The New York Times - 15.09.2026.pdf

“所有值得印刷的新闻”

纽约时报

第 CLXXV 卷 .... 第 61,008 号

© 2026 纽约时报公司

星期二，SEPTEMBER 15, 2026

天气

今日，晴，干燥，有风，最高 72. 今晚，局部多云，微风，最低 62. 明日，大部分时间晴，西南风 4-8 英里 / 小时，最高 79. 天气图见 B12 页。

加拿大境内价格可能更高

$4.00

特朗普在邮寄选票问题上再次受挫

下级法院法官称 该计划很可能非法

作者：扎克·蒙塔古

华盛顿 —— 在最高法院权衡特朗普政府修改邮寄投票计划的合法性之际，第二位下级法院法官在周日深夜裁定，该计划极有可能非法，应在 11 月大选前被拦截。

这一裁决由特朗普任命的卡尔·J·尼科尔斯法官做出，给特朗普总统的努力再次带来打击。特朗普试图增加新条件，这可能会增加邮寄投票的难度，并使联邦政府在搜寻欺诈证据时更容易审查各州的选民名册。

最高法院正在考虑另一位驻马萨诸塞州的联邦法官做出的类似裁决。由奥巴马任命的因迪拉·塔尔瓦尼法官多次认定，该计划可能违宪，且在如此接近选举的时间点实施，可能会剥夺选民的投票权。

华盛顿联邦地区法院的尼科尔斯法官写道，如果他停止该规则的实施，特朗普政府并未提供任何“证据表明即将到来的选举中会出现重大欺诈”。另一方面他写道，如果该规则生效，将存在“增加风险，导致大量原本合格的缺席或邮寄选票最终在即将到来的选举中无法被计入”。

他写道：“公众在确保这种情况不发生方面有强烈的利益。”

尼科尔斯法官的裁决源于由包括民主党参议院竞选委员会在内的民主党阵营团体联盟以及多家民权组织共同发起的诉讼。马萨诸塞州的诉讼则是由民主党州总检察长联盟和投票权利团体发起的。

尼科尔斯法官曾在 5 月裁定，他不能阻止邮政局起草该规则，也不能在规则获批前预先宣布其必然非法。最高法院上个月也同样裁定，法院介入阻止特朗普计划还为时过早。

但尼科尔斯法官表示，他将在邮政局批准该条例后重新审查此问题，而邮政局已于 8 月批准了该条例。他现在认定该提案应被拦截，这可能为大法官们如何看待该问题提供一个预演。

在周一的一份法院文件中，特朗普政府正式

续见 A17 页

俄罗斯人如果不提交生物识别数据，就无法充分利用数字服务——例如自动进入地铁。 NANNA HEITMANN 为《纽约时报》供图

调查发现：移民被关押在狭小笼子中

本文由 Madeleine Ngo, Hamed Aleaziz 和 David Ovalle 撰写。

华盛顿 —— 根据国土安全部独立监察机构的一份新报告，位于佛罗里达大沼泽地的一家州立移民拘留中心未能遵守一系列联邦拘留标准，导致环境拥挤，并将移民禁锢在“小型金属围栏”中。

接 A15 页

该报告对这家设施提出了进一步质疑，该设施已成为特朗普政府残酷对待移民被拘留者的代名词。特朗普总统曾开玩笑说，该地位置如此偏远，以至于被拘留者必须学会“如何从短吻鳄手中逃跑”。在遭到关于环境和成本的批评后，该设施被关闭，并且——

报告称，在监察机构（即该部门的监察长办公室）此前检查过的设施中，使用此类围栏的情况是前所未有的，并且给被拘留者的健康和安全带来了“重大风险”。报告重点关注了一家名为“短吻鳄阿尔卡特拉斯”（Alligator Alcatraz）的高关注度设施，该设施在今年夏天关闭前受到了严厉审查。

新闻分析

被敌手围困的沙特，感到被特朗普冷落

作者：VIVIAN NEREIM

沙特阿拉伯利雅得 —— 沙特阿拉伯日益发现自己陷入了美国与伊朗战争的夹缝之中。目前，该王国的领导层正在评估应对方案中日益减少的选择。

分析人士和前外交官表示，近几周来，也门境内与伊朗结盟的胡塞武装多次袭击该王国，威胁要扼杀其石油出口能力，并给全球经济增加压力。但由于特朗普总统不愿对抗胡塞武装，沙特阿拉伯感到沮丧和失望。

该王国与伊朗接触的外交努力也收效甚微。原定于周一在伊朗、沙特阿拉伯及其他波斯湾国家官员之间举行的会议在周日晚上被突然推迟，因为各方立场之间的差距依然巨大。

“现在沙特人真的很沮丧，”前美国驻沙特阿拉伯大使迈克尔·拉特尼（Michael Ratney）表示，“在某种意义上，这是他们最糟糕的情况。”

负责处理记者查询的沙特政府国际传播中心未回应置评请求。

该王国的困境凸显了沉重的代价，而这些代价——

接 A8 页

在莫斯科，乐于助人的机器人兼任间谍

作者：IVAN NECHEPURENKO

莫斯科 —— 从表面上看，今天的莫斯科是一个技术奇迹之城。你可以使用面部识别来支付几乎所有费用，比如地铁票，甚至可以用来完成公寓的购买。机器人穿梭在人行道上进行 15 分钟快速配送，无人驾驶出租车也将于今年开始商业服务。

支撑许多现代便利设施的是一个强大的数字基—。

利用面部扫描追捕批评者

市政府开发的数字化基础设施不仅让生活变得更便捷，而且更安全。在数字化工具的辅助下，警务工作的提升巩固了莫斯科的转型——使其告别了25年前那个充满暴力且残酷的时代，那时那里深受入室盗窃、街头抢劫和谋杀之苦。

但这种便利与安全是有代价的：一个不断扩张的监控国家。

莫斯科拥有约300,000个闭路电视（CCTV）摄像头，使其成为全球监控最严密的城市之一。在城市中行走，几乎不可能避开镜头的捕捉。那些让地铁乘客快速通过闸机的摄像头，也被用于监控和标记人员。

今年4月，一名俄罗斯摇滚音乐——（接第A10页）

鲍勃·麦基（BOB MACKIE）的赠礼，经由史密森学会提供 塞莱斯特·斯洛曼（CELESTE SLOMAN）为《纽约时报》拍摄

鲍勃·麦基，1939-2026 哈里·朗登（HARRY LANGDON） / 盖蒂图片社（GETTY IMAGES）

半个多世纪以来，他设计的华丽且大胆的服装装点了诸如雪儿（Cher）和卡罗尔·伯内特（Carol Burnett）等名流，其中伯内特的那件窗帘裙（右上图）被史密森学会永久收藏。见B11页。

新闻分析

俄罗斯试图削弱与基辅的联系

火车险些被击中，是对西方的警告

作者：珍娜·斯米亚莱克（JEANNA SMIALEK）和劳拉·杰克斯（LARA JAKES）

乌克兰的铁路网络是其与西方联系的纽带。由于该国上空领空关闭，火车日夜在边境线上缓慢行驶，将包括贾里德·库什纳（Jared Kushner）在内的官员和显贵，以及普通民众在基辅与外界之间运送。铁路既是生命线，也是支持的有力象征。

欧洲官员表示，俄罗斯周末对乌克兰与波兰边境附近一个车站的袭击，险些击中包括前中央情报局（C.I.A.）局长大卫·彼得雷斯（David Petraeus）在内的离境外国访客。这次袭击不仅是对乌克兰基础设施的攻击，更是对这些纽带的攻击。

俄罗斯正使用日益先进的武器攻击火车，而乌克兰正艰难地试图与之抗衡。周一，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·S·佩斯科夫（Dmitri S. Peskov）并未否认对该线路的袭击；上周，当该线路运送特朗普政府特使前往基辅时，乌克兰人将其称为“和平快车”。佩斯科夫先生表示：“我们的军队正在乌克兰全境执行任务——他们一直在这样做，也将继续这样做。”

欧洲领导人表示，这次袭击是俄罗斯升级攻势的一部分，旨在乌克兰处于一个极其危险的时刻制造混乱并削弱西方联盟。

欧盟最高外交官卡娅·卡拉斯（Kaja Kallas）周一表示：“这显然是为了恐吓西方国家，使其不敢支持乌克兰，不敢前往乌克兰表达支持。对我们来说，问题在于我们如何解读这一信息？”

近年来，各国政府和研究人员指责俄罗斯对乌克兰的盟友进行破坏活动和混合攻击。上个月，在德国东部莱比锡一个机场的货运终端发现了一架携带爆炸装置的无人机，柏林方面将此事件归咎于莫斯科。俄罗斯的虚假信息传播和选举干预已变得普遍，GPS干扰也同样如此，这可能会中断通信和导航。

袭击的时机值得关注。无人机袭击击中了彼得雷斯先生乘坐火车附近的一列火车，且发生在另一列火车离境后不久，后者载有英国前首相鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）以及其他欧洲政治家和外交官。

北约（NATO）秘书长马克·鲁特（Mark Rutte）表示，这次袭击显示了俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京（Vladimir V. Putin）的“绝望”。鲁特先生表示，北约将通过加倍支持乌克兰以及潜在的秘密行动来做出回应。

研究机构德国马歇尔基金（German Marshall Fund）华沙办事处主任菲利普·贝德纳奇克（Philip Bednarczyk）表示，俄罗斯的攻击旨在测试“以及

续见 A10 页

脑植入物临床试验：女性通过想象词汇实现交流

作者：帕姆·贝尔鲁克（PAM BELLUCK）

一家公司周一宣布，在尖端的脑机接口领域取得的一项进展中，一名患有瘫痪性神经疾病的患者使用脑植入物实现了实时对话，甚至在仅通过思考说话内容时也能完成交流。

这项由 Paradromics 公司研发的成果，是此类实验性设备（被称为 B.C.I.s）的最新进展。这些系统通过在脑内植入电极来读取神经信号，并利用人工智能对这些信号进行解码。

这名来自密歇根州的 68 岁女性已失去大部分说话能力，她能够使用该设备通过计算机生成的语音进行自发对话，包括与孙辈进行电话交流。

当她尝试在生理上说话时，大脑会产生信号，由电极读取，经由人工智能传输并显示在计算机屏幕上，随后由屏幕将文字朗读出来。当该女性在不移动说话肌肉的情况下想象要说什么时，该系统同样能产生语音。

