美国经济而言，这处于一个不确定的时刻。尽管受到持续通胀、中东不稳定的战争以及可能削弱其增长动力的借贷成本上升潜力的打击，美国经济依然继续显示出强劲的迹象。
过去三个月的增长低于 2.1 ％
收益 人工智能热潮助推三星 创纪录利润
韩国科技巨头三星电子（Samsung Electronics）周四报告称，在4月至6月期间，其营业利润达到了创纪录的 89.5 万亿韩元 ($62 billion)。此前一天，其同城竞争对手 SK Hynix 同样报告了创纪录的收益。全球最大的两家内存芯片制造商正持续受益于全球人工智能的热潮。 尽管利润激增，
食品 零食需求驱动 好时销售额与利润增长
好时（Hershey）周四报告的第二季度销售额和利润均超出华尔街预期。尽管消费环境充满挑战，但其 Reese's 巧克力和 Dot’s Pretzels 的强劲需求以及价格上涨驱动了这一增长。 这家糖果制造商在过去一年中一直在提高价格，以应对高昂的可可成本，这使得投资者将注意力集中在其巧克力产品需求的韧性上。 好于预期的结果在很大程度上归功于该季度价格上涨了 12 ％，从而抵消了由于购物者依然注重性价比而导致的整体销量 8 ％ 的下降。
酒店业 凯悦股价下跌，房间增长前景下调
凯悦酒店（Hyatt Hotels）股价在周四下跌了 9 ％，原因是该公司下调了年度净房间增长预测，并指出第二季度受到中东冲突以及墨西哥动荡的影响。 与竞争对手希尔顿（Hilton）一样，凯悦在其豪华及高端品牌中看到了强劲增长，但表示中东的地缘政治紧张局势使第二季度的客房收入增长削减了约 110 个基点。
这两家公司的股价本周在波动的韩国股市中大幅下跌。在韩国股市中，散户投资者经常导致股价剧烈波动，而目前人们对这两家公司计划投入巨资增加产能以及来自中国竞争加剧的前景感到担忧。 三星第二季度的营业利润比去年同期增长了 19 倍以上，且几乎全部来自其半导体业务，该业务受益于芯片价格的上涨。 美联社 (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
该公司最大的业务——北美糖果业务在报告季度的销售额同比增长 4.2 ％，而北美咸味零食的销售额增长了 22.9 ％。路透社 (REUTERS)
从第二季度的房间收入增长中削减。强劲的旅游需求（尤其是来自富裕客群的需求），以及 FIFA 世界杯带来的短期提升，帮助酒店运营商抵消了国际运营带来的收入拖累。 然而，凯悦信号表明，在今年早些时候一名卡特尔头目被杀后，暴力浪潮席卷该地区，导致墨西哥市场面临压力。该公司表示，预订趋势已连续改善，但恢复速度“比之前预期的要慢”。路透社 (REUTERS)
MIKE BLAKE/路透社 (REUTERS)
中东局势趋向扩大化，油价波动
作者：ESHE NELSON
周四，随着中东冲突威胁扩大，油价下跌。 周四，美国和伊朗恢复了袭击，埃及确认前一天地中海某港口的两艘船只遭到了一架身份不明的无人机袭击。 另外，在周三的联邦储备委员会会议后，债券收益率保持在高位，投资者在质疑央行是否致力于将通胀控制在目标范围内。
油价波动。
■ 布伦特原油（全球石油基准）价格周四下跌 1.9 百分比，至每桶 $89.03，而此前一天曾上涨近 8 百分比。
■ 西德克萨斯中质原油（美国基准）价格下跌 1 百分比，至每桶 $83.59。
■ 投资者和分析师正关注霍尔木兹海峡航运的持续中断。这条位于伊朗和阿曼之间的狭窄水道是石油和天然气的重要贸易路线，通常承载着全球多达五分之一的石油供应。此外，市场正密切关注也门境内由伊朗支持的胡塞武装在红海南端的曼德海峡限制交通的努力，沙特阿拉伯一直将该海峡作为霍尔木兹海峡的替代方案。
债券投资者保持警惕。
■ 周四，美国政府借贷成本保持高位，因为投资者似乎担心联邦储备委员会是否会全力将通胀降低至其目标水平。
■ 在美联储连续第五次会议维持利率不变后，30 年期国债收益率在周三跳升至近二十年高点，随后在 5.21 百分比附近波动。三名美联储决策者对该决定持有异议，投票支持加息。
■ 10 年期国债收益率升至 4.68 百分比，为 2025 年 1 月以来的最高水平。
■ Investec 经济学家 Ellie Henderson 在一份分析报告中写道，美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）“不愿发送明确的政策信号，这也使得传达的信息有时显得有些混乱”。随着交易员减少对今年加息的押注，短期收益率下跌，但长期债券上涨。
■ 英格兰银行周四维持利率不变，决策者警告称，由于能源价格上涨，通胀可能会在今年晚些时候重新加速。该行在声明中表示：“能源冲击对英国经济的影响仍不确定。”在组成利率设定委员会的 9 名成员中，有 3 人投票支持加息。
股市上涨。
■ 在科技股反弹的带动下，标准普尔 500 指数周四上涨 1.7 百分比。
■ 亚洲股市涨跌互现。韩国和台湾的指数由于近期半导体股的剧烈波动而收低。日本日经 225 指数上涨 0.7 百分比。
■ 在欧洲，追踪该地区最大公司的广泛指数 Stoxx 600 上涨 0.8 百分比。
汽油价格微涨。
■ 根据 AAA 汽车协会的数据，周四汽油价格上涨一美分，全国平均价格为每加仑 $4.10。自战争开始以来，这一涨幅已使驾驶者的成本增加了 37 百分比。
■ 汽油价格并不与原油同步变动，通常在原油上涨或下跌几天后才有所反应。
■ 柴油的平均价格在周四也上涨了一美分，至 $5.34，自战争开始以来上涨了 42 百分比。
由布伦丹·卡尔（Brendan Carr）领导的联邦通信委员会（F.C.C.）对 ABC 的多样性政策感兴趣。
审查许可证
作者：JOHN KOBLIN
ABC 周四指责联邦通信委员会 (F.C.C.) 对该公司进行报复，因为该机构“不喜欢该网络节目中所表达的内容和观点”。这是该公司与特朗普政府之间这场不同寻常的冲突中的最新一击。
该网络在向该机构提交的一份文件中发表了上述评论，这是其正式反对 F.C.C. 审查 ABC 地方广播许可证的一部分。此次审查是特朗普政府在努力使其媒体组织屈服而采取的一次极端的升级——ABC 称其为“前所未有”。
在详尽的文件中，ABC 称 F.C.C. 的审查是政府试图扼杀媒体组织言论自由权利的一种手段。
“针对 ABC 的报复是向全国每家媒体公司发出的信号：顺从……”
在环孢子菌暴发之后
作者：JULIE CRESWELL
Taco Bell 本月迅速采取行动，移除了与美国广泛爆发的环孢子菌感染相关的冰山生菜，该公司周四表示，顾客正开始返回其餐厅。
该连锁店成为了此次暴发初期的代表。联邦监管机构目前将九个州内 1,947 例环孢子菌病归因于 Taco Bell 供应的冰山生菜。这些生菜由全美最大的农产品供应商 Taylor Farms 提供，卫生官员表示，他们发现了将此次暴发与该公司在墨西哥业务联系起来的证据。
食品药品监督管理局 (F.D.A.) 的官员表示，他们认为美国境内正在发生多起暴发事件，且并非所有事件都与 Taco Bell 有关。
在 Taco Bell 公开……后的几天里，其销售额有所下降
称透明度 有助于重获信任。
它正在召回所有由 Taylor Farms 供应给其餐厅的冰山生菜。这些生菜很快由一家新供应商接替。
周四上午，拥有 Taco Bell 的 Yum Brands 高管表示，该连锁餐厅正显示出从此次事件中走出来的迹象。公司表示，在疫情爆发消息传出初期的最初几天销量有所下降后，其 Taco Bell 门店的销售额已趋于稳定，下降了 2 percent。
“销售影响将是暂时的，我们感谢那些重新回来并表达对 Taco Bell 热爱的粉丝，”Yum Brands 首席执行官 Chris Turner 在周四早些时候的一次业绩电话会议上告诉华尔街分析师和投资者。
近年来，Taco Bell 通过结合独特的墨西哥风味食品、强大的超值套餐平台以及庞大的粉丝基础，表现优于许多快餐同行。在疫情爆发之前，它是 Yum Brands 整体增长的驱动力。除 Taco Bell 外，Yum Brands 还拥有 KFC、必胜客 (Pizza Hut) 以及快餐连锁店 Habit Burger & Grill。
在截至 6 月 30 日的季度中，开业至少一年的 Yum Brands 门店整体销售额与去年同期相比增长了 3 percent。大部分增长来自 Taco Bell，其同店销售额报告增长了 7 percent。
KFC 该季度的同店销售额增长了 2 percent，而 Yum Brands 陷入困境的必胜客 (Pizza Hut) 在
ERIC LEE 为《纽约时报》
行政当局对新闻报道应有的样貌持有某种看法，否则就得付出代价，”该文件称。
ABC 拥有全美传播其节目的 200 多个地方电台中的 8 个，其中包括纽约、洛杉矶和费城等关键市场。政府若要剥夺电台的广播权，必须能够提出令人信服的证据，证明这些电台存在违反规则和条例的模式。
由 Brendan Carr 领导的 F.C.C. 在 4 月份因 ABC 的多样性和包容性政策而要求审查广播许可证。然而，Carr 先生的决定是在该网络深夜节目主持人 Jimmy Kimmel 发表了一个激怒特朗普总统的笑话后不久做出的。
在周四提交的文件中，ABC 指出 F.C.C. 网站上针对此次审查发表了 150,000 多个评论，其中绝大多数压倒性地支持
监管继续拖累公司的整体业绩，同店销售额下降了 1 percent。6 月，Yum Brands 宣布计划以 $2.7 billion 的价格将必胜客 (Pizza Hut) 卖给两家公司。Yum Brands 该季度的营收增长 12 percent 至 $2.17 billion，而营业利润增长 5 percent 至 $655 million。Yum Brands 的股价在早盘上涨超过 3 percent，至 $156.66。
环孢子虫病 (Cyclosporiasis) 是一种由通过受人粪便污染的食物或水传播的寄生虫引起的肠道疾病，通常在夏季发作。今年美国该病例的数量已达到历史最高水平。疾病控制与预防中心已确认或正在调查 45 个州的 18,000 多个病例，并报告了 423 例住院情况。Yum Brands 的高管表示，尽管 Taco Bell 的销售额有所下降
在公司宣布从门店撤下生菜后的几天里，情况有了显著改善，透明度帮助该公司迅速赢回了消费者的信任。“消费者日益意识到这是一个全行业的问题，而并非塔可贝尔（Taco Bell）特有的问题，”特纳先生（Mr. Turner）表示。“团队迅速且透明的行动增强了对品牌的信任。作为这些因素的证明，塔可贝尔的社交情绪指标已经回到了问题发生前的积极水平。”为了吸引顾客回归，塔可贝尔还一直在为奖励会员推出大力促销活动，包括上周提供 $1 的无生菜 Enchirito（一种墨西哥卷饼和卷饼的结合体），以及本周的 $1 墨西哥披萨优惠。“本周二推出的墨西哥披萨创造了有史以来任何周二新品发布中最高的 App 访问量和最高的 App 交易量，”特纳先生说，“而且事实上，我们看到了交易量的正增长。”
在深夜节目主持人吉米·金梅尔（Jimmy Kimmel）开了一个激怒特朗普总统的玩笑后不久，联邦通信委员会（F.C.C.）要求对 ABC 的广播许可证进行审查。
支持公司的立场。 上个月，ABC 开始播发商业广告，敦促 F.C.C. 正在审查的八个当地市场的观众“发出你的声音”，告诉该机构不要夺走他们“信任的当地电台”。公司在广告中加入了一个 QR 码，可引导观众直接进入 F.C.C. 网站。在另一场与 F.C.C. 的争端中，该网络也运行了类似的商业广告，敦促支持者支持 ABC 的脱口秀节目《观点》（The View）。 本周，前 F.C.C. 官员-
作者：NICOLE SPERLING
好莱坞外国记者协会（Hollywood Foreign Press Association）——一个多年来拥有并运营年度金球奖的自由记者团体——已就其所称的非法接管行为起诉该颁奖礼的新所有者。这起于周二在加利福尼亚中区美国地方法院提交的诉讼称，Penske Media 通过欺诈手段收购了金球奖，旨在垄断利润丰厚的广告-
作者：STEVE LOHR 和 XINYUN WU
首尔——机器人贸易紧张局势在周四升级，中国愤怒地谴责美国禁止进口中国制造的人形机器人的提案，称该措施具有歧视性，并威胁将采取报复行动。
在中国商务部发布的一份措辞严厉的声明中，指责特朗普政府发起了一场新的挑衅，这将“严重破坏中美经贸关系的稳定性，并严重扰乱全球工业和供应链的稳定”。
周二，美国联邦通信委员会（F.C.C.）表示，出于国家安全考虑，计划限制人形机器人和类动物机器人的进口，同时促进国内先进机器人的发展。虽然 F.C.C. 没有明确点名中国，但中国生产商在全球人形机器人产业中占据主导地位。中国商务部表示，该提案显然是针对中国制造商的，将其描述为“对中国公司和产品的歧视和打压”。
这一提案将新兴的机器人产业推向了中美技术竞争的最前沿。此前，两国已经在人工智能系统、先进半导体和其他关键技术的获取方面实施了针锋相对的限制。
中国在声明中警告称，如果华盛顿推进禁令，“中国将坚决采取报复措施，维护自身的合法权益”。声明中未具体说明可能采取哪些措施。
特朗普政府认为，能力日益增强的人形机器人在两个方面构成了国家安全风险。
首先，官员们认为这些机器可能充当特洛伊[[SOURCE_CLEANUP_NOTE: 文本在此处中断/换列]]木马，曾在民主党和共和党政府下任职的官员们称该机构的审查是“披着监管程序外衣的对言论自由的攻击”。
文件还披露，拥有 ABC 的迪士尼公司的法律团队规模扩大了。迪士尼聘请了贝丝·威尔金森（Beth Wilkinson），这是一位曾成功为微软 2023 年收购动视暴雪辩护的审判律师。由于派拉蒙正面临几位州总检察长的起诉以阻止其收购华纳兄弟探索频道，她最近也被派拉蒙聘用。
威尔金森女士将加入一个法律团队，其中成员包括保罗·D·克莱门特（Paul D. Clement），他是美国经验最丰富的最高法院诉讼律师之一。如果 F.C.C. 最终决定阻止 ABC 电视台执照的续期，该网络将在法院有反击的机会。
接下来的步骤——包括是否举行听证会，或者争议是否提交给该机构的行政法官——将[[SOURCE_CLEANUP_NOTE: 文本在此处中断/换列]]取决于由好莱坞工作室追逐奖项所驱动的广告业务。
Penske Media 同样拥有好莱坞贸易报刊《Variety》、《The Hollywood Reporter》、《Deadline》等，该公司在 2023 年以未公开的价格收购了金球奖。此前，最初由《洛杉矶时报》披露的新闻报道揭露，规模虽小但权力巨大的好莱坞外籍记者协会成员涉嫌财务自营交易。该组织还因缺乏多样性而受到批评。整个行业的强烈抗议以及演艺人员和公共关系专员的抵制，导致 NBC 取消了 2022 年的金球奖电视转播。
诉状称，Penske Media 首先“秘密煽动”了这次抗议，然后利用其出版物来推波助澜。诉讼认为，其目的是降低外籍记者协会的价值，使其易于被收购。该协会正寻求至少 1.5 亿美元 ($150 million) 的赔偿，并要求法院下令撤销此次收购。
用于数据收集，在它们进一步融入家庭、职场和公共空间时，甚至会采集个人信息以及敏感的政府数据。其次，政府认为，在经济日益依赖人工智能的背景下，先进机器人技术将成为一项具有战略重要性的技术。
中国方面驳斥了这些担忧，指责美国“过度扩张国家安全概念”。
美国联邦通信委员会（F.C.C.）此前曾以国家安全为由，禁止进口来自华为和中兴（ZTE）等中国公司的电信设备。
限制中国机器人是否有效仍是一个未知数。
中国的初创公司正在生产数以千计的类人机器人，其价格低于 $5,000，比其他地方的竞争对手便宜得多且规模更大。
虽然中国制造商曾依赖日本和其他外国供应商提供传感器和关节等关键部件，但这些零件现在绝大多数在中国生产。因此，如果不使用中国制造的组件，几乎不可能制造出具有竞争力的类人机器人。
中国在工业机器人领域也建立了显著领先地位。其制造和安装工厂机器人的速度是任何其他国家都无法比拟的。2024 年，有超过两百万台机器人在中国工厂运行，当年又安装了 300,000 台——这一数字超过了世界其他地区的总和。
Steve Lohr 发自首尔报道，Xinyun Wu 发自台湾台北报道。
MARK ABRAMSON 为《纽约时报》供稿
现在由卡尔先生（Mr. Carr）负责。 上周，在 ABC 没有直播特朗普（Trump）在黄金时段发表的总统演讲后，卡尔先生表示，该网络的决定将成为其审查广播许可的一部分。（NBC 同样没有播出该演讲。） 他说：“我认为，当美国总统站在白宫内发表重要演说时，我认为这是广播公司应当转播的内容。”
在的一份声明中，该协会的律师丹尼尔·A·桑德斯（Daniel A. Saunders）将彭斯克媒体（Penske Media）的行为描述为 “公然企图摧毁好莱坞外国记者协会，这一切都是为了在好莱坞巩固更强大的垄断控制，并排挤竞争性的外国记者。” 在被要求置评时，彭斯克媒体指出金球奖的一名发言人发表的声明，称此次出售不可撤销。
来自商业版第一页
来自商业版第一页
来自商业版第一页
美联储如何看待未来的经济走势。 但专家表示，金融市场仍将反映投资者对美联储行动的预期，只不过清晰度会降低。 这种不确定性意味着，为了防止利率最终高于预期而导致亏损的风险，债券投资者可能会要求更高的收益率。更高的收益率意味着
KDC/One，一家美国美容与护理产品制造商。根据国内生产总值（G.D.P.）报告，整体消费保持相对健康。
第一季度的年化增长率为百分之 24。6月份个人收入和消费者支出均有所放缓。 尽管如此，G.D.P. 报告显示，整体消费依然保持相对健康，企业投资（尤其是与人工智能热潮相关的投资）继续推进。一个衡量增长的底层“核心”指标（涵盖消费者支出和私人投资总额）在第二季度增长了 3.9 percent，而第一季度为 1.7 percent。 “底层增长强劲，”Eric Wallerstein 表示，一位
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抵押品公开处置通知
请注意，根据《纽约统一商业法典》，SPG Astoria Lender LLC（一家特拉华州有限责任公司），作为某些贷款机构（“担保方”）的行政和抵押代理人，根据 2024 年 2 月 16 日（“担保协议”）签署的某项质押与担保协议，将通过公开拍卖出售 26-01 4th Street Astoria LLC（一家纽约有限责任公司，“质押人”）在担保协议项下质押的所有抵押品（统称为“抵押品”）中的所有权利、所有权和权益，包括 Mings Garden Realty LLC（一家纽约有限责任公司，“借款人”） 100% 的已发行且未赎回的会员权益。借款人拥有并持有位于纽约州阿斯托里亚 26-01 4th Street, Astoria, New York 11102（“物业”）的地产所有权。
公开拍卖将于 2026 年 9 月 15 日下午 3:00（东部时间）举行。拍卖师为 Mannion Auctions, LLC 的 Matthew D. Mannion，通过 Zoom 远程会议以及在纽约州纽约市 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 39th Floor, New York, New York 10112 的 Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLP 办公室现场进行。担保方将把抵押品出售给提交最高出价的合格竞买人。所有出价（除担保方的抵债出价外）均应为现金出价，且无融资应急条款或条件。担保方保留 (i) 以其由抵押品担保的债权进行抵债出价，(ii) 拒绝任何及所有出价，(iii) 全面取消销售，以及/或 (iv) 推迟销售的权利。
除为该物业设定某些抵押权（统称为“抵押贷款”）外，该抵押品还为向借款人提供的原始总本金金额为 $60,250,000 的某些土地和建筑贷款（统称为“贷款”）提供额外担保。截至 2026 年 6 月 1 日，该贷款的未偿还总本金余额约为 $58,277,286.89。担保协议项下已发生且持续存在非停顿违约（定义见担保协议），且抵押贷款项下已发生且持续存在违约事件（定义见抵押贷款）。
若抵押品的出售价格低于当时贷款的未偿还总余额（以及截至本次公开销售之日累积的利息和所有成本费用），则本次公开销售的完成应受限于抵押贷款及其担保的债务，该债务应由担保方从本次公开销售中获得的收益予以抵减。担保方明确保留抵押贷款项下、法律上及公平法上所有可用的权利和救济措施，包括但不限于就该物业启动司法抵押赎回权的程序。公开拍卖的胜出竞买人在获取抵押品时，应受限于所有上述权利和救济措施。
此次公开销售的完成还取决于是否满足 2024年2月16日签署的 Mings Garden Realty LLC 特定修订及重述经营协议（以下简称“借款人经营协议”）项下的所有适用条件和要求。潜在竞买人应自行承担风险、成本和费用，负责：(a) 遵守借款人经营协议中规定的所有条件和限制，包括要求根据其中规定的某些限制完成并签署借款人会员权益转让申请；(b) 向借款人提交借款人有限责任公司权益证明书（以下简称“证明书”），并附上 (i) 由质权设定人（或作为质权设定人事实代理人的担保方）正式完成并签署的转让书，以及 (ii) 由获胜竞买人作为受让人正式完成并签署的转让申请，每项申请的格式均出现在该证明书的背面；以及 (c) 满足借款人经营协议中明确对受让人或获胜竞买人施加的任何其他条件，每项均按借款人经营协议的要求和定义执行。
担保物此前未注册且将不会根据 1933年证券法（以下简称“本法”）进行注册，且正根据担保协议中的规定，在免于遵守本法要求的交易中出售。竞买人在提交报价和实际购买担保物时，须遵守所有现行适用的证券法。担保方保留要求竞买人陈述以下内容的权利：即购买担保物是以投资为目的且为竞买人自身账户购买，而非为了转售或分销，且除非根据本法有效的登记声明或适用的豁免规定，否则将不予转售。为了符合转让要求及可能适用的州证券法，可能还需要提供额外的陈述。担保物将按“现状、原址、包含所有缺陷”出售，担保方不提供任何形式的保证或陈述，且无追索权。转让将受影响借款人的所有抗辩和责任约束，包括抵押贷款及其项下的所有义务。获胜竞买人应自行负责根据任何适用的地方、州或联邦法律、法规或条例获得任何必要的同意、批准或通知，并负责就担保物和财产遵守适用法律。
从政府到公司再到消费者，每个人的借款成本都会增加。在最坏的情况下，这可能会加剧人们对即将来临的财政灾难的担忧。 在美联储周三决定维持其控制的短期利率不变后，这些担忧在金融市场中显现，尽管通货膨胀依然顽固地保持在高位。 三名政策制定者对该决定持异议，投票支持加息
前美联储顾问及 Clocktower Group（一家资产管理和咨询公司）的首席宏观策略师。尽管如此，他补充道，“实际收入和支出一直呈下降趋势。” 由于国内生产总值（G.D.P.）经过了通胀调整，成本上升抑制了周四公布的数据中所反映的增长。这是美国经济分析局对第二季度的首次估算。由该机构公务员进行的修订可能会非常显著，尤其是在价格波动期间。 金融研究员 Viresh Kanabar 收集的数据显示
执法官/ 警长拍卖
逛逛《时报》商店。 nytimes.com/store
治安官强制执行拍卖 — 公开拍卖 — 关于：停车违规诉多种 被执行人。我将代表 城市 治安官 Bernard Blake，由拍卖师 Rafael Lopez 在 10:00 AM 2026, 8月4日星期二 进行公开拍卖， 地点为 FIVE J'S AUTOMOTIVE, 4825 Baldwin Street, Bronx, New York 10465 以下车辆的所有权/权益/利益 (R/T/I)： 06 起亚 (KIA) KNDJC733165540852 05 英菲尼迪 (INFI) JNRAS08W15X204778 05 本田 (HOND) 1HGCM56825A051353 05 日产 (NISS) 1N4AL11D95N927386 13 宝马 (BMW) WBA3B5C51DF596912 07 日产 (NISS) JN8AZ08T07W513172 10 斯巴鲁 (SUBA) 4S4BRCLC0A3361195 11 道奇 (DODG) 3D4PG3FG0BT551201 10 本田 (HOND) 1HGCP2F89AA115016 10 日产 (NISS) 1N4AL2EP5AC161656 以下车辆带留置权出售 20 捷豹 (JAGU) SADCP2FX3LA627299 19 福特 (FORD) 2FMPK4J9XKBC31353 13 GMC 1GKKVRKD1DJ219245 21 吉普 (JEEP) 1C4RJKDG9M8158903 19 日产 (NISS) 5N1AT2MV1KC819450 17 讴歌 (ACUR) 5FRYD4H3XHB009751 24 凯迪拉克 (CADI) 1GYKPPRK5RZ107193 18 福特 (FORD) 1FTYR2YM2JKA94402 22 斯巴鲁 (SUBA) JF1ZDBF15N8701316 16 本田 (HOND) 19XFC2F55GE071258 14 日产 (NISS) JN8AF5MV0ET357856 14 本田 (HOND) 2HGFG3B54EH520299 20 丰田 (TOYO) 2T3RWRFVXLW077892 15 日产 (NISS) 5N1AT2MV5FC925440 仅限现金 (CASH) 拍卖前 1 小时可检视 城市治安官 BERNARD BLAKE 警号 #63 电话 (718) 528-4584
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利率。在决定后的新闻发布会上，沃什先生拒绝回答记者关于美联储将如何应对通货膨胀的重复提问，仅表示他对此十分认真。
长期国债收益率随之大幅上涨。Regions Bank 的首席投资官艾伦·麦克奈特（Alan McKnight）表示，在缺乏沃什先生更明确指导的情况下，国债市场的走势是对“市场缺乏信心认为美联储愿意且能够降低通胀的一种表态”。
然而，一些投资者表示，市场的反应正是沃什先生所希望的。他在周三的讲话中指出，收益率（类似于市场的利率）在近几周有所上升，在一定程度上替美联储完成了提高利率和抑制通胀的工作。
商业订单和支出正在增加。零售额在过去几个月也一直强劲。但卡纳巴尔（Mr. Kanabar）的数据显示，经通胀调整后，消费者购买的增长速度要缓和得多。他指出，在过去的六个月里，“实际”经通胀调整后的收入整体有所下降，且下降速度之快是自 2022 年通胀高峰以来未曾见过的。
简单来说，国内生产总值（G.D.P.）是对经济中商品和服务交换的核算。而 G.D.P. 的增长是四个因素波动组合的结果：商业投资、政府支出、净出口和家庭消费，后者通常构成美国经济的约 70 比例。
消费者支出和商业投资基础稳固，但政府净支出的回撤和进口的增加拖累了增长势头。“在另行通知之前，这是一个在勉强维持的经济体，”康奈尔法学院宏观经济学高级研究员兼金融公司 Westwood Capital 管理合伙人丹·阿尔珀特（Dan Alpert）说道。
本月早些时候，特朗普政府对来自 80 多个国家的进口商品征收 10 到 12 比例的关税。经济学家批评总统的全球关税政策，法院也撤销了其中许多条款。经济学家预计，目前仍执行的关税不会导致经济衰退，但许多人认为这将减缓增长并推高价格。
根据耶鲁大学研究人员的一项估计，这些关税每年使美国一个平均家庭损失约 $1,100。
许多商业领袖表示，他们相信伊朗冲突将维持在可控范围内，对更广泛的商业活动损害有限。但处于伊朗部分控制下的关键燃料瓶颈——霍尔木兹海峡，对于全球货运商来说仍不是一条可靠的通道。
市场分析师发出了严厉警告，称国际石油库存正在迅速枯竭。因此，大规模短缺的风险可能很快会再次抬头。
一个部分起到救赎作用的因素是，国内和全球经济的“能源密集度”已大大降低。自 2000 年以来，美国和欧洲每产生一美元增长所消耗的能量下降了约三分之一，中国则下降了约 40 比例。
但原油库存较低仍可能导致油价出现通胀性飙升，从而遏制增长。有证据表明，能源价格的跳涨已经渗透到经济的其他领域。预计杂货价格将上涨，而已经飙升的机票价格预计在短期内不会回落。
周四发布的另一项月度数据显示，美联储青睐的通胀指标在 6 月实际上下降了 0.1 比例。这反映了 6 月油价的冷却。从年度来看，通胀率仍上涨 3.7 比例，远高于央行 2 比例的长期目标。且第二季度的通胀率尤高。
美联储在周三维持利率不变。
MADDIE MCGARVEY 为《纽约时报》报道
但在美联储政策制定委员会的 12 名成员中，有三人持异议，投票支持加息，这标志着遏制通货膨胀的压力正在增加。美联储新任主席凯文·M·沃什（Kevin M. Warsh）已郑重承诺将削减通胀。但与前任一样，他也将权衡紧缩货币政策可能会如何损害增长和就业市场。与 2025. 相比，劳动力市场在今年已趋于稳定。过去三个月非农就业人数增长速度不一，但平均每月增加 111,000 个岗位。一些美联储观察人士表示，这种稳定性为沃什先生和其他美联储领导者提供了加息空间，而无需承担过大的损害风险。由于投资者担心持续高企的通胀将侵蚀某些资产的未来价值，长期债券收益率近期有所上升。投资者一直对潜在的人工智能（A.I.）泡沫感到焦虑。但股市指数在今年有所上涨，企业盈利继续超出预期。根据 FactSet 的数据，标准普尔 500 指数（S&P 500）在最新季度的净利润率有望上升至 16 百分比，这是 FactSet 自 2009. 开始追踪该指标以来的最高水平。经济学家们带着好奇与焦虑地在探讨，人工智能热潮与国内生产总值（G.D.P.）增长之间会有多么紧密的联系。由于大型公司利用债务和数十亿美元的现金流来履行投资承诺，所有这些人工智能支出的未来回报将从何而来，仍然是一个关键问题。个人设备上的搜索查询、商业软件应用和内容流似乎可以虚拟地毫不费力地呈现。但云计算和人工智能系统依赖于一个由芯片、电缆和冷却系统组成的大规模、高能耗的基础设施。而这些底层物理系统的增长，是企业间巨大的投资热潮的核心。PNC 银行经济学家兼董事总经理布莱恩·勒布朗（Brian LeBlanc）指出，仅在上半年，企业的“资本支出”（cap-ex）平均增长率就达到了令人印象深刻的 10 百分比。然而，由于一些统计上的特性，人工智能的建设——这依赖于许多进口外国组件而非国内零件——也在一定程度上抑制了国内增长的衡量指标。投资公司 Piper Sandler 的董事总经理兼经济研究副主管杰克·欧比纳（Jake Oubina）表示：“从 G.D.P. 数学角度来看，很多能够显著增加 G.D.P. 的人工智能相关资本支出，被我们进口大部分数据中心所需物资这一事实所抵消。”在春季支撑家庭消费的联邦退税现在已基本耗尽。由于家庭的储蓄缓冲远低于近期水平，钟楼集团（Clocktower Group）的沃勒斯坦（Wallerstein）先生认为，“今年剩下的时间里，消费将大幅削弱”。他说：“是的，人工智能热潮并不占 G.D.P. 的 100 百分比，但这是一个由人工智能驱动的经济体。”
今年长期收益率早期的上涨，很大程度上并非来自通胀预期，而是由于对人工智能基础设施的巨额支出推高了增长前景，以及对政府借贷不可持续性日益增加的担忧。收益率的上升自然有助于放缓经济，进而降低通货膨胀。 与油价高企相关的短期通胀担忧也可能
在伊朗战争暂停期间有所缓解
作者：科尔比·史密斯 (COLBY SMITH)
在与伊朗战争的临时停战期间，美联储首选的通胀衡量指标在 6 月有所缓解。但本月战斗的重启表明，这种缓解可能无法持久。
根据商务部周四发布的数据，6 月整体消费者价格下降 0.1 ％，较去年同期上升 3.7 ％。这一年率低于 5 月创下的三年高点，当时个人消费支出 (Personal Consumption Expenditure) 价格指数同比上涨 4.1 ％。
剔除波动较大的食品和能源成本、被视为更可靠的潜在通胀衡量指标的“核心”价格，较上月仅上涨 0.1 ％。与去年同期相比，这些价格上涨了 3.3 ％，与 6 月的同比增幅大致持平。
6 月的数据捕捉到了与伊朗战争在短暂暂停后再次升级之前的时期。在那段喘息期间，油价回落至战前水平，有助于抑制该月的整体通胀。但随着 7 月袭击的重启，油价再次攀升。
战争拖延的时间越长，对通胀造成的上涨压力就越大，而通胀已经
沃什正采取措施驯服通货膨胀
随着沃什先生的讲话，长期政府借贷成本飙升，30年期债券创下一年多来最大的一日涨幅。其交易率在 5.22 左右，处于 2007. 年以来的最高水平。作为全球借贷成本基准的 10 年期国债收益率也随之上升，同时市场对长期通胀的预期也有所提高。股市同样出现抛售，尽管投资者将潜在加息的时间推迟到了今年晚些时候。其中部分股票损失在周四得到了回收，但债券市场的不安情绪依然存在。
“市场最初将这种关于价格稳定强硬的话术解读为，有人愿意采取必要行动来应对通胀，随后却惊讶地发现并没有后续行动，”曾在美联储担任副主席，直到 2023. 年离开并成为拜登政府最高经济顾问的莱尔·布雷纳德（Lael Brainard）表示。
美国银行的利率策略师马克·卡巴纳（Mark Cabana）补充道：“作为一名央行行长，这正是你所不希望看到的。你不希望市场质疑你在应对通胀方面的信誉。”
在进入 7 月会议之前，出现某种失望的可能性较高，很大程度上是因为有一批声音响亮的投资者主张沃什先生应出人意料地加息 0.25 个百分点。在周三的公告发布前，此类举措的可能性约为 30 ％。来自地区银行的三位行长认为这同样是最佳决定，并对维持利率不变表示异议。加息的理由是，在沃什先生担任主席任期初期采取激进举措，将有助于巩固他致力于成为的“通胀战士”的名声。
沃什先生试图在周三维持这一形象。在新闻发布会的开场白中，他表示，为了扼制通胀，“在必要且适当的情况下，我们将毫不犹豫地采取行动”。他明确表示，美联储（至少在目前）不会接受个人消费支出价格指数衡量下超过 2 ％的通胀率。他还反复强调，即使美联储维持现状，其讨论或策略也“并非惯性而为”。此外，他反驳了将 7 月会议定义为“暂停”的说法。但这些“鹰派元素”——正如资产管理公司 PIMCO 的经济学家蒂法尼·威尔丁（Tiffany Wilding）所言——
如果美国与伊朗之间的紧张局势冷却，导致石油流出中东，这将有利于沃什先生。贝莱德（BlackRock）全球固定收益副首席投资官鲁斯·布朗巴克（Russ Brownback）表示，市场的反应“正是”沃什先生所希望的。
“我认为每个人都需要深呼吸，给沃什主席和这届美联储一些时间，”他说。
超过了美联储 2 percent 的目标，且这种情况已持续五年多。
周三，央行投票决定将利率维持在 3.5 to 3.75 percent 的区间不变，这一水平自一月份起一直维持。但三名官员表示反对，主张加息 25 个基点。这三位投票者分别是克利夫兰联邦储备银行的贝丝·M·哈马克 (Beth M. Hammack)、明尼阿波利斯联储的尼尔·卡什卡里 (Neel Kashkari) 以及达拉斯联储的洛丽·K·洛根 (Lorie K. Logan)。
鉴于新任主席凯文·M·沃什 (Kevin M. Warsh) 承诺降低通胀，周三的按兵不动使其陷入了被动。在政策公布后的新闻发布会上，他重申美联储在实现 2 percent 目标的承诺上没有动摇。他还表示，6 月份较为凉快的通胀数据在决策中没有占据太多权重。
然而，由于他对于“为了抑制物价压力可能需要提高利率”这一观念犹豫不决，引发了华尔街的担忧，认为沃什先生的强硬言论将缺乏行动支持。周三，由于投资者推迟了对最终加息时间的预期，美国政府长期借贷成本大幅上涨。
美联储将于 9 月中旬再次举行会议。
经理描述的情况——都被沃什先生不愿列出考虑加息之条件的态度给掩盖了。事实上，他仅简短地承认，提高借贷成本是美联储应对通胀的可用工具之一。沃什先生也没有就未来几个月的数据如何演变给出任何迹象，也没有明确提到 9 月的下次会议是否作为采取行动的潜在平台。总而言之，他将当前时刻描述为“一个审慎思考的时期，而非审慎等待的时期”。
“没有前瞻性指引。没有框架指引。什么都没有，”怀尔丁 (Wilding) 女士说道。这一点，再加上沃什先生反复提到美联储将关注广泛的通胀衡量指标，给她留下的印象是，任何加息的时机都具有高度的不确定性。而缺失的是
沃什先生 6 月首次会议记录中强调的一点，即规定如果通胀率持续居高不下，大多数官员认为有必要采取“一定的政策收紧”。政策制定者在这一公报的基础上进一步强调，他们需要尽快看到通胀减速。这种省略可能是沃什先生的一项战略举措，他拒绝了美联储长期以来向市场发出关于央行将如何行动以及如何应对新数据的信号惯例。他的观点是，美联储应该从市场获得关于央行应怎么做的“直接且未经过滤”的信号，而不是让官员的信号被反射回来。周三，沃什先生多次提到近期金融条件的收紧（这反映了整个经济中的信贷可用性），认为这给政策制定者带来了一些“慰藉，让我们知道我们有能力并能够交付”。
曾担任前美联储主席杰罗姆·H·鲍威尔 (Jerome H. Powell) 高级顾问的库尔特·刘易斯 (Kurt Lewis) 将沃什先生的策略比作“由于这种措辞选择，就像在双手被反绑在背后的情况下，试图传达与会议记录中相同的信息”。刘易斯先生认为，“无论是因为压力还是出于选择，他未来都会改变对待新闻发布会的方式，因为如果他采取更直接的方式，沟通会更容易。”对冲基金 Schonfeld 的宏观与固定收益研究负责人阿维莎·塔卡尔 (Avisha Thakkar) 表示，沃什先生能否避免再次面临市场的信誉考验，将取决于经济数据是否配合并能暂时抵制加息。
中国不仅在增加牛的数量，还在推动培育体型更丰满、牛肉质量更好的动物。就在 2015 年，该国进口的牛肉还不到 500,000 吨。
来自第一商业页
北京正在采取更广泛的行动，以保护其国内市场免受来自拥有更大规模、更高效牧场和饲养场的国家的低成本进口产品影响。中国在 12 月 31 日为全球各主要牛肉生产国设定了年度进口配额，一旦达到这些配额，将立即征收 55 ％的关税。澳大利亚在 6 月底达到了全年配额，并在三天后被征收关税，而巴西也接近其配额。在 5 月于北京举行的一次峰会上，特朗普总统敦促中国最高领导人习近平让该国购买更多美国牛肉。在特朗普提高美国关税后，中国在去年年初停止了几乎所有来自美国的进口。尽管北京在峰会期间取消了一项监管障碍，但美国货船的运输量仍然几乎为零。
没有人认为拥有庞大人口的中国很快就能在牛肉方面实现自给自足。但直到最近，随着日益富裕的人口要求更高蛋白质的饮食而超过国内供应，其牛肉进口一直在加速。根据该国海关数据，早在 2015, 年，中国进口的牛肉不到 500,000 吨。随着进口量开始快速增长，中国开始扩大自己的牛群，甚至向该国最贫困县的贫困家庭免费分发牛。进口量在 2024 年达到峰值 2.87 million 吨——这对全球牧场主来说是一笔巨大的意外之财。这种年度增长速度在其他行业中很少见，除非是中国自身汽车出口的快速增长。
但到 2024, 年，房地产价格暴跌，许多中国家庭在国家住房市场崩盘中失去积蓄后，转向购买较便宜的鸡肉或猪肉。加上国内产量的增加，该年牛肉批发价格下跌了 21 ％。价格下跌在中国的农村地区引起了相当大的愤怒，那里有数百万家庭将毕生积蓄投入到养牛屠宰中。中国今年将来自世界其他地区的总进口量限制在 2.69 million 吨，使用了国家配额制度和 55 ％关税的威胁。这是北京方面一次政治上微妙的举动，因为北京一直强烈反对欧盟和美国对其自身激增的汽车出口征收关税。
目前牛肉价格正在回升，这有助于内蒙古等地的农民。通辽概括了目前在戈壁沙漠东南部边缘发生的转变。据当地政府称，几十年前，通辽只有 12 ％是草原或森林，其余均为沙漠。现在，该地区 64 ％的面积被作物、草地或森林覆盖。中国的宣传机构将戈壁沙漠的退缩归功于数十年艰苦的植树造林，以及近期大规模部署的太阳能电池板。政府表示，这些行动稳定了该地区流动不定的沙地，并有助于驯服曾经吸走表层土壤水分的干燥沙漠风。
但气候变化也带来了巨大影响。据中国气象学家称，年降水量显著增加，尽管期间经历了多年的起伏。在中国北方，总面积与亚利桑那州相仿的此前干燥地带，已经开始接收足够的降雨以支撑草原或作物，尽管其中许多地区的农业土壤质量较差。
“我们看到的是与气候变暖相关的长期增长，其中叠加了显著的、长达十年的波动，”徐西（音译）表示。
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
KEITH BRADSHER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
上图为在通辽与当地牛杂交的安格斯牛，左图为肉类加工场。随着进口量迅速增加，以及中国北部大片地区变得显著湿润，该国开始扩大自己的牛群。下图为南京的一个市场。
QILAI SHEN 为《纽约时报》拍摄
中国气象服务协会会长沈（aofeng，译注：原名为aofeng，姓沈）警告称，降雨也越来越多地以短暂且猛烈的暴雨形式出现，而非更有利于作物生长的持久且温和的细雨。
为了防止蹄部损害或过度放牧，中国官员使用农机设备每年对新草地进行一次修剪，并将干草分发给农民用于圈养牛。
GILLES SABRIÉ 为《纽约时报》拍摄
沈先生表示，政府还在通辽新绿化区域安装了大型运动传感器网络以探测牛只。政府工作人员收到警报后，会移走违规动物并对主人处以罚款。沈先生说：“在我们所有沙地修复区，严禁放牧。”通辽地区已成为全球最大的风力涡轮机制造中心之一，许多涡轮机安装在新草地上，向南方的各大城市输电。牛肉产业的快速增长、玉米地的扩张以及大规模的工厂建设，促使当地生活水平大幅提高，包括使用机械而非牲畜耕地。中国还试图让其骨瘦如柴的国产牛变得肥硕，因为几个世纪以来，这些牛被培育用于拉犁。当地牛更能抵抗本地病毒，并能抵御向南袭来的西伯利亚暴风雪。因此，当地牛现在通过人工授精，与体型更大、肉质更丰厚的瑞士西门塔尔牛和安格斯牛进行杂交。通辽市农业和畜牧局副局长郭洁表示，杂交后代的体重可达当地牛的两倍。她说：“带有我们当地牛基因的西门塔尔牛能更好地适应当地环境且生长迅速。”（郭女士是在今年夏天的一次媒体采访中在内蒙古发表的上述言论，该边境地区有时会对外国媒体的进入进行限制。《纽约时报》支付了自己的差旅费用。）但许多小规模农户对体型更庞大的进口品种心存顾虑。近七百万个中国家庭每户仍仅饲养九头或更少的牛。河北省一位拥有数十头本地牛的牧民表示，她对杂交品种没有兴趣。这位姓赵的牧民说：“我们牛的牛肉比你在超市里看到的要好得多——这些是中国的原生品种。”她许多在偏远山谷中放牧的草饲牛骨盆骨突出，肋骨清晰可见。内蒙古当局已转向采取激励措施，鼓励将该地区的牛群整合到大型饲养场，在那里人工授精和其他计划更容易管理。该地区政府目前为在饲养场育肥的牛提供每头 $44 的补贴，前提是这些饲养场每年向当地屠宰场发送至少 500 头牛。随着进口限制开始产生影响，批发牛肉价格比去年3月的低点上涨了 17.6%，这在长期繁荣的进程中帮助了通辽的农民。沈先生说：“过去，人们必须步行或骑骆驼。而今天，几乎家家户户都有车。”
对疲软经济 持谨慎支持态度
作者：KEITH BRADSHER
北京——面对疲软的消费者支出、持续高企的青年失业率以及暴跌的股市，中国执政的政治局释放出需要加强财政支持的信号，并指示相关部门采取更多措施解决失业问题。在中国共产党领导层周四发布的一份关于年度经济半年回顾的措辞宽泛的声明中，敦促政府采取“更加积极”的税收和支出政策，并增加就业支持。政治局的声明很少详细阐述具体的政策措施，而是为政府行动设定一个大方向。然而，即便按照这一标准，该声明也几乎没有表现出紧迫感，这进一步增强了外界的预期，即北京将继续依赖渐进式的刺激，而非广泛的改革。政治局表示，将“充分发挥现有政策效能，及时规划并出台实用有效的增量政策”。
中国国内经济出现疲软，目前主要依靠创纪录的贸易盈余以及技术和清洁能源行业的强劲出口来维持。“政治局继续依赖增量步骤来带动经济，”康奈尔大学经济学教授、国际货币基金组织前中国部负责人 Eswar Prasad 表示，“但要提振家庭消费，需要实质性的直接财政援助以及增强信心的措施，或许还需配合一些税收减免。”
即便许多中国的电动汽车和太阳能电池板制造商也在亏损，而一些科技公司也开始遇到困难。在经历数月的强劲增长后，代表中国主要公司的 CSI 300 指数在 7 月下跌了 8.6%，使其有望创下 2016. 年 1 月以来最差的单月表现。尽管如此，该指数在过去一年中仍上涨了近 10%。
16 至 25 岁城镇居民的失业率一直维持在 15% 左右。青年失业给家庭带来了巨大的社会压力，因为这个年龄段的几乎每个人都是独生子女，出生在中国“独生子女”政策执行最严格的时期。即便在北京 2024 年 1 月改变计算方法，将许多此前被计为失业的年轻人排除在外之后，青年失业率依然顽固地处于高位。
中国国家统计局尚未公布 7 月的投资、零售销售和工业生产数据，但 6 月的数据非常疲软，且调查显示情况将进一步恶化。除半导体和数据中心设备制造商外，广泛行业的企业在这个夏天都遭受了销售疲软的困扰，导致加班、招聘和借贷规模缩减。“从收入和利润到销售价格和招聘，每一个关键指标都比一年前有所减弱，”总部位于纽约的数据服务机构 China Beige Book 在周四发布的一份报告中表示，该报告基于过去两周对 1,436 家企业的调查。
消费者支出依然低迷，而大部分住房市场仍处于危机之中。公寓价格在全国范围内持续五年下跌，这在家庭资产通常有约四分之三持有房地产的国家，抹去了中产阶级的大部分储蓄。中国内外经济学家已敦促政府和国家控制的银行系统减少对支持出口商和高科技产业的工业政策资源投入，转而提供更多财务
对家庭，特别是农村家庭的支持。在上个月的一次演讲中，曾任政府影响力智库——发展研究中心副部长的刘世锦表示，中国的制造业具有全球竞争力，但许多行业面临产能过剩，而部分人们的需求“仍未得到满足”。北京的一份名为《东读》(The East is Read) 的时事通讯于本周发布了该演讲的文本。由于中国的债务与经济规模之比已经超过了美国，中国领导人在采取更激进措施方面一直犹豫不决。政治局的声明并未显示出在支持中国家庭方面的政策有根本性转变。
作者：IVAN PENN
随着人们对为人工智能提供动力的数据中心激增产生越来越大的抵触情绪，将这些耗能巨大的设施置于轨道的兴趣日益增加。现在，研究人员可能已经找到了克服这一目标主要障碍的方法：在太空中为数据中心进行冷却。加州理工学院（California Institute of Technology）和 Sophia Space（一家专注于轨道空间计算的初创公司）周四宣布，他们获得了一项冷却系统的专利，据称该系统可帮助他们在 2030 年代初启动由太空 24 小时太阳能系统供电的数据中心。
这一公告是开发太空太阳能利用的最新尝试。今年，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）提议发送大约一百万颗卫星作为数据中心，以减少它们在地球上消耗的电能和水资源。其他大型科技公司，如谷歌（Google）和杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）的火箭公司蓝色起源（Blue Origin），也一直在开发类似项目。与加州理工学院和 Sophia Space 设计的系统一样，这些卫星将需要太阳能提供能量。
“这简直是在爆发式增长，”加州理工学院太空太阳能发电项目共同主任、且正与 Sophia Space 合作的 Sergio Pellegrino 说道，“我们需要习惯于让太空为我们服务。”
太阳能技术在太空中已经存在。飞船和卫星使用小型面板供电，但规模远不及 Sophia Space 和加州理工学院所设想的。他们的系统距离进入轨道至少还需要数年时间。但如果证明有效，研究人员、技术高管和能源公司希望有一天，太空太阳能阵列能够为您的家庭或企业供电。
在过去的十年左右时间里，太阳能作为一种电力资源不断增长，成本更低、效率更高，同时提供无碳能源。但由于太阳能仅在阳光照射时运行，关于它能否满足由电动汽车、制暖和制冷系统，以及最关键的 A.I. 数据中心所引发的激增需求，目前仍存在争议。特别是数据中心已经激怒了附近的居民。
增加 A.I. 支出
作者：EMMY MARTIN
旧金山 —— 微软（Microsoft）在人工智能方面的支出仍在上升，但与其他大型科技公司不同，它似乎对于“回报是否足以抵消成本”的担忧有了答案。
周三，微软表示，在截至 6 月的三个月里，其资本支出（包括数据中心）为 $410 亿，同比增长 69%。微软还表示，在同样于 6 月结束的 2026 财年，其支出达到了 $1453 亿。
与此同时，微软该季度的利润为 $358 亿，增长 31%。营收为 $900 亿，增长 18%。
公司云服务 Azure（允许企业租用计算能力、存储和 A.I. 工具）的营收推动了大部分增长，激增 43%。分析师此前预计增长率约为 40%，与上一季度持平。投资者密切关注这一数字，将其视为微软 A.I. 支出是否转化为营收的最清晰信号。
Azure 在该财年的营收超过了 $1000 亿。
作者：ELI TAN
旧金山 —— Meta 对人工智能进行了大举押注。周三，该公司表示这一押注将不会停止。
这家拥有 Facebook、Instagram 和 WhatsApp 的硅谷公司将今年的资本支出预测下限从 4 月份预计的 1,250 亿美元提高到 1,300 亿美元。该投资的大部分将用于建设数据中心，即驱动人工智能的计算设施。
Meta 还表示，其第二季度的成本和费用增长速度快于收入增长。收入为 608 亿美元，同比增长 28%，而成本则激增 55%，达到 420 亿美元。利润为 183 亿美元，同比下降 14%。
Meta 首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）将重点放在人工智能如何助力其公司业务上。
像国际空间站上的那种太阳能电池阵列已经投入使用。但人工智能数据中心将需要多得多的设备。
因为它们占用大量土地，并导致电费上涨和水资源短缺。太空中的太阳能将 24 小时获得太阳能，使其成为像天然气和其他燃料发电厂一样稳定的能源。在地球上，太阳能电站需要电池来将资源延伸至白昼之外。
但一些反对将太阳能驱动数据中心送入轨道的批评者认为，这将增加空间垃圾的数量，同时增加消费者的电力成本。有人说，这还可能降低电网的可靠性。
“这些基于太空的‘捕鼠夹’纯粹是分散注意力，”圣迭戈的工程师比尔·鲍尔斯（Bill Powers）说道，他在全美各地的州公用事业监管机构面前作为专家证人为消费者作证。
首次地，“反映出客户在驱动其人工智能转型方面对我们的信任，”微软（Microsoft）首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）表示。
该公司的业绩超过了华尔街对 876 亿美元收入和 315 亿美元利润的预期，使得微软股价在周三的盘后交易中上涨超过 7%。
这些强劲的业绩可能会给那些担心微软计划加速增加人工智能支出的投资者带来安慰。
微软首席财务官艾米·胡德（Amy Hood）在周三的财报电话会议上表示，公司预计在 2026 日历年将在人工智能基础设施上花费大约 1,750 亿美元，并在本季度花费超过 500 亿美元。
公司预计本季度收入将在 898.5 亿美元至 909.5 亿美元之间。
该公司表示，对其云计算服务的需求超过了其现有数据中心的承载能力，需要增加支出进行扩建。纳德拉先生表示，微软在本季度增加了 31 个数据中心，使今年的新数据中心总数达到 88 个。
一些投资者表示，真正的考验在于需求是否持续。
“我们现在已经到了一个阶段，我们在人工智能方面的投资正在加速我们核心业务的每一个主要部分，”他说道。他补充说，“潜在地直接销售计算资源”（指计算能力）可能是一个新的业务机会。
投资者似乎被 Meta 的支出吓到了。该公司股价在盘后交易中下跌超过 9%。
Meta 的持续支出是在谷歌上周宣布将增加资本支出之后进行的。预计科技巨头在今年和明年将花费 1.5 万亿美元建设数据中心。如此巨大的金额引发了关于此类支出是否合理的质疑，股市在近几周因对支出的担忧而波动。
扎克伯格先生此前曾表示，尽管公司竞相从人工智能繁荣中获利，他们正竭尽全力创建数据中心基础设施，即使其中一些努力
永远不会成为现实。 在 6 月一份关于太空数据中心的报告中，世界经济论坛指出，寻找冷却计算机芯片的技术将是一个极具吸引力的追求，因为 70% 的美国人反对在他们所在地区建设数据中心。报告指出，太空缺乏空气和水，而这些通常是快速
以匹配微软的支出。该公司的商业积压订单（即合同约定的未来销售额）增长至 $678 billion，比上一季度增长 8%。Hood 女士表示，这 $51 billion 的增幅全部来自除 OpenAI 等前沿人工智能实验室以外的客户。 由于投资者越来越担心，它及其同行投入到人工智能开发中的数千亿美元是否能转化为利润，微软的股价自 1 月以来有所下跌。 这种焦虑在就在上周显现。谷歌的母公司 Alphabet 报告称，其季度利润增长了四倍，达到 $112 billion，这在很大程度上得益于对其他人工智能领域的重大投资。
Meta 正在考虑将其数据中心的计算能力出售给其他公司。6 月，Anthropic 提出从 Meta 购买计算能力的方案，该交易价值最高可达 $10 billion；谈判目前仍在进行中。 与同样在增加支出的 Google、亚马逊和微软不同，
Meta 第二季度的成本激增至 $42 billion。
冷却计算机芯片。 Sophia Space 设计了一个带有冷却系统的计算机和数据存储单元，该系统结合使用了瓷砖和太阳能，最终将废热排放到深空。该公司表示，其系统与地球上的数据中心相比具有“成本竞争力”。 “Sophia 诞生于这种愿景，旨在为地球提供能源并解决能源危机，”Sophia Space 的联合创始人兼首席技术官 Leon Alkalai 说道。 Alkalai 博士表示，该太阳能系统并非在太空产生电能并将其传输到地球，而是在太空为轨道数据中心产生能量，随后将数据发送回地球——这是一个简单得多且成本更低的壮举。
LEXI PARRA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
这些公司，并将其 2026 年的预期支出提高到 $195 billion 至 $205 billion 的范围。在财报电话会议后的次日，其股价下跌了约 7%。 “市场确实给了大型科技公司在人工智能方面消费的许可，这是基于这些公司将获得可观投资回报的信念，”Zacks Investment Research 的分析师 Bryan Hayes 说道。“而现在的耐心是有条件的。” 填满这些数据中心的很大一部分需求可以追溯到 OpenAI。微软与这家位于旧金山的 ChatGPT 背后公司的关系在去年年底进行了重组，当时这家初创公司转变为营利性实体，微软获得了一份额值
顾问。 Meta 从一家社交媒体公司向人工智能公司的转型并不顺利。本月，由于隐私问题引发的抵制以及其他差错，该公司在 Instagram 发布一个允许用户互相制作 AI 图像的功能仅几天后就将其删除。 但该公司在开发自己的 AI 模型方面取得了进展。本月，Meta 发布了 Muse Spark 的最新版本，这是在公司首席 AI 官 Alexandr Wang 领导下开发的最先进 AI 模型。它还推出了 AI 图像生成器 Muse Image，并计划发布视频生成器。 在衡量编码、推理和写作的基准测试中，Muse Spark 仍落后于其他 AI 模型。Meta 计划在今年秋季发布一个代号为 “Watermelon” 的更强大模型。 扎克伯格先生还开始
加州理工学院继续致力于太空太阳能的开发，其他学术机构，如佐治亚理工学院，已与韩国太阳能公司韩wha Qcells 合作，以推动该领域的发展。
能源部探索太空太阳能发电已超过十年。最常见的设计是使用无线电波或激光将能量传输到地球上的接收器，然后将其输送到公用事业变电站。
该技术的领先开发商 Solaren 表示，该公司准备就其系统与一家公用事业公司签署购电协议，并目标在未来十年内实现商业化。
“在技术上，没有什么能阻止我们这样做，”Solaren 的总裁兼首席执行官 Gary T. Spirnak 表示。
周三，位于曼哈顿的微软体验中心，当时微软报告其季度资本支出为 $41。
约为 $135。根据修订后的协议，微软保留了直到 2032 年使用 OpenAI 技术的权限。
微软面向企业的生产力工具（包括 Excel、Teams 和 Word，以及其 A.I. 助手 Copilot）的商业订阅销售额增长 14%，达到 $37.8。该公司表示，有超过 30 million 人在为 Copilot 付费，高于一个季度前的 20 million 以上。微软的个人计算业务销售额为 $12.9，下降 4%，该公司将此归因于 PC 需求疲软和组件成本上升。
微软一直在缩减其其他业务，以帮助支付其 A.I. 推进计划的费用。7 月，作为约 4,800 次裁员计划的一部分，该公司削减了 Xbox 20% 的员工，并关闭了数家游戏工作室。在 2026 财年，Xbox 约占微软营收的 6%，低于一年前的约 8%。Xbox 的营收在本季度也下降了 10%。
（《纽约时报》已起诉 OpenAI 和微软，指称其 A.I. 系统侵犯了新闻内容的版权。两家公司均否认了这些指控。）
在捍卫开源 A.I. 模型的立场上，他抨击了针对 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 等公司的攻击，这些开源模型可供他人免费构建。在周二接受《纽约时报》采访时，他表示严格控制 A.I. 发展将是“抛弃我们的价值观”，并且会扼杀创新。
Meta 还面临着关于其社交媒体产品具有成瘾性的持续诉讼，并表示第二季度在法律费用上支出 $2.4。
Meta 的 A.I. 智能眼镜继续成为亮点。开发该眼镜的 Reality Labs 部门在本季度创造了 $431 million 的营收，同比增长 16%。该部门亏损 $4.6 billion，与一年前基本持平。
Meta 的系列应用用户数增长至 3.6 billion，比一年前增长 3%。
美国国家航空航天局 (NASA)，经由路透社
基金危机 随着人工智能股票 持续下跌
作者： ROB COPELAND
周四，一家最炙手可热的人工智能对冲基金在投资价值突然下跌之际，获得了一笔纾困资金以维持经营。
这场迅速发展的危机在短短 36 小时内就发生在 Situational Awareness 公司，这是一家位于旧金山、由 20 多岁年轻人（包括一名 OpenAI 前员工）领导的曾令人羡慕的投资公司。据三名获知该电话会议情况的人士透露，该公司向竞争对手发出了紧急求助，寻求出售超过 $10 billion 的股票，以支撑其暴跌的投资组合。
在经过一夜简短的竞价战后，由亿万富翁肯尼斯·格里芬（Kenneth Griffin）创立的对冲基金城堡投资（Citadel）同意提供所需现金，前提是其能获得这些投资的实质性折扣，上述三位人士表示。
此举化解了 Situational Awareness 面临的眼前危险，但却让许多华尔街人士感到不安。近期几次危机都始于挣扎中的对冲基金被迫平仓——最近的一次是在 2021 年，对冲基金 Archegos 的崩溃最终将其后的瑞士信贷银行（Credit Suisse）也一同拖垮。
Situational Awareness 的命名源于其创始人利奥波德·阿申布伦纳（Leopold Aschenbrenner）在 2024 年发表的一篇论文，他曾任职于已倒闭的 FTX 的慈善部门。
出售了 $10 billion 的股票。
加密货币经纪商。他的文章预测，研究实验室将在 2027. 年之前开发出一种超智能形式的人工智能（A.I.）。这一论点成为了该公司的投资策略基础，随后该公司开始向 A.I. 公司投入巨额资金。一段时间内，这种做法效果极佳：据两名知情人士透露（但未获准公开讨论），包括 Stripe 创始人 Patrick 和 John Collison 在内的部分投资者，仅在今年就获得了 200 percent 的投资回报。该基金的管理规模增长至数百亿美元，成为了这场繁荣的典型代表。它聘请了一家公共关系公司，吸引了传统媒体和新媒体的关注。知名播客主持人 Tim Ferriss 将 Aschenbrenner 先生称为“A.I. 界的诺斯特拉达姆斯”。他的命运很快发生了变化。近几周，市场开始质疑 A.I. 的复兴是否能像承诺的那样带来利润或产生影响力。芯片制造商及其他与该行业密切相关的公司股价大跌。据两名知情人士称，这在两个方面同时打击了 Situational Awareness。它持有的韩国半导体制造商 SK Hynix 等公司的股票迅速贬值，而针对旧软件公司的所谓“做空”或对赌操作突然发生了反转。许多规模不等的 A.I. 公司和投资者都陷入了困境。但 Situational Awareness 的处境尤为危险。据三名获悉相关请求的人士称，该公司从华尔街银行借了数十亿美元来放大其赌注，而这些银行在最近几天已开始要求偿还部分款项。面对可能的被迫贱卖，Aschenbrenner 先生向他曾经的竞争对手寻求救助。他的提议是：出售超过 $10 billion 的股票以支撑公司。华尔街银行和其他投资公司彻夜审查该公司的投资组合，以提出报价。周三晚上举行了一场拍卖，最终获胜的是 Griffin 先生的对冲基金 Citadel。一名知情人士表示，交易在周四早些时候完成。这对于作为全球最大对冲基金之一的 Citadel 来说是一个熟悉的策略。在过去的几十年里，它一直通过在企业陷入绝境时（包括 Enron）趁机廉价收购头寸。公众对 Situational Awareness 的关注无疑将持续下去。它仍持有大量难以出售的私有公司头寸，例如 Anthropic。如果这些公司进入公开市场，它们是否能达到其高昂的估值仍有待观察。Aschenbrenner 先生和 Situational Awareness 的发言人未回应置评请求。
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大学足球
作者：JAMES HORNCASTLE, MEGAN FERINGA 以及 ADAM CRAFTON 来自 The Athletic
James Horncastle, Megan Feringa 和 Adam Crafton 为 The Athletic 报道足球新闻。
由于国际足联（FIFA）计划将足球赛事的股权出售给私人投资者，欧洲国家已同意抵制世界杯。据知情人士透露，在周四举行的一次虚拟会议上，欧洲足球协会（UEFA）旗下的 55 个国家协会决定抵制由世界足球管理机构 FIFA 运营的任何赛事。此前，FIFA 在周二向其 211 个会员协会提出的方案中表示，该计划需在 9 月 19. 前获得批准。UEFA 随后确认了其立场，表示其成员“一致且明确地拒绝 FIFA 将世界杯及其他 FIFA 赛事的所有权权益转让给私人投资者的提议”。其声明继续道：“基于今天的讨论，只要这些提议依然存在，没有任何 UEFA 国家队将参加任何 FIFA 赛事，除非该提议被完全放弃，并且 FIFA 给出具有约束力的保证，承诺将不再向私人所有制开放其管理或赛事。”日历上的下一届世界杯是 2027, 年在巴西举行的女足世界杯，随后是 2030. 年在西班牙、葡萄牙和摩洛哥举行的男足赛事。由各洲足联组织的女足世界杯预选赛将于 10 月开始。中北美及加勒比海足球联合会（Concacaf）的 41 个成员在周四的一次会议后发表声明，表示拒绝 FIFA 的提议。Concacaf 对 FIFA 引入该想法的方式表示强烈谴责。该联合会在周三晚上也举行了会议，会上对流程、治理以及资金充裕的 FIFA 为何需要外部投资提出了质疑。周二，FIFA 确认了其计划出售其一个新实体中显著少数股权的提议，该实体由其
大学美式足球
来自第一体育页
尽管被预测为 N.F.L. 选秀的高顺位人选，但他仍决定回到大学，而他是首批在拥有此类预测的同时，仍能获得相当于某些 N.F.L. 首发球员薪水的球员之一。摩尔在俄勒冈大学最后一年的收入金额并未由摩尔或俄勒冈大学官员透露。大学球员通常签署几份价值不等 的合同，其完整薪酬很少公开。行业分析师认为，大学美式足球中的顶尖四分卫年薪在 $5 million 左右；摩尔可能处于这个水平或更高。这将使他与丹佛野马队的博·尼克斯（Bo Nix）和亚特兰大猎鹰队的迈克尔·佩尼克斯（Michael Penix）在 N.F.L. 新秀合同第三年赚取的金额相差无几。即便如此，N.F.L. 选秀的第 1 号人选费尔南多·门多萨（Fernando Mendoza）刚刚达成了一份为期四年、保证金额超过 $57 million 的合同，平均每年超过 $14 million。因此，虽然摩尔赚了很多，但显然少于他本可以赚到的金额。一次受伤或明年深厚的四分卫选秀池中出现一名快速上升的新星，都可能影响他在 N.F.L. 的收入。 “有 $50 million 摆在面前，很多钱可以用来支持我的家庭，”摩尔说。“但归根结底，我打球不是为了钱。我打球是为了告诉自己，我还有很多需要提高的地方。我有机会回来学习更多东西。这样明年当我迈出下一步时，我将为人生中的那些时刻做好更充分的准备。”摩尔的路径此前也包含过令人惊讶的决定。他在加州大学洛杉矶分校（U.C.L.A.）作为一名纯一年级新生就获得了首发位置，随后转学到俄勒冈大学，在那担任了一年的迪龙·加布里埃尔（Dillon Gabriel）的替补。在大学职业生涯中仅有 20 次首发，摩尔及其顾问在冬季进入思考阶段，试图弄清楚什么样的选择能让他获得至关重要的第二份 N.F.L. 合同——届时将会有更大的收入。 “他不希望让 $50 million 挡在 $600 million 的道路上，”摩尔的经纪人布兰登·格里尔（Brandon Grier）说道。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 左侧为国际足联主席吉安尼·因凡蒂诺（Gianni Infantino），与他在一起的是欧洲足联主席亚历山大·切费林（Aleksander Ceferin），后者威胁要跳过各项赛事。
作为一家非营利组织，国际足联正准备设立一个实体来运营其主要赛事，例如世界杯和世俱杯。 这个新实体将被称为 FIFA Forward Enterprises 或 F.F.E.，将接管国际足联的商业运营，而国际足联本身将继续作为全球足球管理机构，并持有 F.F.E. 的多数股权。 国际足联的一份新闻稿称，其寻求出售 F.F.E. 最多 21% 的股份，旨在筹集 $4.2 billion。这笔资金可以立即发放给其成员协会。 该提案必须获得国际足联 211 个成员协会（包括英格兰足协、美国足协和皇家西班牙足球协会）以及国际足联理事会（该组织的决策机构，由国际足联主席吉安尼·因凡蒂诺、八位副主席和另外 28 名成员组成）的多数批准。 国际足联周二表示，这必须在 9 月 19 日之前完成，以便成员协会能够获得资金。
摩尔在做决定时咨询了德鲁·布里斯（Drew Brees）、帕特里克·马霍姆斯（Patrick Mahomes）和尼克斯。处于完全相同境地的球员构成了一个小圈子。在过去的 30 年里，像佩顿·曼宁（Peyton Manning）、马特·莱纳特（Matt Leinart）、萨姆·布拉德福德（Sam Bradford）和安德鲁·拉克（Andrew Luck）这样的四分卫都曾拒绝高顺位的选秀预测而选择回到大学。就在几年前，贾斯-
到 2027 年初，[相关]协会。
因凡蒂诺主导了这一想法，并在新闻发布会上表示，足球“是世界上最受欢迎的运动，也是人类和社会发展的卓越引擎”。
“比赛的某些部分已将这种受欢迎程度转化为巨大的商业价值——我们庆祝这一成功并希望它能持续下去，因为它提升了整个比赛，”他说道。“我们的职责是确保足球的其余部分随之共同增长：国际足联（FIFA）的存在是为了支持世界上每一个角落的可持续、包容性发展。”
欧足联（UEFA）一份 470 字的声明强烈谴责了国际足联的这一想法。
“世界杯不能被视为一种投资产品，”声明称。“它是足球最伟大的体育遗产之一。它是由跨越各大洲的球员、国家队和支持者几代人共同建立起来的。它的任何部分都绝不应交给私人投资者。世界杯不容买卖。”
“一旦外部投资-
[[IMG_BRETT DAVIS/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS CONNECT]]
——廷·赫伯特（tin Herbert）也采取了类似的举动留在俄勒冈大学。
拉克描述他自己在 2011 年做出的决定是很简单的。他知道作为一名球员，他还没有触及大学阶段的上限。他认为自己有机会冲击全国冠军，而且他也享受校园生活以及与朋友在一起的时光。
“我还没准备好离开，”拉克说。“我还没准备好在另一个[城市]独立租一套公寓。”
——者获得国际足联 (FIFA) 赛事的所有权权益，足球将永远改变。商业回报将变成一项永久性的义务。投资者的预期将变成一种日常压力。从那时起
从此刻起，国际赛程中的每一个决定，比赛形式的每一个决定，以及塑造足球未来的每一个决定，都不再是由什么最有利于这项运动来驱动，而是由什么最有利于股东来驱动。 “这种模式在世界足球中没有立足之地。足球的未来不能由那些首要职责是最大化财务回报的人的预期来主导。国家协会、联赛、俱乐部、球员和支持者的利益也不能从属于投资者的回报。足球不能为了财务收益而抵押其未来。” “欧洲的立场很明确。我们绝不会赋予这种模式合法性。没有人拥有道义上的权威去出售他们仅为下一代代管的东西。” “在某些时刻，衡量一个机构的标准不是看它准备接受什么，而是看它拒绝在什么方面妥协。现在就是这样一个时刻。” “有些东西实在太重要了，不能出售。FIFA世界杯属于足球。永远如此。只要欧洲还有话语权，它就绝不会被出售。” 欧足联还批评了 FIFA 的提案曝光的方式——首先是通过《泰晤士报》的一篇报道，随后是世界足球管理机构的一份新闻稿：“这样一项提案……”
[[IMG_XXXX]] ALI GRADISCHER/GETTY IMAGES
右侧的 Dante Moore 与 Jamari Johnson 在尤金的春季赛后合影。左侧的教练 Dan Lanning 在四年中取得了 48-8 的战绩，并且刚经历了连续两次进入季后赛。
城市并支付公用事业费用。我认为在我们的世界里，有时我们想要成长得太快了。在很多方面，我还没准备好面对这一切。” Moore 留校的原因与之相似，但在很大程度上由单亲父亲抚养长大，随后经历母亲近期与乳腺癌的斗争（她在 2024 年被宣布康复）后，放弃 NFL 的保证资金仍然是一种压力，即便他已经赚了很多钱。 “他不是 Peyton Manning 或 Andrew Luck，他们来自本来就很富裕的家庭，”Grier 说道。“他是第一个能够改变家庭轨迹的人。N.I.L. 给了他机会将这两个决定分开，并做他认为对他长期最有利的选择。” 此外还有场上的原因。Moore 表示，NFL 的教练和球探告诉他要提高开球前的阅读能力，并对自己持球的去向更加自信。在输给印第安纳大学的桃操杯（Peach Bowl）中，开场就被截球并被对方回攻 6 分（pick-6）的经历向 Moore 和整个大学足球界证明，他仍有成长空间。那场桃操杯凸显了在教练 Dan Lanning 带领下的俄勒冈大学一个令人不安的模式。在过去的三年中，鸭子队在每场复赛中都输了（对手分别是华盛顿大学、俄亥俄州立大学和印第安纳大学）。最近两次败仗发生在大学足球季后赛中，总比分为 97-43。在输给俄亥俄州立大学和印第安纳大学的那两场季后赛中，半场总比分为 69-15。 “共同点是我们面对的是非常优秀的球队，”Lanning 说道。“话虽如此，是的，肯定有一些教训需要吸取。我们在休赛期研究了一些在复赛中表现非常出色的球队。作为教练组，我们可以做哪些不同的尝试？这是一个新的一年。这是一个新的……”
时间。” 兰宁在四个赛季的教练生涯中取得了 48-8 的战绩。在 8 场失利中，有 6 场是面对争夺全国冠军的球队（2022 年的佐治亚大学、2023 年的华盛顿大学两次、2024 年的俄亥俄州立大学以及 2025 年的印第安纳大学两次）。另外两场失利则是面对全美前 20 强的对手。俄勒冈大学多年来一直投入资源以争夺全国冠军。被印第安纳大学超越震惊了世界。鸭子队将如何回应？在两名协调员接任主教练职务后，兰宁在内部进行了晋升，由德鲁·梅林格接管进攻端，克里斯·汉普顿接管防御端。根据 ESPN 的数据，鸭子队保留了全美第 11 位的产出水平。摩尔的回归将是一个巨大的帮助。大学足球中顶尖四分卫价格的上涨，让人们开始思考像摩尔这样的情况是否会更频繁地发生。前阿拉巴马大学四分卫泰·辛普森透露，迈阿密大学曾向他提供 650 万美元 ($6.5 million) 以换取他留在大学并转学。他最终选择了参加选秀并成为第 13 号签。他的年薪将平均达到 630 万美元 ($6.3 million)。
BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS
对足球具有如此重大意义的方案是在秘密中构思的，并在没有与受托管理这项运动的人员进行任何实质性磋商的情况下，被推到了批准的边缘。“这不仅是领导层的严重失职，更是国际足联（FIFA）作为世界足球守护者职责的放弃。全球各地的国家协会现在面临着最后通牒：要么接受足球最高级别赛事被不可逆转地掌控，要么承担后果。这不是一个民主的决定，而是通过恐吓进行的管理——这种胁迫行为对于一个受托管理全球比赛的机构来说是不可原谅的。” 欧足联（UEFA）的公开信息随后迅速得到了其多个成员协会的支持，包括挪威、英格兰、苏格兰和威尔士。周二，国际足联的计划遭到了强烈抵制。因凡蒂诺的前任塞普·布拉特和英国新任首相安迪·伯纳姆都在批评之列，而欧足联表示该提案“跨越了足球管理机构永远不应跨越的底线”。然而，其他大陆足联最初似乎更多是对国际足联所遵循的流程持有异议。这包括中北美及加勒比海足联（Concacaf），该组织指责国际足联在提案方面缺乏磋商。一份声明称：“中北美及加勒比海足联仅是通过媒体报道，随后通过一份媒体发布稿才得知此事。我们对缺乏正当程序深表担忧。” 亚足联（A.F.C.）也表示，“对于如此重要的事情在亚足联大家庭有机会通过适当且既定的管理渠道进行审查和讨论之前就进入公众领域，感到非常失望。” 然而，非足联仅在评论中确认其参与了咨询过程，并鼓励其成员协会自行审查提案。因凡蒂诺在周三接受他所领导的组织——国际足联的采访时为该想法辩护。在一段五分钟的视频中，他表示这是一个“民主过程”，并且“加强比赛的商业方面是国际足联演进的自然下一步”。
在他签署的 N.F.L. 新秀合同中。 “现在关于钱的问题，有一个真正的决定需要做出，”前 N.F.L. 高管安德鲁·布兰特 (Andrew Brandt) 表示。 布兰特在维拉诺瓦大学 (Villanova) 任教，并为各学校提供球员合同咨询。他回顾了自己与前德克萨斯州跑卫里基·威廉姆斯 (Ricky Williams) 的合作经历，威廉姆斯在 1997 年大三结束后几乎决定进入职业联赛，但最终决定回到奥斯汀。作为朋友，布兰特支持威廉姆斯的决定；但作为商业经理，他并不支持。（一年后，威廉姆斯离开了布兰特，由 Master P 代表。）如果威廉姆斯在就学期间就能赚到数百万美元，布兰特的建议将会截然不同。 “那么，这就不单纯是因为他热爱那里而选择回到奥斯汀了，”布兰特说。 虽然摩尔 (Moore) 在俄勒冈大学将继续赚钱——他为接下来的赛季购买了伤病保险——但选择回归仍然是一种风险。这也是拉克 (Luck) 曾考虑过的事情。或者更准确地说，是在与曼宁 (Manning) 交流后，他不再考虑这件事。 “佩顿当时说：‘不要减速，尽可能快地前进，’”拉克回忆道，“不要松油门。在足球比赛中，当你减速时最容易受伤。如果你在担心受伤，那么你受伤的概率就很高。” 拉克虽然没有实现夺得全国冠军的目标，但他在接下来的赛季成为了印第安纳波利斯小马队 (Indianapolis Colts) 的 1 号签球员。事实上，曼宁、拉克、布拉德福德 (Bradford)、莱纳特 (Leinart) 和赫伯特 (Herbert) 最终都成为了前 10 顺位签，而其中前三位是在前两名中被选中的。 俄勒冈大学将成为季前赛的前五强球队，而摩尔获得海斯曼奖 (Heisman Trophy) 的投注赔率也排在前五。一切都为大干一场准备就绪。
上图的埃曼纽尔·克拉塞 (Emmanuel Clase) 和路易斯·奥尔蒂斯 (Luis Ortiz) 因涉嫌操纵投球计划而面临电汇欺诈和共谋指控。
是神圣不可侵犯的， 但它足够吗？
作者：ZACK MEISEL 《The Athletic》
去年 7 月，克利夫兰守护者队 (Cleveland Guardians) 的后投手埃曼纽尔·克拉塞在 25 天的时间里，依然在进步球场 (Progressive Field) 的走廊里走动，在球队飞机的座位上休息，并在牛棚里与队友并肩而坐。一切看起来像往常一样。 而此时，联盟办公室已经将守护者队的投手路易斯·奥尔蒂斯停职留薪。克拉塞现在被指控将奥尔蒂斯拉入一个操纵投球的计划，导致两名投手都将在 11 月因电汇欺诈和共谋指控而受审。 然而，从 3, 2025, 7 月起，直到 7 月 28, 克拉塞也被停职为止，这位常年入选全明星的球员表现得就像没有任何事情在酝酿一样。 “他只是继续投球，”一位前队友说道。 一年后，只要在任何守护者队高管面前提到克拉塞的名字，他们的脸色就会变得像病恹恹的绿色或愤怒的红色，因为他们在思考那些决定以及对队友和组织所表现出的不尊重——尤其是在 M.L.B. 将克拉塞锁定在瞄准镜中的那 25 天里。 这个故事在提交给联邦法官的法院文件中展开。
Zack Meisel 是《The Athletic》报道守护者队的高级撰稿人。
雷霆队削减其坚实核心完全是为了省钱
作者：FRED KATZ 《The Athletic》
俄克拉何马城雷霆队 (Oklahoma City Thunder) 对 N.B.A. 的“第二奢侈税线” (second apron) 并不在意。他们这个夏天的削减成本之举正是如此——削减成本。 为了换取一堆第二轮选秀权而交易掉三名轮换球员（包括侧翼球员卢·多特 Lu Dort），这并非篮球战略。正如球队总经理萨姆·普雷斯蒂 (Sam Presti) 本周所言，这是一次省钱之举。 “这是一个财务决定，”普雷斯蒂告诉《俄克拉何马人报》 (The Oklahoman)。“我得到的印象是，今年夏天节省的资金，以及过去几年脱离奢侈税所产生的结余，将重新分配给未来的球队。连同其他新的，
任何领薪球员 以换取 三名轮换球员。
成熟的收入流，这将使我们能够在接下来的几年里做出更多与篮球相关的决定。” 第二档奢侈税线（second apron）是一个远高于奢侈税的薪资阈值，自 2023 年设立以来，由于超过该线会带来的战略性影响，它引起了篮球界的关注。一旦超过第二档线，球队将失去执行大多数类型交易和大多数自由球员签约的能力。 将多特交易至亚特兰大老鹰队，使雷霆队 2026-27 赛季的薪资降至 221.7 百万美元的第二档线阈值以下。 但雷霆队目前的薪资仍高于奢侈税线 14 百万美元，他们交易掉多特、亚伦-威金斯和以赛亚-乔，是因为第二档线在阵容构建上的限制让他们感到担忧。在
THEARON W. HENDERSON/GETTY IMAGES
布鲁克林联邦法院。克拉斯（Clase）的阵营将这次困境归咎于对涉及斗鸡的短信和电话的误读。投手们试图与彼此保持距离。 审判被推迟了六个月。联邦检察官筛选了数万条信息和文件。 克利夫兰的球迷们继续分析克拉斯投出的每一次滑球。 守护者队的球员们难以理解，像克拉斯这样一个有点离群索居的人，是如何能够保持冷静的。 其他球队的球员也密切关注着此案的每一步进展。他们好奇事情是如何发生的，并试图扮演侦探。克拉斯和奥蒂兹（Ortiz）是否给他们投过任何操纵的球？ “我记得自己确实陷入了这种深挖细节的强迫症中，”一名球员说道。 检察官称，克拉斯的非法活动始于 2023 年 5 月，但直到两年多以后才被曝光。M.L.B. 是否采取了足够的措施来防止此类情况再次发生？ 在《The Athletic》年度的匿名球员调查中，今年春天我们对 23 支球队的 100 名球员就各种 M.L.B. 相关话题进行了调查，我们恰恰询问了这个问题。 我们采访的球员被允许匿名，以便
在该联盟第三小的市场中，球队老板克莱-贝内特（Clay Bennett）坚持执行预算。而失去三名帮助支撑争冠实力的球员就是其后果。仅在 13 个月前，雷霆队还举起了拉里-奥布莱恩冠军奖杯。他们在 2025-26 赛季再次冲击冠军，但在一次挑战其阵容深度的西区决赛中遗憾出局。侧翼球员贾伦-威廉姆斯（Jalen Williams）因腿筋受伤缺席了大部分赛季。第六人阿杰-米切尔（Ajay Mitchell）在季后赛期间伤痕累累。而现在，俄克拉荷马城削弱了他们一直依赖的阵容深度。27 岁的威金斯前往老鹰队，换回两个次轮签且无薪资回报。27 岁的乔同样前往底特律活塞队，换回几个次轮签且无薪资回报。而本周，俄克拉荷马城同意将 27 岁的多特（他经常负责防守对方最强的球员）交易至老鹰队，换回三个次轮签，当然，没有薪资回报。 这与最近几个赛季其他处于相同薪资层级的球队所进行的精简不同。这不像凤凰城太阳队在证明自己不足以争冠后，为了规避第二档线，希望通过一系列交易省钱并避免 N.B.A. 最令人生畏的薪资阈值限制。俄克拉荷马城上赛季赢得了联盟最佳的 64 场比赛，同时创下了历史上最伟大的净胜分纪录之一，每 100 个回合正 11.1 分。他们距离连续第二次进入 N.B.A. 总决赛仅一步之遥。 这些举措是为了钱——无论是短期内还是长远来看。“我们拥有一支有能力争冠的球队，”普雷斯蒂（Presti）告诉《俄克拉荷马人报》，“据我所知，今年夏天的决定在财务上为我们维持一支这种水准的球队创造了条件。”
芬威球场的一则 DraftKings 广告。一些球员认为，棒球运动与体育博彩公司的合作是虚伪的。
坦率地表达。在参与此次民意调查的人员中，超过一半的人——55 名球员——认为联盟已经投入了足够的关注和资源，以帮助防止球员与赌徒合作。超过四分之一的参与者要么没有强烈的观点，要么认为自己在该主题上没有足够的知识来提供一个合适的
答案。剩下的 18 名球员对联盟为了防止类似 Clase-Ortiz 丑闻的情况而设立的保障措施感到不满。
“这是第一条规则：第 21 条，”一位认为联盟已尽到尽职调查责任的多届全明星球员说道，“禁止对棒球进行投注。”
“我们知道规则，”一名美国联盟的接球手说道，“但你同时也必须自我监督。”
守护者队去年主张，从教育角度来看，为了防止此类事件发生，他们已经尽力而为。大联盟 (M.L.B.) 官员在春训期间向每支球队提交一份关于该主题的 PowerPoint 演示报告。规则被张贴在每个更衣室里。
“他们来到这里，”一名国家联盟中区击球手说，“然后就像是在说，‘这是非黑即白的：你投注棒球，你就完蛋了。’ 这是一个非常简单的规则。”
“每个人都知道那是终身禁赛，”一名资深国家联盟先发球员说道。
“这有点像 PEDs，”一名美国联盟中区野手在谈到性能增强药物时说道。
“众所周知你不应该那样做，所以如果你做了，我觉得那是你的决定，而不是因为缺乏了解。”
“如果人们想做出错误的决定，他们无法控制，”一名国家联盟击球手说，“人们会做出错误的决定。但我认为每个人都知道后果。”
许多球员表达了类似的
职业篮球
在单独的交易中，俄克拉荷马城将亚伦·威金斯 (21) 和卢·多特 (5) 交易至亚特兰大。
这使得关注点转移到了三位薪水即将增长的球员身上：凯森·华莱士、贾里德·麦凯恩和米切尔。
华莱士，22，一名防守威胁，在多特离开后变得日益重要，他有资格在今年夏天获得续约。他的新合同将从 2027-28 赛季开始生效。如果他没有续约，他将在接下来的赛季结束后成为受限自由球员。
麦凯恩，22，一名雷霆队在今年冬天通过交易获得的后卫，他的时间线比华莱士晚一年，即将进入他的第三个 N.B.A. 赛季。明年夏天，他将有资格获得一项从 2028-29 开始的续约合同。
米切尔，24，是三人中最有趣的情况。他曾是一名第二轮秀，在仅进入职业生涯第二个赛季时就在关键的替补角色中脱颖而出，他拥有联盟中最有利于球队的合同之一。他将在 2026-27 赛季获得 2.9 百万美元的薪水，下一年的球队选项为 $2.9 百万美元。
雷霆队有三种长期留住他的方案。他们可以享受未来两个赛季他的廉价薪水，等到 2028 年他成为自由球员后再与其续签。
他们可以在明年夏天放弃球队选项，让他成为受限自由球员。这一策略会使米切尔的薪水提前一年激增，但也可以达成一种妥协：为了更早地获得报酬，米切尔可能会同意一个比多等一年时更低的合同年均价值。雷霆队两年前在处理乔和威金斯时成功采用了这一方案，两人都签署了低于市场价的合同。
他们也可以行使该
想法。 “说到底，你只能把马牵到水边，”一位不确定的美联中央联盟投手说道，“但它们会不会喝水就不知道了。” “得纯粹愚蠢到一定程度才会那样做，”一位国联救火投手说道，“愚蠢是没法根治的。” “你可以采取所有预防措施，可以竖起所有标志，”当时在美联的一名投手说道，“但如果人们想违法，他们还是会违法。这就是世界。每个人都告诉你不能偷窃，不能杀人，但人们还是这么做。” “人们就喜欢拿运气冒险，”一位国联右投手说道，“这就是为什么它被称为赌博，有些人拿自己的职业生涯在赌。” 然而，一些球员推测，Clase-Ortiz 事件可能成为一个非常有用的教学案例。 “我认为在经历了这一切之后，球员们会聪明得多，”一位美联东区外野手说道。 “如果你还没被抓到，那不是‘是否’会被抓的问题，而是‘何时’被抓的问题，”一位美联中央联盟投手说道。 “克利夫兰的整件事似乎是一个相当好的开始，”一位
PETRE THOMAS/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS CONNECT
国联投手说道。“他们处理掉了棒球界最好的球员之一，这告诉大家：‘我们对任何人都不允许这种情况发生。’” 不过，对于每位球员来说，情况并非如此简单明确。一些球员指出，联盟与体育博彩公司的合作伙伴关系具有伪善色彩，甚至为这类丑闻奠定了基础。 “我认为他们在赌博问题上采取的立场，以及给球员赌博贴上如此负面的标签，是非常伪善的，”一位国联击球手说道，“与此同时，他们还在推广 DraftKings 和 FanDuel Sportsbook 等平台。在我看来，这完全说不通。” “事到如今，这是一个如此巨大的赚钱机器和资金驱动的产业，它在某种程度上是所有事情的根源，”一位美联击球手说道。 这种思维方式促使某些球员回答“否”，即认为联盟在防止像 Clase 那样的情况发生方面做得还不够。 “大联盟（M.L.B.）在走相反的道路，”一位美联投手说道，“他们在推广博彩，而不是帮助球员。”
CLIFF BRUNT/ASSOCIATED PRESS
总经理 Sam Presti 表示，这些举措将使雷霆队保持竞争力。
关于 Mitchell 的球队选项，然后将其合同延长至相当于球员平均薪资的水平。 无论他们选择哪种方案，Mitchell 的身价都将大幅上涨。同样的情况也适用于上赛季入选最佳防守阵容的 Wallace，以及在抵达俄克拉荷马城后迅速融入的 McCain。 即便没有这些涨薪，雷霆队未来的高薪球员也已成规模。 Williams 和 Chet Holmgren 的顶薪合同将于本赛季开始，届时两人将分别获得 $41 million。Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 的超级顶薪合同将在 2027-28, 赛季生效，届时其薪水预计将跳升至 $60.6 million。今年夏天续约的 Isaiah Hartenstein 在接下来的三个赛季中将获得约 $25 million。Alex Caruso 在相同时间范围内的薪资在 $20 million 左右。 在 2027-28, 赛季，Williams, Holm-
CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
gren, 吉尔格斯-亚历山大, 哈滕斯坦, 卡鲁索, 2026 年首轮选秀球员 Aday Mara 和 Bennett Stirtz, 以及麦凯恩将 合计获得 $213 million 的薪水，比预计的奢侈税 高出 $2 million，且仅比第二奢侈税线 (second apron) 低约 $21 million。 这仅仅是八名球员。 其中不包括对最近几名选秀球员 Thomas Sorber 或 Nikola Topic 的球队选项。不包括对 Jaylin Williams 的 $7.7 million 球队选项，他是 N.B.A. 中 最可靠的替补大个子之一。不包括米切尔，他 在 2027-28 赛季可能会拿到一份廉价薪水，或者如果 雷霆队拒绝他的球队选项，他可能会获得加薪。不包括 Wallace，他的新合同届时将计入账面。考虑到 首发球员的行情，仅他的年薪就可能超过 $21 million，并将雷霆队直接推向第二奢侈税线。 但是，正如普雷斯蒂所说，管理层在进入该领域方面 没有战略性顾虑，尤其是如果球队能像预期那样 保持竞争力的状态。决定放弃 Dort, Wig- gins 和 Joe 是基于财务的考量， 这削弱了目前的阵容。 现在，雷霆队希望这些举措在长期来看能获得回报。
万事俱备， 鲨鱼队 志在必得
作者：ERIC STEPHENS 《The Athletic》
许多球迷对此抱有期待——有些人甚至将其视为要求——但 N.H.L. 的总经理在操作和决策上不可能完美。圣何塞队的迈克·格里尔（Mike Grier）也不例外，不应将其视为总经理中的“圣人”。
为了引导鲨鱼队成为季后赛竞争者，并最终威胁斯坦利杯冠军，格里尔在过去七个月中将基弗·谢伍德（Kiefer Sherwood）、梅森·马奇门特（Mason Marchment）、迈克尔·凯塞尔林（Michael Kesselring）、雅各布·特鲁巴（Jacob Trouba）和达内尔·纳斯（Darnell Nurse）加入阵容。这些引起广泛讨论的举措，其效果究竟是否达到预期仍未可知。
但自 2022 年接手以来，格里尔的许多尝试都取得了成功，并带领球队经历了一次必要的重建，期间包括了俱乐部历史上最糟糕的几个赛季。
以及凭借天才球员 Celebrini 确保的未来。
现在，随着周三麦克林·塞莱布里尼（Macklin Celebrini）签署了一份具有里程碑意义的续约合同，格里尔已将鲨鱼队带到了建队过程中的理想节点。
圣 Jose 的起飞时刻到了。随着 Celebrini 确保了球队的未来，鲨鱼队的夺冠时钟已经开启。这位 20 岁的天才在短短两个赛季内就成为了联盟中最璀璨的年轻超级巨星。在这个年轻球星签署巨额合同的夏天，双方达成了一项合理的协议：一份为期五年、$94 million 的续约合同。格里尔表示他将 Celebrini 视为领军人物，而 Celebrini 也没有争取成为 N.H.L. 首位在合同期内年薪达到 $20 million 的球员。
随着工资帽的激增，谁能说 Celebrini 不应该拿到那么多钱？他刚刚结束了一个赛季，在该赛季中，他通过得分超越了名人堂成员乔·索顿（Joe Thornton）。
Eric Stephens 为《The Athletic》报道 N.H.L. 赛事。
作者：SCOTT WHEELER 《The Athletic》
安东尼·罗马尼（Anthony Romani）在 2023 年的 N.H.L. 选秀中被遗漏。在次年被温哥华加 Canucks 选中（排名第 162 位）后，他在青少年冰球最后一个赛季仅进行了六场比赛就导致锁骨骨折。
不过，在此期间，他曾在安大略冰球联赛中进球数领先（58 个），积分排名第二（111 分），并在 18 岁时获得了参加加拿大世界青年夏季展演赛的邀请。
现年 21, 岁的他即将进入密歇根州立大学的大二学年，那里的教练认为 Canucks 球队可能真的挖掘到了一块宝。
在一年级时，罗马尼在 37 场比赛中攻入 14 球，获得 28 分，在斯巴达队的积分排名第五，进球数排名第四。
正逐渐恢复力量与 爆发力。
迈克·汤恩斯 (Mike Townes) 是第一位关注到他的密西根州立大学教练。在前一年，罗马尼 (Romani) 从锁骨骨折中恢复后，先后效力于北湾营救队 (North Bay Battalion) 和巴里小马队 (Barrie Colts)。罗马尼在常规赛中仅出战了 35 场，仅获得 35 分，但在 16 场季后赛中，他以 12 个进球和 24 分成为小马队的得分王。 锁骨并不是他面临的唯一重大伤病。在那样一次季后赛征程中，他顶着高位踝关节扭伤在比赛，这导致他休赛期的前六周训练都变成了康复治疗。 密西根州立大学的助理教练贾里德·德米切尔 (Jared DeMichiel) 和主教练亚当·耐廷盖尔 (Adam Nightingale) 也
这是鲨鱼队球员在单赛季中获得的最多分值。凭借 115 分，塞莱布里尼 (Celebrini) 在哈特奖 (Hart Trophy)——该联盟最有价值球员奖的投票中排名第四，此前他几乎凭一己之力将圣何塞队拖入季后赛；如果能有更多这样的赛季，他将在很长一段时间内处于哈特奖的竞争之列。基于一份大部分将通过年度奖金支付的续约合同，塞莱布里尼在最初的三年中每年将超过 $20 million，随后其薪资将下降，从而降低平均年薪。但到该续约合同在 2027-28 赛季开始生效时，他可能会占据“最高薪球员”的宝座——除非超级巨星凯尔·马卡尔 (Cale Makar) 和昆汀·休斯 (Quinn Hughes) 超过了这一数值。而五年期的合同期限意味着，鲨鱼队和塞莱布里尼都在赌双方在 2032 年塞莱布里尼 26. 岁准备签署下一份合同时能够达到新的高度。塞莱布里尼可能会成为这一代人的悉尼·克罗斯比 (Sidney Crosby)，但处于一个完全不同的财务环境下。现在，格里尔 (Grier) 必须让鲨鱼队每年都处于能够赢下季后赛轮次并冲击斯坦利杯冠军的位置。简而言之，从周三起，格里尔开始尝试完成埃德蒙顿油钻队 (Edmonton Oilers) 在拥有代际天才康纳·麦克大卫 (Connor McDavid) 和里昂·德雷赛特尔 (Leon Draisaitl) 时仍未实现的成就。这将是一项艰巨的任务。首先，油钻队拥有德雷赛特尔这种曾为克罗斯比提供支持的 MVP 级别搭档（如叶夫根尼·马尔金 Evgeni Malkin）。鲨鱼队目前还没有这样的球员，而威尔·史密斯 (Will Smith)、迈克尔·米萨 (Michael Misa) 或伊瓦尔·斯滕伯格 (Ivar Stenberg) 是否能达到那个级别仍未知数。但格里尔基本上搞定了大方向。在他接手工作之初，推翻阵容是正确的选择，并且他在 2023. 年以 4 号位选中史密斯，这是一个精明的首选。跌至谷底让鲨鱼队在 2024. 年赢得了塞莱布里尼的抽签大奖。好运并未停止，鲨鱼队在连续两年中均以 2 号位选中了米萨和斯滕伯格。通过囤积高顺位选票并在后续选秀中做出明智选择，鲨鱼队得以收集一些 NHL 顶尖的年轻天才。格里尔已经
看了他的比赛。三位教练都认为，身高 6 英尺 1 英寸、体重 195 磅的右射翼锋 Romani 是一名聪明的球员，拥有天然的进攻本能，即使在因伤无法重复 2023-24 赛季 58 个进球、111 个积分的成绩时也是如此。
“我们一直觉得他在进攻端会是一个催化剂——具备创造机会的能力，具备完成得分的能力，”DeMichiel 说道。“他不需要太多机会；他的射门力量大，出手速度快得惊人。他是一名出色的双向前锋，拥有相当致命的进攻本能。”
在密歇根州立大学，教练们很快意识到他不仅仅是一个机会主义得分手。他不仅能在强力进攻（power play）时在侧翼得分，而且在年底时已经能参与击杀处罚（killing penalties）。所有队友在五对五的局面下都想与他搭档。
到赛季结束时，他们还觉得他有些运气不佳，理由是断掉的球杆、击中门柱和横梁，以及被判定越位而取消的进球，以此证明他本应获得更多得分。
Romani 第一次与技巧和射门教练 Josh Wrobel 一起滑冰是在 2022 年的夏天。当时他刚刚在 O.H.L. 完成了他的新秀赛季——一个 14 个积分的赛季。那时他的体型偏小，但 Wrobel 认可他的天赋。随着体重秤上的数字增加，冰面上的数据也随之增长。
“虽然这很陈词滥调，但他就是典型的‘大器晚成’，他真的将自己的射门变成了武器，”Wrobel 说道。
他与 Wrobel 共同钻研那些能将一个人变成射手的细节：时机、射门选择、射门落点、在不同区域制造威胁，甚至包括他弧线上的趾尖动作和球杆的弯曲度。
“只要他进入内线，只要球传向他，他就是一个威胁，”Wrobel 说道。“他是一个天生的得分手，而且对我来说，冰球运动中最难的事情就是进球。”
在回顾了他在 O.H.L. 的得分情况，发现他大部分进球要么是他出名的半墙强力进攻狙击，要么是单挑（breakaways）之后，Wrobel 挑战他在大学冰球新秀年里“给我进 6 到 8 个‘丑陋’的球”（指通过拨球、反弹球、门前混战得分）。
Romani 做到了。
“今年，看到他进过几个deflection（折射）进球，真的很酷，”Wrobel 说道。
Wrobel 还看到了他在密歇根州立大学以及与力量教练 Dan Noble 一起在健身房训练所带来的改变。
“他的力量转化到了比赛中，你会看到他在不同区域执行战术，”Wrobel 说道。
Noble 与 Romani 合作了五年。当 Romani 第一次来到他的健身房时，“非常不成熟且很粗糙；还没有真正投入到力量和体能训练中。”
通过与 Beckett Sennecke 和 Mitch Marner 等球员一起锻炼，“他真的能够将一切提升到另一个水平，”Noble 说道。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 20 岁的 Macklin Celebrini 是 N.H.L. 最闪耀的年轻超级巨星，他与圣何塞签署了一份具有里程碑意义的合同延期协议。
右侧的 Mike Grier 是圣何塞的总经理，他通过清理旧阵容、做出明智的选秀决定，并在恰当的时机触底，从而帮助球队在 Celebrini 的抽签中获胜。
[[IMG_XXXX]] Anthony Romani (21) 在密歇根州立大学新秀赛季贡献了 14 个进球，在队内排名第四。
开始利用他的资产资本来满足当前需求（通过获取 Sherwood 和 Nurse），但通过保留潜力球员使系统保持看涨（通过交易 William Eklund 为 Stenberg 打开大门，并选入 Keaton Verhoeff）。
鲨鱼队的锋线现在已经强到快要溢出，虽然
蓝线上的 Nurse、Trouba 和 Kesselring 还远非完美，但他们具备成为一个改进后防守阵线的潜质，而 Sam Dickinson 的持续成长将对此有所帮助。而且，如果 Yaroslav Askarov 能消除比赛中的不稳定性，并在表现远为出色的 2026-27 赛季中夺得 1 号门将之位，那么
BILL WIPPERT/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES
鲨鱼队将拥有必要的后盾，以配合他们毫无疑问的领袖切莱布里尼（Celebrini）。将托马斯·赫特尔（Tomas Hertl）送往拉斯维加斯是格里尔（Grier）交易计划的一部分，从而从纳什维尔掠夺者队（Nashville Predators）那里得到了阿斯卡罗夫（Askarov）。
特鲁巴（Trouba）和谢伍德（Sherwood）的合同是否可能随着时间推移而显得不再理想？绝对有可能。而努尔斯（Nurse）在经历了与油球队（Oilers）一段漫长且波折的旅程后，是否无法在后防线上提升鲨鱼队的表现？当然有可能。阿斯卡罗夫是否会昙花一现？也许吧。如果任何一种情况发生，那都将成为格里尔执政记录的一部分，并值得评判。
此外，鲨鱼队目前还未达到需要格里尔通过交易来提高季后赛机会的阶段。但他们期待那个时刻的到来，也许就在今年春天。这是目前的计划，他们将切莱布里尼视为最终的队长来掌舵，通过一个五年的规划来组建一支冠军级别的球队。
他们现在还面临着史密斯（Smith）的续约问题，未来还需要与米萨（Misa）、迪金森（Dickinson）和斯坦伯格（Stenberg）等球员续约，但他们将从账面上减掉洛根·库图尔（Logan Couture）的 $8 百万工资帽额度——此外，德米特里·奥尔洛夫（Dmitry Orlov）、泰勒·托福利（Tyler Toffoli）和巴克利·古德罗（Barclay Goodrow）的合同将在未来两年内到期。马丁·琼斯（Martin Jones）和马克-爱德华·弗拉西克（Marc-Edouard Vlasic）的买断资金也将停止支付。
在上一赛季排名提升 34 分，并几乎意外获得季后赛资格后，现在是格里尔和所谓的“未来之队”匹配切莱布里尼的上升势头并达到他所在水平的时候了。
格里尔今后采取的举措不会全部成功，但鲨鱼队依然处于可靠的掌控之中。
[[IMG_JOSEPH WEISER/ICON SPORTSWIRE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS]]
他补充道：“他之前缺失的一点是力量和功率方面，以及整体的加速能力和运动能力。”
在罗马尼（Romani）上赛季大部分时间在进行脚踝康复，而在此之前的休赛期大部分时间在发展训练营度过之后，诺布尔（Noble）表示，他决定选择减少比赛次数，增加在大学健身房的时间，而不是在上赛季从 O.H.L. 跳槽到美国冰球联盟（AHL），这是一个正确的决定。
“他现在的水平完全不同了，”诺布尔说。
当罗马尼回首走至此时的道路时，他笑了。他在多伦多以东的安大略省皮克灵（Pickering, Ontario）长大，那里他的母亲是一名教师，父亲经营着两家 Burger’s Priest 餐厅。他是三兄妹中最大的，妹妹是一名体操运动员。
他觉得在冰球运动中获得的一切都是凭努力赢得的，因为他在青少年冰球的最后一年失去了机会（受 Covid 疫情影响），最初在选秀中被忽略，并经历了严重的伤病。
“这始终是一个‘今年与去年相比发生了什么变化’的问题，”他在谈到自己的快速进步时说道。“在未被选入选秀名单后，很大程度上源于动力，我把今年的目标设定为证明我是一个怎样的人，以及我能做到什么。”
他将自己描述为一名聪明的进攻前锋，优势在于技巧和冰球智商（hockey I.Q.）。在努力增强体格后，他的重心转到了提升起步速度上。
他对他选择就读大学的决定感到满意，称这是对他而言显而易见的选择——而密歇根州立大学（Michigan State）则是显而易见的学校，这很大程度上是因为该校的运动表现总监威尔·莫洛克（Will Morlock）以及为他制定的个性化计划。
“能够与年龄更大的球员对抗，加快节奏并在更高水平上比赛，这种感觉太棒了，”罗马尼说。
在恢复健康后，他渴望赢得下一个目标：一份与加拿大罐头队（Canucks）签署的入门级合同。
他的教练们也对此寄予厚望。
“我们非常期待他在下个赛季能更进一步，”德米歇尔（DeMichiel）说道。
[[IMG_RYAN SUN/ASSOCIATED PRESS]]
及 Frames 乐队主唱逝世
作者：ALEX MARSHALL 与 ISABELLA KWAI
格伦·汉萨德（Glen Hansard）于周三在都柏林逝世，享年 56 岁。他是一位创作歌手，曾是深受大众喜爱的爱尔兰乐队 Frames 的主唱，并凭借 2006 年电影《曾经》(Once) 中那首忧郁的歌曲《Falling Slowly》共同获得了奥斯卡奖。他的死讯是在其网站的一份简短声明中确认的。
周三，爱尔兰警方发布了一则新闻稿，报道了周三清晨发生在西都柏林卢坎（Lucan）地区的一起单车事故。该报道未点名汉萨德先生，但称受害者为一名 50 多岁的男性。爱尔兰新闻媒体随后报道称，汉萨德先生正是该事故的受害者。
汉萨德先生最初在都柏林街头担任街头艺人，于 1990 年组建了 Frames 乐队，该乐队随后在爱尔兰推出了多张热门专辑。在出演《曾经》后，他赢得了国际声誉，这部电影讲述了一名爱尔兰街头音乐家与其倾心的捷克钢琴家之间的温情故事。他与女主角 Markéta Irglová 凭借电影中的歌曲《Falling Slowly》获得了学院奖。
“你无法将目光从他们身上移开，”评论家 A.O. Scott 在为《纽约时报》撰写的视频评论中这样写道，并补充说这部电影“近乎完美”。
2012 年，该片的音乐剧版本在百老汇开演，演出持续了近三年。该剧获得 11 项托尼奖提名并赢得八项，包括最佳音乐剧、最佳男主角（Steve Kazee）和最佳导演（John Tiffany）。
汉萨德先生此前在 1991 年的灵魂乐队电影《承诺》(The Commitments) 中饰演了一个小角色，并在 2007 年接受《时报》采访时表示，他一直不愿再次参演。
“我坚信应该专注于自己的手艺，”他说道。他最终接受了《曾经》中的角色——前提是如果拍摄前几天不顺利，他可以随时离开。
格伦·詹姆斯·汉萨德（Glen James Hansard）于 1970 年 4 月 21 日出生在都柏林，父母是詹姆斯和凯瑟琳（卡希尔）·汉萨德。
他在一个工人阶级家庭中长大。
作者：JOHN S.W. MacDONALD
查克·罗素（Chuck Russell）于 7 月 22 日在圣地亚哥家中逝世，享年 74 岁。他是一位制片人、编剧和导演，以在《噩梦街 3：梦魇战士》(A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) 和《变身侠》(The Mask) 等电影中使用大胆的视觉效果而闻名，后者助力了金·凯瑞（Jim Carrey）和卡梅隆·迪亚茨（Cameron Diaz）的演艺事业。
他的妻子安妮亚·罗素（Ania Russell）确认了他的死讯，并表示死因未知。
在好莱坞工作了大约十年后，罗素先生于 1987 年凭借《梦魇战士》完成了导演处女作。这部电影是低俗恐怖系列片的第三部，由饰演弗雷迪·克鲁格（Freddy Krueger）的演员主演，这个戴着软呢帽的恶棍用长满刀片的手套在年轻人的梦境中猎杀他们。
评论对此褒贬不一，但这部由罗素先生共同编剧并由年轻的帕特里夏·阿奎特（Patricia Arquette）主演的电影，在砍杀片的高峰期振兴了该系列。根据 Box Office Mojo 的数据，该片预算为 $4.5 百万，全球票房达到了 $44.8 百万。
评论家们称赞了电影在视觉效果上的运用。
“电影的梦境序列非常精妙，呈现了一些令人惊叹的噩梦图像和特技效果，”珍妮特·马斯林（Janet Maslin）在《纽约时报》对该片的评论中写道。
“弗雷迪可能会化身为一只巨大的食人蛇，或者一个活过来的傀儡，甚至可能变成一个美丽的女人，字面上地用舌头抽打并束缚她的猎物。”
罗素先生的下一部长片《 blobs》(1988) 是对 1958 年一部邪典恐怖片的翻拍，史蒂夫·麦奎因（Steve McQueen）在该片中出演了他首批有署名记录的电影角色之一。
升级后的“ blob”——粉红色、像变形虫一样，喜欢用酸液溶解猎物——为罗素先生及其特效团队提供了更多黏糊糊的乐趣。那 20 个所谓的关节——
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他在 2012 年告诉《时报》，他在一个家庭中长大，并表示他的父亲酗酒严重，且容易陷入暴力发作。“我的父亲沉默、愤怒、封闭，”他说，“所以我选择：表达出那里存在的一切。我想把它全部释放出来。” 当一名叔叔在被送进监狱后留下一把吉他时，汉萨德先生学会了演奏这种乐器。 “我当时处于一种奇怪的状态；我经常惹麻烦，”他在最近一次参加播客节目《Track Star》的采访中说道。不久，他便爱上了鲍勃·迪伦、伦纳德·科恩和范·莫里森的音乐。 他在十几岁早些时候就辍学去街头表演并在乐队中演奏，大约 20 岁时，他组建了 Frames 乐队。 他在一部关于爱尔兰工人阶级青年组建一个 10 人灵魂乐乐队的电影《曾经》中获得了一个角色，当时他是跟着一个参加试镜的朋友一起去的。 “我符合要求，”他说。“我有红头发，而且我会弹吉他。我读了几行台词，就得到了这个角色。” 由汉萨德先生的前乐队成员之一约翰·卡尼编剧并导演的《曾经》是在 17 天内以较低的预算拍摄完成的。当最终剪辑版在 2007 年初的圣丹斯电影节展出时，它成为了热门之作。 汉萨德先生起初抵制将《Once》改编成音乐剧的想法，但最终给予了许可。“忘了正确吧，”他后来回忆道，他是这样告诉在百老汇扮演他那个角色的演员卡齐先生的。“灵感之神憎恨正确。” 自《Once》之后，他在接下来的几年里倾向于个人创作，发行了包括《Didn't He Ramble》(2015) 在内的专辑，该专辑获得了提名。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 2008 年奥斯卡金像奖上的格伦·汉萨德。他凭借《Once》中的《Falling Slowly》分享了该奖项。
负责监督该生物等比例版本的技术人员在片场被称为“Blobsters”。 罗素先生的下一部电影《变面》(1994) 将他的特效才华推向了新高度。 该片由金·凯瑞主演，这是他自成名的《王牌拍档》(Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) 之后出演的首个电影角色（尽管《变面》拍摄在先），同时迪亚兹女士也在此片中首次亮相。 金·凯瑞饰演的斯坦利·伊普基斯是一个笨拙的银行职员，在戴上一个神秘面具后，他变成了一个绿脸、穿着zoot-suit的疯子——斯坦利化身为纯粹的本能（id）。迪亚兹女士饰演他的爱慕对象蒂娜·卡莱尔。 利用乔治·卢卡斯的工业光魔 (Industrial Light and Magic) 的技术，罗素先生将金·凯瑞的角色变成了一个无限可塑的卡通人物：眼睛从脸上凸出来，口袋里突然爆出机枪和火箭发射器，当他盯着蒂娜看时，舌头从嘴里滚了出来。 这部电影获得了巨大的成功，根据 Box Office Mojo 的数据，其在上映首周末的票房就超过了 $23 million——相当于其全部预算——并最终在全球范围内获得了 $351.6 million 的票房。
查尔斯·雷蒙德·罗素出生于 1952 年 5 月 9 日，出生在伊利诺伊州帕克里奇，那是芝加哥的一个近郊区。他的父亲查尔斯·威尔伯·罗素在芝加哥从事广告工作，他的母亲帕特里夏·罗素是一名旅行社代理人。 罗素先生在帕克里奇长大，就读于梅因南高中。毕业后，他进入了如今被称为伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的学校。正如他在 1988 年告诉《旧金山纪事报》的那样，尽管该大学没有电影专业，但两位“非常优秀”的教授激发了他对电影的热爱。 据罗素女士称，罗素先生在毕业后立即前往好莱坞。抵达那里后，他在行业的边缘地带艰苦奋斗，负责清扫摄影棚，并在一个电视广告中担任制作助理，直到 20 世纪 70 年代终于获得了一些电影工作，担任助理导演或执行制片人等职务。 正如他告诉《纪事报》的那样，无论当时是在制作优秀的电影还是糟糕的电影，他在那个环境中的生活总是很快乐。
约翰斯顿-佩尼，J.
JOHNSTON-PENNEY—
米格登，西德尼
MIGDON—Sidney.
Judith, C.
Judith C. Johnston-Penney, 84, 居住在新泽西州哈灵顿公园，于 2024年12月28日去世。尽管她已离开我们，但所有被她触动过生活的人将继续带着爱与感激地铭记她。Judy 1940年2月19日出生于伊利诺伊州芝加哥，在威斯康星大学获得学士学位，其硕士期间曾在印度的德里大学社会工作学院留学一年。随后，她就读于芝加哥大学人类学系研究生项目以及哈佛大学社会关系系，并获得了博士学位。获得博士学位后，她从事研究和教学工作，岗位涵盖从阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院的研究员到纽约市立大学布鲁克林学院的讲师。她直到退休前在纽约州花园城市的阿德菲大学担任终身教授。她的研究和实地考察使其足迹遍布全球，这满足了她永不停歇且无边无际的分析好奇心。她凭借深邃的知识、热情以及对博大艺术技能的巧妙运用，将所有的经验和发现生动地传递给她的学生。她那 eclectic（兼收并蓄）的手工衣橱就像行走着的“展示与讲述”艺术，使她成为一名充满活力、极具魅力且令人难忘的教师、导师、倡导者和引导者。她的丈夫 Stuart M. Penney，女儿 Delari Johnston 和女婿 Keith Murray，女儿 Tara Johnston，妹妹 Kimberly Cowan，侄女 Laura Myrick 以及 Penney 家族将深深思念、铭记并爱着她。先于她去世的有她的父母，来自佛蒙特州纽波特的 Charles 和 Marion Cowan，以及她的前夫 Neal W. Johnston。
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凭借一部民谣专辑获得格莱美奖提名。 Hansard 先生还与 Irglová 女士（他的《Once》共同主演及曾经的伴侣）组成了民谣双人组 Swell Season。 他致力于提高人们对无家可归者的关注，并抗议住房短缺。他经常参加在都柏林举行的年度圣诞前夕 Busk 街头表演活动，该活动旨在筹集资金帮助有无家可归风险的人群。 他的遗属包括妻子 Maire Saaritsa；儿子 Christy；
1995年与 Chuck Russell 合作。他说，无论是在拍摄好电影还是坏电影，他在这个行业中总是很快乐。
好莱坞这个“古怪而精彩的行业”。 到 1986年，Russell 先生凭借喜剧片《回到学校》（由 Rodney Dangerfield 主演，全球票房超过 9100 万美元）的发行，稳固地确立了自己作为成功制片人的地位。 Russell 先生的遗属包括他在 2007年结婚的妻子；妹妹 Anne Jacob；以及与第一任妻子 Patti Rao 所生的三个孩子：Logan, Riley 和 Carlyn Russell。 尽管他参与过各种类型的
讣告 讣告 讣告
Parker, Allan
Philips, Henrietta
Ryan, Arthur
insightful（深刻的）知识，热情和对博大艺术技能的巧妙运用。 她的 eclectic 手工衣橱就像行走着的“展示与讲述”艺术，使她成为一名充满活力、极具魅力且令人难忘的教师、导师、倡导者和引导者。她将被她的丈夫 Stuart M. Penney，女儿 Delari Johnston 和女婿 Keith Murray，女儿 Tara Johnston，妹妹 Kimberly Cowan，侄女 Laura Myrick 以及 Penney 家族思念、铭记并爱着。先于她去世的有她的父母，来自佛蒙特州纽波特的 Charles 和 Marion Cowan，以及她的前夫 Neal W. Johnston。
Benenson 家族和 Benenson Capital Partners 悼念我们睿智的朋友、心腹和值得信赖的顾问 Sid Migdon 的逝世。我们将思念他的善良、机智、才智、幽默和忠诚。他总是出现在每一个需要他的人身边。他帮助 Benenson Capital 公司取得了如今的成功。我们将永远怀念他。我们向他的妻子 Hermine，儿子 Andrew，女儿 Nicki 以及他的全体家人致以最深切的哀悼。 爱你们的，Bill Benenson, Lawrence Benenson, Fred Benenson, Alexander Benenson, Richard Kessler 和 Benenson Capital Partners。
PARKER—Allan. Allan, Chief, 我们爱你，并感谢你帮助创造了许多我们最珍贵的回忆。我们的爱将永远陪伴 Sherry, Jill 和 Brett。 Toni 和 Bob
帕克 (PARKER) —— 艾伦 (Allan)。 我们怀着沉痛的心情和破碎的心，向谢丽 (Sherry)、布雷特 (Brett)、吉尔 (Jill) 和约翰 (John)，以及他的孙辈们伊丽莎白 (Elizabeth)、佩吉 (Paige) 和伊森 (Ethan) 传递我们深切的爱意。我们共同度过的时光将永远留在我们的记忆中。所有认识他的人都将深深地思念他，并深情地缅怀他。 献上我们全部的爱， 菲莉丝 (Phyllis)、马克 (Marc)、詹妮弗 (Jennifer) 和迈克尔 (Michael)，以及艾米 (Amy)
菲利普斯 (PHILIPS) —— 亨丽埃塔·达贝克 (Henrietta Dabek)。 出生于纽约市，深受爱戴的亨尼 (Henny) 在西雅图安详去世。她是教育者、妻子、母亲、祖母和曾祖母。 我们想念你。
瑞安 (RYAN) —— 亚瑟·F. (Arthur F.)
纽约-长老会医院 (NewYork-Presbyterian) 对我们亲爱的朋友、忠诚的终身信托员亚瑟·F. “阿特” 瑞安 (Arthur F. “Art” Ryan) 的离世深感悲痛。阿特以其善良和对社区事业的投入而闻名，他致力于服务纽约-长老会医院，留下了远见卓识的领导力与慈善事业的遗产。他 1942 年出生于布鲁克林，在长岛长大，1963 年毕业于普罗维登斯学院 (Providence College)，获得数学学士学位。在担任美国陆军中尉期间，他在美国大学 (American University) 攻读研究生。阿特和他的已故妻子帕特里夏 (Patricia) 在纽约州东伊斯利普 (East Islip) 抚养了四个孩子。阿特是一位卓越、真实且具有变革力的领导者。他 1972 年加入大通曼哈顿银行 (Chase Manhattan Bank)，并在 1990 年 47 岁时晋升为公司历史上最年轻的总裁之一。1994, 他成为美国普慎保险公司 (Prudential Insurance Company of America) 首位从公司外部选拔的总裁兼首席执行官。阿特在 1987 年 10 月被选为长老会医院 (Presbyterian Hospital) 的信托员，并在 1998. 与纽约医院 (New York Hospital) 合并后成为纽约-长老会医院的信托员。在他非凡的任职期间，阿特
纽约-长老会医院
GARY HERSHORN/REUTERS
和三个兄弟。 汉萨德先生 (Mr. Hansard) 在 2012 年的《时报》采访中表示，他发现自己总是在“情歌的习惯用语”中歌唱，但他的音乐不仅仅关乎浪漫。 “这还关乎我与我的国家、我与我的朋友、我与我自己、我与我的上帝之间的关系，”他说。“并不总是关于我和我的女孩。那只是我习惯使用的语言。”
FRANCIS DEMANGE/GAMMA-RAPHO, VIA GETTY IMAGES
在他长期身处好莱坞期间，参与了多部电影和电视剧的拍摄——包括与阿诺德·施瓦岑格 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) 合演的史诗动作片《橡皮擦》(Eraser) (1996) —— 他始终是那种催生了他导演生涯的恐怖片的坚定捍卫者。 “我们每个人心中都有一个能面对最大黑暗的普通人，”他在 2024 年告诉 Deadline 杂志。“这就是恐怖片的乐趣：我们通过看到面对最大恐惧时的样子，获得一种宣泄。”
帮助引导医院成功扩张，担任了包括提名委员会、发展委员会和人力资源委员会在内的多个委员会主席。他还曾是执行委员会以及预算与财务委员会的成员。作为教育和艺术的长期支持者，阿特曾担任多所大学的信托员，以及新泽西表演艺术中心 (New Jersey Performing Arts Center) 和 Achieve, Inc.（一家非营利教育改革组织）的共同主席。阿特回馈了他的母校普罗维登斯学院：他与已故妻子的慈善捐赠促成了亚瑟与帕特里夏·瑞安商业研究中心 (Arthur and Patricia Ryan Center for Business Studies) 以及史密斯艺术中心 (Smith Center for the Arts) 瑞安音乐厅 (Ryan Concert Hall) 的建设。他获得了普罗维登斯学院授予的荣誉工商管理博士学位，以及道林学院 (Dowling College) 授予的人文学博士学位。 阿特的温暖、智慧和慈悲将被人们深深地思念。 我们向阿特的子女、孙辈、朋友和同事表示最深切的哀悼。 查尔斯·R. 凯 (Charles R. Kaye) 阿德巴约·O. 奥贡莱西 (Adebayo O. Ogunlesi) 杰里·施派尔 (Jerry Speyer) 信托委员会共同主席 布赖恩·G. 顿利 (Brian G. Donley), MD 总裁兼首席执行官
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作者：STEFANOS CHEN
对于那些已经拥有一切的尼克斯球迷（本·斯蒂勒，我们就是在说你），纽约市提供了一件有趣的东西。
本周，交通部将首块“冠军之路”（Champions Way）路牌放入拍卖。这些路牌于 6 月悬挂在球队的纸屑游行路线上，以纪念他们数十年来的首次 NBA 总冠军获胜。
这款蓝橙相间、宽 36 英寸的铝制路牌，产自皇后区一家制造全市官方路牌的工厂。在曼哈顿下城被称为“英雄峡谷”的百老汇路段中，仅安装了 30 块这样的路牌。目前尚无出售其余 29 块路牌的计划。
竞价于周三上午 9 点开始，起拍价为 $100，将于 8 月 12 日周三晚上 8 点结束。筹集到的资金将进入城市的通用基金，用于支付从教师工资到填补路面坑洞的运营成本。
目前已有 70 多次出价，价格已飙升至 $7,100。
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80s
80s
80s
80s
80s
80s
80s
80s
80°
80°
80s
s 80s
s 80s
s 80s
Eugene ne
oise Boi
60s
60 60s 0s
60s
60°
60°
60s
80s 80s 80s
80s 80s
Sa San San Francisco n Fra Fra o co
sn Fresno sn
Las Las Vegas
80s 80s 80s 80s 80s
70s 0s
Los Ang os Ang Angeles ng s
enix Phoen en Pho
Sa San San San Diego
Honolulu lulu
Hilo H
90s 0s
90s 90
40s
50s
50s
ks rbank Fairb
70s 60s
Anchorage Anchorage Anchora Anchora
Juneau
50s 50s
H L
一个正在接近的冷锋 将给肯塔基州、 田纳西州以及阿拉巴马州和 密西西比州的部分地区带来 强雷暴。 其中一些风暴将包含 高达 65 英里/小时的破坏性 阵风，并引发闪电洪水。 这些风暴将在周末向东 移动，并可能在周日及 周日夜间给东南部部分地区 带来强风和强降雨。
周日
城市 昨日东部时间下午 4 点止的 16 小时内最高/最低气温，以及昨日下午 4 点止 16 小时内的降水量（单位：英寸）。 今日及明日的预期天气状况。
今日
温度
降水量 （单位：英寸）
昨日..................................................................... 4 本月至今...................................................... 348 本季至今（自 1 月 1 日起） ........................ 748 本季至今正常值 ................................. 688
S ............................. 太阳 Sn ....................... 降雪 SS .......... 阵雪 T............ 雷暴 Tr ......................... 痕量 W ........................ 有风 –............... 不可用 休闲预报
C ........................ 多云 F............................. 雾 H .......................... 霾 I............................... 冰 PC ............. 局部多云 R ........................... 雨 Sh ................... 阵雨
纽约市地区 昨日 今日 明日 83/ 69 PC 85/ 70 PC 布里奇波特 73/ 69 0.52 82/ 69 PC 82/ 72 PC 考德威尔 74/ 66 0.01 84/ 67 PC 87/ 68 PC 丹伯里 71/ 66 0.39 82/ 63 PC 85/ 69 PC 伊斯利普 71/ 66 0.17 82/ 70 PC 82/ 71 PC 纽瓦克 74/ 68 0.09 86/ 72 PC 88/ 72 PC 特伦顿 76/ 68 Tr 86/ 66 PC 87/ 68 PC 怀特平原 72/ 64 0.03 82/ 67 PC 83/ 68 PC
纽约市 72/ 66 Tr
美国 昨日 今日 明日
法戈
奥尔巴尼
堪萨斯 城
夏洛特
亚特兰大
达拉斯
辛辛那提
查塔努加
伯明翰 奥尔巴尼 74/ 62 0.17 82/ 64 PC 86/ 68 PC 阿尔伯克基 100/ 74 0.04 102/ 71 T 93/ 69 T 安克雷奇 71/ 52 0 69/ 55 S 67/ 54 S 亚特兰大 92/ 70 0 91/ 74 PC 84/ 73 T 大西洋城 80/ 68 0.09 82/ 70 PC 82/ 71 PC 奥斯汀 98/ 77 0 100/ 77 PC 97/ 74 T 巴尔的摩 82/ 67 0 88/ 69 S 91/ 73 PC 巴吞鲁日 95/ 78 0.09 94/ 79 T 92/ 77 T 伯明翰 94/ 72 0 92/ 76 T 83/ 74 T 博伊西 99/ 65 0 103/ 72 S 102/ 60 S 波士顿 71/ 64 0.04 77/ 67 PC 80/ 69 PC 布法罗 81/ 61 0.01 84/ 67 PC 84/ 65 T 伯灵顿 80/ 64 0.11 83/ 64 C 85/ 70 T 卡斯珀 92/ 54 0.04 92/ 55 T 98/ 63 S 夏洛特 88/ 66 0 91/ 71 S 91/ 72 PC 查塔努加 88/ 66 0 91/ 70 PC 82/ 71 T 芝加哥 88/ 69 0 82/ 68 R 75/ 65 T 辛辛那提 85/ 66 0 87/ 70 C 77/ 68 T 克利夫兰 82/ 64 0 87/ 71 PC 83/ 68 T 科罗拉多斯普林斯 88/ 64 0.16 84/ 58 T 85/ 59 T 哥伦布 85/ 64 0 87/ 70 PC 80/ 69 T 康科德（新罕布什尔州） 76/ 60 0.18 81/ 59 PC 85/ 64 PC 达拉斯-沃斯堡 101/ 83 0 104/ 82 S 101/ 76 S 丹佛 91/ 65 0.06 89/ 63 T 91/ 67 T 德梅因 86/ 70 0 78/ 64 T 83/ 65 PC 底特律 88/ 67 0 89/ 72 C 80/ 66 T 埃尔帕索 107/ 80 0 109/ 80 S 99/ 76 T 法戈 87/ 67 0.70 85/ 58 T 88/ 65 S 哈特福德 75/ 61 0.44 83/ 63 PC 85/ 68 PC 檀香山 91/ 78 0.07 89/ 77 Sh 88/ 77 PC 休斯顿 98/ 79 0 98/ 79 S 97/ 79 PC 印第安纳波利斯 87/ 67 0 85/ 69 PC 79/ 66 T 杰克逊 96/ 75 0.11 93/ 77 T 93/ 73 T 杰克逊维尔 95/ 74 0.66 95/ 76 T 92/ 74 T 堪萨斯城 86/ 73 0.22 87/ 64 T 82/ 63 PC 基韦斯特 91/ 83 0.10 91/ 82 PC 92/ 82 T 拉斯维加斯 111/ 88 0 114/ 89 S 117/ 92 S 列克辛顿 84/ 62 0 87/ 68 PC 81/ 68 T
周四早晨，随着更多球迷得知此次拍卖的消息，价格可能会大幅上涨。
6月，该市以每件 $100 的价格挂牌出售 200 个相同的标志复制品——这些复制品在同一家店中制作，但从未在游行路线沿线展出。
此次销售引起了至少一名著名超级粉丝的关注。斯蒂勒（Stiller）是麦迪逊广场花园名人区（celebrity row）的常客，他在该机构关于复制品销售的社交媒体帖子下回复了一个瞪眼表情符号。
对于购买正品是否感兴趣的置评请求，他未予回应。
交通部表示，复制标志在 7 分钟内被抢购一空。
“尼克斯队在经历了 53 年的干旱后终于捧回了冠军奖杯，现在您有机会拥有一个独特的庆典纪念品，”交通专员迈克·弗林（Mike Flynn）在声明中表示。
斯派克·李（Spike Lee），也许是历史上最忠实的尼克斯队球迷，在周三似乎并未意识到这次拍卖。在通过电话联系到他时，他要求提供拍卖链接。
Winnipi Winnipeg nnipeg a Regina
Helena
marck Bism
100+ 100 100
100+ 10
70s 70s 7
70s 7 70s 70s 70s
Billings Bil Bill
neapolis Min M n St. Paul S
Pierre
Sioux Falls ou Casper Casp Casp
Cheyenne h
Des Moines M Omaha
e Salt Lake
City City City
Denver D
peka Topek peka
Colorado d orado Springs
Wichita
Santa Fe Fe Fe
Oklahoma City
100+ 0+ 0+
Albuquerque erque uerque buq buq
Lubbock b
son Tucso
El Paso Ft. Worth
tonio San Anto to
Monterrey Monterre Monterre
今日最高气温
<0 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100+
寒冷 最高 最低 雨 阵雨 冰 小雪 雪 雷暴 多云 温暖 停滞 复杂 寒冷 降水
锋面 气压
Nashville Knoxville
部分 雷暴风险
Louisville
Miami
Louisville
Little Rock 93/ 77 0.08 97/ 81 T 93/ 72 T Los Angeles 87/ 67 0 92/ 70 S 93/ 70 S Louisville 87/ 67 0 88/ 71 C 85/ 70 T Memphis 93/ 77 0 92/ 77 T 88/ 72 T Miami 95/ 79 0.20 94/ 79 T 93/ 80 T Milwaukee 88/ 68 0 80/ 67 R 71/ 63 T Mpls.-St. Paul 89/ 66 0.04 71/ 64 R 88/ 64 PC Nashville 89/ 65 0 90/ 75 PC 87/ 72 T New Orleans 96/ 80 0.31 93/ 79 T 93/ 77 T Norfolk 88/ 71 0 86/ 70 PC 87/ 73 PC Oklahoma City 101/ 77 0.04 103/ 72 T 94/ 65 S Omaha 84/ 75 0.07 82/ 63 T 85/ 64 S Orlando 90/ 75 0.18 89/ 75 T 90/ 76 T Philadelphia 83/ 68 0.04 88/ 70 S 90/ 73 PC Phoenix 114/ 92 0 116/ 93 S 117/ 94 S Pittsburgh 82/ 58 0 86/ 65 S 85/ 69 PC Portland, Me. 77/ 62 0.32 79/ 61 PC 78/ 66 PC Portland, Ore. 80/ 57 0 87/ 62 S 75/ 56 PC Providence 69/ 62 0.08 81/ 64 Sh 82/ 66 PC Raleigh 87/ 64 0 91/ 70 PC 91/ 73 C Reno 99/ 62 0 103/ 65 S 104/ 62 S Richmond 88/ 66 0 88/ 68 S 88/ 70 C Rochester 79/ 60 0.04 84/ 64 PC 84/ 68 T Sacramento 95/ 58 0 98/ 60 S 100/ 62 S Salt Lake City 100/ 72 0 104/ 73 S 106/ 78 S San Antonio 98/ 77 0 99/ 78 PC 98/ 80 T San Diego 79/ 68 0 80/ 69 PC 81/ 71 S San Francisco 72/ 56 0 72/ 56 S 73/ 56 S San Jose 82/ 57 0 83/ 59 S 87/ 62 S San Juan 90/ 80 0 91/ 79 T 91/ 78 Sh Seattle 76/ 56 0 82/ 59 S 71/ 56 Sh Sioux Falls 80/ 68 0.59 76/ 61 T 86/ 61 S Spokane 88/ 58 0 92/ 66 S 88/ 50 W St. Louis 87/ 72 0 83/ 70 T 76/ 67 T St. Thomas 91/ 81 0 92/ 81 Sh 91/ 80 C Syracuse 78/ 62 0.05 85/ 63 PC 88/ 70 T Tampa 87/ 79 0.37 88/ 79 T 88/ 79 R Toledo 88/ 62 0 90/ 70 C 81/ 65 T Tucson 108/ 85 0.04 110/ 84 S 111/ 86 T Tulsa 98/ 81 0.04 101/ 70 T 90/ 68 PC Virginia Beach 86/ 70 0 83/ 71 S 84/ 73 PC Washington 87/ 71 0 90/ 72 S 90/ 75 PC Wichita 98/ 76 0.08 97/ 68 S 90/ 66 S Wilmington, Del. 82/ 66 0.03 87/ 68 S 87/ 70 PC
非洲 Af A 昨日 Ye Y 今日 明日 To T
Algiers 95/ 70 0 94/ 72 S 94/ 73 S Cairo 100/ 78 0 99/ 78 PC 101/ 78 PC Cape Town 70/ 43 0 75/ 44 PC 79/ 45 S Dakar 89/ 82 0 90/ 79 PC 87/ 80 R Johannesburg 64/ 41 0 63/ 36 S 64/ 39 PC Nairobi 78/ 53 0 76/ 57 R 77/ 56 C Tunis 93/ 74 0 96/ 75 S 99/ 75 S
页码及截止日期。 “30 个中的一个？”他问道，指的是制作的标志总数。 “额，”他笑着说，“我有时间。” 李表示他自帕特里克·尤温新秀年起就是季票持有者，他拥有一个他所谓的尼克斯球迷的“圣杯”——
气象数据由 AccuWeather 提供
60s 60s 60s
60s 60
60s 60s
前往 多伦多 (Toronto)
90s 90s 90s
ee auke 密尔沃基 (Milwau) auk
底特律 (Detro) troit tro
克利夫兰 (Cleveland) 匹兹堡 (Pittsburgh)
芝加哥 (hicago) Chi
印第安纳波利斯 (Indianapolis) a
春田 (ngfield) Sprin e
查尔斯顿 (Charleston) e
圣路易斯 (St. Louis) S
80s 0 80
纳什维尔 (Nashville) 纳什维尔 (Nashville) 纳什维尔 (Nashville)
小石城 (Little Rock) 孟菲斯 (Memphis)
伯明翰 (Birmingham) m
杰克逊 (Jackson) on son
0s 80s 8 80s
莫比尔 (Mobile) Mo 新 新 奥尔良 (Orleans)
巴吞鲁日 (Baton Rouge) o
奥兰多 (Orlando) Or Or Or 坦帕 (Tampa) 8
休斯顿 (ouston) Hou
科珀斯克里斯蒂 (Corpus Christi) C
天气模式显示为今日东部时间正午的预测情况。
潮湿天气今天将终于开始离开东部大部分地区，尤其是东北部，阳光和干燥条件将重新建立。一场风暴将给平原北部地区和中西部带来大雨和雷暴，部分雷暴可能会产生大冰雹、破坏性阵风和导致洪水的倾盆大雨。 倾盆大雨将持续影响从佛罗里达到路易斯安那的东南部地区。在西部，热浪将在大多数地方达到顶峰，最高气温将比 30 年平均值高 10 到 20 度，这可能会导致热压力和空气质量问题。 西北部将出现 7 月下旬的典型气温，但风力增强将导致本周末火灾风险较高。少数零星风暴将影响高平原地区，并伴有高温情况。
蒙哥马利 (Montgomery)
新德里 (New Delhi) 96/ 83 0.39 92/ 80 R 92/ 81 T 利雅得 (Riyadh) 112/ 80 0 112/ 87 S 113/ 88 S 首尔 (Seoul) 90/ 76 0 92/ 79 Sh 93/ 78 T 上海 (Shanghai) 103/ 82 0.10 99/ 82 T 98/ 82 T 新加坡 (Singapore) 86/ 81 0.14 91/ 80 T 91/ 79 PC 悉尼 (Sydney) 64/ 42 0 63/ 47 S 64/ 47 PC 台北市 (Taipei City) 95/ 80 0 94/ 80 PC 97/ 80 Sh 德黑兰 (Tehran) 93/ 75 0 95/ 75 S 95/ 78 S 东京 (Tokyo) 95/ 81 0.12 94/ 81 Sh 95/ 82 T
欧洲 (Europe) 昨日 (Yesterday) Ye Y 今日 (Today) 明日 (Tomorrow) To T
阿姆斯特丹 (Amsterdam) 79/ 66 0 74/ 56 Sh 75/ 57 S 雅典 (Athens) 90/ 79 0 91/ 76 W 89/ 74 W 柏林 (Berlin) 99/ 63 0 87/ 66 PC 77/ 56 Sh 布鲁塞尔 (Brussels) 81/ 66 0.06 80/ 55 PC 80/ 56 C 布达佩斯 (Budapest) 95/ 63 0 100/ 68 S 102/ 71 S 哥本哈根 (Copenhagen) 81/ 64 0 71/ 60 PC 71/ 56 PC 都柏林 (Dublin) 70/ 52 0 67/ 48 PC 70/ 50 PC 爱丁堡 (Edinburgh) 64/ 46 0.02 63/ 49 Sh 66/ 49 PC 法兰克福 (Frankfurt) 102/ 61 0.12 89/ 67 T 84/ 65 T 日内瓦 (Geneva) 93/ 64 0 85/ 64 T 91/ 63 T 赫尔辛基 (Helsinki) 75/ 54 0 77/ 54 T 74/ 52 PC 伊斯坦布尔 (Istanbul) 82/ 69 0 85/ 72 W 85/ 73 W 基辅 (Kyiv) 79/ 58 0 83/ 64 S 88/ 65 S 里斯本 (Lisbon) 84/ 64 0 85/ 66 S 88/ 66 S 伦敦 (London) 82/ 63 0 81/ 55 S 81/ 58 PC 马德里 (Madrid) 104/ 68 0 101/ 67 S 102/ 68 S 莫斯科 (Moscow) 72/ 61 0.06 77/ 57 S 82/ 65 PC 尼斯 (Nice) 88/ 81 0 90/ 78 S 88/ 77 S 奥斯陆 (Oslo) 75/ 63 0.01 73/ 50 PC 71/ 51 R 巴黎 (Paris) 86/ 66 0.02 87/ 63 PC 86/ 61 T 布拉格 (Prague) 97/ 61 0 98/ 68 S 82/ 61 T 罗马 (Rome) 93/ 73 0 95/ 72 S 94/ 72 S 圣彼得堡 (St. Petersburg) 75/ 56 0 83/ 67 S 74/ 61 PC 斯德哥尔摩 (Stockholm) 79/ 59 0 73/ 51 W 70/ 51 S 维也纳 (Vienna) 99/ 70 0 102/ 75 S 96/ 70 PC 华沙 (Warsaw) 88/ 59 0 97/ 69 T 86/ 65 T
北美洲 (North America) 昨日 (Yesterday) Ye Y 今日 (Today) To T 明日 (Tomorrow) To T
拿骚 (Nassau)
阿卡普尔科 (Acapulco) 90/ 77 0 95/ 78 PC 94/ 78 T 百慕大 (Bermuda) 84/ 79 0.25 86/ 79 T 87/ 78 C 埃德蒙顿 (Edmonton) 68/ 50 Tr 80/ 56 PC 88/ 53 PC 瓜达拉哈拉 (Guadalajara) 77/ 62 0.03 87/ 60 R 86/ 62 T 哈瓦那 (Havana) 93/ 74 0 94/ 74 T 94/ 73 PC 金斯敦 (Kingston) 91/ 82 0 93/ 81 S 91/ 83 PC 马提尼克 (Martinique) 91/ 81 0.01 87/ 76 Sh 90/ 77 R 墨西哥城 (Mexico City) 71/ 56 0 78/ 55 R 78/ 56 R 蒙特雷 (Monterrey) 87/ 71 0 98/ 71 S 97/ 73 S 蒙特利尔 (Montreal) 79/ 68 0.09 80/ 66 PC 82/ 70 T 拿骚 (Nassau) 90/ 80 0 91/ 81 C 89/ 80 T 巴拿马城 (Panama City) 93/ 77 0 92/ 76 T 91/ 76 T 魁北克市 (Quebec City) 72/ 61 0.09 75/ 58 PC 80/ 64 T 圣多明各 (Santo Domingo) 91/ 76 0.01 91/ 74 T 92/ 74 T 多伦多 (Toronto) 81/ 64 0 85/ 69 PC 80/ 66 T 温哥华 (Vancouver) 66/ 55 0 76/ 60 PC 73/ 54 Sh 温尼伯 (Winnipeg) 81/ 70 0.22 82/ 59 C 86/ 64 S
VICTOR J. BLUE 为《纽约时报》撰文
dom：球队 1970 年的首个冠军旗帜。 （而且，记录在案的是，他认为尝试对尼克斯队的超级粉丝进行排名是“愚蠢的”。） 稀有尼克斯纪念品的吸引力，尤其是具有纽约正统背景的物品，怎么强调都不为过。
c 魁北克 Que Que
al 蒙特利尔
渥太华
波特兰 P
n 华盛顿 ngton ngton ngton 伯林 Burlin Burlin Burlin n
0s 70s 0s 70s
曼彻斯特 M
波士顿 Bos B
70s 70s 70s 7
哈特福德 Har a 布法罗
纽约 N
费城 Phi
华盛顿 shi Wa Was ashi
0s 90s 90s 90s
里士满 Richm
诺福克 N
罗利 Rale ale
哥伦比亚 bia Columb
杰克逊维尔 J
8 s 80s
一个位于麦迪逊广场花园附近的第 34 街地铁站入口微缩模型，涂成了尼克斯队的蓝色和橙色，在纽约交通博物馆多次售罄。 任何带有球队获胜光环的物品都没有被排除在收藏范围之外。摩根大通社区与行业参与执行董事 Angie Baez 在 6 月被发现试图在游行期间偷走一个尼克斯纪念垃圾桶后失去了工作。 此次拍卖通过市级行政服务部的拍卖门户网站举行，该机构负责处理城市官僚机构积累的庞大库存——废弃的停车计时器、旧家具，以及偶尔出现的稀有市政珍宝。 2022, 喜剧演员 Colin Jost 和 Pete Davidson 在该拍卖网站上冲动地花约 $280,000 购买了一艘退役的史泰登岛渡轮。 “我们的拍卖反映了市政府与我们城市身份联系的全部广度，”该机构的 Yume Kitasei 表示。
今日 .................... 温暖且有阳光 最高气温 83. 开始进入该地区的高压将带来干燥条件，阳光将多于云层。气温将与平均气温相差几度，风力轻微且多变。
哈利法克斯 H
60s 60s 0
今晚 ..................... 部分多云，潮湿 最低气温 69. 天气将干燥且潮湿，天空部分多云。气温将保持在与平均气温相差几度之内，风力将继续轻微且多变。
明日 .............. 潮湿且有阳光 最高气温 85. 在高压继续控制的情况下，气温和湿度水平将略有增加。阳光有时可能会被高层云遮挡。风向为南风，时速 4 至 8 英里。
湿度
周日 ..................... 阴多云，潮湿 最高气温 82. 干燥条件将持续，但随着风暴接近该地区，天气将变得阴多云。气候将保持潮湿，风向为南风，时速 6 至 12 英里。
周一 周二 .................................. 雨水回归 周一一场风暴将带来几次阵雨和雷阵雨。最高气温 83. 周二将有云和阳光，并伴有一两次阵雨。最高气温 84.
在中央公园，截至昨日下午 1 点的 13 小时内。
1 p.m.
1 p.m.
周三 昨日
6 p.m.
12 a.m.
日均偏差 日均偏差 本月............... -1.1° 本年.................. -0.2°
水库水位 （纽约市供水）
昨日 ............... 88% 预计正常值 ............. 90%
太阳、月亮与行星
月相
下弦月 新月 上弦月 满月
8月 5 8月 12 8月 19 8月 28
下午 1:36
凌晨 12:18
升起 5:51 a.m. 落下 8:13 p.m. 下次升起 5:52 a.m.
木星
升 5:44 a.m. 落 8:09 p.m.
土星
落 11:33 a.m. 升 11:03 p.m.
航海
从蒙托克角 (Montauk Point) 到新泽西州桑迪胡克 (Sandy Hook, N.J.)，延伸至 20 海里，包括长岛海峡 (Long Island Sound) 和纽约港 (New York Harbor)。 风向将由西北风转为南风，风速约 5 节。纽约港和长岛海峡的浪高将在 1 英尺或以下。能见度通常不受限制。
高潮
6 a.m.
大西洋城 .................... 9:23 a.m. .............. 9:33 p.m. 巴尼格特入海口 ................. 9:32 a.m. .............. 9:42 p.m. 电池公园 (The Battery) ................... 10:10 a.m. ............ 10:09 p.m. 海文海滩 ................ 11:00 a.m. ............ 11:06 p.m. 布里奇波特 .................... 12:51 a.m. .............. 1:18 p.m. 城市岛 ..................... 12:42 a.m. .............. 1:11 p.m. 火岛灯塔 ................ 10:28 a.m. ............ 10:34 p.m. 蒙托克角 .............. 11:12 a.m. ............ 11:15 p.m. 北港 ..................... 12:54 a.m. .............. 1:21 p.m. 波特华盛顿 ........... 12:48 a.m. .............. 1:15 p.m. 桑迪胡克 .................... 9:42 a.m. .............. 9:48 p.m. 希内考克入海口 ............. 9:31 a.m. .............. 9:44 p.m. 斯坦福 ...................... 12:51 a.m. .............. 1:18 p.m. 塔里敦 ..................... 11:59 a.m. ............ 11:58 p.m. 威莱茨角 .................. 12:46 a.m. .............. 1:15 p.m.
专员在一份声明中表示。 该机构表示，在上一财年中，共举行了大约 965 场拍卖，筹集了约 $1.2 million ——相对于该市 $126 billion 预算而言，这是一个很小的数目，但无论如何有所帮助。通过拍卖售出的最昂贵物品是一艘曾由……拥有的斗方驳船。
纪念品吸引了 超级粉丝的目光。
卫生局。 成交价：$293,255。 在被问及未来的拍卖计划时， Kitasei 表示目前还没有计划 出售任何尼克斯主题的 垃圾桶 —— 暂时没有 —— 但该 机构对街道标志的 销售潜力持乐观态度。 “说到这些 尼克斯，”她说，“任何事 都有可能。”
S M T W T F
最高 最高 实际 预测 范围
最低 最低
昨日 ............. 痕迹 记录 .................... 3.56
记录 最高 98° (1988)
过去 30 天 实际 ..................... 4.71 正常.................... 4.42
过去 365 天 实际 ................... 37.37 正常.................. 49.52
最高 85° 正常
最近 30 天 气压
正午 72°
最高 ............. 29.80 正午 最低 ............ 29.67 凌晨 3 点
最低 70° 正常
冷却度日数
一项追踪当日平均气温 高于 65 度的程度的 燃料消耗指数
66° 凌晨 6 点
(1956) 最低 57° 记录
趋势 温度 降水 平均 平均 低于 低于 高于 高于
最近 10 天 30 天 90 天 365 天
图表显示近期温度和降水 趋势与过去 30 年的对比情况。
海滩与海洋温度
今日预报
74/60 多云，有阵雨 肯尼邦克波特 (Kennebunkport)
S 上午 7:46 R 晚上 9:20 S 上午 8:51
77/66 局部有阳光，有阵雨，潮湿 鳕鱼角 (Cape Cod)
火星
R 凌晨 2:17 S 下午 5:19
83/69 较温暖，有阳光 长岛北岸 (L.I. North Shore)
金星
R 上午 9:44 S 晚上 10:07
80/72 多云且有阳光 长岛南岸 (L.I. South Shore)
82/70 局部晴朗 新泽西海岸 (N.J. Shore)
86/69 局部晴朗 东岸 (Eastern Shore)
80/69 局部晴朗 马里兰州海洋城 (Ocean City Md.)