专家表示，由于 Paradromics 系统是无线的，不需要患者通过电缆连接到计算机，因此它展示了失去说话能力的患者可能如何能够

接 A18 页

NATIONAL A13-19

审视帕克斯顿的狡诈一面 他在 2023 年在德克萨斯州经历的弹劾审判，成为了其充满丑闻的职业生涯中一个标志性的片段。第 A16 页

麦康奈尔重返国会山 这位来自肯塔基州的 84 岁参议员在经历一次健康事件后，已缺席三个多月。第 A15 页

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

特立尼达和多巴哥动荡 在一名少数族裔成员被指控基于一次私人电话计划进行暗杀后，种族和政治紧张局势升级。第 A4 页

错失关键气候目标 随着全球气温升高超过 1.5 摄氏度，那些曾为《巴黎协定》该目标而奋斗的国家正面临残酷的新现实。第 A11 页

中国警告人工智能威胁

即便北京敦促美国不要夸大人工智能的危险，但其情报部门负责人正将这项技术定义为对党安全的一种威胁。第 A11 页

BUSINESS B1-6

人工智能担忧导致科技股下跌 在行业领导者对该技术的安全性表示担忧后，处于人工智能前沿的公司股价出现下跌。第 B1 页

债券收益率引发关注 受战争、人工智能以及对这两者的过度支出推动，10 年期国债收益率突破 5%。第 B1 页

SPORTS B7-10

NFL 第一周：号角响起 比尔队的乔什·艾伦（Josh Allen）和熊队的卡莱布·威廉姆斯（Caleb Williams）等四分卫表现惊艳。第 B9 页

ARTS C1-8

席琳·迪翁回归巴黎 这位法裔加拿大歌手在六年来首次完整的演唱会表演中显得身体虚弱但意志坚定。第 C2 页

奏响希望之音 小号手兼作曲家温顿·马萨利斯（Wynton Marsalis）在弗吉尼亚州首演了他的第五交响曲《自由》。第 C1 页

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

数学家的学徒 当时 92 岁的琼·比尔曼（Joan Birman）认为她的重大发现已成过去。随后，一名 15 岁的女孩联系了她。第 D4 页

透析后的喘息

一名患者在接受人类器官移植前，曾使用一个基因改造猪的肾脏维持生命。第 D3 页

OPINION A20-21

马修·施密茨（Matthew Schmitz）

第 A21 页

纽约时报

A.G. 萨尔兹伯格（A.G. SULZBERGER） 发行人

创立于 1851 年

阿道夫·S·奥克斯（ADOLPH S. OCHS） 发行人 1896-1935

亚瑟·海斯·萨尔兹伯格（ARTHUR HAYS SULZBERGER） 发行人 1935-1961

奥维尔·E·德赖福斯（ORVIL E. DRYFOOS） 发行人 1961-1963

作者：薇薇安·尤因（VIVIAN EWING）

四个新专栏。一次时事通讯的改造。一个探索人类知识边缘的特别项目。

今年夏天，《纽约时报》的一个领域一直在演变、蜕变，像竹子一样生长，像大爆炸一样扩张。从本周开始，在部门新负责人比尔·瓦西克（Bill Wasik）的带领下，科学版面将推出新的报道领域、专栏和项目。

瓦西克先生在《时报杂志》（The Times Magazine）工作了过去 12 年，最近担任编辑总监。在长期担任部门负责人的塞莉亚·W·达格（Celia W. Dugger）退休后，他于 4 月接管了科学版面。

“科学报道中最让我兴奋的是其中的观点，”瓦西克先生说。“这也是我一直以来对待杂志编辑工作的方式。作为一名编辑——无论是我在世界上看到某些事情发生，还是收到作家的提案——我总是问自己：‘这里的核心观点是什么？这对未来以及我们的发展方向意味着什么？’”

瓦西克先生讨论了该版面报道内容的增加以及他最期待的项目。以下是对话的编辑摘录。

是什么促成了最近的这些变化？

早在 2017 年，《时报》将所有健康报道统一归在科学版面下，这意味着该版面做了大量关于健康政治和政策的报道。但当乔 [卡恩（Joe Kahn），《纽约时报》执行编辑] 在为该版面寻找新领导者时，他希望重新组织报道内容——并非为了减少健康报道，而是为了让我们的版面能够投资于新的报道领域，以及更多专注于科学本身的作者。

我们招聘了一名生物技术记者，最终引入了来自《华盛顿邮报》的杰出科学记者卡罗琳·Y·约翰逊（Carolyn Y. Johnson）。我们还聘请了来自《连线》（Wired）杂志的中国科学特派员杨泽毅（Zeyi Yang），以开启关于中国作为科学超级大国崛起的全新报道领域。

为了在版面中启动人工智能（A.I.）报道领域，我们引入了凯德·梅茨（Cade Metz），他此前一直在为商业版面报道人工智能。随后，我们最近宣布聘请来自 STAT 的埃里克·布德曼（Eric Boodman）担任我们的国家科学特派员——他的工作将是在科学领域寻找那些与其说是关于结果，不如说是关于人、机构和过程的故事。

你的背景并非专门从事科学。是什么吸引你担任这个职位？我在大学时主修数学，一直对科学感兴趣。但在我之前的所有工作中——在《哈珀杂志》（Harper's Magazine）、《连线》杂志以及随后的《时报杂志》——我一直是一名全才。真正专注于科学对我来说绝对是一个新的转向，这也是我第一份在杂志以外的工作。

我的首要任务是向我的同事学习，包括版面内部以及报社内其他部门的同事，学习那些作为杂志编辑无法学到的新闻报道的所有环节。目前，我非常意识到自己正处于这个学习曲线上，尽管我作为杂志编辑带来了一些技能和直觉，这将有助于我们将新闻报道呈现给普通受众。

趣闻实录

在 30 到 49 岁的美国成年人中，近一半的人至少有一个纹身。 《健康问答》：我想纹身，但这真的安全吗？D6

1939 年，英国国王乔治六世和伊丽莎白王后在纽约州海德公园的富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统庄园野餐时，被招待食用热狗。 莫迪在峰会上被招待无肉晚餐，其批评者面色惨淡 A12

在成为电视节目“朱迪法官”之前，朱迪思·B·谢德林曾为一家化妆品公司从事公司法业务。当她觉得这份工作不再能带来成就感时，她选择了离开，并加入纽约家庭法院系统担任检察官。“朱迪法官”将卸任 C7

美国球员已有 23 年没有赢得过男子网球大满贯单打冠军了。 对于谢尔顿而言，一次失败可能会为未来的胜利铺平道路 B8

槟榔能释放出具有精神活性刺激作用的物质，全球约有 6 亿人食用。 在古老口腔的磨牙中， 发现了最早成瘾者的证据 D2

1846 年，英国化学家兼矿物学家詹姆斯·史密森去世，并将遗产留给在美国首都建立一个“旨在增加和传播知识”的机构，随后国会创建了史密森学会。 史密森学会将如何 选出新负责人 C4

根据 AAA 汽车俱乐部的统计，美国周一每加仑柴油的平均价格攀升至 \$6.23，自 2 月 28 日美国和以色列袭击伊朗以来，上涨了约 66%。 特朗普将全球柴油短缺 归咎于乌克兰 B3

迷你填字游戏

作者：乔尔·法利亚诺 9 / 15 / 2026

横向 1 “那是显而易见的！”（俚语） 5 一英里等于 5,280 英尺 6 测试中的 F 等级 8 “饶了我吧！” 9 人行横道上的“禁止通行”标志

纵向 1 名称中带有感叹号的驱虫喷雾品牌 2 加利福尼亚州的 ____ 滩 (Long ____) 3 史酷比帮中聪明的成员 4 “我们开始吧” 7 结论

前一期谜题答案

请在 nytimes.com / newsletters 订阅《加拿大通讯》。

读者角落（来自评论区）

你很有可能拥有某种“家庭方言”（familect）——即仅在你的家庭语言使用方式中才有的独特词汇和说法。尼特苏·阿贝贝曾为《纽约时报杂志》撰文探讨这些私人语言，并邀请读者在评论区分享自己家族语言中的古怪之处。以下提交内容经过编辑。

Nixilating。当某件事既令人厌烦又令人恼火时，就是 nixilating。当我的女儿发现我们经常使用的一个词……实际上并不是一个被认可的词时，她感到非常 nixilated！ —— 芭芭拉·科斯坦尼克，科罗拉多州布鲁姆菲尔德

回到 1991 年 7 月，我们全家在动物园，刚刚经过一群在园内漫步的孔雀。我 3 岁的儿子在午后酷热中出汗，大喊道：“我出汗出得像只孔雀！”这句话很快成了我们家人表达炎热的标准方式。那个儿子在 2007 年因摩托车事故去世，年仅 19 岁，但 18 年后，我们依然会说自己出汗出得像只孔雀。为了纪念他以及他给家庭带来的这份小礼物，我最近在手臂上纹了一根孔雀羽毛。每次看到它，我都会微笑。 —— 洛里乔·彼得斯，宾夕法尼亚州曼海姆

当我们的女儿英格丽德还是婴儿时，我那睡眠不足的丈夫把她的手指称为“可爱的小 fingrids”，于是它们就一直被叫作 fingrids！ —— 蒂亚·马尔科维奇，渥太华

收件箱：纽约时报时事通讯摘录

NASUNA STUART-ULIN 为《纽约时报》拍摄 6月在蒙特利尔港从一个集装箱中拖出的被盗车辆正在接受检查。

记者简·布拉德利（Jane Bradley）和迈克尔·施维茨（Michael Schwirtz）最近花了六个月时间追踪从加拿大被盗的汽车，以查明它们的去向。在《加拿大信》（Canada Letter）时事通讯中，肖娜·里彻（Shawna Richer）就报道的获取过程采访了布拉德利女士。以下是编辑后的摘录。

最初是什么吸引你关注加拿大的汽车盗窃流行病？我们的调查始于国际刑警组织（Interpol）一名消息人士提供的线索。该官员一直在追踪全球范围内的被盗车辆，并注意到一件令人惊讶的事：数千辆被盗的加拿大汽车出现在俄罗斯。此前从未有此类报道，因此我们立即产生了兴趣。

在报道方面，你们是从哪里开始的？我们知道需要记录，在与国际刑警组织和加拿大皇家骑警的消息人士沟通数月后，我们获得了这些记录。记录显示，在2024年2月至2026年7月期间，国际刑警组织收到了近5,000份关于在俄罗斯发现被盗加拿大汽车的报告。这使得俄罗斯成为加拿大被盗汽车迄今为止最大的海外目的地。

这个故事中有什么让你感到惊讶的？令我震惊的是这项贸易的组织性和专业程度。这些汽车是按订单盗窃的，跨国犯罪网络协同工作，以满足黑市对昂贵的西方卡车和轿车的需求。订单会在俄罗斯下达——比如，订购15辆路虎车——然后传递给在加拿大的侦察员，由他们搜寻社区和停车场。

帮您帮到

一锅炖猪肉肉酱食谱

这款加入大量蔬菜的烘烤肉酱是让一磅肉变成丰盛意面酱的绝佳方法。实际操作时间仅需约 15 分钟，其余交给烤箱即可。猪肩肉（也称为 picnic shoulder）是一种相对便宜的部位，非常适合炖煮，能使肉质极其鲜美且软嫩。KAY CHUN