83/71 绝大多数时间晴朗 弗吉尼亚海滩 (Virginia Beach)
记录 最高温
S S M T
正常 最高温
正常 最低温
记录 最低温
最高 ............. 93% 凌晨 6 点 最低 ................ 81% 正午
0s 70 70
色带 表示水温。
杀手电影 及更多作品 带来阵阵战栗。
N
新闻 评论
……他在执掌期间的 12 个赛季中的表现。我发现他的演变令人气馁，当地的其他评论家也如此。许多听众并不认同，但无论如何，《波士顿环球报》的报道已确认 Nelsons 没有妥善履行其工作的核心部分：在排练时准备不足，将新曲谱斥为“有趣的小曲”，并拒绝进行严肃音乐总监在美国被期望承担的大量筹款及其他工作。 管理上的失误在这个组织中并非新鲜事，但撤掉 Nelsons 却打开了潘多拉的魔盒。Hostetter 和 Smith 将一场私人斗争公开化。
一位荷兰时尚巨擘， 将布鲁克林博物馆 变成了她的工作室。
随我 一起 褶皱
作者：ROSLYN SULCAS
Iris van Herpen 是一位富有远见的荷兰设计师，她是“可穿戴雕塑”的创造者，她的服装看起来像飞溅的水花、蒸发的烟雾、气泡云、水母群或外骨骼。她从自然和科学中汲取灵感，从心理学和解剖学探索中获得启发，她的服装结合了尖端技术与高级定制技法。 但 van Herpen 始终坚持设计过程中缓慢的手工特质，而这正是她希望在布鲁克林博物馆的“Iris van Herpen：塑造感官”展览中强调的方面。 该展览于 2024 年在巴黎装饰艺术博物馆展出，随后在世界各地巡展，借鉴了每个地点的艺术品、科学文物和自然历史标本。 在布鲁克林，van Herpen 又增加了一个元素：她自己。 在她 l展览生涯中，她首次在展期内定期出现，她将其描述为“表演”，提供与高级定制师艺术面对面的交流机会。在那个唤起她阿姆斯特丹工作室氛围的中央圆形大厅里，她坐在桌边，欢迎访客加入她一起将一块织物折叠成褶皱，她认为大多数人会觉得这项技术是触手可及的。 “从某种程度上说，我的过程似乎非常简……”
詹姆斯·鲍德温 在他成为文学巨星 之前的样子。
……复杂且具有高度技术性和创新性，而这正是展示其真实人性化的一面，”范赫本（van Herpen）在抵达布鲁克林参加7月演出前的几天，在一次从阿姆斯特丹发起的视频通话中说道。“它最终关乎的是工艺，是非常个人化且人性化的。” 我将亲自去探索这种亲密感。在5月的展览开幕日，我加入了范赫本的讨论桌。她偶尔创作的大型垂坠艺术品之一挂在她身后，而在圆顶大厅的中心，大片翻滚的织物延伸至穹顶，上面投影着工作室员工的手，正实时地进行细致的固定和缝制。在我们的周围是数百件面料样本、照片和绘图。
大卫·艾伦 (DAVID ALLEN) 评论员笔记本 坦格伍德上空气氛紧张
马萨诸塞州莱诺克斯 —— 坦格伍德（Tanglewood）对许多许多人来说都很特别。它是波士顿交响乐团的夏季之家，也是人们创造回忆的地方：在这里，他们与祖父母一起野餐，或在暴风雨中被淋透。它很重要，具有某种意义。对我家人来说，这里是一个避风港，一个圣所，是一个在阳光明媚的下午可以让一切都稍微放松下来的地方。 但今年并非如此。坦格伍德看起来可能依然如往常般田园诗意，但在最近于此地度过的一周里，它让人感到焦虑、愤怒、一触即发。人们无法逃避波士顿交响乐团正在对其自身发起的战争：这场危机正淹没音乐之声。在造成更严重的损害之前，必须有人让事情平静下来。 让我们回顾一下。在经过多年的幕后权谋铺垫后，这场风暴在3月被点燃，当时波士顿交响乐团的受托人和管理层——由董事会主席芭芭拉·霍斯特特（Barbara Hostetter）和总裁兼首席执行官查德·史密斯（Chad Smith）领导——宣布他们将不再续签乐团音乐总监安德里斯·尼尔森（Andris Nelsons）的合同。 从艺术角度来看，这是一个正确的决定。生活在波士顿地区，我早就不记得自己见过尼尔森多少次……
波普艺术傲慢的 起源及其 深远遗产。
2026年7月31日，星期五 C1
照片由 JUSTIN J WEE 为《纽约时报》拍摄
最左侧：设计师 Iris van Herpen 在布鲁克林博物馆。 上方：她的一件礼服，设计效果像溅起的水花。 左侧：van Herpen 作为展览的一部分在工作。
顶部，从左起：凯拉·塞德威克 (Kyra Sedgwick)、特拉维斯·培根 (Travis Bacon)、凯文·培根 (Kevin Bacon) 和 索西·培根 (Sosie Bacon) 出演恐怖讽刺剧《家庭电影》(Family Movie)。上方，从左起： 最左侧的法利·格兰杰 (Farley Granger) 和 罗伯特·沃克 (Robert Walker) 出演阿尔弗雷德·希区柯克的《火车上的陌生人》(Strangers on a Train)；梅根·福克斯 (Megan Fox) 出演《詹妮弗之躯》(Jennifer’s Body)。
你度过一个惊悚的夏天
作者：ERIK PIEPENBURG
夏天出人意料地是恐怖氛围浓郁的时刻。如果你认为万圣节应该是每天都在，那么这一系列活动可以将这种愿望变为现实。
新惊悚之作 在纽约市，夏季标志性的恐怖电影活动是林肯中心电影节 (Film at Lincoln Center) 的“恐怖电影展” (Scary Movies)（8月12-20日），这是一个可靠地令人不安的新片及经典重映节。今年的 16 部影片系列将由《伙伴》(Buddy) 开篇，这是卡斯珀·凯利 (Casper Kelly) 的新作，看起来十分疯狂，讲述了一个外表毛茸茸但并不怎么可爱的儿童电视节目主持人。（该片将于 8月 28 日在电影院上映。） 8月 19 日，凯文·贝肯 (Kevin Bacon) 和凯拉·塞德威克 (Kyra Sedgwick) 将介绍由他们执导的砍杀片讽刺之作《家庭电影》(Family Movie)，该片由他们的子女索西 (Sosie) 和特拉维斯 (Travis) 主演。
如果你能承受，电影节将在 8月 16 日首映 4K 修复版的《亨利：连环杀手肖像》(Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer)，这部 1986 年的惊悚片令人绝望。导演约翰·麦克诺顿 (John McNaughton) 将出席问答环节。
其他仍在部分影院上映的夏季恐怖片包括大片《执念》(Obsession)、突破性热门影片《后室》(Backrooms) 的特别版，以及《死灵之日》(Evil Dead) 系列的最新作《死灵之燃》(Evil Dead Burn)。
经典恐怖 请在周日做好心理准备，位于下东区的 Metrograph 剧院将放映《惊恐之觉》(Wake in Fright)，这是一部残酷的 1971 年澳大利亚惊悚片，讲述了一名教师被困在——委婉地说——一个住满了可怕男人的乡村小镇的故事。
作为其酷儿“狭窄房间” (Narrow Rooms) 系列的一部分，东村的 Anthology 电影档案馆将在 8月 21 日放映 35 毫米胶片版的《火车上的陌生人》(Strangers on a Train)，这是阿尔弗雷德·希区柯克 (Alfred Hitchcock) 1951 年的阴暗心理惊悚片。法利·格兰杰 (Farley Granger) 和罗伯特·沃克 (Robert Walker) 在片中饰演具有同性恋色彩的陌生人，两人联手策划一场完美的谋杀，表现极其出色。
8月 29 日，西村的 Quad 电影院将成为《洛基恐怖相顾作》(The Rocky Horror Picture Show) 的派对总部，现场将有影子演员团队模仿银幕上的胡闹桥段。对于不熟悉其运作方式的人，在此之前会有一堂课，教这些新手所有的卫生纸是用来做什么的。
午夜电影 西村 IFC 中心 (IFC Center) 的“深夜最爱” (Late-Night Favorites) 系列每周末都会聚焦奇特的小众类型片。我的推荐是堕落之作《大逃杀》(Battle Royale) (2000)，讲述了一群日本学生在荒岛上进行生死决斗。该片在 8月 14 日和 15 日放映。
[[IMG_WARNER BROS.]] 卢克·埃文斯 (Luke Evans) 出现在 Studio 54 演出的《洛基恐怖秀》(The Rocky Horror Show) 复排版中。他将饰演 Frank-N-Furter 直至 8月 23 日。
[[IMG_SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES]] 格林伍德公墓 (Green-Wood Cemetery) 欢迎中心入口拱门的模型。
舞台惊悚 在最近的一个周五深夜，我拨打了一个电话，然后花了一个小时试图安抚一个名叫丹尼 (Danny) 的年轻人，他坚信一个嗜血的恶魔潜伏在他的衣柜里。或者，是那个恶魔在跟我聊一个叫丹尼的孩子？无论如何，这次对话让我的血液凝固，令人愉悦。这就是《爪》(CLAWS)，一个由剧团 Candle House Collective 通过电话实时表演的互动惊悚剧。您可以在 candlehousecollective.com 进行预约，参与截至 10月 2 日的通话。
在百老汇，改编自 2009 年令人紧张的伪纪录片电影的《超自然现象》(Paranormal Activity) 将于 8月 14 日在奥古斯特·威尔逊剧院 (August Wilson Theater) 开演；卢克·埃文斯 (Luke Evans) 和蕾切尔·德拉奇 (Rachel Dratch) 仍在 Studio 54 的《洛基恐怖秀》(The Rocky Horror Show) 复排版中表演“时间扭曲” (Time Warp)（您可能想在埃文斯 8月 23 日离开前观看）；而基于 1987 年野性朋克吸血鬼电影的《迷失之少年》(The Lost Boys) 则在皇宫剧院 (Palace Theater) 演出。
在非百老汇剧场，伊森·斯莱特 (Ethan Slater) 和贝齐·沃尔夫 (Betsy Wolfe) 主演在西区剧院 (Westside Theater) 复排的甜美但阴森的音乐喜剧《小店恐怖之屋》(Little Shop of Horrors)。
[[IMG_JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES]]
逃离 (Get Out) 我最喜欢追踪纽约市恐怖事件的方式是通过 Scream Scene 通讯，这是一个汇总了布鲁克林恐怖协会 (Brooklyn Horror Society)、阿斯托利亚恐怖俱乐部 (Astoria Horror Club) 及其他当地团体动态的指南。我正是这样得知 Twisted Spine 的，这是一家最近在布鲁克林威廉斯堡开业的恐怖书店、咖啡馆兼活动空间，那里有丰富的读书会、观影派对和作者访谈日程。8月 19 日晚上 7 p.m.，小说家查克·温迪格 (Chuck Wendig) 将讨论他的新神秘剧作《灾难》(The Calamities)。
8月 13 日从 7. p.m. 至午夜，与其他恐怖爱好者社交，届时布鲁克林东威廉斯堡的 Wood Shop 将举办“夏威 Halloween 之吼”(Scream for Summerween) 活动，这是一个包含音乐、怪物角色扮演、塔罗牌占卜以及来自 Scary Good Desserts 烘焙店的惊悚甜点的夜晚。
博物馆恐怖 位于皇后区阿斯托利亚的移动影像博物馆 (Museum of the Moving Image) 与流媒体服务 Mubi 合作推出了“重构砍杀电影”(Reframing the Slasher) 展览，展出与简·舍恩布伦 (Jane Schoenbrun) 离奇的新元砍杀电影《米亚斯玛营地的青少年性与死亡》(Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma) 相关的 VHS 磁带、服装和其他材料，该片将于8月 7 日开始在院线上映。在参观期间，请关注“恐怖现场”(Horrible Sites) 展览，该展览讲述了杀手妆容和美术设计如何让《驱魔人》(The Exorcist) 如此引人注目。（“重构砍杀电影”展出至11月 8 日；免费入场。）
与死者共处一日 通过参加“坟墓起点：漫步格林伍德”(Grave Beginnings: Walking Green-Wood) 熟悉布鲁克林格林伍德公墓的灵魂。这是一个免费的 90 分钟早晨步行游，将于周日和8月 16 日上午 10 a.m. 举行。不要错过那个耗资 $43 million 的新欢迎中心和展厅。
遥远的尖叫 “复仇之女”是今年纽约州长岛亨廷顿电影艺术中心 (Cinema Arts Center) 全夜恐怖电影马拉松的阴森主题。活动将于8月 29 日晚上 9 p.m. 以《珍珠》(Pearl) 拉开帷幕，随后将呈现《詹妮弗的身体》(Jennifer’s Body)、《实用魔法》(The Craft)、《姜饼快跑》(Ginger Snaps) 和原版《萨斯佩里亚》(Suspiria) 的精彩阵容。如果想进行一次老派的恐怖电影之旅，可以尝试宾夕法尼亚州利海顿农村地区的 Mahoning 汽车电影院，距离纽约市两小时车程。每年夏天，该汽车电影院都会推出优秀的新旧恐怖电影节目，更不用说那里绝佳的波兰饺子 (pierogi)。8月 14 和 15, 作曲家艾伦·豪沃斯 (Alan Howarth) 将进行现场表演，他最著名的作品是为《克里斯汀》(Christine) 及其他约翰·卡朋特 (John Carpenter) 电影创作的风格诡异的合成器配乐。
林肯中心电影之窗 (VIA FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER)
DOANE GREGORY/20TH CENTURY FOX
最后谢幕
《猫：杰里克舞会》(Cats: The Jellicle Ball)
[[IMG_XXXX]] 安德烈·德·希尔兹 (André De Shields，左) 和杜德尼·约瑟夫二世 (Dudney Joseph Jr.) 出演《猫：杰里克舞会》。该剧将于 8 月 8 日在布罗德赫斯特剧院 (Broadhurst Theater) 结束百老汇演出。
这部由安德烈·德·希尔兹饰演老德特律 (Old Deuteronomy) 的激进改编版安德鲁·劳埃德·韦伯 (Andrew Lloyd Webber) 音乐剧，将背景设定在以舞蹈为主导的酷儿舞会亚文化中。它在 2026 年托尼奖上获得三项奖项：由扎伊隆·列文斯顿 (Zhailon Levingston) 和比尔·劳奇 (Bill Rauch) 担纲的导演奖；由奥马里·威尔斯 (Omari Wiles) 和阿尔图罗·莱昂斯 (Arturo Lyons) 担纲的编舞奖；以及由 Qween Jean 创作的挑逗、性感且华丽的服装奖。（演出至 8 月 8 日，地点为布罗德赫斯特剧院。）
《推销员之死》(Death of a Salesman)
亚瑟·米勒 (Arthur Miller) 的这部经典之作获得了 2026 年托尼奖最佳复活剧奖，这也是该剧本世纪以来第三次回归百老汇。内森·莱恩 (Nathan Lane) 主演威利·洛曼 (Willy Loman)，一名事业走下坡路且深受自杀念头困扰的旅行推销员；与之相对的是劳里·麦特卡夫 (Laurie Metcalf，右)，她因饰演威利的妻子、也是他日渐衰落的尊严的守护者琳达·洛曼 (Linda Loman) 而获得托尼奖。克里斯托弗·艾伯特 (Christopher Abbott) 和本·艾勒斯 (Ben Ahlers) 饰演他们的儿子比夫 (Biff) 和哈皮 (Happy)。该剧获得的另外四项托尼奖包括其完美的设计（克洛伊·兰福德 Chloe Lamford 的舞美，杰克·诺尔斯 Jack Knowles 的灯光，米卡尔·苏莱曼 Mikaal Sulaiman 的音效）以及由乔·曼特洛 (Joe Mantello) 担纲的导演。 (演出至 8 月 9 日，地点为冬日花园剧院 Winter Garden Theater。)
《每一件灿烂之事》(Every Brilliant Thing)
特蕾西·艾丽丝·罗斯 (Tracee Ellis Ross) 在这部肯定生命的独角戏中主演，剧中列举了世界上许多美妙的事物——并且很大程度上依赖于（可选的）观众参与。该剧由邓肯·麦克米伦 (Duncan Macmillan) 与乔尼·多纳霍 (Jonny Donahoe) 共同撰写，由杰里米·赫林 (Jeremy Herrin) 和麦克米伦执导。（演出至 8 月 9 日，地点为哈德逊剧院 Hudson Theater。）
《霓虹时代》(Ragtime)
[[IMG_XXXX]] 从左至右，约书亚·亨利 (Joshua Henry)、凯西·莱维 (Caissie Levy) 和布兰登·乌拉诺维茨 (Brandon Uranowitz) 出演《霓虹时代》，该剧将在薇薇安·博蒙特剧院 (Vivian Beaumont Theater) 演出至 8 月 16 日。
这部 2026 年托尼奖最佳复活音乐剧得主还为两名主演赢得了托尼奖：约书亚·亨利和凯西·莱维，他们与布兰登·乌拉诺维茨一起出演由 勒·德贝索内 (Lear deBessonet) 执导的林肯中心剧院版本。该剧由斯蒂芬·弗拉赫蒂 (Stephen Flaherty)、琳恩·艾伦斯 (Lynn Ahrens) 和特伦斯·麦克纳利 (Terrence McNally) 根据 E.L. 德克特罗 (E.L. Doctorow) 的小说改编，讲述了 20 世纪之交三个不同社会阶层的家庭追求美国梦的故事。由埃伦诺尔·斯科特 (Ellenore Scott) 编舞，演员阵容庞大，其中包括饰演艾玛·戈德曼 (Emma Goldman) 的朱莉·本科 (Julie Benko)。（演出至 8 月 16 日，地点为薇薇安·博蒙特剧院。）
《红磨坊》(Moulin Rouge! The Musical)
对于那些认为百老汇演出就意味着不计成本的壮观场面的人来说，这部对巴兹·鲁曼 (Baz Luhrmann) 2001 年音乐电影进行的奢华改编正是绝佳选择。（演出至 8 月 30 日，地点为阿尔·希希费尔德剧院 Al Hirschfeld Theater。）
《泰坦尼克》(Titaníque)
在市中心愉快地漂浮了几年后，这部模仿詹姆斯·卡梅隆 (James Cameron) 《泰坦尼克号》的拼贴音乐剧搬到了百老汇，在席琳·迪翁 (Celine Dion) 歌曲的助力下，后者以虚构且奇幻的形式担任叙述者。马拉·明德尔 (Marla Mindelle，左) 主演迪翁，其他主演包括吉姆·帕森斯 (Jim Parsons)、德博拉·考克斯 (Deborah Cox)、弗兰基·格兰德 (Frankie Grande) 和康斯坦丁·鲁索利 (Constantine Rousouli)。与明德尔和鲁索利共同创作该剧的泰·布鲁 (Tye Blue) 担任导演；埃伦诺尔·斯科特担任编舞。（演出至 9 月 20 日，地点为圣詹姆斯剧院 St. James Theater。）
选择就“未来愿景”展开战斗，将他们（坦白说相当胆怯的）关于现代化这一公民机构并消除其长期运营赤字的计划，与那些将内尔森（Nelsons）奉为精神领袖的老卫兵们的反对意见相对立。大多数音乐家在准备劳工谈判期间，对他们大师的离职以及缺乏咨询表示愤怒。内尔森拒绝默默离开，煽动了波士顿
谁将成为 波士顿交响乐团的 下一任音乐总监？
流行音乐指挥基思·洛克哈特（Keith Lockhart）所称的“一场本不必发生的激烈动荡”。自那时起，各派系陷入僵局。信任消失了；谩骂占据了主导。在互相抹黑的表象下潜藏着关键问题：随着门票销售下降，捐赠者的影响力日益增强，交响乐团的运作也越来越像公司，那么权力应该在谁手中？与其冷静地讨论这些问题，这家世界上最富有的管弦乐团却堕入了一个由匿名引用、破坏性泄密和社交媒体胆酸组成的泥潭。谁会愿意向一个行为如此令人尴尬的机构捐钱？谁会想在这个乐团工作、在其中演奏、与之合作，并且在乐团寻找新音乐总监期间，甚至为其指挥？
内尔森的支持者佩戴红花，上周末我看到的数千名佩戴红花的人几乎都表现得很有礼貌。管理层被指责“因为人们热爱乐团而惩罚他们”，但我应当指出，我也看到一名引导员在为穿着“恢复安德里斯·内尔森（Andris Nelsons）职位” T恤的观众拍照，抗议领导者在自由分发周边商品，且在坦格伍德（Tanglewood）后门外就立着一块草坪标牌。如果有人试图扼杀异议，那么他们失败了。
但空气中弥漫着一种令人不快且紧张的气氛。不幸的是，大部分压力都落在了前台工作人员身上。周二，由于史密斯（Smith）因家庭事务退出一场讲座，一名宣布计划变更的工作人员在面对观众时恳请他们，如果向票务助理要求退款时请保持礼貌。周日，一名佩戴红花的陌生人看到我在读谱，询问我为谁撰稿，然后问我住在哪里。问了两遍。
至于音乐，你无法想象出比过去一周的节目安排更直观地说明这场博弈的例子了。在棚屋（the Shed）里，内尔森指挥了三场将莫扎特协奏曲与柴可夫斯基交响曲相结合的音乐会。每场演出感觉都像是一场关于他命运的全民公投，部分原因是舞台上几乎所有人（包括内尔森）都佩戴着红花，部分原因是他在这三场演出的结尾都沉浸在喧闹的掌声中。诚然，波士顿人自三月份以来演奏得更加激烈，但这种激烈从根本上缺乏纪律性。加上内尔森即兴的演绎，情况可能会变得混乱。柴可夫斯基的作品就出问题了。在第三、第四和第五交响曲中，基础速度全程低迷，随后内尔森又将速度变换推向了崩溃点，尤其是在那场混乱且死气沉沉的第五交响曲中。他们的莫扎特更具说服力，是以内尔森所钦佩的卡拉扬时代指挥家的优雅风格构思的，尽管缺少了该美学风格所需的那最后一点灵动之光。
在校园的其他地方，作曲家兼指挥埃萨-佩卡·萨洛宁（Esa-Pekka Salonen）——在洛杉矶，除了古斯塔沃·杜达梅尔（Gustavo Dudamel）之外，他可能是与史密斯最亲近的音乐家——指导了一场精彩的年度当代音乐节，由坦格伍德音乐中心的年轻成员和校友出色地演绎。萨洛宁的五个节目构成了一种“生命与时代”的缩影：其中包括对他已故好友奥利弗·克努森（Oliver Knussen）、史蒂文·斯塔基（Steven Stucky）和凯雅·萨里亚霍（Kaija Saariaho）的纪念活动；对“下一代”作曲家（全部为女性）的关注；以及一场庆...
贾里德·莱托否认 BBC 纪录片中的 指控。
作者：REMY TUMIN
在一部新的 BBC 纪录片和报告中，十名女性指控演员兼歌手贾里德·莱托（Jared Leto）存在性行为不端，其中几人在遭到袭击时尚未成年；莱托先生否认了这些指控。
在接受 BBC 采访的女性中，有四人指控其行为涉嫌犯罪。一名女性表示，她在 17 岁时在一家汽车旅馆的浴室里被莱托先生性侵；另一名女性表示，她在 17 岁时在加利福尼亚州与莱托先生发生了性关系，这在当时属于法定强奸。
一名女性描述了被莱托先生“诱导（groomed）”的过程，并指控他在她 16 岁时曾向她“多次拨打含有明显性暗示的电话”。她说，他后来给她发送了一份保密协议，以防止她谈论两人的关系，但她拒绝签署。
莱托先生尚未因该报告中的指控而被指控犯罪。
根据 BBC 的报告，另有四名女性表示，她们在年轻时也收到过来自莱托先生“奇怪且通常带有强烈性意味”的电话。纪录片中的指控发生在 2002 和 2016 之间，当时莱托先生处于 30 岁至 40 岁之间。他现在 54 岁。
在一份简短的电子邮件声明中，莱托先生否认了这些指控。
“我一生中从未性侵过任何人，”他说。“这些说法绝对且断然是错误的。”
在纪录片中，BBC 对许多指控莱托先生的女性的面部进行了遮盖，且没有使用她们的真实姓名。但报告称，BBC 已通过朋友和亲属核实了这些女性的陈述，并审查了支持这些陈述的照片和信息。
两名曾在莱托先生的乐队“三十秒之战”（Thirty Seconds to Mars）担任工作人员的男子告诉 BBC，莱托先生在巡演期间会邀请十几岁的女孩去他的化妆间，或者在录制音乐时邀请她们去他家。
一名女性告诉 BBC，2006 年，她在莱托先生的一场演出后台被他注意到，当时她 17 岁，他请一名助手要了她的电话。她说，两人后来在他位于加利福尼亚州的家中发生了性关系。莱托先生当时 35 岁。
她告诉 BBC，当她提出自己低于该州法定同意年龄的问题时，莱托先生“只是耸了耸肩，不以为然”。
那名称莱托先生在汽车旅馆房间内侵犯她的女性表示，她与莱托先生初次见面是在拉斯维加斯的一家商店，当时她在那儿工作，而他正在店里访问。他邀请她回酒店，但给她的地址是一家“肮脏恶心的汽车旅馆”，她告诉 BBC。她原以为他们要去其他地方，但根据 BBC 的报道，“他把她叫进浴室，这样他在洗澡时两人可以聊天”。报道称，“随后他抓住了她的手，用她的手为自己自慰”。
多年来，莱托先生还面临过其他性侵指控，他对此均予以否认。
他在 20 世纪 90 年代通过在电视剧《我的所谓生活》（My So-Called Life）中饰演乔丹·卡塔拉诺（Jordan Catalano）以及作为“三十秒之战”乐队的主唱（与其兄弟香农·莱托共同创立）而名声大噪。他在 2014 年凭借《达拉斯买家俱乐部》（Dallas Buyers Club）获得奥斯卡最佳男配角奖，近年来出演了如《银翼杀手 2049》（Blade Runner 2049）和《自杀小队》（Suicide Squad）等动作片和漫画改编电影。他最近在 6 月上映的《宇宙霸主》（Masters of the Universe）中饰演骷髅脸反派角色骷髅王（Skeletor）。
贾里德·莱托 多年来 一直面临指控。
……对“北欧婴儿潮”的庆祝，其中包括萨洛宁的《大提琴协奏曲》（由独奏者 Senja Rummukainen 激进演绎），以及 Hans Abrahamsen 最近的经典之作《let me tell you》（由女高音 Alexandra Henderson 演唱，Lauren Smith 指挥）。这五场音乐会都充满了雄心，引人入胜且精妙绝伦。即使是最漫不经心的人可能也会好奇，萨洛宁是否想成为波士顿交响乐团的下一任音乐总监。但他的计划表明他并不想。不过，他的出现确实揭示了该乐团在寻找 Nelson 接班人时必须面对的一个问题。在二月之前，萨洛宁自 1988. 起仅带领过该乐团一次。Semyon Bychkov 上次出现是在 2000. 年。Iván Fischer 是 2003. 年。Gianandrea Noseda 是 2004. 年。Tanglewood 校友 Marin Alsop 仅指挥过一次波士顿交响乐团的节目；Daniel Harding 同样如此。Manfred Honeck 自 2014 起未曾返回；Vladimir Jurowski 是 2016. 年。Dudamel 在 2019, 年来了两周，取消了第二周，之后再未回来。名单还在继续，而且形成了一种模式。我听过 Karina Canellakis、Joana Mallwitz 和 Antonio Pappano 带来的令人兴奋的波士顿音乐会。但十年前由 Bernard Haitink 和 Christoph von Dohnanyi 这样的巨头填满的季票周，如今却交给了助理指挥。要么是波士顿交响乐团没有邀请许多造访纽约、费城、克利夫兰和芝加哥的指挥家，要么是他们不想来。一个最近公开的轶闻提供了一个答案。四月，Susanna Mälkki 从纽约访问而至（当时她正在大都会歌剧院监督 Saariaho 的《Innocence》），为了首演 Andrew Norman 为波士顿交响乐团委约创作的、复杂的双钢琴改编曲《Split》。Mälkki 是世界领先的指挥家之一，无疑值得尊敬。但音乐家们告诉《环球报》，今年春天，她得到的却是“赤裸裸的敌意”。据报道，一名演奏者在演出中——而非排练中——演错了自己的部分。真是混乱。真是太糟糕、太糟糕了。
编剧工会撤回对 Urbanworld 的支持。
作者：BROOKS BARNES
周二，关于人工智能与艺术表达的争论出现了一个新的冲突点。
这场争议涉及 Urbanworld（一个展示黑人及多元文化电影的纽约电影节）与美国东部编剧工会（Writers Guild of America East）。后者是一个拥有 6,000 名成员的工会，代表电影、电视、播客和数字新闻作者。Urbanworld 的创始人斯泰西·斯派克斯（Stacy Spikes）在发给工作人员和支持者的一封信中表示，由于他决定加入使用人工智能工具制作的电影，该工会已“撤回了对今年电影节的赞助和参与”。
“我们深感失望，”斯派克斯在信中写道，《纽约时报》已查阅该信件的副本。“在过去的十年里，W.G.A.E. 一直是 Urbanworld 最重要的合作伙伴之一。”
该工会的一位发言人未立即回应置评请求。该工会一直是娱乐业中反对生成式人工智能风险最激烈的声音之一，通过其 #AI-NeedsHumans（AI需要人类）活动推动劳动者保护和透明度。
Urbanworld 的一位发言人拒绝透露该工会撤回支持的具体金额。Urbanworld 尚未公布今年电影节的赞助商名单，该电影节将于 10 月 14. 开幕。根据 Urbanworld 网站显示，2025 年的赞助商包括 HBO、华纳兄弟探索频道（Warner Bros. Discovery）、Netflix 和美国导演工会。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 摄影：LAUREN LANCASTER 为《纽约时报》拍摄
上图及下图：周日，马萨诸塞州莱诺克斯 Tanglewood 草坪上的观众。最左侧为波士顿交响乐团音乐总监安德里斯·内尔松（Andris Nelsons）的支持者，内尔松本人佩戴红色花朵。左图：作曲家兼指挥家埃萨-佩卡·萨洛宁（Esa-Pekka Salonen）在 Tanglewood 的 Seiji Ozawa 音乐厅指挥当代音乐节演唱会。
自 1997 年成立以来，该电影节为瑞安·库格勒（Ryan Coogler）、艾娃·杜弗奈（Ava DuVernay）、科德·杰斐逊（Cord Jefferson）及其他电影制作人提供了平台。
今年 6 月，斯派克斯宣布设立一个名为“AI 侧栏”（A.I. Sidebar）的新展映板块，面向使用生成式人工智能及相关数字工具进行创作的导演。
“我们认为，与其忽视这些项目，或者强行将它们归入那些从未设计用来评估它们的类别中，更透明且负责任的做法是创建一个专门的空间，让它们能与同类作品一起被观看、讨论和评审，”斯派克斯写道。
他补充道：“我们理解为什么人工智能成为了创意社区面临的最具争议的问题之一。围绕作者身份、报酬、许可、就业、创意所有权以及创意工作未来的问题，都值得认真讨论。”
电影节策划人通常抵制将 AI 电影制作视为一个独立的艺术类别。一些电影节（包括戛纳电影节）已经禁止高度依赖 AI 工具制作的电影参加竞赛。而另一些电影节则表现出探索的意愿，例如特莱贝卡电影节（Tribeca Festival），最近在其正式展映名单中展示了一部完全由 AI 创作的电影——没有演员，没有布景，也没有摄像机。
“我们认为，答案在于参与，而非缺席，”斯派克斯在信中说道。
蛛网之丝 愈发沉重
一个特许经营系列 讲述的是关于成长， 以及随之而来的 所有负担、 焦虑与 牺牲。
JEANNETTE CATSOULIS 影评 与老板一起解决纠结
一段“把我绑起来，让我兴奋”的 关系驱动了格雷格·阿拉基（Gregg Araki）这部欢快的 性喜剧。
一名女性毫无生气地漂浮在后院 游泳池中，一个穿着蕾丝胸罩和内裤的 圆润青年惊恐地注视着她。 这一幕不仅仅是对《日落大道》开场的 俏皮性别反转，而是一个将主要通过 闪回和适合电视播放的构图来解开的谜团。 《我想要你的性》（“I Want Your Sex”，标题借用自 乔治·迈克尔 1987 年的单曲）是独立电影制作人 格雷格·阿拉基的第 12 部长片，也是他 十二年来首部作品。这部欢快的性喜剧 通过轻快的对话和像口香糖般明亮的色彩（这里没有任何惨白的肤色）展开，电影将 虐恋（sadomasochism）呈现为通往自信和 情感成熟的道路。而埃利奥特（Elliot，库珀·霍夫曼 饰）正迫切需要这两者，他是一个 20-something 的犹豫不决之辈， 除了一个主持播客的模糊愿望外，他不知道自己想要什么——无论是在生活中还是在床上。这个人的 外貌表明他还没学会如何使用梳子。 埃利奥特渴望找到一个导师，而无论是他那极其冷淡的 女友米内尔瓦（Minerva，Charli XCX 饰），还是他对双性恋好奇的 室友、可爱的苹果（Apple，Chase Sui Wonders 饰），都无法胜任。这时，埃丽卡·特雷西（Erika Tracy，奥利维亚·野t 饰）出现了，她是一位挑衅性的流行艺术家，也是他在其中担任低级 助理的画廊老板。就像现代版的瓦加斯女孩（Vargas girl），埃丽卡 偏好紧身衣和直白且具性挑逗的诱惑；她立即感觉到 埃利奥特被她肆无忌惮的欲求所深深地困惑——且感到恐惧 并被激活了欲望——于是她让他回家钻研，就像
蜘蛛侠的故事一直以来，在 某种程度上，就是关于成长的恐怖体验。某天早晨，你发现 你的身体在发生变化，在做一些你无法完全控制的事情，而你必须想办法 处理好这一切。由汤姆·霍兰出色的演绎，彼得·帕克 一直是一个善良、坦率的青少年，他想要做正确的事，并对他那经常让 他所爱之人陷入危险的力量感到恐惧。在《蜘蛛侠：没路回家》的结尾，他请求奇异博士施展一个咒语，让 全世界——包括他生命中的挚爱—— 忘记他是蜘蛛侠，因为这是拯救他的宇宙免于毁灭的 唯一方法。 由德斯汀·丹尼尔·克雷顿执导，克里斯·麦肯纳和埃里克·索默斯编剧的 《蜘蛛侠：崭新之日》（Spider-Man: Brand New Day）， 故事紧接《没路回家》的结尾。 在梅姨（Marisa Tomei 饰）去世后，彼得现在独自生活，而 MJ（Zendaya 饰）和内德（Jacob Batalon 饰）已经去了 麻省理工学院（M.I.T.）。随着岁月流逝，彼得通过内德的社交媒体动态从远处关注他们。 纽约人再次爱上了蜘蛛侠，因此他打击犯罪，并与警探珍·德沃尔夫（Liza Colón-Zayas 饰）在电话中聊天，始终不透露自己的身份
在哈罗德·罗宾斯（Harold Robbins）小说中那种复古的好色风格上钻研。（这一刻提醒了我，永远保持少年感的阿拉基现在已经 60 多岁了，尽管他的幽默感依然保持着可辨识的辛辣。） “我是这阴道的奴隶，”埃利奥特向他的画廊同事（Mason Gooding 饰）坦白，与此同时，他们将嚼过的口香糖贴在埃丽卡阴部的模拟图上。（她还录制自己的高潮音以获得听觉灵感。）在业余时间，埃利奥特欣然地屈服于她俏皮的束缚和对身体孔穴的侵入。人们能感觉到，正面临职业危机时期的埃丽卡，在对埃利奥特柔软身体的掌控力上，弥补了她无法掌控公众对其艺术认知的一种缺失，且
ALISSA WILKINSON 影评
饰演彼得·帕克。他偶尔会与弗兰克·卡斯特尔，即惩罚者（Jon Bernthal 饰）交手，两人之间的关系十分紧张。
但一个诡异的威胁笼罩着这座城市，一个复仇的实体似乎在人与人之间跳跃传递。它显然在寻找隐藏在“损害管制”（Damage Control）机构中的某样东西——该机构最初是为了在纽约之战后进行清理而创建的，但随着时间的推移，变得有些专制。该机构的负责人比尔·梅茨格（Bill Metzger，Tramell Tillman 饰）解释说，他不确定该实体在寻找什么，但损害管制的目标是利用破坏性能量并将其转化为有益之物。他说，他们希望仅仅是确保每个人的安全。
与此同时，彼得在能量方面也有自己的问题，因为他的蛛形纲激素水平在飙升，导致他剧烈头痛，并且能够从手腕而非制服中发射蛛丝液。他最想做的就是压制自己的能力，回到他所熟悉的那些能力状态。而且，他必须在那个实体找到 MJ 之前完成这件事，而 MJ 目前仍不知道他的身份。
当然，内容远不止于此，其中有些我无法透露；萨迪·辛克（Sadie Sink）在过去一年里一直闪烁其词地回答关于她在本片中角色的问题。《新的一天》（Brand New Day）是这个特定蜘蛛侠电影系列的第四部，它感觉像是这个版本的角色所经历的成长弧线的顶峰。如果说《 Homecoming》是关于青春期，《Far From Home》是关于在失去导师中成长，《无路回家》是关于为自己的行为承担责任（以及大学申请），那么这一部在某种程度上就是关于决定接受你的成年力量，即便这些力量让你感到恐惧。
遗憾的是，它远没有
Wilde 饰演的角色带着一丝脆弱感，出乎意料地动人。影片的选角无可挑剔，尽管我希望能看到更多玛格丽特·赵（Margaret Cho）和强尼·克诺克斯维尔（Johnny Knoxville）的戏份，他们饰演那两位忧郁的侦探，就泳池中的尸体对埃略特（Elliot）进行审问。而饰演埃里卡（Erika）画廊和商业事务主管的戴维·迪格斯（Daveed Diggs），在极小的角色和极少的台词中创造了奇迹。
故事在宽敞的白色漆面空间和小公寓中展开——这些人就像室内猫一样，《我想要你的性》（I Want Your Sex）点缀着温柔的视觉幽默以及对类似主题电影的随意致敬。片中早早就提到了《9 1/2 周》，并且
之前的几部电影，尽管这可能只是该系列必然的结果。之前让其他电影如此有趣的许多轻快喜剧元素都消失了，很大程度上是因为彼得与内德（Ned）和 MJ 的关系发生了剧烈变化，这意味着霍兰德（Holland）、巴塔隆（Batalon）尤其是赞达亚（Zendaya）之间的俏皮化学反应基本缺失。取而代之的是一种情感上的沉重感，这在电影的其他一些情节线索中进一步加剧。（谢天谢地，佛罗伦斯·皮尤（Florence Pugh）以叶莲娜·贝洛娃（Yelena Belova）的身份出现了几次，她带来了纯粹的欢乐。）该片还被导致漫威电影宇宙（MCU）后期电影陷入低迷的同一个问题所拖累：将所有故事联系在一起的沉重负担。例如，如果你不是一个行走的 MCU 知识百科全书——或者没有看过《超胆侠》Season 2 和《超胆侠：重生》Season 1 以及两季的《惩罚者》电视剧以及《惩罚者：一
《最后一次击杀》（Last Kill）这部漫威电视特辑——你可能根本不知道弗兰克·卡斯特尔是谁，或者为什么他和彼得认识，这对观众的要求似乎实在太高了。得益于索尼影视娱乐与沃尔特·迪士尼工作室（漫威影业的所有者）之间的一项协议，自《美国队长 3：内战》（2016）亮相以来，蜘蛛侠就一直与漫威电影宇宙（M.C.U.）绑定，并出演了多部《复仇者联盟》电影。尽管其他 M.C.U. 角色会在独立的蜘蛛侠电影中出现，有时甚至扮演重要角色，但这些电影在很大程度上仍然像是围绕彼得及其朋友展开的以角色驱动的特写。即使是《英雄无归》，尽管它与其他电影有许多巧妙的关联，其核心依然是关于不同世代的蜘蛛侠（Spiders-Men?），而非 M.C.U. 的主线剧情。而这部电影给人的感觉像是肩负了更多的系列权重，这反而挤压了
情感深度的空间。它
奥利维亚·王饰演一名 挑衅性的流行艺术家， 库珀·霍夫曼则是她在 这部带有轻盈视觉幽默 电影中的卑微助手。
《我想要你的性》 分级：R级。标题已经告诉你答案了吧？ 片长：1小时 30分钟。院线上映。
木兰花影业 (MAGNOLIA PICTURES)
汤姆·赫兰在《蜘蛛侠：崭新之日》中， 这是最新一轮蜘蛛侠电影中的第四部。
《蜘蛛侠：崭新之日》 分级：PG-13，原因通常为卡通式暴力 和忧伤情绪。片长：2小时 25分钟。院线上映。
结果变得更加分散，虽然铁杆 M.C.U. 粉丝可能会感到满意，但我们其余的人显然已经有点厌倦了必须先做“功课”才能看电影。
然而，无论如何都无法抹杀观看赫兰表演的快感，他的表演依然讨喜且充满活力，即便你深知大部分时间里那都是计算机生成的蜘蛛侠。随着他在银幕上的成长，他的观众也随之成长。这部电影提出的问题是在漫画改编电影中反复出现的一个：我们该如何处理自己的“特殊性”？在大多数情况下，彼得选择留在当地并隐姓埋名，以消除人们知道他拥有超能力后造成的破坏。但现在，他要么必须接受真实的自我并再次公开身份，要么继续潜伏在阴影中，接受标题所承诺的“崭新之日”（清空一切）。
同样地，他的一部分观众在现实世界中也从青少年变成了初入社会的成年人，在这个世界里，创造力——尤其是卓越的创造力——被视为一种可能会被他人夺走并用于盈利之物。彼得甚至考虑是否有一种方法可以制造一个让所有人处于平等竞争水平的装置，这似乎并非巧合。如果电影在潜意识中触及了观众的焦虑，那么这部电影也许讲述的就是那种令人恐惧的成长经历：发现每个人都看中了你的特别之处，并想将其据为己有。
荒木戏谑地安排他的演员，旨在暗示电影《毕业生》中那张著名的海报：达斯汀·霍夫曼饰演的角色正痴迷地凝视着罗宾逊夫人的长腿。两名平静的年轻人，两名年长的诱惑者——不同之处在于，早期的霍夫曼拥有一种忧郁气质，赋予了他的角色深度，也给他的电影带来了一丝危险的气息。
在《我想要你的性》(I Want Your Sex) 中，没有危险元素在起作用。影片虽然大胆，但既不粗俗，也没有特别露骨——甚至称不上性感——它可能只会冒犯到最敏感的感官。与玛吉·吉伦哈尔在《秘书》(2002) 中将服从转化为女权主义权力之举的李不同，艾略特过于可爱，无法产生色情电荷。他像泰迪熊般的可爱是这部电影的“安全词”；快感让他看起来更像是在恍惚，而非渴求。此外，他还是个笨拙的人，反复误判局面，导致了一次灾难性的三人行，以及与艾丽卡 (Roxane Mesquida) 一位见多识广的朋友之间一次糟糕的邂逅，后者对他笨拙的急切感到厌恶，这是理所应当的。
在一部像艾丽卡那些润滑良好的情趣玩具一样圆滑的剧本（由荒木和卡莉·西奥蒂诺编写）中，这些失误本可以创造一些令人期待的摩擦。这部电影是一首关于“得手”的幽默颂歌，避开了真正亲密关系中那些崎岖的浅滩。它也非常、非常幽默；而荒木——其大胆且绝妙的《神秘皮肤》(2005) 依然是他的杰作——在导演过程中展现出一种迷人的愉悦感。然而，令人好奇的是，一个在电影中花部分时间谴责 Z 世代性保守，并敦促他们走出舒适区加入派对的人，现在竟然如此犹豫，不愿让自己承担风险。
哥伦比亚电影公司/索尼电影公司
电影评论 在战争之中， 潜藏着诸多谜团
这部设定在 1578 年的日本故事，沉浸在侦破的快感之中。
导演黑泽清 (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 从来不是一个风格一致的模范，但当他进入状态时，表现极其出色。在他的职业生涯中，既有当代日本恐怖片（《治愈》）和家庭剧（《东京奏鸣曲》）的一些最佳范例，现在他还可以增加一部卓越的 16 世纪时代剧——《武士与囚徒》。尽管 30 多年来，他的名字总是需要附带一项免责声明，即他与黑泽明没有亲属关系，但在本片中，这种对比似乎是恰当的：《武士与囚徒》的背景时间与另一位黑泽明的后期杰作《影武者》(1980) 大致相同，并且让人想起那部电影对领导力、战略和欺骗的关注。
然而，素材则更为现代：改编自米泽誉之 (Honobu Yonezawa) 2021 年的一部小说，由导演亲自改编。尽管片名如此，《武士与囚徒》并非动作大片，至少在显而易见意义上不是。随着大幕在 1578 年拉开，村重领主 (Masahiro Motoki 饰) 背叛了曾经效忠的军阀织田。村重的背叛导致他的城堡被围困。当来自织田的使者官兵卫 (Masaki Suda 饰) 带着信息出现时，村重将其囚禁。官兵卫坚持认为这不符合武士道；如果他不能返回且没有死亡证明，织田会认为他投靠了对方。村重拒绝了。
LISA KENNEDY 电影评论 去诉说年轻詹姆斯·鲍德温的生活
一部新长片想象了这位天赋异禀的作者在成为文学巨星之前的模样。
模仿也许是最真诚的赞美，但作家詹姆斯·鲍德温 (James Baldwin, 1924-1987) 所唤起的东西则更为深刻、宏大且令人动容。在去世后，他激发了一场跨代际的呼应。受到启发的人包括但不限于：塔-内西·科茨 (Ta-Nehisi Coates) 及其在 2015 年撰写的雄辩书信《在这个世界与我之间》；以及电影制作人劳尔·佩克 (Raoul Peck) 及其作品《我不是你的黑人》(2016)，这部电影是对鲍德温关于他与马丁·路德·金博士及马尔科姆·X 友谊的未完成之书所做的挽歌式且个人化的想象。
在他优雅的处女作《吉米》(Jimmy) —— 全片采用黑白拍摄 —— 中，常驻布鲁克林的导演亚沙戴·欧文斯 (Yashaddai Owens) 带着他的 Bolex 电影摄影机前往土耳其，随后前往法国。他说，此举是为了捕捉这位年轻且天赋异禀的作者在成为文学巨星之前，在这两个国家生活时的“精髓”。
《恶魔之口》(The Devil’s Mouth) 分级：PG-13（因涉及溺水和暴力水生捕食者）。片长：1 小时 45 分钟。在 Amazon Prime Video 上线。
杀手鲨鱼电影《魔鬼之口》（The Devil’s Mouth）的创作者们是否真的在意我们是否关注，这一点尚存争议。作为一部直接在 Amazon Prime Video 上线流媒体的生物恐怖片，这部作品似乎是为那些心不在焉的观众量身定制的——他们每隔一段时间才抬头看一眼，捕捉一次Feeding Frenzy（喂食狂潮），而即便如此，这些片段也并不怎么有趣。
该片由杰夫·沃德洛（Jeff Wadlow）执导，遵循了熟悉的恐怖片模板：五个鲁莽的大学好友在泰国海岸线旅行，结果参加的一次游览出了差错。他们发现自己陷入了一个淹没的洞穴系统中，而那里竟然有一头饥饿的公牛鲨在威胁着他们。他们的当地向导（由出演过《白莲花度假村》的 Tayme Thapthimthong 饰演）很快就抛弃了他们，这完全可以理解，因为在野兽将他们一个个杀掉的过程中，这群人还在互相争吵，且攻击场面平淡乏味，视觉效果混乱。
片中一些无意间的愚蠢时刻让我希望电影能彻底走坎普风（camp），但目前的剧本表明，编剧心中所想的比一场鲨鱼盛宴式的“大剧院”（Grand Guignol）要严肃得多。女主角——好友 Sara（凯瑟琳·纽顿 饰）和 Max（拉娜·康多尔 饰）之间的紧张关系，试图模拟像《下降》（The Descent, 2005）这类地下生存惊悚片中那种紧张的心理博弈。然而，与那部电影的诸多相似之处反而凸显了两者的差距，使得《魔鬼之口》看起来就像是一个简陋鱼缸版的模仿之作。
在当下，杀死官兵（Kanbei）可能看起来是一种仁慈，但这会让官兵的儿子及其血脉面临巨大的风险。
此时，《武士与囚徒》（The Samurai and the Prisoner）发生了一次转向：它与其说是一部战争片，不如说是一系列“谁在现场”的推理剧。村重（Murashige）被迫解决围绕城堡的一连串谜团。是谁在没有留下痕迹的情况下杀害了一名年轻的人质？哪个家族应为杀死一名野心勃勃的将领而获功？在一个祭司和一名顶尖剑客被发现死亡的夜晚究竟发生了什么，而一个无价的茶瓮在这次犯罪中扮演了什么角色？最后，是谁射杀了一名间谍，而这次公开处决——由于一次时机恰巧的雷击——被村重的部下理解为神之惩罚？
官兵成为了村重的心腹，是唯一足够精明地能解开这些谜题的人。官兵的动机交织着仇恨、才智与相互尊重。官兵告诉村重：“除了我，没有一个人能理解你，”而此时占据上风的未必是村重。在某个时刻，仍被锁链囚禁的官兵诱使他屠杀了一名卫兵。《武士与囚徒》提供了相当多令人满足的侦查情节（关于“幽灵之箭”的法医分析尤为有趣），但电影的核心在于这两个男人之间的博弈以及他们持续的争论。
Owens 最初将镜头移向伊斯坦布尔，在那里的摄影机就像一个躯体，行走并观察。这位既是导演、编剧，又是摄影师和剪辑师的电影制作人，正在提供一个指南，告诉人们如何像鲍德温那样栖居在这个世界里——通过无数近距离的、疏离的、模糊的、紧凑的镜头。海鸥的翅膀。一只猫和一个人互相对视。两名女性坐在渡轮的窗前。最令人难忘的是，一个男人出现，托盘里端着一杯咖啡递给我们。
直到《吉米》（Jimmy）将场景转移到巴黎，我们才遇到了这部电影的同名主角，他的蜕变之旅是通过委婉、轻描淡写的方式描绘的。从他坐上出租车的那一刻起，他经常处于一种睁大眼睛、沉沉睡眼且充满惊奇的状态。他好奇且警觉。出人意料的是，这部关于一位健谈的思想家和多产作家的电影几乎没有台词。正是这一点，使得鲍德温（Benny O. Arthur 饰）阅读他的第四本非虚构著作《街上无名》（No Name in the Street，1972）的时刻变得光芒四射，而随后的情节既令人振奋又令人心碎。
Arthur 以对沉思状态和肉体形态的精准把握来塑造鲍德温。吉米以新的眼光审视。他漫步。他在公园和露天市场四处探索。在房间里，他像鸟一样跳舞——像一只从小鸭子变成天鹅！当他沿着林荫道走时，让人想起了《雨中曲》里的 Gene Kelly。只是此时并没有大雨倾盆，只有爱意在心中翻涌。最后，且至关重要地，他开始写作。笔尖在纸上划过的沙沙声预示着一段历史的开始——他以及我们的历史。
回忆或叙述并不是……
[[IMG_XXXX]] Kathryn Newton 在《魔鬼之口》（The Devil’s Mouth）中，这部由 Jeff Wadlow 执导的电影感觉似曾相识。
Newton 和 Condor 拥有足够的个性，让他们的角色不仅仅是浮在表面的开胃小菜——尽管他们的权力斗争并没有增加赌注，而仅仅是填充了片长。与暴君 Max 相比，Sara 更令人同情，但我坚定地站在鲨鱼阵营。
BEATRICE LOAYZA
AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
Wham! 在中国 10 天 Wham! 10 Days in China 未评级。片长：1 小时 30 分钟。在电影院上映。
英国二人组 Wham! 是一组 1980s 年代的流行组合，他们既擅长轻快洗脑的歌曲（如动感十足的《Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go》），也擅长深情款款的慢歌（如萨克斯驱动的《Careless Whisper》）。他们与经理 Simon Napier-Bell 共同拥有一个宏大的野心：在美国体育场举行演出。他们打算如何实现？当然是通过巡演中国大陆。
这种逻辑在由 Mike Christie 执导的快节奏且迷人的纪录片《Wham! 10 Days in China》中得到了阐述。而且这一策略奏效了——George Michael 和 Andrew Ridgeley 在短暂的中国之行后几乎立即在 1985 年开始了美国巡演，而中国之行为他们带来了巨大的宣传红利。
电影评论 (FILM REVIEWS)
Napier-Bell 描述了为了预定在北京和广州的演唱会而进行的数月谈判。英国小报的记者们得以随行，在档案素材中，可以看到 Michael 不时向这些人投以杀人的目光。（其中一名记者 Rick Sky 至今……）
[[IMG_XXXX]] 本木雅弘在《武士与囚徒》（The Samurai and the Prisoner）中，改编自米泽穗香的小说。
武士与囚徒 未评级。日语，含字幕。 片长：2 小时 27 分钟。在电影院上映。
……关于残酷在战时扮演的角色之争。村重是一位不愿杀人的武士，这是一种高尚的立场，但正如勘兵不断提醒他的那样，这种立场违反了他的准则，并可能招致业报。黑泽明对于村重的本能是否合理，并未提供简单的答案。
这部电影对白较多且情节紧密；几乎不可能在一次观看中捕捉到故事的所有细节，但这也不是必要的。黑泽明以大师之姿导演……
每日线索 (CLUE OF THE DAY)
一位以色列 军事领袖
将他的名字 赋予了这种 丝兰植物
欲获正确 答案，请今晚 观看《危险边缘》(JEOPARDY!) 或于周一在 本报本版查阅。
昨日答案： 什么是尼安德特人？
晚上 7 点，7 频道
STRAND RELEASING
Benny O. Arthur 在电影《吉米》(Jimmy) 中饰演 詹姆斯·鲍德温， 该片由 Yashaddai Owens 导演。
似乎很乐意扮演反派角色。) 该乐队面临的一个意外障碍是来自中国当局的指令，要求观众在迈克尔和里奇利表演时克制热情。这让迈克尔感到不知所措，因为他一直以能够带动观众而自豪。这里的大部分片段是由导演林赛·安德森 (Lindsay Anderson) 的剧组拍摄的，安德森被 Wham! 团队聘请来记录这次具有历史意义的旅程。音乐会场景提醒观众，Wham! 最初为何能如此成功——迈克尔无疑是一位具有非凡唱功和舞台掌控力的歌手。
ture economy: 他出色的演员们得到了佐佐木康之 (Yasuyuki Sasaki) 摄影阴影的辅助，以及巧妙的舞台调度；各种纱幕和面板定义了村重与其妻子千代穗夫人 (Lady Chiyoho，由吉高由里子饰演) 之间的关系，而千代穗夫人在预判其想法的能力上是唯一能与官兵 (Kanbei) 匹敌的人。黑泽明时机精准的镜头移动犹如匕首般犀利。呈现出的是一部既古典又现代，既严峻又宽广，既熟悉又令人惊喜的武士电影。
《吉米》(Jimmy) 未分级。片长：1 小时 7 分钟。现正上映。
Owens 在这里追求的是。所谓的“重新构想”与这次电影唤起和深情祝福的真实性相去甚远。《吉米》旨在实现修复。它渴望赋予他快乐，并确保我们将这位年轻、沉思的艺术家视为一名远离令人烦恼之家的黑人同性恋男子。 Owens 做出的选择既带有怀旧色彩，又挑战了地点和时间。他并没有过多努力将《吉米》置于一个精心设计的过去场景中。导演交付了他的愿景，时而幻觉般，时而狂喜，并由作曲家 Paco Andreo 提供声音指导，后者创作了一部美味的配乐——伴随着潜行且诱人的小军鼓、刷奏的镲片和倍大提琴——唤起了人们对伟大的黑人爵士艺术家的记忆。这部电影给人的感觉恰好足够暗示 1948 年——那一年鲍德温发现了“光之城”(City of Light, 或 La Ville Lumière)，这个名字致敬了自学成才的 Owens 的电影抱负。通过《吉米》，他正试图用一部 Bolex 摄影机捕捉普罗米修斯的闪电。
GLENN KENNY
JANUS FILMS
艺术家如何适应一个新世界
古根海姆波普： 1960 年至今 展期至 1 月 10 日，位于曼哈顿的 索罗门·R·古根海姆博物馆； 212-423-3500， guggenheim.org。
厌倦的、放纵的、超然且觉得好玩的，波普艺术一直难以定义。它似乎在论证，同时又在反驳这样一个观点：即从波提切利到家庭照片，再到万宝路广告，所有的视觉经验都处于同一个感官平面，因此对于不加区分的眼睛来说具有相同的价值。
尽管起源于英美，但得益于印刷技术的创新，波普艺术将其明亮且活泼的触角伸向了全世界。而它所实现的预言则是法式的：即任何物体都可以伪装成高雅艺术。马塞尔·杜尚 1968 年在巴黎近郊的逝世，就像是对该运动在伦敦和纽约崩溃的一次回响。
因此，古根海姆博物馆展览的副标题“古根海姆波普：1960 年至今”带有一种僵尸般的精神。该展在三层楼中展出了来自馆藏的 45 件作品，旨在论证在世的艺术家，甚至是年轻艺术家，已将商品与机械复制的活力之魂带入了我们的世纪。
展览的前半部分是旧作：吉姆·戴恩（Jim Dine）的一组由涂色橡胶球粘合成的伪“珍珠”项链（1961）；克拉斯·欧登伯格（Claes Oldenburg）的一个充气公用电话（1963）；希腊艺术家克丽莎（Chryssa） 60 年代后期的几道霓虹灯曲线；安迪·沃霍尔（Andy Warhol）的一组电椅照片丝网印刷格阵（1963）。
其中一些作品依然闪烁着讽刺意味：宣布虚无的霓虹灯，重复到产生生命感的死亡意象。而且许多艺术品展现了真实的手工艺——欧登伯格与妻子库斯耶·凡·布鲁根（Coosje van Bruggen）在 1995 年共同制作的巨大“软羽毛球”上那些褶皱的接缝和丝带状的画布羽毛——其古拙程度令我难以想象这是否是原意。岁月的痕迹现在将这些作品与当初的愤世嫉俗之情隔开了。
WALKER MIMS 艺术评论
上图为草间弥生（Yayoi Kusama）创作的《无限镜像房》（Infinity Mirrored Room，2019），这是一个由LED灯点亮的镜像立方体。下图，从左起：克拉斯·奥尔登堡（Claes Oldenburg）创作的《柔软的公用电话》（Soft Pay-Telephone，1963）；以及希腊艺术家克丽莎（Chryssa）约1967年创作的无标题霓虹灯线条。
克拉斯·奥尔登堡与库斯耶·范·布鲁根遗产委员会， 经由纽约索罗门·R·古根海姆基金会提供
左图为马丁·古铁雷斯（Martine Gutierrez）创作的《欲望之魔》（Demon of Lust，2018），她的肖像画将自己转化为来自古代和原住民文化的神秘女性。下图为古根海姆博物馆波普艺术展的安装视图，包括左侧露西娅·耶罗（Lucia Hierro）的巨型购物袋（2017-21）。
草间弥生，经由大卫·茨维纳画廊、OTA美术馆及纽约索罗门·R·古根海姆基金会提供
克丽莎·瓦尔迪亚遗产委员会， 经由纽约索罗门·R·古根海姆基金会提供
左图为克拉斯·奥尔登堡与库斯耶·范·布鲁根创作的《柔软的羽毛球》（Soft Shuttlecock，1995），系古根海姆博物馆“古根海姆波普：1960至今”（Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now）展览的一部分。
主义及其旨在与之调情的风格。将草间弥生纳入其中十分奇怪。她那幅灰底白色的抽象麻点画（1960）无论按我所知的任何定义都算不上波普。当然，她的《无限镜像房》（2019）确实很“波普”：一个你可以进入并看到自己无限重复的LED灯镜像立方体。该系列的第一个作品创作于1965年，可能影响了卢卡斯·萨马拉（Lucas Samaras），后者在1966年创作了一个更为简约的《镜像房》，而他在本次展览中以一套包裹在天鹅绒和水钻中的肉类雕刻套装（1965）参展。但这算波普吗？约翰·钱伯伦（John Chamberlain）和他那一团汽车金属（1962）算吗？这次展览并没有充分定义其前提，而是将整个1960年代的纽约——概念主义、极简主义、组合艺术——全部揉成了一个运动。这使得展览的后半部分处于劣势。马丁·古铁雷斯的自画像（2018）如果能将其首次发表的刊物——《原住民女性》（Indigenous Woman），这部是对沃霍尔的杂志《Interview》的讽刺作——一同展出以提供背景，效果可能会更强烈。而我，作为一个警觉的90年代孩子，并没有完全捕捉到卡拉·罗梅罗（Cara Romero）照片中预设的对“美国女孩”（American Girl）娃娃的引用；照片中展现了一位美丽的女性，周围环绕着（据我阅读）来自该主体在新墨西哥州科奇蒂（Cochiti）和圣伊尔德丰索（San Ildefonso）普韦布洛原住民根源的编织篮及其他物品。（Y2K时代一个更易读的原住民讽刺艺术家是乔伊·T·阿坎德（Joi T. Arcand），但此次未参展。）最强有力的作品将美学与商业以一种看似更自然的方式融合在一起，例如露西娅·耶罗的巨型购物袋（2017-21），里面装满了代表她文化的奥尔登堡式“柔软商品”，包括戈雅（Goya）椰奶罐头和多米尼加YouTube的截图，其中排列着1980年代的梅伦格（merengue）音乐片段，有些还是由她父亲的乐队演奏的。必须说，展览策展人劳伦·欣克森（Lauren Hinkson）承担了一项艰巨的任务。她完全依赖于博物馆的馆藏进行策划。这一限制旨在将古根海姆博物馆定位为该运动的一种“家园”：其1963年的展览“六位画家与对象”为戴恩（Dine）、罗伊·利希滕斯坦（Roy Lichtenstein）和沃霍尔带来了早期的体制认可，同时也包括了贾斯珀·琼斯（Jasper Johns）、罗伯特·劳森伯格（Robert Rauschenberg）和詹姆斯·罗森奎斯特（James Rosenquist），而这些人在此次展览中全部缺席。那次展览是由英国评论家劳伦斯·阿洛威（Lawrence Alloway）策划的，他创造了“大众流行艺术”（mass popular art）一词，随后被简称为“波普”（Pop）。而在本次展览中，艺术家们更加多样化，并在作品中填充了大量自我指涉的细节。就像2015年的巡展“国际波普”一样，这次展览似乎旨在修正那种认为波普艺术主要对纽约男性有用且是“市中心男孩俱乐部”的名声。（然而，对于奥尔登堡的第一任妻子帕蒂·穆查（Patty Mucha）的认可则并不均衡，她...）
缝制了《货轮与帆船》和《柔软的公用电话》）。在最能给人启发的情况下，这些细节解释了我们现在看待艺术的方式与 1960 年代之间的一个重大差异。艺术家的生活细节——血统、阶级、文化标识——已变得比艺术家们在 1960 年前后用来切入集体无意识的共享意象更为重要。退后一步观察 Yee I-Lann 那些由染色的棕榈纤维编织而成的、色彩像水果般甜美的精美垫子 (2018-19)，你会注意到办公桌的轮廓。I-Lann 表示，她将办公桌与“父权制度和殖民主义”联系在一起。在 1957 年获得独立之前，她的故乡马来西亚曾先后由葡萄牙、荷兰和英国统治。墙上的文字写道，这些潜意识中的家具“重新阐述了原住民马来人与殖民政府之间的权力动态”。这并不是说波普艺术家们
不关心政治，且现在需要被惩戒。在 80 年代，奥尔登堡在抗议美国干预中美洲的海报中实现了他建造香蕉纪念碑的梦想。在 90 年代，理查德·汉密尔顿重新创作了他为该运动奠基的拼贴画《究竟是什么让今天的家庭如此不同，如此吸引人？》(1956)，并在其中表达了对波斯湾战争、艾滋病以及杰夫·昆斯崛起的明显愤怒。（昆斯会对这个展览起到帮助还是破坏作用？）良知始终在某种程度上潜伏着。但一个最主要的抱怨（由汤姆·沃尔夫最精准地提出）始终是，波普艺术的讽刺主要是在对艺术圈人士说话。这在一定程度上是真的：艺术的营销可能是波普艺术最阴暗且最显眼的遗产。也许这就是为什么毛里齐奥·卡特兰的《喜剧演员》(2019)——他将香蕉用胶带贴在墙上以揭露艺术界奇观的颓废——会出现在“古根海姆波普”展中。或许，这也正是为什么汉密尔顿描绘古根海姆博物馆螺旋形外观的玻璃纤维三联画 (1965-66) 出现的原因，紧随其后的是关于该螺旋结构内艺术家的视频作品：一段由亚历克斯·达·科特 (2022) 创作的关于杜尚和布朗库西的、顽皮且最终有点幽默的视频，以及一段道格拉斯·戈登 1998 年在一次公开放映中秘密录制的沃霍尔电影的 VHS 录像。关于艺术的艺术的艺术。但在那一瞬间，波普艺术曾是某种更丰富的东西。对于观众来说，它是吸引人的，正如波普对时尚和设计的影响所证明的那样。而对于艺术家来说，这是一种生存方式：将汤罐头作为图腾，将拉伸的画布作为旗帜——这些是先发制人的，尽管带有聪明反被聪明误的意味，旨在忍受一个已经将使用价值与交换价值之间所有旧有区别都抹平的注意力经济。约翰斯和沃霍尔正在学习如何在这个堕落的新世界中生活。而我们必须学习。在我走向展览的路上，我经过了店面、公交站广告、熟食店窗户里由人工智能构思的演员和巴西莓果碗、企业孟菲斯风格的包容性虚拟化身，以及令人不寒而栗且快活的矢量图形。当一位艺术家出现，以某种截然不同的人类批判距离吸入并呼出这一切时，那么那种感觉也许会再次“砰”地一声爆发出波普的活力。
由纽约波利娜·柏林画廊 (POLINA BERLIN GALLERY) 和伦敦 LUXEMBOURG + CO. 提供；摄影：STEVEN PROBERT
LEE FRIEDLANDER，由纽约 LUHRING AUGUSTINE 和 GLADSTONE GALLERY 提供
左上，中井克实 (Katsumi Nakai) 的《L’oggetto si sboccia 44-146》(1972)。左，《纽约市》(1966/约 2011)，Lee Friedlander 的明胶银盐照片。右，《Wyatt Kahn：纸上作品 2011-2026》的安装视图。
展至 8 月 8 日（之后需预约）。波利娜·柏林画廊 (Polina Berlin Gallery)，曼哈顿西 27 街 121 号；polinaberlingallery.com。
1964, 艺术家中井克实离开日本，计划前往欧洲和美国旅行——他将其称为“追随太阳”。然而他只走到了正午。被米兰古典杰作与实验性沸腾的融合所吸引，中井将家人接来此处并停留了 30 年，进入了该市的前卫艺术家圈子：Enrico Baj、Edmondo Bacci 和 Lucio Fontana。后者的“空间主义”(Movimento Spaziale) 挑战了绘画作为一个旨在被靠近的固定表面的局限性。Fontana 在画布上切开并戳洞。而中井的解决方案则更温和且更激进：让绘画去靠近观众。
他开始切割木板并将它们组装成微妙的层级——刻出的钥匙孔和窥视孔揭示了底部的底画。他的铰接
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哪位古典作曲家的名字可以填入空格以完成一个熟悉的词汇？
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画作则更进一步，面板通过接合，使画作能够将自身潜入空间。他将这些作品称为“l’oggetto si sboccia”（“物体在展开”）。它们赋予了绘画能动性，使其能够抗议、自卫或不循规蹈矩。折叠起来时，它们是整洁的单色方块；打开后，它们则像花朵般绽放出无拘无束的形态。
其中两件作品出现在这次艺术家首次（且迟到了）的美国个展中。诸如《L’oggetto si sboccia 44-146》(1972) 及其下垂的形态，以及《Hiraku 54 Osaka》(1981) 及其肉色色调的翻页与折叠，都俏皮地暗示了人体解剖学。静态的拼贴画保留了中井的幽默，其碎片仿佛在挑逗着造反。
中井的方法将西方前卫艺术与日本传统的感性和工艺结合在一起。他的作品综合了折纸 (origami)、精细的日本剪纸艺术 (kiri-e) 以及供奉逝去亲人的家用佛坛 (butsudan)，以及他在米兰教堂漫游时遇到的祭坛画。
值得注意的是，中井从未学习过意大利语（“l’oggetto si sboc-
cia”包含一个基础的变位 错误）。因此他创造了自己 的语言。
《破坏者》(The Vandals) 展出至 8 月 7。Gladstone 画廊， 曼哈顿西 24 街 515 号；212-206-9300， gladstonegallery.com。
在欧内斯特·德·巴尔扎克的《未知杰作》(1831) 中，年迈的画家弗伦霍弗在一次糟糕的画室访问后毁掉了所有作品并自杀。在伊迪丝·华顿的哥特式中篇小说《死人之手之屋》(1904) 中，年轻的西比拉也迎来了同样凄惨的结局，她那专横的父亲对一幅（可能是伪造的）列奥纳多·达·芬奇绘画的痴迷摧毁了她的生活。
就夏季团体展而言，这两个关于被艺术品消耗掉的寓言的组织逻辑比大多数展览都要阴郁，尽管对于一家商业画廊来说，提醒收藏家艺术会让人生出疯狂之感是相当大胆的。但其吸引力毋庸置疑。展览展出了一些艺术界顶尖的怪咖、不合群者和拒绝者，并浸润在奢华的戏剧冲突中——甚至连遮住阳光的沉重红色天鹅绒窗帘都如此考究——这是一种有效的避暑良药。
由 Alissa Bennett 和 Julian Ehrlich 以显而易见的快意策划，选作无法抵挡构图上的亲缘关系：Weegee 的闪光灯罪犯押解照，与 Joseph Yaeger 那极具道格拉斯·塞克风格的《命中注定的伤害同样痛苦》(2025) 挂在一起。Lee Friedlander 的《纽约市》(1966/约 2011) 中那种模糊的威胁感——摄影师的影子遮住了被拍摄者蓬松发型的背面——在 Alex Katz 的《艾达的背面 2》(2021) 中得到了回响，画家的妻子仅能通过一团幽灵般的银发被认出。
展览沉溺于忧郁之中。这里有绝望的咒语、脱离身体的眼睛、若隐若现的躯体，以及一些轻微的身体恐怖（Tamo Jugeli 的《秘密》(2026)，一幅用滴落的血红色唤起对小肠记忆的抽象画）。一种诡异的氛围笼罩全场：Mark Leckey 的《产自天堂》(Made in ’Eaven) 围绕着 Jeff Koons 的《兔子》铝制轮廓飞舞，当你意识到那只闪亮的小兔没有反射出任何镜像时，才发现这其实是一个鬼故事。
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编辑：Will Shortz
横向
1 扣留
某物？
4 很快就过去！
7 沉默型
11 性工作？
14 屏幕名称
15 网球壮举 涉及在两个日历年 内连续赢得 四个 大满贯冠军
16 污垢
17 例如，蜂蜜
18 长跑运动员的 能量来源
20 例如世界经济 论坛的缩写
21 绊 trip
22 用大发圈固定 的发型
24 飞鱼籽或 蟹籽
25 命运的转折， 比如
28 咽峡炎医生
30 充满喜悦
31 全力以赴
33 握手时的 叫声
前次谜题答案
R E S E T S H A R E D H O P E X T R A K O S O V O A P T C H A R L I E S H E E N R H O T A N K N E E N O V E L O L D P R O A L P H A M A L E R E B R A N D O L E G R I M D Y E D A P C A L C D A Y S I E R R A C L U B P I G O R I O L E R O S S C H A N M E N S P I R I T S G O L F R A N G E L O N D O N A P P L E L A O S E N O M E A N A T O A L P H A B E T E S L T R E A T S O V E R T S O S S T E R E O P A T S Y
观察者是死了，还是仅仅 不可见？两者之间有区别吗？ 巴尔扎说没有。被误解的天才 之悲剧具有诱惑力。 妄想亦然。
Wyatt Kahn 展至 8 月 12 日。Rodder 画廊， 曼哈顿东 80 街 22 号； 212-510-8487, rodder.nyc。
这里展出的 36 件作品在风格和执行上如此多样—— 有斑驳的树胶 {gouaches}、滑稽的卡通、示意性的拼贴、铅笔乱涂、木刻——以至于它们看起来像是 36 位艺术家的作品。但实际上只有一个人负责：Wyatt Kahn，一位纽约人，其 2011 年至 2026 年间的 15 年纸上作品回顾展，构成了一个人的个展。 Kahn 通常创作大尺寸作品： 将切割的木板组装成技术上称为壁挂作品、但在概念上是“无颜料绘画”的装置。Kahn 喜欢在不真正制作雕塑的情况下尝试雕塑感，尽管他在一系列由耐候钢（Cor-Ten steel）制成的户外作品中向这一形式妥协。他构建了断断续续的、单色的结构，其层叠的形态和负空间让人想起路易丝·内威尔森（Louise Nevelson），或者像快速拉起百叶窗时偶然形成的几何形状。 他的视觉语法偏好破碎的形状，以及在平面中寻找深度。去年秋天，Rodder 展出了 Kahn 用半透明乙烯基包裹的绷架条，其闪烁的宝石色调和杂乱的多边形让人联想到不可能存在的彩色玻璃窗，或者地震后的构成主义绘画。诸如《构成（仿拉斯洛·莫霍利-纳吉）第 4 幅草图》（2026）之类的研究作品展示了这些大件作品是如何开始的。 这些壁挂作品的透明性质让观众有一个罕见的机会窥视绘画的内部结构。Kahn 的精神慷慨在此得以延续。这次精选揭示了一位致力于实验的、不安分的艺术家。素描、版画和浮雕使用了修正液、胶带、磨砂描图纸以及填入符文楔形文字中的纸浆。这里有未实现的想法、错误的尝试和死胡同——换句话说，这是一个被视觉化的过程。
34 “这太
37 盲
组件
41 聪明人
43 在美国手语（A.S.L.）中， 握拳并伸出 食指 代表什么
44 在哪里可以 超越所有 戏剧？
45 皮埃尔 : 法国 :: ___ : 俄罗斯
47 马里兰州 州长穆尔
48 例如，透视
49 休闲周五 选项
51 购物狂 的结果
53 高度灵活的 学科？
55 巴西州 其名称是一个 测量单位
56 体操运动员 的亲属
57 有冬阴功汤 (tom kha kai) 的料理
58 有储物柜的 商业机构
59 全部良好
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1 手掌大小的 糕点
2 同意 的合唱
3 香格里拉
4 使之成为一
5 富尔顿县所在地：缩写
6 英国版 的 “Shark Tank”
7 现代俚语中的 还行
8 “大脑被震撼 (Mind. Blown.)”
9 费马的《算术》 副本中他写下 最后定理的部分
GENEVIEVE HANSON/RODDER, NEW YORK
12 科技巨头 奥特曼
13 钞票的零钱
14 (无线索)
15 蕨类的 生殖部分
19 《傲慢与偏见》中 最年轻的贝内特姐妹
22 派屈克，对 海绵宝宝而言
23 戒指
26 客人们总是 愿意参加的活动场地？
27 某些彻夜未眠者
PUZZLE BY RAFAEL MUSA
7/31/26
35 诗行中的 正式停顿
36 某种投篮（口语）
38 “小心！”
39 沙拉中的昆虫产品 yum khai mod daeng
40 ___ incognita
41 “然后……？”
42 短暂时期
46 自我表扬
49 被描绘为 四臂的印度神灵
50 否认于
房间里排列着弧形展板，上面钉着作品和材料。当时仍是会员时段，人并不多，尽管已经排起了一队人等待与 van Herpen 坐在一起。氛围平静且富有沉思感，参观者在画廊中缓慢移动，有时会停在一张长桌前，通过显微镜观察材料。Van Herpen 从侧桌的一卷布料中抽出一块银色面料，剪下一段递给我。她说，这是由极细的铝线与精细黑丝交织而成的面料，“大约只有人类头发的五分之一”粗。她向我演示了这种面料如何仅在一个方向上产生褶皱，并让我根据喜好决定褶皱的紧密或松散程度。当我们开始折叠（我发现我是一个习惯于紧凑褶皱的人，这显然是性格的体现）时，我们开始聊起前一年的见面，当时我就她为纽约市芭蕾舞团一部新作品设计的服装采访了她。尽管她使用了高科技面料和创新技术，但我也看到了作品中极其艰苦的手工完成度，那种近乎冥想的特质。Van Herpen 点了点头，说这就是她 20 年前开始工作时的方式。“我想让人们感受到过程中亲密的部分，”她说道，并补充说对于许多设计师而言，概念是重心，然后设计会被交给他人去制作。“对我来说，制作、悬垂和手工才是外观进化的地方，”她说。布鲁克林博物馆的高级策展人 Matthew Yokobosky 解释道：“每个与她一起折叠褶皱的人都有自己的历史，拥有自己的灵巧度，而她正将这些未知因素带入这件衣服的制作中。”在周围游客的簇拥下，随着我们的手指几乎下意识地折叠，周围的嗡嗡声略微增强。“当你与某人共同完成某件事时，便产生了一种信任”
该 K-pop 组合的决定 是在一个全新的 亚洲流行音乐类别设立之后做出的。
作者：MAX KIM 和 BEN SISARIO
首尔 —— K-pop 超级组合 BTS 表示，他们将不参加第 69 届年度格莱美奖的竞争。就在一个月前，该颁奖礼的组织机构宣布设立一个新的亚洲流行音乐类别。
“我们决定今年不提交作品供格莱美评选，”该组合的七名成员在周三通过各自的社交媒体账号分享的一份韩文声明中表示。“我们希望音乐能因其本身而被听到和热爱，而不是被划分为地区或语言。”
该组合及其唱片公司 Hybe 均未进一步发表评论。但此举似乎是对新设立的“最佳亚洲流行音乐表演”类别的抗议，该奖项将在 2 月 7 日举行的下一届格莱美颁奖典礼上首次颁发。
“得知 BTS 选择不参与今年的格莱美奖评选流程，我感到很遗憾，”录音学院首席执行官 Harvey Mason Jr. 在一份声明中表示。“但作为一名音乐创作者，我理解并尊重他们的决定，”身为制作人和词曲作者的 Mason 补充道。
BTS 的决定意味着其回归专辑《Arirang》（该专辑在 3 月发行后登顶全球各大榜单）将无法竞争该奖项。根据录音学院的规则，艺术家或其代表公司必须提交录音作品才能被考虑。
Mason 在声明中补充说，向某个流派类别提交音乐并不会妨碍艺术家同时向年度最佳唱片、专辑或歌曲等顶级类别提交作品。
近年来，艺术家抵制已成为录音学院经常面临的风险。Frank Ocean、Drake、The Weeknd 等顶尖艺术家曾拒绝提交作品，通常是因为抱怨格莱美在顶级类别中经常未能认可有色人种艺术家。
部分艺术家则有其他抱怨。去年，乡村音乐的新超级巨星之一 Morgan Wallen 在提名中被大范围忽视后，拒绝提交其音乐作品。2021 年，The Weeknd 指责录音学院设有“秘密委员会”——即在数十个类别中筛选提名的匿名小组。这种做法在 2021 年被大部分（但并非完全）取消。
The Weeknd 随后与录音学院达成和解，并在 2025 年的典礼上进行了表演，但他最近的专辑《Hurry Up Tomorrow》在今年早些时候举行的颁奖礼提名中被冷落了。
Mason 在录音学院公布新奖项时表示，设立新的亚洲流行音乐奖是为了认可 K-pop、J-pop、C-pop 及其他风格在近年来的崛起，将其视为“全球音乐产业中最重要且最持久的力量”之一。
但一些粉丝迅速谴责了这一新类别，称这将有效地将亚洲表演者边缘化，并成为他们获得顶级类别提名的障碍。
尽管在过去十年中拥有巨大的影响力，但 K-pop 在格莱美奖上的记录并不稳定。
BTS 作为一个韩国组合，或许是该流派在进入全球流行主流方面最强大的力量，他们曾获得五次格莱美提名，但从未获奖。该组合曾三次在颁奖礼上演出，包括在 2022 年以特工为主题表演的歌曲《Butter》。
[[IMG_XXXX]] MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BTS 在 7 月于新泽西州东卢瑟福举行的世界杯决赛上表演。
登顶榜单的专辑《Arirang》将无法竞争奖项。
上方图中，设计师 Iris van Herpen（中）在博物馆参加展览。左侧为现场展出的 Seijaku 礼服。
“这样就创造出了一种氛围，对话很快就会变得非常私人，”van Herpen 说道。“我听到了一些真正美丽的私人故事、希望和梦想。”
她补充说，当用双手工作时，“你的大脑会某种程度上地放松；我最富有创造力的思考过程就是这样发生的。”
我观察到每个人在面料上留下的印记都不同，非常像手写字。van Herpen 表示，这种纹理的多样性是这次体验中极妙的方面之一，证明了每位折叠者的个体差异。
“这些对话被记录了下来，我会挑选那些启发我并触动我的瞬间，将它们绣在礼服的内侧，”她说道。“这将成为这一时刻的时间胶囊。”
在刚过去的这个周末，van Herpen 还开始在模特身上进行面料披挂。
“我总是独自做这件事，周围从没有人，所以这有点令人紧张，”她说。“但而这正是这样做的理由。”
她不知道最终的设计会是什么样子，但它将“受到纽约人的影响——他们的对话，他们的生活故事。这一切都将体现在这套造型的最终成果中。”
Van Herpen 将在 10 月下旬回到博物馆，进行更多的表演环节以及礼服制作的最后阶段。“我不知道它会变成什么样，而且我不想知道，”她说道。“我希望我的双手去披挂；我更相信我的双手而非我的大脑。”
Iris van Herpen： 雕琢感官 展出至 12 月 6 日，于布鲁克林博物馆； 718-638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org。 展览需定时票。Van Herpen 将于 10 月回归。
摄影：JUSTIN J WEE 为《纽约时报》拍摄
拉斯维加斯的颁奖典礼。 在最近一次的格莱美颁奖典礼（2 月）上，Netflix 现象级作品《KPop Demon Hunters》助力 K-pop 获得首胜，该片爆红单曲 “Golden” 的词曲作者获得了最佳视觉媒体歌曲奖。
格莱美为亚洲流行音乐设立的新类别，是录音学院内部经过多年关于如何正确认可 K-pop 讨论的结果，同时，该管理机构也正采取步骤使其全球化，成为世界上音乐赞誉的最终裁决者。
2024, 格莱美首次颁发了最佳非洲音乐表演奖。10 月，学院将在埃及吉萨的金字塔阴影下举办一系列演出和小组讨论。
关于种族和语言如何影响西方对 K-pop 态度的争论，在 BTS 的职业生涯轨迹中占据了突出位置。根据最近的一部 Netflix 纪录片，在制作《Arirang》期间，该团体的成员抵制了制作人要求增加更多英文歌词以增强全球吸引力的压力。
然而，这张专辑最终发行时，英文内容远多于韩文。
By JULIET MACUR
ABILENE, Texas — It was quitting time at the giant construction site, sending the after- noon rush down a crumbling two-lane country road toward a new convenience store called the Elmdale Outpost. Dust-covered pickup trucks from near and far — Louisiana, North Carolina, Mexico — pulled into its parking lot, and weary workers walked through the door, their boots leaving a trail of dirt inside. The tiny Swiss Army knife of a shop carries anything the workers might need. Toothpaste and toilet paper, sweet potatoes and spicy-hot snacks, and beer. At every turn, ice-cold beer. An entire separate room of floor-to-ceiling beer. More than 60 brands, including a dozen
A private table at Pioneer Plus, Myanmar’s most exclusive nightclub, costs hundreds of dollars.
War Rages, but the Party Never Ends for the Rich
By HANNAH BEECH
YANGON, Myanmar — After midnight, amid a war, the D.J. hyped the crowd. “Are you ready to party?” he yelled into the mic, adding an expletive for emphasis. The partygoers of Pioneer Plus, the most exclusive night- club in the war-torn nation of Myanmar, were ready. The D.J. had come all the way from Cro- atia, after all. Young women gyrated onstage. Johnnie Walker flowed, but only Blue Label be-
INTERNATIONAL A4-10 Russian Attacks Kill at Least 8
A couple in Abilene, Texas, opened the Elmdale Outpost when a $25 billion com- plex came to town. “Everything around here’s changed overnight,” an owner said.
varieties of michelada alone. The store’s primary appeal, though, is its proximity to the construction site, six miles away. Or, more precisely, its proximity to the sprawling, new 148-acre R.V. park next door, built to serve thousands of temporary labor- ers. An armada of those workers — pipe fitters, HVAC technicians, ironworkers and more — has come to this rural area at the northeast edge of Abilene, Texas, to build the $25 billion
as Others Suffer
cause that is the way these high- rollers roll. A private table for the evening — with hookah, im- ported fruit and pyramids of frosted shot glasses — costs hundreds of dollars to book. In the bathrooms, and on the dance floor in stolen moments between flashes of the strobe, some denizens of Pioneer Plus
NATIONAL A11-17, 20 Trump Project Races Ahead
‘Frozen Zone’ Scrapes By
Frontier data center complex, part of the half- trillion dollar Stargate project that President Trump promoted last year as “the largest A.I. infrastructure project in history.” The flagship Stargate data center campus is also under construction, on the other side of town. “Y’all opened up a good spot right here,” a foundation contractor from Colorado told the store owner, Sam Holt Jr., while buying a six- pack of Dos Equis. After a 10-hour day in the Texas sun, he said he couldn’t resist the red sign painted on the store’s corrugated tin roof: “BEER.” “Yep, we’re just trying to serve our new neighbors,” Holt replied. Late last year, “neighbors” meant a handful
DANIEL BEREHULAK/THE NEW YORK TIMES
swallowed pastel tablets that tinged their breath with vanilla or grape candy. The kick from these methamphetamine and caffeine concoctions, branded with the names of local drug syndicates, lasts for hours. Myanmar, which five years ago descended into full-scale civil war after a military junta over- threw the elected government, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is in desperate need of a diversion, a respite, a prolonged high. No one in Myanmar is unaf-
WEEKEND ARTS C1-8 Tuned In to Tanglewood
DESIREE RIOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Given 15 Years For Negligence
By RICK ROJAS and JOHNNY KAUFFMAN
ATLANTA — The father of a teenager who fatally shot four people at his Georgia high school was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison after a jury found he bore criminal responsibility for his son’s deadly attack in 2024. The father, Colin Gray, had been convicted in March of murder and involuntary manslaughter, among other charges. Prosecutors ar- gued that he shouldered signifi- cant blame for the shooting in Winder, Ga., because he had given his son, Colt, then 14, the rifle that was used and failed to heed signs of his son’s deteriorating mental health and growing obsession with violence. Prosecuting the parents of juve- niles who carry out mass shoot- ings has become one of the latest fronts in the search for account- ability in a country frustrated by recurring gun violence. The case against Mr. Gray has stood out for the severity of the charges. His po- tential sentence ranged from 10 years of probation to 243 years in prison; prosecutors had asked for an 80-year sentence — effectively a life sentence for Mr. Gray, 55. Judge Nicholas Primm of State Superior Court in Barrow County noted the novelty of the case, de- scribing it as the first of its kind in Georgia and the second in the country. He acknowledged that Mr. Gray had not orchestrated the attack, or even been aware of his son’s specific plans. But his failure to act let the attack happen.
More Patients Are Uninsured
Cuts to Obamacare
By REED ABELSON
More and more uninsured pa- tients are showing up in hospital emergency rooms and clinics, having lost their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Executives running some of the biggest hospital systems, includ- ing large for-profit chains span- ning many states, expressed con- cern over the unexpectedly sharp rise in uninsured patients and the costs associated with treating them. And many executives said that the hospitals were also reporting more unpaid medical bills and providing more in the way of char- ity care. Some hospital systems also found that patients were for- going or postponing lucrative elective surgeries like knee re- placements in recent months. The significant increase in unin- sured patients, about 20 percent in some cases, was disclosed in earnings reports in the past week and interviews with nonprofit hospital groups. Major hospital of- ficials expressed growing unease over lost revenues amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars across the country’s vast health systems. Some executives attributed the diminishing numbers to the deci- sion by congressional Republi- cans to end the more generous subsidies, or tax credits, that were initially put in place during the Covid pandemic and helped many people pay their monthly insur- ance premiums. While the vast majority of people enrolled in an A.C.A. plan this year still receive a federal subsidy, the federal assist- ance is less generous. People are paying significantly more for a plan in 2026, on average, and any- one making more than four times the federal poverty level — $62,600 for an individual — no longer qualified for help. Since the beginning of the year, enrollment in Obamacare has dropped by about three million, or 13 percent, according to the latest government figures. Insurance companies expect even more peo- ple to drop their A.C.A. plans. The Trump administration has described the falloff largely as a result of its crackdown on fraud.
Sheri Hendricks with a whale at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
Try Flying 30 Beluga Whales.
There is nothing normal about moving a beluga whale. First, you have to find a cargo plane that can accommodate the whale and at least one, if not more, attendants per whale. Then, there are the foam- and rubber-lined container boxes, specific to the whale’s size and weight, and large enough to hold the whale and the stretcher that it will rest on.
American Economy Slows
PULLING BLANCHE AS PICK FOR NOW
Stalemate Over Tax Deal Snags Senate Vote on Attorney General
This article is by Glenn Thrush, Michael Gold and Carl Hulse.
WASHINGTON — Todd Blanche’s nomination to become attorney general suffered a seri- ous blow on Thursday when Presi- dent Trump threatened to with- draw Mr. Blanche’s name rather than place limits on a tax immuni- ty deal that would benefit himself and his family, as demanded by two Republican senators. Mr. Trump’s threat, posted on social media, followed 24 hours of frenetic and fruitless negotiations among Mr. Blanche, the White House and the two senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who are not re- turning to Congress next year. “I have no objection to tempo- rarily withdrawing Todd’s name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office,” Mr. Trump wrote, in a fight that has exposed the limits of his power over Con- gress. That set off a late-day scramble to rescue Mr. Blanche’s nomina- tion, and the semblance of intra- party, interbranch comity. Mr. Tillis and Mr. Cornyn met pri- vately with Mr. Blanche Thursday afternoon in the offices of the Na- tional Republican Senatorial Com- mittee near the Capitol. It was not immediately clear if they broke the impasse. Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Tillis object to a deal negotiated by Mr. Blanche and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers to resolve a lawsuit the president had filed against the I.R.S. The deal gave Mr. Trump, his family and his businesses broad immunity against I.R.S. au- dits, potentially saving them at least $100 million in penalties. Democrats and even some Repub- lican lawmakers criticized the deal as a giveaway to the Trump family. The two senators want to nar- row the deal in order to advance Mr. Blanche’s nomination, de-
HEIDI ZEIGER/SHEDD AQUARIUM, VIA REUTERS
By REMY TUMIN
There’s also the matter of the crane that will hoist the whale from its enclosure into the box, onto a waiting truck that will cart it off to the airport. Now, repeat that for 30 whales. Aquariums across the United States and Spain are working to relocate these 30 whales from a shuttered aquarium in Canada. Six made their way out of Cana-
SPORTS B7-10, 12 Why Moore Opted for Oregon
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Electric rickshaws became common in Havana after the United States cut off Cuba’s fuel supply. Venezuelan oil had been a lifeline for the island.
visas to members of The Times for the first time in seven years.
By SAM SIFTON
Six months ago, President Trump predicted that Cuba would soon be ruined. He had just taken control of Venezuela’s oil, a life- line for the island, and blockaded all other fuel sources. “It’s just going to fall,” he told reporters. Jack Nicas, who covers the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico for The Times, recently traveled to Cuba to report on the state of the island. With him were Alex Pena, a video journalist, and Lisette Poole González, a photographer. Jack and Alex were there on the first journalism visas Cuba had granted to The Times in seven years. As our journalists discovered, even amid Cuba’s worst energy crisis ever, with mass blackouts plaguing the electrical grid, the Cuban government — and the Cuban peo- ple — are still standing. “After a week on the ground,” they wrote in an article pub- lished on Tuesday, “we found that while Cubans are clearly suffering, they are also doing what perhaps they do best: adapting.” Out: those gas-guzzling Chevys they’ve kept running since the Communist revolu- tion. In: electric rickshaws from China.
Fauci Repeatedly Refuses to Answer Senators’ Questions at Volatile Hearing Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who spent nearly four decades as the government’s top infectious disease expert, refused on Wednesday to answer any questions from a Senate committee investi- gating the origins of Covid-19. He accused the committee’s Republican chairman, Rand Paul, of having an “unhinged obsession with me” and, more than 100 times, invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incrimi- nate himself. “The hearing was part Washington theater, part political Rorschach test,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote.
Iran War Live Updates: Drone Attack in Egypt Threatens to Expand Fighting The Middle East teetered on the brink of an expanded war on Thursday after Iran and the United States reignited hostilities. Egypt said an unidentified drone had caused an explosion at the Mediterranean port of Damietta, and Saudi Arabia acknowledged direct involvement in the war for the first time after conducting joint strikes with U.S. forces on Iranian-backed militias on Wednesday.
Uninsured Patients Rise Sharply, Hospitals Report, Citing Obamacare Cuts More uninsured patients are showing up in hospital emergency rooms and clinics, having lost their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Hospitals were also reporting more unpaid medical bills and providing more in the way of charity care. Some hospi- tal systems found that patients were forgoing or postponing expensive elective surgeries like knee replacements, Reed Abelson reported.
Sales Are So Low, California Wineries Are Burning Their Vineyards California produced less wine last year than at any point in the last quarter century. Nationwide, wine sales are at the lowest level in over two decades. It’s often cheaper to let grapes rot on the vine than to clog shelves with unsold bottles. “There’s literally no way for me to make money,” one Soledad, Calif., winemaker said.
Cubans are importing big lithium batteries to run appliances during blackouts and installing solar panels on roofs to charge them. Amateur mechanics all over the country are jury-rigging generators to run on more accessible natural gas. One farmer even devised a tiny backyard refinery to make gasoline out of shredded plastic, fuel for his motorcycle and stove. “Cubans thrive amid crisis,” he told Jack. On Monday, I reached out to Jack to ask him a couple of questions for the Morning newsletter about his reporting and the team’s experience on the ground.
I want to ask you about that farmer you met, the one making his own gasoline. Did you see a lot of that kind of ingenuity in Cuba?
One of the most important words in the Cuban lexicon is “resolver.” It literally means “to solve,” but in Cuba, after decades of a U.S. trade embargo, it really means “to figure things out by any means necessary.” It explains how Cubans put Soviet en- gines into 1950s American cars to keep them running or ate breaded grapefruit rinds to imitate meat during their economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union. And now they’re resolviendo again. We saw a lot of creativity during our trip across Cuba. People drilled solar panels to the tops of electric rickshaws. They are using lithium batteries to power concerts. There are even stories of people powering their cars with charcoal and cooking oil.
LISETTE POOLE GONZÁLEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
As a result, the country is still function- ing, despite the hardship.
What was your reception in the country like? It’s been a long time since the Cuban gov- ernment has allowed Times journalists to report there.
Everywhere we turned there were stories, and the Cuban people were eager to tell them. We spoke to dozens of people in Havana and beyond who wanted to express their frustration and exhaustion with the status quo. It was a mixed bag on whom they blamed. Some saw the Cuban govern- ment at fault for failed economic policies and political repression, while others be- lieved Trump was making them suffer for his own personal gain. Many blamed both.
How hard was it to get your visa? Did gov- ernment minders follow you around?
It took a lot of convincing to get. I met with top Cuban diplomats in Mexico City, Ha- vana, Washington and New York over six months, and sent many letters, to persuade them that we would tell this story fairly. Once we got to Havana to report, we met with Cuban officials a few times, but they otherwise didn’t bother us. We traveled around freely, decided our story targets and chose whom we interviewed.
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IN CLASH AT LIEGE; CIVIL WAR A THREAT
July 31, 1950. Three people were killed the previous day when police opened fire on “a group of Social- ists” standing outside a cafe in a suburb of Liège, Belgium, The Times reported. The shooting, which ultimately resulted in four deaths, happened at the height of a political crisis over King Leopold III’s return to the throne following occupation by Nazi Germany. Many Belgians resented the king for his decision in 1940 to remain in Belgium under Nazi rule instead of joining the government-in-exile. Socialist workers organized a general strike and were planning a march on Brussels to pressure Leopold to abdicate when the police shooting oc- curred. “Unless there is a settlement tonight, there will be civil war tomorrow,” said Max Buset, a Social- ist leader. On Aug. 1, with demonstrators seeping through a security perimeter around Brussels, Leopold announced a plan to abdicate, and the coun- try retreated from the brink of armed conflict.
Facts of Interest
In Canada, the total area that fires burned in 2023 was seven times the historical average. In California, nine of the state’s 10 largest wildfires on record have occurred in the past decade.
Europe’s Shifts From Farming Amplify Fires A6
Solar power in space would have 24-hour access to the sun’s energy, making it a steady source of power like power plants that run on natural gas. On Earth, a solar power plant requires batteries to extend the resource beyond daylight.
A.I. Boom Accelerates Far-Out Idea: Solar Power in Space B6
Russia has fired 126 ballistic missiles at Ukraine so far in July, surpassing the previous record of 118 set in February.
Ukraine, Its Air Defenses Dwindling, Is Battered by Lethal Strikes A6
The K-pop supergroup BTS announced it would not submit its most recent album, “Arirang,” for consideration for the Grammy Awards a month after the Recording Academy introduced a new category for Asian pop.
BTS Says It Will Not Submit Music for 2027 Grammys C8
The most expensive item ever sold through auctions held by the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services was a hopper barge once owned by the Sanitation Department. Sale price: $293,255.
Rare Road Sign Is Up For Auction: ‘Champions Way’ From Knicks Parade B12
Barack Obama is the only Democrat to win Iowa in a presidential election in the last quarter-century.
Obama Hoops and Whoops For Democrat in Iowa Race A17
The Mini Crossword
1 2 3 4
7/31/2026 BY JOEL FAGLIANO
ACROSS
1 With 8-Across and 1-Down, grow
DOWN
from your own mistakes
5 Video game section
6 Figure skating duos
7 ___ Poupon (mustard brand)
8 See 1-Across
1 See 1-Across
2 Like the outfield walls of Wrigley
Field
3 Extremely
4 Letters capitaLized in this cLue
5 Sports org. for Nelly Korda
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE
S O C K
C R U N K
A G R E E
R A V E N
N E S T
Reader Corner Callout: Were you stuck footing the bill on a group trip?
Traveling with friends can be a dream come true. But it can also cause unforeseen fric- tion, particularly over finances. Differing price sensitivities and travel priorities can complicate planning. Then there’s the challenge of pricing couples versus singles, people who join late or stay longer, or charges in multiple currencies. After the itinerary has been set, the flights booked and the trip has officially left the group chat, it’s time to settle the bill. We’re curious how you manage financial friction — and how you make sure your besties settle up.
In Our Inbox Excerpts From New York Times Newsletters
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi energy minister, at a nuclear summit in Vienna in 2025.
The Trump administration has reached a deal with Saudi Arabia that would grant the Gulf country access to American nuclear technology. For The World, Katrin Bennhold asked David E. Sanger, who covers national security, to discuss what this means for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Read an edited excerpt from their exchange below.
What’s the risk that the Saudis develop nuclear weapons on the back of this? That was always the argument against Iranian enrichment.
Is this Saudi deal going to make it harder for the U.S. to negotiate a peace deal with Iran, given that the nuclear question is pretty central to that?
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Here to Help A Recipe for Berries and Cream Sheet Cake
This sour cream cake is deeply flavored with vanilla and a bit of almond extract, and baked to a texture that can stand up to a generous amount of berries and cream. Top it with whatever berries look best at the market and get creative with the design. YOSSY AREFI
TIME: 1½ HOURS, PLUS COOLING
YIELD: 16 SERVINGS
FOR THE SOUR CREAM CAKE: ¾ cup/170 grams unsalted butter (1½ sticks), melted, plus more for greasing the pan 1½ cups/300 grams granulated sugar 3 large eggs 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from one large lemon) 1½ cups/360 grams sour cream ¼ cup/60 milliliters neutral oil (such as canola or grapeseed) 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon almond extract (optional) 1½ teaspoons kosher salt (such as Dia- mond Crystal) 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 2½ cups/320 grams all-purpose flour
FOR THE TOPPING: ½ cup/113 grams cream cheese, softened 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup/240 milliliters heavy cream, cold 4 cups berries (any combination of rasp- berries, blueberries, blackberries and sliced strawberries), for decorating
How has money tested, or broken, a friend- ship on a group trip? How did you handle it? Are you the one pestering your friends to pay up? Or are you left scratching your head when an unexpectedly hefty request hits your Venmo account? What did you learn from the experience? What advice do you have for others to avoid the same pitfalls?
To share your experience, fill out a form under the Your Lead collection at nytimes.com/readers. We will not publish any part of your response without contacting you first.
If, in fact, the Saudis end up buying their fuel from abroad, and handing back the nuclear waste that comes out at the back end, then there is not much risk. But the way this agreement is written, the Saudis are not committed to that path. And nonproliferation experts say that creates a risk of diversion to a bomb project.
You can certainly argue that the U.S. has gone to war with Iran in part to force them to accept highly intrusive nuclear inspections and to get them to cease producing uranium. And that the Iranians will look at this and say, Trump just gave Saudi Arabia a pass on their inspections and may even allow them to produce nuclear fuel. They would argue — and would have a reasonable case — that this shows there are double standards.
baking powder and baking soda. Using a flexible spatula, fold the flour into the mixture until no white streaks remain. (The mixture may be a little lumpy.)
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading evenly, and bake until puffed and golden and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Set the pan on a rack to cool completely.
When the cake is cool, make the topping: In a large bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Slowly stream in the heavy cream while whisking constantly, and continue to whisk until soft peaks form, about 5 minutes.
Use the parchment paper to transfer the cake from the pan to a serving platter. Remove the parchment, top the cake with the cream cheese whipped cream, and arrange the berries over the cream. Serve immediately. The cake will keep well at room temperature for about 4 hours; any longer, and it should be covered and refrigerated.
THOMAS KRONSTEINER/GETTY IMAGES
LINDA XIAO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: YOSSY AREFI.
GAIA STELLA
cross-country
with poles
pushed to their limits
make hiking a walk in the park
nytimes.com/ hellowirecutter
Help Clarify War
Provides a Way to Cope With Trauma
By CONSTANT MÉHEUT and OLHA KONOVALOVA
When Alina Otzemko’s husband joined the Ukrainian Army after Russia invad- ed Ukraine more than four years ago, she found herself facing questions no parent rehearses. How would she tell her son, Yurii, who was then 1½ years old, why his father no longer came home? How to explain the charred buildings and blown- out bridges he saw from the car window? And harder still, how to explain war to a child? As the years passed, answers began to take shape in her mind, and Ms. Otzemko set out to turn them into a children’s book that would tell the story of war through Yurii’s eyes. “It felt like a great way to make life easier for other parents trying to explain to their children what war is,” Ms. Otzemko, a 31-year-old psychologist, said in an interview. “There wasn’t any book like this.” Her book, “Why Isn’t Dad at Home?,” takes readers into Yurii’s world during wartime, including describing his wor- ries when “planes started flying over the house” and his visit to his father near army bases where there were “no toys” but plenty of “flashlights, mice and big pistols.” By mid-2024, the book was ready for publication. Ms. Otzemko asked her hus- band to write the foreword. “But he did- n’t have time,” she said. “On June 7, he was killed.” Now, with no preparation, Ms. Otzemko had to tell Yurii his father was gone. As she steadied herself, she began writing a follow-up book: “Why Did Dad Die?” Ms. Otzemko’s books are just a couple among many published in Ukraine since the war began, all aimed at helping chil- dren and their parents cope with its
BRENDAN HOFFMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Timur Burlakov’s mother is using books to teach him about every as- pect of the war, including its history.
trauma. Their subjects include the an- guish of family separation, the upheaval of exile, and the terror of bombardments and the devastation they bring. Together, the books tell the story of a society profoundly reshaped by more than four years of full-scale war. In their pages, children encounter weapons whose names have entered everyday language and learn terms like “veter- ans,” “paratroopers” and “air defenses.” The stories also instill them with a new sense of patriotism shaped by the experi- ence of defending their country from Russia. Perhaps most important, these books help children confront fraught topics like death, destruction and fear through a language they can grasp. “They actually give you a framework for processing,” said Emily Finer, a sen- ior lecturer at the University of St. An- drews who teaches children’s literature, noting that many of the books use ani- mals and magical figures to help navi- gate experiences that could otherwise be overwhelming. Ms. Finer said she had counted 196 new titles since the war began. Similar books appeared during past conflicts, she noted, but never at this scale. “As a cultural phenomenon, it’s without his- torical precedent,” she said. One reason for the surge, Ms. Finer said, is that Ukrainian parents today know that unaddressed trauma comes at a cost, having grown up with the legacy of decades of Soviet oppression that si- lenced discussion of Ukrainians’ suffer- ing. They do not want to repeat that pat- tern and “want better understanding and good mental health for their chil- dren,” she said. One of the first books released after Russia invaded, “Battle for the City,” by Volodymyr Chernishenko, tackled the question on every parent’s mind at that time: How do you explain that war has begun? In the story, an unnamed peaceful Ukrainian city is thrown into chaos when hulking military machines with menac- ing grins approach and begin raining down rockets on it. Rescue comes from a Ukrainian fighter jet, known as Ghost, that destroys the tanks from above. The name evokes the legend of the “Ghost of Kyiv,” a pilot rumored to have downed numerous Russian planes in the war’s early days. Iryna Bilan, a telecommunications manager, said she had chosen the book for her two sons, Artem and Mark, be-
“BATTLE FOR THE CITY” By Volodymyr Chernishenko
cause it reminded her of the battle for Kyiv, their home city, which Russian troops partly encircled in the war’s early weeks. Ms. Bilan, 38, said her sons had cried a lot as they turned the pages and learned that Ghost, after saving the city, was ulti- mately destroyed by a Russian missile. But she saw in this tragic ending an op- portunity to open a difficult conversation about soldiers dying while defending the country, a topic her sons frequently hear about on the radio and television, she said. Another book Ms. Bilan said she often read with her children was “Rocket the Raccoon and Other Heroes” by Yevheniia Zavalii. Using stories of ani- mals affected by the war, it gives voice to children’s emotions. One tale follows a lion, Bretzel, who fears the bombardments but refuses to admit it, convinced he must appear strong. Ms. Bilan said she turned to this story after harrowing nights of bombardments on Kyiv. “Through books, we can live through it,” she said of the trauma. “So my children don’t store it deep inside, so it doesn’t linger in the background and keep them from living, from being chil- dren.” On a recent morning in a primary school in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv where Russian forces killed some 300 residents during a brief occupation in early 2022, one of its directors, Nataliia Cheredniuk, staged a theatrical reading of her book, “Ommm. The Spirit of the Irpin Forest.” The book recounts the Russian attack on the town through the eyes of a magical forest spirit who protects it, summoning floodwaters and winds to drive away the invaders. “Are you glad the little forest spirit be- came our guardian?” she asked the 20 or so students gathered in a small class- room. “What would you wish for him?” “That he would make it so the war never started,” one child answered. “Let the war end,” another said. Ms. Cheredniuk said that “what is most valuable is that, with this fairy tale, children talk about the war” rather than keeping their feelings bottled up. With the war in its fifth year, it is the only reality many children in Ukraine have ever known, and a source of every- day curiosity. After major Russian air attacks on Kyiv in late 2022, Ms. Bilan said her 10- year-old son, Artem, began asking about the weapons that Ukraine used to defend itself. Knowing the Ukrainian Army has the means to protect the country’s capi- tal “helps him have hope,” she said. So she bought Artem books about fighter jets, missiles, drones and fire arms, the names of which he almost knows by heart now. “I definitely remember that one of them is a surface-to-air missile system,” Artem said on a recent afternoon at his family’s apartment, flipping through the pages of the books on missiles. Sometimes, Ms. Bilan said, they even discuss the trajectories of Russian ballis- tic missiles and how Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems can intercept them. Lera Burlakova, a 40-year-old commu- nications officer and war veteran, said she used the books to teach her 7-year- old son, Timur, about every aspect of the war, not just the weapons, but also its his- tory and how it has reshaped society. “I want him to grow up as a true Ukrainian patriot,” she said. She bought Timur “Little Travel Book. Armed Forces of Ukraine,” a children’s encyclopedia covering everything young readers need to know about the Ukrainian Army. Each page explores a different topic, such as Ukraine’s strike campaign against the Russian Black Sea fleet and the growing presence of women in the military. Timur’s favorite page is about war vet- erans, a nod to his mother. It shows a woman with a prosthetic leg and a man hugging a cat he found on the front line. Right beside it is a page on the different types of drones that Ukraine has used in the war. Perhaps the hardest subject of all is the loss of loved ones. Ms. Otzemko, the psychologist, said it took her two months to tell her son, Yurii, that his father had died. At first, she said, he was in denial, convinced she must have been mistaken because his dad had promised to come back. Gradually, however, reality sank in. Watching a friend at kindergarten re- unite with his father returning from the front, Yurii began to understand that his own dad would never come home. Ms. Otzemko recounts all these stages in her second book, seen through Yurii’s eyes, which she accompanied with gen- tle illustrations showing Yurii staring into the open sky as he comes to terms with his father’s absence. Ms. Otzemko said she had aimed for “very simple, childlike explanations” in her book so children could identify them- selves in the pages while parents could find a way to navigate complex emotions with their children. “This is essentially a ready-made guide on how to talk to children about death,” she said.
“LITTLE TRAVEL BOOK. ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE” By Iryna Taranenko, Marta Leshak and Oleksandr Mykhed
“WHY DID DAD DIE?” By Alina Otzemko
Backpack For a combat deployment, a soldier packs dozens of kilograms of gear on which life literally depends.
Across the river, a general lurks, rocket launchers in the trees! And across the park, a new attack.
In which I see a funeral for the first time
THE OLD LION PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2025
Veterans These are boys and girls, men and women who took part in combat and defended their homeland.
TEACHER, 2025
ARTBOOKS, 2022
A Russian missile crashed in Poland on Thursday during an overnight assault on neighboring Ukraine, NATO said, an event that could risk bringing Russia closer to direct confrontation with the Western military alliance, to which Poland belongs. Mark Rutte, the NATO secre- tary general, said the incident was a “violation of Poland’s airspace by a Russian missile” and vowed to strengthen alliance defenses. “This incident is yet another reckless act by Russia and a dan- gerous consequence of its war against Ukraine,” Mr. Rutte said in a social media post. A NATO spokesman, Col. Mar- tin O’Donnell, said in a statement that the “Russian missile of cur- rently unknown type” was “one of many missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine overnight.” The missile — which the Polish authorities originally called an “unidentified object” — struck a field in southeastern Poland, caus- ing no injuries. On Thursday morning, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland told an emergency meeting that the missile was prob-
Anatol Magdziarz contributed re- porting from Warsaw.
By CONSTANT MÉHEUT
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia pounded Ukrainian cities overnight with a barrage of mis- siles and drones that killed at least eight people and wounded dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. The attack was the latest in a summer campaign of large-scale aerial assaults as Mos- cow apparently seeks to capitalize on Ukraine’s dwindling air de- fenses. The overnight attack pushed Russia’s use of ballistic missiles to a new monthly record. Russia has fired 126 ballistic missiles at Ukraine so far in July, surpassing the previous record of 118 set in February, according to a New York Times data set based on fig- ures from the Ukrainian Air Force. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Russian weapons had hit places across the country, from the western city of Lviv, where emergency crews searched for survivors amid the rubble of a destroyed building, to the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, where five members of a family were killed, including three children. “Two other children were pulled alive from the rubble,” Mr. Zelen- sky said in a social media post about the strike in Dnipropetro- vsk. “It was an ordinary home, completely destroyed by a ballis- tic missile.” During the attack, a Russian cruise missile also entered the airspace of Poland, a NATO mem- ber, according to the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha. It was unclear whether the missile had struck Polish territory, but the authorities there said that an “un- identified object” had crossed into Poland’s airspace overnight and that police officers had later found a crater about 10 yards across, along with debris, in a field in the country’s southeast. Russian missiles have briefly entered Polish airspace during previous attacks on western
developing its own air defense system, but it remains unclear whether it would be effective against Russia’s ballistic missiles. Ukraine has waged its own long-range strike campaign against targets in Russia. At first, it focused on military facilities and oil refineries, but it has gradually expanded its target list to include commercial infrastructure such as warehouses belonging to Wild- berries, a Russian analogue to Amazon. On Wednesday morning, a Wildberries warehouse south of Moscow was struck. Kim Barker contributed reporting.
As Wildfires Rage on Crete
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
ATHENS — Greece battled a wildfire on Thursday on the island of Crete that has killed two fire- fighters and forced thousands to flee. The flames were the latest in a series of blazes that have charred Europe this summer and tested its ability to deal with in- creasingly extreme weather. More than 220 firefighters were tackling the wildfire in Crete, which broke out on Wednesday in the area of Krya Vrysi, in the south of the island. The fire, one of sev- eral that the Greek authorities were trying to contain on Thurs- day, was being fueled by strong wind. “The winds are so intense that aircraft can’t operate,” Giorgos Tsapakos, the deputy regional governor for Crete, told state tele- vision on Thursday morning. He said that the fire front stretched over nearly 10 miles but that resi- dential areas were not currently under threat. Evangelos Tournas, Greece’s minister of climate crisis and civil protection, said late Wednesday that the two firefighters who died in Crete were ages 58 and 25. The circumstances of their deaths
ably Russian, was carrying explo- sives and caused a 32-foot diame- ter crater, indicating “that this was a very serious matter.” But he stopped short of directly blaming Russia for launching it. “Politically, it always has great significance and speculation as to whether it was Russian or Ukrain- ian,” Mr. Tusk said at a news brief- ing Thursday afternoon, adding that an investigation was in progress. He said the missile was one of two that crossed into the country’s airspace during Russia’s overnight attacks on Ukraine. The other turned away after a brief in- cursion, he said, and in both cases, “there’s no reason to believe the target was Poland.” Poland has been struck at least once before by a missile, with one falling on its territory in 2022, killing two people. Initial fears at the time that the impact was a wayward Russian strike height- ened tensions and demands for NATO intervention. But it quickly became apparent that the projec- tile was an air defense missile launched by Ukraine that had ac- cidentally landed in Poland. Ukraine’s foreign minister, An- drii Sybiha, said on social media that a Russian cruise missile had crossed into Poland, but he did not
Near an apartment building in Lviv that was hit by a Russian missile on Thursday. Strikes around Ukraine killed at least eight.
Ukraine but have not hit Poland it- self. Any confirmed strike on a NATO member could sharply es- calate tensions between the mili- tary alliance and Russia. The latest attack underscored Ukraine’s growing vulnerability to Russia’s expanding missile campaign. Mr. Zelensky has warned for weeks that Ukraine is running out of air defense capabilities, espe- cially Patriot interceptors, the most reliable weapon that West- ern allies have given Kyiv to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine has pressed its West- ern allies for more Patriots, with
were not immediately clear. Summertime wildfires are com- mon in parts of southern Europe. But the blazes in Greece came as fighters were still working on fires in France and Spain. Those had been mostly contained by Thurs- day, officials said, but they have caused alarm across the conti- nent, where climate change is fu- eling extreme temperatures and making wildfires more wide- spread. Maria Lioni, the deputy re- gional governor of the Rethymno region of Crete, spoke of “a night- marish day and a nightmarish night” in comments to state televi- sion on Thursday, adding that the authorities had evacuated “many villages, large and small.” She said that it was too early to assess the damage fully but that it appeared to be extensive. About 8,000 people were evacu- ated from the southern coastal area of Agia Galini, Ms. Lioni said, although Greece’s Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protec- tion later announced that visitors who had been evacuated from the area had started returning to their hotels. Many residents stayed with rel- atives or friends in other parts of Crete, while visitors to the island, a popular vacation destination, were moved to hotels in safe ar- eas. About 700 people took shelter at a gymnasium, where mat-
specify whether it had hit any- thing. There was no immediate comment from Russia. As the largest NATO ally on Ukraine’s border, Poland has been one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters in its four-year war with Russia and suffered some of the most col- lateral damage. Russian drones have pulsed its airspace and fallen onto its territory, and it has been the target of sabotage and hybrid
was at a meeting 31 miles away.
attacks that Polish prosecutors have linked to Moscow. Colonel O’Donnell said that NATO fighter jets and other air- craft had been scrambled to inter- cept Thursday’s missile, and that the alliance’s top military com- mander, Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich of the U.S. Air Force, had spoken with Poland’s defense minister afterward to discuss pos- sible responses. It is not clear what those might entail, and NATO officials would
Mr. Zelensky raising the issue again during a visit to the White House on Tuesday. But global in- ventories of the interceptors are under severe strain from multiple conflicts around the world. “All of our partners know how they can help and what they can help with,” Mr. Zelensky wrote on social media on Thursday, after the overnight attack. “Delays in assistance, delays in the delivery of antiballistic missiles leads di- rectly to the kind of destruction and casualties that, unfortunately, we are witnessing today.” Short of Western-supplied air defenses, Ukraine has assembled
tresses were set up and food dis- tributed. The Greek authorities were also bolstering efforts to douse wild- fires in other parts of the country. Many Greek areas remained at high fire risk on Thursday, includ- ing greater Athens, Crete, the Cyclades islands and much of the Peloponnese, according to civil protection authorities. On the island of Lesbos, nearly 100 firefighters were still putting out flames that broke out near the town of Plomari. In the Pelopon- nese, a firefighter died on Wednesday on the sidelines of a blaze in the area of Gytheio. Much of Western Europe is in the grip of another spell of intense heat, the continent’s fourth since May. Officials have warned that a combination of prolonged dry weather, gusty winds, extreme temperatures and low humidity would significantly increase the
not discuss whether Poland had asked for official consultation with the entire alliance on how best to protect its territory. General Grynkewich “under- lined that NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to de- fend NATO territory,” Colonel O’Donnell said. The missile crashed just 31 miles south of where Mr. Tusk had met hours earlier with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Mr. Tusk, who traveled to the crater site to inspect the damage, said it was “an unusual co- incidence” that the missile had struck so close to the meeting. “We were ready to shoot down this missile if it continued its flight,” Mr. Tusk said. He had originally identified the missile as ballistic, but later said it was a cruise missile. In a statement, Poland’s mili- tary said it had been monitoring at least a dozen Russian missiles fly- ing over western Ukraine overnight, including what was de- scribed as “an object” that ap- proached the Polish border around 3:29 a.m. local time but then changed its direction and headed east. Around 10 minutes later, the military statement said, an un- identified object was detected in
a patchwork of air defenses to try to counter Russia’s attacks. Those include mobile teams firing aging machine guns at low-flying drones, small drones intercepting larger Russian drones, and fighter jets launching missiles at Russian cruise missiles. Russia’s ballistic missiles, how- ever, present a far greater chal- lenge that can be dealt with only by advanced systems such as the Patriot. This month, President Trump gave Ukraine permission to produce the Patriot intercep- tors under license. But experts say it will take time for Ukraine to start production. Ukraine is also
COSTAS METAXAKIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
risk that wildfires will spread and new ones will ignite. On Thursday, the European Forest Fire Information System said that “very extreme” fire dan- ger conditions — the highest cate- gory in its forecast — were ex- pected to dominate a large area of Western and Central Europe through Aug. 5. Britain and Ire- land were facing the same elevat- ed risk. In Scotland, firefighters have been battling a two-week confla- gration that has ripped through moorland and forest and de- stroyed cherished natural sce- nery. Large parts of central, east- ern and southern England were declared officially in drought on Wednesday. On Thursday, scores were evacuated from their homes in Suffolk as fire crews tackled a wildfire at Dunwich Heath. In France, Laurent Nuñez, the interior minister, told reporters
Polish airspace. Before an F-16 fighter jet that was scrambled could intercept it, however, the ob- ject disappeared from radar. The Polish authorities sent a helicop- ter crew to investigate and found what the military statement called “the probable crash site of the object” near the village of Tar- nawa Kolonia, in the southeastern Lublin Province. Poland’s defense minister, Wla- dyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, said on social media Thursday morning that it remained unclear what the object was or where it originated. He called the incident “an ex- tremely tough night for our air de- fense, observation and threat de- tection systems.” “Clarification is now underway regarding what type of object fell in the vicinity of the town of Tar- nawa Kolonia,” he said. The Ukrainian authorities used the event to press again for more deliveries of Western air defense systems to Ukraine, saying they could help defend European coun- tries from Russian attacks. “This is yet another clear dem- onstration that strengthening Ukraine’s air defense now is ur- gent and serves as a guarantee for the protection of the entire Euro- Atlantic community,” Mr. Sybiha said on social media.
A wildfire on Thursday on the Greek island of Crete, where two firefighters died battling a forest fire on Wednesday.
that the situation “remained com- plicated” and that no one should “let their guard down,” despite a slight improvement in weather conditions, with a rise in humidity and less wind. Overall, more than 14,000 fires have been reported since the start of summer, he said. Four fires are still active, Mr. Nuñez said, including a massive one in the Gironde area in the southwest. Firefighters there are focusing on treating the edges of the blaze and preventing embers from reigniting. The local prefect said that about 84,000 people who had been evacuated could return home, after more than 220,000 were forced to flee. Fires in Spain near Madrid have been largely stabilized, al- lowing almost all of the 60,000 people who had been displaced to return home. Prime Minister Pe- dro Sánchez declared an end to the national wildfire emergency in the area, returning responsibility for firefighting operations to re- gional authorities. Spanish fire- fighters have also managed to contain a blaze in Castellón Prov- ince, near Valencia. But officials have warned that high temperatures and low hu- midity could quickly ignite other blazes. New wildfires in Zamora and León, in northwestern Spain, have already forced hundreds of people to evacuate. “In any case, the emergency is not over,” Mr. Sánchez said.
ROMAN BALUK/REUTERS
From Farming Amplify Fires
By RAYMOND ZHONG
LONDON — The giant wildfires in France and Spain are the coun- tries’ largest on record, and at roughly 100,000 acres each, the blazes are bigger than all but six of last year’s wildfires in the Ameri- can West. Studies have shown that global warming is driving Southern Eu- rope’s recent increase in sprawl- ing, fast-moving fires that create their own weather and can be all but impossible to put out. But ex- perts say there’s another factor behind the continent’s large fires, one rooted in societal changes that could be hard to reverse. In parts of Europe, a genera- tional shift away from farming has replaced patchworks of pastures and plowed fields with untamed vegetation that burns intensely during hot, dry summers. “Climate change needs to be taken into account, but also the so- cial changes are very important,” said Emilio Chuvieco, a professor of geography at the University of Alcalá in Spain. “There is no sim- ple solution to big problems.” A recent report from Spain’s Royal Academy of Engineering described the situation in starker terms: The country, it said, is in a “new era of megafires.” “The long history of fires on Earth tells us that we cannot elim- inate them,” the report said. “In- stead, we must learn to coexist with them.” Industrial emissions are warm- ing the planet to levels without modern precedent and delivering more of the parched conditions that prime forests and grasslands to burn. The result in many re- gions has been colossal wildfires that destroy homes, ravage ecosystems and churn up smoke that wafts thousands of miles. “We’re seeing more extreme fire around the world,” said Jenni- fer K. Balch, a professor of geogra- phy at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We have essentially set the stage by warming our climate for more intense, large and faster- moving fires.” In Canada, the total area that fires burned in 2023 was seven times the historical average. In Brazil, blazes in 2024 tore through an area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of Belgium. In California, nine of the state’s 10 largest wildfires on record have occurred in the past decade. In Southern Europe, the recent jump in severe burning is all the more striking coming after nearly three decades in which the amount of land burned by wild- fires each year generally declined. After a series of devastating blazes in the late 1980s and the early ’90s, Spain and France took aggressive efforts to step up wild- fire prevention and suppression. They trained fire brigades and up- graded firefighting aircraft. The countries also embarked on public awareness campaigns and strengthened international col- laborations to manage wildfires. In recent years, however, rapid warming and drying seem to have overpowered those measures. In some places, firefighters’ success at snuffing out small fires may have even set the stage for larger ones by causing vegetation to build up and grow dense. “The success of suppression to- day does load the dice for bigger fires tomorrow,” said Park Williams, a professor of geogra- phy at the University of California, Los Angeles. In Spain, another reason wild- fire is rebounding is the depopula- tion of the countryside, Dr. Chu- vieco said. Gone are the people who once worked the land. With- out them, the shrubs, grasses and trees have become overgrown and interconnected, allowing wildfires to burn through easily. Bringing in more goats and sheep to graze on former pastures might be a part of the solution for Spain, Dr. Chuvieco said. “But you need people to take care of goats,” he added. And as Spain’s rural population ages, “there are not many.” European governments have options for encouraging people to manage the land more carefully, said Tiago Oliveira, a researcher in forest and wildfire governance at the University of Lisbon. They can help attract private funding for forest restoration projects us- ing new kinds of financing tools. They can also create incentives for bringing grazing lands back into use by promoting local cheese and meat. As fires worsen, more people will benefit from such initiatives, Dr. Oliveira said. “Urban people, they don’t want to suffer from smoke,” he said. And many city dwellers retain familial connec- tions to the countryside and want to see it cared for. Still, it is all too tempting for elected officials to respond to wildfires by spending more on air- craft and other “toys,” Dr. Oliveira said. On hot, windy days when a giant blaze is at full tilt, fire squads can do little but evacuate people and wait for the weather to change. “We don’t need more airplanes,” Dr. Oliveira said. “We need better policies, better incentives.”
Bordeaux Vineyards See One More Menace
And Drinking Ways Have Sapped Sector
By MARK LANDLER and GIULIA IMBERT
BORDEAUX, France — Draped in vines and flanked by half-timbered towers, the castle at Château Smith Haut Lafitte dates to 1365. It’s the kind of legacy that gives its proprietors a sense of permanence. But in the past week, a rampaging forest fire west of Bordeaux — one of the worst since World War II, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate — has burned to within 10 miles of the chateau’s meticulously tended vineyards. That has shaken both the chateau and Bordeaux’s wine- making industry, which was al- ready staggering under multiple burdens: drought, heat waves, weak sales because of changing drinking habits, and President Trump’s tariffs on French wine. “For the wine industry, it’s one thing on top of the other. It doesn’t make our lives very easy,” said Lu- dovic Fradin, the chateau’s man- aging director. “In the face of that risk, we need to be prepared.” Mr. Fradin, who works for the Cathiard family, which owns both the chateau and a vineyard in Cali- fornia’s Napa Valley, said he was less worried about the clouds of smoke from the fires that have re- cently blanketed the vineyard. Bordeaux’s flat landscape and shifting winds, he said, mean that the smoke gets blown away within a day or two. Fires in the Napa Valley are more damaging for vineyards because the smoke gets trapped between its two mountain ranges and can linger over the grapes. And there are no reports of vineyards being damaged by the fire so far, according to the Bordeaux Wine Council. Still, Mr. Fradin said, the chateau is preparing for a once unthinkable scenario in which a fire could reach its buildings. It has made plans to evacuate its an- imals, which include horses, chickens, goats, and llamas. The chickens and goats, he said, would
A helicopter aided the effort to contain a fire next to the Sizewell nuclear facility on Thursday.
Blaze Near Eastern England Nuclear Site
By STEPHEN CASTLE
LONDON — Dozens of people were evacuated from homes and vacation parks in eastern Eng- land on Thursday as fire crews tackled a wildfire around four miles from a nuclear power plant. The blaze began on Wednesday afternoon and engulfed almost 250 acres of land at Dunwich Heath in Suffolk, a scenic area of protected heathland on England’s eastern coast. Emergency responders de- clared it a major incident, which in Britain means an event with seri- ous consequences that require ex- traordinary measures by one or more agencies. The local fire service said that there was “no current risk” to the nearby nuclear plant, known as Sizewell B, because of the fire’s distance from it “and the direction it is traveling.” It added, “Howev- er, this is a live and dynamic situa- tion.” About 70 firefighters were ini- tially deployed on Wednesday. On Thursday, the fire service said that “firefighting operations have been strengthened in response to changing wind conditions,” that 18 fire vehicles were involved and that around 200 trailers at a vaca- tion park had been evacuated. No deaths or injuries have been reported. The Suffolk police urged people to avoid the area and a
be sheltered in the yard of his own house. “The animals are living breath- ing beings, unlike the vines,” Mr. Fradin said. “The vines are just material.” In the mythology of French wine, of course, vines are more than just material. They produce the grapes that make Bordeaux wines — the velvety cabernets and sweet Sauternes that have turned this part of France into a mecca for wine lovers, the home of world-famous appellations like Pomerol and St-Émilion. While experts say Mr. Fradin is right about the topography of Bor- deaux and how it differs from that of California, they say it is too soon to conclude that the smoke from the fires will not affect this year’s vintage. Much depends on timing. Re- search on how smoke exposure af- fects grapes has found that they are at highest risk between when they ripen, turning from green to red, and when they are harvested. The grapes at Château Smith Haut Lafitte have just turned: the ones used for white wine will be harvested in mid-August, the ones for red wine in early September. Even before the fires and clouds of smoke, this season was already shaping up as a small harvest, said Jane Anson, an author and wine columnist who lives in Bor- deaux. An extremely rainy winter was followed by record-breaking heat and very little rain, which has caused the grapes to ripen early. The climatic and economic chal- lenges have taken a heavy toll on Bordeaux’s winemakers, Ms. An- son said. “There is a human thing of having one more thing to battle against,” she said. “Like they needed this on top of everything else.” The winemakers are quick to note that their problems pale next to those of some of their neigh- bors. More than 220,000 people have been evacuated across the Gironde region, one of the largest peacetime evacuations in French history. Television footage shows that one village west of Bordeaux, Le Porge, has been ravaged by the fire, with 152 houses destroyed. Some vintners are doing what they can to help. Mr. Fradin said the chateau had filled several wa-
nearby beach as the blaze spread. The wildfire is one of around 200 to have broken out in England and Wales in the last two weeks amid warnings that the country is unprepared for the growing risk posed by a changing climate. In Scotland, emergency re- sponders are still battling a wild- fire that began more than two weeks ago at the Cairngorms Na- tional Park. After requesting help from the British military, the head of Scot- land’s government, First Minister John Swinney, said in a statement on Sunday that he had been told that the British defense ministry “does not possess aerial firefight- ing assets stationed within the U.K.,” raising concerns about Brit- ain’s readiness for increasingly severe wildfires. In Suffolk, the Fire and Rescue Service issued photos of their teams dousing scorched land as fire burned through vegetation. “Crews will continue to fight fire in the local area for the next probably 24 to 48 hours due to the size and complexity of the inci- dent we face, and we still are in a major incident,” Christopher May, a commander of the service, said in a statement on Thursday. EDF, the French energy com- pany that runs Sizewell B, said in a statement, “The fire at Dunwich Heath is not currently affecting
ter tanks to give firefighters a backup supply and made its four tractor drivers available for the firefighting effort. On Monday, President Emman- uel Macron of France visited Bor- deaux, meeting with firefighters and the local authorities. After- ward, he warned that the fire could take weeks to extinguish, and that the coming days would be difficult because temperatures are expected to rise to 37 degrees
operations at Sizewell B power station but we are continuing to monitor the situation — we are not on high alert.” In addition to Sizewell B, a new nuclear power plant called Sizewell C, which will be majority- owned by the British government, is being constructed in the area. A statement from Sizewell C said that it was “closely monitoring the fire” but that the flames currently posed a low risk to the plant be- cause of “its distance from the site and the watercourses in between.” On Wednesday, the envi- ronmental agency declared a drought in half of England, with millions of people asked to restrict their water use. In July, the coun- try received just 7 percent of ex- pected rainfall, the agency said, warning that there was no sub- stantial rain on the way. A drought was also declared across all of Wales on Thursday. On Wednesday, the London fire service said crews had attended 63 grass fires across the city within 24 hours. The exceptionally hot and dry summer has had other negative effects. On Thursday, the coun- try’s Health Security Agency esti- mated there were 2,877 deaths linked to the temperature during two heat waves in May and June, almost double the figure for all of 2025.
TOBY SHEPHEARD/REUTERS
Celsius on Tuesday and 41 on Wednesday — about 99 and 106 degrees Fahrenheit. “We are facing a fire unlike any- thing we have ever seen before,” Mr. Macron said to reporters. “The situation we’re in today is the most difficult we’ve ever re- corded, the most difficult since World War II.” For Gabriel Barre, a small wine- grower who, with his wife, Edith, produces 25,000 bottles a year of
A vineyard of Château Smith Haut Lafitte winery in Martillac, France, near Bordeaux. Left, Ludovic Fradin, the managing director, said of the fires, “It’s one thing on top of the other.”
merlot, cabernet franc and mal- bec, the fires are just another sign of how much the world has changed since he took over the op- eration from his father, Paul, in 2016. The smoke reached the Bar- res’ vineyard, Château la Grave, on the banks of the Dordogne River, about 15 miles from Bor- deaux. Mr. Barre, 44, said he wasn’t sure how it would affect his har- vest. “It could have a smoky taste,” he said with a smile. Other climatic changes, like the record heat, were already prob- lematic, he said. Higher tempera- tures produce grapes with higher sugar content. That makes it hard- er to produce the balanced taste of a classic Bordeaux wine. “Bordeaux wines are known for their balance,” Mr. Barre said. “But in recent years, we’ve been producing sun-drenched wines. What I mean by that is wines that burst on the palate — wines that are sweet, even too sweet.” For Mr. Barre, the economic and social trends are unforgiving. Bordeaux, he said, had an image of “luxury and snobbery.” It has
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DMITRY KOSTYUKOV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
not produced the kinds of boldly flavored, lower-priced bottles — “rock ’n’ roll wines,” he called them — that other regions of France do. Its stuffy appellations do not appeal to younger con- sumers, who, in any event, are drinking less than their parents did. As Mr. Barre spoke, his son Ar- sène carried out glasses for a wine tasting. His father looked at him ruefully. Burdened by debt and cli- mate-related challenges, Mr. Barre said this year’s harvest would be his last. He did not want to put his son in the position of having to take over a failing busi- ness. For Mr. Barre, who stamps the phrase “Made with Love” on ev- ery one of his labels, the fires are yet more evidence of a place and a time that are gone. “There has been a radical change in the wine- making world,” he said. “This year, it feels like we’re on another planet,” he said. “When we talk about it on the phone with our friends, we don’t want our kids to hear because it scares them.”
This article is by Vivian Nereim, Michael D. Shear and Thomas Fuller.
A resurgence of fighting in the war with Iran is expanding the scope of the conflict across the Middle East and further threat- ening shipments of oil and other products crucial to the global economy. With little sign of peace talks re- suming, a series array of attacks, including two consecutive nights of strikes between Iran and the United States, ended a short peri- od of relative calm — and entan- gled a growing list of U.S. allies in the conflict. Among them are Jor- dan and Saudi Arabia, which said it was now forming a military co- alition. As the scope of the fighting wid- ened, U.S. Central Command, which directs American forces in the region, said Thursday morn- ing that it had completed another wave of strikes on sites in Iran overnight, including military com- mand centers and missile and drone facilities. And the Jordanian military later said it had shot down five missiles launched from Iran.
Reporting was contributed by Eri- ka Solomon, Falih Hassan, Lynsey Chutel, Farnaz Fassihi, Leo Sands, Jenny Gross, Ismaeel Naar, Qasim Nauman, Zane Irwin, Peter Eavis and Pranav Baskar.
Iraq Militias Into War
By ERIKA SOLOMON and FALIH HASSAN
For months, the government in Baghdad has sought to curb the Iran-backed militias that have long operated in Iraqi territory, struggling to meet the Trump ad- ministration’s demands that it bring them under state control, disarm them and cut off their funding. A wave of U.S.-Saudi airstrikes that targeted the militias early Wednesday now risks upending those efforts. The attacks, which killed at least 20 people, have pro- vided a new justification for Iran’s allies in Iraq to hold on to their arms and claim that they are the forces best positioned to protect the country’s sovereignty. And for Iran, the violence presents a chance to encourage these allied militias to join the regional war. “The era of shedding Iraqi blood with impunity is over,” Mo- hammad Tamimi, leader of the Iran-aligned militia al-Waad al- Sadeq, said. “Our response will not be mere statements. It will be actions on the ground to enforce the equation: a bombing for a bombing.” Iraqi political leaders on Wednesday questioned the wis- dom of the sweeping attack, which was carried out, they said, without coordinating with the Baghdad government. In a statement, Iraq’s National Security Council vowed to try to rein in the militias on its own. It condemned the vio- lation by the United States and Saudi Arabia of Iraqi sovereignty and warned the airstrikes could stoke further chaos. Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraq has struggled to balance the interests of its superpower ally, the United States, and those of neighboring Iran, the regional Shiite Muslim power. Iran sup- ported militias from Iraq’s Shiite majority that fought the U.S. occu- pation, and the Iran-backed forces also helped draw Iraq into dec- ades of sectarian bloodshed, which has only recently ebbed.
come incredibly fragmented, and that’s certainly the case even more since this war,” he said. “The more the U.S. attacks these groups, the more that fragments chains of command and coherent structures, leading to more rogue groups and actions.” Iran has for decades relied on supporting a proliferation of mili- tant groups “that deliberately ob- scures who is pulling the trigger,” said Ramzy Mardini, the founder of Geopol Labs, a Middle East- based geopolitical risk advisory firm. The country that may stand to lose the most from the con- frontation is Saudi Arabia, he said. “Saudi Arabia has unwisely giv- en Iran more room to escalate by proxy under the cover of defense while advancing its overall objec- tive of disrupting global oil sup- plies,” he said. “The Iranian- linked groups in Iraq are more than capable of wreaking havoc on Saudi energy infrastructure.” Ismaeel Naar contributed report- ing
and ERNESTO LONDOÑO No contamination is evident, but a hack exposes vulnerability.
WASHINGTON — Investiga- tors believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal wa- ter systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials and others familiar with the matter, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precar- ious moment in the U.S. war against Iran. Officials cautioned that they had not definitively determined who was responsible for the at- tack and that the preliminary as- sessment could change as the au- thorities collected more technical data. They also warned that the hack- ers could be attempting to pose as Iran-based in an effort to ratchet up tensions between the coun- tries, though former intelligence officials said such a scenario was
Egypt, too, has now been di- rectly touched by the war for the first time since the United States and Israel launched it in February. On Thursday, the Egyptian au- thorities said that an unidentified drone had set off an explosion at the Mediterranean port of Dami- etta the previous day. Two ships there, including a U.S.-owned gas storage tanker, caught fire at the port, exposing a new vulnerability for Middle East shipping tied to the conflict. At a news conference at the Oval Office on Wednesday, Presi- dent Trump implied that Iran was responsible for the attack, without offering details. Hours later, U.S. Central Command said it had com- pleted what it called a “heavy wave of strikes” on sites in Iran. Those strikes came a day after Saudi Arabia said its warplanes had joined U.S. forces to attack Iranian-linked militias in Iraq. It was the first time Saudi authori- ties publicly acknowledged direct involvement in the war. Diplomats said Thursday that the military coalition the Saudi government is seeking to form would protect shipping in the Red Sea in a response to recent attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen, who are allied with Iran, on Saudi tankers there. Iranian strikes have already brought traffic in another impor- tant waterway, the Strait of Hor-
That balancing act has grown increasingly fraught in the past year, as the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Iraq to curb the Iran-aligned militias. The war launched by the United States and Israel on Iran in Febru- ary quickly turned Iraq into one of the conflict’s battlegrounds. The U.S. military said the joint strikes on Wednesday were retali- ation for 72 hours of drone attacks on “U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure” originating in Iraq. So far, the source of those at- tacks remains unclear. No group has claimed responsibility for them, and Iran’s militia allies in Iraq have publicly said they were not behind them. The groups had previously been quick to take credit for attacks in the region, be- fore the April cease-fire between Washington and Tehran that briefly paused the war. But since the resumption of hostilities, the militias have not claimed respon- sibility for attacks outside Iraq. By contrast, the Houthis, Iran- backed militants who control large parts of Yemen, have pub- licly declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia and repeatedly struck at Saudi oil tankers. The Houthis have also taken responsibility for drone attacks on Saudi energy in- stallations, including on the day that Saudi Arabia accused Iraqi militias of striking them. Sabah al-Numan, a spokesman for Iraq’s army chief, said the U.S.- Saudi strikes had “obstructed in- vestigation efforts regarding the alleged targeting of Saudi Arabia.” He demanded evidence that the attacks on Saudi Arabia had come from Iraq and said none had been provided yet. The Iraqi militias had kept rela- tively quiet over the past month, despite the war re-emerging in the region, as Iraq’s newly appointed prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, sought to address the Trump ad- ministration’s demands that the Iran-aligned groups be disarmed. In recent years, the groups ap- peared to operate more independ- ently of Iran, steadily amassing wealth and power by forming po-
unlikely. Local officials reported that the well and treatment plant in at least one city was temporarily off- line on Monday, while other cities in the state had to use manual workarounds to cope with at- tempted attacks on automated op- erations. There were no indications that any water supply had been ren- dered unsafe to drink. Even with its limited impact, the hack — if confirmed to be linked to Tehran — comes at a sen- sitive time as direct fighting be- tween the United States and Iran has resumed in the Middle East. Three state officials briefed on the investigation into the breach said the tradecraft used, and the absence of a ransom demand, had led analysts to tentatively con- clude that it was the work of Irani- an hackers. Those officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing criminal in- vestigation. “The F.B.I. is aware of the inci- dent and in contact with victims to resolve the matter,” said Matthew
A commercial vessel off Yemen’s Hanish Island in the Red Sea.
muz, to a near standstill. And the strike on the Egyptian port raised concerns that another vital transit point, the Suez Canal, might also be at risk. The Saudi kingdom said Thurs- day that so far, 14 countries had agreed to join its maritime coali- tion. Underscoring the war’s dam- age, Saudi Arabia’s economy shrank by almost 5 percent in the second quarter, compared with the same period last year, accord- ing to preliminary data released by the kingdom on Thursday. It is unclear how the new coali-
A funeral for those killed in airstrikes on bases belonging to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, in Mosul on Wednesday.
litical parties and obtaining lucra- tive Iraqi government posts and contracts. But Renad Mansour, an Iraq an- alyst at the London-based Chat- ham House, said Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has stepped up its involve- ment in the activities of Iraqi mili- tias in recent months. The war with the United States, he said, has prompted Iran to exert more control over them. Evidence of Iranian involve- ment has emerged in the after- math of the latest airstrikes. Im- ages released by Sabereen News, an agency linked to Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia, showed five coffins wrapped in Iranian flags during a funeral procession on Wednesday. One Iraqi militia com- mander privately said those slain were Iranian military advisers killed at an intelligence headquar- ters for the 24th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the
Vogel, a spokesman for the bu- reau, which declined to comment further. While the investigation contin- ued, former officials and cyber- security experts said they ex- pected the suspicions about Iran’s involvement would only grow stronger. “Almost every initial assump- tion of attribution turns out to be true,” said Cynthia Kaiser, a for- mer senior F.B.I. official who over- saw investigations into cyber- attacks attributed to foreign gov- ernments. Several clues pointed to Iran in this instance, Ms. Kaiser said, including that it appeared fo- cused on disruption rather than fi- nancial gain, and that Tehran has demonstrated a recent interest in targeting the U.S. water supply. John Israel, Minnesota’s chief information security officer, said that hackers targeted roughly 36 municipal water systems in the state as part of a breach that was first detected on Sunday. The first report prompted state officials to warn municipalities with similar vulnerabilities to be
KHALED ZIAD/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
tion would differ from a current European Union operation to pro- tect Red Sea shipping, known as Operation Aspides. Saudi Arabia has invited European countries to join the new group, as well as the United States, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and dozens of other na- tions, one of the diplomats said. The urgency of the Saudi initia- tive appears to signal the dissatis- faction of the kingdom’s leaders with existing protective measures against the Houthis. On July 20, the Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi vessels transiting the Red Sea. The militant group has
network of militias under govern- ment control. There had been growing popu- lar pressure in Iraq for the militias to heed calls to disarm, but the strikes on Wednesday turned the tables on the government. In joint public statements, the Iran-aligned militias skewered the government for demanding they disarm while failing on its part to prevent violations of Iraqi sovereignty. The groups gave the Iraqi gov- ernment a “deadline” of Tuesday to take decisive action, warning that otherwise, they would take matters into their own hands, without detailing what action they might take. “Our response to the American enemy is inevitable and will come,” the statement said, “and we may target its tools in Saudi Arabia if the situation de- mands it.” Two Iraqi militia leaders said privately that the deadline was
on alert, which enabled a swift re- sponse, Mr. Israel said. The hack- ers targeted infrastructure used to remotely manage and monitor water towers maintained by mu- nicipal governments. “Minnesota was one of the early detectors of this, but we’re seeing that this same threat activity has likely been occurring in other states throughout the nation,” he said. Mr. Israel said that as of Wednesday afternoon, there had been no indication that any of the breaches contaminated or dis- rupted water delivery. Iran has targeted the United States with an increased barrage of cyberattacks since the war be- gan in February, with limited suc- cess. One notable exception was a
since claimed attacks on several ships and has not backed down even after Saudi Arabia bombed Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen. Earlier in the conflict, after Iran all but shut down shipping in and out of the Persian Gulf, Saudi Ara- bia sought to bypass it by pump- ing oil across the desert to a port on the Red Sea. But the attacks over the past two weeks have forced tankers carrying Saudi oil to Asia to adopt a different ap- proach. Now, nearly half of the Saudi crude exported through the Red Sea is taking the longer and more expensive route through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea and around the southern tip of Africa, according to Windward, a mari- time data agency. The drone attack at Damietta has exposed vulnerabilities to that shipping route as well. Although the strike did not ap- pear to directly disrupt traffic to the Suez Canal, two Iranians, who asked not to be named to discuss security matters, said on Wednes- day that it was meant to show that global shipping and energy sup- plies could be disrupted further if Iran chose to escalate. The Irani- ans did not say whether Iran or one of its allies had carried out the strike. About 10 percent of seaborne trade moves through the Suez,
meant as a challenge. They knew Iraqi officials could not act force- fully against the United States or Saudi Arabia. By claiming to give Iraqi authorities a chance to re- spond first, the militias may not only be trying to justify future re- taliation but also their refusal to disarm. “If the government fails to fulfill its duty, the patriotic Iraqi people must demand that the govern- ment’s weapons be placed exclu- sively in the hands of the resist- ance,” Abu Mahdi al-Jaafari, the spokesman for the Iran-allied mi- litia Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said in a statement. The Iraqi groups have varied agendas, and some are more in- clined to take confrontational ac- tion. Mr. Mansour, of Chatham House, said U.S. and Israeli efforts in recent years to kill many of the groups’ leaders has made track- ing their activities more difficult. “The Iraqi militia space has be-
hack in March on Stryker, a major medical equipment supplier, which caused a temporary com- panywide shutdown. Other cyberactivity conducted by Iran against the United States has risen to the level of nuisance more than alarm. For example, a group affiliated with Iranian intel- ligence took responsibility for the release of emails and photographs stolen from a personal account of Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director. Nick Andersen, the acting di- rector of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said on Wednesday that the agency was aware of “multiple po- tential incidents affecting local water utilities.” Mr. Andersen did not comment on who was responsible but re- ferred to a recent cybersecurity advisory updated by the agency just days before the Minnesota at- tack began. It warned that “Irani- an-affiliated cyberactors” were at- tempting to break into operational technology devices to potentially disrupt critical infrastructure in the United States, including in wa-
with about 50 ships passing through the 120-mile canal each day, according to the Suez Canal Authority, an Egyptian govern- ment agency. In addition to the threats to shipping, the war is destabilizing the fragile domestic power bal- ances inside countries like Iraq. For months, the government in Baghdad has sought to curb Irani- an-backed militias that have long operated in Iraqi territory, strug- gling to meet the Trump adminis- tration’s demands that it bring them under control. But the wave of U.S.-Saudi airstrikes that tar- geted the militias early Wednes- day may upend those efforts. Iraqi political leaders on Wednesday questioned the wis- dom of the sweeping attack, which killed at least 20 people and was carried out, they said, without co- ordination with the Baghdad gov- ernment. The attacks may offer a new jus- tification for Iran’s allies in Iraq to hold on to their arms and to claim that they are the forces best posi- tioned to protect the country’s sovereignty. And for Iran, the strikes offered a chance to encour- age its allies in Iraq to join the broader war. “The era of shedding Iraqi blood with impunity is over,” said Mohammad Tamimi, the leader of one Iranian-aligned militia, al- Waad al-Sadeq.
HADI MIZBAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ter and wastewater systems. Cybersecurity experts have long said that U.S. water systems, which tend to be old and under- funded, were vulnerable to digital disruption. Nate George, the mayor of Bra- ham, Minn., a small city 65 miles north of Minneapolis, said public works personnel noted early Mon- day that the well that feeds the city’s water tower was malfunc- tioning. “Public works isolated the af- fected system, restored a backup and restarted the plant within ap- proximately 90 minutes,” Mr. George said in a statement. The city briefly urged residents to con- serve water but promptly lifted that advisory. “This attack on critical public infrastructure should be a warn- ing to policymakers in St. Paul,” Mr. George wrote. “Minnesota’s local governments are expected to defend essential systems against foreign adversaries and sophisticated criminals, often with limited staff, aging technol- ogy and inadequate resources.”
At Pioneer Plus in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, a private table with hookah, imported fruit and pyramids of frosted shot glasses can be booked by those who can afford a diversion from civil war.
War Ravages a Nation, But for the Wealthy, The Party Never Ends
fected by the conflict, which has turned more than half the coun- try into a battlefield but has largely spared the cities. Half the population is now impoverished. Drones, fighter jets and land mines bring horror to civilians. A military draft applies to both men and women. The Myanmar government is again an interna- tional pariah, just like it was during earlier decades of mili- tary rule. But even in war, life goes on. The partying class must party, and their consumption is con- spicuous. International sanctions im- posed by Western governments on military leaders and their business cronies — weapons dealers, drug lords, natural re- source magnates, middlemen for Chinese enterprises — may have halted shopping jaunts to New York, Paris and London. Still, there’s always Dubai, Shanghai and Bangkok. Yone Lay — the stage name means Little Bunny — is a regu- lar at Pioneer Plus, which is in a tony district of Yangon, Myan- mar’s largest city. He raps (“Stupid,” “Someone Who Was Unlucky in Love”), he acts (“Original Gangster,” “Under- ground”) and he lends his star power to military galas. He once made a music video praising U Min Aung Hlaing, the former military chief who orchestrated the coup five years ago and became Myanmar’s president in April. When Mr. Yone Lay saunters into the nightclub, entourage in tow, security guards envelop him like a sheath of fine Myanmar silk. The cordon isn’t for show. Some celebrities who publicly cast their lot with the junta, rather than protesting the mili- tary’s killing of unarmed pro- testers, have found themselves targets of urban guerrillas. In 2023, one of Mr. Yone Lay’s ac- quaintances, Daw Lily Naing Kyaw, a singer who socialized with the generals, was killed by a bullet to the head in Yangon. Months before, Mr. Yone Lay was accosted by a man with a knife but escaped injury. A year later, a bomb exploded in his vehicle. No one was in the car at the time. “Those people, they want to show that if you’re famous and connected to the military, we can kill you,” Mr. Yone Lay said one
recent evening. “From the out- side, people don’t realize that people like me are also op- pressed.” Mr. Yone Lay, 40, said that it is easy to forget how much Myan- mar has changed during his lifetime. Less than two decades ago, there was almost no inter- net. In secret, Mr. Yone Lay listened to Eminem, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on bootlegged cas- sette tapes. But the advent of economic and political reforms in the 2010s, including elections in 2015 that ushered in a semi- civilian government, seemed to modernize the nation at warp speed. Mr. Yone Lay rapped about his concerns of that era: “Girls and parties and bling bling.” Now, he said, his worries are existential. He travels with body- guards. The stress, he said, makes decompressing at the blingiest nightclubs mandatory. “We have to find ways to be happy,” Mr. Yone Lay said. “Why can’t we just love all our leaders and live peacefully?” Yangon, buzzing during the reform years with new construc- tion and advertisements for investment opportunities and business English classes, has largely reverted to a state of decay. Western businesses have mostly left; billboards that once showed off American soft drinks and German sedans now display local instant coffee mixes and bathroom piping. Still, with enough squinting or blinkering, it is possible to pre- tend that life in Yangon is not so different from before the coup, at least for a privileged set. At The Yangon Restaurant, partly owned by the son of Mr. Min Aung Hlaing, the menu is showy European and studded with foie gras and caviar. With enough advance notice, a maître d’ said, a sommelier can be flown in from Singapore. On their social media accounts, Ma Christina Lim, 36, and her husband, Ko Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe, 38, parade their fabulous lifestyles in Yangon and beyond, at Club Med in the Maldives, at the Great Wall in China. There are color-coordinated outfits in leather and velvet, plus more than 200 brand collaborations with the likes of Samsung, Carls- berg and a local yacht club. On YouTube, Facebook and Insta- gram — the latter two are offi- cially banned in Myanmar, re-
Half of Myanmar’s people are poor, but the war has largely spared the cities, and the consumption at Pioneer Plus is conspicuous.
The performer Yone Lay, whose stage name means Little Bunny, is a Pioneer Plus regular who directed a pro-military video, left.
Western businesses have mostly left, and billboards in Yangon no longer tend to display their brands.
quiring VPNs to access — the couple has garnered millions of views for baby gender reveals (a popped balloon cascading pink confetti for their firstborn, a girl) and photos with celebrities who are tight with Mr. Min Aung Hlaing’s family. “Our content, we like to stick to positivity, like positive vibes only,” Ms. Lim said. “You want viewers to feel good after watch- ing our videos.” In the days after the coup, Ms. Lim, like many members of Myanmar’s English-speaking jet set, posted photos on social me- dia of the couple joining the protesters who peacefully marched to oppose the military intervention. Millions of people had taken to the streets nation- wide to support the ousted civil- ian leader, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. Within weeks, the military began killing protesters by gun-
shot — as well as children who happened to be nearby — and jailing dissenters. An armed resistance coalesced in the rain- forests of Myanmar’s border- lands. Celebrities and influencers decried the military’s deadly crackdown. Ms. Lim posted on Facebook, the couple’s hands forming the three-finger gesture of resistance and memorializing “the martyrs who will never be able to return home.” Then, the couple went silent. In early 2022, in their first post since Myanmar’s civil war flared, Ms. Lim and Mr. Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe celebrated their wedding anniversary, outfitted in match- ing crimson. In the years since, the pair, whose families made their fortunes in real estate, paper, imported vehicles and cold storage, has eschewed poli- tics, instead gushing over luxury cars, breast pumps and Ameri- can vitamin gummies. They extol
A Ferrari in Yangon. The city has reverted to decay, but it’s possi- ble to pretend life here has changed little since before the coup.
the best dishes at the best French restaurant in town. They lavish attention on a French bulldog named Blue, as well as their two children. “I feel like what happened happened,” said Ms. Lim, refer- ring to the coup and its violent aftermath. She acknowledged that “it’s dark” — but because of chronic electricity shortages. “At the same time,” she added, “people are just going to work regularly, going to school regu- larly.” Even their mundane posts attract big audiences, but per- haps that’s the point. A Facebook video in which Mr. Thu Rayn Kyaw Moe inexpertly fried eggs and boiled instant noodles re- ceived 1.1 million views. The coup and civil war have thrown into relief the choices of Myanmar’s rich. In Mandalay, the nation’s second-largest city, the Chinese traders who once
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL BEREHULAK/THE NEW YORK TIMES
came for jade and other jewels are mostly gone. Occasionally, handmade bombs target military officers or people considered accomplices to the regime. Still, Ma May Nwe Htun, an actor, singer and social influenc- er better known as Sweet, said she had no interest in escaping Myanmar, where her family owns a gold business. Many friends have left for safer lives overseas, she said, but this is home, with its bustling teahouses and golden pagodas. “We gotta have fun, baby,” Ms. May Nwe Htun said. “We have to do our best if we want to stay in the country we love.” One recent evening, she threw a birthday party for her teenage son, who goes to an international school that has now lost most of its international students. There was a basketball-themed cake and a band of transgender enter- tainers. Overhead, in the hot, dark sky, fighter jets roared past on sorties to rebel-held territory, where civilians are terrorized by airstrikes. By the river in Man- dalay, the thud of the bombing campaigns echoes in the night. Back in Yangon, at Pioneer Plus, the singer-girlfriend of Mr. Yone Lay, the rapper, downed shot after shot. A member of an ethnic minority group that has a large militia at war with the Myanmar military, she is afraid, she said, of being targeted as a turncoat for dating a musician close to the army regime. She spoke to The New York Times on the condition that her name not be used. “The people outside, they only know that the military kills, they only know one side,” she said. “I just want to be an artist, not a businessman or politician.” She stood up unsteadily, the alcohol muddling her move- ments. Her friends linked their arms with hers, supporting her. “Let’s dance,” she said, reach- ing out a manicured hand, her mascara smudged from earlier tears. “Let’s forget everything.”
Workers gathered up a whale named Bertie Botts for transporta- tion away from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, last week.
A Lift to New Homes In the U.S. and Spain
da last week on the first transfer flight — four to the Shedd Aquar- ium in Chicago and two to Sea- World San Antonio — with 24 more expected to be transported in the coming weeks. Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, SeaWorld San Diego and Oceanogràfic València in Spain will also receive belugas. The Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut is helping with the transports. Dan Ashe, the president and chief executive of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, called the rescues “unprecedented.” “It’s a rescue like other rescues in that you have animals that are potentially in compromised posi- tions and need specialized care,” he said. “But 30 beluga whales? I’m not aware of anything on that scale.” The animals come from Ma- rineland, an aquatic park in Niag- ara Falls, Ontario, which closed to the public in 2024 after dwindling ticket sales and accusations of ani- mal abuse, which it has denied. The animals have remained in the care of the aquarium’s staff, some of whom have worked with the animals for decades. Planning for the transfers be- gan in January, when veterinari- ans and marine mammal special- ists from the U.S. facilities visited Marineland for an assessment. Todd Robeck, vice president for conservation and animal health at SeaWorld Parks and Entertain- ment, said the whales were found to be in good health, despite a leaky facility. The whales, ages 8 to 30, ranged from 1,000 pounds to 3,000 pounds and from 12 feet to 16 feet long. A group of experts from partici- pating aquariums worked with Marineland’s staff to get to know the whales — their medical histo- ries, their personalities, their so- cial pods — and assess how they
By JACK NICAS
HAVANA — Since a band of rebels led by Fidel Castro pushed out Cuba’s dictator in 1959, the is- land’s government has largely been defined by its defiance of its far larger neighbor to the north — and its ability to survive the in- tense pressure that friction has provoked. But the current U.S. campaign, led by an effective oil blockade, is the most intense in a half-century. And it is pushing the Cuban gov- ernment to the brink. Tourism has cratered. The ener- gy grid collapsed three times over nine days this month. And other than a single Russian oil tanker in March, Cuba’s allies have not been willing to test President Trump’s order that no fuel be delivered to the island. Yet, more than six months later, the government is still intact, and Cubans are finding ways to get by. This month, we visited Cuba on the first journalism visa granted to The New York Times in nearly eight years. In Havana, I inter- viewed Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, one of the Communist gov- ernment’s interlocutors with the United States. He said Cuba’s main strategy to escape the Trump administra- tion’s ire was to enact a series of economic policy changes, includ- ing opening the country to foreign investment. Mr. Trump could even invest himself, Mr. Fernández de Cossío said. White House and State Depart- ment spokespeople called Cuba a national security threat and ac- cused it of harboring terrorists, which Cuba denies. They blamed Cuba for the energy crisis, saying it sold off fuel to enrich elites and failed to maintain its electric grid. And they said Cuba’s political and economic system are broken and must change, though U.S. officials have not clarified what would be required to lift the blockade. The two sides acknowledge that their talks have made little progress. Many people, especially Cubans, are now watching closely
CARLOS OSORIO/THE CANADIAN PRESS, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
would get along with existing whales at the aquariums. It took weeks to book a charter flight, a Boeing 777 cargo plane with Qatar Airways. “You can’t go onto a website and pick a route,” Dr. Robeck noted. Three trucks were booked to bring the six whales to and from the airports. Permits were ob- tained, and the same group of ex- perts returned a week before the planned departure with all the necessary equipment. Then, everything had to be timed perfectly to limit disrup- tions to the whales. About eight to 10 people were in the water at Ma- rineland to help corral them onto stretchers. The whales were then lifted by a crane and placed in their secure transport boxes and given anti- anxiety medicine for the trip ahead. Once all the whales were loaded, the police escorted them and their human rescuers to the airport, allowing them to make one uninterrupted trip and elimi- nate stops during which the water might slosh around. Staff members monitored the water temperature and the whales’ breathing and skin, la- dling water over them to make sure they stayed wet and cold. “They’re floating in water a bit and the stretcher is floating in the water and so sometimes they get out of position,” Dr. Robeck said. “You physically have to get in there and kind of move around a bit to get them back so they’re more comfortable.” In Chicago, customs agents boarded the planes to inspect the equipment and animals and check the passports of the human care- givers. The four Chicago-bound whales were offloaded, and the two other whales continued on to San Antonio. From Marineland to San Anto- nio, the entire process took about 15 hours.
for signs of what is next. This interview was edited for clarity. The Trump administration seems to be demanding changes to Cuba’s political system. Your government has said that is not on the table. What is? I can be sure that the govern- ment of the United States would not negotiate its Constitution and political system with another gov- ernment. So there should be no surprise that Cuba is not ready to discuss its internal political issues with the United States. So what is the Cuban strategy then? We introduced some changes in our economy a few weeks back. We believe they can allow us to cope. Yet, if the United States is trying to provoke humanitarian difficul- ties in Cuba, unfortunately it has the power to. There’s nothing Cuba can do. And if they lead to military ac- tion against Cuba, we will suffer thousands of deaths. Probably there will be a blood bath in Cuba. There will also be deaths of young Americans. But after all this damage is caused, what is the goal gained by the United States? That is where we believe there should be some common sense within the Ameri- can people. Russia delivered a single tanker of fuel in March, but no other country has challenged Trump’s threats to not ship fuel to Cuba. Where are your allies? The coercive arm of the United States has proved to be very suc- cessful. To tell a European, a Latin American, an Asian company that you cannot export your national resources to Cuba, it’s a new world order. Do you expect more oil coming from Russia, Mexico or Brazil? We do expect some oil to come from some part of the world. We believe that the capacity of the United States to isolate Cuba and deprive countries of their right to export their own products cannot
“Who isn’t mystified by a belu- ga?” asked Charlie Jacobsma, the director of animal behavior and training at Shedd Aquarium, who described belugas as feeling “like a hot dog and a marshmallow combined.” Belugas, which are known as the canary of the sea because of their constant vocalization, are very expressive, Mr. Jacobsma said. This is not the first time these organizations have worked to- gether on a rescue mission. The teams transferred two beluga whales from Kharkiv, Ukraine, to the aquarium in Valencia in 2024. A confluence of circumstances preceded these rescues. Marineland, once a popular
tourist destination, asked the fed- eral government for financial help and approval to export the ani- mals to a theme park in China. Canada initially denied the re- quest until Marineland threat- ened to euthanize the whales. The government endorsed the transfers to the United States in January and to Spain in June. Canada banned the breeding of captive whales and dolphins for entertainment purposes in 2019 “to ensure that the current gener- ation is the last one to suffer in tiny tanks,” said Kaitlyn Mitchell, the director of legal advocacy at Animal Justice, an animal law group in Canada. The group had hoped that Ma- rineland would transfer some of
GEORGIA AQUARIUM, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
the belugas to a sanctuary in Can- ada that is still under construc- tion. The “least worst option” would be transferring them to the United States, with conditions that re- stricted further breeding, but that does not appear to be a stipula- tion, she said. “This is taking a problem that existed in Canada and allowing that problem to continue in an- other jurisdiction,” she said. Kayley Galassini, the director of public relations for Shedd Aquar- ium, said breeding was not the aquarium’s focus. “Right now, our entire focus is on helping the res- cued belugas settle in safely,” she said. Marineland did not respond to a
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LISETTE POOLE GONZÁLEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
BRENNA HERNANDEZ/SHEDD AQUARIUM, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
A whale arriving in Chicago, above. A Shedd Aquarium worker described belugas as feeling “like a hot dog and a marshmallow combined.”
request for comment. It was not immediately clear how much the rescues would cost, but Mr. Ashe said Marineland, the Canadian government and the re- ceiving aquariums were all split- ting the bill. SeaWorld said it ex- pected the cost to be in the mil- lions. Dr. Robeck at SeaWorld said while the teams learned much about the whales ahead of their moves, “there are still many gaps in our knowledge about the health, well-being and overall con- dition of the whales.” SeaWorld San Antonio is ex- pected to receive 11 more belugas, for a total of 13 from the rescue. Shedd Aquarium will take a total of 10. SeaWorld San Diego is ex- pected to receive three and Geor- gia Aquarium will get two. Oceanogràfic València, the largest aquarium in Europe, will get two, pending permits. With its new additions, Shedd Aquarium’s total count of belugas will rise to 18. The aquarium said that its 3-million-gallon, 30-foot- deep habitat can accommodate them all. So far, the newly arrived whales, Acadia, Lillooet, Osiris and Sierra, are doing very well at Shedd. “They are just rubbing at each other constantly and getting affili- ated with each other,” Mr. Jacob- sma said. “We’re seeing so many positive signs that really keeps us very cautiously optimistic about how they’re doing and how they are progressing here.”
be forever. Trump has discussed “taking Cuba.” Is Cuba preparing militari- ly? It’s absurd. What excuse can there be to carry out a military ac- tion that will cause death and de- struction against a peaceful coun- try? Now, regardless of how irration- al it is, we would be naïve if we did not prepare ourselves, if we did not update our military strategy, which is based on the involvement of the population as a whole. We understand the asymmetric reali- ty in terms of technology and fire- power, but our people will defend our country. We have weekly preparations for that. There have been reports that an Emirati developer is building a luxury resort on a Cuban island and wants to pitch it to the Trump Organization as Trump Island. Is the Cuban government entertain- ing a Trump Organization project on Cuban soil? We’re not entertaining specifi- cally, I would say, anything like that. But we are trying to attract foreign investment from any country. And that does not ex- clude the United States. Does it exclude President Trump? If he wants to do it peacefully, we see no specific reason to ex- clude. Have you heard of this Trump Island proposal on this part of Cuba? I saw the news. There are many developments there already in place and some projected, and we’ve presented this to business people in several parts of the world. If somebody comes and says they have connections with important business people in the United States, we’re ready to en- gage. If it’s with the Trump admin- istration, in principle, there’s no reason for us to say no. What prohibits Donald Trump from investing in Cuba are U.S. laws. We don’t exclude him or his organization from doing business in Cuba, if it does it respecting Cu- ban laws.