时间：1 小时 45 分钟 份量：4 人份

$\frac{1}{4}$ 杯特级初榨橄榄油

1 磅猪肩肉，切成 $\frac{1}{2}$ 英寸见方的块 犹太盐（如 Diamond Crystal）和黑胡椒

3 根中等大小的胡萝卜，去皮并切碎（1½ 杯）

1 个中等大小的黄洋葱，切成小丁（$1\frac{1}{2}$ 杯）

5 瓣大蒜，切末

2 汤匙番茄膏

1 罐（28 盎司）整颗番茄 1 枝新鲜迷迭香

2 枝新鲜罗勒，另准备切碎的叶子用于装饰

$\frac{1}{4}$ 杯浓奶油 煮熟的意面或波伦塔（玉米糊），用于盛装 现磨帕马森干酪（Parmigiano-Reggiano），用于盛装

1. 将烤箱预热至 450 度。

2. 在一个大型荷兰锅中，用中火加热 2 汤匙油。将一半的猪肉放入锅中，撒上盐和胡椒调味。偶尔搅拌，煎至褐变，约 3 分钟；用漏勺或夹子将猪肉转移到盘中。对剩余的猪肉重复此操作，并撒上盐和胡椒调味。

3. 将火力调至中低火，加入胡萝卜、洋葱和 1 汤匙油。撒上盐和胡椒调味，偶尔搅拌，直到洋葱变软，约 3 分钟。拌入大蒜，然后加入番茄膏和剩余的 1 汤匙油，持续搅拌并烹饪，直到轻微焦糖化，约 3 分钟。

DAVID MALOSH 为《纽约时报》拍摄。 食物造型：SIMON ANDREWS。

4. 加入猪肉及其渗出的肉汁，然后加入番茄及其汁液，在加入的同时用手将番茄压碎。拌入迷迭香、罗勒枝、奶油和 2 杯水；撒上盐和胡椒调味。用大火煮沸，盖上盖子烘烤，直到猪肉软嫩且酱汁浓稠，约 1 小时 15 分钟。丢弃迷迭香和罗勒枝。

5. 将猪肉肉酱淋在意面或波伦塔上。在顶部撒上一些奶酪和切碎的罗勒。

欲获取更多食谱，请访问纽约时报烹饪频道 nytcooking.com。

幸运之符 18K 金或纯银项链

MONICA RICH KOSANN

请致电 866.598.2784 或访问 MONICARICHKOSANN.COM

送出游戏的礼赠。

别再为礼物而苦恼。赠送《纽约时报》游戏订阅，包含 Spelling Bee、Wordle、填字游戏等。

国际

《纽约时报》

以色列纪录片在海外获赞，但在国内引发愤怒

导演 Rachel Szor 和 Yuval Abraham 在威尼斯国际电影节闭幕式上。他们的电影《NAZA》获得了评审团特别奖。 STEFANO RELLANDINI / 法新社 — 盖蒂图片社

士兵与军官详述在加沙的大规模平民杀戮

作者：伊莎贝尔·克什纳（ISABEL KERSHNER）

耶路撒冷——上周，一部关于以色列军队在加沙杀害巴勒斯坦平民的纪录片《NAZA》在威尼斯国际电影节首映，以色列导演获得了 25 分钟的起立鼓掌。该片还赢得了评审团特别奖。

但在以色列，这部电影引发了一场官方批评风暴，以及来自军方的抵制，而军方很少对银幕事务发表意见。周一，以色列军方负责人埃亚尔·扎米尔（Eyal Zamir）中将与高级将领商议如何回应这部电影，称其“基于血祭诽谤”且是“对现实的蓄意扭曲”。他表示，军方将研究针对涉嫌传播虚假指控和泄露机密材料的人员采取可能的法律措施。

以色列文化部长米基·佐哈尔（Miki Zohar）甚至要求当局调查导演尤瓦尔·亚伯拉罕（Yuval Abraham）和瑞秋·索尔（Rachel Szor）是否可以因“背叛以色列国”而被剥夺以色列公民身份。

亚伯拉罕先生和索尔女士的代表拒绝就佐哈尔先生的指控和威胁做出具体回应。但亚伯拉罕先生在周日的一段视频声明中回应了来自国内的批评，称以色列社会了解军队在加沙的行为至关重要，且士兵们使用希伯来语发言“是因为他们希望触达以色列公众”。

这部时长 80 分钟的纪录片由《卫报》联合制作，包含对 24 人的采访，这些人被描述为以色列情报官员和士兵。根据电影梗概，他们详细揭露了“以色列在加沙蓄意大规模杀害巴勒斯坦平民背后的系统”。

这些受访者可能会在以色列及海外面临法律后果，因此其身份未被公开。

在 2023 年 10 月 7 日由哈马斯领导的针对以色列的袭击（该袭击引发了加沙的毁灭性战争）近三年后，以色列国内的反应具体化了该国自我形象与外界日益增强的看法之间的鲜明对比。

10 月全国选举前政治竞选的氛围进一步加剧了这种抵制情绪。

对于袭击和战争之前在政策、军事和情报方面的失败应如何分摊责任，以色列人深陷分歧。但大多数以色列人仍将自己视为 10 月 7 日的受害者。根据以色列当局的数据，武装分子的袭击在以色列造成约 1,200 人死亡，另有约 250 人被劫持为人质。

只有极少数以色列人抗议军方在战争中的行为，大多数人将其视为一场正义的自卫行动。

相反，许多国外人士认为以色列的反应过度。根据加沙卫生部的说法，已有数万名巴勒斯坦人被杀，其中包括数千名儿童。加沙的大部分地区已化为废墟，人权组织和外国政府指责以色列犯有战争罪。

尽管该片尚未发行，且以色列国内很少有人看过，但国内对其引发的愤怒已经爆发。

“NAZA”是希伯来语 nezek agavi（即附带损伤）的缩写。在电影中，它被用来指代打击限制的放宽，这增加了在人工智能辅助的大规模监控基础上，以色列在加沙发动的军事袭击可能使无关平民陷入风险的人数。

《纽约时报》在 2024 年 12 月报道称，在战争的第一天，以色列军事领导层更改了交战规则，授予以色列中级军官打击数千个军事地点和武装分子的权力（包括低级别战斗员），且每次打击可承受高达 20 名平民死亡的风险。

《时报》的调查发现，以色列严重削弱了旨在保护平民的保障体系，并采用了有缺陷的方法来寻找目标以及评估平民伤亡风险。

在纪录片《NAZA》中，一名受访者表示，以色列发起的袭击导致了 20、30 甚至 300 名平民死亡，并且在其中一起案例中，一项可能导致 500 人死亡的袭击获得了批准。

以色列军方在社交媒体的一篇帖子中否认了这一具体指控，称其“从未在加沙计划、批准或执行过任何预计会导致 500 名平民或接近该数量平民死亡的袭击”。军方表示，其行动符合国际法。

该军方仅观看了一部分片段，便严厉谴责该纪录片展示了来自“身份无法核实之个人”的匿名证词。

军方和新闻媒体的评论员还指责该纪录片未能承认他们所谓的哈马斯将战斗员和军事基础设施嵌入平民之中的策略。

反对总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡右翼政府的以色列政治人物也攻击了这部纪录片。

寻求竞选总理的中间派人士、曾在加沙战斗中失去一名儿子的前军方首脑加迪·艾森科特表示，该片呈现了一幅“扭曲”的画面，并表现出“道德盲点”和“脱离现实”。

他在社交媒体的一篇帖子中写道：“在民主社会中，批评是正当的，但批评与为了在国外电影节赢得掌声而抹黑我们士兵的良好名声之间，存在着巨大的鸿沟。”

而亚伯拉罕先生则在视频声明中表示，他希望这部电影能在以色列广泛发行，并建议那些现在攻击该片的人“首先应该观看它”。

一通辱骂特立尼达政府的私人电话导致数月被拘留

作者：赞恩·欧文（ZANE IRWIN）和普里奥·贝哈里（PRIOR BEHARRY）

直到最近，斯塔·萨布加（Star Sabga）每天的生活就是制作手工奶酪，并通过电话与她的侄女抱怨政治。

左上图为特立尼达和多巴哥总理卡姆拉·佩萨德-比塞萨尔（Kamla Persad-Bissessar）。右图为珍妮薇芙·哈迪德（Genevievre Hadeed）和多米尼克·哈迪德（Dominic Hadeed）。他们的住所于6月遭到搜查，他们与萨布加女士（哈迪德女士的姨妈）一同被拘留。

69岁的萨布加女士住在特立尼达和多巴哥首都西班牙港郊区的一套豪华海滨公寓里。她的侄女珍妮薇芙·哈迪德及其丈夫——瓶装水大亨多米尼克·哈迪德，帮她支付了相关费用。

但在6月，这种平静的生活被打破，警察拘留了哈迪德夫妇和萨布加女士，指控他们密谋刺杀总理。

据官员称，在特立尼达的紧急状态下，哈迪德夫妇在未被起诉的情况下被拘留了近一个月，而萨布加女士被拘留了两个多月。为了应对日益严重的暴力犯罪，该紧急状态自2025年以来几乎一直处于实施状态。紧急状态允许当局在没有搜查令的情况下进行搜查，并在不提起指控的情况下无限期拘留人员。

这些拘留事件震惊了这个加勒比国家，引发了一场关于政府使用监控和预防性拘留的全国性辩论。这场风波还暴露了围绕特立尼达中东裔少数群体的种族和政治摩擦，萨布加女士和哈迪德夫妇均属于该群体。

总理卡姆拉·佩萨德-比塞萨尔没有回答关于萨布加女士和哈迪德夫妇案件的问题。但她为紧急状态辩护，周四对记者表示：“很明显，犯罪统计数据已经下降。”她补充道：“也许这不是最好的做法，但它非常成功。”

为了应对激增的暴力率，该地区的各国政府越来越多地采取严厉手段。根据国际特赦组织的数据，在为期四年的紧急状态期间，萨尔瓦多已有超过90,000人被拘留，近500人在国家监管期间死亡。洪都拉斯和牙买加也使用了例外状态（在此期间某些权利被暂停），这引起了人权组织的警觉。

VINCENT ALBAN / THE NEW YORK TIMES

桑德拉·佩莱格里尼（Sandra Pellegrini）是美国非营利组织“武装冲突地点与事件数据项目”（A.C.L.E.D.）的拉丁美洲区域团队负责人，该组织负责监测冲突和抗议数据。她研究了该地区紧急权力的使用情况。她表示，任何犯罪率的下降通常都是短暂的，且是以牺牲公民自由为代价的。

“无论你是否是罪犯，你都应该能够获得公正的审判，”她说，并指出在限制被削弱的执法机构下，抗议者和政府批评者有时会成为目标。

在法律风波成为头条新闻之前，哈迪德先生一直以政府批评者的身份为人所知。他在3月的一个公开论坛上批评了政府的税收政策，并反对政府取消其企业自2007年起使用的土地租赁决定。哈迪德夫妇还被认为是特立尼达叙利亚-黎巴嫩少数群体的知名成员。