A nearly 500,000-square-foot warehouse burst into flames on June 17, blanketing the Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles neighborhoods in smoke for days.
Are Still ‘Living in Hell’ After Warehouse Fire
By ORLANDO MAYORQUÍN and ANA FACIO-KRAJCER
LOS ANGELES — More than a month after a fire ripped through an enormous cold-storage warehouse in Los Angeles, residents who live nearby say they have found little respite from the endless stench of rotting food and are anxious about the dangers that may still be lurk- ing in their homes. The nearly 500,000-square-foot facili- ty, operated by a company called Lin- eage Logistics, burst into flames on June 17, blanketing the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles in thick smoke for days. Amid the disaster, the roughly 85 million pounds of beef, pork, poultry and seafood stored inside the warehouse began to rot, spreading foul odors throughout the area. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles has given Lineage until Aug. 13 to clean up the site, and the company said it was working to meet that deadline. But more than that, many residents blame the gov- ernment for botching its response to the fire, providing inadequate answers and resources in the aftermath. The fire’s cause remains under investigation. The stench has been described as a pungent mix of mold and dead animal, at- tracting swarms of rats and bottle flies, which are drawn to rotting meat. “It’s like living in hell,” said Aurora Flo- res, 56, who lives with her husband near the warehouse. “We feel like we’re being asphyxiated.” Lineage said on Wednesday that it had finished hauling out about 60 percent of the waste. But there was renewed out- rage toward the company this week after city records showed that a permit was submitted to rebuild the fire-damaged portions of the warehouse. The permit, filed on Monday, noted that there would be “no change to building footprint, square footage, height, use, or occupan- cy.” Mayor Bass on Tuesday called the move a “slap in the face” to the communi- ty, and has said that the city would con- sider taking legal action should Lineage fail to meet her August deadline. The mayor and other officials have sought to re-examine the future of the property in the wake of the disaster. And some neighbors, like Mrs. Flores, have already begun suggesting alternatives. “We want them to take the Lineage warehouse down,” Mrs. Flores said, “and replace it with green space, a park for kids and the community.” In a statement, Lineage said the per- mit was “normal course in the repair process and will not impact or distract us from the important work of cleanup.” It added: “Cold-storage facilities are criti- cal infrastructure that keep food moving from farms to ports to grocery stores across Los Angeles. Communities around the region have depended on them for over 100 years.” Most of the community outrage, though, has been directed at the govern- ment’s response from the very first day of the fire. Residents were not told to evacuate, even as the smoke darkened the skies and shrouded their homes. City and county government officials subsequently distributed masks and air purifiers in the area and set up mobile clinics for people with symptoms to get checkups. Yet some people reported be-
ing denied the purifiers and masks be- cause they lived in the wrong jurisdiction — Boyle Heights is part of the city and East Los Angeles is in the county — or because another tenant or family living at the same address had already claimed the assistance. Many residents in the largely working- class, Latino neighborhoods say they have been forced to pay higher utility bills as they constantly run air purifiers. Some have even taken to wearing masks indoors. Adelita Lopez, 60, who struggles with emphysema and was rushed to the emer- gency room in the early days of the fire, lives in a cramped apartment with her mother just feet from the warehouse. She has had to rely on her oxygen tank more than usual to breathe and has resorted to sleeping on the floor where, somehow, the odor is less pungent. Before the fire, Mrs. Flores said, she would wake up in the morning to the sound of the chirping birds that lived in several fruit trees in her backyard. Now, she said, they’ve all disappeared. “The birds are gone, but now we have cockroaches and a lot of flies, something we didn’t have before.” Mrs. Flores said that she and her husband often drove miles away and spent hours at a park or
GABRIELA BHASKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
eating out to get away from the stench. In a statement on Wednesday, Mayor Bass acknowledged the anger directed at the government. “We understand residents’ frustration, and from the very beginning my priority has been protecting public health and supporting the recovery of the Boyle Heights community,” she said, pointing to relief programs to help residents with utility costs. In a community survey of 650 house- holds released on Monday by the county health department, a vast majority of the households reported very strong odors and an increase in pests over the previ- ous week, and almost half reported ash or smelling lingering smoke in and around their homes. And as a summer heat wave has stifled Southern California in recent weeks, people in cities miles downwind have complained about the smell. As of Tues- day, more than 3,600 odor complaints in connection to the warehouse fire had been filed across the county. One community group, called Protect Los Angeles Now, has demanded that of- ficials, including the governor, issue mandatory evacuation orders and pro- vide housing until the disaster site is cleared.
MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Residents of the largely Latino neighborhoods say they have had to wear masks indoors and run up their utility bills with the constant use of air purifiers. Left, the damaged building is filled with rotting meat.
Local health officials have acknowl- edged the concerns about air quality and other hazards and the residents’ need for temporary relocation. But at a county board of supervisors meeting last week, the county health officer insisted that the situation had not met the threshold for evacuations. “We do not have an imminent endan- germent in terms of health. Therefore we don’t use that very blunt instrument to really say that nobody can be in the area,” said the county health officer, Dr. Muntu Davis. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the re- gional air regulator, have urged Lineage to speed the cleanup and do more to miti- gate the odors. Perfume misters that the company erected at the site have been ineffective in reining in the smell. Both agencies have issued citations and fines to the company in recent weeks over the conditions. Lineage said that its crews were work- ing as fast as possible and described de- bris removal as a complex process that was complicated by unsafe conditions in- side the damaged building. Residents who have received substan- tial help, such as one-week vouchers for rental stays outside the area, remain fearful that their actual homes have be- come uninhabitable because of smoke contamination. At a board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Trinidad Alvarez, speaking softly in Spanish through a translator, urged the board to help his family imme- diately relocate. He said he was among those on a long waiting list for housing, and was worried about his children who are getting nose- bleeds and fighting the urge to vomit when they go outside. “We’ve gotten no help,” he said. “Just air filters.”
Wants to Put Data Centers On U.S. Land
By BRAD PLUMER
The Trump administration is repur- posing large chunks of federal land to host enormous data centers and the power plants needed to run them as offi- cials seek to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence and overcome growing local opposition to the facilities. The Energy Department announced on Wednesday that it would redevelop parts of a retired Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Ky., to host a large new A.I. data center campus. The site is owned by the federal govern- ment and has been undergoing envi- ronmental cleanup for years. The $100 billion project would include construction of 2 gigawatts of natural gas power connected to the local grid and 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity. The Energy Department said the project would be privately funded through a partnership with NextEra Energy, one of the nation’s largest power companies; the investment firm Brookfield; and sev- eral local utilities. (One gigawatt of gas can power roughly 750,000 homes.) “The U.S. government is leveraging its assets — like our federal lands — to add power generation, create jobs, and en- sure the United States wins the A.I. race,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. It is the third time that the administra- tion has detailed plans to redevelop Cold War-era facilities into data centers. In March, the Energy Department said it would repurpose parts of a former nucle- ar enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, to host an enormous 10-gigawatt data cen- ter, mostly powered by natural gas and financed partly by Japan. And this month, the Energy Depart- ment’s National Nuclear Security Ad- ministration said it would work with the engineering firm Amentum to explore a 1-gigawatt data center, potentially pow- ered by gas and nuclear power, at the Sa- vannah River Site in South Carolina, a federal complex once devoted to making plutonium for nuclear weapons. President Trump has been a major supporter of artificial intelligence, which he has called essential to winning the technology race against China. In recent months, he has also tried to confront growing opposition in many communi- ties to the proliferation of giant, energy- hungry data centers, which are driving up electricity demand. A recent Gallup poll found that nearly half of Americans would “strongly op- pose” a new data center in their neigh- borhood, with many citing concerns about noise, pollution and energy and water usage. In the first quarter of this year, at least 75 data center projects worth $130 billion were delayed or stopped by local opposition, according to Data Center Watch, a project by the A.I. research firm 10a Labs. At a White House event last week, Mr. Trump aimed to address some of those concerns by announcing that nearly 200 companies — including tech giants, utili- ties and data center developers — had signed a voluntary pledge to prevent A.I. data centers from increasing electricity costs for Americans. Experts said that pledge could be hard to honor in practice, since power prices are often determined by local regulators. Mr. Trump highlighted examples where new data center projects had helped reduce local property taxes or electricity rates. And he railed against data center opponents, calling them “radical left communists” who “would not lower your electricity bills.” His administration has moved to en- courage data center development on lands owned by the Energy Department, which could offer a smoother path for ap- proval. The Environmental Protection Agency has also taken several steps to make data centers easier to build, such as loosening limits on smog-causing pol- lution from the gas turbines that often power the facilities. Separately, the Interior Department recently approved plans for the first- ever data center on federal land near Boulder City, Nev., on a site where a large utility-scale solar array had previously been permitted. The agency said it did not need to conduct a new, time-consum- ing environmental review for the project because the data center would have im- pacts similar to the original solar facility. The approval was originally reported by Heatmap, a climate news site. Two environmental groups have filed a legal challenge against that decision. “By cutting the public out of the process, they’re trying to hand over Ne- vada’s desert to billion-dollar tech com- panies without anyone getting a say,” said Olivia Tanager, executive director of the Sierra Club’s chapter in the Toiyabe area of Nevada. In Kentucky, the new data center will sit on portions of a 3,556-acre Energy De- partment site that produced low-en- riched uranium for both military reac- tors and nuclear weapons from the 1950s until 2013. The Energy Department said the project’s new gas-fired power plants would produce more electricity than the data center needed and could provide the surplus to local communities. The project is expected to be completed in 2031.
of families living on open farmland. Now it means a deluge of strangers who live in one of the biggest R.V. parks in the country, with 2,300 narrow gravel parking spots lined up like endless rows of piano keys. “Everything around here’s changed overnight,” Holt said to another customer, this one an elec- trician from a South Texas border town who had stopped in for two bags of Flamin’ Hot Doritos, a bot- tle of the Mexican spice Tajín to sprinkle into his beer and a 12-pack of Michelob Ultra. “We’re here for the money while it lasts!” said the man, who said he has his first child on the way and was drawn to the data center site for its big paychecks. Holt, 48, is making the best of the situation. Several months ago, his store was a two-bedroom house. His father’s house. It was, as his father had de- scribed it, his “place among the wheat fields.” After retiring from his luxury se- dan service in Dallas, Sam Holt Sr. moved in 2015 to the little yellow house on a sliver of an acre on Elm- dale Road North. He lived alone. A Vietnam veteran who sur- vived several bouts of cancer, he marveled at the views, taking pho- tos of Creamsicle-hued sunrises from his front door and cotton- candy-colored sunsets from his back one. He would share them on- line. “11/18/24 @1800hrs. Lookin’ out on my back door area. No city lights.” “12/12/24 @ 0717hrs. Sittin’ in my front door. Good morning. I have been up since 0630hrs CST, and I have not heard a sound, bar-
ring the clicking of my iPhone as I type. No vehicles or birds. ZILCH! So peaceful.” Holt Sr. attended the Hamby Church of Christ less than two miles away. Wrote poetry about growing up on a farm in Missouri. Made cedar chests and children’s tables, and also a five-tiered bird- house — for 60 bird families, he boasted — that he tucked into a tree in his front yard. Morning and night, he cooked his specialty: meatloaf, pinto beans and cornbread. When a real estate agent offered $150,000 for his house last sum- mer, maybe $25,000 more than it was worth, Holt Sr. declined. “Where am I supposed to go?” he said at the time. “I like it here, and I’m going to ride this out.” A few months later, on Thanks- giving, Sam Holt Sr. went to the hospital. He died there on Christ- mas Eve at 81. Sam Holt Jr.’s girlfriend, Stacey Sanford, first raised the idea of us- ing the house to make money. Oth- ers were profiting from the A.I. construction project, so why shouldn’t they? Having turned farmland into the R.V. park, the developer charges $675 a month per spot — and will gross more than $18.6 million a year in rent alone. So Holt and Sanford drew up a plan to open a dry goods store that would sell beer. Holt was a long- time managing partner at Texas Roadhouse restaurants and had experience in customer service. He would quit his job to run the store, while Sanford, a health care executive, would join him on nights and weekends. “I’m ready to make a change,” he told her. “Let’s roll the dice and hope it works out,” she said. Sam Holt Sr., religiously conser- vative, was against drinking alco- hol. But he would have supported anything his son did to improve his life, and the lives of his grandchil- dren — his son was sure of it. “He would know that we have to adapt,” Holt Jr. told Sanford. “A lot of people don’t want to adapt to this, but we have no choice.” He and Sanford invested $75,000 and figured the store would last as long as the R.V. park — at least sev- eral years, considering that the data center developer, Vantage Data Centers, said construction of all 11 buildings on its 1,200-acre Shackelford County site would fin- ish by late 2028. The couple’s goal: pay for col- lege for Holt’s two teenage daugh- ters and then retire to an island off the coast of Honduras. Starting this new chapter, however, was complicated by grief. From the living room wall, sta- ple by staple, Holt Jr. removed the drawings his daughters had given his father, including ones of their teeny traced hands. The girls
‘Let’s roll the dice and hope it works out.’
STACEY SANFORD, who opened up a convenience store with Sam Holt Jr.
called their grandfather Silly Sam and had their own bedroom in the house. That room became a walk-in beer cave, with silver insulation on the walls and refrigeration pumped in. The kitchen bar top be- came a checkout counter. A wall in the living room was fitted with a sliding door, to create a drive- through. “Every time I see a sunset in the backyard, I think of him,” Holt said of his father. “And that’s every sin- gle night.” Business is slow on weekday mornings. Hours before Holt opens the store at 10 a.m., many workers have already left the R.V. park on their way to their jobs, creating a conga line of traffic that has warped and chipped the road’s as- phalt. Some don reflective vests and hard hats, and board double- decker buses bound for the con- struction site. One Wednesday last month, Holt prepared for a busy afternoon by unloading beer from a delivery truck. He orders smaller cases now than when he started, having learned that many customers pre- fer 6- and 12-packs because the re- frigerators in their R.V.s don’t have much room. Laurel Sullivan, a mother of two, was inside working the cash regis- ter. A month before, she had walked over from the R.V. park to ask if they needed any help, look- ing for something to do. She told Holt that she manages her tod- dlers and three dogs in their R.V. until her husband — a heavy ma- chinery operator — returns from his 14-hour workday, and the days can be long. She hires a babysitter while she is at the store.
She and Holt go out of their way to befriend the regular customers, remembering their orders and their roles at the construction site, in an effort to create something of a community and help people feel less lonely. There’s a Spanish-speaking boy, maybe 11 years old. He once tried to pay with a Nicaraguan dollar. This time, he brought a jar of Al- fredo sauce to the counter so his sister could make lunch for him and his siblings, dropping a pile of coins in front of Sullivan — but they didn’t quite add up to the price. “I got you,” she told him, reach- ing for her wallet to make up the difference. Holt gives children a free flavored ice. There’s also the guy who drives his white F-250 pickup into the drive-through and wants a 30-pack of Miller Lite placed on the back seat. Yet another shows up every other day for two bottles of Mick- ey’s Fine Malt Liquor, a special or-
der reserved just for him. Around lunchtime, Brenda Tala- mante, the spouse of a welder, or- dered a bag of ice at the drive- through. She had gotten up at 3:55 a.m. to cook her husband barbacoa and was now on her third cup of coffee. “This is an adventure for us, but for some people, this is a chance to send money to their families back home,” she said from the seat of her red pickup. “Some people don’t realize that this is life-changing money.” Holt and Sanford learned quickly that data center construc- tion is lucrative. No one ever asked the price of anything, so they never bothered with price tags. Cashiers at the Elmdale Outpost — includ- ing one of Holt’s daughters — can leave a shift with $100-plus in tips. More than a dozen workers at the R.V. park said that it was not uncommon for the data center la- borers to receive a per diem of $150 to $250, and earn $200,000-plus a
year — after taxes — in hourly wages. A typical schedule is 10 to 14 hours a day for 13 days on, then one day off, with no paid vacation. For some, it is a good trade-off. They can now retire early. Or pay off their mortgage. Many of these workers are Lati- no, and Holt, who is 6-foot-5 and friendly, chats with them in Span- ish. He and Sanford stock Mexican brands, like Bimbo, but also take requests — a concrete worker asked for neck gaiters to keep out dust. Sometimes, they make edu- cated guesses about what might be popular. One day, Sanford shouted to Holt, “Hey, Sam, someone just bought five condoms and a 24-case of Coronas!” making both of them laugh. She added, “Next up, they might need a pregnancy test — and turns out that we sell that, too!” On that Wednesday night last
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DESIREE RIOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Elmdale Outpost, a conven- ience store in Abilene, Texas, caters to construction crews living in an R.V. park. Sam Holt Jr., along with Stacey Sanford, opened the shop in his late father’s home.
month, Sanford had joined Holt af- ter her full-time job and, almost two hours after a blushing sunset, they closed the store together. They tallied the sales, $3,000 that day — about four times more than they made on Memorial Day weekend, their grand opening. It was 10:30 p.m., past bedtime for most of their neighbors, as they swept clumps of dirt off the floor and restocked shelves, adjusting every bottle in the coolers even a millimeter so its label was facing exactly forward. Holt would return less than 12 hours later; he has been working seven days a week. They’re making these sacrifices because the window to profit off the data center won’t stay open for- ever. They try not to listen to the critics who say they have sold out to Big Tech. Carye Adkins, a detective at the Abilene Police Department and a longtime friend of Holt’s, under- stands the dilemma. Fourteen years ago, Adkins moved into his dream house — near the yellow one Holt Sr. would move into. He and his family had relocated from the city, and he re- members his young son running out back, in a newly plowed field, shouting, “Look, Dad, we got dirt!” Eventually, they had 17 cows and donkeys on their 20 acres. Then the data center came, and then plans for the R.V. park. Adkins told Holt that he couldn’t stand the idea of living right next to an R.V. park. Heartbroken, he sold his property to the developer. Yet on opening day for the Elm- dale Outpost, Adkins was the first customer through the door. “All of this was devastating,” he told Holt. “But you deserve every penny you make off this.”
and ADAM SELLA A test of a court where much of the evidence is presented in secret.
An obscure court set up 30 years ago to expel immigrants ac- cused of terrorism from the coun- try heard its first case on Thurs- day, as the Justice Department asked a federal judge to deport an Afghan woman who prosecutors say supports the Islamic State. The request took place at a nearly hourlong hearing in Wash- ington before what is known as the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. During the hearing, pros- ecutors presented their initial claims that the woman, Nazira Haji Zada, should be removed from the United States even though she is a lawful permanent resident. The court was created by Congress in 1996 to handle de- portation proceedings that largely rest on classified information. The government contends that Ms. Zada, 47, is connected to a foiled terrorist plot inspired by ISIS to commit a mass shooting on Election Day in 2024. Last year, both her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad
manding that he put in writing what he acknowledged at his con- firmation hearing: that the provi- sion applies to only Mr. Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Or- ganization, and that it would be limited to audits of past tax re- turns. But the administration so far has refused. Mr. Blanche cannot afford a sin- gle Republican defection on the Senate Judiciary Committee if he hopes to advance his confirmation to the Senate floor. The opposition of Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Tillis leaves him two short, forcing the commit- tee to scrap its scheduled vote on Thursday. Mr. Trump would have ways to allow Mr. Blanche, the president’s former top defense lawyer, to ef- fectively remain as acting attor- ney general indefinitely. But the fact that some Republi- cans, emboldened by Mr. Trump’s declining popularity and alarmed by his lack of concern for their own political fortunes, even tem- porarily derailed a flagship nomi- nee raised questions about Mr. Trump’s capacity to sustain the dominance over congressional Republicans that has allowed him to exert unmediated control over the department. Mr. Trump’s threat is unusual, in at least two respects. First, there is no guarantee that Repub- licans will maintain their com- manding majority in the upper chamber, or be more willing to ac- cede to his demands after the midterms. Second, pulling Mr. Blanche’s nomination, even tem- porarily, would demonstrate Mr. Trump’s willingness to advance his personal interests over the in- stitutional stability embodied by a Senate-confirmed attorney gen- eral. The tax deal, tacked onto a Blanche-backed plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who said they were victims of unfair prosecution by the gov- ernment, pushed Senate Republi- cans to the brink. The fund raised the possibility of the government making gigantic payments to the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, and forced Mr. Blanche to declare it was dead, even as he declined to put that commitment in writing. But he gave no ground on the tax immunity deal. At a closed-door meeting in May, several Republican senators browbeat Mr. Blanche for signing off on a wide-ranging agreement they saw as a vast conflict of inter- est that would be perceived by voters as an effort to line the pock- ets of Mr. Trump, his family and his political allies. Mr. Trump nonetheless cast the objections as a personal vendetta against him. He accused Mr.
Andrew Duehren, Maggie Ha- berman and Olivia Diaz contribut- ed reporting.
By MICHAEL C. BENDER
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s bid to dismantle the Education Department was rebuked on Thursday by the Sen- ate education committee, which approved a bipartisan bill that would block the executive branch from gutting the agency. The legislation faces a long road to becoming law. Competing legis- lation in the House would instead codify many of the administra- tion’s actions, and President Trump is unlikely to sign into law a measure that directly under- mines his policy agenda. Still, the vote was the sharpest opposition lawmakers had regis- tered over the administration’s at-
Tawhedi, pleaded guilty to charges connected to the plot and admitted they had tried to buy two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition to carry it out. “The allegations in this case show the matriarch of an ISIS- sympathizing family aiding in a plot to launch a mass casualty at- tack on American voters on Elec- tion Day,” the acting attorney gen- eral, Todd Blanche, said in a state- ment before the hearing began. Ms. Zada, who appeared before a packed courtroom in a creamy white head scarf and flowing blue pants, was arrested on Tuesday at her home in Fort Worth, Texas, the court’s chief judge, Joan N. Er- icksen, said. The case against Ms. Zada is a test of a court where much of the evidence is presented in secret and defendants cannot challenge how it was collected. The Trump administration has used an ex- pansive array of legal methods to carry out the president’s ag- gressive deportation agenda — many of them challenged in court. Now, it is seeking to use the
Todd Blanche, center, the acting attorney general, helped negotiate a deal to resolve a lawsuit the president had filed against the I.R.S.
Cornyn and Mr. Tillis of a sour- grapes revolt aimed at punishing him for withholding his king- maker endorsement in their con- tested Republican primaries. Mr. Tillis decided not to seek another term after repeated public attacks from the president, while Mr. Cornyn lost his re-election bid to a challenger backed by Mr. Trump. “John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, both of whom I refused to En- dorse, and whose political careers have been ended by my action, are refusing to vote for this Great Nominee, who will remain, in any event, as Acting,” the president wrote on Truth Social. Mr. Cornyn quickly pushed back, suggesting that he and Mr. Tillis represented a much larger group of Senate Republicans who had reservations about the impli- cations of the tax deal, but could not incur the political risk to pub- licly oppose the White House that their status afforded them. “There are more than just two people who have reservations about the weaponization fund and about the scope of the settlement decree,” Mr. Cornyn said. “And you know, after the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” “This is not popular,” Mr. Tillis
tempt to eliminate the Education Department. Closing the agency would require an act of Congress, but the administration has em- barked on a piecemeal approach to gut the agency by effectively subcontracting its functions to other departments. Relying on so-called interagen- cy agreements, which have gener- ally been used to buy supplies or lease space between federal agen- cies, the Trump administration has transferred tens of billions in government programs out of the Education Department. The bill would “maintain the core components” of the depart- ment, said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who spon-
sweeping powers of the terrorist removal court. Ms. Zada has not been publicly charged with any crimes of terror- ism and has no criminal history, according to court papers. Still, in an unclassified summary of her case submitted to the court, pros- ecutors said she “supported” the Election Day conspiracy and “pledged loyalty to ISIS.” The summary also said she “worked to indoctrinate her chil- dren with ISIS ideology” and con- cealed a plan to relocate her fam- ily to ISIS-controlled territory from “her unsuspecting husband,” Abdul Haji Zada, who worked at the Bagram Air Base in Afghani- stan from 2009 to 2016, court pa- pers say. The Alien Terrorist Removal
said at the Capitol. “The presi- dent’s not winning on this issue. It is killing some of our candidates because they can’t explain it. And now, it looks like they weren’t be- ing honest when they said it was inoperative.” Before Mr. Trump’s social me- dia post, Mr. Cornyn told report-
after opposition by Cornyn and Tillis.
ers that he believed “higher-ups at the White House” were block- ing efforts to reach a deal to mod- ify the settlement in Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. Mr. Cornyn said he had sent a proposal to the Justice Depart- ment that included limits on the provision in the settlement pro- tecting Mr. Trump from I.R.S. au- dits, a guarantee he said he needed before voting to advance Mr. Blanche’s confirmation. “I thought we were pretty close to landing the plane last night,” Mr. Cornyn said. “But this morning there’s been some
sored the legislation. Specifically, the bill would block moves that the administration has made to trans- fer services for disabled students to the Health and Human Services Department; programs for ele- mentary, secondary and postsec- ondary students to the Labor De- partment; and programs for Na- tive American students to the In- terior Department. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, voted with Democrats on the panel to send the measure to the Senate floor. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisi- ana, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he opposed
Court is set up in a fashion similar to the Foreign Intelligence Sur- veillance Court, which reviews sensitive requests for surveil- lance warrants. It has five judges drawn from courts around the country, including Judge Erick- sen, who also sits in Federal Dis- trict Court in Minnesota. “This is the court’s first case and the court is in the early stage of implementing procedures,” she said as the hearing opened, ac- knowledging that there “may be moments of ineloquence” because the court “laid dormant and un- tested for three decades.” Matthew Farley, one of Ms. Zada’s lawyers, began his re- marks to Judge Ericksen by ask- ing that his client be released. He called the administration’s efforts to deport her a “run around to bringing a criminal case” — one that afforded the government a lower burden when it came prov- ing a nexus to terrorism. Mr. Farley also raised concerns that prosecutors did not plan to grant the defense access to the classified material in the case. But
more complications.” Doubling down on his critique of the White House, Mr. Cornyn said pulling Mr. Blanche’s nomi- nation would not resolve the presi- dent’s problems over the Senate confirmation. “I think the D.O.J. needs a Senate-confirmed attor- ney general,” he said. “And Todd Blanche is probably about as good as we’re going to get.” Senator John Kennedy, a Loui- siana Republican who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that he was not sur- prised that the president said he may temporarily pull Mr. Blanche’s nomination. “Obviously, the White House did not want to comply with what Cornyn and Tillis wanted,” he said. The tax provision, signed by Mr. Blanche and dated May 19, ap- peared to be twofold. It ordered the I.R.S. to drop any criminal in- vestigations or audits of Mr. Trump, his family and their busi- nesses, as well as any “affiliated individuals.” It also told the agency to not start any new inves- tigations into tax returns they had already filed. Mr. Cornyn wants Mr. Blanche, in writing, to limit who receives protection. Only Mr. Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organiza- tion should be subject to the order, Mr. Cornyn has said. That would
the administration’s move of spe- cial education services to the health department, but he ulti- mately voted against the bill, say- ing he did not want to block the ad- ministration from making changes. Opponents of the measure pointed to lagging test scores for the nation’s students, saying the poor numbers showed the Educa- tion Department had failed in its mission. “This bill is misguided and it clearly lacks the vision to address this failing education system that we have in this country,” said Sen- ator Tommy Tuberville, Republi- can of Alabama. “It ain’t working.” Savannah Newhouse, a spokes-
while Judge Ericksen rejected his request for Ms. Zada’s release, she said her “working presumption” would be that the defense team will be able to review the classi- fied information underlying the case. The government filed its open- ing request to the court seeking to deport Ms. Zada on July 15, sup- ported by multiple classified ex- hibits. The court held a closed- door hearing that next day, raising “a number of questions, both legal and administrative,” Judge Erick- sen wrote in an order unsealed on Wednesday. The government submitted a supplementary briefing last week to bolster its case that Ms. Zada was what it described as “an alien terrorist” whose removal from the country through normal immigra- tion procedures would “pose a risk to the United States’ national security,” Judge Ericksen wrote. The judge ultimately found there was probable cause to pro- ceed with the case and will soon set out a schedule for further fil- ings and hearings.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEX KENT/THE NEW YORK TIMES
mean that other members of Mr. Trump’s family beyond Don Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as other companies they work with, would no longer be potentially covered by Mr. Blanche’s order. Mr. Cornyn also wants Mr. Blanche to clarify that the I.R.S. must abandon only audits of past tax returns — meaning that Mr. Trump could still be audited in the future — and state that the I.R.S. is the only agency bound by the order. During his confirmation hear- ing this month, Mr. Blanche, un- der questioning by Mr. Cornyn, verbally conceded all three points. But, so far, he has been unwilling to reflect that in writing. Even with Mr. Cornyn’s re- quested changes, the audit protec- tion for Mr. Trump would still be an unprecedented gift to a sitting president, effectively exempting him from the legal requirement for all Americans to comply with the nation’s tax laws — or face I.R.S. scrutiny. Mr. Trump and his family mem- bers have aggressively avoided taxes for years, repeatedly facing I.R.S. audits as a result. Just one known dispute with the agency, which was still going on before Mr. Blanche’s order, could have cost Mr. Trump more than $100 million if the I.R.S. prevailed.
woman for the Education Depart- ment, said lawmakers were com- mitting “malpractice” by support- ing the legislation. “It is entirely premature to sab- otage this effort before it has the chance to eliminate bureaucratic barriers and fully deliver the re- sults that our students, families and educators deserve,” she said. After the vote, several cabinet members involved in the changes to the department, including Edu- cation Secretary Linda McMahon, sent a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress defending the moves. The letter claimed that $3 tril- lion had been spent on the Educa- tion Department since 1980 but
May Control Caretaking Of Courts
By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ
New bipartisan legislation in- troduced in the Senate on Thurs- day would transfer the mainte- nance and management of dozens of federal courthouses from the executive branch's General Serv- ices Administration to the judicia- ry itself. The proposal followed com- plaints from across the federal courts that G.S.A. was a bad land- lord, slow to make repairs even when the health of courthouse em- ployees was at stake. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the bill’s lead sponsor, said the purpose of the proposed law was to “ensure our federal courthouses remain safe, secure, and operating effec- tively for those who work in and visit them,” and that Congress would retain the “ability to over- see and improve the judiciary’s ef- forts.” The bill was cosponsored by two Republicans, Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Sen- ator John Boozman of Arkansas. “The judiciary is a separate part of government,” Mr. Cramer said in a statement. “Just like Con- gress, it should not be subservient to executive branch manage- ment.” The bill would establish a tem- porary pilot program, under which a newly created Judiciary Buildings Service would handle courthouse maintenance and re- pairs in up to 10 of the country’s 94 judicial districts. The director of the courts’ Administrative Office, which coordinates operations across the judiciary, would take on “jurisdiction, custody, and con- trol” of the properties. Congress and the Government Accountability Office would over- see the program, which would au- tomatically begin to expire after seven years unless Congress voted to extend it. One 83-year-old federal judge has said that he believes he con- tracted Legionnaires’ disease from brushing his teeth using wa- ter from the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, the larg- est federal courthouse in Illinois. Michael Tammero, a G.S.A. spokesman, had previously called allegations that the water at Dirk- sen contributed to the judge’s ill- ness “unsupported medical spec- ulation.” In a letter sent last week to Ed- ward C. Forst, who heads the G.S.A., Mr. Durbin and Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, said the agency’s timeline for fixing the water system at the Dirksen courthouse was “unac- ceptable.” They characterized G.S.A.’s approach as “denigration of the judiciary and degradation of court facilities.” The cost of overdue repairs at G.S.A.-managed courthouses has reached more than $8.3 billion, ac- cording to the agency. Mr. Forst has argued that the G.S.A. needs more authority to undertake ma- jor projects without going through a lengthy congressional approval process, and that courthouse re- pair costs are disproportionately large compared to the $1.3 billion that the judiciary pays G.S.A. an- nually for rent and other services.
KENNY HOLSTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Senator Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat, is pushing the bill.
that had resulted in low test scores, high student loan debt and excessive bureaucracy. It prom- ised that the changes would streamline the agency’s processes and that students, parents and ed- ucators would face no disruptions. Advocacy groups have argued that by moving the offices for spe- cial education and civil rights, the Trump administration was effec- tively weakening oversight after drastically reducing staffing in those areas. Many of these groups have also warned that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views on autism make him unfit to oversee education programs for students with disabilities.
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES East Wing ballroom construction on Dec. 8.
DECEMBER 2025 A lawsuit seeks to block construction, but a judge allows work to continue.
East Wing ballroom construction on April 1. East Wing ballroom construction on April 23.
MARCH 2026 The judge orders construction to be halted.
East Wing ballroom construction on June 8. East Wing ballroom construction on July 24.
JUNE 2026 An appeals court hears arguments on the ballroom’s legality.
Construction of the White House ballroom and bunker complex that President Trump is building in place of the demolished East Wing has progressed since December, when a federal lawsuit first sought to halt it. The courts have broadly allowed construction to continue despite the lawsuit and one judge’s finding that the project required approval from Congress and was unlawful from the beginning. Now, an appeals court is on the cusp of deciding whether to uphold that ruling. But at every turn so far, the president has managed to continue building. The photos below illustrate how quickly the complex is being built.
On Dec. 12, seven weeks after the East Wing was demolished, the National Trust for Historic Pres- ervation sued to halt construction of the 90,000-square-foot ball- room. Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, ex- pressed concern about how fast the project was moving, but he al-
Judge Leon considered fresh ar- guments from the National Trust about what he said was the crux of the case: what law, if any, gave the president the authority to rebuild entire sections of the White House to fit his needs. On March 31, the judge reached a conclusion: “No statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have.”
During oral arguments on June 5, two judges on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared to doubt that either the law or the national security justi- fications behind the bunker gave the president power to redesign the White House. Judge Patricia A. Millett, an ap- pointee of President Barack Obama, asked whether the
By SIMON DUCROQUET and ZACH MONTAGUE
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lowed the White House time to seek approval from two review panels. In February, one of the panels, the Commission of Fine Arts — whose members Mr. Trump had previously fired and replaced with allies — expedited a vote on the project and approved it. The second panel approved it two months later.
ALLISON ROBBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESS DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
He ordered construction halted, but gave the government two weeks before his order took effect. Hours after the verdict, the Trump administration appealed.
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES ANDREW LEYDEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Trump administration had adopted a “move fast and break things” approach in which it stra- tegically acted too quickly to be constrained. The administration has offered an expansive interpretation of federal laws that it argues give the president the authority to al- ter the White House and control federal property through the Na- tional Park Service.
East Wing ballroom construction on Feb. 24.
FEBRUARY 2026 The judge clears the way for construction to proceed.
APRIL 2026 After a week of back-and-forth, an appeals court allows work to resume.
JULY 2026 A recent photo shows new structures rising above the ground.
The National Trust returned to court with a variety of legal argu- ments challenging the project’s use of private funding and the lack of input from Congress. On Feb. 26, Judge Leon again declined to intervene, urging the organization to refine what he called a “ragtag group of theo- ries” into a more focused case about presidential power.
Throwing a new wrinkle into the case at the end of March, Mr. Trump began describing the ball- room as a superstructure sitting on top of a new underground bunker. On April 11, the appeals court sent the case back to Judge Leon to clarify whether the mili- tary complex beneath was sub- ject to his order, allowing con- struction to continue in the inter-
The panel has not yet reached a decision, but even if it issues a second ruling that finds the ball- room unlawful, the Trump admin- istration can approach the Su- preme Court. That may provide another avenue for construction to proceed. In the meantime, the work continues.
JOSE LUIS MAGANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Even so, he signaled deep doubts that the White House could be irreversibly changed without any consultation with lawmakers.
im. On April 16, he clarified it was not, limiting the scope of his deci- sion to the aboveground work on the ballroom. With that understanding, the appeals court on April 18 again al- lowed construction to move for- ward until after it could hear ar- guments in June and reach its own decision.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The Trump administration’s plan to stop funding the Pan American Health Organization, which co- ordinates public health efforts across dozens of countries includ- ing the United States, will leave Americans more vulnerable to in- fectious disease threats, more than 100 U.S. leaders in health and national security warned in an open letter released on Thursday. They include former health sec- retaries, directors of health agen- cies, Pentagon and White House officials and surgeons general who have served in Democratic and Republican administrations. Founded in 1902, the organiza- tion is supported by contributions from its 35 member countries. The United States, a founding mem- ber, owes nearly $135 million in overdue fees since late 2024. On his first day in office, Presi- dent Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Or- ganization and ended all U.S. funding for the agency. The ad- ministration’s proposed budget for next year now eliminates fund- ing for P.A.H.O., which serves as a regional offshoot of the W.H.O. That decision makes little sense given the rising threat of infec- tious diseases like dengue, bird flu
By HIROKO TABUCHI
In December, Representative Jack Bergman of Michigan, a staunch ally of President Trump and MAGA defender, took to the House floor to praise America’s military might, lauding its “will to face down potential aggressors.” Then his speech took an unex- pected turn, to pollution. “We have much more to do,” he said. High on his list: cleaning up PFAS, the harmful “forever chem- icals” that pollute hundreds of mil- itary sites nationwide. The Penta- gon must prioritize “delivering environmental stewardship to communities impacted by PFAS,” Mr. Bergman said. In a fiercely divided Washing- ton, there is bipartisan anger at the stalled progress in cleaning up toxic chemicals at military bases. The delays have emerged as a rare issue uniting Democrats and Republicans in their criticism of the Pentagon. PFAS-based foam has been used for decades in firefighting drills and exercises, and has left behind widespread contamina- tion at military sites across the country. PFAS make the foam ex- tremely effective at smothering fires. But service members and communities near military instal- lations have for years contended with the harmful chemicals, which are linked to low birth weight, birth defects and developmental delays, as well as an increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers. The New York Times reported in September that the Pentagon had quietly delayed its PFAS
Rise in Uninsured Patients
But many people covered by Oba- macare said they were struggling to afford the monthly costs, ac- cording to a survey by KFF, the health research group. The rise in unpaid bills under- scores the difficult financial strains facing many families. “What that tells me is that there are patients who are completely unable to pay,” said Laura Kaiser, the chief executive of SSM Health, a nonprofit Catholic hospital group, who is expected to become chairwoman of the American Hos- pital Association, an industry trade group, in 2028. “We’re really crushing people who are desper- ately trying to pay their bills.” The hospitals “are absorbing that, and we can’t,” she said. Americans have repeatedly cited the rising costs of health care as a top concern in public opinion polls during this midterm election year, with the economy and af- fordability important issues for voters. But relief from higher insur- ance and medical expenses is not about to arrive any time soon. Roughly 30 million adults and children in the United States are uninsured. And to offset the losses, experts predict that hospi- tals will raise prices for those en- rolled in plans, including policies offered by employers. Increases in both premiums and deductibles have affected Americans covered by private plans as well. Many individuals have been forced to seek out cheaper plans with high de- ductibles, which require patients to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills before their insur- ance kicks in. In an earnings call with ana- lysts last Friday, executives at
and screwworm, the letter’s sig- natories argued. “A nation that cannot detect and contain disease threats at their source cannot fully protect its peo- ple at home,” they wrote. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment. “The United States is commit- ted to protecting American tax- payers by reforming international organizations and getting them back to basics,” the State Depart- ment said in an emailed state- ment. “Any funding contributions to international organizations are dependent on real and significant reforms, and to ensure U.S. tax- payer dollars are not used in ways that are contrary to our nation’s interests” the statement said. P.A.H.O. helped the Americas become the first region in the world to eliminate polio and other diseases and helped to to eradi- cate smallpox, the letter notes. The organization also assists member states in responding to emergencies like the earthquakes in Venezuela in June and to broker access to medications for diseases like cancer and H.I.V. During the World Cup this sum- mer, officials from Canada, the United States and Mexico met ev- ery day to plan in sessions coordi-
cleanups at nearly 140 military in- stallations. Since then, the Penta- gon has put off cleanups at nearly 200 sites. One location is delayed by up to 20 years, according to a follow-up Times analysis of the latest federal data. Dozens of members of Congress have demanded that the Depart- ment of Defense explain the de- lays, and outline how it will pro- tect service members and those living near the bases. In a July 17 letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Democrat- ic Representatives Kristen Mc- Donald Rivet and Debbie Dingell of Michigan, and Republican Rep- resentatives Jen A. Kiggans of Virginia and Brian K. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said that it was “unacceptable that D.O.D. has continued to deprioritize” its cleanup efforts. The four are co- chairs of a bipartisan PFAS task force that works on federal action to protect the public from the chemicals. “We have real conversations, not partisan bickering,” Ms. Mc- Donald Rivet said in an interview. “This is about the health and wel- fare of our troops. It’s about pro- tecting our soldiers in the home- land.” The Department of Defense did not respond to questions about the cleanup delays. The revolt represents a rare po- litical convergence in the face of Pentagon inaction on a matter that has become a major health concern for military communities nationwide. Perhaps most extraordinary has been the reaction from Mr. Bergman, a retired three-star U.S.
HCA Healthcare, the nation’s larg- est for-profit hospital chain, said patients who were previously en- rolled under the Affordable Care Act appeared unable to find other sources of coverage but still needed emergency care from a hospital. They had “migrated almost one for one to uninsured,” Sam Hazen, the chief executive of HCA, said. The American company, which operates 190 hospitals in 19 states and Britain, said the impact was greatest at its hospitals in Florida and Texas as well as South Car- olina and Georgia. Company officials warned in- vestors that the most likely result would be about roughly $1 billion less in operating profits this year. At Community Health Systems, another for-profit chain that re- ported its six-month results last week, the visits by patients who did not use insurance to pay for medical care rose 20 percent, compared with last year. In addition, an executive pointed to a drop in patients en- rolled in Medicaid, the federal- state program for the poor. Some appeared to have difficulty sign- ing up, while others chose not to enroll, he said. Centene, the for-profit health in- surer that specializes in govern- ment programs, told investors on Tuesday that its Medicaid enroll- ment was declining more than ex- pected, even before the looming changes from the One Big Beauti- ful Bill Act. Millions of people on Medicaid are expected to lose cov- erage in the coming years. Hospital executives also said there were signs that people were putting off care, like deferring joint replacements or skipping testing for a heart condition. “As gas prices go up, that has a pretty significant impact on dis-
The Pan American Health Organization headquarters in Wash- ington. The U.S. owes nearly $135 million in overdue fees.
nated by P.A.H.O. for potential threats from the influx of tourists, said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, the orga- nization’s director. Officials from some other coun- tries worry the Trump adminis- tration’s abandonment of P.A.H.O. will endanger more than just Americans. The administration’s “denialist stance” will threaten people in the entire region, said Dr. Alexan- dre Padilha, Brazil’s health min- ister. “Leaving W.H.O., leaving
Representative Jack Bergman, an ally of the president, has criticized the Pentagon’s delays in clean- ing up PFAS contamination at bases in his district in Michigan, saying, “We have much more to do.”
Marine Corps lieutenant general. He has forcefully backed Presi- dent Trump’s “America First” agenda, and has questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election that Mr. Trump lost to for- mer President Joe Biden. Mr. Bergman has harshly criti- cized G.O.P. candidates who have opposed any part of Mr. Trump’s agenda, and has supported invest- ing heavily in border security and national defense.
Major hospitals have expressed growing concerns about the significant decrease in paying pa- tients. Many executives said that the hospitals were also providing more in the way of charity care.
posable income for those house- holds, and health care seems to be one of the first things that people will delay or at least attempt to de- lay if they can,” Kevin Hammons, the chief executive of Community Health Systems, told analysts. Officials at Tenet Healthcare, another for-profit hospital group, said its experience was similar to that of HCA, in which some pa- tients who had Obamacare cover- age were now without any. The company is “roughly see- ing a pretty consistent conversion from exchange patient volume into uninsured on a pretty much one-to-one basis,” Tenet’s chief fi- nancial officer, Sun Park, said on the earnings call last week. Executives at nonprofit hospi- tals are seeing the same patterns. At SSM Health, there has been a significant jump in the number of people who have not paid their
TONY QUINN, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
P.A.H.O., weakening these multi- lateral institutions is a mistake for global health, and also it will im- pact the U.S.,” he said. The United States’ contribution to P.A.H.O. represents just 0.001 percent of total federal spending, the letter noted, but it makes up roughly 20 percent of the organi- zation’s budget. P.A.H.O. has re- ceived some additional money from Spain, an observing member of the organization, and other countries, but those contributions
But he also represents Michi- gan’s First Congressional District, home to several current and for- mer military sites with heavy PFAS contamination. They in- clude the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, where dec- ades of firefighting foam use se- verely contaminated the water and soil, as well as the drinking water in the area. “I will be direct: The communi- ty of Oscoda has endured more
medical bills, according to Ms. Kaiser, the chief executive. The number of uninsured pa- tients increased almost 21 percent from last year, and bad debt — pa- tient medical bills that a hospital has been unable to collect over time — is up almost 37 percent, which includes people with insur- ance whose plans leave them with sizable out-of-pocket costs. The speed with which hospitals are experiencing the fallout from the lower A.C.A. enrollment is worrisome, said Jeff Wurzburg, a health care lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright. The big hospital groups are “the tip of the spear,” with the impact very likely to be visible at smaller systems next. Under federal law, hospitals are required to care for people with medical emergencies, regardless of their ability to pay. “We’re all going to end up paying more as
do not make up for the loss of sup- port from the United States, Dr. Barbosa said. “I am knocking on every door that I can,” Dr. Barbosa said, “but we need the U.S. to make the pay- ment” to keep the organization running. Some public health experts noted that countries in the Ameri- cas face many threats in common and benefit from collaboration. For example, one of P.A.H.O.’s as- sets is a network of labs that can analyze the genetic information from pathogens, particularly those that are still emerging as threats in the hemisphere, to track their movement. “When they break this network, that makes it even more difficult to identify the virus that comes from birds or with the pork that arrives in United States, with risks for the American popula- tion,” said Dr. Paulo Buss, a former president of Fiocruz, Brazil’s agency for health research. P.A.H.O. has been especially in- volved in the United States this year as it is evaluating whether the nation has lost its measles elimination status, a designation given to countries that have not had continuous spread of the dis- ease for more than a year. The country has already recorded more cases of measles this year
ERIC LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
than a decade of contamination, broken promises, and institu- tional whiplash from the Air Force,” Mr. Bergman wrote in a May 20 letter to the Pentagon, which was reviewed by The Times. “I am running out of ways to explain to my constituents why the service they trusted with their community continues to treat them this way,” he wrote. The cleanup is a daunting task. Because PFAS are highly soluble
HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
hospitals take on more uncompen- sated care and bad debt,” Mr. Wurzburg said. While the fallout from the lapse in enhanced subsidies varies from hospital to hospital, industry sur- veys suggest these recent reports are not unusual. “When we look at this data, we have been seeing rising bad debt and charity care,” said Erik Swan- son, a managing director at Kauf- man Hall, a consulting firm that publishes a monthly report on hospital finances. In May, uncom- pensated care as a percentage of revenues was 21 percent higher than it was three years ago. The hospitals most vulnerable to the falloff in enrollment in gov- ernment programs like the Af- fordable Care Act and Medicaid are smaller rural hospitals and safety net hospitals that treat a large share of people without in-
than in any other year since it eliminated the disease in 2000. Dr. Barbosa said he did not be- lieve the organization’s role in de- termining the measles elimina- tion status had any impact on the administration’s decision to stop funding it. He said he has written twice to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, once last year and once a few weeks ago, to make the case for continued support of the organiza- tion. He has not received a formal response, he said, but has met with other officials from the State and Health and Human Services Departments. Dr. Barbosa said he agreed with the Trump’s administration’s push to make international organiza- tions more accountable. Since he became the organization’s leader in 2023, he said, he has cut its budget by 19 percent by eliminat- ing some positions, moving others from Washington to member countries, and cutting down on travel. In the interests of transpar- ency, audit reports for each coun- try are also now available to all other members. “The general concerns that they have shared about interna- tional organizations — we are al- ready implementing them,” he said.
in water and some do not break down in the environment, they can migrate far from where they were released and persist for dec- ades, said Jennifer Field, a profes- sor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State University. “The plumes can be very, very large, so the scale of contamina- tion itself can be a challenge,” Prof. Field said. The chemicals have cast a pall on life in many military communi- ties, said Tony Spaniola, co-chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network, an environmental group that has pressed the Department of Defense to prioritize cleanup at the former Wurtsmith base. “It’s not just drinking water,” he said. “It’s the fish, it’s the venison, it’s the small game.” In a report by the Government Accountability Office last year, de- fense officials described the num- ber of sites that must be assessed for PFAS contamination nation- wide as “overwhelming.” They had little information on where PFAS might have been used at each location, they said, which meant they needed to test across entire installations, in some cases covering hundreds of thousands of acres. There is also no widely avail- able technology that quickly re- moves all PFAS contamination in soil and water. At Wurtsmith, the Pentagon discovered the contamination there in 2010 and was expected to complete its remedial investiga- tion of the site in mid-2027. Only after that can potential cleanup begin.
A.C.A. enrollment has fallen about 13%.
surance. Because these types of hospitals make so little profit, “ev- ery little weight on the scale brings additional challenges,” said Duane Fitch, who advises hospi- tals for Plante Moran, a consulting firm. Few industry experts predicted a surge in the number of closed hospitals, but many said hospitals were starting to shutter individual clinics and cut services like ma- ternal care and behavioral health services. Some hospitals will cut back on big projects and defer maintenance on their facilities. “We have seen systems quietly closing services,” said Dan Stein- gart, who oversees Moody’s Rat- ings coverage of nonprofit hospi- tals. The facilities are not making announcements, he said, but cut- ting services to reduce costs. Banner Health, a nonprofit sys- tem based in Arizona that oper- ates nearly three dozen hospitals, said more than a quarter of the un- insured patients it had recently treated had coverage last year. Hospitals will face even more unpaid bills as the changes to Medicaid are expected to go into effect next year, said Amy Perry, the chief executive of Banner. Hospital systems like hers are looking at where they can save money, including closing facilities, which may mean patients would have to travel farther for care. “We’re doing that in every market in our portfolio,” Ms. Perry said. What is going on now is “a slow burn,” Ms. Perry said, but she warned that the impact would be greater as more people lost their insurance coverage in the coming years, and hospitals took more drastic steps to cut costs. “We see this about to happen,” she said. “We’re basically saying, ‘Please don’t touch the stove.’”
A sliver of Midtown around a buckling building was closed for weeks. Izakaya Futago, above, dumped fish and furloughed workers.
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
They threw out 120 pounds of bluefin tuna fresh from Spanish waters. Into the garbage went 15 trays of Japanese sea urchin that sell for $25 a morsel. The 13 pounds of black throat sea perch all the way from Tsushima Island? Also in the dumpster. While New Yorkers were capti- vated by a buckling Midtown building on 42nd Street on July 7, another high-stakes story played out in its shadow. For nearly three weeks, businesses between Sec- ond and Third Avenues on 43rd Street struggled to stay afloat as the city kept that sliver of Mid- town closed. Inside the so-called Frozen Zone, set up after 235 East 42nd Street, the location of the former headquarters of the pharmaceuti- cal company Pfizer, became dan- gerously unstable, were hotels, a trade school and a brace of Japa- nese restaurants. As each week passed, the city shrank the Frozen Zone, allowing more businesses to reopen and pedestrians and cars to return. With the former Pfizer building, which is being converted to apart- ments, finally stable, the city gave the businesses that remained shut the all-clear to reopen on July 24. But the bills have piled up, workers have been furloughed, and businesses, especially the restaurants, are playing catch up. “We had to throw it away, all the good stuff,” said Porche Prasertchoang, the manager of Izakaya Futago, a restaurant on the stretch of East 43rd Street be- tween Second and Third Avenues. The closure cost an estimated $60,000 and counting, he said. He was forced to furlough all 23 of his employees, and he encouraged them to apply for unemployment. He spent his days slipping into the restaurant through the delivery entrance on 44th Street to work the phones, canceling reserva- tions and food orders. “I don’t know how long it will take for us to recover,” Mr. Prasertchoang said on Monday. At Sushi Yasuda, where the black throat sea perch is served, Scott Rosenberg, an owner, esti- mates that the business lost over
By BENJAMIN WEISER and JONAH E. BROMWICH
James M. McDonald will be the top prosecutor for the Southern District of New York.
Federal district judges in Man- hattan on Wednesday appointed James M. McDonald, a former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell who represented President Trump in his appeal of his criminal conviction, to lead the U.S. attor- ney’s office for the Southern Dis- trict of New York. Mr. McDonald, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, had al- ready been selected by Mr. Trump to succeed Jay Clayton, the previ- ous U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who on Tuesday was confirmed as the director of national intelli- gence. On Wednesday, the district judges in Manhattan ratified the president’s choice, making Mr. McDonald the second judicially appointed U.S. attorney in Man- hattan during the president’s sec- ond term. (The court installed Mr. Clayton in the position when his interim appointment by Mr. Trump expired last August.) The court, in a two-paragraph statement, said Mr. McDonald’s appointment became effective with the resignation of Mr. Clay- ton, who stepped down as U.S. at- torney on Wednesday. In moving quickly to name Mr. McDonald, the court made it clear it did not want the top prosecu- tor’s post to remain vacant for long, saying in the statement that
On Tuesday, the head chef of Sushi Yasuda, Seijiro Kobayashi, above, was back at work, preparing the restaurant’s signature dishes. As the troubled building in the neighborhood, 235 East 42nd Street, was stabilized, the area was gradually reopened.
$300,000 in revenue and spoiled food. His insurer denied his claim for the damage, he said. Equally galling, in some ways, he said, is that the plight of his and fellow businesses has gotten little atten- tion. “A buckling building, it is shock- ing and terrifying,” Mr. Rosenberg said in an interview. “It’s not the most compelling or exciting story that a handful of adjacent busi- nesses are kind of left to fend for themselves, but this involves peo- ple’s livelihoods.” Though he was able to negoti- ate with the city to allow customers with reservations to
it was acting “to ensure continu- ity” in the U.S. attorney’s office. The appointment also comes at a sensitive time for the U.S. attor- ney’s office, which is handling such high-profile cases as the prosecution of Nicolás Maduro, the former president of Venezue- la, who was captured by American military forces in January. Mr. McDonald’s appointment appears to be moving more smoothly than most court ap- pointments of U.S. attorneys have during the Trump administration. The Justice Department has said it will not tolerate judges’ select- ing U.S. attorneys without coordi- nation with the executive branch. Several other U.S. attorneys who have been appointed by judges have been summarily fired by the Trump administration. Just this month, the administra- tion moved to fire Roger Rogoff, a U.S. attorney who was selected by judges in western Washington to lead the office there. Mr. Rogoff sued the department, arguing that
slip through the barricades at Third Avenue, he said, the Frozen Zone hit Sushi Yasuda’s finances hard. Mr. Rosenberg said he is now exploring a lawsuit against the building’s developer, MetroLoft. A spokesman for MetroLoft declined to comment. “What small business has the wherewithal to try to take on big real estate folks?” he said. “But we are looking at it because it has been devastating.” Down the street, Yakiniku Toraji, a Japanese barbecue restaurant, just reopened as well. “It’s hard, still,” said Ayano Shindo, as she tended the coals for
in firing any prosecutor not ap- proved by his administration, Mr. Trump was seeking to circumvent laws that require permanent U.S. attorneys to be confirmed by Con- gress. No such conflict is anticipated in the Southern District of New York, where Mr. McDonald is set to take over one of the most high- profile and prestigious posts at the Justice Department. He is a personal friend of Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, who was also a prosecutor in the Southern District before repre- senting Mr. Trump when the pres- ident was facing a series of crimi- nal investigations. Mr. McDonald, much admired by his fellow office alumni, is often characterized as a likable legal wonk. He clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and later be- came a federal prosecutor; he was involved in a number of high-pro- file cases including the corruption prosecution of Sheldon Silver, the once-powerful Democratic speaker of the New York State As- sembly. Mr. McDonald, during that trial, served as a legal specialist — or, more colloquially, as one of the “law guys” — assisting his team in knotty issues that loom large in corruption cases. Mr. McDonald went on to lead the enforcement division at the Commodity Futures Trading
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANGELINA KATSANIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
the table-side grills. A part-time employee, Ms. Shindo estimated she had lost $600 each week. A na- tive Japanese-speaker, she said she had struggled to apply for un- employment benefits and was not successful. On this underappreciated block of Midtown East, Ms. Shindo is one of scores of workers whose lives were upended on July 7. The ramifications have been felt from the waiters serving sushi, to the concierge at the hotel, to the stu- dents at the trade school next door. The problem at the former Pfi- zer building is under investiga- tion, and the Manhattan district attorney has begun the initial stages of a criminal inquiry into what went wrong. Some workers said the situation tested their resilience. Standing outside a parking garage, a few days after the street’s reopening, Tete Kpoti, a security guard, said he was evacuated from his post on July 7, but he hadn’t missed a beat. He quickly found another security gig at a different location, until he could return. “This is New York City,” Mr. Kpoti said. “You’ve got to come with Plan A and a Plan B.” On the day of the evacuation, Aaron Cox was getting some air during a break between classes in electrical engineering at Apex Technical School, at 210 East 43rd Street, when people started yelling that the building was sag- ging. Firefighters quickly arrived, he said, and evacuated his fellow students from their classrooms next door. A few days later, Mr. Cox was back for classes and able to return before 43rd Street was reopened, he said, through a back door on 42nd Street. But the curriculum had been slightly changed: In- structors drilled everyone on things like federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, Mr. Cox said, and how to address any building site prob- lems. “We went over who is going to be accountable, and how we re- port it, because of this,” Mr. Cox said. “They warned us of the dan- gers of negligence.”
Commission during the first Trump administration. That expe- rience will most likely be relevant in Mr. McDonald’s new role; a number of insider trading investi- gations are in progress at the Southern District, thanks in part to the growth of prediction mar- kets, which are regulated by the commission. In 2021, Mr. McDon- ald went to Sullivan & Cromwell. At the firm, which last year took over Mr. Trump’s appeal of his 2024 criminal conviction, Mr. Mc- Donald represented Live Nation and Polymarket, both of which re- ceived favorable treatment from the Justice Department after hav- ing been the subject of federal scrutiny. This month, Mr. McDonald re- turned to the U.S. attorney’s office after Mr. Clayton was nominated for his new role. Mr. McDonald was named as the deputy U.S. at- torney, the traditional title of the office’s No. 2 position. While in the office, Mr. McDon- ald has been involved in a leak in- vestigation centered on New York Times articles related to security vulnerabilities of an Air Force One jet that Qatar had given to Mr. Trump. The investigation resulted in a number of subpoenas being sent to Times reporters, which the Justice Department withdrew af- ter a judge expressed skepticism about whether prosecutors had followed the law.
Tax on Second Homes, Baffling Some Residents
In Only One Place but Still Received Notices
This article is by Dionne Searcey, Mihir Zaveri and Bianca Pallaro.
The rollout of New York City’s contentious new pied-à-terre tax started with a notification from Mayor Zohran Mamdani on social media: “You’ve got mail.” Letters were on the way to peo- ple who have a second home in New York worth more than $5 mil- lion, the mayor explained in a post last Thursday. “Our records indi- cate the property above may be subject to the new surcharge,” read the letters being sent to prop- erty owners. Then, the next day, in accord- ance with the new law, the city’s Department of Finance published the names and addresses associ- ated with nearly one million prop- erties — mostly one-to-three-fam- ily homes and condos, along with co-op buildings and some individ- ual co-op apartments from those buildings. It noted that “the roll in- cludes, but is not limited to, those properties that may be subject to the surcharge.” The second-home tax is part of the latest push by state and local leaders to iron out some of the in- equities in the upstairs-down- stairs city by taxing wealthy part- time residents. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the new tax this year with enthusiastic backing from Mr. Mamdani who ran on an af- fordability platform. City officials stressed that the publication of taxable properties happens twice a year and is re- quired by state law “for public in- spection.” The information al- ready was available to anyone who wanted to see it and was com- piled “based on the parameters set by the state law,” said Jae Ko, a spokesman for the city’s Depart- ment of Finance. “Nothing unusual here,” Ms. Hochul said at an event on Tues- day. “Every building, property tax debt is public. Always has been.” Although the lists published last week went online with little fanfare from state and local offi- cials, they did so at a moment when some wealthy people in the city have said that they feel under attack. “Pied-a-terror,” read a headline on the cover of The New York Post. (The second-home tax is also known as the pied-à-terre tax.) Criticism spread on social media. In some circles, WhatsApp groups lit up with news of the lists, and worry over being perceived as wealthy merely by appearing on the lists ensued. People searched for themselves and friends and colleagues, as though it was a WikiLeaks dump. Warnings went out to neighbors to be on the lookout for letters about potential new taxes to be paid. “You may need to file for an exemption,” read one post tucked among neighborhood notices for a free goldfish and a search for beading materials on the Brook- lyn Facebook group Park Slope Together. The publication of the lists, and the notices mailed to residents, are among the first steps the city has taken to enforce the tax, which is based on an archaic property tax assessment system. The city first uses an assess- ment measure called “market val- ue” to determine which homes may be eligible. Condos and co-op second homes with a “market val- ue” of over $1 million are eligible to be taxed, as are smaller homes over $5 million. Critics have noted that market value as defined by the city often does not correlate with how much condos and co-ops may actually be worth. The city is working on developing a new valuation sys- tem for the tax that would go into effect in 2028. Anxiety about the lists — and what they could mean — abounded this week. Some people were also startled to know their names appeared alongside nota- ble ones, such as Commerce Sec- retary Howard Lutnick, the film- makers Woody Allen and Spike Lee, former Mayor Bill de Blasio and the fashion icon Anna Win- tour. City Councilwoman Gale Brewer spotted her name tied to the brownstone she owns. “I’ve been living there 365 days a year since 1994,” said Ms. Brewer, who said she did not own another home. “I can’t figure out why I was listed.” She had been in favor of the pied-à-terre tax, but she said she was rethinking her support after hearing from angry constituents worried about their names turn- ing up on the lists, too. City offi- cials need to handle the rollout better, she said. “People are already on edge about everything — property in- surance, safety, life, just every- thing,” Ms. Brewer said. “It’s un- fortunate.”
The lists cover most non-rental residential properties in the city, not only those likely to owe the tax. The vast majority fall below the value thresholds required to make owners eligible for the tax. Only about 24,000 rise above them, according to an analysis by The New York Times. But even then, the surcharge would apply only if the property isn’t the own- er’s primary residence. Some residents said the city mistakenly sent them letters say- ing they owed a second-home tax on property they have lived in as a primary residence. Letters about potential new taxes were not being sent to ev- eryone on the lists, a spokesman for the Department of Finance said. And the city has instituted a number of methods to help with appeals including more 311 opera- tors and an online appeals-filing process. City officials said 17,000 letters had already been sent with notifi- cations about tax bills. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani indicated that the city had initially targeted properties that were trusts or limited liability corporations as a way of sorting out whether they were primary residences for owners. “The governor proposed the pied-à-terre tax to help the city close its budget gap,” said Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for
KARSTEN MORAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Department of Finance has published the names and addresses associated with nearly one million properties.
Ms. Hochul, in a statement. “The enabling legislation — which the city played a significant role in drafting — only requires that they include this new tax in the public tax rolls already available. Any questions about the way in which this program is being imple- mented or publicized can only be answered by City Hall.” Some residents were troubled by what they thought was a short timeline for appeals: Aug. 21 for residential properties or Aug. 24 for co-ops. Karen Young was surprised when she opened a letter this week and found a notice that she might be subject to a “surcharge,” as the letter called the new tax, on her Upper West Side home, of about $43,000. The five-story house, steps away from Central Park, is the only home she has lived in since 1997. She said she also owns an office in Paris. (City officials said they could not com- ment on individual cases.) “I have been a primary resident of New York City since 1972,” said Ms. Young, who spent years re- storing her Upper West Side home to its late 19th-century grandeur. “Everything — voter registration, driver’s license, jury duty — all right here. What were they think- ing?” Property records show that she transferred ownership to a trust in 2024, but she said she and her husband were the sole benefi- ciaries. “I’m insulted and angry and honestly am very hurt,” Ms. Young said. “That probably sounds silly, but I love this city.” Ms. Young, who also shared her frustration with Ms. Brewer and The New York Post, started her appeal on Monday evening and immediately was frustrated with the steps. She was asked to submit a prop- erty deed and other proof, which she needed to ask her lawyer to re- trieve because she purchased the home in 1981. But she said he was on vacation. Ms. Young was able to arrange for his assistant to help assemble the documents for an hourly fee. But when she for- warded some of the links to upload paperwork, she found they didn’t work. She started filling out fields on the website until she went to bed. When she woke in the morning and logged in again, she found none of her work had been saved. “I’m feeling so helplessly trapped,” she said.
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
Haley Stevens had heard quite enough from people who had heard quite enough of Haley Stevens. “There’s those cool kids on the internet,” Ms. Stevens, a four- term Michigan congresswoman, said last week, rubbing her hands together at a rally for her Demo- cratic Senate primary campaign, bobbing in a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up. “They’re doin’ the cool kid chyaahhter.” That chatter, which she insisted is the stuff of “coastal elites,” had centered on how she chatters. Some skeptics of Ms. Stevens, lo- cally and nationally, heard the ex- aggerated Midwestern twang of a
flak online for her Midwestern speech.
schlocky “Saturday Night Live” impersonation, with its raised a’s and disappearing g’s and some- one-just-sat-on-the-remote fluctu- ations in volume and cadence, as if curated to project something en- dearingly zany. Ms. Stevens and her supporters heard something else. “They’re makin’ fun of Michi- gan,” she said. “They’re thinkin’ they’re better than us. And what they don’t know is: I am your voice.” Next week, primary voters will have their say about that. In the interim, the matter of Ms. Stevens’s voice entered focus and has been maligned, celebrated, dissected by linguists and foren- sically compared to past clips in which she maybe sounds a little bit different or maybe not so much. Amid the chatter, her speech has become a proxy for a good deal more in the endless de- bate over what authenticity means and who gets to define it. Is another accomplished female candidate really being made to de- fend her vocal intentions after years of focus group panels whose use of “shrill,” “bossy,” “cold” and other dismissive adjectives di- rected at women officeseekers were often seen as cover for un- subtle misogyny? In a season when Democrats for a time embraced an undervetted Maine oysterman as their Senate pick, in no small part because ad- mirers and operatives loved the sea-salted gravel in his voice, what makes certain regional sounds echo differently than oth- ers? And in this particular contest,
By EMILY DAVIES
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The lead- ing candidates vying to succeed Lindsey Graham in the Senate gathered Wednesday at his fu- neral in South Carolina, forming an occasionally awkward tableau, as they sought to celebrate his life respectfully while quietly jockey- ing for his seat. It was a delicate task. One can- didate is Mr. Graham’s sister, Sen- ator Darline Graham, who was picked to serve out the remainder of his term and was endorsed by President Trump to run for the next one. She escorted Mr. Gra- ham’s coffin to the front of the First Baptist Church in Columbia, the state capital, and listened to the service from the front row, oc- casionally wiping tears from her eyes. Several of the other candidates in attendance, all fixtures in South Carolina politics, also claim ties to Mr. Graham: Representative Rus- sell Fry is a former intern. Former Gov. Mark Sanford named Mr. Graham as the godfather of one of his children. Complicating their relation- ships with the late senator were the realities of Republican politics in South Carolina. Mr. Graham was a favorite of President Trump and the Washington establish- ment. However, his relationship with Republican voters in South Carolina was not always smooth, particularly with some members of the hard-line MAGA base ex- pected to turn out in a special pri- mary election on Aug. 11. Nine candidates qualified by Tuesday’s filing deadline to ap- pear on the ballot. In the sprint to define themselves in just a few weeks, they have each made a point of breaking from various as- pects of Mr. Graham’s record, in- cluding his comfort with Washing- ton and his focus on issues abroad. Ms. Graham, 62, has sat for only one interview since announcing her bid, asking for time while her brother was laid to rest. But even in that appearance, she sought to differentiate herself from Mr. Gra-
Representative Haley Stevens has leaned into her regional delivery as she campaigns for U.S. Senate ahead of next week’s primary.
why is a homespun white woman being cast as any more quintessentially Michigan in 2026 than, say, a progressive Muslim doctor like her primary opponent, Abdul El-Sayed? “It does seem to be, whether in- tentionally or subconsciously, a kind of ‘I am one of you, and he is not’ tactic,” Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, a group that recruits young pro- gressive candidates, said of Ms. Stevens. “But also, criticizing the way a woman speaks is sexist. All of that is true!” In modern American politics, the list of politicians whose sup- porters find them relatable is long and varied: a rich-guy president with a weakness for gold trim and a white-haired socialist from Ver- mont; a hockey mom from Alaska and a former bartender from the Bronx. One voter’s authenticity will al- ways be another’s trying-too- hard. But rarely has the subtext of how it feels to hear a candidate speak been so explicitly elevated to text-text in a campaign’s final frames. The attention escalated this month, when a 19-second clip of Ms. Stevens in Ecorse, Mich., set the political internet aflame.
From left, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina; Representative James Clyburn; Mindy Noce, the wife of Senator Tim Scott; Mr. Scott; and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attended the funeral.
ham, telling the Fox News host Sean Hannity that she often urged Mr. Graham, after watching him discuss foreign policy on TV, to pay attention to issues that more directly affected his constituents’ lives. “Talk about also what matters to the average person: the price of gas, health care, insurance, those kinds of things,” she described saying to her brother again and again. “That’s what I’m worried about.” Mr. Sanford, 66, whose time in the governor’s mansion ended in scandal surrounding an extra- marital affair, announced Wednesday that he was taking a road trip to discuss how he would lower gas and housing prices — a contrast to Mr. Graham, who backed a war with Iran that has made life more expensive for Americans. Mr. Fry has billed himself as a “conservative MAGA candidate” who, at 41 years old, represents a new generation of leadership. And
“I’m gonna be doin’ it with a lit- tle bit of joy, a little bit of enthusi- asm, a little bit of energy and a lit- tle bit of stick-it-to-’em!” she told voters, smacking her own open palm on the punchline. “Because that’s the Michigan way!” Reactions ranged from searing mockery to conspicuous glee among ideological foes. “How is this not a character from parks & rec?” Meghan Mc- Cain, the conservative commenta- tor, posted on X, invoking the tele- vision comedy about the ec- centrics of a local Indiana govern- ment. “Bad Chris Farley impression?” wrote Kaelan Dorr, a White House aide. “My culture is not your cos- tume, lady.” TMZ later caught up with Ms. Stevens on Capitol Hill, where she appraised herself as “authenti- cally Michigan.” “You know who I sound like?” she said. “I sound like the people who I talk to in Michigan who are gettin’ screwed right now by Don- ald Trump.” She released an ad to reinforce the theme, declaring she was “proud to fight for — and sound like — Michigan!” and printing “Stick It To ’Em” yard signs. The primary by then had grown
Representative Ralph Norman, 73, has leaned into his credentials as a member of the House Free- dom Caucus to subtly question Ms. Graham’s experience by telling voters they “shouldn’t have to guess” how their senator will vote in Washington. The pews of the church played host to a who’s who of South Car-
focus on state issues, not foreign affairs.
vicious enough that Dr. El-Sayed, who in June said pointedly of Ms. Stevens that political money “can’t even buy you a personality,” felt compelled to address the so- cial media venom directly. “It’s be- come impossible to ignore the way that people online make fun of my opponent for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics,” he said in a statement, calling this behavior unkind and unhelpful. “If you support me, please stop.” This did not dissuade Ms. Stevens’s detractors from noting, accurately, that her campaign has been boosted by heavy spending from groups outside Michigan, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Addi- tionally, her line about “cool kids” from the coasts was delivered with an out-of-state endorser, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, in the camera shot. Some have also spread mis- chievous rumors that the accent itself might have been imported from somewhere nefarious, like Wisconsin. Ms. Stevens, for the record, was born and raised in Oakland County, Mich., north of Detroit. She was a chief of staff for the Obama administration’s auto task force and speaks fondly of the
GERALD HERBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Congress, chatted amiably with Mr. Hannity. Attendees embraced and took selfies. Gov. Henry McMaster, Senator Tim Scott, also a Republican of South Carolina, and Trey Gowdy, a Fox News host and former con- gressman, spoke during the serv- ice, telling stories about Mr. Gra- ham’s service and his sense of hu- mor. They all expressed love and support for his sister, who has been serving out the remainder of his term even as she finds herself in a tough primary race to replace him permanently next year. The speakers stopped short of endorsing her candidacy, howev- er, as they addressed an audience that also included Mr. Sanford, Mr. Fry and Mr. Norman — a reflec- tion, perhaps, of how competitive the primary remains. The top five contenders in the race, including Ms. Graham, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Fry and Mr. Norman, have agreed to participate in a de- bate scheduled for Monday. As of Wednesday, a PAC sup-
BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES
Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme she drove in high school. As an academic matter, Ms. Stevens does appear to have ac- cent science on her side. “I will give it my sociolinguist stamp,” said Betsy Sneller, an as- sociate professor of linguistics at Michigan State University whose research has tracked how lan- guage has evolved across the state. “She definitely has a classic Michigan accent.” Aural giveaways include what is known as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and examples of “Ca- nadian raising” that appears in other parts of the United States, which Dr. Sneller identified in Ms. Stevens’s delivery of words like “tireless” and “fighter.” Ms. Stevens’s inflections might be unfamiliar to Michigan trans- plants, Dr. Sneller suggested, be- cause “she kind of sounds like a boomer from a suburban area.” Ms. Stevens is 43 but seems to ap- proach her vowels with the sensi- bility of an older soul. And if the accent affair has am- plified some thorny political ques- tions for Democrats, women can- didates and denizens of the inter- net, it can be said that one constit- uency is enjoying itself. “This,” Dr. Sneller said, “is the stuff of dialectologists’ joy.”
porting Mr. Fry was scheduled to spend half a million dollars on TV ads, while Mr. Sanford’s campaign planned to spend almost $350,000, according to data from AdImpact. Ms. Graham’s campaign has bought more than $90,000 of TV time in coordination with the Na- tional Republican Senatorial Com- mittee, which received some of Mr. Graham’s campaign funds, ac- cording to a person familiar with the arrangement. Security is Strength PAC, an independent committee that worked on behalf of Mr. Graham, is now helping his sister. Mr. Graham won his primary election in June, a month before he died. But the race was expen- sive, and for a time it appeared to be headed to a runoff. Mr. Graham knew the state was moving away from him, Mr. Gowdy said on Wednesday. Mr. Graham had recently told his chief adviser, Richard Perry, that he was aware that a growing number of South Carolina voters would never support him, Mr. Gowdy said during his tribute. “Forty-nine percent of the peo- ple in this state are not going to vote for me no matter what,” Mr. Gowdy recalled Mr. Graham as saying. Some hard-line conservatives never forgave Mr. Graham for his sharp criticism of Mr. Trump in 2016, when the two competed for the Republican presidential nomi- nation. Others saw Mr. Graham’s hawkish policy — and particularly his support for the war in Iran — as antithetical to the “America First” ethos that powered Mr. Trump to the White House. Inside the church on Wednes- day, that jockeying stayed on the sidelines. “We meet in sadness over the loss of one of South Carolina’s greatest sons,” Governor McMas- ter said, “but also to celebrate this poor boy from a little town in South Carolina, as he called him- self.” Governor McMaster contin- ued: “His impact was enormous, and I am confident, as are you, there will never be another Lind- sey Graham.”
And Whoops For Democrat In Iowa Race
By TIM BALK
Barack Obama, the only Demo- crat to win Iowa in a presidential election in the last quarter-cen- tury, famously loves basketball. Josh Turek, the Democratic nomi- nee in the state’s high-stakes Sen- ate race, does, too — he was a two- time Paralympic gold medalist on the U.S. men’s wheelchair basket- ball team. So for one of the former presi- dent’s first endorsements of the midterm elections, he appeared in an endorsement video shooting hoops with Mr. Turek, a centrist state lawmaker who is seeking to become the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Iowa in more than a decade. Last week, Mr. Obama joined Mr. Turek at a gymnasium in Chi- cago, where they filmed a two- and-a-half minute video while playing a game of IOWA, a varia- tion of HORSE, the shoot-around game. Democrats are trying to flip the seat held by Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican who decided not to run for re-election. Mr. Turek faces Representative Ashley Hin- son, a moderate Republican run- ning with President Trump’s en- dorsement. “Let’s go, we playing HORSE or what?” Mr. Obama, who had the White House tennis court modi- fied so it could also be used for basketball, says from the sidelines in the opening moments of the vid- eo, released Wednesday. Mr. Turek replies with a grin, “We’re playing IOWA.” “I know a little something about winning Iowa,” says Mr. Obama, who upset Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race for president in 2008 and carried the state in the general election that year. He also won Iowa in the 2012 presidential election. But the state swung sharply in 2016. Mr. Trump carried it by nearly 10 percentage points. Thirty-one Iowa counties pivoted, the most of any state. Republicans have since main- tained a hold on Iowa, and Mr. Trump won it comfortably in 2020 and in 2024. But Iowa’s farming-heavy econ- omy has struggled under Mr. Trump’s tariff policies in his sec- ond term. Democrats see the state as one of their top pickup opportu- nities in their quest to reclaim the Senate. Opinion polls show the race be- tween Mr. Turek and Ms. Hinson essentially tied. Mr. Turek has ar- gued that the state is ready to elect a “common-sense” Demo- crat, and has pointed to his bipar- tisan record in the Iowa Legisla- ture. In the video, Mr. Obama asks Mr. Turek how his campaign is go- ing. “Everywhere we go — urban ar- eas, rural areas — people are ready for change,” Mr. Turek says. Mr. Obama says that “of all the things I’ve done in politics, Iowa was my favorite thing,” describing “a magic about regular folks showing up in gyms” for the state’s caucuses. Mr. Turek tells Mr. Obama that people in the state say they are feeling “hope” for the “first time in a long time.” Mr. Obama replies, “That’s my sense.” Ms. Hinson’s campaign dis- missed the endorsement. “Another liberal endorses Josh Turek — shocking,” Billy Fuerst, a campaign spokesman, said in a six-word statement. Mr. Obama has endorsed few candidates in the midterm elec- tions, which are still three months away. But in May, he joined James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in traditionally red Texas, to get tacos at a campaign event that was filmed and turned into a glossy video. Mr. Obama’s video with Mr. Turek shows a series of swishes by the two left-handed Democrats and the former president badly missing a midrange bank shot from the wing. (“The bank was closed,” Mr. Obama says.) It includes a discussion of the greatest basketball players of all time. (Both men put Michael Jor- dan, the Chicago Bulls guard, atop their lists.) The video leaves some ambigu- ity about who won the game of IOWA, though Mr. Obama says he was “whooped” and describes Mr. Turek as “somebody who knows how to win.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Obama, Hannah Hankins, declined to say who won, saying simply that they had fun and had a good conversa- tion. It was not the first time the for- mer president had met Mr. Turek. Mr. Obama welcomed him to the White House in 2016 to celebrate the U.S. Paralympic men’s basket- ball team’s Olympic gold medal victory in Rio de Janeiro.
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Tal Feldman A student at Yale Law School and a former A.I. engineer for the U.S. government.
HE United States is selling the best ar- tificial intelligence models in the world. China is giving away the sec- ond-best. The world cannot get enough of these mod- els. Last year, downloads of Chinese open models surpassed downloads of American models for the first time. They are being rap- idly adopted across Africa and Latin Amer- ica. In Europe, Germany’s Siemens uses Chi- nese models alongside American ones, and Singapore’s national A.I. program chose to build a recent model on Alibaba’s Qwen. Even American companies increasingly rely on A.I. from China. Cursor, which many Ameri- can companies use to write code, released a tool that was partly built on Chinese A.I. These models are not as innocent as many people believe. Chinese companies built them, in part, by copying American A.I., ac- cording to U.S. officials. And they built them under Chinese law, which dictates what A.I. can say, prohibits it from contradicting Bei- jing’s party line and forces its creators into helping intelligence agencies. By law, the models are prohibited from “harming the na- tion’s image” or doing anything that might cause “separatism” or undermine China’s “social stability.” A.I. models are very differ- ent from the usual inexpensive imports we buy from China. These products must pro- mote the interests of the Chinese govern- ment. Propaganda and false claims are baked into them. So the problem is less that these models are made in China than that they are made for China. Whoever supplies the world’s A.I. will shape how the world thinks. As these models get smarter and more autonomous, we are outsourcing more and more thinking to them. That “cognitive offloading” must not go to models that were designed to promote a for- eign government, no matter how inexpensive they are. Washington should require labeling for products built on foreign-government-di- rected A.I. Even more important, the U.S. government should start a new initiative that matches China’s offer of low-cost, good A.I. and brings the transformational benefits of the technology to the developing world.
the world’s A.I. will shape how the world thinks.
CONSIDER WHAT THE Department of Com- merce found when it tested the Chinese mod- el DeepSeek last September. Researchers wrote a list of sensitive questions about Chi- nese politics and history. Some were direct, about Xinjiang and Tiananmen Square. Oth- ers were indirect questions, such as one about whether anyone had won a Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, which should have elicited the name of the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Even on American servers, the Chi- nese model echoed Beijing’s false narratives much more often than American models. Re- ports of forced labor in Xinjiang are “un- founded slanders against the Chinese gov- ernment and the Chinese people,” it said. The Estonian and Taiwanese governments found similar patterns. You can go to DeepSeek’s website and see for yourself. You will read that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China” and “the C.C.P.’s people-centered development philosophy en- sures that the benefits of reform and opening
Sharon Waxman The founder, chief executive and editor in chief of The Wrap.
FTER months of dread, Hollywood has been thrown sideways by the news that 12 state attorneys general might have found a way to trip up the merger that almost nobody in the entertain- ment industry wanted. For months, the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance has been an all-but-done deal. A friendly thumbs-up from the Department of Justice meant that the merger was set to happen by this fall. Now it’s being put on pause for almost a year because, I’m told, of the exact condition that gave Paramount a leg up with the Trump administration in the first place — its post-merger control of both CNN and CBS News. Paramount made a game-time move here. Instead of waiting for a judge to rule on an injunction to put the deal on hold, which looked likely to happen, Paramount negoti- ated an agreement to delay it until next June, unless a judge rules otherwise. Para- mount’s strategy is aimed at getting to trial as quickly as possible in order to overcome the states’ lawsuit. Very little about these twists and turns is as it seems. From the moment David Elli- son, backed by his billionaire father, Larry, succeeded in his initially hostile bid to take over Warner this year, the unstated theme of the pushback has been politics, not antitrust concerns. The fear in Hollywood and among Demo- cratic leaders such as Elizabeth Warren and Jamie Raskin is that the merger would give a single company with close ties to the Trump administration huge power, includ- ing not just the movie studios Paramount and Warner Bros., not just the premium ca- ble HBO and streamer Paramount+, but the combined news clout of CBS News and CNN. Both sides will tell you privately that con-
cerns over the future of CNN and the prospect that the head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, will run both media organizations are what is driving the forces against this deal. Two fired “60 Minutes” correspondents, Scott Pelley and Cecilia Vega, have given public accounts of how they felt they were pressured to make their reporting conform to what they saw as Ms. Weiss’s pro-Trump bias. Having privately voiced similar con- cerns, the correspondent Anderson Cooper left “60 Minutes” of his own accord. (On Tuesday, “60 Minutes” announced a number of new hires, including the Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat.) Paramount seems well aware of this nar- rative, with one lawyer close to its side telling me about the state attorneys gen- eral: “They don’t want Ellison to control CNN, period. But they can’t say that. That would be a violation of the First Amend- ment.” (All 12 of the attorneys general are Democrats.) Paramount’s chief legal counsel, Makan Delrahim, ran the antitrust division of the Justice Department in the first Trump ad- ministration. Both publicly and privately he has been confidently asserting that based on the law the merger was not in question. The merger opposition is being spear- headed by Norm Eisen, a former ambassa- dor under President Barack Obama and a leading legal strategist during the 2019 im- peachment of President Trump. He is a founder of the group Democracy Defenders Fund, which is helping to lead the fight against the merger. His statement last week hailing the initial temporary restraining order suggested that concern over free expression as much as fear of widespread industry job loss is fuel- ing the opposition. “This decision proves that when the facts are laid out, the truth is evident: This merger would hurt our film and entertainment industry, our independ- ent press and our freedom of speech, and it must be blocked,” he said. Paramount has requested a November trial, leaving plenty of time to negotiate a settlement of the states’ lawsuit.
up are shared by all, lead- ing to a harmo- nious and prosper- ous society.” These claims are silly enough that many users will see through them. Most people are not asking their A.I. models about Tianan- men Square or Tibet. But the crude propagan- da is a symptom of a deeper problem. These days, when you ask an A.I. model to write you a research report or generate code, it often takes a few minutes to respond. Dur- ing that time, it is doing its version of reason- ing. Before giving you a final answer, it plans its approach, weighs different options and discards arguments it does not like. Engi- neers call this its “chain of thought.” Some models let you read that scratchpad. Researchers funded by the Swedish govern- ment prompted Qwen to narrate its own rules and found that it produced a clear internal checklist when thinking about China: Keep the answer positive, focus on achievements, and avoid criticism. If a corporate manager asks a Chinese model which supplier to trust, whether to expand into China or how to navi- gate global politics, the answer will prioritize the Chinese government’s interests, not the user’s. Security is also an issue. When researchers
The prospect of a merger has had producers, actors, agents, filmmakers and executives bracing for the imminent loss of a major Hollywood studio’s independence. Friends keep wondering aloud what be- comes of the Warner lot. The presumption has been that jobs would start disappearing by the end of this year and that big shifts would be coming to movie greenlighting, budgeting, streaming investments and who is in charge of what. With the introduction of the states’ law- suit, there will be legal arguments about what the legal definition of the “market” is for movies, television and the jobs they sup- port. There may be discussions of how many blockbuster films may never be made as a result of the merger, as was raised in the complaint of the California attorney gen-
asked DeepSeek to write code for us- ers whom the Chinese government views with hostility, such as Falun Gong or Tibetans, DeepSeek wrote code with security vulnerabili- ties, making it easier for hackers to penetrate. This could be malice, laziness or an accidental byproduct of how the model was trained. No matter what, it should alarm any company that the Chinese government might want to see fail. Imagine an employee inside an American company who was smart and hard-working and whose goal in life was to promote the in- terests of a foreign government. We would call that person a foreign agent. We are now hiring millions of them through the use of Chi- nese A.I. Many American companies know this and have tried to remove the bias. Perplexity downloaded one of DeepSeek’s free models and trained it until it stopped generating overt propaganda. There are reasons to be skeptical that this solves the problem. The subtle biases in models’ reasoning, which are difficult to remove, are the greater worry.
COMPANIES CANNOT FIX this alone. The gov- ernment needs to get involved. For years, American A.I. policy has been focused on pro- tecting American innovations. The country needs a new tool kit to deal with biased A.I., and it will require creativity. Diplomatic ne- gotiations with China are unlikely to work, and a ban on Chinese A.I. would not address the problem in other countries. History can be a guide to more promising approaches. Disclosure is one. The Foreign Agents Reg- istration Act, which Congress passed in 1938, requires people who work in the interest of a foreign government from within the United
is a thorn in the side of David Ellison’s effort to acquire Warner.
States to disclose themselves. And our physi- cal imports have labels like “Made in China.” Any A.I. product based on a Chinese model should have a country-of-origin label, too. It should say “Made for China.” Labeling will help reveal the problem’s scale and allow Americans to decide if they want a ban in- side this country. Still, labeling will not change the eco- nomics that make these models so at- tractive. Those economics are Bei- jing’s strategy. Chinese A.I. is both in- expensive and good. The United States still has the best A.I. models, but across many prominent bench- marks, the top Chinese A.I. models are only several months behind. Moonshot’s newest model, released in July, appears to closely trail the best Claude and ChatGPT models, although more assessments are still coming in. Even if it is well behind, it is free, like most leading Chinese A.I. models and unlike the leading Ameri- can ones. If Washington wants the world to use American A.I. models, it needs to match China on price and quality. The U.S. govern- ment should encourage American companies to cut prices on their older A.I. models that are as good as China’s. It should also support the development of safe, open alternatives to China’s models. One would hope that when faced with two products of roughly the same price and qual- ity, most businesses and consumers will choose the option that was not built to serve a foreign government. Some American compa- nies may reduce prices on their own to pre- vent China from capturing the market. But they should not have to. Chinese A.I. is inex- pensive because its government makes it so. Washington should deploy its full arsenal to level the playing field, financing American A.I. infrastructure abroad and lowering costs at home by lightening regulatory burdens and building energy infrastructure. The gov- ernment should keep exposing these models’ bias and should fund research into prevent- ing Chinese A.I. companies from copying American innovations (primarily through a practice known as distillation). Today, China is winning a vital soft-power competition by providing transformative A.I. to the world. President Xi Jinping gave a speech on July 17 at the World A.I. Conference in Shanghai that presented China as the noble and generous friend every nation would want. He described China as committed to open A.I., countering speculation among some experts that China might stop allowing the free downloading of its models. He also said his government was committed to inter- national cooperation rather than unilateral- ism, and he announced a huge development initiative to bring Chinese models to the de- veloping world. The United States needs an answer. It should fund American A.I. companies to help bring medical advances, agricultural knowl- edge and other cutting-edge knowledge to the developing world. The A.I. race is not like ones we have seen before. We risk giving away the world’s criti- cal thinking to systems that promote the in- terests of a single government. This is a battle for the world’s mind, and the United States must win it.
eral, Rob Bonta. David Ellison is open to giv- ing written assurances of the number of fea- ture films he will release. (He has promised 30 per year.) The second major area at issue is cable, with the states arguing that combining HBO with Paramount’s cable assets will kill com- petition. Most likely, there too agreement could be reached. Arguably there is lots of streaming competition to stack up against any cable network. So that makes CNN the critical piece of leverage in any negotiation. And it’s unclear how that asset will be traded. Officially, Paramount leaders will tell you that they have no intention of letting CNN go. For his part, Mr. Bonta, who filed the law- suit, has previously indicated that he is not interested in carving out CNN and striking a deal with Paramount. In an interview with Politico, however, he said that if Paramount makes the offer to spin off CNN, “we’ll con- sider it. But it’s not our focus and it doesn’t come close to addressing our concerns.” Still, he insists that his only aim is to cancel the merger outright. Either way, CNN is a thorn in the side of this deal. While the news network offers sig- nificant power — arguably even more than CBS News because of its international scope — Paramount’s leadership has so far not hit upon the appropriate executive to run both CNN and CBS News, if that person is not Ms. Weiss. It would not be that hard to find someone who would buy CNN. The billionaire media investor Barry Diller has said he was inter- ested, and is quietly allied with the former CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who could then take it over again. In a $110 billion deal involving multiple media businesses, having one asset hold up the deal would be surprising. But that’s the message that’s flashing. At the White House Correspondents’ As- sociation dinner last Friday, Mr. Trump spent a lot of his speech insulting journalists in the room, including CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. And then he went out of his way to mention how much he likes Bari Weiss.
Bret Stephens: Frank, let’s imagine you’ve just taken Ken Martin’s job as chairman of the Democratic Party. (At the rate he’s going, that job may well be open soon.) What’s your approach to the Democratic Socialists of America: Enemy? Ally? Op- portunity? Warning? I ask because D.S.A.-backed candidates might become Democratic nominees in important races next month in Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin, and I’m not sure Democrats know what to think of where they should sit inside the party.
Frank Bruni: I would not treat the D.S.A. as an enemy. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can’t win elections — at a time when it’s monumentally important that Demo- crats win elections — by willfully splinter- ing your own party. I’d treat D.S.A. leaders and candidates as allies with a big fat asterisk, constantly reminding them that they need the rest of the Democratic Party as much as, or more than, it needs them. This whole dance is going to be brutal: Did you catch the remarks that Abdul El-Sayed (who is not actually a member of the D.S.A., but has won some of its most prom- inent lawmakers’ favor and indeed seems poised to prevail in the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan) made in a recent Zoom call with donors? His arrogance and truculence were breathtaking.
Bret: I missed it. Fill me in.
Frank: Oh, wow. I’m almost afraid to be- cause it’ll make your head explode.
Bret: My head is like a vacant parking lot, Frank. Set off a bomb in there and nothing will be damaged.
Frank: Hardly. But self-effacing Bret is among my favorite Brets. Anyway, El-Sayed joined the esteemed ranks of politicians whose candor with donors in what were supposed to be pri- vate or semiprivate moments revealed an unflattering mind-set not intended for public consumption. Think Mitt Romney and his “47 percent” of voters who are takers and not makers, Barack Obama on the bitter Americans who “cling to guns or religion,” Hillary Clinton on the “basket of deplorables.” Politico obtained a recording in which El-Sayed foretold the glory of his victory in November against Mike Rogers, the pre- sumptive Republican nominee in that Senate race. He crowed that for various reasons, including Michigan’s purple hue and prophetic aura, his triumph would give him “the best platform in the entire U.S. Senate, which I love because then guess where all eyes are going to be.” He went on to imagine himself as a major Democratic power broker in 2028 and to muse about backing primary opponents against incumbent Democrats who were disappointing dissidents. This was the opposite of a call for comi- ty, cooperation and a big tent. It was a call for rancor, rivalry and a catty clique.
Bret: Psychologically, he’s like a version of Donald Trump. He may not be a D.S.A. member, but it’s a reminder of all the ways the extremes of left and right tend to mir- ror each other. As for the D.S.A., its platform calls for abolishing the Senate. Also, abolishing the presidency and the Pentagon. And phasing out the police. And getting rid of border enforcement. Plus a 32-hour workweek, free health care, guaranteed housing, an end to capitalism. Sounds great, right? I mean, that is assuming you’re a Republi- can and want a Democratic Party tied down by its blurred lines with a far left espousing a platform that effectively calls for the end of America as we know it. My own feeling here is that someone in the liberal mainstream of the party needs to stand up and say: That’s not us. We are capitalists, not socialists. We believe in freedom and fairness; we are not in favor of a free-for-all. We want thoughtful polic- ing, but we’re not blind to the dangers of rampant criminality. We’re not blind, ei- ther, to the fact that freedom needs to be defended from the likes of Vladimir Putin and other dictators. If liberal mainstream Democrats can’t say this, who will?
Frank: Do I qualify as “liberal main- stream”?
Bret: Frank, you basically embody it.
Frank: Well then I grant you, in my own small and inconsequential way, your wish. I retweet, favorite and share every syllable — really, every single one — of what you just said. I agree. And by the way? So do a majority of people who identify as Demo- crats or who usually vote for Democrats. But to your point, they — we — need to make that much, much clearer.
Bret: I don’t hear any of the party elders except Rahm Emanuel speaking out. Sorry, go on.
Frank: I should also make clear that El- Sayed calls himself a capitalist, not a social- ist. In any event, he concerns me for rea- sons beyond ideology, one of which is vivid in those leaked remarks. He’s a titanically self-infatuated self-promoter. That’s not a new breed in politics and public life, but it sure does seem ascendant. When I survey the news of the past week, from Ken Mar- tin’s private tantrums through Anthony Fauci’s private scribblings, and then I factor in every second of Trump’s behavior, I see narcissism run amok, and that’s anti- thetical to government’s job, theoretically, of taking care of other people.
At the time, I marveled at how a man who was supposed to be overseeing our response to a global emergency had so much time to go on TV. And I cringed when he announced that any criticism of him was an attack on science because he was the science. History may come to remember that comment as the moment when a criti- cal mass of Americans lost faith in our public health bureaucracy, if not science itself.
Frank: While I’m repelled by Fauci’s glee in his ability to butt-dial Barbra Streisand (that’s an actual detail in the diary), I think the man and his legacy are more compli- cated than the portrait you just painted. We must not forget that at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci was dealing with incomplete, shifting information. And that he spent decades toiling in the public sector rather than raking in tens of millions in the private sector. And that he was a crucial ally to AIDS activists and sufferers at a critical juncture in that epidemic. And that his ubiquity on television was in part a necessary corrective to Trump’s ubiquitous nonsense, such as the suggestion that maybe people with Covid should drink bleach.
Bret: Wait, drinking bleach was not a cure for Covid? No wonder I’ve had this ulcer for the last six years.
Frank: If the bleach explains your ulcer, your ulcer explains a whole lot else. . . . But what explains Fauci’s decision on Wednesday to invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions from Senator Rand Paul and his Republican colleagues in
Socialists of America both have a lot to answer for.
the Senate about some of his actions and words early in the pandemic? Fauci ac- cused Paul of being unnaturally obsessed with him and with putting him behind bars — which is possibly an understatement — and Fauci explained that he didn’t trust his tormentors not to twist whatever he said in deceitful, vindictive ways. Can you blame him? He was as resolutely mute in that hearing room as he’d been gushingly chatty in his diary. But he looked sickened by his own evasions. That really pained me; he doesn’t deserve this and it shouldn’t define his career. Will it, Bret?
Bret: Whatever congressional witnesses may say to themselves when they take the Fifth, it’s impossible to escape the impres- sion that they feel they have something to hide. And it doesn’t help that the cause of Fauci’s silence has to do with the origins of Covid, and whether Fauci was entirely candid about what he might have known or strongly suspected at the time.
Frank: For all of Fauci’s flaws, I think some- thing written in April 2021 by Michael Gerson, a senior aide to President George W. Bush who then became a columnist for The Washington Post, remains more true than false: “Fauci is practicing epidemiolo- gy. His critics are practicing idiocy. Both are very good at their chosen work.”
course. But at some point many of the measures that he insisted were necessary — like the six-foot distance rule, or mask- ing requirements that had no hope of con- sistent enforcement — felt both onerous and performative, and guaranteed to cre- ate a backlash. I know you’re not going to agree, but I don’t think Bobby Kennedy Jr. would be health secretary today if a guy like Fauci hadn’t been the perfect foil to what became the MAHA movement — a movement I think is genuinely dangerous to America’s health.
Frank: I actually agree that Fauci is rele- vant context for Kennedy, but I’d add that Kennedy is relevant context for how we should process Fauci’s diary. The preening that Fauci cops to pales next to Kennedy’s relentless — and shirtless! — strutting. In a Washington crowded with showboats, Kennedy is a Bezos yacht compared with Fauci’s catamaran.
Bret: Having spent a fair bit of time on the water, I can tell you there are some fancy catamarans out there.
Frank: I’ll trust you. I know little beyond dinghies. There’s something else that’s disturbing about this Fauci episode. Paul’s public release of Fauci’s diary, which he got from Kennedy, chillingly underscores the end of any rules and all restraints when it comes to partisan warfare. It’s a warning about how much privacy people surrender, how exposed and vulnerable they render them- selves and what enormous risks they take when they enter public life and engage in public debate. We wonder why we’re often
led by such awful people and left with such awful choices when we head to the polls. One answer is the scorched-earth ugliness of our politics.
Bret: In principle, I agree. In practice, if Fauci wanted to keep his diary private he could have used a computer that wasn’t attached to a government server. I think there are also valid public questions about whether he was being completely forth- right about his views of Covid’s origins and whether the United States had ever funded the research that might have created the virus that actually spread in the first place. Speaking of our private selves, Frank, have I ever mentioned I’m a huge fan of the Canadian rock trio Rush?
Frank: Um, dozens of times.
Bret: The band was once described as “the anchovies of rock music” — an acquired taste. I acquired it about 40 years ago and never let go, until its brilliant drummer and lyricist Neil Peart died of a brain tumor six years ago and left me and about a million other fans heartbroken. Well, they’re back with an incredible new drummer, Anika Nilles, and on Tuesday night I went to the first of their four sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like I was part of a megachurch of thousands of true believers, except that, instead of saying amen to biblical verses, we were all air drumming our way through songs that were closer to the heart. The best part? Watching Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, the band’s 70-some- thing original members, play note perfect for nearly three hours with the bottomless energy and goofiness of 20-somethings. You’ve written beautifully about “The Beauty of Dusk,” Frank. But, to adapt a line from Neil, I’d rather be immortal for a limited time.
DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
TO THE EDITOR: Re “Volatile Hearing as Fauci Invokes 5th Amendment” (front page, July 30): Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped save countless lives during both the AIDS epi- demic and the Covid-19 pan- demic, should be spending his later years being honored, celebrated and thanked for a lifetime of public service. Instead, he was treated with contempt and publicly berated by members of Congress on Wednesday at a Senate com- mittee hearing on the origins of Covid. This was a disgrace — not only to that institution, but also to the millions of Ameri- cans whose lives were touched by his work. Reasonable people can debate policies and decisions made during times of crisis. That is the essence of democ- racy. But there is a profound difference between conducting legitimate oversight and pub- licly humiliating a man who dedicated decades of his life to protecting the health of the American people. The interrogation of Dr. Fauci was, in my view, a blight on Congress and beneath the dignity of the office its mem- bers hold. America has always aspired to be better than this. I refuse to believe that the behavior we witnessed Wednesday reflects the values of most Americans. If it does not, then we have both the opportunity and the responsi- bility to change it. November is our opportunity to begin building a Congress worthy of the American people. Our votes are our voice.
ROBERT KUNIKOFF, NEW YORK
TO THE EDITOR: What a sad day in U.S. history when a renowned scientist and public servant for decades — one who received the Presi- dential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush, a Republican, for his work on H.I.V. and AIDS and provided the nation with the best science available to us during the Covid-19 pan- demic — felt compelled to invoke the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times at a Sen- ate hearing, based on the recommendation of his attor- ney. Sadly, too, I feel that Dr. Anthony Fauci was right to do what he did. Like so many Americans, I am grateful for his service to our nation. Ap- parently, vilifying Dr. Fauci is more important to some sena- tors than focusing on the ris- ing number of measles cases, widespread episodes of food contamination and the loss of health insurance for many Americans over the past year — one more reason to be sad.
BILL LILLIS, JERSEY CITY, N.J.
TO THE EDITOR: Re “Diary Tracks Rise From Disease Expert to Toast of the Town” (news article, July 30): The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal diaries may depict a human being pri- vately astounded and pleased by his new fame, but what matters is that his steady advice kept me, my parents (who are in their 90s) and everyone else I know who listened to him alive. As a former violinist with the Houston Symphony, I also saw the benefits of Dr. Fauci’s
TO THE EDITOR: “Polymarket and Kalshi Bets in Billions for World Cup Fi- nal” (Business, July 20) sug- gests that the World Cup may have been “the largest gam- bling event in history.” May I suggest that this may be true only until the 2026 midterms or the presidential election in 2028? Could we perhaps be watching in real time the transformation of elections into gambling events? Based on odds provided by the prediction markets, mil- lions of voters/bettors could be incentivized to place their bets and cast their votes in a way that maximizes their individ- ual financial interests with little regard to civic responsi- bility. If so, how would this differ in principle from disbursing bribes from cash in a sack? Perhaps it should be viewed as a high-tech version of the same thing. There seems to have been too little public debate about the implications of this trans- formation.
work firsthand, when the symphony successfully ran a season during the first year of the pandemic with virtually no illnesses using his guidance. I never felt forced to adopt Covid-safe practices. I em- braced them. In fact, they allowed me to travel eight times in the first year of the pandemic without illness. I was more social than ever on Zoom, expanding my circle to long-lost friends and countless club meetings. To this day, I gladly put up with 20 minutes of masking in the grocery store. It sure beats getting sick.
DEBORAH MORAN, HOUSTON
TO THE EDITOR: The truth about Covid-19 isn’t in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary. It is that we had a president who preferred to politicize the pandemic rather than unify the nation. President Trump exploited the virus to divide us, and we allowed it. At a time when we needed a strong leader willing to put partisan politics aside, we had, instead, a scheming con man who seized the opportunity to further his personal power. He sowed distrust in science to pit us against one another. He chose to stoke the fires of anger and fear over the com- munal good. We are complicit. Today we live in the after- math of Mr. Trump’s Covid-era manipulation. Parents now refuse vaccines that have kept children safe for generations. We have all but stopped fund- ing scientific research to cure and prevent disease. More Americans view education with a collective anti-intellec- tual skepticism. Whatever may be in Dr. Fauci’s private papers is less terrifying than the current willingness of Americans to be pawns in Mr. Trump’s political games.
STEPHANIE DIMARTINO BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y.
TO THE EDITOR: Why is it so hard for so many to understand that a virus deadly enough to kill millions of people required government action to limit its spread and that such actions would be imperfect by their very na- ture? No one could possibly know exactly how and if school closures would help or hurt the society. I believe that the hy- perpoliticization of Covid-19 policy during and after the fact caused much more harm than the actions of the Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion did. Our politicians were not searching for the truth; they were searching for the half-truths and messaging approaches that would be most valuable to their political careers. Certainly Dr. Anthony Fauci has been proved to have the best interests of our society in mind.
FORD GOODMAN, RENO, NEV.
TO THE EDITOR: I really enjoyed “Picking Trash Out of Muck, and Loving It” (front page, July 18). It was refreshing to read such an uplifting story about a group of women who spend their time wading through ponds and lakes pulling underwater garbage from the muck. You quote Lisa Weiss, a 65-year-old retired high school math teacher, as saying, “You’re exhausted, you’re maybe a little sunburned, you’re filthy, and it’s the best feeling.” I wasn’t surprised to learn that the effort was started by a psychologist. The article beau- tifully illustrated what decades of psychological research have shown: Lasting happiness comes from connection, ac- complishment, purpose and, perhaps most important, con- tributing to others. At a time when so much of the news focuses on conflict and discouragement, this story was a welcome reminder that working together to improve our communities can bring deep joy. The turtles and the fish are surely grateful for the women’s efforts, and they’re not the only ones applauding. I’m clapping for them, too. Thank you for highlighting these women and the power of doing good.
“You were convicted because the warning lights were flashing brighter and brighter and you did- n’t get him help and you didn’t re- move his access to the guns,” the judge said to Mr. Gray. “It is clear you failed as a par- ent,” the judge said, describing family turmoil and a lack of oversight for Colt Gray, who was frequently truant and missed eighth-grade entirely. “You did not provide a stable household,” he added. “He fell deeper and deeper into this obsession when he should have been in school.” Brad Smith, the district attor- ney for Barrow County, said the sentence sent a message that he hoped would resonate beyond the Atlanta suburb where the shoot- ing happened. “People need to understand that this is a phenomenon going through our society, and do not take these things lightly,” Mr. Smith told reporters on Thursday. “These kids are not in a position
Rick Rojas reported from Atlanta, and Johnny Kauffman from Wind- er, Ga.
By KENNETH CHANG
A spacecraft that is rushing to save a falling NASA space tele- scope now also needs to be saved. On Saturday afternoon, the res- cue spacecraft, which was within a few miles of NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, unex- pectedly started tumbling, putting the mission in jeopardy. “This was a very serious situa- tion,” said Ghonhee Lee, chief ex- ecutive of Katalyst Space Tech- nologies, the small company in Flagstaff, Ariz., that built the re- frigerator-size spacecraft called Link. Engineers are working to slow down the spinning of Link, which was making a full rotation every 40 seconds. Despite its dimin- ished state, the spacecraft should still be able to accomplish its goal of pushing Swift into a higher or- bit, Mr. Lee said. The Swift Observatory, launched in 2004, observes gamma-ray bursts — bright flashes of high-energy light from some of the most violent explo- sions in the universe. Swift has far outlived its planned lifetime, and the observatory’s designers never anticipated the need for a boost. The peak of the sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle at the end of 2024 turned out to be stronger than ex- pected. A more active sun shoots out more solar flares that warm the Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing it to puff outward and in- crease the drag on satellites. Suddenly, NASA realized it might soon lose Swift. The space agency quickly sought proposals from companies it thought could come up with quick, inexpensive solutions. Katalyst won the con- tract and built Link in nine months. NASA officials had warned that the Swift rescue was a high-risk, high-reward effort. Because of the hurried schedule, it did not go through the years of testing and
KATALYST SPACE TECHNOLOGIES
NASA
FRONT PAGE
An article on Thursday about airstrikes across the Middle East that drew more countries into the war between the United States and Iran misidentified which Iraqi militias threatened retaliation for U.S.-Saudi-strikes on the Popular Mobilization Forces. The threat was made in a joint statement from Iran-backed militias outside the Popular Mobilization Forces, not the P.M.F.
where they are able to make ratio- nal decisions when it comes to things like firearms, and we need, as a society, to step up and realize who should and who should not have access to them.” The younger Mr. Gray, now 16, pleaded guilty to 55 charges relat- ed to the shooting, and he was sen- tenced by Judge Primm on Tues- day to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge, in that sentencing, said that the younger Mr. Gray “understood the horror of what you were going to do,” but he also acknowledged that Colt Gray had been failed by the adults in his life, his father chief among them. During his trial, the elder Mr. Gray had tried to convince jurors that his son’s intentions seemed clear only now in hindsight. Testifying in his own defense, he portrayed himself as ill- equipped to handle his son’s cas- cading behavioral problems. Giv- ing him an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas gift was, in his telling, a misguided attempt to connect and pull his son away from the inter- net and video games. “No parent is trained to look at his own child and see a mass shooter,” Brian Hobbs, Mr. Gray’s
The Link spacecraft last month at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, and in orbit, top. Link was intended to push NASA’s Swift Observatory to a higher orbit, but it malfunctioned on Saturday.
scrutiny that NASA missions typi- cally receive. “There are still potential paths forward for a boost, and we’re working very closely with Kata- lyst to consider revised ap- proaches,” Shawn Domagal-Gold- man, director of NASA’s astro- physics division, said on Wednes- day in a statement provided by NASA. “We knew attempting this boost mission on such an unprece- dented short timeline would be very challenging. But we also knew it was worthwhile to try.” Mr. Lee said Link’s rendezvous with Swift was now probably de- layed by a couple of weeks, to the end of August. Link will first make careful observations of Swift be- fore attempting to grab it. Despite the setback on Satur- day, there should still be enough time to save Swift before the fric- tion of air drags the 1.6-ton obser- vatory down to its destruction. Swift is currently a bit more than 200 miles above the Earth’s sur-
An article on Thursday about Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate hearing over the origins of Covid mis- stated the number of times Dr. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amend- ment rights. It was more than 100 times, not almost 100.
lawyer, said in the sentencing hearing on Thursday. But prosecutors said the shoot- ing, at Apalachee High School on Sept. 4, 2024, had followed a litany of warnings in a childhood punctu- ated by upheaval, including re- peatedly moving homes and changing schools, his mother’s ad- diction struggles and conflict be- tween his parents. In his bedroom, Colt Gray had created a “shrine” to the teenager convicted of killing 17 people in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, with photo- graphs and news clippings. Sher- iff’s deputies visited the Gray fam- ily home to investigate an online threat of a school shooting traced to their address. And the boy’s be- havior worsened, with violent out- bursts and anxiety-driven melt- downs, and statements to rela- tives about voices in his head. His parents discussed and re- searched possible treatment op- tions, but never followed through, prosecutors said. Instead, they gave him antidepressants pre- scribed to his mother. Breanna Schermerhorn, the mother of Mason Schermerhorn, a 14-year-old killed in the shoot- ing, acknowledged the challenges of parenting, the inevitable situa-
face and dropping about 1.5 miles a week, Mr. Lee said, although the pace of falling will speed up as the observatory encounters thicker parts of the atmosphere. If Swift’s orbit decays to about 185 miles, a rescue would become more difficult to pull off. The Link mission had been pro- gressing well since its launch on July 3. On Saturday, Katalyst’s mission operations center in Broomfield, Colo., lost contact with the spacecraft. That was ex- pected. As a low-cost mission — at $30 million — Katalyst did not have the resources for round-the- clock communications with its spacecraft. But such blackouts typically last 30 to 60 minutes, although gaps of three to four hours are not uncommon, Mr. Lee said. This time, the silence stretched for a day. Data that dribbled in showed that Link was spinning. “That was a little bit of a whiplash for the team,” Mr. Lee said.
parish hall. The Atlantic was not the first to use it as a theater; the Apple Corps Theater preceded it.
POOL PHOTO BY HYOSUB SHIN
Colin Gray, the father of a teen who killed four people at his Georgia high school in 2024.
tions one feels unprepared for. But this was not the situation with the elder Mr. Gray. “He wasn’t left guessing,” Ms. Schermerhorn said in court on Thursday, as she gave a victim im- pact statement. “He knew his son was in crisis,” she added, pausing as her voice broke. “Instead of act- ing, he chose to look away. Instead of intervening, he chose inaction. Instead of protecting his son from
Troubleshooting revealed that Link’s problems extended beyond the spinning. Two of the space- craft’s three reaction wheels — spinning disks used to point the spacecraft — were not working, and the reaction control thrusters, which shoot out jets of gas, were performing inconsistently. During the blackout, the space- craft rebooted its electrical sys- tem, probably causing at least some of the problems. “Shutting down the reaction wheels in an un- controlled manner — you’re es- sentially pulling the plug out from them,” Mr. Lee said. “That’s not how they’re designed to operate.” Other news was more reassur- ing. The main propulsion system, which uses electric fields to accel- erate charged xenon atoms, is working without issue. Those electric thrusters can be swiveled around and are now pointed in a direction to slow Link’s spin. Other systems, including radios and the three robotic arms that are to grab Swift, also appear to be undamaged. Katalyst and NASA engineers still do not know what went wrong during the communications black- out. Within a couple of days, as the spin slows, a high-speed commu- nications channel will send data from Link detailing what hap- pened on the spacecraft during the blackout hours. Katalyst engineers hope they can revive the nonspinning reac- tion wheels and the gas thrusters, but if not, the electric propulsion system can serve as a substitute, Mr. Lee said. “Which is why we’re so confident that this is not over and that we’re not giving up.”
himself and protecting the com- munity from the danger he posed, he armed him.” The case arose as gun violence prevention advocates and others have contended that blame for such shootings does not always end with the perpetrator. Yet the pursuit of broader ac- countability has often failed. Vast federal protections shield gun companies from most litiga- tion. Efforts to prosecute law en- forcement officers for flawed re- sponses, like after school shoot- ings in Parkland and Uvalde, Texas, were unsuccessful. The ac- tivism of victims’ families and sur- vivors has yielded little in the way of restrictions on gun access. In recent years, the parents of juvenile perpetrators of these shootings have emerged as an- other avenue for accountability, by way of criminal charges and through litigation. James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of a 15-year-old boy who fatally shot four people at his Michigan high school, were con- victed of involuntary manslaugh- ter and sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. After a 21-year-old opened fire on a crowd gathered for a Fourth
Professor Fired, Suit Says
By DAVID OVALLE
MIAMI — An English professor is suing the president of a Florida college that she says fired her for assigning a story that he called “political,” according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. The story, Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Bettering Myself,” is an award- winning story narrated by a fic- tional teacher who drinks to ex- cess, uses cocaine and discusses sex with her students. The instructor, Vinita Prab- hakar, said in an interview that she had taught the story in her classes for nearly a decade with- out incident. But in February, ac- cording to her lawsuit, the presi- dent of South Florida State Col- lege, Fred Hawkins, objected to the assignment after a student ex- pressed “mild discomfort.” The president told Ms. Prabhakar that he would not want his college-age daughter to read the story, the lawsuit says. In a move that is highly unusual for a college president, Mr. Hawkins immediately ordered that Ms. Prabhakar be suspended and her contract not renewed, the suit says. The suit asks that she be restored to her teaching position. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a group that advocates free speech, is rep- resenting Ms. Prabhakar. Some courts have ruled that universities can restrict certain speech of university professors in classrooms. But they have also ruled that the First Amendment offers greater protection if the speech is part of professors’ offi- cial duties, which can include teaching approved material, and is not disruptive. Ms. Prabhakar’s attorneys also assert she is protected by a Flor- ida law governing campus free speech. Public officials such as Mr. Hawkins “may not suppress speech because they dislike the ideas it conveys or fear a reaction to it,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit is the latest legal battle over the boundaries of pro- tected free speech in schools in Florida, where Republicans have for years sought to restrict teach- ings they believe are inappropri- ate or too left-leaning. Mr. Hawkins and school offi- cials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The state’s Republican gover- nor, Ron DeSantis, has champi- oned efforts to quash what he has deemed liberal indoctrination in education. For instance, he pushed a parental freedom law that limited instruction on gender and sexuality in elementary and middle schools, prompting some districts to remove books featur- ing L.G.B.T.Q. characters. In 2022, Mr. DeSantis also signed into law the Stop WOKE Act, which restricts concepts re- lated to sexism and racism that can be taught in K-12 schools. The law sought to do the same in higher education, allowing the state to limit the teaching of ideas
of July parade outside Chicago in 2022, the gunman’s father pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and was sentenced to 60 days in jail for helping his son obtain a gun license despite being aware of his son’s mental health issues. Last year, prosecutors in Wis- consin charged the father of a 15- year-old girl who shot and killed a student and teacher at her private school before killing herself. After the shooting at Apalach- ee, investigators quickly zeroed in on the elder Mr. Gray, and he was charged with second-degree mur- der a day after the attack. In his trial, prosecutors pointed to the father’s actions as soon as word began to spread of a shoot- ing at Apalachee. During the trial, they showed a portion of a text message exchange between Mr. Gray and his daughter, in which he asked if she had been in touch with her brother. “I think we’re think- ing the same thing,” she replied. They also noted that he had asked his boss to leave work, saying his son had broken his arm. And when the police arrived at the family home after the shoot- ing, before officers could explain why they were there, Mr. Gray told them, “I knew it.”
related to race, sexism and uncon- scious bias by tying it to teacher salaries. A federal appeals court, howev- er, struck down that portion of the law this month. The majority wrote that the provision was a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from pub- lic discourse” in classrooms where students are “trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard.” Ms. Prabhakar, who has worked full time at South Florida State College since 2023, said the point of assigning “Bettering Myself” was to challenge students in her introductory reading and writing course. As part of the assignment, students had to read first-person stories told by other unlikable nar- rators — like “Cathedral” by Ray- mond Carver — to contrast narra- tive voice, perspective, vocabu- lary and style, according to the lawsuit. In colleges, such materials “take students out of their comfort zone, expose them to new ideas and provide opportunities for growth and intellectual matura- tion,” the suit said. Ms. Prabhakar said in the inter- view that she had taught the as- signment in previous years at South Florida State College with approval of supervisors. The student who had emailed to say the story “made me a bit un- comfortable” ultimately com- pleted the assignment and partici- pated in class discussions without any incident, the suit said. It is unclear who complained about the assignment to the school administration, according to the lawsuit. It accuses Mr. Hawkins of terminating Ms. Prab- hakar without a formal complaint or attempt at lesser discipline. Mr. Hawkins, a former state representative and a DeSantis ally, was named president of the public community college in 2023. The school’s main campus is in Avon Park, Fla., southeast of Tampa. The selection process drew scrutiny because Mr. Hawkins held no advanced college degrees and became eligible only after the board of trustees lowered the po- sition’s educational requirements. At the time, one trustee acknowl- edged to The Tampa Bay Times that the board was expected to ap- point a Republican and that he had concerns about a potential left-leaning president’s adherence to “woke” ideology. In the suit, Ms. Prabhakar said she had apologized to the presi- dent and agreed to teach only ma- terial that appeared in a textbook. But Mr. Hawkins told her he had “been in contact with Tallahassee” and the board of trustees. The suit also names the board of trustees. Ms. Prabhakar, 51, said that she hoped her lawsuit would help pro- tect fellow professors. “I’m also doing this for my students,” Ms. Prabhakar said. “They were robbed — they were excited to come to class.”
TECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE
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By JOE RENNISON
Yields on long-term government bonds steadied on Thursday, a day after jumping higher, as a chorus of investors and analysts warned that Kevin M. Warsh, the new chairman of the Federal Re- serve, had risked the central bank’s credibility by limiting its economic guidance. The yield on the 10-year Treas- ury note, which underpins the cost of borrowing from mortgages to business loans, inched lower on Thursday but remained close to its highest level since President Trump returned to the White House. The average 30-year mortgage rate climbed to its highest level in almost a year, according to Fred- die Mac. The yield on the 30-year Treas- ury bond also held steady after hitting its highest level since 2007 on Wednesday. Mr. Warsh has said that he and his fellow policymakers can gain better insight into what investors really think about the economic outlook if financial markets re- main “unfiltered,” meaning they have not first passed through the filter of the Fed’s guidance about
Climate Change Helps Raise Herds
allowing the world’s largest beef importer to become more self-reliant by expanding domestic cattle.
By KEITH BRADSHER
TONGLIAO, CHINA — Tongliao, long an area of sand and gravel and camels at the eastern fringe of the Gobi Desert, has been trans- formed into lush grasslands criss- crossed with rows of poplar trees — and the heart of China’s grow- ing cattle industry. Over the past several decades,
the administrative prefecture in China’s Inner Mongolia region has converted an arid expanse the size of Maryland to cornfields, grass or forest. Large expanses of northern China have become sig- nificantly wetter since the 1990s because of climate change, ac- cording to the Chinese govern- ment’s National Climate Center.
Today, areas of Tongliao look more like famous beef-raising ar- eas in Montana or Argentina’s Pampas. Grass and corn are har- vested from the reclaimed desert and fed to cows along with corn and cornstalks on local farms. Chi- na’s nationwide herd of beef cattle has expanded by a third since 2018 to nearly 90 million, including nearly four million head in previ- ously arid Tongliao. “The situation has now been re- versed: The sand is retreating, greenery is expanding,” said Shen Zhixin, a senior forestry and grassland engineer in western Tongliao. Rainier summers in northern China have the potential to upend the $500 billion global beef indus- try, with consequences for beef- exporting countries like Ar- gentina, Australia, Brazil and the United States. China is the world’s biggest im- porter of beef by a wide margin,
A herder taking her cows to graze in pastures in northern China’s Hebei Province. Rainy summers in that part of the country have the potential to upend the $500 billion global beef industry, with consequences for several countries.
buying two-thirds of Argentina’s beef exports and large shares of other countries’ shipments. Now, Beijing has seized on the chance to become more self-reliant by ex- panding the country’s beef indus- try, already the world’s third larg- est after Brazil and the United States. China is not only increasing the number of cattle but also pushing to breed plumper animals with better quality beef. China now vies with the European Union each year as the world’s biggest im- porter of bull semen for the artifi- cial insemination of cows, accord- ing to World Bank data.
Warsh’s Way On Inflation
By COLBY SMITH
Early in Kevin M. Warsh’s second news conference as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he laid out how the central bank would ulti- mately be assessed as it takes on one its most challenging inflation problems in decades. The central bank was in the business of “performance,” he told reporters on Wednesday, after the Fed’s decision to hold rates steady at a range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent. “We are going to be judged by how we perform.” Financial markets swiftly re- jected Mr. Warsh’s approach, which involved tough talk on infla- tion but stopped well short of em- bracing the prospects of higher in- terest rates to quell price pres- sures. The response, primarily from the $28 trillion U.S. govern- ment bond market, was unequivo- cal. Markets expected more from a policymaker who has made tam- ing inflation a top priority of his chairmanship.
FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2026 B1
Slow Growth In U.S. Q2
By TALMON JOSEPH SMITH
The American economy slowed in the second quarter of the year, ex- panding at an annual rate of 1.5 percent as the war with Iran up- ended prices, supply chains and energy markets. Oil prices have receded from their peaks in the spring. But damage in the form of higher prices for gasoline and other pe- troleum-based products is still hit- ting households and businesses. Persistent inflation and uncer- tainty over the Federal Reserve’s plans to contain it pushed up bond yields this week. It amounts to an uncertain mo- ment for the U.S. economy, which continues to show signs of strength even as it is battered by persistent inflation and a destabil- izing war in the Middle East and the potential for higher borrowing costs that could suck some of the juice out of its engine. Growth over the past three months was lower than the 2.1 per-
EARNINGS A.I. Boom Helps Samsung Reach a Record Profit
South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics on Thurs- day reported a record operating profit of 89.5 trillion won ($62 bil- lion) for the April-June period, a day after crosstown rival SK Hynix also reported record earn- ings, as the world’s two largest memory chipmakers continue to ride the global artificial intelli- gence boom. Despite their soaring profits,
FOOD Demand for Snacks Drives Hershey Sales and Profit
Hershey reported second-quarter sales and profit that exceeded Wall Street estimates on Thurs- day, driven by higher prices and robust demand for its Reese’s chocolates and Dot’s Pretzels de- spite a challenging spending envi- ronment. The confectionery maker has spent the past year raising prices to counter elevated cocoa costs, leaving investors focused on the resilience of demand for its choco- late products. The better-than-expected re- sults were largely due to a 12 per- cent jump in prices in the quarter, offsetting an 8 percent decline in overall volumes as shoppers re-
HOSPITALITY Hyatt Slides as Outlook On Room Growth Dips
Shares of Hyatt Hotels fell 9 per- cent on Thursday after the com- pany lowered its annual net rooms growth forecast and flagged a hit from the Middle East conflict and unrest in Mexico during the sec- ond quarter. Like rival Hilton, Hyatt saw strength in its luxury and upper upscale brands but said geopoliti- cal tensions in the Middle East shaved off about 110 basis points
the companies’ shares have fallen sharply this week in South Korea’s volatile stock market, where retail investors often drive sharp swings in share prices, as con- cerns grow over their plans to spend massively on increasing manufacturing capacity and the prospects of intensifying competi- tion from China. Samsung’s second-quarter op- erating profit was a more than 19- fold increase from a year earlier, and nearly all of it came from its semiconductor business, which benefited from rising chip prices. ASSOCIATED PRESS
mained value-conscious. Sales in North America Confec- tionery, the company’s largest business, rose 4.2 percent year- on-year during the reported quar- ter, while North America Salty Snacks sales increased 22.9 per- cent. REUTERS
from second-quarter room reve- nue growth. Resilient travel de- mand especially from affluent guests, along with a short-term boost from the FIFA World Cup, has helped hotel operators offset revenue drags from international operations. Hyatt, however, signaled pres- sure in Mexico after a wave of vio- lence swept the region earlier this year following the killing of a car- tel boss, saying booking trends had improved sequentially but the recovery was “slower than previ- ously anticipated.” REUTERS
MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS
Oil Prices Wobble as Middle East Veers Toward Wider Conflict
By ESHE NELSON
Oil prices were lower on Thursday as the conflict in the Middle East threatened to expand. On Thursday, the United States and Iran resumed strikes and Egypt confirmed that an unidenti- fied drone was responsible for an attack on two ships in a port on the Mediterranean Sea the day be- fore. Separately, bond yields re- mained elevated after a Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday left investors questioning whether the central bank was committed to keeping inflation contained.
Oil prices seesaw.
■ The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, fell 1.9 percent to $89.03 a barrel on Thursday, a day after jumping nearly 8 percent.
■ West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, de- clined 1 percent to $83.59 a barrel.
■ Investors and analysts are fo- cused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hor- muz, the narrow waterway be- tween Iran and Oman that is a vi- tal trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil sup- ply. In addition, the market is closely watching efforts by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen to restrict traffic in the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Bond investors are on alert.
■ U.S. government borrowing costs stayed elevated on Thurs- day as investors seemed con- cerned about whether the Federal Reserve would be fully committed to bringing inflation down to its target.
■ The yield on 30-year Treasur- ies hovered around at 5.21 percent after jumping to a near two-dec- ade high on Wednesday after the Fed held interest rates steady for a fifth consecutive meeting. Three Fed policymakers dis- sented from the decision, voting to raise rates.
■ The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose to 4.68 percent, the highest since January 2025.
■ The reluctance of the Fed chair- man, Kevin Warsh, “to send a clear policy signal also made the messaging somewhat muddled at times,” Ellie Henderson, an econ- omist at Investec, wrote in an an- alyst note. Short-term yields fell as traders reduced bets of rate hikes this year, but long-dated bonds rose.
■ The Bank of England held in- terest rates steady on Thursday as policymakers warned that in- flation was likely to re-accelerate later this year because of the rise in energy prices. “The impact of the energy shock on the U.K. economy remains uncertain,” the bank said in a statement. Three out of the nine members who make up the rate-setting commit- tee voted to increase rates.
Stocks are higher.
■ The S&P 500 rose 1.7 percent on Thursday, led by a rebound in tech stocks.
■ Stocks in Asia were mixed. In- dexes in South Korea and Taiwan, both heavily exposed to recent volatility in semiconductor stocks, closed lower. The Nikkei 225 in Ja- pan rose 0.7 percent.
■ In Europe, the Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the re- gion’s largest companies, rose 0.8 percent.
Gasoline prices tick higher.
■ Gas prices rose one cent on Thursday to a national average of $4.10 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The increase has raised the cost for drivers by 37 percent since the war began.
■ Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days.
■ The average price of diesel also ticked up one cent to $5.34 on Thursday, up 42 percent since the start of the war.
The F.C.C., led by Brendan Carr, is interested in ABC’s diversity policies.
Of Licenses by F.C.C.
By JOHN KOBLIN
ABC accused the Federal Commu- nications Commission on Thurs- day of retaliating against the com- pany because the agency “dislikes the content and viewpoints ex- pressed” on the network’s pro- grams, the latest salvo in the un- usual clash between the company and the Trump administration. The network’s comments, made in a filing to the agency, are part of its formal opposition to the F.C.C.’s review of ABC’s local broadcast li- censes. The review is an extraor- dinary escalation — ABC called it “unprecedented”— by the Trump administration in its efforts to bring media organizations to heel. In the lengthy filing, ABC called the F.C.C. review an attempt by the administration to chill the free speech rights of media organiza- tions. “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: Accommodate the
Following Cyclospora Outbreak
By JULIE CRESWELL
Taco Bell, which moved quickly this month to remove iceberg let- tuce linked to the widespread cy- clospora outbreak in the United States, said on Thursday that customers were starting to return to its restaurants. The chain became the early face of the outbreak, and federal regulators now attribute 1,947 cases of cyclosporiasis in nine states to iceberg lettuce that was served at Taco Bells. The lettuce had been supplied by Taylor Farms, the country’s largest produce provider, and health offi- cials said they had found evi- dence that tied the outbreak to the company’s operations in Mexico. Officials at the Food and Drug Ad- ministration said they believed that multiple outbreaks were oc- curring in the United States and that not all of them were linked to Taco Bell. Sales at Taco Bell dropped in the days after it made public that
says transparency helped regain trust.
it was pulling all of the iceberg let- tuce that Taylor Farms supplied to its restaurants. The lettuce was quickly replaced by a new suppli- er. On Thursday morning, execu- tives at Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, said the restaurant chain was showing signs of mov- ing past the incident. After an ini- tial drop in the early days of the news around the outbreak, sales at its Taco Bell stores have stabi- lized and are down 2 percent, the company said. “The sales impact will be tem- porary, and we appreciate our fans who are coming back and showing their love for Taco Bell,” Chris Turner, the chief executive of Yum Brands, told Wall Street analysts and investors on an earnings call early Thursday. Taco Bell has outperformed many of its fast-food peers in re- cent years through a combination of unique Mexican-inspired food offerings, a robust value meal platform and a huge fan base. Before the outbreak, it was a driving force in Yum Brands’ overall growth. In addition to Taco Bell, Yum Brands owns KFC, Pizza Hut and the Habit Burger & Grill, a fast-casual chain. Overall sales at Yum Brands stores open for at least a year rose 3 percent in the quarter ending June 30 compared with the same period a year earlier. Much of that growth came from Taco Bell, which reported a 7 percent jump in same-store sales. Same-store sales at KFC rose 2 percent in the quarter, while Yum Brands’ struggling Pizza Hut di-
ERIC LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” the filing said. ABC owns eight of the more than 200 local stations that carry its programming across the coun- try, in vital markets including New York, Los Angeles and Phila- delphia. In order for the govern- ment to take away stations’ rights to broadcast, it must be able to make a convincing case that the stations had shown a pattern of vi- olating rules and regulations. The F.C.C., led by Brendan Carr, called for a review of the broad- cast licenses in April over ABC’s diversity and inclusion policies. Mr. Carr’s decision, however, came shortly after the network’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, made a joke that angered Presi- dent Trump. In Thursday’s filing, ABC pointed to more than 150,000 com- ments posted to the F.C.C. website in response to the review, most of which were overwhelmingly sup-
vision continued to drag down on the company’s overall perform- ance with a 1 percent decline in same-store sales. In June, Yum Brands an- nounced plans to sell Pizza Hut to two firms for $2.7 billion. Revenue at Yum Brands rose 12 percent to $2.17 billion in the quar- ter while operating profit in- creased 5 percent to $655 million. Shares of Yum Brands rose more than 3 percent in early trad- ing, to $156.66. Cyclosporiasis, an intestinal ill- ness caused by a parasite trans- mitted through food or water con- taminated with human feces, tends to hit in the summertime. The number of cases in the United States this year has reached record levels. The Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention has con- firmed or is investigating more than 18,000 cases in 45 states and it has reported 423 hospitaliza- tions. Executives at Yum Brands said that while Taco Bell’s sales were down significantly in the days af- ter the company announced it pulled lettuce from its stores, transparency had helped the company quickly regain con- sumer trust. “Consumers have become in- creasingly aware that this is an in- dustrywide issue, not an issue specific to Taco Bell,” Mr. Turner said. “The team’s swift and trans- parent action reinforced trust in the brand. As evidence of those factors, Taco Bell’s measures of social sentiment have already re- turned to pre-issue levels of posi- tivity.” Hoping to lure customers back, Taco Bell has also been leaning into big promotions for its re- wards members, including offer- ing a $1 lettuce-free Enchirito (an enchilada and burrito mash-up) last week and a $1 Mexican Pizza deal this week. “The Mexican Pizza drop this Tuesday generated the most app traffic, the most app transac- tions,” of any Tuesday drop ever, Mr. Turner said. “And, in fact, we saw positive transaction growth.”
The F.C.C. called for a review of ABC’s broadcast licenses shortly after the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke that angered President Trump.
portive of the company’s position. Last month, ABC began airing commercials urging viewers in the eight local markets the F.C.C. is scrutinizing to “use your voice” and tell the agency not to take away their “trusted local station.” The company included a QR code that led viewers directly to the F.C.C. website. The network ran a similar commercial urging sup- porters to back ABC’s talk show “The View” in another dispute with the F.C.C. This week, former F.C.C. offi-
By NICOLE SPERLING
The Hollywood Foreign Press As- sociation, a group of freelance journalists that for years owned and operated the annual Golden Globe Awards, has sued the show’s new owner over what it says was an unlawful takeover. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claims that Penske Media fraudulently ac- quired the Golden Globes in a bid to monopolize the lucrative adver-
By STEVE LOHR and XINYUN WU
SEOUL — Robot trade tensions es- calated on Thursday as China an- grily denounced a proposal by the United States to ban imports of Chinese-made humanoid robots, calling the measure discrimina- tory and threatening retaliation. In a sharply worded statement, China’s commerce ministry ac- cused the Trump administration of launching a new provocation that would “severely undermine the stability of China-U.S. eco- nomic and trade relations, and se- riously disrupt the stability of global industrial and supply chains.” On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it intended to restrict imports of humanoid and animal-like ro- bots on national security grounds, while promoting the development of advanced robots domestically. Although the F.C.C. did not ex- plicitly identify China, Chinese producers dominate the global hu-
cials who served under both Dem- ocratic and Republican adminis- trations called the agency’s re- view “an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process.” The filing also revealed that the legal team at Disney, which owns ABC, just got bigger. Disney has hired Beth Wilkinson, a trial law- yer who successfully defended Microsoft’s 2023 acquisition of Ac- tivision. She was also recently hired by Paramount as it contends with several state attorneys gen- eral who are suing to block its ac-
tising business driven by Holly- wood studios chasing awards. Penske Media, which also owns the Hollywood trade papers Vari- ety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and others, acquired the Golden Globes in 2023 for an un- disclosed sum after press reports, initially from The Los Angeles Times, uncovered that members of the small but powerful Holly- wood Foreign Press Association had engaged in financial self-deal- ing. The group was also criticized
manoid robot industry. China’s commerce ministry said the pro- posal was unmistakably aimed at the country’s manufacturers, de- scribing it as “discriminatory and suppressive against Chinese com- panies and products.” The proposal thrusts the emerging robotics industry into the latest front in the technology rivalry between the United States and China, which have already im- posed tit-for-tat restrictions on ac- cess to artificial intelligence sys- tems, advanced semiconductors and other critical technologies. China’s statement warned that if Washington proceeded with the ban, “China will resolutely retali- ate to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.” It did not specify what measures it might take. The Trump administration ar- gues that increasingly capable hu- manoid robots pose national secu- rity risks on two fronts. First, officials contend the ma- chines could function as Trojan
quisition of Warner Bros. Discov- ery. Ms. Wilkinson will join a legal team that includes Paul D. Clem- ent, one of the most experienced Supreme Court litigators in the country. If the F.C.C. ultimately decides to block the renewal of ABC’s station licenses, the net- work will have opportunities to fight back in court. What comes next — including whether there’s a hearing, or if the dispute goes before the agency’s administrative law judge — will
for a lack of diversity. An industry- wide outcry and a boycott by tal- ent and publicists led NBC to can- cel the 2022 Globes telecast. Penske Media, the lawsuit said, first “surreptitiously instigated” the outcry and then leveraged its publications to fuel it. The goal was to devalue the foreign press association to make it vulnerable to acquisition, the suit argues. The association is seeking damages of at least $150 million and an order to undo the acquisition.
horses for data collection, har- vesting personal information and even sensitive government data as they become more integrated into homes, workplaces and pub- lic spaces. Second, the adminis- tration argues that advanced ro- botics will become a strategically important technology in an econ- omy increasingly dependent on A.I. China dismissed those con- cerns, accusing the United States of “overstretching the concept of national security.” The F.C.C. previously invoked national security concerns to pro- hibit imports of telecommunica- tions equipment from Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. Whether restrictions on Chi- nese robots would be effective is an open question. Chinese start-ups are pro- ducing thousands of humanoid ro-
MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
now fall to Mr. Carr. Last week, after ABC did not carry Mr. Trump’s prime-time presidential address live, Mr. Carr said that the network’s decision would be part of its review into the broadcast licenses. (NBC also did not air the address.) “I think that when you have the president of the United States standing inside the White House delivering an important speech, I think that’s something that broad- casters should be carrying,” he said.
In a statement, Daniel A. Saun- ders, a lawyer for the association, described Penske Media’s “brazen attempts to destroy the Hollywood Foreign Press Associ- ation, all to consolidate even greater monopolistic control in Hollywood and freeze out compet- ing foreign journalists.” When reached for comment, Penske Media pointed to a state- ment from a spokesperson for the Golden Globes who said the sale was not subject to reversal.
bots priced below $5,000, far cheaper and at a greater scale than competitors elsewhere. While Chinese manufacturers once depended on Japanese and other foreign suppliers for critical components such as sensors and joints, those parts are now over- whelmingly produced in China. As a result, it has become nearly impossible to build a com- petitive humanoid robot without Chinese-made components. China has also established a sig- nificant lead in industrial robotics. It manufactures and installs fac- tory robots at a pace unmatched by any other country. More than two million robots were operating in Chinese factories in 2024, with another 300,000 installed during the year — more than the rest of the world combined.
Steve Lohr reported from Seoul, and Xinyun Wu from Taipei, Taiwan.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
how it sees the economy going for- ward. But experts said that financial markets would still reflect what investors expected the Fed to do, just with less clarity. That uncertainty means bond investors are likely to demand higher yields to protect against the risk of losing money if interest rates end up being higher than ex- pected. Higher yields means
KDC/One, a manufacturer of beauty and care products in the United States. Overall consumption remained relatively healthy, according to the G.D.P. report.
cent annual rate of growth in the first quarter. Growth in both per- sonal income and consumer spending also slowed in June. Still, the G.D.P. report showed that overall consumption re- mained relatively healthy and business investment, especially related to the artificial intelli- gence boom, continued to plow forward. An underlying “core” measure of growth, which cap- tures the sum of consumer spend- ing and gross private investment, increased 3.9 percent in the sec- ond quarter, compared with 1.7 percent in the first quarter. “Underlying growth was strong,” said Eric Wallerstein, a
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PLEASE TAKE NOTICE, that in accordance with the New York Uniform Com- mercial Code, SPG Astoria Lender LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, as administrative and collateral agent for certain lenders (the “Secured Party”), un- der that certain Pledge and Security Agreement, dated as of February 16, 2024 (the “Security Agreement”), made by 26-01 4th Street Astoria LLC, a New York li- mited liability company (the “Pledgor”), will sell at a public auction all of Pledgor's right, title and interest in and to all collateral pledged by Pledgor under the Securi- ty Agreement (collectively, the “Collateral”), including 100% of the issued and out- standing membership interests in Mings Garden Realty LLC,a New York limited liability company (the “Borrower”). Borrower owns and holds in fee simple the premises known as and located at 26-01 4th Street, Astoria, New York 11102 (the “Property”).
The public sale will be held on September 15, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. (ET) by Matthew D. Mannion of Mannion Auctions, LLC, as Auctioneer, via Zoom Remote Meeting and in person at the offices of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLP, 30 Rock- efeller Plaza, 39th Floor, New York, New York 10112. Secured Party will sell the Collateral to the qualified bidder submitting the highest bid. All bids (other than any credit bid by Secured Party) shall be cash bids with no financing contingen- cies or conditions. Secured Party reserves the right to (i) credit bid its claim secured by the Collateral, (ii) reject any and all bids, (iii) cancel the sale in its entirety, and/or (iv) adjourn the sale.
The Collateral serves as additional security, in addition to certain mortgages (col- lectively, the “Mortgages”) encumbering the Property, for certain land and con- struction loans made to Borrower in the original aggregate principal amount of $60,250,000 (collectively, the “Loans”). The Loans have an outstanding aggregate principal balance of approximately $58,277,286.89 as of June 1, 2026. A Non-Standstill Default (as defined in the Security Agreement) has occurred and is continuing under the Security Agreement, and an Event of Default (as defined in the Mortgages) has occurred and is continuing under the Mortgages.
To the extent the Collateral is sold for less than the then-existing aggregate out- standing balance of the Loans, together with interest thereon accrued and all costs and expenses incurred as of the date of this public sale, the consummation of this public sale shall be subject to the Mortgages and the indebtedness secured thereby, which indebtedness shall be reduced by the proceeds received by Se- cured Party from this public sale. The Secured Party expressly reserves all rights and remedies available under the Mortgages, at law and in equity, including, with- out limitation, the right to commence judicial mortgage foreclosure proceedings with respect to the Property. The winning bidder at the public sale will acquire the Collateral subject to all such rights and remedies.
Consummation of this public sale is further subject to satisfaction of all applicable conditions and requirements under that certain Amended and Restated Operat- ing Agreement of Mings Garden Realty LLC dated as of February 16, 2024 (the “Borrower Operating Agreement”). The prospective bidder shall be solely re- sponsible, at its own risk, cost and expense, for (a) compliance with all conditions and restrictions set forth in the Borrower Operating Agreement, including those requiring completion and execution of an application for transfer of the member- ship interests in Borrower subject to certain restrictions set forth therein, (b) the presentation to Borrower of the Certificate of Limited Liability Company Inter- ests in Borrower (the “Certificate”) accompanied by (i) an assignment, duly com- pleted and executed by or on behalf of Pledgor (or the Secured Party as attorney- -in-fact for Pledgor), and (ii) an application for transfer, duly completed and exe- cuted by and on behalf of the winning bidder as transferee, the form of each ap- pearing on the reverse side of such Certificate, and (c) satisfying any other condi- tions under the Borrower Operating Agreement expressly imposed on the trans- feree or winning bidder, in each case as required by and as defined in the Borrow- er Operating Agreement.
The Collateral has not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Act”) and is being offered for sale in a transaction exempt from the re- quirements of the Act as set forth in the Security Agreement. Bidders will be re- quired to comply with all applicable securities laws in effect in respect of the sub- mission of bids and actual purchase of the Collateral. Secured Party reserves the right to require bidders to represent that the Collateral is being purchased with in- vestment intent for the bidder's own account and not with a view towards resale or distribution and will not be resold except pursuant to a valid registration state- ment under the Act or pursuant to an applicable exemption. Additional represen- tations may be required to comply with transfer requirements and state securi- ties laws that may apply. The Collateral will be sold “AS IS, WHERE IS, WITH ALL FAULTS,” without warranties or representations of any kind by Secured Party and without recourse. The transfer will be made subject to all defenses and liabili- ties affecting Borrower, including the mortgage loans and all obligations thereun- der. The winning bidder shall be solely responsible for obtaining any required con- sent, approval, or notification under any applicable local, state or federal laws, re- gulations or ordinances and for compliance with applicable laws as respects the Collateral and the Property.
higher borrowing costs for every- one from the government to com- panies to consumers. At its worst, it could accelerate concerns about a looming fiscal calamity. Those worries were visible in fi- nancial markets after the Fed’s decision on Wednesday to keep steady the short-dated interest rates it controls, despite inflation remaining stubbornly high. Three policymakers dissented from the decision, voting to raise
former adviser at the Federal Re- serve and the chief macro strat- egist at the Clocktower Group, an asset management and advisory firm. Still, he added, “real incomes and spending have been trending lower.” Because G.D.P. is adjusted for inflation, rising costs dampened the growth reflected in the data re- leased Thursday. This was the first estimate for the second quar- ter by the U.S. Bureau of Eco- nomic Analysis. Revisions, con- ducted by civil servants at the agency, can be substantial, espe- cially during periods of price vola- tility. Data collected by Viresh Kan- abar, a financial researcher, shows
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rates. During a news conference after the decision, Mr. Warsh de- clined repeated questions from re- porters on how the Fed will tackle inflation, saying only that he was serious about doing so. Yields on long-term Treasury bonds rose sharply in response. Alan McKnight, chief invest- ment officer at Regions Bank, said that in the absence of clearer guid- ance from Mr. Warsh, the move in Treasuries was “a statement
that business orders and expendi- tures are rising. Retail sales have also been strong for several months. But consumer purchases are also growing at a much softer pace when adjusted for inflation, Mr. Kanabar’s data shows. Over the past six months, he notes, “real” inflation-adjusted income has also fallen overall, and at a rate not seen since the height of the inflation spike in 2022. G.D.P., in simplest terms, is an account of the exchange of goods and services in the economy. And G.D.P. growth is a fluctuating mix of four factors: business invest- ment, government expenditures, net exports and household con- sumption, which typically consti- tutes about 70 percent of the U.S. economy. Consumer spending and busi- ness investment are on solid foot- ing, but a pullback in net govern- ment spending and an increase in imports dragged on momentum. “It’s a chug-along economy un- til further notice,” said Dan Alpert, a senior fellow in macroeconom- ics at Cornell Law and managing partner at Westwood Capital, a fi- nancial firm. Earlier this month, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of 10 to 12 percent on imports from more than 80 countries. Econo- mists have criticized the presi- dent’s global tariffs, and courts have struck many of them down. Economists do not expect the tariffs that remain in place to cause a downturn. But many do believe it will slow growth and raise prices. According to one esti- mate by Yale researchers, the du- ties are costing the average U.S. family around $1,100 annually. Many business leaders have ex- pressed confidence that the Iran conflict will stay contained, with limited harm to broader commer- cial activity. But the Strait of Hor- muz, a key fuel bottleneck par- tially under Iran’s control, is still not a reliable passage for global shippers. Market analysts have is- sued stark warnings that interna- tional oil inventories are quickly depleting. So the risk of wide- spread shortages could soon be rearing again. One partial saving grace has been that the domestic and global economies have become much less “energy intensive.” The amount of energy burned to gen- erate a dollar of growth has fallen by about a third since 2000 in the United States and Europe and by roughly 40 percent in China. But lower crude inventories could still lead to an inflationary surge in oil prices that halts growth. There is some evidence that the jump in energy prices has already bled into the rest of the economy. Grocery prices are expected to rise and airfares, which have surged, are not expected to re- treat anytime soon. Separate monthly data released Thursday showed that the Fed- eral Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation actually fell 0.1 percent in June. That reflects the cool-off in oil prices in June. On an annual basis, inflation is still up 3.7 per- cent, well above the central bank’s long-run target of 2 percent. And inflation in the second quarter was especially high. The Federal Reserve held inter- est rates steady on Wednesday.
about the lack of conviction by the markets that the Fed is going to be willing, and or able, to get inflation down.” Some investors, however, said the market had reacted as Mr. Warsh intended. In his remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Warsh noted how yields — akin to the market’s interest rates — had moved up in recent weeks, doing some of the Fed’s work of raising interest rates and containing inflation.
MADDIE MCGARVEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
But three of the 12 members on the Fed’s policymaking committee dissented, voting to raise rates, a signal that pressure to contain in- flation is mounting. Kevin M. Warsh, the Fed’s new chairman, has made stern pledges to curtail inflation. But he, like his predeces- sor, will also be weighing how tightening monetary policy could harm growth and the jobs market. The labor market has stabilized this year, compared with 2025. The pace of payroll growth over the past three months has been uneven but averaged 111,000 jobs a month. That stabilization, some Fed observers say, gives Mr. Warsh and other Fed leaders room to raise rates without risk- ing too much harm. Yields on long-term bonds have risen recently, as investors worry that continually elevated inflation will erode the future value of some assets. Investors have been hand- wringing about a potential A.I. bubble. But stock indexes are up this year, and corporate earnings continue to outperform expecta- tions. According to FactSet, the S&P 500’s net profit margins are on track to rise to 16 percent in the latest quarter, the highest level since FactSet started tracking the metric in 2009. Economists are asking, with a mix of wonderment and anxiety, how closely tied the A.I. boom and G.D.P. growth could become. Where the future returns on all this A.I. spending will come from remains a key question, as large companies leverage debt and bil- lions of dollars in cash flow to fol- low through on investment com- mitments. Search queries, business soft- ware applications and content streams on personal devices can seem to manifest with virtual ef- fortlessness. But cloud computing and A.I. systems rely on a mas- sive, energy-intensive infrastruc- ture of chips, cables and cooling systems. And the growth of those underlying physical systems is central to the immense invest- ment boom among businesses. Brian LeBlanc, an economist and managing director at PNC Bank, notes that business “cap- ex” averaged an impressive 10 percent growth in the first half of the year alone. Because of some statistical quirks, however, the A.I. build-out — which relies on many imported foreign compo- nents rather than domestic parts — is partially tempering meas- ures of domestic growth, too. “From a G.D.P. math stand- point, a lot of the A.I.-related capi- tal expenditure, which adds sub- stantially to G.D.P., gets offset by the fact that we import most of what goes into the data centers,” said Jake Oubina, a managing di- rector and deputy head of eco- nomic research at Piper Sandler, an investment firm. Federal tax refunds, which bol- stered households in spring, are now mostly exhausted. And with households’ savings buffers much lower than in the recent past, “consumption will be much weaker through the rest of the year,” Mr. Wallerstein of the Clock- tower Group argued. “Yes, the A.I. boom is not 100 percent of G.D.P.,” he said. “But it is an A.I.-driven economy.”
Much of the earlier rise in long- term yields this year has come not from inflation expectations but from hefty spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure driv- ing up the growth outlook, as well as mounting concern about un- sustainable government borrow- ing. That rise in yields could natu- rally help to slow the economy, and inflation with it. Near term inflation worries tied to the high price of oil could also
Eased During Pause in Iran War
By COLBY SMITH
The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation eased in June amid a temporary truce in the war with Iran. But the resumption of fighting this month suggests that the reprieve may not last. Overall consumer prices fell 0.1 percent in June and were up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, ac- cording to data released by the Commerce Department on Thurs- day. That was a slower annual pace than the three-year high notched in May, when the Person- al Consumption Expenditure price index rose 4.1 percent on a year-over-year basis. “Core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs and are seen as a more reliable gauge of underlying inflation, rose only 0.1 percent from the previous month. Compared with the same time last year, those prices were up 3.3 percent, roughly in line with June’s year-over-year increase. June’s data captures a period before the war with Iran escalated again after a brief pause. During that respite, oil prices fell back to- ward their prewar level, helping to keep a lid on overall inflation for the month. But they climbed once again as strikes resumed in July. The longer the war drags on, the more upward pressure that will put on inflation, which has
Warsh Is Taking to Tame Inflation
Long-term government bor- rowing costs shot higher as Mr. Warsh spoke, with the 30-year bond notching its largest one-day increase in more than a year. Trad- ing around 5.22 percent, it is at the highest level since 2007. The 10- year Treasury yield, which serves as the benchmark for borrowing costs around the world, also rose alongside expectations about in- flation over a longer time horizon. Stock markets sold off, too, even as investors pushed back the tim- ing of potential rate increases un- til later this year. Some of those equity losses were recouped on Thursday, but jitters across the bond market re- mained. “The markets initially inter- preted the price stability tough talk as someone who was willing to take the necessary action to ad- dress inflation and then was sur- prised that there wasn’t follow through,” said Lael Brainard, who served as vice chair at the Fed un- til she left to become the top eco- nomic adviser in the Biden admin- istration in 2023. Mark Cabana, an interest rate strategist at Bank of America, added: “As a central banker, this is exactly what you don’t want. You don’t want the market question- ing your inflation credibility.” The chance of some kind of dis- appointment was elevated going into the July meeting in large part because there was a vocal contin- gency of investors who were mak- ing the case for Mr. Warsh to de- liver a surprise quarter-point in- crease. The odds of such a move were around 30 percent ahead of Wednesday’s announcement. Three presidents from the re- gional banks thought that it was also the optimal decision and dis- sented against leaving rates un- changed. The rationale for a rate increase was that an aggressive move early in Mr. Warsh’s tenure as chairman would help to cement his reputation as the inflation fighter that he strives to be. Mr. Warsh tried to maintain that image on Wednesday. In his open- ing statement at the news confer- ence, he said that “where neces- sary and appropriate, we will not hesitate to act” to squash inflation. He made clear that the Fed would, at least for the time being, not ac- cept anything above 2 percent in- flation, as measured by the Per- sonal Consumption Expenditures price index. He also repeatedly stressed that there was “nothing inertial” about the Fed’s discus- sions or strategy even as it stood pat. Moreover, he pushed back on the framing that July’s meeting represented a “pause.” But those “elements of hawk- ishness” — as Tiffany Wilding, an economist at PIMCO, the asset
ease if tensions cooled between the United States and Iran, lead- ing to oil flowing out of the Middle East, which would aid Mr. Warsh. Russ Brownback, deputy chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock, said that the market response was “ex- actly” what Mr. Warsh would have wanted. “I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and give Chair Warsh and this Fed time,” he said.
overshot the Fed’s 2 percent tar- get for more than five years. On Wednesday, the central bank voted to leave interest rates unchanged at a range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent, a level that has been in place since January. But three offi- cials dissented in favor of a quar- ter-point increase. Those voters were Beth M. Hammack of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleve- land, Neel Kashkari of the Minne- apolis Fed and Lorie K. Logan of the Dallas Fed. Wednesday’s inaction put Kev- in M. Warsh, the new chairman, on the defensive in light of his pledge to get inflation down. At a news conference after the policy announcement, he reiterated that the Fed had not wavered in its commitment to achieving the 2 percent target. He also said that cooler June inflation data did not factor much into the decision. But his hesitancy to fully em- brace the notion that higher rates might be necessary to quell price pressures fomented fears across Wall Street that Mr. Warsh’s tough talk would not be backed up by ac- tion. Long-term U.S. government borrowing costs jumped higher on Wednesday as investors pushed back the timing of eventual rate increases. The Fed meets again in mid- September.
manager, described it — were overshadowed by Mr. Warsh’s un- willingness to lay out the condi- tions under which he would con- sider raising rates. In fact, he only briefly acknowledged that higher borrowing costs were a tool at the Fed’s disposal to address inflation. Mr. Warsh also did not give any in- dication of how he saw the data evolving in coming months, nor did he make any specific mention of the Fed’s next meeting in Sep- tember as a potential platform to take action. In summation, he de- scribed the current moment as “a period of watchful thinking, not watchful waiting.” “No forward guidance. No framework guidance. No noth- ing,” said Ms. Wilding. That, cou- pled with Mr. Warsh’s repeated mention that the Fed would focus on a wide range of inflationary measures, gave her the impres- sion that the timing of any rate in- crease was highly uncertain. What was missing was the point emphasized in the minutes from Mr. Warsh’s first meeting in June, which stipulated that if inflation stayed stubbornly high, most offi- cials believed that “some policy firming” was warranted. Policy- makers built on that communiqué and stressed that they needed to see an inflation deceleration soon. That omission was likely a stra- tegic one from Mr. Warsh, who has rejected the Fed’s longstanding practice of sending cues to mar- kets on what the central bank will do and how it may react to incom- ing data. His view is that the Fed benefits from a “direct and unfil- tered” signal from markets about what the central bank should do, rather than having officials’ sig- nals reflected back. On Wednesday, Mr. Warsh re- peatedly referenced the recent tightening in financial conditions, which capture the availability of credit across the economy, as hav- ing given policymakers “some comfort that we’ve got the ability and capability to deliver.” Kurt Lewis, who served as a senior adviser to Jerome H. Pow- ell, the former Fed chair, likened Mr. Warsh’s strategy to “trying to convey the same message that was conveyed in the minutes with both hands tied behind his back because of that rhetorical choice.” Mr. Lewis reckoned that “whether by force or choice, he will change how he approaches the news conference in the future, just because it will be easier for him to communicate if he does so more directly.” Mr. Warsh’s ability to avoid an- other credibility test by markets will depend on if the economic data cooperate and keep a rate in- crease at bay, said Avisha Thakkar, head of Macro & Fixed Income Research at Schonfeld, a hedge fund.