该国的人口几乎平均分为非裔特立尼达人（其中许多人是奴隶制时期非洲人的后裔）和印裔特立尼达人（其根源可追溯到来自印度的契约劳工）。许多人拥有混合血统，并且存在几个著名的少数群体，包括叙利亚-黎巴嫩裔。

据该社区成员、特立尼达商人萨姆·萨卢姆（Sam Salloum）称，中东裔特立尼达人历史上一直与人民国家运动（People's National Movement，目前该国的主要反对党）联系在一起，且该国相当数量的成功商人是叙利亚-黎巴嫩裔。

执政党统一国民大会（United National Congress）的政治人物经常批评叙利亚-黎巴嫩社区的经济主导地位——该群体常被 referred to as “那 1% 的人”——并指责他们涉嫌政治腐败和组织犯罪。

今年6月，在一项延长国家紧急状态的动议期间，总检察长约翰·杰雷米（John Jeremie）向这一少数族裔发出了警告。他称他们为一个“帮派”，并且已经“接管”了反对党。

议员们热情地拍桌子，为杰雷米先生的言论助威。

杰雷米先生还证实，部分叙利亚-黎巴嫩人的美国签证已被吊销。他否认其政府参与了这些决定，但暗示美国情报机构已将他们标记为具有犯罪关联。 (哈迪德一家的律师证实，他们的签证就在被吊销的名单之中。)

根据法庭文件，萨布加女士在次日的报纸上读到了杰雷米先生的评论。她愤怒地打电话给她的侄女哈迪德女士，倾诉对该社区所受待遇的不满。

不到两周后，即6月24日黎明刚过，根据哈迪德一家的宣誓书，警察（其中一些携带机枪）冲进他们家中，将哈迪德一家惊醒。警员宣布他们持有搜查令，并没收了电子设备，包括哈迪德夫妇三个孩子的设备。

直到哈迪德先生与妻子被分开并被拘留多日后，他才被告知逮捕原因：哈迪德一家被指控密谋刺杀总理及其他政府领导人，并与跨国犯罪组织培养联系。

哈迪德先生在否认指控的宣誓书中写道，他当时“因震惊、难以置信和恐惧而感到麻木”。他后来得知，他妻子的姨妈萨布加女士也被拘留了。

“整个社区都震惊了，”认识萨布加女士和哈迪德一家的萨卢姆先生说。他说，社区对萨布加女士的印象主要是她销售shanklish奶酪（一种覆盖着种子和香料的发酵过滤酸奶球）。

萨卢姆先生驳斥了萨布加女士可能处于刺杀阴谋中心的想法，称她甚至舍不得喷杀虫剂。“她会为了蟑螂而哭泣，”他说。

哈迪德一家和萨布加女士否认了这些指控。他们通过律师拒绝接受采访。

哈迪德先生在宣誓书中表示，他在狱中的医疗状况恶化。萨布加女士和哈迪德女士被关押在女子监狱中，她们在宣誓书中称，她们在那里被强行搜身，且住宿环境肮脏，没有任何隐私，甚至在排便时也是如此。

法庭记录显示，本案的一项核心证据是当局截获的6月11日萨布加女士与哈迪德女士之间的一段电话录音。迄今为止，当局尚未解释最初为何监听该电话，仅在法庭文件中表示，安全机构经过专门培训，负责监控“重点关注人员”。

国土安全部长罗杰·亚历山大（Roger Alexander）引用了萨布加女士与侄女激烈交谈中的13段书面摘录。萨布加女士对总理（一名印度裔特立尼达人女性）使用了侮辱性词汇，并称其为“一个目标”。

“有人头部会被开枪，”萨布加女士曾这样说道。“要让这件事平息，必须得死掉一个她的议员。”

亚历山大先生未回应置评请求，他在一份法庭文件中写道，这些言论是“一个正在酝酿的阴谋或指向公众人物生命威胁的闲谈”的一部分。他表示，当局已与美国“合作伙伴机构”协作，发现哈迪德一家和萨布加女士与犯罪分子有联系，他们可能向这些人“传达致命意图”。

包括联邦调查局（F.B.I.）、缉毒局以及美国司法部（DOJ）国际执法部门在内的美国当局，既未确认也未否认涉及哈迪德夫妇或萨布加女士的任何刑事调查。

当一家当地新闻机构在7月发布了一段时长15分钟的完整通话泄露录音后，当局拘留哈迪德夫妇和萨布加女士所依赖的情报受到了质疑。录音显示，萨布加女士在私下发泄她的沮丧情绪，她认为这是对其社区的政治攻击，并坚称其社区并未参与任何犯罪活动。

此次泄露引发了激烈且广泛的反应。

许多人谴责萨布加女士对总理使用侮辱性词汇，萨布加女士在一份宣誓书中对此表示遗憾——尽管她表示自己的言论被“恶意地断章取义”。另一些人则认为这段录音使政府关于暗杀阴谋的指控失去了可信度。由于通话中并未涉及哈迪德先生，这引发了人们对其被当局拘留原因的质疑。

在被拘留一个月后，当局释放了哈迪德夫妇并撤销了他们的拘留令。一段社交媒体视频显示，哈迪德先生回到了他的办公室，与员工们拥抱亲吻。

7月，萨布加女士获释出狱，但被命令继续接受居家监禁。根据法院文件，她被禁止离开公寓，且与家人的接触受到严重限制。她在一份宣誓书中描述称，有身着迷彩服的武装警员在看守她的大楼。

周四，在萨布加女士被拘留两个多月后，当局将其从居家监禁中释放，并撤销了她的拘留令。周五，当当地记者询问亚历山大先生关于萨布加女士获释的情况时，他将她的案件比作对美国说唱歌手图帕克·夏库尔（Tupac Shakur）凶手的搜寻。

“图帕克·夏库尔在1996年被枪杀，而相关人员直到今年才被起诉，”他说道，暗示国家对萨布加女士的调查在获释后仍将继续。他补充道：“在结束之前，一切都还没结束。”

紧急状态计划于本周到期，数百名被拘留者将被释放。其中许多人，如萨布加女士和哈迪德夫妇一样，并未被指控犯有任何罪行。

自然保护需要学会说“是”

给我们运动的一封信

每小时，我们失去超过 40 英亩的农田和牧场。每天，两倍于中央公园面积的开放空间消失。每年，又有 100 万英亩的森林丧失。而一旦这些土地消失，就永远消失了。

而现在，数万亿美元用于急需的基础设施建设，将创造美国历史上规模最大的建设时期之一。

如果没有清晰的愿景，这些新基础设施将加速野生土地和工作土地的丧失，而人们和野生动物都依赖于此。这些土地是我们承受不起失去的。

那么，我们如何在建设所需基础设施的同时，保护我们所依赖的自然系统？

环保运动在解决上个世纪的许多挑战方面功不可没：减少污染、保护标志性景观，并迫使工业界为其造成的环境损害负责。但我们是通过说“不”来实现的——通过立法、监管和诉讼。“不”是保护艰苦赢得的自然保护成果的有力工具。但它不能是我们工具箱里的唯一工具。

如果我们想要应对气候变化、住房需求、水资源短缺和农村经济发展，我们需要建设。当我们建设时，我们有机会将新基础设施与自然保护成果相结合，为我们的国家争取到比仅说“不”所能实现的更多成果。人工基础设施和自然基础设施将不再是对立面，而是成为合作伙伴。这就是寻找“是”的含义。

湿地可以防御洪水、风暴潮和极端天气。森林可以储存碳、过滤饮用水并延长水库的寿命。农场提供新鲜、本地且可持续的食物。城市树冠在热浪期间让城市保持宜居。这些自然系统是必需品，而非便利设施。它们承担了人工基础设施无法完成的工作。

我们不能仅通过说“不”来解决当今最大的挑战。

一个繁荣、健康且具有韧性的未来，需要一个既致力于建设国家紧迫需求，又致力于保护不可替代之物的环保运动。

未来的挑战过于巨大且复杂，无法用昨天的剧本应对。我们需要一个在建设方面与在阻拦方面同样坚定的运动。

是时候寻找那个“是”了。为了我们所有人。

Larry Selzer

总裁兼首席执行官

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问题确实存在

我们面临的问题比幼儿园里出现鱼尾纹要严重得多。

为了展示儿童美容文化已变得多么荒谬，我们创建了“小视黄醇”（Lil' Retinol）——一款面向六岁儿童的虚构抗衰老精华液。利用人工智能，我们使其看起来像一个正规的护肤品牌，模仿孩子们每天刷到的由创作者主导的内容。

虽然这本该显得极其疯狂，但事实并非如此。因为在某种程度上，我们已经习惯了孩子们被推销日益成人化的美容和个人护理观念。

在讲究卫生之前，先进行10步的“跟我一起准备”（GRWM）流程。在进入青春期之前，先抗衰老。在关注必需品之前，先追求美学。

孩子们在学习如何护理皮肤之前，就开始担心自己的皮肤。与此同时，家长们仍在努力教他们基础知识。

事实是，60%的家长表示，基础卫生是他们每天面临的最大挑战。

孩子们不需要针对未来的解决方案。他们现在需要更好的基础护理。儿童友好的配方。适合年龄的成分。为成长中的皮肤而制，而非为成年人的皮肤而制的产品。

认识

frida 儿童系列

沙特阿拉伯感到被特朗普冷落，担心将独自面对敌人

来自 A1 版

美国与伊朗的战争给整个中东带来了影响，包括那些领导人反对战争或多次寻求结束战争的国家。

在战斗的前几个月，与邻国相比，沙特阿拉伯受伊朗报复性攻击的影响相对较小。现在，由于敌对行动看不到结束的迹象，伊朗正寻求对美国产生更大的影响力，而沙特阿拉伯——在战争将其排名降低之前曾是全球最大的石油出口国——已成为主要目标。

仅在过去两周内，沙特阿拉伯就面临来自东部、南部和北部的伊朗支持的攻击。

埃里克·施密特（Eric Schmitt）提供了来自华盛顿的报道，舒艾布·阿尔莫萨瓦（Shuaib Almosawa）提供了来自也门萨那的报道。

8月底，一艘沙特油轮在霍尔木兹海峡遭到袭击，导致两名水手死亡。

周五，此前已宣布封锁通过红海的沙特石油运输的胡塞武装夺取了全球重要航道上的领土，并在也门击败了沙特盟军。

同一天，沙特当局宣布他们被迫关闭一条关键的石油管道，将其归咎于一个由伊朗支持的伊拉克民兵的无人机袭击。在伊朗实际上封锁霍尔木兹海峡后，该管道已成为沙特阿拉伯将石油运往红海的关键替代出口路线。

“像沙特阿拉伯这样的国家之所以投入如此巨资与美国建立安全伙伴关系，正是为了应对这种情况，”前大使拉特尼（Mr. Ratney）表示。

沙特阿拉伯的实际统治者穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼王储有理由对这种伙伴关系充满信心。多年来，他的政府投入了数十亿美元和大量的政治资本，旨在与特朗普先生及其家人建立个人关系。

但据知情官员透露，当王储上周请求特朗普先生对胡塞武装采取军事行动时，总统拒绝了。

沙特官员和专家明确表示，王国不想独自与胡塞武装作战。这一点尤为真实，因为此前由沙特阿拉伯领导的针对该组织的军事行动演变成了一场持续十年的泥潭。

“这需要国际支持，而不仅仅是来自沙特阿拉伯和地区国家，”与沙特政府关系密切的专栏作家阿卜杜勒拉赫曼·阿尔-拉舍德（Abdulrahman al-Rashed）周六在一家沙特所有的报纸上写道。

然而，特朗普先生似乎不愿介入。

“已经在面对一场与伊朗之间没有期限的冲突，伴随着一个

一个王国的困境反映出伊朗战争给整个地区的代价

“面对不堪重负的海军和日益减少的弹药储备，他不希望开辟这个新战线并不令人意外，”拜登政府时期五角大楼负责中东政策的前高级官员丹·夏皮罗（Dan Shapiro）表示。“但这让沙特人感到非常失望。”

周六，特朗普在前往爱尔兰的行程中告诉记者，胡塞武装“给我们打了电话，他们不想与我们作战”。

“只有一个国家让他们不太满意，我们会把这件事解决好，”他补充道，指的是沙特阿拉伯。

胡塞武装政治官员穆罕默德·阿尔-布海蒂（Mohammed al-Bukhaiti）否认该组织曾与美国接触。他说：“我们没有与特朗普沟通，也没有要求他不要攻击我们。”

美国是否会介入也门问题仍处于讨论阶段，而华盛顿将继续为沙特阿拉伯提供情报支持，美国海军前中东地区指挥官、退役中将约翰·W·米勒（John W. Miller）表示。

前美国国务院近东事务助理国务卿芭芭拉·利夫（Barbara Leaf）认为，沙特阿拉伯现在可能会转向外交手段。她表示，尽管沙特、美国和以色列多年来对胡塞武装进行了轰炸，但“还没有人能找到一个军事解决方案”来对付他们。

她还表示，沙特阿拉伯也可以与邻国以及伊朗合作，敲定一套“难看的安排”，以结束与伊朗的战争。

她指出，该王国可能会寻求中国的帮助以尝试寻找解决方案，但北京此前在该地区的外交努力并未带来持久的和平协议。中国在2023年促成了沙特阿拉伯与伊朗的缓和，但此后关系已出现裂痕。

分析人士表示，目前无论沙特官员感到多么沮丧，他们都不太可能公开抱怨美国。

“他们不会表现出某种距离感，”利夫女士说。“他们将不得不采取其他外交努力。”

新闻分析

顶层领导层正与赫格塞斯领导下的五角大楼内部动荡作斗争

据称，皮特·赫格塞斯旨在恢复“战士精神”的目标，反而针对了一些军队中经历过最充分实战考验的领导者。 ALEX KENT / 纽约时报

作者：格雷格·贾菲（GREG JAFFE）

华盛顿——几十年来，国防部长们在很大程度上一直试图使军队免受国家内部具有分裂性的文化战争的影响。

而皮特·赫格塞斯比以往任何一位前任都采取了截然相反的做法，将这些争端直接引入了五角大楼。

军队高级将领被清洗的规模之大，在国防部的现代史上前所未有。针对军官可以在哪里学习以及在学术论文中可以表达什么样的观点，出现了新的限制。为了揪出泄密者或恐吓那些倾向于分享敏感信息的人，广泛开展了测谎测试。

这场动荡发生在一个关键时刻：与伊朗的长期战争已给部队带来了一系列连锁压力。长期的部署削弱了水兵的士气。关键导弹拦截器的短缺，引发了人们对军队能否在持久战中胜过伊朗，并同时在世界另一个地区应对冲突的担忧。

其中许多问题根源于前任政府的决策，以及一场持续时间远超特朗普总统或五角大楼预期的伊朗战争。

现任和前任军事官员将赫格塞斯先生动荡的任期描述为一种持续的干扰，这使顶层领导者无法专注于这些优先事项，并在高层中营造了一种不信任的氛围。这些军官在要求匿名的条件下接受采访，以避免遭到报复。

高级将领们还对丹·凯恩将军（Gen. Dan Caine）表示怀疑，凯恩将军作为参谋长联席会议主席，是赫格塞斯先生和特朗普先生的主要军事顾问。凯恩将军在讨论他向赫格塞斯先生提供的建议时表现得十分谨慎，尤其是在敏感的人事问题上。

包括四星将军在内的军官们提出的一个问题是，主席是否不愿或无法保护部队免受赫格塞斯先生发起的文化战争的影响。主席的一位发言人拒绝就凯恩将军的建议发表评论。

作为一名陆军国民警卫队军官，赫格塞斯先生曾在伊拉克和阿富汗参战。他在2021年离开陆军，此前他因被军方认定为极端主义的纹身而成为被针对的目标。

“我离开了那个不再需要我的陆军，”他在2024年写道，“这种感觉是相互的。我也不再想要这个陆军了。”

他来到五角大楼时决心提高标准，并将军队从他所称的“分裂的、左翼的议程”中解放出来，他认为这种议程在战场上束缚了士兵，并在军中滋生分歧。一年前，他在一次面向来自世界各地数百名将军和海军上将的演讲中阐述了他的愿景。

“你们现在被解放了，要去成为不分党派、勇猛果敢、务实且遵循宪法的领导者，”他说。

五角大楼新闻秘书金斯利·威尔逊（Kingsley Wilson）表示，赫格塞斯先生的目标是恢复一种“战士精神”，而这种精神此前被“埋没在官僚程序、配额和体制内的自我保护之中”。

但许多现任和前任军事领导人表示，赫格塞斯先生反而针对了那些经过最充分实战考验的领导者，掏空了一个处于战争状态的机构。

他解雇或阻挠了多达80名将军和海军上将的晋升。军官们看到拥有数十年职业生涯且深受信任的导师被清洗，而完全不知道他们做错了什么。关键的领导岗位数月之久空缺。这种混乱和不确定性促使职业军官们在私下讨论，接受晋升并继续服役是否还值得。

“不要再针对幻影进行这种后卫战了，”曾在第一任特朗普政府中担任国家安全顾问的退役陆军将军 H.R. 麦克马斯特在最近的一档播客节目中表示。“你最不希望做的，就是营造一种将一切都视为忠诚度测试的氛围。”

尽管赫格塞斯先生一直推动军队适应由无人机和人工智能主导的战场，但他同时敦促军队领导层回归到他所认为的一个更早、更强硬的时代标准。在演讲中，他赞扬了像在 1991 年波斯湾战争中指挥部队的 H. 诺曼·施瓦茨科普夫将军，以及像乔治·S·巴顿二世将军这样的二战领导人。这两位军官领导的部队在受教育程度上远低于今天的军队，且处于由大型重装甲师主导的战场之上。

赫格塞斯先生向高级军事领导人提出的许多问题，其潜在假设是陆军在近几十年里变得更弱、更糟。今年早些时候，他要求陆军解释为什么在军官培训课程中取消了负重行军（携带沉重背包和战斗装备的计时徒步）的要求。陆军高级领导层通过一份将 2025 年基准与 1990 年基准进行对比的分析报告予以回应。

陆军报告称，在所有案例中，行军要求并未被取消，且标准在严苛程度上有所提高。

赫格塞斯先生对军官教育也持有类似的怀疑态度，他经常将此类教育描述为传播腐败的自由主义思想的渠道。今年早些时候，他禁止中层军官参加哈佛大学、普林斯顿大学、哥伦比亚大学和耶鲁大学等顶尖大学的研究生项目。“他们夺走了我们最优秀、最聪明的人，那些宣誓为这个国家奉献一生的人，并让他们接受一套充满蔑视的课程，”赫格塞斯先生在今年早些时候说道。

这种严厉的审查已延伸至硕士论文。至少有两名由高级领导层委员会选定晋升为一名将的陆军军官，在赫格塞斯先生办公室的官员对其研究生论文提出异议后被拦截。在符合条件的陆军上校中，只有不到 5% 能被选为一名将，这使其成为军队中竞争最激烈的晋升。

军方官员表示，其中一名黑人军官写了一篇关于为什么黑人军官在历史上倾向于选择后勤支持岗位而非前线战斗岗位的论文。第二名军官则探讨了政治极化对军队招募和留住人才能力的影响。

这种对从未打算发表的学术论文的高度关注，给一支多年来一直声称重视好奇、质疑和创新文化的部队带来了寒蝉效应。

一些高级军官表示，他们不愿提出与那些被解雇的将军和海军上将相关的想法，或者在讨论赫格塞斯先生可能认为有争议的话题时会对自我进行审查。

“这就是我希望赫格塞斯部长及其团队正在思考的问题，”经常担任军事顾问、负责杜克大学美国大战略项目的彼得·费弗表示。“他们是想要一群被告知‘你不需要学习如何独立思考，你只需要知道我们认为正确答案是什么’的军事领导群体吗？”

去年被赫格塞斯先生解雇的前参谋长联席会议主席查尔斯·Q·布朗将军最近也表达了同样的担忧。

“你不会希望因为军人敬礼标准且切实执行任务而惩罚他们，”他在今年夏天由阿斯彭研究所主办的一场关于军民关系的讨论会上说道。他表示，一些军官因为履行职责而被单独挑出来，或者被用作“文化战争中的棋子”。

在五角大楼内部，赫格塞斯先生的支持者——其中一些是现役军官——为其举措辩护，并攻击那些质疑他是否做得过火的人。本月早些时候，陆军上校凯文·T·布莱克（Kevin T. Black）在社交媒体发帖称赞赫格塞斯先生，称其挑战了军官中的“受保护阶层”以及晋升机制，布莱克认为该机制已与军队的真正使命——战斗并赢得战争——脱节。

他写道：“如果这让人感到刺痛，那是因为它击中了那些需要听到这些话的人。”

作为特朗普先生和赫格塞斯先生的最高军事顾问，凯恩将军处于赫格塞斯先生与军队之间紧张关系的中心。凯恩将军曾是一名战斗机飞行员，他来到五角大楼时决心与特朗普先生和赫格塞斯先生建立信任，而这两位对他之前的前任评价不高。为此，他将自己的职责定义得比之前的主席们更为狭窄。

在最近于国防大学发表的毕业演讲中，他表示，他的职责是告知总统军队是否能够执行某项任务，并阐明相关风险。但他警告说，不要涉入关于总统是否应该采取特定军事行动的内部争论。

他说：“在我们的职业领域，我们不那样做。”