China is not only increasing the number of cattle but also pushing to breed plumper animals with better quality beef. As recently as 2015, the country imported less than 500,000 tons of beef.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
Beijing is taking broader ac- tions to protect its domestic mar- ket from lower-cost imports that come from countries with much larger, more efficient ranches and feedlots. China set annual quotas on Dec. 31 for beef imports from each of the world’s biggest beef producers, with 55 percent tariffs taking effect as soon as those quo- tas are reached. Australia reached its full-year quota by late June and was hit with the tariffs three days later, and Brazil is close to its quota. At a summit in Beijing in May, President Trump pressed China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for the country to buy more American beef. China had halted nearly all imports from the United States early last year after Mr. Trump’s increases in American tariffs. Al- though Beijing lifted one regula- tory barrier during the summit, American shipments are still nearly nonexistent. Nobody expects China, with its enormous population, to become self-sufficient in beef anytime soon. But until recently, its beef imports accelerated as an increas- ingly affluent population de- manded a higher-protein diet that exceeded the domestic supply. As recently as 2015, China im- ported less than 500,000 tons of beef, according to the country’s customs data. As imports began rising quickly, China started ex- panding its own herd, even hand- ing out free cattle to impoverished households in the country’s poor- est counties. Imports peaked in 2024 at 2.87 million tons — a huge windfall for ranchers around the globe. It was a pace of annual in- creases matched by few indus- tries other than China’s own rapid growth in car exports. But by 2024, real estate prices had tumbled and many Chinese households were switching to less expensive chicken or pork after losing their savings in the coun- try’s housing market crash. Com- bined with rising domestic pro- duction, beef wholesale prices plunged 21 percent that year. The price drop incited consider- able anger in rural China, where millions of families put their life savings into raising cattle for slaughter. China capped overall imports from the rest of the world this year at 2.69 million tons, using the country quotas system and the threat of 55 percent tariffs. It is a politically delicate move by Bei- jing, which has strongly opposed tariffs by the European Union and the United States on its own surg- ing car exports. Beef prices are now recovering, helping farmers like those in In- ner Mongolia. Tongliao typifies the transfor- mation now taking place along the southeastern edge of the Gobi Desert. Several decades ago, only 12 percent of Tongliao had grass- lands or forests and the rest was desert, according to the local gov- ernment. Now 64 percent of the area is covered with crops, grass or forests. China’s propaganda apparatus attributes the retreat of the Gobi Desert to decades of hard work in planting trees, supplemented
more recently by the extensive deployment of solar panels. These actions have stabilized the re- gion’s shifting sands and have helped tame dry desert winds that used to wick away moisture from surface soil, the government has said. But climate change is also mak- ing a big difference. Annual rain- fall has significantly increased, al- though there have been yearslong dips and surges along the way, ac-
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
cording to China’s meteorologists. Across northern China, previ- ously dry expanses with a total area similar to Arizona have be- gun receiving enough rain to sup- port grassland or crops, although the soil quality for agriculture in many of these areas is poor. “What we’re seeing is a long- term increase associated with cli- mate warming, with pronounced, decade-long swings superim- posed on top of it,” said Xu Xi-
KEITH BRADSHER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Angus cattle that have been crossbred with local cattle in Tongliao, above, and a meat processing site, left. As imports began rising quickly and as large expanses of northern China have become significantly wetter, the country started expanding its own herd. Below, a market in Nanjing.
QILAI SHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
aofeng, the president of the China Meteorological Service Associa- tion. He warned that rain also in- creasingly occurs during brief, heavy downpours instead of in long, gentle showers better for crops. To prevent damage from hooves or overgrazing, Chinese officials are using farm equipment to mow the new grasslands once a year and distributing the hay to farmers for cattle in pens.
GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The government also installed a large network of motion sensors on Tongliao’s newly green areas to detect cattle, Mr. Shen said. Gov- ernment workers get alerts, then remove the offending animal and fine the owner. “Grazing is strictly prohibited throughout our sand restoration areas,” Mr. Shen said. The Tongliao region has be- come one of the world’s largest manufacturing centers for wind turbines, many of which are in- stalled on the new grasslands and send electricity to big cities to the south. Rapid growth in the beef in- dustry, expanding cornfields and extensive factory construction have contributed to a sharp rise in local standards of living, including the plowing of fields with ma- chinery instead of livestock. China is also trying to plump up its bony, domestic cows, which for centuries were bred for pulling plows. Local cattle are better at re- sisting local viruses and with- standing Siberian blizzards that come south. So local cattle are now cross- bred through artificial insemina- tion with very large and meatier Swiss Simmental and Angus cat- tle. The resulting offspring weigh up to twice as much as local cattle, said Guo Jie, deputy director of the Tongliao Agriculture and Ani- mal Husbandry Bureau. “The Simmentals with our local cattle’s genes can better adapt to the local environment and grow fast,” she said. (Ms. Guo spoke during a media tour this summer in Inner Mongo- lia, a border region where foreign media access is sometimes re- stricted. The New York Times paid its own travel costs.) But many small-scale farmers are wary of the heftier, imported breeds. Nearly seven million Chi- nese households still raise nine or fewer cattle apiece. A herder in China’s Hebei Prov- ince with several dozen local cat- tle said she had no interest in hy- brids. “The beef from our cattle is much better than what you see in supermarkets — these are native Chinese breeds,” said the herder, who gave her family name, Zhao. Many of her grass-fed cattle, graz- ing in a remote mountain valley, had protruding pelvic bones and visible ribs. Inner Mongolia authorities have turned to incentives to en- courage consolidation of the re- gion’s herd at large feedlots, where artificial insemination and other programs are more easily managed. The region’s govern- ment now provides a subsidy of $44 per head for cattle fattened at feedlots that send at least 500 cat- tle each year to local slaughter- houses. Wholesale beef prices are up 17.6 percent from their low in March last year as import restric- tions start to bite, helping farmers in Tongliao as part of a longer- term increase in prosperity. “In the past, people had to trav- el on foot or ride camels,” Mr. Shen said. “Today, almost every house- hold owns a car.”
Wary Support For Economy That’s Faltering
By KEITH BRADSHER
BEIJING — Faced with weak con- sumer spending, persistently high youth unemployment and a tumbling stock market, China’s ruling Politburo signaled the need for stronger fiscal support and di- rected authorities to do more to tackle joblessness. In a broadly worded statement issued on Thursday after its annu- al midyear review of the economy, China’s Communist Party leader- ship urged the government to pur- sue “more proactive” tax and spending policies, and increase employment support. Politburo statements rarely de- tail specific policy measures, in- stead setting the broad direction for government action. Even by those standards, however, the statement offered few signs of ur- gency, reinforcing expectations that Beijing will continue to rely on gradual stimulus rather than broad reforms. The Politburo said it would “fully leverage the effectiveness of existing policies, promptly plan and introduce practical and effec- tive incremental policies.” China’s domestic economy has faltered and is being sustained largely by a record trade surplus and strong exports from the tech- nology and clean energy sectors. “The Politburo continues to rely on incremental steps to pull the economy along,” said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University eco- nomics professor and former head of the China division at the Inter- national Monetary Fund. “But revving household consumption will require substantial direct fi- nancial assistance as well as con- fidence-building measures, per- haps coupled with some tax re- lief.” Even many of China’s electric vehicle and solar panel manufac- turers are losing money, while some tech companies are also be- ginning to encounter difficulties. The CSI 300 index of major Chi- nese companies has fallen 8.6 per- cent in July after months of strong gains, putting it on track for its worst monthly performance since January 2016. It remains up nearly 10 percent over the past year. Unemployment among urban residents ages 16 to 25 has hov- ered around 15 percent. Youth job- lessness has created particular social stress for families because almost everyone in this age bracket is an only child, born when China’s “one child” policy was most strictly enforced. Youth unemployment has re- mained stubbornly high even af- ter Beijing changed its method- ology in January 2024 to exclude many young people previously counted as unemployed. China’s National Bureau of Sta- tistics has yet to release July data for investment, retail sales and in- dustrial production, but June data were very weak, and surveys point to further deterioration. With the exception of semicon- ductor and data-center equip- ment manufacturers, businesses across a wide range of industries are suffering from weak sales this summer, prompting cuts to over- time, hiring and borrowing. “Every key indicator from reve- nue and profits to sales prices and hiring weakened from a year ago,” said the China Beige Book, a New York-based data service, in a re- port released on Thursday based on a survey of 1,436 businesses conducted in the last two weeks. Consumer spending remains weak, while much of the housing market is still in crisis. A five-year nationwide decline in apartment prices has wiped out much of the middle class’s savings in a coun- try where households typically hold about three-quarters of their assets in real estate. Economists inside and outside China have urged the government and the state-controlled banking system to devote fewer resources to industrial policies supporting exporters and high-tech indus- tries, and instead provide more fi- nancial support to households, particularly rural families. In a speech last month, Liu Shi- jin, a former vice minister at the Development Research Center, an influential government think tank, said that China’s manufac- turing sector is globally competi- tive, but that many industries face overcapacity while the needs of some people “remain unmet.” The East is Read, a Beijing newsletter, distributed a text of the speech this week. Chinese leaders have been re- luctant to take more aggressive action as China’s debt, relative to the size of its economy, already ex- ceeds that of the United States. The Politburo statement offered no sign of a fundamental shift in policy toward supporting Chinese households.
By IVAN PENN
With a growing backlash against the proliferation of data centers to power artificial intelligence, there has been increasing interest in putting the energy-thirsty opera- tions into orbit. Now, researchers may have figured out how to over- come a major obstacle to that goal: cooling the data centers in space. The California Institute of Tech- nology and Sophia Space, a start- up focused on orbital space com- puting, announced on Thursday that they had received a patent for a cooling system that they say could help them launch data cen- ters by the early 2030s, powered by 24-hour solar systems in space. The announcement is the latest effort to develop the use of solar power in space. This year, Elon Musk proposed sending up a mil- lion or so satellites to function as data centers, reducing the elec- tricity and water they consume on earth. Other big technology firms, such as Google and Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, have been developing similar projects. Like the system designed by Cal- tech and Sophia Space, the satel- lites would require energy from solar power. “It’s just kind of exploding,” said Sergio Pellegrino, co-director of the Space-Based Solar Power Project at Caltech, who is working with Sophia Space. “We need to become more comfortable with space doing things for us.” Solar technology already exists in space. Spaceships and satellites use small panels for power, but nothing at the scale that Sophia Space and Caltech envision. It will be years, at least, for their system to reach orbit. But if it proves to be effective, researchers, technology executives and energy companies hope that one day, solar arrays in space could power your home or business. Solar power has grown as an electricity resource in the last dec- ade or so, becoming cheaper and more efficient while also offering carbon-free energy. But because solar power runs only when the sun shines, there is debate about whether it can meet soaring de- mand spurred by electric vehi- cles, heating and cooling systems, and, most significant, A.I. data centers. The data centers, in particular, have angered nearby residents
On A.I. as Profit Jumps 31%
By EMMY MARTIN
SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft’s spending on artificial intelligence is still going up, but unlike other big technology companies, it ap- pears to have an answer for wor- ries that the returns do not justify the cost. On Wednesday, Microsoft said it spent $41 billion on capital expen- ditures, including data centers, in the three months that ended in June, up 69 percent from a year earlier. Microsoft also said its spending hit $145.3 billion in its 2026 fiscal year, which also ended in June. At the same time, Microsoft’s profit for the quarter was $35.8 bil- lion, up 31 percent. Revenue was $90 billion, up 18 percent. Revenue at Azure, the compa- ny’s cloud computing service, which lets businesses rent com- puter power, storage and A.I. tools, drove much of the growth, surging 43 percent. Analysts had expected growth of about 40 per- cent, the same as the previous quarter. Investors watch the fig- ure as the clearest sign of whether Microsoft’s A.I. spending is trans- lating into revenue. Azure’s revenue for the fiscal year surpassed $100 billion for the
By ELI TAN
SAN FRANCISCO — Meta has bet big on artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, it said that bet would not let up. The Silicon Valley company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, increased the lower end of its capital expendi- ture forecast for the year to $130 billion, up from its $125 billion pro- jection in April. Much of that in- vestment will go to building data centers, the computing facilities that power A.I. Meta also said its costs and ex- penses rose faster than its reve- nue growth for the second quarter. Revenue was $60.8 billion, up 28 percent from a year earlier, while costs jumped 55 percent to $42 bil- lion. Profit was $18.3 billion, down 14 percent from a year earlier. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, focused on how A.I. was aiding his company’s busi-
Solar arrays, like those on the International Space Station, are already in use. But A.I. data centers would require substantially more equipment.
because they use a lot of land and have contributed to rising elec- tricity costs and water shortages. Solar power in space would have 24-hour access to the sun’s energy, making it a steady source of power like power plants that run on natural gas and other fuels. On earth, a solar power plant re- quires batteries to extend the re- source beyond daylight. But some critics of putting so- lar-powered data centers into or- bit argue that it would add to the growing amount of trash in space while increasing consumer costs for power. Some say it may also make the electric grid less reli- able. “The space-based mousetraps are just a distraction,” said Bill Powers, an engineer in San Diego who testifies as an expert witness on behalf of consumers before state utility regulators across the
first time, “reflecting the confi- dence customers are placing in us to power their A.I. transforma- tion,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said. The company’s results ex- ceeded Wall Street’s projections of $87.6 billion in revenue and $31.5 billion in profit, sending Micro- soft’s shares up more than 7 per- cent in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Those strong results may offer comfort to investors worried about Microsoft’s plans to barrel ahead with more A.I. spending. The company expects to spend roughly $175 billion on A.I. infra- structure in the 2026 calendar year and more than $50 billion in the current quarter, Amy Hood, Microsoft’s finance chief, said on the earnings call on Wednesday. The company expects revenue to be between $89.85 billion and $90.95 billion for the quarter. The company has said demand for its cloud computing services outpaces its available data cen- ters, requiring more spending to expand. Microsoft added 31 data centers in the quarter, bringing the total to 88 new data centers this year, Mr. Nadella said. The real test, some investors said, is whether demand contin-
nesses. “We are now at a point where our investments in A.I. are accel- erating every major part of our core business,” he said. He added that “potentially selling compute directly,” which refers to comput- ing power, could be a new busi- ness opportunity. Investors appeared to be spooked by Meta’s expenses. The company’s stock fell over 9 per- cent in after-hours trading. Meta’s continued spending fol- lows Google’s announcement last week that it would raise its capital expenditures. Big tech companies are expected to pay $1.5 trillion on building data centers this year and next year. The enormous sums have raised questions about whether such spending is justi- fied, with the stock market gyrat- ing over concerns about the out- lays in recent weeks. Mr. Zuckerberg previously said
country. Still, with companies racing to reap rewards from the A.I. boom, they are going to great lengths to create infrastructure for data cen- ters, even if some of those efforts
way to keep data centers cool in orbit.
never become a reality. In a June report on data centers in space, the World Economic For- um noted that finding the technol- ogy to cool computer chips would be an appealing pursuit because 70 percent of Americans oppose the construction of data centers in their areas. The report noted that space lacks air and water, which are typically required to rapidly
ues to match Microsoft’s spend- ing. The company’s commercial backlog — contracted future sales — rose to $678 billion, up 8 percent from the previous quarter. All of the $51 billion increase came from customers other than frontier A.I. labs like OpenAI, Ms. Hood said. Microsoft’s shares have fallen since January, as investors have grown anxious about whether the hundreds of billions of dollars that it and its peers are pouring into A.I. development will convert into profit. That anxiety was on display just last week. Alphabet, Google’s parent, reported that it had quad- rupled its quarterly profit to $112 billion, strengthened largely by major investments in other A.I.
Meta was considering selling computing power from its data centers to other companies. In June, Anthropic offered to buy computing power from Meta in a deal that could be worth up to $10 billion; the talks are ongoing. Unlike Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which are also spend-
Amount Meta’s costs jumped in the second quarter, to $42 billion.
cool computer chips. Sophia Space devised a com- puter and data storage unit with a cooling system that uses a combi- nation of tiles and solar power, which ultimately sends waste heat into deep space. The com- pany said its system was “cost competitive” with data centers on earth. “Sophia was born out of that kind of vision and that goal to pro- vide energy and solve an energy crisis for the earth,” said Leon Al- kalai, a co-founder of Sophia Space and its chief technology of- ficer. Rather than generate electrici- ty in space and transmit that ener- gy to the earth, the solar power system would produce energy in space for an orbiting data center that would then send its data to earth — a much easier and less costly feat, Dr. Alkalai said.
LEXI PARRA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
companies, and raised its ex- pected 2026 spending to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion. Its stock fell roughly 7 percent the day after the earnings call. “The market really extended Big Tech that license to spend on A.I., and that was based on faith that these companies would get a sizable return on their invest- ment,” said Bryan Hayes, an ana- lyst at Zacks Investment Re- search. “That patience is now con- ditional.” Much of the demand filling those data centers traces back to OpenAI. Microsoft’s relationship with the San Francisco company behind ChatGPT was overhauled late last year, when the start-up converted into a for-profit entity and Microsoft took a stake valued
Advisors. Meta’s shift from a social media company to an A.I. firm has not been smooth. This month, it re- moved a feature that let people make A.I. images of one another on Instagram just days after its re- lease because of a backlash over privacy, among other snafus. But the company has made progress developing its own A.I. models. This month, Meta re- leased the latest version of Muse Spark, its most advanced A.I. model developed under Alexandr Wang, the company’s chief A.I. of- ficer. It also introduced an A.I. im- age generator, Muse Image, and plans to release a video generator. Muse Spark still trails other A.I. models in benchmarks that meas- ure coding, reasoning and writing. Meta plans to release a more pow- erful model, code-named Water- melon, this fall. Mr. Zuckerberg has also gone
Caltech continues to work on development of space solar, and other academic institutions, like the Georgia Institute of Technol- ogy, have teamed up with a South Korean solar company, Hanwha Qcells, to advance the field. The Energy Department has been exploring space solar-power generation for more than a dec- ade. The most common designs use radio waves or lasers to trans- mit the energy to a receiver on earth and then deliver it to utility substations. Solaren, a leading developer of the technology, said it was set to enter a power purchase agree- ment with a utility company for its system, which it aims to commer- cialize within the next decade. “There’s nothing technically preventing us from doing that,” said Gary T. Spirnak, president and chief executive of Solaren.
The Microsoft Experience Center in Manhattan on Wednesday, when Microsoft reported quarterly capital expenditures of $41 billion.
at roughly $135 billion. Under the revised agreement, Microsoft re- tained access to OpenAI’s technol- ogy through 2032. Sales rose 14 percent to $37.8 billion for commercial subscrip- tions to Microsoft’s productivity tools for businesses, which in- clude Excel, Teams and Word, as well as its A.I. assistant, Copilot. The company said more than 30 million people were paying for Co- pilot, up from more than 20 million a quarter earlier. Microsoft’s per- sonal computing business had $12.9 billion in sales, a 4 percent decline that the company attribut- ed to weaker PC demand and higher component costs. Microsoft has been trimming its other businesses to help pay for its A.I. push. In July, the company eliminated 20 percent of its Xbox work force as part of roughly 4,800 job cuts, and dropped several game studios. Xbox accounted for about 6 percent of Microsoft’s rev- enue in the 2026 fiscal year, down from roughly 8 percent a year ear- lier. Xbox revenue also decreased 10 percent in the quarter. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have denied the claims.)
on the attack against companies like Anthropic and OpenAI in de- fense of open-source A.I. models, which are freely available for oth- ers to build upon. In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, he said tightly control- ling A.I. development would be “abandoning our values” and would stifle innovation. Meta also faces ongoing litiga- tion over claims that its social me- dia products are addictive and said it spent $2.4 billion on legal fees in the second quarter. Meta’s A.I. smart glasses con- tinue to be a bright spot. Its Reali- ty Labs division, which develops those glasses, generated $431 mil- lion in revenue in the quarter, up 16 percent from a year earlier. The division lost $4.6 billion, about the same as a year earlier. Meta’s family of apps grew to 3.6 billion users, up 3 percent from a year earlier.
NASA, VIA REUTERS
Crisis at Fund As A.I. Stocks Continue Fall
By ROB COPELAND
One of the hottest hedge funds in artificial intelligence received a bailout to stay afloat on Thursday amid a sudden drop in value for its investments. The fast-moving crisis unfolded over just 36 hours at Situational Awareness, a once-envied invest- ment firm in San Francisco led by 20-somethings, including a for- mer employee of OpenAI. The firm put out an emergency call for help to rivals, seeking to sell more than $10 billion of its stock to shore up its plummeting portfolio, ac- cording to three people briefed on the call. After a brief bidding war overnight, the hedge fund Citadel — founded by the billionaire Ken- neth Griffin — agreed to step in with the needed cash, so long as it received a substantial discount on the investments, the three people said. The move forestalled the imme- diate danger for Situational Awareness, but it has put many on Wall Street on edge. Several re- cent crises have begun with strug- gling hedge funds forced to un- wind — most recently in 2021, when the collapse of the hedge fund Archegos ended up taking down the bank Credit Suisse along with it. Situational Awareness was named after a 2024 essay by its founder, Leopold Aschenbrenner, a onetime employee of the philan- thropic arm of FTX, the fallen
Awareness sells $10 billion in shares.
crypto brokerage. His essay pre- dicted that research labs would develop a superintelligent form of A.I. by 2027. That thesis became a founda- tion of the firm’s investment strat- egy, and it began pouring money into A.I. companies. This worked wonderfully, for a while: Some of its investors, which include Pat- rick and John Collison, the founders of Stripe, had made a 200 percent return this year alone, ac- cording to two people briefed on the figures but not permitted to discuss them publicly. The fund grew to tens of billions of dollars under management, and became a poster child for the boom. It hired a public relations firm, attracting attention from media old and new. One famous podcaster, Tim Ferriss, called Mr. Aschenbrenner the “Nos- tradamus of A.I.” His fortune changed quickly. In recent weeks, markets have be- gun to question whether the A.I. renaissance will turn out to be as profitable or impactful as prom- ised. Stocks for chipmakers and other firms closely tied to the in- dustry cratered. That hit Situational Awareness on two fronts at the same time, ac- cording to two of the people briefed. Its holdings in companies such as SK Hynix, a South Korean semiconductor maker, rapidly lost value, while so-called shorts, or bets, against older software com- panies suddenly turned in the other direction. Plenty of A.I. companies and in- vestors large and small are in a crunch. But Situational Aware- ness was in a particularly danger- ous position. It had borrowed bil- lions of dollars from Wall Street banks to amplify its bets, and those banks had in recent days be- gun asking for some of that money back, according to the three peo- ple briefed on the requests. Faced with the potential of a forced fire sale, Mr. Aschenbren- ner canvassed his onetime rivals for a bailout. His offer: to sell more than $10 billion of its stocks to shore up the firm. Wall Street banks and other in- vestment firms worked overnight to scour the firm’s portfolio to come up with bids. An auction was held overnight Wednesday and the winner was Mr. Griffin’s hedge fund, Citadel. The deal was closed early Thursday, one of the people briefed said. It’s a familiar strategy for Cita- del, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. In decades past, it has swooped in to buy cut-rate po- sitions from firms in desperate sit- uations, including Enron. The spotlight on Situational Awareness is sure to continue. It still holds a big chunk of harder- to-sell positions in privately held companies such as Anthropic. It remains to be seen if those compa- nies will live up to their lofty valu- ations if and when they hit the public markets. Mr. Aschenbrenner and a spokesman for Situational Aware- ness did not respond to requests for comment.
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL
By JAMES HORNCASTLE, MEGAN FERINGA and ADAM CRAFTON The Athletic
James Horncastle, Megan Feringa and Adam Crafton cover soccer for The Athletic.
European countries have agreed to boycott the World Cup over FIFA’s plans to sell stakes in the soccer tournament to private investors. The decision to boycott any competition run by FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, came during a virtual meeting on Thursday of the 55 national asso- ciations that are members of UEFA, the European soccer con- federation, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting. That followed news of FIFA’s pro- posal on Tuesday, when it told its 211 member associations that the plan needed to be approved by Sept. 19. UEFA later confirmed its stance, saying its members “unanimously and unequivocally reject FIFA’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other FIFA competitions to private investors.” Its statement continued: “As a result of today’s discussion, no UEFA national teams will partici- pate in any FIFA competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that FIFA will never again open its governance or competitions to private owner- ship.” The next World Cup in the cal- endar is the women’s edition in Brazil in 2027, followed by the men’s tournament in Spain, Por- tugal and Morocco in 2030. Wom- en’s World Cup qualifiers, which are organized by each continental confederation, are to begin in Oc- tober. The 41 members of Concacaf, the soccer confederation of North America, Central America and the Caribbean, released a state- ment after a meeting on Thurs- day that it was rejecting FIFA’s proposal. Concacaf had strongly con- demned the manner in which FIFA introduced the idea. It met on Wednesday night too, and there had been concerns raised about process, governance and why cash-rich FIFA required ex- ternal investment. On Tuesday, FIFA confirmed its proposal to sell a significant mi- nority stake in a new entity that it,
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
From First Sports Page
turn to college despite a top N.F.L. draft projection, but he is one of the first to decide to come back with that projection while still be- ing paid like some N.F.L. starters. How much money Moore will earn in his final year at Oregon was not revealed by Moore or Ore- gon officials. College players typi- cally sign several contracts of varying value, and their full com- pensation is rarely made public. Top-level quarterbacks in col- lege football are earning in the $5 million range, industry analysts believe; Moore is likely there or higher. That would put him within shouting distance of what the Denver Broncos’ Bo Nix and the Atlanta Falcons’ Michael Penix are earning in the third year of their N.F.L. rookie deals. Even so, the No. 1 pick in the N.F.L. draft, Fernando Mendoza, just agreed to a four-year deal worth over $57 million guaran- teed, an average of more than $14 million per year. So while Moore is making plenty, he is certainly making less than he could have. An injury or a fast riser in next year’s deep quarterback draft class could complicate his N.F.L. payday. “There was $50 million on the line, a lot to help support my fam- ily,” Moore said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t play the game for money. I play the game to tell my- self I’ve got a lot to improve. I had a chance to come back and learn more. So when I take that next step next year, I’ll be more pre- pared for those moments in my life.” Moore’s path has included sur- prising decisions before. He earned the starting job at U.C.L.A. as a true freshman, before trans- ferring to Oregon to back up Dil- lon Gabriel for a year. With only 20 starts in his college career, Moore and his advisers entered the win- ter trying to figure out what would get him the all-important second N.F.L. contract, when the even bigger payday comes. “He didn’t want to let $50 mil- lion get in the way of $600 million,” said Brandon Grier, Moore’s
Gianni Infantino, left, the FIFA president, with Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA, which is threatening to skip tournaments.
as a nonprofit organization, is set- ting up to run its main events, such as the World Cups and Club World Cups. This new entity will be called FIFA Forward Enterprises, or F.F.E., and will take over FIFA’s commercial operations, with the organization itself remaining soc- cer’s global governing body and retaining a majority stake in F.F.E. A news release from FIFA said it was seeking to sell up to 21 per- cent of F.F.E., aiming to bring in $4.2 billion. That money could be immediately released to its mem- ber associations. This proposal must be ap- proved by the majority of FIFA’s 211 member associations — in- cluding the English F.A., U.S. Soc- cer and the Royal Spanish Foot- ball Federation — and the FIFA Council, the organization’s deci- sion-making arm, which is made up of the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino; its eight vice presi- dents; and 28 other members. FIFA said on Tuesday that this must be done by Sept. 19 for funds to become available for its mem-
agent. Moore consulted with Drew Brees, Patrick Mahomes and Nix about his decision. The players who have been in his exact posi- tion make up a small fraternity. In the past 30 years, quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Matt Leinart, Sam Bradford and An- drew Luck have turned down a top draft projection to return to college. Just a few years ago, Jus-
ber associations by the start of 2027. Infantino has spearheaded the idea, and said in the news release that soccer “is the world’s most popular sport and an extraordi- nary engine of human and social development.” “Parts of the game have turned that popularity into remarkable commercial value — and we cele- brate that success and want it to continue, because it lifts the whole game,” he said. “Our job is to make sure the rest of football grows with it: FIFA exists to support sustain- able, inclusive development in ev- ery corner of the world.” UEFA’s 470-word statement strongly condemned FIFA’s idea. “The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment prod- uct,” it said. “It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and sup- porters across every continent. No part of it should ever be sur- rendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale. “The moment external invest-
BRETT DAVIS/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS CONNECT
tin Herbert made a similar move to stay at Oregon. Luck described his own deci- sion in 2011 as easy. He knew he had not maxed out his college ceil- ing as a player. He thought he could make a run at a national ti- tle, and he also enjoyed school life and being with his friends. “I wasn’t ready to leave,” Luck said. “I wasn’t ready to go get an apartment by myself in another
ors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial re- turn becomes a permanent obliga- tion. Investor expectations be- come a daily pressure. From that
members opposed a sudden proposal to transfer ownership.
moment onward, every decision on the international calendar, ev- ery decision on competition for- mats and every decision shaping the future of football is no longer driven by what best serves the game, but by what best serves shareholders. “This model has no place in world football. Football’s future cannot be dictated by the expecta- tions of those whose first duty is to
ALI GRADISCHER/GETTY IMAGES
Dante Moore, right, with Ja- mari Johnson after the spring game in Eugene. At left, Coach Dan Lanning, who is 48-8 in four years, is coming off con- secutive playoff appearances.
city and pay utilities. I think some- times in our world, we want to grow up so stinking fast. In many ways, I wasn’t ready for that.” Moore had similar reasons for staying, but after being largely raised by a single father, then en- during his mother’s recent battle with breast cancer (she was de- clared cancer-free in 2024), pass- ing on guaranteed N.F.L. money was still a weight, even if he has made a lot of money already. “He’s not Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck, coming from fam- ilies that are well off already,” Grier said. “He’s the first one that’s going to get to change the path of his family. N.I.L. has given him the opportunity to separate the two decisions and do what he feels is best for him long term.” There were also on-field rea- sons. Moore said N.F.L. coaches and scouts told him to improve his
maximize financial return. Nor can the interests of national asso- ciations, leagues, clubs, players and supporters become subordi- nate to investor returns. Football cannot mortgage its future for fi- nancial gain. “Europe’s position is clear. We will never lend this model our le- gitimacy. No one has the moral au- thority to sell what they merely hold in trust for the next genera- tion.” “There are moments when in- stitutions are judged not by what they are prepared to accept, but by what they refuse to compro- mise. This is one of those mo- ments. “Some things are simply too im- portant to sell. The FIFA World Cup belongs to football. It always will. And so long as Europe has a voice, it will never be for sale.” UEFA was also critical of how FIFA’s proposal came to light, first through a report in The Times of London and then in a news release from world soccer’s governing body: “It is both irresponsible and indefensible that a proposal of
presnap reads and be confident on where he is going with the ball. The game-opening pick-6 in the Peach Bowl loss to Indiana showed Moore and the rest of col- lege football that he still had room to grow. That Peach Bowl highlighted a troubling pattern for Oregon un- der Coach Dan Lanning. In each of the past three years, the Ducks have lost a rematch game (Wash- ington, Ohio State, Indiana). The last two have come in the College Football Playoff, by a combined score of 97-43. The combined half- time score of those Ohio State and Indiana playoff losses was 69-15. “The common denominator is we’re playing really good teams,” Lanning said. “That being said, yeah, there’s certainly some lessons to learn. There’s some teams that we studied this off-sea- son that have been really good in rematches. What are some things that we can do different as a coaching staff? It’s a new year. It’s a new time.” Lanning is 48-8 in four seasons as coach. Of the eight losses, six of those teams played for the na- tional championship (2022 Geor- gia, 2023 Washington twice, 2024 Ohio State and 2025 Indiana twice). The other two losses came against top-20 opponents. Oregon has invested for years to contend for the national title. Being leapfrogged by Indiana shocked the world. How will the Ducks respond? Lanning promoted from within after his two coordinators took head coaching jobs, with Drew Mehringer taking over the offense and Chris Hampton the defense. The Ducks return the 11th-most production in the country, accord- ing to ESPN. Having Moore back will be a big help. The rising price of elite quarter- backs in college football has led people to wonder whether situa- tions like Moore’s will happen more frequently. The former Ala- bama quarterback Ty Simpson re- vealed that Miami offered him $6.5 million to stay in college and transfer. He stayed in the draft and became the No. 13 pick. He will average $6.3 million per year
BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS
such significance for football was conceived in secret and brought to the brink of approval without any meaningful consultation with those entrusted with stewarding the game. “This is not merely a profound failure of leadership, but an abdi- cation of FIFA’s duty as the custo- dian of world football. National as- sociations around the world are now presented with an ulti- matum: accept the irreversible capture of football’s greatest com- petitions or bear the conse- quences. This is not a democratic decision, but governance by in- timidation — an act of coercion un- worthy of an institution entrusted with the stewardship of the global game.” UEFA’s public message was quickly followed by statements from several of its member associ- ations, including Norway, Eng- land, Scotland and Wales. On Tuesday, FIFA’s plans were met with backlash. Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter and Andy Burnham, Britain’s new prime minister, were among the critics, while UEFA said the pro- posal “crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross.” Other continental confedera- tions, though, appeared to initially take more issue with the process FIFA had followed. This included Concacaf, which accused FIFA of a lack of consultation regarding the proposals. “Concacaf was only made aware of this matter through me- dia reports and, subsequently, via a media release,” a statement read. “We are deeply concerned by the lack of due process.” The Asian confederation also said it was “disappointed that a matter of such significance en- tered the public domain before the A.F.C. family had been afforded the opportunity to examine and discuss it through the appropriate and established governance chan- nels.” The African confederation, however, only commented to con- firm its involvement in the con- sulting process, encouraging its member associations to examine the proposals themselves. Infantino defended the idea on Wednesday in an interview with FIFA, the organization he leads. In a five-minute video, he said it was a “democratic process” and that “strengthening the commer- cial side of the game is the natural next step” in FIFA’s evolution.
title, but getting paid like a pro already.
on his N.F.L. rookie deal. “Now there’s a real decision to be made about money,” Andrew Brandt, a former N.F.L. executive, said. Brandt, who teaches at Vil- lanova and consults with schools on player contracts, recounted his work with the former Texas run- ning back Ricky Williams, who nearly went pro after his junior year in 1997 but decided to return to Austin. As a friend, Brandt sup- ported Williams’s decision. As a business manager, he did not. (A year later, Williams left Brandt to be represented by Master P.) If Williams could have made mil- lions while staying in school, Brandt’s recommendation would have been different. “Then it’s not just about coming back to Austin because he loves it there,” Brandt said. While Moore will continue to make money at Oregon — he has an injury insurance policy for the coming season — it is still a risk to come back. It’s something Luck thought about, too. Or rather, did- n’t think about, after a conversa- tion with Manning. “Peyton was like, ‘Don’t slow down, go as fast as you can,’” Luck recounted. “Don’t let your foot off the pedal. That’s how you get hurt in football, when you’re slowing down. If you’re thinking about get- ting hurt, the odds are you will get hurt.” Luck did not reach his goal of a national title, but he became the No. 1 pick by the Indianapolis Colts the next season. In fact, Manning, Luck, Bradford, Leinart and Herbert all ended up as top-10 picks, and the first three of those were selected in the top two. Oregon will be a preseason top- five team, and Moore’s Heisman Trophy betting odds are in the top five as well. It’s all set up for a big year.
Emmanuel Clase, above, and Luis Ortiz are facing wire fraud and conspiracy charges in connection to a pitch-rigging scheme.
Is a Sacred One, But Is It Enough?
By ZACK MEISEL The Athletic
Last July, for 25 days, Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase walked around the halls of Progressive Field, reclined in his seat on team flights and sat beside fellow relievers in the bullpen. It was business as usual. By this time, the league office had already placed Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz on paid leave. Clase is now accused of roping him into a pitch-rigging scheme that has both pitchers set to stand trial in November on wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Yet from July 3, 2025, until Clase, too, was placed on leave on July 28, the perennial All-Star acted as if nothing was brewing. “He just kept pitching,” one for- mer teammate said. One year later, mention Clase’s name near any Guardians execu- tives and their faces will turn a shade of ill green or irate red, as they think about the decisions made and the disrespect shown to teammates and the organization — especially during those 25 days when M.L.B. had Clase in its cross hairs. The story has unfolded in court documents filed to a judge in fed-
Zack Meisel is a senior writer cov- ering the Guardians for The Ath- letic.
Thunder Chipping Away at Their Solid Core Is All About Saving Money
By FRED KATZ The Athletic
The Oklahoma City Thunder have no qualms with the N.B.A.’s second apron. Their cost-cutting summer was just that — cost- cutting. Trading away three rotation players, including wing Lu Dort, for a mishmash of second-round picks was not a basketball strat- egy. It was, as the team’s general manager, Sam Presti, said this week, a move to save money. “This was a financial decision,” Presti told The Oklahoman. “The impression I have been given is that the savings generated this summer, and from being out of the tax the last several years, will be reallocated to future teams. Along with other new,
were acquired for three rotation pieces.
well-documented revenue streams, this will allow us to make more basketball-related decisions over the next several years.” The second apron, a payroll threshold far above the luxury tax, has garnered the attention of the basketball world since its inception in 2023 because of the strategic repercussions that come with going above it. Sur- pass the second apron, and a team loses its ability to execute most types of trades and most kinds of free-agent signings. Dealing Dort to the Atlanta Hawks dropped the Thunder’s 2026-27 payroll to below the $221.7 million second-apron threshold. But the Thunder, who remain $14 million above the luxury-tax line, did not trade Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe because the second-apron roster-building restrictions scared them. In the
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eral court in Brooklyn. Clase’s camp has blamed the ordeal on a misinterpretation of texts and calls pertaining to rooster fight- ing. The pitchers have tried to dis- tance themselves from each other. The trial has been delayed by six months. Federal prosecutors have sifted through tens of thousands of messages and documents. Cleveland fans continue to ana- lyze every slider Clase ever spiked. Guardians players struggle to understand how Clase, a bit of a recluse, was able to keep it cool. Players from other teams have closely tracked each development in the case, too. They wondered how this could transpire, and they tried to play detective. Did Clase and Ortiz throw them any rigged pitches? “I definitely remember going down the rabbit hole,” one player said. Prosecutors say Clase’s illicit activity began in May 2023, but it did not come to light for more than two years. Has M.L.B. done enough to prevent this sort of sce- nario from repeating itself? In The Athletic’s annual anony- mous player poll, in which 100 players across 23 teams were sur- veyed this spring about a variety of M.L.B.-related topics, we asked exactly that. The players we spoke to were granted anonymity in order to
league’s third-smallest market, the team owner Clay Bennett is sticking to a budget. And losing three players who helped sup- port a contender is the conse- quence of it. Only 13 months ago, the Thun- der hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy. They returned in 2025-26 with another chance at a title, falling short in a Western Confer- ence finals that challenged their depth. Wing Jalen Williams missed much of the season with hamstring injuries. The sixth man Ajay Mitchell was banged up come the playoffs. And now, Oklahoma City has chipped away at the depth it had relied upon. Wiggins, 27, is off to the Hawks for two second-round picks and no salary in return. Joe, 27, is headed to the Detroit Pistons for a couple of second-rounders, as well, and no salary in return. And this week, Oklahoma City agreed to trade Dort, 27, who often guarded the other team’s best player, to the Hawks for three second-rounders and, of course, no salary in return. This is not the type of trim- ming that other franchises in the same payroll stratosphere have undergone in recent seasons. It’s not the Phoenix Suns ducking the second apron after proving they weren’t good enough to contend, hoping a series of trans- actions would save money and avoid the restrictions of the N.B.A.’s most feared payroll threshold. Oklahoma City won a league- best 64 games last season while also posting one of the greatest point differentials ever, plus-11.1 per 100 possessions. It was a few bounces away from a second consecutive trip to the N.B.A. finals. These moves were about money — in the short term, and down the line. “We have a team that is capa- ble of contention,” Presti told The Oklahoman. “And as I under- stand it, the decisions this sum- mer have positioned us finan- cially to maintain a team of this caliber.”
A DraftKings ad at Fenway Park. Baseball’s partnership with sports betting companies is viewed as hypocritical by some players.
speak candidly. More than half of those who participated in the poll — 55 players — believe that the league has devoted sufficient at- tention and resources to help pre- vent players from partnering with gamblers. More than a quarter of the participants either did not have a strong opinion or did not feel they had enough knowledge on the subject to provide a proper
questions a year after a betting scandal.
answer. The remaining 18 players were dissatisfied with the safe- guards the league has instituted to prevent a situation akin to the Clase-Ortiz scandal. “It’s the first rule: Rule 21,” said one multitime All-Star who be- lieved the league has done its due diligence. “No betting on base- ball.” “We know the rules,” an Ameri-
In separate deals, Oklahoma City traded Aaron Wiggins (21) and Lu Dort (5) to Atlanta.
That turns the spotlight to three players whose salaries are bound to increase soon: Cason Wallace, Jared McCain and Mitchell. Wallace, 22, a defensive men- ace who becomes increasingly important with Dort gone, is eligible for an extension this summer. His new contract would kick in for the 2027-28 season. If he does not extend, he will be- come a restricted free agent after the coming season. McCain, 22, a guard whom the Thunder traded for this winter, is a year behind Wallace’s timeline, about to enter his third N.B.A. season. Next summer, he will become eligible for an extension that would start in 2028-29. Mitchell, 24, is the most inter- esting case of the three. A former second-round pick who thrived in a vital bench role in just his second pro season, he is on one of the league’s most team-
can League catcher said. “But you have to police yourself, too.” The Guardians contended last year that there was not anything more they could do from an educa- tional standpoint to prevent what happened. M.L.B. officials deliver a PowerPoint presentation on the topic to each team during spring training. The rules are posted in every clubhouse. “They come in here,” a National League Central hitter said, “and are like, ‘It’s black and white: You bet on baseball, you’re done.’ Pretty simple rule to follow.” “Everyone knows it’s a lifetime ban,” a veteran N.L. starter said. “It’s kind of like PEDs,” an A.L. Central position player said of performance-enhancing drugs. “It’s well-known that you should- n’t be doing that, so if you do it, I feel like that’s your decision rather than a lack of understand- ing.” “They can’t control what people do if they want to make bad deci- sions,” an N.L. hitter said. “People will make bad decisions. But I think everybody knows the conse- quences.” Many players relayed similar
PRO BASKETBALL
friendly contracts. He is set to make $2.9 million in 2026-27, with a $2.9 million team option for the next year. The Thunder have three paths to retain him long term. They could reap the benefits of his cheap salary for the next two seasons, wait until he hits free agency in 2028, and re-sign him then. They could decline his team option next summer and allow him to become a restricted free agent. This strategy would bal- loon Mitchell’s salary a year earlier but could also allow for a compromise: To be paid sooner, Mitchell would agree to a lower average annual value on the contract than if he waited the extra year. The Thunder success- fully pulled this off with Joe and Wiggins, signing both to below- market contracts two summers ago. They could also pick up the
thoughts. “At the end of the day, you can lead a horse to water,” an unsure A.L. Central pitcher said. “But are they going to drink?” “It takes plain stupidity to do that,” an N.L. reliever said. “You can’t fix stupid.” “You can do all the precautions, you can put all the signs up,” said a pitcher then in the American League, “but if people want to break the law, they’ll break the law. That’s the world. Everyone tells you you can’t steal, you can’t kill people, and people still do it.” “People love to push their luck,” an N.L. right-hander said. “That’s why it’s called gambling, and some guys gamble their careers.” The Clase-Ortiz situation, how- ever, could be just as useful a teaching tool as any, some players theorized. “I think the players will be a lot smarter after everything that’s just gone on,” an A.L. East out- fielder said. “If you haven’t gotten caught, it’s not about if, but when,” an A.L. Central pitcher said. “The whole deal in Cleveland seems like a pretty good start,” an
PETRE THOMAS/IMAGN IMAGES VIA REUTERS CONNECT
team option on Mitchell, then extend him for up to the average player’s salary. Whichever option they choose, the price for Mitchell will in- crease drastically. The same will be true for Wallace, who slid onto all-defense last season, and for McCain, who fit in seamlessly after arriving in Oklahoma City. Even without those raises, the Thunder are filled with high- salaried players moving forward. The max contracts for Williams and Chet Holmgren begin this coming season, when each will earn $41 million. Shai Gilgeous- Alexander’s supermax deal kicks in for 2027-28, when his salary jumps to a projected $60.6 mil- lion. Isaiah Hartenstein, re- signed this summer, will make about $25 million for the next three seasons. Alex Caruso is in the range of $20 million for the same amount of time. In 2027-28, Williams, Holm-
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N.L. pitcher said. “They got rid of one of the better players in base- ball, which tells you, ‘We don’t al- low this for anybody.’” This is not so cut and dried for every player, though. Some play- ers cited the league’s partnerships with sports betting companies as hypocritical or even laying the foundation for this sort of scandal. “I think it’s a pretty hypocritical thing to take the stance they do on gambling and put such a negative stigma around players gambling,” an N.L. hitter said, “while also pro- moting DraftKings and FanDuel Sportsbook and those things. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.” “At this point, it’s such a huge moneymaker and money-driving business, it’s kind of the root of ev- erything,” an A.L. hitter said. That line of thinking compelled certain players to answer “no,” that the league is not doing enough to prevent a situation like the one that has unfolded with Clase. “M.L.B. is going the opposite way,” an A.L. pitcher said, “and promoting it rather than helping players.”
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Sam Presti, the general man- ager, said the moves would keep the Thunder contenders.
gren, Gilgeous-Alexander, Hartenstein, Caruso, the 2026 first-round picks Aday Mara and Bennett Stirtz, and McCain will combine to make $213 million, $2 million above the projected lux- ury tax and only about $21 mil- lion short of the second apron. That’s just eight players. It does not include team op- tions on a couple of recent draft picks, Thomas Sorber or Nikola Topic. It does not include a $7.7 million team option on Jaylin Williams, one of the N.B.A.’s most reliable backup big men. It does not include Mitchell, who could make a cheap salary in 2027-28 or could receive a raise if the Thunder were to decline his team option. It does not include Wallace, whose new contract will hit the books by then. Given the going rate for starters, his annu- al salary alone could push past $21 million and blast the Thunder into the second apron. But, as Presti said, the front office has no strategic issue with heading into that territory, espe- cially not if the team remains a contender, as is expected. The decisions to offload Dort, Wig- gins and Joe were financial ones that weaken the current-day roster. Now, the Thunder will hope they pay off in the long run.
Pieces in Place, Sharks Are Set To Go for a Win
By ERIC STEPHENS The Athletic
Many fans wish for it — and some seem to demand it — but N.H.L. general managers cannot be perfect with their moves and decision making. That includes San Jose’s Mike Grier, who should not be held up for general manager sainthood. In his quest to guide the Sharks toward becoming playoff contenders and, eventually, Stanley Cup threats, Grier has added Kiefer Sherwood, Mason Marchment, Michael Kesselring, Jacob Trouba and Darnell Nurse to the roster over the past seven months, in much-discussed moves that may or may not have the desired effect. But Grier has connected on a lot of his swings since he took over in 2022 and put the fran-
by the G.M. and a secure future with the prodigy Celebrini.
chise through a necessary re- build that included some of the worst seasons in club history. Now, after the signing of Macklin Celebrini to a landmark contract extension on Wednesday, he has the Sharks at an ideal juncture in their building process. It is time for liftoff in San Jose. The clock has started for the Sharks to win, now that their future is secure with Celebrini, the 20-year-old prodigy who has become the league’s brightest young superstar in just two seasons. In this summer of mon- strous contracts for young stars, the two sides agreed on some- thing sensible, a five-year, $94 million extension. Grier indicated that he sees Celebrini as a lead- ing man, while Celebrini did not push to be the N.H.L.’s first play- er paid at $20 million a year over the life of a contract. With an exploding salary cap, who’s to say that Celebrini should not have been paid that much? He is coming off a year in which he eclipsed the Hall of Famer Joe Thornton by scoring
Eric Stephens covers the N.H.L. for The Athletic.
By SCOTT WHEELER The Athletic
Anthony Romani was passed up in the 2023 N.H.L. draft. After be- ing picked 162nd in the next year’s draft, by the Vancouver Canucks, he broke his clavicle only six games into his final season of ju- nior hockey. In between, though, he led the Ontario Hockey League in goals (58), finished second in points (111) and earned an invitation to Canada’s World Junior Summer Showcase as an 18-year-old. Now 21, he is entering his soph- omore year at Michigan State, and coaches there think the Canucks might really have something. As a freshman, Romani had 14 goals and 28 points in 37 games, finishing fifth on the Spartans in points and fourth in goals.
gaining strength and power after injuries.
Mike Townes was the first Michigan State coach to get eyes on him with the North Bay Battal- ion and Barrie Colts the year be- fore, once he returned from his broken clavicle. Romani played just 35 regular-season games and had just 35 points, but in 16 post- season games, he led the Colts in scoring with 12 goals and 24 points. The clavicle was not the only major injury he dealt with, either. During that playoff run, he played through a high-ankle sprain that turned his first six weeks of off- season training into rehab. Michigan State’s associate coach, Jared DeMichiel, and head coach, Adam Nightingale, also
the most points by a Sharks player in a single season. With 115 points, Celebrini finished fourth in voting for the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player after nearly dragging San Jose to the play- offs, and with more seasons like that, he will remain in the Hart conversation for a long time. Based on an extension that will mostly be paid out in annual bonuses, Celebrini will top $20 million in each of the first three years before his salary de- creases, which will bring down the average annual value. But he could have the “highest-paid player” throne by the time the extension kicks in to start the 2027-28 season — unless the superstars Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes eclipse that. And the five-year term means that the Sharks and Celebrini are betting on both to reach new heights by the time Celebrini is ready for his next contract in 2032 at the age of 26. Celebrini could be this genera- tion’s Sidney Crosby, but in a totally different financial land- scape. And now it is on Grier to put the Sharks in a yearly posi- tion to win playoff rounds and make a Stanley Cup run. In short, the clock started on Wednesday to do what the Ed- monton Oilers have yet to accom- plish with the generational tal- ents Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. That will be a tall task. For starters, the Oilers have in Drai- saitl the type of M.V.P.-winning running mate that Evgeni Malkin was for Crosby. The Sharks cur- rently do not have that player, and who knows if Will Smith, Michael Misa or Ivar Stenberg will ever be able to approach that tier. But Grier has pretty much nailed the big stuff. Tearing down the roster was the way to go when he started the job, and he made a shrewd first draft pick with Smith at No. 4 in 2023. Bottoming out put the Sharks in position to win the Celebrini lottery in 2024. And the good fortune has not ceased, as the Sharks got Misa and Stenberg with No. 2 picks in consecutive years. Stockpiling high picks and making savvy selections later in drafts have allowed the Sharks to collect some of the best young talent in the N.H.L. Grier has
saw him play. All three coaches thought Romani, a 6-foot-1, 195- pound right-shot winger, was a smart player with natural offen- sive instincts, even when he was unable to repeat his 58-goal, 111- point season from 2023-24 be- cause of injuries. “We always felt he would be a catalyst offensively — ability to make a play, ability to finish,” DeMichiel said. “He doesn’t need much; he’s got a heavy shot, sneaky-good release. He was a good two-way forward that had some pretty deadly offensive in- stincts.” At Michigan State, the coaches quickly realized he was more than an opportunistic scorer. Not only could he score on the flank on the power play, but he was also killing penalties by the end of the year. All of his teammates wanted to play with him at five-on-five. By season’s end, they also felt he was a little snakebit, pointing to broken sticks, posts, crossbars and offside goals called back in making a case that he should have scored more. The first time Romani showed up to skate with Josh Wrobel, a skills and shooting coach, it was the summer of 2022. He had just finished his rookie season — a 14- point campaign — in the O.H.L. At the time, he was undersized, but Wrobel recognized his talent. As the numbers on the scale started to increase, the numbers on the ice did too. “It’s cliché, but he’s the defini- tion of a late bloomer, and he really weaponized his shot,” Wrobel said. He and Wrobel worked on the little things that can turn someone into a shooter: timing, shot selec- tion, shot placement, getting dan- gerous from different areas, even the toe on his curve and flex of his stick. “Any time he gets inside, he’s a threat any time the puck comes to- ward him,” Wrobel said. “He’s a
Macklin Celebrini, the brightest young superstar of the N.H.L. at 20 years old, signed a landmark contract extension with San Jose.
Mike Grier, right, the general manager for San Jose, rebuilt the franchise by tearing down the old roster, making wise draft picks and then bottoming out in time to help win the Celebrini lottery.
started to use his asset capital to fill present needs (by acquiring Sherwood and Nurse) but has kept the system bullish with prospects (by trading William Eklund to open the door for Stenberg and to draft Keaton Verhoeff). The Sharks are now bursting at the seams up front, and while
Anthony Romani (21) scored 14 goals as a freshman for Michigan State, fourth best on the team.
natural goal scorer, and, for me, the hardest thing in hockey is to score goals.” After a review of his scoring in the O.H.L. revealed that the ma- jority of his goals were either the half-wall power-play snipes he be- came known for or breakaways, Wrobel challenged him to “give me six to eight ugly goals” (tips, rebounds, net front) in his fresh- man year of college hockey. Romani delivered. “This year, it was really cool to see him have a handful of deflec- tion goals,” Wrobel said. Wrobel has also seen the differ- ence his work in the weight room,
the blueliners Nurse, Trouba and Kesselring are far from perfect, they have the making of an im- proved defense corps that could be aided by the continued growth of Sam Dickinson. And if Yaroslav Askarov irons out the inconsistencies in his game and grabs the No. 1 goalie job with a far better 2026-27 season, the
both at Michigan State and with his strength coach, Dan Noble, has made. “His strength has translated to his game where you saw him exe- cuting in different areas,” Wrobel said. Noble has worked with Romani for five years. When Romani first arrived in his gym, he was “very immature and really raw; hadn’t really committed to the strength and conditioning piece.” Working out with players like Beckett Sennecke and Mitch Marner, “he was really able to take everything to another level,” Noble said.
BILL WIPPERT/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES
Sharks will have a necessary backbone to go with their un- questioned leader in Celebrini. Sending Tomas Hertl to Vegas was part of a Grier trade tree that landed Askarov from the Nashville Predators. Could the contracts for Trouba and Sherwood fail to age grace- fully? Absolutely. Could Nurse
JOSEPH WEISER/ICON SPORTSWIRE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
He added, “The one thing that he was missing was kind of the strength and power side of things and just the overall acceleration and athleticism.” After Romani spent much of last season rehabbing his ankle, and much of the off-season before that at development camps, Noble said, his decision to choose fewer games and more time in the gym at college instead of making the jump from the O.H.L. to the Amer- ican Hockey League last season was the right one. “He’s just at a different level al- together right now,” Noble said. When Romani looks back on his
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fail to lift the Sharks on the back end after a long, bumpy ride with the Oilers? Sure. Could Askarov flame out? Possibly. And if any of that happens, that will be part of Grier’s track record and will be worth critiquing. The Sharks also are not at the point at which Grier is making a trade to improve their playoff chances. But they are expecting that time to come, perhaps by this spring. That is the plan now, and they have Celebrini as their eventual captain driving the ship with a five-year pathway toward putting together a championship- quality team. They’ve also got the Smith extension now on deck, and there will be players such as Misa, Dickinson and Stenberg to re- sign down the line, but they will have Logan Couture’s $8 million cap number come off the books — plus the contracts of Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Toffoli and Barclay Goodrow expiring over the next two years. Buyout money for Martin Jones and Marc-Edouard Vlasic also will cease. After a 34-point improvement in the standings last season and nearly a surprise postseason berth, it is time for Grier and the so-called team of the future to match the ascent of Celebrini and be on his level. The moves Grier makes going forward won’t all work out, but the Sharks continue to be in good hands.
road to this point, he laughs. He was raised just east of To- ronto in Pickering, Ontario, where his mother is a teacher and his fa- ther owns two Burger’s Priest restaurants. He is the oldest of three, and his younger sister is a gymnast. He feels as though he has had to earn everything he has gotten in hockey after losing his final year of minor hockey to the Covid pan- demic, being initially passed over in the draft and enduring major in- juries. “It was always a question of ‘What changed this year to last year?’” he said of his rapid devel- opment. “A lot of it was motivation after going undrafted and making it my goal this year just to kind of prove what I am and what I’m ca- pable of.” He describes himself as a smart offensive forward whose strengths are his skill and hockey I.Q. After working hard to fill out, his focus has turned to adding speed through his first few steps. And he is happy with his deci- sion to go to college, calling it the obvious choice for him — and Michigan State the obvious school, largely because of its di- rector of athletic performance, Will Morlock, and the individual- ized plan he put in place for him. “It has been great to be able to play against older players, push the pace and play at a higher lev- el,” Romani said. Healthy again, he is eager to earn that next thing: an entry-lev- el contract with the Canucks. His coaches are betting on it, too. “We’re pumped for him to take another step next season,” DeMichiel said.
And Frontman of the Frames, Dies
By ALEX MARSHALL and ISABELLA KWAI
Glen Hansard, a singer-song- writer who was the frontman of the popular Irish band the Frames and who shared an Oscar for “Falling Slowly,” a wistful song from the 2006 film “Once,” died on Wednesday in Dublin. He was 56. His death was confirmed in a brief statement on his website. On Wednesday, the Irish police issued a news release about a sin- gle-vehicle motorcycle crash that took place in the Lucan area of West Dublin early on Wednesday morning. The release did not name Mr. Hansard, but said that the victim was a man in his 50s. The Irish news media later re- ported that Mr. Hansard was the victim. Mr. Hansard, who started out as a busker on the streets of Dublin, formed the Frames in 1990, and the band went on to have multiple hit albums in Ireland. He achieved international fame after starring in “Once,” the tender tale of an Irish street musician and the Czech pianist he falls for. He and his co-star, Markéta Irglová, won an Academy Award for “Falling Slowly,” which is featured in the film. “You can’t take your eyes off them,” the critic A.O. Scott wrote
By JOHN S.W. MacDONALD
Chuck Russell, a producer, screenwriter and director known for his use of brash visual effects in movies like “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” and “The Mask,” which helped propel the careers of Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz, died on July 22 at his home in San Diego. He was 74. His death was confirmed by his wife, Ania Russell, who said the cause was unknown. After working in Hollywood for roughly a decade, Mr. Russell made his directorial debut in 1987 with “Dream Warriors,” the third installment in the pulpy horror se- ries starring Freddy Krueger, a fe- dora-wearing baddie who hunts teenagers in their dreams with a glove of blades. The reviews were somewhat mixed, but the film, which Mr. Russell cowrote and which starred a young Patricia Arquette, revitalized the franchise during the heyday of the slasher flick, grossing $44.8 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, accord- ing to Box Office Mojo. Critics lauded the movie’s use of visual effects.
1-800-458-5522 In memoriam. In The New York Times.
of Mr. Hansard and Ms. Irglová in a video review for The New York Times, adding that the film was “almost perfect.” In 2012, a musical version opened on Broadway, where it ran for almost three years. It was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won eight, including best musical, best leading actor (Steve Kazee) and best director (John Tiffany). Mr. Hansard had previously
songwriter who starred in ‘Once.’
had a small role in the 1991 soul- band film “The Commitments,” and said in a 2007 interview with The Times that he had been reluc- tant to act again. “I’m a real believer in sticking to your craft,” he said. He eventu- ally accepted the role in “Once” — on the condition that he could flee if the first few days of filming did- n’t work out. Glen James Hansard was born in Dublin on April 21, 1970, to James and Catherine (Cahill) Hansard. He grew up in a working-class
“The film’s dream sequences are ingenious, and they feature some remarkable nightmare im- ages and special effects,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times’s review of the film. “Freddy may emerge as a giant man-eating serpent, or perhaps as
a revival of the ‘Elm Street’ franchise.
a puppet come to life, maybe even as a beautiful woman who quite literally tongue-lashes and tongue-ties her prey.” Mr. Russell’s next feature, “The Blob” (1988), was a remake of a cult 1958 horror movie starring Steve McQueen in one of his first credited film roles. The updated blob — pink and amoeba-like and fond of dissolv- ing its prey in acid — made for ever more goopy fun from Mr. Russell and his special effects team. The 20 so-called articula-
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household, he told The Times in 2012, and said his father, a heavy drinker, was prone to bouts of vio- lence. “My dad was quiet, angry, shut down,” he said, “so my thing is: I express everything that’s there. I want to get it all out.” When an uncle left a guitar be- hind after being sent to prison, Mr. Hansard picked up the instru- ment. “I was kind of in a funny spot; I was getting into trouble,” he said in a recent interview on the pod- cast Track Star. He soon fell in love with the music of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Van Morri- son. He dropped out of school in his early teens to busk and play in bands, and when he was about 20 he formed the Frames. He won a role in “The Commit- ments,” about a group of working- class young people in Ireland who form a 10-piece soul band, when he tagged along with a friend who was auditioning. “I fit the bill,” he said. “I had red hair and I played the guitar. I read a couple of lines, and I got the part.” “Once,” written and directed by John Carney, one of Mr. Hansard’s former bandmates, was filmed in 17 days on a modest budget. It be- came a hit when a finished cut was
tors who oversaw the life-size ver- sion of the creature were known on the set as the Blobsters. “The Mask” (1994), Mr. Rus- sell’s next film, pushed his special effects talents to new heights. It starred Mr. Carrey, appearing in his first film role since his breakout, “Ace Ventura: Pet De- tective” (though “The Mask” was shot earlier), and Ms. Diaz, ap- pearing in her first movie. Mr. Carrey’s Stanley Ipkiss, a bumbling bank clerk, is trans- formed into a green-faced, zoot- suit-wearing maniac — Stanley as pure id — after donning a mysteri- ous mask. Ms. Diaz is his love in- terest, Tina Carlyle. Leveraging the skills of George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic, Mr. Russell made Mr. Car- rey’s character into an infinitely pliable cartoon, eyes bulging out of his face, machine guns and rocket launchers exploding out of his pockets, tongue rolling out of his mouth as he ogles Tina. The film was a huge hit, earning on its opening weekend just over $23 million — its entire budget — and going on to gross $351.6 mil- lion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
Glen Hansard at the Oscars in 2008. He shared the award for “Falling Slowly” from “Once.”
shown at the Sundance Film Fes- tival in early 2007. Mr. Hansard, who initially re- sisted the idea of turning “Once” into a musical, eventually gave the idea his blessing. “Forget about being correct,” he later re- called telling Mr. Kazee, the actor who played his role on Broadway. “The muse hates correct.” He had leaned into solo work in the years since “Once,” releasing albums including “Didn’t He Ram- ble” (2015), which was nominated
Charles Raymond Russell was born on May 9, 1952, in Park Ridge, Ill., a close suburb of Chi- cago. His father, Charles Wilber Russell, worked in advertising in Chicago, and his mother, Patricia Russell, was a travel agent. Mr. Russell grew up in Park Ridge, attending Maine South High School. After graduating, he went to what today is known as the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, where, as he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1988, two “really good” professors in- spired his love of cinema, despite the fact that the university had no film program. Mr. Russell took off for Holly- wood immediately after gradua- tion, according to Ms. Russell. Once there, he scrapped around the margins of the industry, sweeping sound stages and serv- ing as a production assistant on a television commercial before fi- nally landing some film work in the 1970s, serving as an assistant director or executive producer, among other roles. As he told The Chronicle, whether he was working on good films or bad during that time, he was always having fun in the
Johnston-Penney, J.
JOHNSTON-PENNEY—
Migdon, Sidney
MIGDON—Sidney.
Judith, C.
Judith C. Johnston-Penney, 84, of Harrington Park, New Jersey, passed away Decem- ber 28, 2024. Though she is no longer with us, she continues to be remembered with love and gratitude by all whose lives she touched. Born in Chi- cago, Illinois, on February 19, 1940, Judy graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Wisconsin, in- cluding a year abroad at In- dia's University of Delhi School of Social Work for her Master's. She furthered her education by attending the University of Chicago's De- partment of Anthropology Graduate program and Har- vard University's Depart- ment of Social Relations for her Ph.D. After graduating with her Ph.D., she pursued research and teaching posi- tions, ranging from Research Associate with Albert Ein- stein College of Medicine to Instructor at Brooklyn Col- lege, CUNY. Her tenured teaching was at Adelphi Uni- versity in Garden City, NY, until her retirement. Her Re- search and Fieldwork led to worldwide travel, which fed her non-stop and boundlessly analytical curiosity. She brought all of her experien- ces and findings to life for her students with her deeply in-
To honor your loved one in these pages, contact us.
for a Grammy for best folk album. Mr. Hansard also formed the Swell Season, a folk duo, with Ms. Ir- glová, his “Once” co-star and his onetime romantic partner. He campaigned for awareness of homelessness and protested housing shortages. He performed often in an annual Christmas Eve Busk event in Dublin, an event that raises money to help people at risk of becoming homeless. He is survived by his wife, Maire Saaritsa; a son, Christy;
Chuck Russell in 1995. He said that whether he was working on good films or bad, he was always having fun in the business.
“weird, wonderful business” of Hollywood. By 1986, Mr. Russell had firmly established himself as a success- ful producer with the release of “Back to School,” a Rodney Dan- gerfield comedy that grossed over $91 million worldwide. Mr. Russell is survived by his wife, whom he married in 2007; a sister, Anne Jacob; and three chil- dren from his first wife, Patti Rao: Logan, Riley and Carlyn Russell. Though he worked on all kinds
Deaths Deaths Deaths
Parker, Allan
Philips, Henrietta
Ryan, Arthur
sightful knowledge, enthu- siasm and a clever employ- ment of her vast artistic skills. Her eclectic hand-made wardrobe served as walking Show-and-Tell art, making her a vibrant, engaging and memorable Teacher, Men- tor, Advocate and Guide. She will be missed, remembered and loved by her husband, Stuart M. Penney, her daugh- ter Delari Johnston and son in law Keith Murray, daughter Tara Johnston, sister Kim- berly Cowan, and niece Lau- ra Myrick, and the Penney fa- mily. She was predeceased by her parents, Charles and Marion Cowan of Newport, VT, and by her former hus- band, Neal W. Johnston.
The Benenson Family and Benenson Capital Partners mourn the loss of our wise friend, confidante, and trust- ed advisor, Sid Migdon. We will miss his kindness, wit, in- telligence, humor and loyalty. He was always there for ev- eryone who needed him. He helped make the Benenson Capital Company the success that it is. We will all miss him forever. Our deepest, heart- felt condolences go out to his wife Hermine, his son An- drew, his daughter Nicki and his entire family. Love, Bill Benenson, Lawrence Benenson, Fred Benenson, Alexander Benenson, Richard Kessler and Benenson Capital Partners.
PARKER—Allan. Allan, Chief, we love you and thank you for helping to create many our favorite me- mories. Our love will forever be with Sherry, Jill and Brett. Toni and Bob
PARKER—Allan. With profound sadness and broken hearts we send loving thoughts to Sherry, Brett, Jill and John, and his grandchild- ren Elizabeth, Paige, and Ethan. The times we shared will remain in our memories forever. He will be deeply missed and lovingly remem- bered by all who knew him. With All Our Love, Phyllis, Marc, Jennifer and Michael, and Amy
PHILIPS—Henrietta Dabek. Born in New York City, be- loved Henny passed away peacefully in Seattle. Educa- tor, wife, mother, grandmoth- er, and great-grandmother. We miss you.
RYAN—Arthur F.
NewYork-Presbyterian is deeply saddened by the pass- ing of our dear friend and de- voted Life Trustee, Arthur F. “Art” Ryan. Known for his kindness and commitment to community causes, Art was dedicated to NewYork - Presbyterian and leaves be- hind a legacy of visionary leadership and philanthropy. Born in Brooklyn in 1942 and raised on Long Island, Art graduated from Providence College in 1963 with a B.A. in mathematics. He attended graduate school at American University while serving as a lieutenant in the United States Army. Art and his late wife, Patricia, raised their four children in East Islip, New York. Art was a remark- able, authentic and transfor- mational leader. He joined Chase Manhattan Bank in 1972 and rose through the ranks to become one of the youngest presidents in the company's history at age 47 in 1990. In 1994, he became the first president and chief executive officer of Pruden- tial Insurance Company of America selected from out- side the firm. Art was elected a Trustee of the Presbyterian Hospital in October 1987, and a Trustee of NewYork- Presbyterian Hospital upon the merger with New York Hospital in 1998. During his extraordinary tenure, Art
NewYork-Presbyterian
GARY HERSHORN/REUTERS
and three brothers. Mr. Hansard said in the 2012 Times interview that he always found himself singing “within the vernacular of the love song,” but that his music wasn’t simply about romance. “It’s also the relationship be- tween me and my country, me and my friends, me and myself, me and my god,” he said. “It’s not al- ways about me and my girl. That’s just the language I’ve gotten used to using.”
FRANCIS DEMANGE/GAMMA-RAPHO, VIA GETTY IMAGES
of films and television shows dur- ing his long time in Hollywood — including an epic action film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Eraser” (1996) — he remained a staunch defender of the kind of horror that birthed his directing career. “Inside all of us there’s an Ev- eryman who can face the greatest darkness,” he told Deadline in 2024. “That’s the fun of horror: We have the catharsis of seeing what it would be like to face our great- est fears.”
helped steer the Hospital through its successful expan- sion, serving as chair of sev- eral committees, including Nominating, Development, and Human Resources. He was also a member of the Executive and Budget and Fi- nance Committees. A long- standing supporter of educa- tion and the arts, Art served as a trustee of several univer- sities and a co-chair of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Achieve, Inc., a nonprofit education reform organization. Art gave back to his alma mater, Pro- vidence College: he and his late wife's charitable gifts led to the construction of the Ar- thur and Patricia Ryan Cen- ter for Business Studies, and the Ryan Concert Hall at the Smith Center for the Arts. He received an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree from Providence Col- lege, as well as a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Dowling College. Art's warmth, wisdom and com- passion will be dearly missed. We extend our deepest con- dolences to Art's children, grandchildren, friends and colleagues. Charles R. Kaye Adebayo O. Ogunlesi Jerry Speyer Co-Chairs, Board of Trustees Brian G. Donley, MD President and Chief Executive Officer
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By STEFANOS CHEN
For the Knicks fan who has ev- erything (we’re looking at you, Ben Stiller), New York City has something of interest. The Department of Transporta- tion this week put up for auction the first of the “Champions Way” street signs that were hung along the team’s ticker-tape parade route in June to commemorate their first N.B.A. championship win in decades. The blue-and-orange, 36-inch- wide aluminum sign, created in the same shop in Queens where the rest of the city’s official street signs are fabricated, is one of only 30 that were installed along the stretch of Broadway known as the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Man- hattan. There are no plans yet to sell the remaining 29 signs. The bidding began at $100 at 9 a.m. Wednesday and will end on Wednesday, Aug. 12, at 8 p.m. The money raised will go toward the city’s general fund, where it might help cover operating costs, from paying teachers’ salaries to filling potholes. The price had already shot up to $7,100 with more than 70 bids on
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An approaching cold front will bring severe thunder- storms across Kentucky, Tennessee and parts of Alabama and Mississippi. Some of these storms will contain damaging wind gusts to 65 miles per hour and cause flash flooding. These storms will move east over the weekend and could cause strong winds and flooding rain across parts of the Southeast on Sunday and Sunday night.
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Cities High/low temperatures for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday. Expected conditions for today and tomorrow.
TODAY
Temperature
Precipitation (in inches)
Yesterday..................................................................... 4 So far this month...................................................... 348 So far this season (since January 1) ........................ 748 Normal to date for the season ................................. 688
S .............................Sun Sn ....................... Snow SS .......... Snow showers T............ Thunderstorms Tr ......................... Trace W ........................ Windy –............... Not available Recreational Forecast
C ........................ Clouds F............................. Fog H .......................... Haze I............................... Ice PC ............. Partly cloudy R ........................... Rain Sh ................... Showers
N.Y.C. region Yesterday Today Tomorrow 83/ 69 PC 85/ 70 PC Bridgeport 73/ 69 0.52 82/ 69 PC 82/ 72 PC Caldwell 74/ 66 0.01 84/ 67 PC 87/ 68 PC Danbury 71/ 66 0.39 82/ 63 PC 85/ 69 PC Islip 71/ 66 0.17 82/ 70 PC 82/ 71 PC Newark 74/ 68 0.09 86/ 72 PC 88/ 72 PC Trenton 76/ 68 Tr 86/ 66 PC 87/ 68 PC White Plains 72/ 64 0.03 82/ 67 PC 83/ 68 PC
New York City 72/ 66 Tr
United States Yesterday Today Tomorrow
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Albany 74/ 62 0.17 82/ 64 PC 86/ 68 PC Albuquerque 100/ 74 0.04 102/ 71 T 93/ 69 T Anchorage 71/ 52 0 69/ 55 S 67/ 54 S Atlanta 92/ 70 0 91/ 74 PC 84/ 73 T Atlantic City 80/ 68 0.09 82/ 70 PC 82/ 71 PC Austin 98/ 77 0 100/ 77 PC 97/ 74 T Baltimore 82/ 67 0 88/ 69 S 91/ 73 PC Baton Rouge 95/ 78 0.09 94/ 79 T 92/ 77 T Birmingham 94/ 72 0 92/ 76 T 83/ 74 T Boise 99/ 65 0 103/ 72 S 102/ 60 S Boston 71/ 64 0.04 77/ 67 PC 80/ 69 PC Buffalo 81/ 61 0.01 84/ 67 PC 84/ 65 T Burlington 80/ 64 0.11 83/ 64 C 85/ 70 T Casper 92/ 54 0.04 92/ 55 T 98/ 63 S Charlotte 88/ 66 0 91/ 71 S 91/ 72 PC Chattanooga 88/ 66 0 91/ 70 PC 82/ 71 T Chicago 88/ 69 0 82/ 68 R 75/ 65 T Cincinnati 85/ 66 0 87/ 70 C 77/ 68 T Cleveland 82/ 64 0 87/ 71 PC 83/ 68 T Colorado Springs 88/ 64 0.16 84/ 58 T 85/ 59 T Columbus 85/ 64 0 87/ 70 PC 80/ 69 T Concord, N.H. 76/ 60 0.18 81/ 59 PC 85/ 64 PC Dallas-Ft. Worth 101/ 83 0 104/ 82 S 101/ 76 S Denver 91/ 65 0.06 89/ 63 T 91/ 67 T Des Moines 86/ 70 0 78/ 64 T 83/ 65 PC Detroit 88/ 67 0 89/ 72 C 80/ 66 T El Paso 107/ 80 0 109/ 80 S 99/ 76 T Fargo 87/ 67 0.70 85/ 58 T 88/ 65 S Hartford 75/ 61 0.44 83/ 63 PC 85/ 68 PC Honolulu 91/ 78 0.07 89/ 77 Sh 88/ 77 PC Houston 98/ 79 0 98/ 79 S 97/ 79 PC Indianapolis 87/ 67 0 85/ 69 PC 79/ 66 T Jackson 96/ 75 0.11 93/ 77 T 93/ 73 T Jacksonville 95/ 74 0.66 95/ 76 T 92/ 74 T Kansas City 86/ 73 0.22 87/ 64 T 82/ 63 PC Key West 91/ 83 0.10 91/ 82 PC 92/ 82 T Las Vegas 111/ 88 0 114/ 89 S 117/ 92 S Lexington 84/ 62 0 87/ 68 PC 81/ 68 T
Thursday morning, and could rise significantly higher as more fans catch wind of the sale. In June, the city listed, for $100 each, 200 identical replicas of the sign — ones built in the same shop, but never displayed along the parade route. The sale caught the attention of at least one noted superfan. Stiller, a fixture on celebrity row at Madi- son Square Garden, replied to the agency’s social media post about the replica sale with a bulging- eyes emoji. He did not respond to a request for comment about his interest in buying the genuine article. The replica signs sold out in seven minutes, according to the Transportation Department. “The Knicks brought home a championship after a 53-year drought, and now is your chance to own a unique piece of the festiv- ities,” Mike Flynn, the transporta- tion commissioner, said in a state- ment. Spike Lee, perhaps the most dedicated Knicks fan in history, seemed unaware of the auction on Wednesday. Reached by phone, he asked for a link to the auction
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Little Rock 93/ 77 0.08 97/ 81 T 93/ 72 T Los Angeles 87/ 67 0 92/ 70 S 93/ 70 S Louisville 87/ 67 0 88/ 71 C 85/ 70 T Memphis 93/ 77 0 92/ 77 T 88/ 72 T Miami 95/ 79 0.20 94/ 79 T 93/ 80 T Milwaukee 88/ 68 0 80/ 67 R 71/ 63 T Mpls.-St. Paul 89/ 66 0.04 71/ 64 R 88/ 64 PC Nashville 89/ 65 0 90/ 75 PC 87/ 72 T New Orleans 96/ 80 0.31 93/ 79 T 93/ 77 T Norfolk 88/ 71 0 86/ 70 PC 87/ 73 PC Oklahoma City 101/ 77 0.04 103/ 72 T 94/ 65 S Omaha 84/ 75 0.07 82/ 63 T 85/ 64 S Orlando 90/ 75 0.18 89/ 75 T 90/ 76 T Philadelphia 83/ 68 0.04 88/ 70 S 90/ 73 PC Phoenix 114/ 92 0 116/ 93 S 117/ 94 S Pittsburgh 82/ 58 0 86/ 65 S 85/ 69 PC Portland, Me. 77/ 62 0.32 79/ 61 PC 78/ 66 PC Portland, Ore. 80/ 57 0 87/ 62 S 75/ 56 PC Providence 69/ 62 0.08 81/ 64 Sh 82/ 66 PC Raleigh 87/ 64 0 91/ 70 PC 91/ 73 C Reno 99/ 62 0 103/ 65 S 104/ 62 S Richmond 88/ 66 0 88/ 68 S 88/ 70 C Rochester 79/ 60 0.04 84/ 64 PC 84/ 68 T Sacramento 95/ 58 0 98/ 60 S 100/ 62 S Salt Lake City 100/ 72 0 104/ 73 S 106/ 78 S San Antonio 98/ 77 0 99/ 78 PC 98/ 80 T San Diego 79/ 68 0 80/ 69 PC 81/ 71 S San Francisco 72/ 56 0 72/ 56 S 73/ 56 S San Jose 82/ 57 0 83/ 59 S 87/ 62 S San Juan 90/ 80 0 91/ 79 T 91/ 78 Sh Seattle 76/ 56 0 82/ 59 S 71/ 56 Sh Sioux Falls 80/ 68 0.59 76/ 61 T 86/ 61 S Spokane 88/ 58 0 92/ 66 S 88/ 50 W St. Louis 87/ 72 0 83/ 70 T 76/ 67 T St. Thomas 91/ 81 0 92/ 81 Sh 91/ 80 C Syracuse 78/ 62 0.05 85/ 63 PC 88/ 70 T Tampa 87/ 79 0.37 88/ 79 T 88/ 79 R Toledo 88/ 62 0 90/ 70 C 81/ 65 T Tucson 108/ 85 0.04 110/ 84 S 111/ 86 T Tulsa 98/ 81 0.04 101/ 70 T 90/ 68 PC Virginia Beach 86/ 70 0 83/ 71 S 84/ 73 PC Washington 87/ 71 0 90/ 72 S 90/ 75 PC Wichita 98/ 76 0.08 97/ 68 S 90/ 66 S Wilmington, Del. 82/ 66 0.03 87/ 68 S 87/ 70 PC
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ticker-tape parade route, and only one is currently up for bid.
page, and the deadline. “One of 30?” he asked, referring to the total number of signs made. “Ehh,” he said with a laugh. “I got time.” Lee, who said he has been a sea- son-ticket holder since Patrick Ewing’s rookie year, owns what he calls the “holy grail” of Knicks fan-
Meteorology by AccuWeather
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Weather patterns shown as expected at noon today, Eastern time.