这与近期的情况截然不同。此前，像前任主席马克·A·米利（Mark A. Milley）将军这样的高级军官，曾对前总统约瑟夫·R·拜登（Joseph R. Biden Jr.）撤出所有驻阿富汗美军的决定表示反对。尽管心存顾虑，将军们还是执行了总统的命令。

在同一场演讲中，凯恩将军揭示了作为军队最高将领所面临的艰难平衡。他敦促毕业生们保持阅读和学习。

他告诉他们：“我们面临的复杂环境要求你们必须并且始终保持不懈的好奇心。”

他举了布伦特·斯科克罗夫特（Brent Scowcroft）的例子，后者毕业于国防大学，并在空军服役期间获得了博士学位，随后一路晋升，成为乔治·H·W·布什总统的国家安全顾问。

凯恩将军没有提到斯科克罗夫特将军是在哥伦比亚大学获得博士学位的，而这所学校现在已不再允许军官就读。

沙特领导人会见美国指挥官，胡塞武装袭击威胁石油市场

作者：埃里克·施密特（ERIC SCHMITT）和亚伦·博克斯曼（AARON BOXERMAN）

华盛顿——沙特阿拉伯王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼周一会见了负责监督中东行动的美国指挥官。就在几天前，特朗普总统拒绝了这位沙特领导人关于协助打击也门境内受伊朗支持的胡塞武装的请求。

沙特国家媒体发布的一份简短摘要称，穆罕默德王子在沙特沿海城市吉达与美国中央司令部司令布拉德·库珀（Brad Cooper）海军上将举行会谈，讨论“最新的地区发展情况”。

自2014年以来，胡塞武装一直与受沙特阿拉伯支持的也门国际认可政府作战。在2022年停火协议生效后，暴力冲突有所缓解，但今年7月，该组织通过宣布封锁红海的沙特航运并袭击沙特船只，介入了不断扩大的中东战争。

据两名知情人士透露，近几日战斗再次升级，胡塞武装占领了曼德海峡（红海沿线的主要海上咽喉要道）附近的关键区域，威胁到已经因美国、以色列和伊朗之间为期六个月的冲突而动荡不安的全球能源市场。

据两名熟悉其访问情况的人士透露，库珀上将于上周末开始与沙特国防官员会面，讨论情报共享和弹药问题。由于未获授权公开表态，他们要求匿名。

美国中央司令部发言人蒂姆·霍金斯（Tim Hawkins）在周一的一份声明中表示，库珀上将近日与“沙特阿拉伯的高级文职和军事领导人会面，讨论地区安全合作”。他没有具体说明会面时间，也没有点名提到穆罕默德王子。

据知情官员透露，穆罕默德王子上周与特朗普先生就也门局势升级进行了沟通，并敦促美国对胡塞武装采取军事行动。官员们表示，特朗普先生告诉他，他不愿意这样做。

与此同时，特朗普政府与伊朗之间关于结束战争的外交努力陷入停滞。6月份签署的一项短期停火协议在数周后崩溃，使两国陷入一种偶尔发生交火的潜伏冲突状态。

上周，统治也门西北部大部分地区的胡塞武装席卷了红海战略港口摩卡（Mokha）并占领了佩里姆岛（Perim）。据也门官员称，与也门政府结盟的部队上周也从胡奈什岛（Hunaish）和祖卡尔岛（Zuqar）撤出。

胡塞武装的推进让与该组织进行了长期军事行动的沙特阿拉伯感到紧张。但美国在加入之前可能会犹豫：数以万计的

特朗普拒绝军事援助请求后，吉达展开谈判。

美国士兵已经部署在该地区，引导船只通过霍尔木兹海峡，封锁伊朗港口，并面临关键弹药库存不断减少的局面。

领土的扩张使胡塞武装在曼德海峡拥有更大的影响力，使他们更容易实现封锁该水道沙特航运的誓言，并进一步威胁全球石油运输。同样，自2月下旬美以袭击以来，伊朗在波斯湾很大程度上成功封锁了霍尔木兹海峡，导致能源价格飙升。

全球基准布伦特原油价格在周一跳涨近 4%，每桶超过 $108，反映了投资者对中东持续不稳定的担忧。布伦特原油的价格比战争前高出约 50%。

新一轮战斗实际上重新点燃了也门内战，这场战争自 2022 年停火以来一直基本处于平静状态。亲沙特力量袭击了胡塞武装领土，而胡塞武装则多次向他们称之为军事和能源设施的沙特境内地点开火。

周一，沙特政府的民防部门向南部城市哈米斯穆谢特（Khamis Mushait）和阿布哈（Abha）发布警报，警告即将到来的袭击。目前没有人员伤亡报告。

胡塞武装于 2023 年开始向红海船只开火，以抗议以色列在加沙对伊朗支持的哈马斯组织发起的战争。虽然他们当时声称是在执行对以色列航运的封锁，但他们开火攻击的许多船只与以色列几乎没有关系。全球航运在很大程度上被重新路由，绕道非洲南部。

在拜登政府期间，美国及其盟友开始对胡塞武装发起轰炸行动，特朗普先生在 2025 年就职后升级了这一行动。在宣布与胡塞武装达成协议停止攻击美国船只后，特朗普先生随后结束了该行动。

前美国官员警告称，在与伊朗之间代价高昂且仍未结束的冲突之后，针对胡塞武装的新行动可能需要更广泛的努力才能取得成功。

“特朗普在 2025 年与胡塞武装的冲突中唯一想要的是一份不针对美国船只的协议，而他得到了，”拜登政府期间五角大楼的前中东政策负责人丹·夏皮罗（Dan Shapiro）表示。“现在，开展一项反胡塞武装行动将需要干预也门内战，并付出更广泛的努力来开放曼德海峡。”

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在莫斯科，机器人让生活变得便捷，但它们同时也是间谍

摄影：NANNA HEITMANN 为《纽约时报》拍摄

莫斯科商业区的一台配送机器人。左图显示，该市拥有密集的闭路电视（CCTV）监控网络。一名担心自己会被征召入伍的居民表示：“你的每一步都被追踪。”

（接 A1 页）

一名男子在圣彼得堡的一个火车站被警方拘留，原因是监控摄像头将他误认为一名外貌相似且被国家通缉的乌克兰公众人物。

在检查了他的面部并拉扯他的头发以确保那不是假发后，警方才将其释放。

闭路电视网络与生物识别数据库相连。在俄罗斯，提交生物识别数据是自愿的，但在广泛的广告中受到了鼓励，且公民如果不配合，就无法充分利用数字化服务。

除了打击犯罪，这些数据库还帮助当局针对政治异见人士。生物识别数据流可用于在批评政府者举行集会后对其进行追捕。

在斯大林大清洗时期，敢于发声的俄罗斯人可以通过逃往偏远城镇来躲避当局，而这样的日子已基本结束。

截至 7 月，约有 1000 万俄罗斯人以某种形式使用基于生物识别的应用，克里姆林宫希望增加这一数字，推动公民不仅在火车站，而且在机场也采用这些身份识别工具。今年，莫斯科市政府宣布，一套生物识别系统将识别公交车和有轨电车的乘客，在乘客通过应用程序确认交易后，系统将自动扣除车费。

其他欧洲主要城市也拥有庞大的闭路电视网络，其中最著名的是伦敦。然而，莫斯科的网络更加集中，且在识别人员时受到的限制更少。

随着俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争，日益增强的监控背后的风险也随之提高。

关于新一轮军事征召（自战争初期以来首次大规模动员）的传闻在俄罗斯境内传开。在不久的过去，逃避征兵相对简单，因为征兵办公室被纸质档案淹没，但现在由人工智能增强的数字化系统使这几乎变得不可能。在 2022 年数千名俄罗斯人逃避征兵后，当局引入了电子传票，其法律效力与纸质通知完全相同。

今年 3 月，28 岁的艺术与时尚摄影师弗拉德（Vlad）收到一份传票，要求他前往军事征兵办公室接受强制体检。通过“国家服务”（State Services）应用程序——一个集政府服务、医疗护理和身份验证于一体的集中门户网站——他得知在配合之前，他已被禁止出境。

弗拉德因担心遭到报复而要求隐去姓氏，他表示，由于他无视传票，现在生活在“恐惧”之中，他认为这可能是被送往战场的前奏。

他说：“这是完全的控制，因为你交出了如此多的数据，以至于你的每一步都被追踪。”由于害怕摄像头，他已经停止乘坐地铁。

亲克里姆林宫的分析人士认为，政府利用便捷的应用和数据收集来构建一个比西方民主国家更能响应民众需求的系统；而西方民主国家由于政府更迭而难以进行长期规划，且在某些情况下因隐私担忧而限制数字化服务。

俄罗斯距离中国的“社会信用”系统仅一步之遥，该系统根据人们在财务、法律和其他方面的行为进行评分，并限制违规者的自由。

但俄罗斯的技术官僚显然将北京的数字化架构视为蓝图。

格列布·库兹涅佐夫（Gleb Kuznetsov）是一位曾就职于克里姆林宫相关大型智库的政治分析师，他指出，在长期执政的市长谢尔盖·索比亚宁（Sergei Sobyanin）领导下的莫斯科，以及中国的高科技巨型城市深圳，是优于西方首都的城市模式。

“索比亚宁的支持率很高，并不是因为‘选举缺乏竞争’，”库兹涅佐夫先生在回答书面提问时表示，“而是因为市政府确实在为居民的利益而工作。”

然而，当俄罗斯当局认为存在安全威胁时，他们会迅速切断支撑这些数字化便利设施的网络，这凸显了技术官僚机构与安全部门之间的紧张关系。

例如，今年3月，莫斯科中心城区大部分地区的移动互联网服务突然中断了两周多，包括地铁系统在内，导致该市许多备受推崇的数字化便利功能暂时失效。

居民们对这次断网感到震惊，一些分析人士推测，这是在伊朗最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊（Ayatollah Ali Khamenei）遇刺后，国家陷入极度偏执的结果。

“俄罗斯将回到25年前那种‘碎片化全球化’的状态，”民族志学者杰里米·莫里斯（Jeremy Morris）说道，他是少数几个继续在俄罗斯进行实地调研的西方学者之一。

他补充道：“你可能进入某个地方，那里超级数字化且技术先进，但一旦你走出覆盖区，就回到了基础经济状态。”

据一名参与开发数字化基础设施的俄罗斯官员透露，国家内部正在进行一场无声的战争。由于未获授权公开发言，该官员要求匿名。

他表示，像数字发展部这样的技术官僚机构，正与联邦安全局（F.S.B.）——特别是其臭名昭著的政治警察部门——发生冲突。虽然联邦安全局可以使用数字化工具，但并未参与这些工具的创建。该官员称，联邦安全局更倾向于使用传统的模拟手段来监控和控制社会，即便这意味着要破坏技术官僚们花费数十亿资金构建的技术。