Wet weather will finally begin to depart much of the East today, especially the Northeast, as sunnier and drier conditions build back in. A storm will bring an area of heavy rain and thunderstorms to northern portions of the Plains and into the Mid- west, with some thunderstorms capable of producing large hail, damaging wind gusts and flooding downpours. Drenching storms will persist across the Southeast from Florida to Louisiana. In the West, a heat wave will begin to peak in most places, with high temperatures 10 to 20 degrees above the 30-year average, which may lead to heat stress and air-quality problems. The Northwest will experience typical temperatures for late July, but increasing winds will lead to a high fire risk this weekend. A few spotty storms will affect the High Plains, with hot conditions.
Montgomery
New Delhi 96/ 83 0.39 92/ 80 R 92/ 81 T Riyadh 112/ 80 0 112/ 87 S 113/ 88 S Seoul 90/ 76 0 92/ 79 Sh 93/ 78 T Shanghai 103/ 82 0.10 99/ 82 T 98/ 82 T Singapore 86/ 81 0.14 91/ 80 T 91/ 79 PC Sydney 64/ 42 0 63/ 47 S 64/ 47 PC Taipei City 95/ 80 0 94/ 80 PC 97/ 80 Sh Tehran 93/ 75 0 95/ 75 S 95/ 78 S Tokyo 95/ 81 0.12 94/ 81 Sh 95/ 82 T
Europe Yesterday Ye Y Today Tomorrow To T
Amsterdam 79/ 66 0 74/ 56 Sh 75/ 57 S Athens 90/ 79 0 91/ 76 W 89/ 74 W Berlin 99/ 63 0 87/ 66 PC 77/ 56 Sh Brussels 81/ 66 0.06 80/ 55 PC 80/ 56 C Budapest 95/ 63 0 100/ 68 S 102/ 71 S Copenhagen 81/ 64 0 71/ 60 PC 71/ 56 PC Dublin 70/ 52 0 67/ 48 PC 70/ 50 PC Edinburgh 64/ 46 0.02 63/ 49 Sh 66/ 49 PC Frankfurt 102/ 61 0.12 89/ 67 T 84/ 65 T Geneva 93/ 64 0 85/ 64 T 91/ 63 T Helsinki 75/ 54 0 77/ 54 T 74/ 52 PC Istanbul 82/ 69 0 85/ 72 W 85/ 73 W Kyiv 79/ 58 0 83/ 64 S 88/ 65 S Lisbon 84/ 64 0 85/ 66 S 88/ 66 S London 82/ 63 0 81/ 55 S 81/ 58 PC Madrid 104/ 68 0 101/ 67 S 102/ 68 S Moscow 72/ 61 0.06 77/ 57 S 82/ 65 PC Nice 88/ 81 0 90/ 78 S 88/ 77 S Oslo 75/ 63 0.01 73/ 50 PC 71/ 51 R Paris 86/ 66 0.02 87/ 63 PC 86/ 61 T Prague 97/ 61 0 98/ 68 S 82/ 61 T Rome 93/ 73 0 95/ 72 S 94/ 72 S St. Petersburg 75/ 56 0 83/ 67 S 74/ 61 PC Stockholm 79/ 59 0 73/ 51 W 70/ 51 S Vienna 99/ 70 0 102/ 75 S 96/ 70 PC Warsaw 88/ 59 0 97/ 69 T 86/ 65 T
North America Yesterday Ye Y Today To T Tomorrow To T
Nassau
Acapulco 90/ 77 0 95/ 78 PC 94/ 78 T Bermuda 84/ 79 0.25 86/ 79 T 87/ 78 C Edmonton 68/ 50 Tr 80/ 56 PC 88/ 53 PC Guadalajara 77/ 62 0.03 87/ 60 R 86/ 62 T Havana 93/ 74 0 94/ 74 T 94/ 73 PC Kingston 91/ 82 0 93/ 81 S 91/ 83 PC Martinique 91/ 81 0.01 87/ 76 Sh 90/ 77 R Mexico City 71/ 56 0 78/ 55 R 78/ 56 R Monterrey 87/ 71 0 98/ 71 S 97/ 73 S Montreal 79/ 68 0.09 80/ 66 PC 82/ 70 T Nassau 90/ 80 0 91/ 81 C 89/ 80 T Panama City 93/ 77 0 92/ 76 T 91/ 76 T Quebec City 72/ 61 0.09 75/ 58 PC 80/ 64 T Santo Domingo 91/ 76 0.01 91/ 74 T 92/ 74 T Toronto 81/ 64 0 85/ 69 PC 80/ 66 T Vancouver 66/ 55 0 76/ 60 PC 73/ 54 Sh Winnipeg 81/ 70 0.22 82/ 59 C 86/ 64 S
VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
dom: the team’s first champi- onship banner from 1970. (And, for the record, he thinks attempts to rank the Knicks’ big- gest superfans is “idiotic.”) The appeal of rare Knicks mem- orabilia, especially items with New York bona fides, is hard to overstate.
c Quebec Que Que
al Montrea
Ottawa
Portland P
n ngton ngton ngton Burlin Burlin Burlin n
0s 70s 0s 70s
Manchester M
Boston Bos B
70s 70s 70s 7
Hartford Har a Buffalo
New York N
Philadelphia Phi
hington shi Wa Was ashi
0s 90s 90s 90s
chmond Richm
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gh aleigh Rale ale
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8 s 80s
A miniature model of the 34th Street subway station entrance close to Madison Square Garden, painted in Knicks blue and or- ange, has sold out repeatedly at the New York Transit Museum. No object imbued with the team’s winning aura has been off limits. Angie Baez, an executive director for community and indus- try engagement for JPMorgan Chase, lost her job in June after being caught trying to steal a com- memorative Knicks garbage can during the parade. The auction is being held through the auction portal of the Department of Citywide Adminis- trative Services, the agency that handles the vast inventory of stuff accrued by the city’s bureaucracy — castoff parking meters, used furniture and, occasionally, rare municipal treasures. In 2022, the comedians Colin Jost and Pete Davidson impulse- bought a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry from the auction site for about $280,000. “Our auctions reflect the full breadth of how city government connects to the identity of our city,” Yume Kitasei, the agency’s
TODAY ....................Warmer with some sun High 83. High pressure beginning to work into the region will bring dry conditions with more sunshine than clouds. Tem- peratures will be within a few degrees of average, and wind will be light and vari- able.
Halifax H
60s 60s 0
TONIGHT .....................Partly cloudy, humid Low 69. It will be dry and humid with a partly cloudy sky. Temperatures will re- main within a couple of degrees of aver- age, and the wind will continue to be light and variable.
TOMORROW ..............Humid with some sun High 85. The temperature and humidity levels will increase slightly while high pressure remains in control. Sunshine may be filtered by high clouds at times. Winds will be out of the south at 4 to 8 miles per hour.
Humidity
SUNDAY .....................Mostly cloudy, humid High 82. Dry conditions will persist, but it will become mostly cloudy as a storm approaches the area. It will remain hu- mid, and the wind will be out of the south at 6 to 12 m.p.h.
MONDAY TUESDAY ..................................Rain returns A storm will bring a couple of showers and thunderstorms on Monday. High 83. There will be clouds and sunshine on Tuesday with a shower or two. High 84.
In Central Park, for the 13 hours ended at 1 p.m. yesterday.
1 p.m.
1 p.m.
WED. YESTERDAY
6 p.m.
12 a.m.
Avg. daily departure Avg. daily departure from normal from normal this month............... -1.1° this year.................. -0.2°
Reservoir levels (New York City water supply)
Yesterday ............... 88% Est. normal ............. 90%
Sun, Moon and Planets
Moon
Last Quarter New First Quarter Full
Aug. 5 Aug. 12 Aug. 19 Aug. 28
1:36 p.m.
12:18 a.m.
RISE 5:51 a.m. SET 8:13 p.m. NEXT R 5:52 a.m.
Jupiter
R 5:44 a.m. S 8:09 p.m.
Saturn
S 11:33 a.m. R 11:03 p.m.
Boating
From Montauk Point to Sandy Hook, N.J., out to 20 nautical miles, including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor. Winds will be out of the northwest then shift south around 5 knots. Waves will be 1 foot or less on New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. Visibility will generally be unrestricted.
High Tides
6 a.m.
Atlantic City .................... 9:23 a.m. .............. 9:33 p.m. Barnegat Inlet ................. 9:32 a.m. .............. 9:42 p.m. The Battery ................... 10:10 a.m. ............ 10:09 p.m. Beach Haven ................ 11:00 a.m. ............ 11:06 p.m. Bridgeport .................... 12:51 a.m. .............. 1:18 p.m. City Island ..................... 12:42 a.m. .............. 1:11 p.m. Fire Island Lt. ................ 10:28 a.m. ............ 10:34 p.m. Montauk Point .............. 11:12 a.m. ............ 11:15 p.m. Northport ..................... 12:54 a.m. .............. 1:21 p.m. Port Washington ........... 12:48 a.m. .............. 1:15 p.m. Sandy Hook .................... 9:42 a.m. .............. 9:48 p.m. Shinnecock Inlet ............. 9:31 a.m. .............. 9:44 p.m. Stamford ...................... 12:51 a.m. .............. 1:18 p.m. Tarrytown ..................... 11:59 a.m. ............ 11:58 p.m. Willets Point .................. 12:46 a.m. .............. 1:15 p.m.
commissioner, said in a state- ment. The agency said that during the previous fiscal year, it held roughly 965 auctions that raised about $1.2 million — a small sum relative to the city’s $126 billion budget, but a help nonetheless. The most expensive item ever sold through the auctions was a hopper barge once owned by the
memorabilia caught the eye of superfans.
Sanitation Department. Sale price: $293,255. Asked about future auctions, Kitasei said there were no plans to sell any of the Knicks-themed garbage cans — yet — but the agency was optimistic about the sales potential of the street sign. “When it comes to these Knicks,” she said, “anything is possible.”
S M T W T F
High High Actual Forecast range
Low Low
Yesterday ............. Trace Record .................... 3.56
Record high 98° (1988)
For the last 30 days Actual ..................... 4.71 Normal.................... 4.42
For the last 365 days Actual ................... 37.37 Normal.................. 49.52
high 85° Normal
LAST 30 DAYS Air pressure
Noon 72°
High ............. 29.80 noon Low ............ 29.67 3 a.m.
low 70° Normal
Cooling Degree Days
An index of fuel consumption that tracks how far the day's mean temperature rose above 65
66° 6 a.m.
(1956) low 57° Record
Trends Temperature Precipitation Average Average Below Below Above Above
Last 10 days 30 days 90 days 365 days
Chart shows how recent temperature and precipitation trends compare with those of the last 30 years.
Beach and Ocean Temperatures
Today’s forecast
74/60 Clouds and sun, a shower Kennebunkport
S 7:46 a.m. R 9:20 p.m. S 8:51 a.m.
77/66 Some sun, a shower, humid Cape Cod
Mars
R 2:17 a.m. S 5:19 p.m.
83/69 Warmer with some sunshine L.I. North Shore
Venus
R 9:44 a.m. S 10:07 p.m.
80/72 Clouds and sunshine L.I. South Shore
82/70 Partly sunny N.J. Shore
86/69 Partly sunny Eastern Shore
80/69 Partly sunny Ocean City Md.
83/71 Mostly sunny Virginia Beach
Record highs
S S M T
Normal highs
Normal lows
Record lows
High ............. 93% 6 a.m. Low ................ 81% noon
0s 70 70
Color bands indicate water temperature.
Slashers and more bring the goose bumps.
N
NEWS CRITICISM
duct over his 12 seasons in charge. I found his evolution exasperating, as did fellow lo- cal critics. Many listeners disagree, but ei- ther way, reporting by The Boston Globe has confirmed that Nelsons was not doing core parts of his job properly: arriving un- prepared for rehearsals, dismissing new scores as “funny pieces” and refusing to do much of the fund-raising and other work ex- pected of serious music directors in the United States. Managerial screw-ups are nothing new at this organization, but removing Nelsons has opened Pandora’s box. Hostetter and Smith brought a private struggle into public
a Dutch fashion luminary, turns the Brooklyn Museum into her atelier.
Come Pleat With Me
By ROSLYN SULCAS
Iris van Herpen, the visionary Dutch de- signer, is an inventor of wearable sculp- tures, clothes that look like a splash of wa- ter, an evaporation of smoke, a cloud of bub- bles, a cluster of jellyfish, an exoskeleton. She draws inspiration from nature and sci- ence, from psychic and anatomical explora- tion, and her clothes are constructed using cutting-edge technologies as well as cou- ture techniques. But van Herpen has always insisted on the slow, handmade nature of her design process, and it is this aspect that she wants to emphasize in the exhibition “Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses,” at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition, which was shown in Paris in 2024 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, has traveled around the world, drawing on artworks, scientific artifacts and natural history specimens from each locale. In Brooklyn, van Herpen has added an- other element: herself. For the first time in her exhibition career, she is appearing periodically throughout the run in what she describes as perform- ances, offering personal encounters in the art of the couturier. In the central rotunda that evokes her Amsterdam atelier, she sits at a table, welcoming visitors who join her in pleating a piece of fabric, a technique she thought most people would find accessible. “My process in one way seems very com-
James Baldwin before his ascent to literary star.
plex and highly technical and innovative, and this is a way to show how human it re- ally is,” van Herpen said in a video call from Amsterdam a few days before arriving in Brooklyn for performances in July. “It’s ulti- mately about the craftsmanship and very personal and human.” I would discover that intimacy for myself. On the opening day of the exhibition in May, I joined van Herpen at her table. One of the large, draped artworks that she occasion- ally fashions hung behind her, and in the center of the rotunda, billowing swaths of fabric extended upward to the cupola, showing projections of the hands of atelier workers, meticulously pinning and stitch- ing in real time. Around us were hundreds of samples of fabrics, photographs, draw-
DAVID ALLEN CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK Tension Is in the Air at Tanglewood
LENOX, MASS. — Tanglewood is special to many, many people. It’s the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but also a place where people make memories: where they picnicked with their grand- parents or got soaked in a storm. It matters. It means something. To my family, it’s a retreat, a sanctuary, a place where things can rest just a little easier for one sunny afternoon. Not this year. Tanglewood might look as idyllic as ever, but during a recent week on the grounds here, it felt anxious, angry, combustible. It was impossible to escape the warfare that the Boston Symphony is
waging on itself: a crisis that is drowning out the music. Somebody needs to quiet things down before even more serious dam- age is done. Let’s recap. Primed in years of backstage intrigue, this firestorm was set alight when the Boston Symphony’s trustees and man- agement — led by Barbara Hostetter, the board chair, and Chad Smith, the president and chief executive — announced in March that they would not renew the contract of the orchestra’s music director, Andris Nelsons. Artistically, this was the correct call. Liv- ing in the Boston area, I long ago lost count of how many times I have seen Nelsons con-
Pop Art’s cocky origins and its long legacy.
FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2026 C1
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN J WEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Far left, the designer Iris van Herpen at the Brooklyn Museum. Above, one of her dresses, created to look like a splash of water. Left, van Herpen working as part of the exhibition.
Top, from left, Kyra Sedgwick, Travis Bacon, Kevin Bacon and Sosie Bacon in the horror sendup “Family Movie.” Above, from left: Farley Granger, left, and Robert Walker in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train”; Megan Fox in “Jennifer’s Body.”
You Have a Spooky Summer
By ERIK PIEPENBURG
Summertime is a surprisingly ripe time for terror. If you believe that Halloween should be every day, this range of events can help turn that sentiment into a reality.
New Thrills In New York City, summer’s signature hor- ror movie event is Film at Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies (Aug. 12-20), a reliably dis- turbing festival of new films and revivals. This year’s 16-title series opens with “Buddy,” Casper Kelly’s deranged-looking new work about a fuzzy-but-not-so-cuddly host of a children’s TV show. (It opens in theaters on Aug. 28.) On Aug. 19, Kevin Ba- con and Kyra Sedgwick will introduce “Family Movie,” a slasher sendup they di- rected, starring their children, Sosie and Travis. If you can handle it, on Aug. 16 the festival is showing the premiere of a 4K restoration of “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” the de- spairing 1986 shocker. The director John McNaughton will be in attendance for a Q&A. Other summer horror movies still screen- ing at select theaters include the block- buster “Obsession,” a special edition of the breakout hit “Backrooms” and “Evil Dead Burn,” the latest in the “Evil Dead” fran- chise.
Classic Terrors Buckle up on Sunday, when the Metrograph Theater on the Lower East Side shows “Wake in Fright,” a brutal 1971 Australian thriller about a schoolteacher who gets stranded, to put it mildly, in a rural town populated by horrible men. As part of its queer Narrow Rooms series, Anthology Film Archives in the East Village screens a 35-millimeter print of “Strangers on a Train,” Alfred Hitchcock’s dark 1951 psychological thriller, on Aug. 21. Farley Granger and Robert Walker are spectacu- lar as the gay-coded strangers who team up to commit the perfect murder. On Aug. 29, the Quad Cinema in the West Village is party headquarters for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” complete with a shadow cast of actors who mirror the on- screen shenanigans. For those not familiar with how it works, there’s a lesson given be- forehand to teach the newbies what all the toilet paper is for.
Midnight Movies The Late-Night Favorites series at the IFC Center in the West Village spotlights out- there genre films every weekend. My pick is the depraved “Battle Royale” (2000), about a group of Japanese students in a fight to the death on a deserted island. It screens Aug. 14 and 15.
WARNER BROS.
Luke Evans in the revival of “The Rocky Horror Show,” which is at Studio 54. He stars as Frank-N-Furter through Aug. 23.
A model of the Green-Wood Cemetery’s entranceway arches at its welcome center.
Stage Frights Late on a recent Friday night, I called a number and then spent an hour trying to calm down a young man named Danny who was convinced that a bloodthirsty demon lurked inside his closet. Or was the demon talking to me about a kid named Danny? Ei- ther way, the conversation sent ice through my veins, delightfully so. This is “CLAWS,” an interactive thriller that the theater group Candle House Collective performs live by phone. You can make a reservation at candlehousecollective.com to participate in a call through Oct. 2. On Broadway, “Paranormal Activity,” an adaptation of the nerve-plucking 2009
SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES
JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
found-footage film, starts on Aug. 14 at the August Wilson Theater; Luke Evans and Rachel Dratch are still doing the Time Warp in a revival of “The Rocky Horror Show,” at Studio 54 (you may want to catch Evans be- fore he departs on Aug. 23); and “The Lost Boys,” based on the 1987 feral-punk vam- pire movie, is at the Palace Theater. Off Broadway, Ethan Slater and Betsy Wolfe headline the revival of the sweet-but- sinister musical comedy “Little Shop of Horrors” at the Westside Theater.
Get Out My favorite way to keep track of New York City horror happenings is the Scream Scene newsletter, a compendium of goings-on from the Brooklyn Horror Society, the Asto- ria Horror Club and other local groups. That’s how I heard about the Twisted Spine, a recently opened horror bookstore, cafe and event space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that has a robust calendar of book clubs, watch parties and author talks. On Aug. 19 at 7 p.m., the novelist Chuck Wendig will discuss his new occult drama, “The Ca- lamities.” Schmooze with other horror aficionados on Aug. 13 from 7 p.m. to midnight, when the Wood Shop in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hosts Scream for Summerween, a night of music, monster cosplay, tarot readings and sick treats from the bakery Scary Good Desserts.
Museum Horror The Museum of the Moving Image in Asto- ria, Queens, and the streaming service Mubi are partners on “Reframing the Slasher,” an exhibition of VHS tapes, cos- tumes and other materials related to Jane Schoenbrun’s bizarro new meta-slasher film “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Mias- ma,” in theaters starting on Aug. 7. While you’re there, check out “Horrible Sites,” an exhibition on how killer makeup and pro- duction design made “The Exorcist” so head turning. (“Reframing the Slasher” is on view through Nov. 8; admission is free.)
A Day With the Dead Get acquainted with the spirits of Green- Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn by taking “Grave Beginnings: Walking Green-Wood,” a free, 90-minute morning walking tour, on Sunday and Aug. 16 at 10 a.m. Don’t skip the new $43 million welcome center and exhibi- tion hall.
Distant Screams Lady vengeance is the diabolical theme of this year’s All Night Horror Marathon at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, N.Y., on Long Island. It kicks off on Aug. 29 at 9 p.m. with “Pearl” and continues with a stellar lineup of “Jennifer’s Body,” “The Craft,” “Ginger Snaps” and the original “Suspiria.” For an old-school scary-movie excursion, try the Mahoning Drive-In in rural Le- highton, Pa., a two-hour drive from New York City. Each summer, the drive-in has outstanding programs of new and old hor- ror cinema, not to mention killer pierogi. On Aug. 14 and 15, the composer Alan Howarth, best known for his stylishly ghoulish synth scores for “Christine” and other John Car- penter films, will perform live.
VIA FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
DOANE GREGORY/20TH CENTURY FOX
Taking a Final Bow
‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
André De Shields, left, and Dudney Joseph Jr. in “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.” It ends its Broadway run at the Broadhurst Theater on Aug. 8.
Starring André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, this radi- cal reinvention of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical places the action in the queer ballroom subculture, where dance dominates. It won three awards at the 2026 Tonys: for direction, by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch; for choreography, by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons; and for the teasing, sexy, re- splendent costumes, by Qween Jean. (Through Aug. 8 at the Broadhurst Theater.)
‘Death of a Salesman’
The winner of the 2026 Tony for best play revival, Arthur Miller’s classic has returned to Broadway for the third time so far this century. Nathan Lane stars as Willy Loman, a traveling sales- man whose career is on the skids and whose mind is plagued by suicidal thoughts, opposite Laurie Metcalf, right, who won a Tony for her per- formance as Linda Loman, Willy’s wife and the guardian of his flagging dig- nity. Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers play their sons, Biff and Happy. The pro- duction’s four other Tonys are for its impecca- ble design (Chloe Lamford’s set, Jack Knowles’s lighting, Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound) and for the direction, by Joe Mantello. (Through Aug. 9 at the Winter Garden Theater.)
‘Every Brilliant Thing’
Tracee Ellis Ross stars in this life-affirming solo show that enumerates the many beauties of the world — and relies heavily on (optional) audience participation. The play is written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, and directed by Jeremy Herrin and Macmillan. (Through Aug. 9 at the Hud- son Theater.)
‘Ragtime’
From left, Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz in “Ragtime,” which is at the Vivian Beaumont Theater through Aug. 16.
The 2026 Tony winner for best musical revival also landed Tonys for two of its stars: Joshua Henry and Caissie Levy, who lead Lear deBessonet’s Lincoln Center Theater pro- duction alongside Brandon Uranowitz. Written by Stephen Fla- herty, Lynn Ahrens and Terrence McNally, and based on the E.L. Doctorow novel, the show follows three families from disparate social strata chasing the American dream at the turn of the 20th century. With choreography by Ellenore Scott, and a capacious cast that includes Julie Benko as Emma Goldman. (Through Aug. 16 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.)
‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’
For those to whom a Broadway show means spare-no- expense spectacle, this lavishly designed adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie musical has been just the ticket. (Through Aug. 30 at the Al Hirschfeld Theater.)
‘Titaníque’
After a few years merrily floating along downtown, this jukebox- musical parody of James Cameron’s “Titanic” moved to Broad- way, buoyed by the songs of Celine Dion, who — in fictional, fantastical form — is also the narrator. Marla Mindelle, left, stars as Dion alongside Jim Parsons, Debo- rah Cox, Frankie Grande and Constan- tine Rousouli. Tye Blue, who wrote the show with Mindelle and Rousouli, directs; Ellenore Scott choreographs. (Through Sept. 20 at the St. James Theater.)
view by choosing to fight a battle over “future vision,” pitting their (frankly timid) plans to modernize a civic institution and erase its persistent operating deficits against the opposition of an old guard that had anointed Nelsons its figurehead. Most of the musicians, preparing for labor negoti- ations, were irate at their maestro’s depar- ture and a lack of consultation. Nelsons re- fused to go quietly, stoking what the Boston
Who will become the Boston Symphony’s next music director?
Pops conductor Keith Lockhart called “an emotional turmoil that did not have to be.” Since then, factions have entrenched. Trust is out; vitriol is in. Critical questions lie under the slung mud: As ticket sales fall, donors become more influential and orches- tras operate ever more like corporations, where should power lie? Rather than de- bate such matters calmly, the richest or- chestra in the world has devolved into a mo- rass of anonymous quotations, destructive leaks and social media bile. Who is going to donate money to an insti- tution capable of acting so embarrassingly? Who will want to work for this orchestra, play in it, perform with it and, as it searches for a new music director, even conduct it? Supporters of Nelsons wear red flowers, and almost all the thousands of people I saw sporting them last weekend behaved civilly. Management has been accused of “punish- ing people for loving the orchestra,” but I should note that I also saw an usher taking photos for patrons wearing “Reinstate Andris Nelsons” shirts, protest leaders freely handing out merchandise and a lawn sign right outside Tanglewood’s back gate. If any people were trying to crush dissent, they would be failing. But a nasty tension is in the air. Much of the burden, deplorably, is falling on front of house staff. On Tuesday, after Smith with- drew from a talk because of a family matter, a staffer announcing the change in pro- gramming pleaded with the audience be- fore him to be kind to box office assistants if they asked for a refund. On Sunday, one stranger wearing a red flower saw me read- ing a score, asked whom I write for, and then asked where I was staying. Twice. As for the music, you could not have imagined a starker illustration of the battle playing out than the programming over the past week. In the Shed, Nelsons led a trio of concerts pairing Mozart concertos with Tchaikovsky symphonies. Each performance felt like a referendum on his fate, partly because al- most everyone onstage was wearing a red flower (including Nelsons), partly because he ended all three basking in raucous ap- plause. Sure, the Bostonians have been playing with more intensity since March, but that intensity is fundamentally undisci- plined. Add Nelsons’s in-the-moment inter- pretations, and things can fray. The Tchaikovsky did. Basic speeds were lethargic throughout the Third, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, and Nelsons then pushed tempo shifts past their breaking points, especially in a messy, moribund Fifth. Their Mozart was more convincing, conceived in the elegant style of the Kara- jan-era conductors that Nelsons admires, if without the last twinkle of spirit that aes- thetic needs to shine. Elsewhere on campus, the composer- conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen — perhaps the closest musician to Smith in Los Ange- les aside from Gustavo Dudamel — directed a stellar installment of the annual Festival of Contemporary Music, performed cred- itably by the young fellows and alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center. Salonen’s five programs amounted to a sort of life and times: among them was a memorial to his late friends Oliver Knussen, Steven Stucky and Kaija Saariaho; a look at the “next gen- eration” of composers, all women; and a cel-
Jared Leto denies allegations made in a BBC documentary.
By REMY TUMIN
Ten women have accused the ac- tor and singer Jared Leto of sexu- al misconduct in a new BBC docu- mentary and report, including several who were underage when they were assaulted, claims Mr. Leto has denied. Four of the women who spoke to the BBC accused him of criminal behavior. One woman said Mr. Leto sexually assaulted her in a motel bathroom when she was 17; another said she had sex with Mr. Leto in California when she was 17, which would be statutory rape at the time. One woman described “being groomed” by Mr. Leto and ac- cused him of “making repeated sexually explicit phone calls” to her when she was 16. He later sent her a nondisclosure agreement, she said, to prevent her from talk- ing about their relationship, which she refused to sign. Mr. Leto has not been charged with a crime related to the accusa- tions in the report. Four other women also said they received “strange and often very sexual” calls from Mr. Leto when they were younger, accord- ing to the BBC report. The allega- tions in the documentary oc-
curred between 2002 and 2016, when Mr. Leto was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54. In a short, emailed statement, Mr. Leto denied the allegations. “I have never sexually as- saulted anyone in my entire life,” he said. “These claims are abso- lutely and categorically false.” In the documentary, the BBC obscured the faces of many of the women who accused Mr. Leto and did not use their real names. But it said it corroborated the women’s accounts with friends and relatives, and reviewed pictures and messages that sup- port the women's ac- counts, the report said. Two men who worked as crew members with Mr. Leto’s band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, told the BBC that Mr. Leto would invite teenage girls to his dressing room during concert tours or to his house when he was recording mu- sic. One woman told the BBC that Mr. Leto spotted her backstage at one of his shows in 2006, when she was 17, and asked an associate to get her number. They later had sex at his house in California, she said. Mr. Leto was 35 at the time. When she raised the issue of be- ing below the age of consent in the
state, Mr. Leto “just kind of shrugged it off,” she told the BBC. The woman who said Mr. Leto assaulted her in a motel room said she first met Mr. Leto when he was visiting a store in Las Vegas where she worked. He invited her back to his hotel, but the address he gave her was for a “dingy gross motel,” she told the BBC. She had assumed they were go- ing somewhere else, but instead “he called her into the bathroom so the pair could talk while he showered,” accord- ing to the BBC. “He then grabbed her hand and used it to masturbate himself,” it said. Mr. Leto has faced other sexual assault accusations over the years, which he has de- nied. He first rose to fame through his role as Jordan Catalano in the TV show “My So-Called Life” and as the frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars, with his brother Shannon Leto in the 1990s. He won an Os- car in 2014 for best supporting ac- tor for “Dallas Buyers Club,” and in recent years has appeared in action and comic-book films like “Blade Runner 2049” and “Suicide Squad.” He most recently played the skull-faced villain Skeletor in “Masters of the Universe,” which was released in June.
Jared Leto has faced accusations over the years.
ebration of “Nordic Boomers” that included Salonen’s Cello Concerto, torn into by the soloist Senja Rummukainen, and Hans Abrahamsen’s recent classic “let me tell you,” sung by the soprano Alexandra Henderson and conducted by Lauren Smith. All five concerts were ambitious, engaging, exquisite. Even the idlest mind might wonder if Salonen would want to become the Boston Symphony’s next music director. His plans suggest he does not. But his presence did illustrate a problem that the orchestra must face as it looks for Nelsons’s successor. Be- fore February, Salonen had led this ensem- ble once since 1988. Semyon Bychkov last appeared in 2000. Iván Fischer, 2003. Gianandrea Noseda, 2004. Marin Alsop, a Tanglewood alum, has conducted one Bos- ton Symphony program, ever; Daniel Harding, likewise. Manfred Honeck has not returned since 2014; Vladimir Jurowski, 2016. Dudamel came for two weeks in 2019, canceled the second and has not come back. The list goes on, and it makes for a pat- tern. I’ve heard thrilling Boston concerts from Karina Canellakis, Joana Mallwitz and Antonio Pappano. But subscription weeks that were filled a decade ago by titans like Bernard Haitink and Christoph von Dohnanyi are nowadays handed to assist- ant conductors. Either the Boston Sym- phony has not been inviting many of the conductors who visit New York, Philadel- phia, Cleveland and Chicago, or they don’t want to come. One newly public anecdote suggests an answer. In April, Susanna Mälkki visited from New York, where she was overseeing Saariaho’s “Innocence” at the Metropolitan Opera, to premiere Andrew Norman’s com- plicated two-piano rewrite of “Split,” a Bos- ton Symphony commission. Mälkki is one of the world’s leading conductors, someone undoubtedly deserving of respect. But mu- sicians told The Globe that this spring, she instead received “outright hostility.” One player reportedly performed his part wrongly — not in rehearsal, but in concert. What a mess. What a sorry, sorry mess.
Because of A.I. Inclusion
The Writers Guild withdraws its support for Urbanworld.
By BROOKS BARNES
A new flashpoint emerged on Tuesday in the debate over artificial intelligence and artis- tic expression. The dispute involves Urbanworld, a New York festival that showcases Black and mul- ticultural films, and the Writers Guild of America East, a 6,000-member union that represents movie, television, podcast and digital news writers. In a letter sent to staff and supporters, Urbanworld’s founder, Stacy Spikes, said the guild had “withdrawn its sponsorship and participation in this year’s festival” over his decision to add films made with A.I. tools. “We are deeply disappointed,” Spikes wrote in the letter, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times. “For the past decade, the W.G.A.E. has been one of Urbanworld’s most valued partners.” A spokesman for the guild did not imme- diately respond to a request for comment. The union has been among the entertain- ment industry’s loudest voices on the dan- gers of generative A.I., using its #AI- NeedsHumans campaign to push for worker protections and transparency. An Urbanworld spokesman declined to disclose the financial value of the guild’s withdrawn support. Urbanworld has not re- vealed its sponsorship list for this year’s festival, which begins on Oct. 14. Sponsors in 2025 included HBO, Warner Bros. Dis-
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAUREN LANCASTER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Top and bottom, fans on the lawn at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass., on Sunday, with supporters of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director, Andris Nelsons, far left, and Nelsons himself, wearing red flowers. Left, the composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Festival of Contemporary Music concert he directed at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood.
covery, Netflix and the Directors Guild of America, according to the Urbanworld web- site. The festival has given a platform to Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Cord Jefferson and other filmmakers since its founding in 1997. In June, Spikes announced a new program- ming section called A.I. Sidebar for direc- tors who use generative A.I. and related digital tools to create their work. “Rather than ignore those projects or force them into categories that were never designed to evaluate them, we believed the more transparent and responsible ap- proach was to create a dedicated space where they could be viewed, discussed and judged alongside comparable work,” Spikes wrote. He added: “We understand why artificial intelligence has become one of the most de- bated issues facing the creative community. Questions surrounding authorship, com- pensation, consent, employment, creative ownership and the future of creative work deserve serious discussion.” Festival programmers have generally re- sisted treating A.I. filmmaking as its own artistic category. Some festivals, including Cannes, have banned from competition films made with heavy reliance on A.I. tools. Others have shown a willingness to explore, including the Tribeca Festival, which re- cently showcased a film created entirely with A.I. — no actors, no sets, no cameras — as part of its official lineup. “We believe the answer is engagement, not absence,” Spikes said in his letter.
A Web’s Threads Grow Heavier
A franchise series is about growing up, with all the attendant burdens, anxieties and sacrifices.
JEANNETTE CATSOULIS FILM REVIEW Working Out the Kinks With Your Boss
A tie-me-up, turn-me-on relationship drives this jolly sex comedy from Gregg Araki.
A WOMAN FLOATS, lifelessly, in a backyard swimming pool, watched with horror by a chubby young man in lacy bra and panties. The scene is not simply a cheeky gender switch of the opening to “Sunset Boulevard” but a mystery that will be solved mostly in flashback and TV-friendly frames. “I Want Your Sex” (a title borrowed from George Michael’s 1987 single) is the 12th feature from the indie filmmaker Gregg Araki and his first in a dozen years. A jolly sex comedy that plays out in frisky conver- sations and gumball colors (no pasty flesh tones here), the movie offers sadomaso- chism as a road to self-confidence and emo- tional maturity. In dire need of both is Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a 20-something ditherer who doesn’t know what he wants — in life or in bed — beyond a vague aspiration to host a podcast. This is someone whose appear- ance suggests he has yet to master a comb. Elliot desperately needs a mentor, and neither his spectacularly disinterested girl- friend, Minerva (Charli XCX), nor his bi-cu- rious roommate, the adorable Apple (Chase Sui Wonders), will do. Enter Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a provocative pop artist and his boss at the gallery where he’s a lowly as- sistant. Like a modern-day Vargas girl, Eri- ka favors skintight clothing and sexually frank come-ons; sensing immediately that Elliot is deeply confused — and terrified and turned on — by her untrammeled libi- do, she sends him home to bone up, as it
SPIDER-MAN’S STORY has always been, on some level, about the terrifying experience of growing up. One morning, you discover your body is changing and doing things you can’t quite control, and you have to figure out what to do with that. As winningly played by Tom Holland, Peter Parker has been a kind, openhearted teenager who wants to do the right thing and is horrified that his powers often put everyone he loves in the path of danger. At the end of “Spider- Man: No Way Home,” he asked Doctor Strange to cast a spell that would cause the whole world — including the love of his life — to forget that he was Spider-Man, be- cause it was the only way to save his uni- verse from destruction. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a screenplay by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, picks up where “No Way Home” left off. Pe- ter lives alone now that his aunt May (Marisa Tomei) has died, and MJ (Zen- daya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) have gone to M.I.T. As years go by, Peter watches them from afar via Ned’s social media updates. Spider-Man is beloved by New Yorkers again, so he fights crime and chats on the phone with Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), never revealing his identity
were, on the vintage randiness of a Harold Robbins novel. (This moment reminded me that the eternally boyish Araki is in his mid-60s now, though his sense of humor re- mains recognizably piquant.) “I’m a slave to this vagina,” Elliot con- fesses to his gallery colleague (Mason Gooding), as they slap chewed gum onto a representation of Erika’s vulva. (She also tapes her orgasms for aural inspiration.) Af- ter hours, Elliot happily submits to her play- ful restraints and orificial intrusions. There is a sense that Erika, who is approaching a career crisis, is exercising a control over El- liot’s soft body that she’s unable to exert over the public perception of her art, and
ALISSA WILKINSON FILM REVIEW
as Peter Parker. Occasionally he crosses paths with Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), with whom he has a testy relationship. But a weird threat menaces the city, a vengeful entity seemingly jumping from person to person. It’s apparently seeking something that’s hidden at Damage Con- trol, the organization that was created to do cleanup after the Battle of New York but turned a bit more authoritarian over time. The director of the organization, Bill Met- zger (Tramell Tillman), explains that he’s not sure what the entity is after, but the goal of Damage Control is to harness destructive energy and turn it to something good. They’re hoping to just keep everyone safe, he says. At the same time, Peter has his own is- sues with energy, because his arachnid hor- mone levels are spiking, giving him major headaches and the ability to shoot web fluid from his wrists instead of his suit. He wants nothing more than to tamp down his pow- ers, to return to the abilities that he knows well. And it’s imperative he does this before the entity gets to MJ, who still doesn’t know who he is. There is, of course, a lot more, some of which I can’t tell you; Sadie Sink has spent the last year dancing around questions about her role in this movie. “Brand New Day” is the fourth in this particular series of Spider-Man movies, and it feels like a cap on the growing-up arc that this iteration of the character has gone through. If “Homecom- ing” was about adolescence, and “Far From Home” was about growing through the loss of a mentor, and “No Way Home” was about taking responsibility for your actions (and also, college applications), then this is, in part, about deciding to accept your adult powers, even when they scare you. It is not, unfortunately, nearly as fun as
Wilde plays her with a flicker of vulnerabil- ity that’s unexpectedly touching. The film’s casting is impeccable, though I would have liked to have seen more of Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville, as the lugubrious de- tectives questioning Elliot about the body in the pool. And Daveed Diggs, playing the overseer of Erika’s gallery and business af- fairs, does wonders with a minuscule role and way too few lines. Unspooling in large, white-lacquered spaces and small apartments — these peo- ple are indoor cats — “I Want Your Sex” is dotted with gentle visual humor and casual nods to similarly themed movies. “9 1/2 Weeks” is name-checked early on, and
the previous few films, though that may just come with the territory. Much of the light- hearted comedy that made the other mov- ies so amusing is gone, largely because Pe- ter’s relationship to Ned and MJ has changed drastically, which means the ban- tering chemistry between Holland, Batalon and especially Zendaya is mostly absent. In its place is an emotional heaviness, which compounds in some of the film’s other plot threads. (Thankfully, Florence Pugh shows up a few times as Yelena Belova, and she is a pure delight.) The film is also bogged down by the same thing that has caused late-stage Marvel Cinematic Universe films to sag: the weight of tying all of the stories together. For in- stance, if you’re not a walking encyclopedia of M.C.U. lore — or didn’t watch “Daredevil” Season 2 and “Daredevil: Born Again” Sea- son 1 and the two-season “Punisher” TV show and the “Punisher: One Last Kill” Marvel TV special — you might not know who Frank Castle is or why he and Peter know each other, which seems like an awful lot to expect of your audience. Spider-Man has been tied into the M.C.U. since he appeared in “Captain America: Civil War” (2016), thanks to a deal between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walt Dis- ney Studios (which owns Marvel Studios), and he’s in several “Avengers” movies. Al- though other M.C.U. characters crop up in the stand-alone Spider-Man movies, some- times with substantial roles, the films have still mostly felt like character-driven fea- tures about Peter and his friends. Even “No Way Home,” with its many winking ties to other movies, was mostly about various generations of Spider-Mans (Spiders- Men?), not really the M.C.U.’s main arc. This movie feels as if it’s carrying more franchise weight on its shoulders, and that leaves less room for emotional weight. It’s
Olivia Wilde plays a provocative pop artist and Cooper Hoffman is her lowly assistant in a movie with gentle visual humor.
I Want Your Sex Rated R. May I direct you to the title? Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.
MAGNOLIA PICTURES
Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the fourth in the latest round of Spider-Man movies.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Rated PG-13 for the usual cartoonish violence and sad feelings. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes. In theaters.
more scattered as a result, and while hard- core M.C.U. fans might be pleased, the rest of us are, demonstrably, getting kind of tired of having to do our homework. Nothing can erase the enjoyment of wit- nessing Holland’s performance, which re- mains winsome and wonderfully kinetic even if you know that’s got to be a comput- er-generated Spidey a lot of the time. As he’s grown up onscreen, his audience has grown up with him. The question this film asks is one that has cropped up over and over throughout comic book cinema: What do we do with our specialness? For the most part, Peter has chosen to stay local and hid- den, to undo the damage done when people know his powers. But now he has to either accept who he is and let himself be known again, or stay in the shadows and take the clean slate promised by the title. Similarly, a slice of his audience has gone from teenager to new adult in a world where creative powers — especially exceptional ones — are seen as something that might be taken from you and put to profitable use. Pe- ter even considers whether there might be a way to create a device that puts everyone on a level playing field, and that doesn’t seem coincidental. If movies subcon- sciously tap the anxieties of their audi- ences, maybe this one is about the terrify- ing experience of growing up and discover- ing that everyone sees what makes you spe- cial and wants it for themselves.
Araki teasingly positions his stars to sug- gest the famous poster from “The Gradu- ate,” with Dustin Hoffman’s character gaz- ing, mesmerized, at Mrs. Robinson’s ex- tended leg. Two becalmed young men, two older seductresses — the difference is that the earlier Hoffman had a moodiness that gave his character depth and his movie a hint of danger. There’s nothing dangerous at play in “I Want Your Sex.” Raunchy but neither vul- gar nor particularly explicit — nor even sexy — the picture is likely to offend only the daintiest of sensibilities. Unlike Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Lee in “Secretary” (2002), who made submission a feminist power move, Elliot is too cuddly to generate an erotic charge. His teddy-bear cuteness is the mov- ie’s safe word; ecstasy makes him look loopy rather than lustful. Moreover, he’s a bumbler who repeatedly misreads situa- tions, resulting in a disastrous threesome and a fumbled encounter with a worldly friend of Erika’s (Roxane Mesquida) who’s rightly repelled by his gauche eagerness. These missteps could have created some welcome friction in a screenplay (by Araki and Karley Sciortino) that’s as slick as Eri- ka’s well-lubed sex toys, a jokey ode to get- ting some that skirts the jagged shoals of genuine intimacy. It is also very, very funny; and Araki — whose wonderfully dar- ing “Mysterious Skin” (2005) remains his masterwork — directs with an appealing joyfulness. Still, it’s curious that someone who spends part of his movie condemning Gen Z-ers for their sexual conservatism and urging them to come out and join the party should now be so hesitant to take risks himself.
COLUMBIA PICTURES/SONY PICTURES
FILM REVIEW In the Middle of a War, There’s Lots of Mystery
Set in 1578, a story from Japan revels in sleuthing.
THE DIRECTOR Kiyoshi Kurosawa has never been a model of consistency, but when he’s on, he’s on. To a career that includes some of the best examples of contemporary Japa- nese horror (“Cure”) and domestic drama (“Tokyo Sonata”), he can now add a superb 16th-century period piece, “The Samurai and the Prisoner.” Although for more than 30 years his name has required the dis- claimer that he’s not related to Akira Kuro- sawa, in this case the comparison seems pertinent: “The Samurai and the Prisoner” is set at roughly the same time as that other Kurosawa’s late triumph “Kagemusha” (1980), and it recalls that film’s focus on leadership, strategy and deception. The source, however, is more recent: a 2021 novel by Honobu Yonezawa that the filmmaker has adapted himself. Despite its title, “The Samurai and the Prisoner” isn’t action-packed, at least not in the obvious sense. As the curtain rises, in 1578, Lord Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) has turned against a warlord, Oda, to whom he was pre- viously a loyal retainer. Murashige’s betray- al has left his castle under siege. When Kan- bei (Masaki Suda), an envoy from Oda, turns up with a message, Murashige takes him captive. That isn’t the samurai way, Kanbei insists; if he does not return and there is no proof of his death, Oda will think he has switched sides. Murashige’s refusal
LISA KENNEDY FILM REVIEW Go Tell How Life Was for a Young James Baldwin
A new feature imagines the gifted author before he became a literary quasar.
IMITATION MAY BE the sincerest form of flat- tery, but what the writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) has called forth is something more profound, expansive — and touching. Posthumously, he has inspired an intergen- erational call and response. Those stirred include but are hardly limited to: Ta-Nehisi Coates and his eloquent 2015 epistle, “Be- tween the World and Me”; and the film- maker Raoul Peck and “I Am Not Your Ne- gro” (2016), his elegiac and personal imag- ining of Baldwin’s unfinished book about his friendship with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. For his elegant debut feature, “Jimmy” — filmed in black and white — the Brooklyn- based director Yashaddai Owens took his Bolex movie camera to Turkey and then onto France to capture, he has said, “the essence” of the young and preternaturally gifted author who spent time in these two countries before he became a literary quasar.
The Devil’s Mouth Rated PG-13 for drowning and violent aquatic predators. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. On Amazon Prime Video.
It’s debatable whether the cre- ators of the killer-shark movie “The Devil’s Mouth” really care for us to pay attention. A direct- to-streaming Amazon Prime Video release, this creature fea- ture seems tailored for distracted viewers who glance up every few beats or so to take in another feeding frenzy — and even those aren’t that amusing. Directed by Jeff Wadlow, the film follows a familiar horror template: Five reckless college friends take a trip along the coast of Thailand, where they take a tour that goes awry. They find themselves in a submerged cave system that turns out to be men- aced by a hungry bull shark. Their local guide (Tayme Thap- thimthong, from “The White Lotus”) quickly, and understand- ably, abandons them as they bicker among themselves while the beast picks them off one by one in underwhelming, visually muddled attack scenes. Moments of unintentional silliness had me wishing the film had committed to some camp, but as it stands, the script suggests that the writers had something more serious in mind than a shark-feast Grand Guignol. Ten- sions among the leading ladies, the besties Sara (Kathryn New- ton) and Max (Lana Condor), aspire to the bruised psychologi- cal dynamics that fuel a subter- ranean survival thriller like “The Descent” (2005). But the many parallels with that film only em- phasize the gap between them, making “The Devil’s Mouth” come off like a dingy-fishbowl version of the real thing.
to kill Kanbei may feel merciful in the mo- ment, but it places Kanbei’s son, and his bloodline, at grave risk. At this point, “The Samurai and the Pris- oner” pulls a bit of a switch: It turns out to be less a war film than a series of whodun- its. Murashige is forced to solve a succes- sion of mysteries around the castle. Who murdered a young hostage without leaving a trace? Which clan deserves credit for the killing of an ambitious general? What ex- actly happened the night that a priest and a skilled swordsman were found dead, and what role did a priceless tea urn play in the crime? And finally, who shot a spy, in a pub- lic slaying that — thanks to a fortuitously timed lightning bolt — is understood by Murashige’s men as divine punishment? Kanbei becomes Murashige’s confidant, the only person shrewd enough to solve these puzzles. Kanbei’s motives involve a complex mix of enmity, intellectual prowess and mutual respect. “Not a single man, be- sides myself, can understand you,” Kanbei tells Murashige, who may not have the up- per hand. In one moment, Kanbei, still chai- ned, tricks him into slaughtering a guard. “The Samurai and the Prisoner” offers its share of gratifying sleuthing (the forensics behind a phantom arrow are especially fun), but the core of the movie is the inter- play between the men and their running ar-
Owens initially drops down into Istanbul, where his camera is a body, walking and watching. The filmmaker, who is the direc- tor, writer, cinematographer and editor, is offering a primer on how to inhabit this world as Baldwin had, with myriad glimpses up close, at a remove, blurred, tightly lensed. Gulls’ wings. A cat and man eye each other. Two women sit in front of a window on a ferry. Most memorably, a man appears to offer us a cup of coffee on a tray. It’s only after “Jimmy” shifts to Paris that we meet its titular subject whose transfor- mational journey is depicted in oblique, glancing ways. From the moment he gets in a taxi, he is often in a state of wide-eyed, heavy-lidded wonder. He’s curious, watch- ful. And in a twist, this movie about a loqua- cious thinker and prolific writer is almost word free. It’s a fact that makes the moment in which Baldwin (Benny O. Arthur) reads from his fourth nonfiction book, “No Name in the Street” (1972), incandescent, and what follows is both rousing and rending. Arthur embodies Baldwin with an avid grasp of the contemplative and the corpo- ral. Jimmy sees anew. He saunters. He pokes around park and outdoor markets. In his room, he dances birdlike — a duckling
Kathryn Newton in “The Devil’s Mouth,” a film directed by Jeff Wadlow that feels familiar.
Newton and Condor have enough personality to make their characters more than just floating appetizers — though their power struggle doesn’t sharpen the stakes so much as it merely pads the running time. Sara is the sympathetic one to Max’s tyrant, but I’m firmly team shark.
BEATRICE LOAYZA
AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
Wham! 10 Days in China Wham! 10 Days in China Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.
The British duo Wham!, a 1980s pop act equally adept at peppy earworms (the bopping “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”) and swoony ballads (the sax-driven “Careless Whisper”) had, along with their manager Simon Na- pier-Bell, one grand ambition: to play stadium shows in the United States. And how would they do that? By touring mainland China, of course. The logic is laid out in “Wham! 10 Days in China,” a zippy and intriguing documentary directed by Mike Christie. And the gambit worked — George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were able to tour the United States in 1985, almost immediately after their brief jaunt in China, which produced a publicity windfall.
gument about the role of ruthlessness in wartime. Murashige is a samurai who is re- luctant to kill, a noble stance that neverthe- less violates his code, as Kanbei continually reminds him, and that may invite karmic payback. Kurosawa doesn’t supply a simple answer as to whether Murashige’s instincts are justified. The movie is talky and densely plotted; it’s nearly impossible to catch every detail of the story in a single viewing, but it is also not necessary. Kurosawa directs with ma-
Masahiro Motoki in “The Samurai and the Prisoner,” based on a novel by Honobu Yonezawa.
The Samurai and the Prisoner Not rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 27 minutes. In theaters.
turned swan! He conjures Gene Kelly in “Singing in the Rain” as he moves along a boulevard. Only there’s no rain pouring down, just love bubbling up. And, finally, vi- tally, he begins writing. The scratching of pen to paper heralds a history beginning — his and ours. Recollection or recounting are not what
FILM REVIEWS
Napier-Bell describes the months of negotiations it took to book the concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou. Members of the British tabloid press got to tag along, and in archival footage, Michael is seen shooting homi- cidal stink-eyes at these fellows every now and then. (One of those journalists, Rick Sky, still
CLUE OF THE DAY
AN ISRAELITE MILITARY LEADER
LENDS HIS NAME
TO THIS SPECIES
OF YUCCA
FOR THE CORRECT
RESPONSE, WATCH
JEOPARDY! TONIGHT
OR LOOK IN THIS
SPACE MONDAY
IN THE TIMES.
Yesterday’s Response: WHAT IS A NEANDERTHAL?
7 p.m. on Channel 7
STRAND RELEASING
Benny O. Arthur portrays James Baldwin in “Jimmy,” a film directed by Yashaddai Owens.
seems delighted to play the vil- lain.) An unexpected hurdle for the band was the directive from Chinese authorities that audi- ences curb their enthusiasm while Michael and Ridgeley were performing. This flummoxed Michael, who prided himself on his ability to move a crowd. Much of the footage here was
ture economy: His excellent actors are aided by the shading of Yasuyuki Sasaki’s cinematography and by subtle coups of staging; various scrims and panels define the relationship between Murashige and his wife, Lady Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka), the only match for Kanbei in her ability to pre- dict his thoughts. Kurosawa’s well-timed camera moves cut like daggers. What emerges is a samurai picture that feels si- multaneously classical and modern, aus- tere and capacious, familiar and surprising.
Jimmy Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 7 minutes. In theaters.
Owens is after here. The notion of a reimag- ining falls even further from the truth of this cinematic evocation and deep-welled bene- diction. “Jimmy” aims to be restorative. It aches to bestow joy to him and to make sure we see this young pensive artist as a Black gay man far from a vexing home. Owens has made choices both nostalgic and in defiance of place and time. There is little effort to situate “Jimmy” in a set-de- signed past. The director delivers his vi- sions, at times hallucinatory, other times ec- static, with the sonic guidance of the com- poser Paco Andreo, who has concocted a de- licious score — with its sneaky, seductive snare, brushed cymbals and double bass — that is evocative of great Black jazz artists. And the film feels just suggestive enough of 1948 — the year Baldwin discovered the City of Light, or La Ville Lumière, a name that nods at the cinematic ambitions of the self-taught Owens. With “Jimmy,” he is working to capture Promethean lightning in a Bolex.
shot by the crew of the director Lindsay Anderson, who was hired by Wham!’s team to document the history-making trip. The concert scenes remind the viewer of how Wham! got so big in the first place — Michael was an undeniably phenomenal singer and stage presence.
GLENN KENNY
JANUS FILMS
How Artists Adapted to a New World
of Pop Art but rolls several movements into one.
Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now Through Jan. 10 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan; 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org.
JADED, PERMISSIVE, detached and amused, Pop Art was always hard to define. It seemed both to argue and to rebut the idea that all of visual experience, from Botticelli to family photos to Marlboro ads, occupies the same sensory plane and thus the same value to the indiscriminate eye. Though Anglo-American in origin, Pop sent its bright and perky shoots worldwide thanks to innovations in print technology. And the prophecy it fulfilled was French: the belief that any object could pose as high art. Marcel Duchamp’s death near Paris in 1968 was like an echo to the collapse of the movement back in London and New York. There is a kind of zombie spirit, then, to the subtitle of the Guggenheim Museum’s show “Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now.” Us- ing 45 works from the collection displayed across three floors, it argues that living art- ists, even young ones, have carried the ani- mating spirit of commodity and mechanical reproduction into our century. The first half of the show is old stuff: an assemblage by Jim Dine of painted rubber balls glued into a phony string of “Pearls” (1961); a puffy pay phone by Claes Olden- burg (1963); some squiggles of neon light by the Greek artist Chryssa from the late ’60s; Andy Warhol’s screen print grid of a photograph of an electric chair (1963). Some still flicker with some irony: the neon announcing nothing, the image of death repeated to the point of life. And many artworks show real handicraft — the puck- ered seams and ribboned canvas feathers of Oldenburg’s enormous “Soft Shuttlecock,” which he made with his wife Coosje van Bruggen in 1995 — to a degree of quaintness that I can’t imagine was intended. Patina now separates these works from the cyni-
WALKER MIMS ART REVIEW
Above, “Infinity Mirrored Room” (2019), an LED-lit mirror cube by Yayoi Kusama. Below, from left: “Soft Pay-Telephone” (1963), by Claes Oldenburg; and untitled squiggles of neon light from around 1967 by the Greek artist Chryssa.
ESTATE OF CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN, VIA SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
Left, “Demon of Lust” (2018), by Martine Gutierrez, whose portraits transform her into mythical women from ancient and Indigenous cultures. Below, an installation view of the Guggenheim’s Pop Art show, including Lucia Hierro’s giant shopping bag (2017-21), left.
YAYOI KUSAMA, VIA DAVID ZWIRNER, OTA FINE ARTS, AND SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
ESTATE OF CHRYSSA VARDEA, VIA SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
“Soft Shuttlecock” (1995), left, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, part of the show “Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now,” at the Guggenheim Museum.
cism with which they were designed to flirt. The inclusion of Yayoi Kusama is odd. Her white-on-gray painting of abstract pock- marks (1960) isn’t Pop by any definition I know. Certainly her “Infinity Mirrored Room” (2019) is poppy: an LED-lit mirror cube you can enter and watch yourself re- peat. Her first in this series, from 1965, prob- ably influenced Lucas Samaras, who made a sparser “Mirrored Room” in 1966 and is represented here by a meat carving set (1965) encased in velvet and rhinestones. But is it Pop? Is John Chamberlain, with his wad of automotive metal (1962)? In- stead of sufficiently defining its premise, this show rolls all of 1960s New York — con- ceptualism, minimalism, assemblage — into one movement. This puts the second half of the show at a disadvantage. Martine Gutierrez’s self-por- trait (2018) might have hit harder had the publication it first appeared in — Indige- nous Woman, her satire of Warhol’s maga- zine, Interview — been included beside it for context. Nor did I, a vigilant ’90s kid, quite catch the intended reference to the American Girl dolls in Cara Romero’s photograph, which shows a beautiful woman surrounded by, I read, woven baskets and other items from the subject’s roots in the Cochiti and San Il- defonso pueblos in New Mexico. (A more legible Native American satirist of the Y2K era is Joi T. Arcand, not present.) The strongest works conflate the aes- thetic and the commercial in ways that seem more effortless, like Lucia Hierro’s gi- ant shopping bag (2017-21) full of Olden- burgian soft commodities representing her culture, including cans of Goya coconut milk and screenshots from Dominican YouTube arrayed with clips from merengue music from the 1980s, some by her father’s band. The show’s curator, Lauren Hinkson, had a difficult task, it must be said. She worked solely from the museum’s collection. That limitation was meant to position the Guggenheim as a sort of home for the move- ment: Its 1963 show “Six Painters and the Object” brought early institutional legitima- cy to Dine, Roy Lichtenstein and Warhol, and also to Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschen- berg and James Rosenquist, who are miss- ing in action here. That show was curated by Lawrence Alloway, the British critic who coined the term “mass popular art,” soon shortened to “Pop.” Here, the artists are much more diverse, and they fill their work with self-referential details. As with the traveling show “Interna- tional Pop” in 2015, this one seems intended to correct the reputation that Pop was useful mainly to males in New York and a down- town boys’ club. (There’s uneven acknowl- edgment, however, of Oldenburg’s first wife, Patty Mucha, who sewed the “Freighter and Sailboat” and “Soft Pay-Telephone.”) At their most enlightening, those details explain a major difference in the way we view art now from the 1960s. The unique particulars of an artist’s life — ancestry, class, cultural signifiers — have come to matter more than the shared imagery that artists once borrowed, circa 1960, to hack into the collective unconscious. Step back from Yee I-Lann’s lovely, fruiti- ly colored mats (2018-19) woven from dyed palm fibers, and you’ll notice the silhouettes of office desks. I-Lann associates desks with “patriarchy and colonialism,” she has said. Before gaining independence in 1957, her native Malaysia was Portuguese, and then Dutch and then British. The subliminal fur- niture, the wall text says, “rearticulates power dynamics between Indigenous Ma- lay peoples and colonial governments.” It’s not that the Pop Artists were apolitical and now need a spanking. In the ’80s, Olden- burg realized his dream of a banana monu- ment in a poster protesting American inter- vention in Central America. In the ’90s, Richard Hamilton redid his founding col- lage of the movement, “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Ap- pealing?” (1956), with a blatant fury over the Persian Gulf war, AIDS and the rise of Jeff Koons. (Would Koons have helped or harmed this show?) Conscience always sort of lurked. But a big complaint, lodged best by Tom Wolfe, was always that Pop spoke its ironies mainly to art people. It’s partly true: The marketing of art could be the darkest, most visible legacy of Pop. Maybe that’s why Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” (2019), his banana taped to the wall to expose the decadence of art-world spectacle, graces “Guggenheim Pop.” Maybe, too, it’s why Hamilton’s fiberglass triptych depicting the Guggenheim’s spiral exterior (1965-66) appears, followed by vid- eo works about artists inside that spiral: a bratty and eventually kind of funny video about Duchamp and Brancusi by Alex Da Corte (2022), and then a VHS recording of a Warhol film that Douglas Gordon secretly made at a public screening in 1998. Art about art about art. For a second, though, Pop was something more. For view- ers it was appealing, as evidenced by Pop’s influence on fashion and design. And for art- ists it was survival: the soup can as totem, the stretched canvas as flag — these were pre-emptive, if smart-alecky, ways to en- dure an attention economy that had flat- tened all the old distinctions between use and value. Johns and Warhol were learning to live in this depraved new world. And learn we must. On my walk to the show, I passed storefronts, bus stop ads, deli windows showing actors and acai bowls dreamed up by A.I., inclusive avatars in the Corporate Memphis style and chillingly cheerful vector graphics. When an artist comes along to inhale and exhale all that, with some distinctly human critical distance, then that might once again go pop.
VIA POLINA BERLIN GALLERY, NEW YORK, AND LUXEMBOURG + CO., LONDON; PHOTO BY STEVEN PROBERT
LEE FRIEDLANDER, VIA LUHRING AUGUSTINE, AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK
Top left, Katsumi Nakai’s “L’oggetto si sboccia 44-146” (1972). Left, “New York City” (1966/circa 2011), a gelatin silver print by Lee Friedlander. Right, an installation view of “Wyatt Kahn: Works on Paper 2011-2026.”
Through Aug. 8 (and later by appointment). Polina Berlin Gallery, 121 West 27th Street, Manhattan; polinaberlingallery.com.
In 1964, the artist Katsumi Nakai left Japan for a trip planned through Europe and the United States — “following the sun,” he called it. He got as far as midday. Captivated by the mix of classi- cal masterworks and experi- mental ferment in Milan, Nakai relocated his family and stayed for 30 years, entering that city’s circle of progressive artists: Enrico Baj, Edmondo Bacci and Lucio Fontana, whose Movimento Spaziale, or Spatialism, chal- lenged painting’s limitations as a fixed surface meant to be ap- proached. Fontana slashed and poked holes in the canvas. Nakai’s solution, both gentler and more radical, was to allow a painting to approach a viewer. He began cutting and assem- bling wooden panels into subtle layers — notched keyholes and peek-a-boo apertures revealing an underpainting below. His hinged
O____D
Put two stars in each row, column and region of the grid. No two stars may touch, not even diagonally.
Copyright © 2024 www.krazydad.com
What classical composer’s name can go in the blank to complete a familiar word?
YESTERDAY’S ANSWER I’d write so much haiku / But there’s one small issue / I don’t know how to count PUZZLE BY WILL SHORTZ
much”
short
ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES KenKen
ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES
paintings went further, the panels jointed so that the paintings could insinuate themselves into space. He called these “l’oggetto si sboc- cia” (“the object is unfolding”). They gave the painting agency, allowing it to protest, defend itself, misbehave. Folded, they’re tidy monochromatic squares; opened, they flower into unruliness. Two of them are here, in the artist’s first, and overdue, U.S. solo exhibition. Works like “L’oggetto si sboccia 44-146” (1972), with its pendulous forms, and “Hiraku 54 Osaka” (1981), with flaps and folds in fleshy tones, playfully allude to human anatomy. Static collages retain Nakai’s humor, their pieces flirt- ing with sedition. Nakai’s approach wedded the Western avant-garde to tradi- tional Japanese sensibility and craftsmanship. His works synthe- sized origami; kiri-e, the meticu- lous Japanese art of paper cut- ting; and butsudan, the domestic cabinet shrines that honor de- parted relatives, with the altar- pieces he encountered wandering into Milanese churches. Remarkably, Nakai never learned Italian (“l’oggetto si sboc-
cia” contains a basic conjugation error). He created his own lan- guage instead.
‘The Vandals’ Through Aug. 7. Gladstone, 515 West 24th Street, Manhattan; 212-206-9300, gladstonegallery.com.
In Honoré de Balzac’s “The Un- known Masterpiece” (1831), the aging painter Frenhofer destroys all his work and kills himself after a bad studio visit. A similarly dismal end comes in the Edith Wharton gothic novella “The House of the Dead Hand” (1904) to young Sybilla, whose imperious father’s obsession with a (possi- bly fake) Leonardo da Vinci paint- ing destroys her life. As summer group shows go, the organizing logic of two fables about consumptive works of art is gloomier than most, though it is edgy for a commercial gallery to remind collectors that art can make you insane. The appeal is undeniable. Featuring some of art’s premier weirdos, misfits and refuseniks and dripping in sump-
tuous melodrama, down to the heavy red velvet curtains block- ing out the sunlight, it’s an effec- tive antidote to summer. Curated with palpable glee by Alissa Bennett and Julian Ehrlich, the selections can’t resist compo- sitional affinities: Weegee’s flash- bulb perp walk shot hangs next to Joseph Yaeger’s positively Sirkian “Injuries fated are no less painful” (2025). The vague menace of Lee Friedlander’s “New York City” (1966/circa 2011), with the photog- rapher’s shadow darkening the back of his subject’s bouffant, is echoed in Alex Katz’s “Ada’s Back 2” (2021), the painter’s wife iden- tifiable only by a spectral mop of silver hair. The show luxuriates in melan- choly. There are despondent spells, disembodied eyes, half- glimpsed bodies and some light body horror (Tamo Jugeli’s “The Secret” (2026), an abstract paint- ing evoking a small intestine in drippy blood red). A spooky air prevails: Mark Leckey’s “Made in ’Eaven,” which flies around the aluminum contours of Jeff Koons’s “Rabbit,” turns out to be a ghost story when you realize the shiny bunny betrays no reflection.
DOWN
Edited by Will Shortz
ACROSS
1 Withholding
something?
4 It’ll pass!
7 Silent type
11 Sex work?
14 Screen name
15 Tennis feat
involving four consecutive major tournament wins in two calendar years
16 Grime
17 Honey, for
example
18 Energy source
for distance runners
20 World Economic
Forum, e.g., for short
21 Tripping
22 Style secured
with a scrunchie
24 Tobiko or
masago
25 Twists of fate,
say
28 Pharyngitis docs
30 Exuding joy
31 Went hell for
leather
33 Cry when
shaking hands
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE
R E S E T S H A R E D H O P E X T R A K O S O V O A P T C H A R L I E S H E E N R H O T A N K N E E N O V E L O L D P R O A L P H A M A L E R E B R A N D O L E G R I M D Y E D A P C A L C D A Y S I E R R A C L U B P I G O R I O L E R O S S C H A N M E N S P I R I T S G O L F R A N G E L O N D O N A P P L E L A O S E N O M E A N A T O A L P H A B E T E S L T R E A T S O V E R T S O S S T E R E O P A T S Y
Is the viewer dead, or merely invisible? Is there a difference? Balzac says no. The tragedy of the misunderstood genius is a seductive one. So is the delusion.
Wyatt Kahn Through Aug. 12. Rodder, 22 East 80th Street, Manhattan; 212-510-8487, rodder.nyc.
The 36 works on view here are so varied in style and execution — splotchy gouaches, goofy car- toons, schematic collages, pencil scribbles, woodcuts — that they suggest the work of three dozen artists. But just one is responsi- ble: Wyatt Kahn, a New Yorker whose 15-year survey of works on paper, from 2011 to 2026, consti- tutes a one-man group show. Kahn typically works large: sliced wood panels assembled into what are technically wall- works but conceptually are paint- less paintings. Kahn likes to play at sculpture without actually making sculpture, though he has conceded to the form, in a series of outdoor works made from Cor-Ten steel. He builds stutter-
34 “This is too
37 Blind
component
41 Wiseacre
43 What a closed
fist with an extended index finger represents, in A.S.L.
44 Where to be
above all the drama?
45 Pierre : French ::
___ : Russian
47 Maryland
governor Moore
48 Perspective, for
49 Casual Friday
option
51 Result of a
shopping spree
53 Highly flexible
discipline?
55 Brazilian state
whose name is a unit of measurement
56 Relative of a
tumbler
57 Cuisine with tom
kha kai
58 Business with
lockers
59 All good
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14
15 16
17 18 19 20
21 22 23
24 25 26 27
28 29 30
31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43
44 45 46
47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54
55 56
57 58 59
1 Palm-sized
pastry
2 Assenting
chorus
3 Shangri-La
4 Make one
5 Seat of Fulton
County: Abbr.
6 British
counterpart to “Shark Tank”
7 Just OK, in
modern lingo
8 “Mind. Blown.”
9 Part of Fermat’s
copy of “Arithmetica” where he wrote his Last Theorem
GENEVIEVE HANSON/RODDER, NEW YORK
ing, monochromatic constructions of cascading forms and negative space à la Louise Nevelson, or like the accidental geometries achieved by yanking up louvered blinds too quickly. His visual grammar is partial to fractured shapes, and finding depth in flatness. Last fall, Rod- der showed Kahn’s translucent vinyl-wrapped stretcher bars whose lambent jewel tones and jumbled polygons suggested impossible stained glass windows, or constructivist paintings after a tremor. Studies, like “Construc- tion (after Laszlo Moholy-Nagy) 4th sketch” (2026), show how those larger pieces began life. The transparent nature of those wall pieces allowed a viewer the uncommon opportunity to peer into the guts of a painting. Kahn’s generosity of spirit continues here. The selection reveals a restless artist dedicated to experi- mentation. Drawings, prints and reliefs deploy correction fluid, tape, frosted vellum and paper pulp packed into runic cunei- forms. There are unrealized ideas, false starts and dead ends — a process, in other words, made visible.
12 Tech mogul
Altman
13 Change for a bill
15 Reproductive
part of a fern
19 Youngest Bennet
sister in “Pride and Prejudice”
22 Patrick, to
SpongeBob
23 Rings
26 Venue for events
that guests are always on board to attend?
27 Some all-
nighters
PUZZLE BY RAFAEL MUSA
7/31/26
35 Formal pause in
a line of poetry
36 Certain shot,
colloquially
38 “Heads up!”
39 Insect product
in the salad yum khai mod daeng
40 ___ incognita
41 “And …?”
42 Brief periods
46 Self-
congratulation
49 Hindu deity
depicted with four arms
50 Denial in
ings and materials pinned to curved boards lining the room. It was still members’ hour, and not too crowded, although a line had already formed to sit with van Herpen. The atmos- phere was peaceful and contemplative, as visitors moved slowly around the gallery, sometimes stopping at a long table to look at materials through microscopes. Van Herpen pulled silver fabric from a bolt at a side table, and cut off a section, passing it to me. It was, she said, fine black silk woven together with even finer alu- minum threads, “about one-fifth of a human hair.” She showed me how the fabric would pleat in only one direction and said to do it as tightly or loosely as I liked. As we began to pleat (I discovered I was a tight pleater, clearly an indicator of personality), we started to talk about meeting the previous year, when I had interviewed her about cos- tumes she had created for a new work at New York City Ballet. Despite her high-tech fabrics and innova- tive techniques, I had also seen the pains- taking hand-finished, almost meditative na- ture of the work. Van Herpen nodded, say- ing that this was how she had started work- ing 20 years ago. “I wanted to give people a sense of the in- timate part of the process,” she said, adding that for many designers, the concept is the focus, and then the design is handed over to others to make. “For me, the making, the draping and the handwork is where the look evolves,” she said. Matthew Yokobosky, a senior curator at the Brooklyn Museum, explained, “Each person pleating with her has their own his- tory, their own dexterity, and she is bringing those unknowns into making this dress.” Amid the swirl of visitors around us, the hum was increasing slightly, as our fingers pleated almost unconsciously. “When you work on something together, there is a trust
The K-pop group’s decision follows the creation of a new Asian pop category.
By MAX KIM and BEN SISARIO
SEOUL — The K-pop supergroup BTS said it would not compete in the 69th annual Grammy Awards, a month after the organi- zation behind the awards show announced a new category for Asian pop. “We have decided not to submit an entry for Grammy consideration this year,” the group’s seven members said in a statement written in Korean and shared across their individual social media accounts on Wednesday. “We hope music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided into region or language.” Neither the group nor its record com- pany, Hybe, commented further. But the move appeared to be a protest against the new category, best Asian pop music per- formance, which will be awarded for the first time at the next Grammys ceremony, on Feb. 7. “I am saddened to hear that BTS has cho- sen not to participate in the Grammy Awards process this year,” Harvey Mason Jr., chief executive of the academy, said in a statement. “But as a music creator, I under- stand and respect their decision,” Mason, a producer and songwriter, added.
BTS’s decision means its comeback al- bum, “Arirang,” which topped charts around the world after its release in March, will not contend for the awards. Under Re- cording Academy rules, artists or the com- panies that represent them must submit re- cordings to be considered. In his statement, Mason added that sub- mitting music to a genre category would not preclude an artist from also submitting to the top categories like record, album or song of the year. Artist boycotts have been a frequent haz- ard for the Recording Academy in recent years. Frank Ocean, Drake, the Weeknd and other top artists have refused to submit their music, often over complaints that the Grammys have frequently failed to recog- nize artists of color in top categories. Some artists have had other complaints. Last year, Morgan Wallen, one of country
MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BTS performing at the World Cup final in July in East Rutherford, N.J.
The album ‘Arirang,’ which topped charts, won’t be a contender.
music’s new superstars, refused to submit his music after having been largely ignored in nominations. In 2021, the Weeknd cited the academy’s “secret committees” — anon- ymous panels that screened nominations in dozens of categories. That practice was mostly, but not entirely, eliminated in 2021. The Weeknd reconciled with the Acad- emy, and performed at the 2025 ceremony, but his most recent album, “Hurry Up To- morrow,” was snubbed in the nominations for the awards held earlier this year. The Recording Academy announced the new Asian pop prize as a way to recognize the recent rise of K-pop, J-pop, C-pop and other styles as among “the most significant and sustained forces in the global music in- dustry,” Mason said when the academy re- vealed the new award. But some fans were quick to denounce the new category, saying it would effec- tively marginalize Asian performers and present a barrier to their being nominated in the top categories. K-pop has had a spotty record at the Grammys, despite its enormous popularity over the last decade. BTS, a South Korean group that has been perhaps the genre’s greatest force in cross- ing over into the global pop mainstream, has been nominated for five Grammys but never won. The group has appeared on the show three times, including a spy-themed performance of its song “Butter” at the 2022
Above, the designer Iris van Herpen, center, at the museum as part of the exhibition. Left, the Seijaku Dress on display there.
that is created and conversations become much more personal very quickly,” van Her- pen said. “I have heard really beautiful per- sonal stories, hopes and dreams.” She added that when working with one’s hands, “your mind sort of relaxes; my most creative thought processes happen like this.” I observed that each person leaves a dif- ferent imprint on the fabric, much like hand- writing. That textural variety was one of the wonderful aspects of the experience, van Herpen said, testament to the individuality of each pleater. “These conversations are recorded, and I am going to select moments that inspired and moved me and embroider those on the inside of the dress,” she said. “It will be a time capsule of this moment.” This past weekend van Herpen also be- gan draping fabric pieces on a mannequin. “I always do this alone, never with people around me, so it’s a little scary,” she said. “But that is a good reason to do it.” She didn’t know what the final design would look like, but it will be “influenced by the people of New York — their conversa- tions, their life stories. That will all be in the final outcome of this look.” Van Herpen will return to the museum in late October for more performance sessions and the final stages of making the dress. “I don’t know what it will be, and I don’t want to know,” she said. “I want my hands to drape; I believe them more than my mind.”
Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses Through Dec. 6 at the Brooklyn Museum; 718-638-5000, brooklynmuseum.org. The show requires timed tickets. Van Herpen returns in October.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN J WEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ceremony in Las Vegas. At the most recent Grammys ceremony, in February, the Netflix phenom “KPop De- mon Hunters” drove the first K-pop win, when the songwriters of the film’s breakout track, “Golden,” took home best song writ- ten for visual media. The new Grammy category for Asian pop was the result of years of debate within the Recording Academy over how to properly recognize K-pop, and it comes as the gov- erning body has taken steps to globalize it- self as the world’s ultimate arbiter of musi- cal acclaim. In 2024, the Grammys gave out the award for best African music performance for the first time. In October, the academy will hold a series of performances and panel discus- sions in Giza, Egypt, in the shadow of the pyramids. The debate over how race and language have affected Western attitudes toward K- pop has figured prominently in the arc of BTS’s career. During the production for “Arirang,” the group’s members pushed back against pressure from producers to in- clude more English-language lyrics for greater global appeal, according to a recent Netflix documentary. The album, in the end, was released with far more English than Korean.
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