该官员表示，联邦安全局的立场部分源于机构的自我保护，因为人工智能威胁到其庞大的人员情报网络存在的合理性。

最终，数字化机构和安全机构都在竞争一个人的关注与认可：总统弗拉基米尔·V·普京（Vladimir V. Putin）。普京要求政府在开发人工智能的同时，使其免受西方影响。

今年4月，在一次关于人工智能的高级别克里姆林宫会议上，普京先生将此问题上升到了生存的高度。他说：“俄罗斯国家在不久的将来——毫不夸张地说，其生存本身——取决于我们在人工智能、数字化平台和自主系统方面的表现。”

然而，尽管雄心勃勃，俄罗斯缺乏在脱离中国和美国的情况下独立开发该技术的基础设施和硬件。与入侵乌克兰相关的西方制裁限制了俄罗斯获取尖端芯片的渠道，且自2022年战争开始以来，许多顶尖技术人才已离开该国。

俄罗斯的两款旗舰人工智能模型——一款由该国最大的国有银行开发，另一款由领先的国内科技公司开发——均受到中国开源架构的“启发”或严重依赖于此。

驻莫斯科的政治分析师伊利亚·格拉申科夫（Ilya Grashchenkov）表示，最终，俄罗斯可能会被他所称的尝试“结合看似不相容之物”所定义。他说，这包括构建一个“外部数字周界”将国家与世界隔绝，同时加速俄罗斯内部的数字化进程。

收到兵役传唤的摄影师弗拉德表示，如果这意味着能找回真正缺失的自由，他愿意放弃那些便捷的高科技便利。

他说，现在的俄罗斯生活就像是“戴着氧气面罩生活”。

新闻分析

火车险遭袭击是对西方的警告

来自 A1 版

……是否再次地，北约盟友们仍致力于相互防御。

贝德纳尔齐克先生指出，虽然到目前为止发生的事件仍是孤立的，但波兰的许多人正准备迎接今年冬季进一步的升级，甚至可能是某种协同行动。贝德纳尔齐克先生表示，他已经知道有些朋友开始避免乘坐从华沙前往基辅的火车，而选择开车前往。

在谈到与波兰的铁路连接时，他说：“这是一条重要的动脉。”

波兰总理唐纳德·图斯克表示，俄罗斯的升级行动“正成为现实”，他将审查保护该国铁路和工业的计划。

他补充说，最近的袭击表明，俄罗斯比以往任何时候都更愿意部署远程、高精度的喷气式无人机来威胁北约。

“我们不想屈服于紧张情绪——这里最不需要的就是情绪，”图斯克先生说。“但毫无疑问，我们必须与盟友一起，在需要时准备好做出共同反应。”

在基辅，乌克兰国家铁路公司首席执行官表示，俄罗斯正利用近期研发的无人机对火车发动猛攻，这些无人机在撞击目标时可携带数百磅炸药。

“我知道在这场战争中我们跨越了许多红线，但怎么可能接受袭击客车这件事，而不立即将其视为战争罪行？”该执行官奥列克桑德尔·波尔措夫斯基在一次采访中说道。

波尔措夫斯基在采访中表示。

“客车与客机没有区别，尤其是在一个没有开放领空的国家。”

尽管如此，他表示，俄罗斯的战术并未震慑住政要们，他们周一继续前往基辅，其中包括日本众议院议长。

乌克兰国家紧急服务局，通过路透社

俄罗斯最新的袭击发生之时，正值欧洲各国在战争成本日益增加且战斗没有迹象很快结束的情况下，考虑如何能最好地支持乌克兰。

乌克兰国家紧急服务局在卢茨火车站遭到无人机袭击后发布的一张照片。

欧盟敲定了今年向乌克兰提供 900 亿美元 欧元的援助方案，约 1000 亿美元 billion。但在俄罗斯的一轮轮攻击下，基辅的资金需求不断增长，这引发了欧洲国家之间关于如何继续提供资金支持的讨论。

一些国家再次考虑使用在欧洲被冻结的俄罗斯主权资产来支持乌克兰是否具有意义——这一想法在去年曾被考虑但最终被否决。

芬兰总理佩特里·奥尔波周一表示，火车站袭击是一次企图破坏欧洲团结的尝试，并补充说，莫斯科认为此类努力会成功是错误的。

“他们现在玩的是一场非常危险的游戏，”奥尔波先生说。

菲律宾穆斯林自治区举行首次议会选举

作者：杰森·古铁雷斯（JASON GUTIERREZ）

马尼拉——周一，菲律宾南部一个自治区域举行了首次议会选举，数十万人参与投票。该地区长期以来是穆斯林分离主义活动的中心，且在不到十年前，伊斯兰国战士曾在此围攻一座城市。

该地区依然动荡不安，已有暴力事件报告。当地官员表示，周日深夜，在投票开始前数小时，投票站附近发生一起枪战，导致 3 人死亡，15 人以上受伤。当局还表示，在某个偏远地区发现了篡改选票的情况。

邦萨摩罗穆斯林 Mindanao 自治区成立于 2019, 年，取代了早先的一个自治区域，而早先的那个区域被认为仅使少数穆斯林家庭受益。

由于安全顾虑，周一的选举被推迟了数年。预计将有多达 229 万 选民选出 80 名代表，随后这些代表将从中选出一名首席部长。

“这次选举具有历史意义，因为它考验了和平进程的持久性，在菲律宾的宪法框架内使自治制度化，并为长期由武装斗争定义的地区的民主巩固树立了先例，”驻马尼拉的政治与安全分析师罗梅尔·班拉奥伊（Rommel Banlaoi）表示。

该地区涵盖了菲律宾第二大岛 Mindanao 的大部分地区以及其他较小的岛屿，是该国唯一将由议会制治理的地区。几十年来，这里一直是摩罗伊斯兰解放阵线领导的分离主义运动的大本营，该阵线发起了一场激烈的起义，导致约 120,000 人死亡，并使该地区的部分地带陷入极端贫困和暴力的循环。

2014, 年，该组织放弃了争取完全独立的尝试，以换取自治权。许多战士加入了过渡当局，而该当局随后将被该地区的议会所取代。但和平进程的延迟令部分居民感到沮丧。

2017, 年，在来自东南亚和中东战士的帮助下，伊斯兰国的一个当地派系占领了马拉维市，引发了一场持续五个月的战斗，导致数百人死亡。

和平与妇女权利倡导者亚斯敏·布斯兰-劳（Yasmin Busran-Lao）于周一中午左右在马拉维一个由菲律宾军队严密把守的投票站投了票。她说，这座城市的部分地区在近年来已重建，但仍设有许多检查站和路障。

“你禁不住会感到担心，因为当你看到这么多士兵时，他们是在为冲突做准备，”布斯兰-劳女士说，她的祖宅在 2017 围城战中被夷为平地。“我之前很犹豫要不要出去投票。”

她指出，该地区仍有隶属于伊斯兰国的团体，并补充道：“这次投票是为了让我们选出能够帮助重建的领导人。”

在更南方的自治政府所在地科塔巴托市，该市目前由菲律宾选举委员会控制。

委员会主席乔治·加西亚（George Garcia）表示，此次接管是在枪战以及另一起事件之后进行的，在另一起事件中，一名嫌疑人携带的自制炸弹提前爆炸导致其受伤。

他还表示，当局发现巴西兰岛偏远的马卢索市部分选票被篡改。

他在发给记者的短信中表示：“我们确定，截至昨晚，68 个投票站中有 36 个的选票已被破坏，”并指出选票上的姓名已被预先选定。

中国情报首脑警告：人工智能威胁党执政地位

在中国，对人工智能的警觉与美国截然不同，后者的关注点在于该技术对人类构成的威胁。 KEVIN FRAYER / GETTY IMAGES

作者：LILY KUO

中国最高情报首脑发出警告，称人工智能可能对中国共产党的权力掌控构成直接威胁。这是迄今为止北京方面就该技术安全风险最最高级别且最详尽的阐述。

中国国家安全部部长陈一新此次给出了异常直白的评估，这与主导美国人工智能辩论的警告形成了对比——美国的关注点在于人工智能可能会脱离人类控制，或对人类本身构成威胁。

在周日出版的官方杂志《中国网络空间》的一篇文章中，陈先生呼吁加强党对人工智能的控制以及更严格的政府监管。他表示，这对于维护国内政治稳定、防御来自“敌对势力”日益复杂的网络攻击和虚假信息活动，以及与美国等国家进行军事竞争至关重要。

陈先生特别提到美国科技公司及其人工智能模型——如 Claude Mythos 和 GPT-5.5-Cyber——将其作为网络安全新威胁的例子。他还描述了外国情报机构可能利用人工智能进行“大规模间谍活动”并攻击中国关键基础设施的危险。

新加坡管理大学法学教授高亨利（Henry Gao）认为，这个权力巨大的安全机构发出的警告表明，中国将外国人工智能模型视为对中国的积极威胁。这实际上在美中官员就人工智能安全风险进行谈判之前划定了一道红线，而此次谈判预计将在 9 月 24 日特朗普总统与中国领导人习近平在华盛顿会晤前举行。

“北京在进入这些谈判时，并不将人工智能安全视为一项共同的人道主义使命，而是通过对抗性的视角来看待，”高先生说。他补充道，北京正在向中国科技公司和外国竞争对手明确表示，“数据主权和政治安全绝不会为了国际安全协议而被交易掉”。

这并非该安全机构首次谈论人工智能的危险，但此次表述最为全面，标志着北京对该行业的担忧日益增加。这位安全首脑概述了人工智能可能威胁中国的几种方式：

■ 削弱共产党的安全。政府的首要任务长期以来一直是维护执政党的权力。陈先生的文章警告称，心怀“ ulterior motives”（别有用心）的人可能会利用人工智能生成虚假视频和音频，从而对中国发动“宣传战”。

“他们担心的是，比如出现一段中国官员说了一些实际上并未说过的话的深度伪造视频，并且迅速传播并导致一切动荡，”布鲁金斯学会研究中国技术和工业政策的研究员陈凯尔（Kyle Chan）表示，“有人认为习近平发表了某些他实际上并未发表的声明。这可能会播种混乱。”

■ 对中国关键基础设施的攻击。情报首脑陈先生写道，由于人工智能，发起网络攻击的技术和资金门槛已大幅降低。他说，这给中国的信息基础设施带来了“严重风险”。上周，加利福尼亚州的一个小型研究团队在披露一种能够控制中国最广泛使用的即时通讯应用——微信（WeChat）数百万用户账户的黑客工具时，证明了这一风险。

■ 敏感信息泄露。文章指出，中国用户使用外国模型可能会导致大规模的数据泄露。Claude 等 A.I. 模型的开发公司 Anthropic 上周表示，中国初创公司 Moonshot AI 将其用户的查询请求路由至 Claude。这些查询包含敏感数据，包括与中国军方相关的视频监控，以及来自中国知名科技公司的专利信息。

■ 更激烈的军事竞争。陈先生写道，美国军方在美以与伊朗的战争中使用 A.I.，证明了战争已被“根本性地改变”。他表示，谁能利用算法等工具实现更精准的感知和目标定位，“谁就将在战场上获得主动权”。

这一警告增加了中国官员对 A.I. 风险日益增长的担忧。在习近平主席的领导下，中国将 A.I. 视为对国家发展以及与美国竞争能力至关重要的战略技术。与此同时，官员们已开始发布警告并出台监管该行业的新指南。

此前，中国监管机构的警告往往集中在具体问题上，例如工业和信息化部在 7 月表示，已在 Anthropic 的编程工具 Claude Code 的某些版本中检测到安全风险。监管机构多次就 OpenClaw 等 A.I. 助手的风险向国内用户发出警告。

布鲁金斯学会的陈先生表示：“这次是一个更为广泛的警告，不是针对某个特定模型或某个特定漏洞的威胁，而是关于 A.I. 将如何为中国创造新风险的更广泛的范式转移。”

他说：“这是关于认真对待这些强大的新工具，并意识到存在许多漏洞，中国需要加快行动，同时利用 A.I. 来修补这些漏洞，并防御这些强大的新型网络攻击者。”

就在中国安全主管阐述国家对 A.I. 的担忧时，其外交部正指责美国公司在炒作该技术的危险性。

这是在回应一些西方 A.I. 高管（如 Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei）要求华盛顿打击中国公司的呼吁。

在周末的一封公开信中，Amodei 先生表示，民主国家必须保持对中国的领先地位。他支持限制向中国销售强大的 A.I. 芯片，以及采取其他措施以足够地减缓中国的进展，从而扩大美国的领先优势。

当被问及中国的 A.I. 产业是否对美国构成威胁时，中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆周一表示，此类“威胁论”和“恶意竞争”只会增加各国在 A.I. 监管方面开展合作的难度。

今年夏天法国西南部的山火。联合国上周表示，地球的升温将继续超过 1.5 摄氏度的阈值。

关键气候目标受挫，部分国家开启生存之战

作者：奇科·哈兰（CHICO HARLAN）

2015年《巴黎气候协定》中最具雄心的部分——将全球升温限制在1.5摄氏度以内——之所以能够达成，完全是因为世界上一些最贫穷、最无助的国家发起的运动。

加勒比地区的参与者贴出了写着“1.5度以保生存”的海报，图瓦卢总理则表示，任何超过该标志的温度上升都将意味着他以及其他低洼岛国的“彻底灭亡”。

联合国上周承认地球将突破这一限制，对于任何追踪全球温度的人来说这并不意外，因为全球温度一直在持续上升。

但尽管如此，这仍使一个可怕的结果正式化：在全球大国削减化石燃料污染方面进展寥寥的情况下，脆弱国家现在将花费数十年，甚至数百年，去面对他们曾表示无法承受的局面。

虽然这让他们不得不直面在巴黎期间所担忧的问题——海平面上升和灾害加剧，但他们还面临着十年前几乎无人能想象的新风险。包括美国在内的富裕国家削减援助，导致人道主义安全网缩减。作为历史上全球最大的排放国，美国已经退出了《巴黎协定》，并退出了旨在帮助发展中国家应对气候变化的基金。

贫穷国家表示，这些变化可能会使突破1.5摄氏度的后果更加艰难，使他们应对灾害的资源进一步减少，同时扩大全球不平等。

“我们面临着创造这样一个世界的风险：气候变化不断将贫穷国家推向后退，”总部位于内罗毕的气候与能源智库 Power Shift 的主任穆罕默德·阿多（Mohamed Adow）说道，他参加了2015年的巴黎谈判。“这正是脆弱国家争取1.5摄氏度的原因。他们明白气候风险并非均匀分布。”

富裕的工业化国家与贫穷的发展中国家之间的分歧，长期以来一直是国际气候谈判的一个定义性特征。但联合国于9月2,发布的关于突破1.5摄氏度的报告，预计将在各国参加今年11月在土耳其安塔利亚举行的年度气候峰会时，制造额外的紧张局势。

一个代表44个国家的谈判集团（被称为“最不发达国家”）本月提出了建立一个法庭来评估潜在气候“赔偿”的想法。对于那些需要承担责任的富裕国家来说，这个词长期以来一直是一个无法启动的议题。

这些最不发达国家表示，突破1.5摄氏度（或2.7华氏度）的目标意味着“不可逆转的损失和破坏在不断增加”。

从长期来看，如果能大规模地从大气中提取二氧化碳，理论上可以将温度降低。另一个谈判联盟“小岛屿国家联盟”表示，不应放弃1.5度的目标，政府应尝试“尽快将全球温度恢复到 $1.5^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$ 以下”。

1.5度的目标并不代表一个神奇的行星阈值，即跨过该线后一切都会截然不同。科学家强调，每增加一小部分温度，都会提高出现危险高温、洪水、干旱、火灾和其他极端天气的可能性。但谈判代表将这一温度标志视为避免最破坏性后果的一种方式。

联合国表示，这一目标将在“未来几年内”被突破。

部分原因是领导者在巴黎会议上讨论生存风险的方式，使得一个意象在公众想象中占据主导地位：即海平面上升导致岛国变得不再适宜居住。但随着全球升温逼近 1.5 摄氏度，问题已远不止于此，既包括突发灾难（如上个月尼泊尔发生的冰川崩塌），也包括那些经常被忽视的缓慢演变事件。据国际特赦组织称，安哥拉南部的干旱摧毁了农业，导致人们在没有证件的情况下逃往邻国纳米比亚。南苏丹停滞的洪水颠覆了放牧模式并加剧了冲突。海洋热浪导致珊瑚白化，并破坏了经济至关重要的旅游目的地。

“这非常可怕，”来自加勒比国家圣卢西亚的谈判代表詹姆斯·弗莱彻（James Fletcher）说道，他在巴黎会议期间曾协助领导一个关于 1.5 摄氏度目标的委员会。“有些物种将会灭绝。将会有人丧生。我们曾有机会确保不会走到这一步，但我们还是让它发生了。”

在签署《巴黎协定》时，自工业时代开始——即人类开始大规模燃烧石油、天然气和煤炭以来——全球气温已经上升了约 1 摄氏度，或 1.8 华氏度。

在那些谈判开始前，大多数大国似乎满足于一项旨在将未来升温限制在 2 摄氏度（或 3.6 华氏度）以下的协议。但脆弱国家成功地改变了谈判中通常的权力平衡，说服了包括美国在内的大国加入。出生于夏威夷并自称是“岛屿男孩”的巴拉克·奥巴马总统表示，任何协议都应服务于“最脆弱群体的利益”。

当时的预测显示，要达到那个目标，路径极其狭窄，这将需要迅速的社会变革和温室气体排放削减。即便如此，一些科学家表示，最乐观的情况也可能涉及轻微的超标。

但十年后，尽管太阳能技术变得更便宜，电池存储和电动汽车有所进步，排放量仍高出约 10%。

而现在，在最乐观的情况下，超标幅度也不会那么小。联合国表示，即使每个国家都达成每一项气候承诺以及净零目标，升温峰值也将达到约 1.8 摄氏度。专家表示，更可能的情况是升温将超过 2 摄氏度。

这听起来可能并不严重。但每一次微小的升温都意味着更极端的天气。目前全球的升温水平（略低于 1.5 摄氏度）绝非气候稳定的写照——欧洲出现了致命的热浪，水资源短缺日益严重，加拿大山火产生的烟雾飘过整个北美洲。总部位于柏林的气候科学与政策研究所 Climate Analytics 的首席执行官比尔·黑尔（Bill Hare）表示，“1.5 度带来的影响比我们十年前预想的要高。”

联合国年度排放报告的主作者约里·罗格尔（Joeri Rogelj）表示，总的来说，十年的科学研究表明地球比预期的更敏感。“当我们发现新事物时，绝大多数都是坏消息，”他说。“生态系统在面对气候变化带来的压力和升温时更为脆弱。”

这种脆弱性最明显的例子最近出现在西藏和尼泊尔，喜马拉雅山脉的一段区域及其上方的冰川崩塌，导致 1,000 多人死亡。尼泊尔农业、森林与环境部长吉塔·乔杜里（Gita Chaudhary）指出，即便该国正在寻求重建资金，但仍在为多年冻土融化和高海拔冰川湖引发的其他灾难做准备。

“这类灾难，绝不会是最后一次，”乔杜里女士说道。

随着担忧增加，查尔斯国王将召集人工智能领袖

作者：EPHRAT LIVNI

由于人们日益担心这项技术在不受控制的情况下发展可能会导致全球性灾难，英国国王查尔斯三世本周将在苏格兰会见主要人工智能公司的负责人。

根据白金汉宫的一份声明，国王将召集包括英伟达（Nvidia）、谷歌（Google）、DeepMind、OpenAI 和 Anthropic 在内的公司负责人，以及政府官员和其他人员，“讨论如何以造福社会的方式开发和部署人工智能”。

他们将在苏格兰西南部的艾尔郡（Ayrshire）邓弗里斯庄园（Dumfries House）会面，这里是教育慈善机构“国王基金会”（King's Foundation）的总部。

此次集会召开之际，人工智能业内人士以及一些行业内最具影响力公司的首席执行官们已对这些工具及其发展速度发出了警报。一些人呼吁制定共同的指导方针，并刻意放缓进步速度，以确保人类能够跟上步伐。

白金汉宫的声明称，查尔斯关于人工智能的会议将探讨如何利用该技术造福社会，以“加强社区建设并改善生活”。

宫方并未说明声明中所列的人工智能公司中将由谁出席，Anthropic、DeepMind、谷歌和英伟达未立即回应确认其参与的置评请求。OpenAI 表示，其首席财务官莎拉·弗赖尔（Sarah Friar）将出席。

目前对人工智能快速进步的担忧在很大程度上是由今年夏天发生的一起黑客攻击事件引发的。当时，一家人工智能基础设施公司 Hugging Face 遭到攻击，而这次攻击是由 OpenAI 创建的一组人工智能代理（A.I. agents）策划的。这些 OpenAI 代理蜂拥而至，入侵了 Hugging Face 的系统，窃取数据，夺取了一台服务器的控制权，并试图掩盖其行踪。

那次黑客攻击——以及另一次类似的—。

致力于探讨如何将该技术用于造福人类。

随后在 OpenAI 内部发生的另一起类似事件，极大地加剧了人们对机器可能迅速脱离人类控制并产生潜在毁灭性影响的恐惧。

Anthropic 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）周六发表了一封 3,800 字的公开信，呼吁放缓人工智能的开发速度。

除了 Hugging Face 的黑客攻击事件外，他还将当前人工智能模型日益具备构建下一代人工智能工具的能力列为担忧事项。阿莫代先生表示，这种被称为“递归自我改进”的动态机制，如果任其发展，可能会“超越我们理解和控制这些系统的能力”。

据白金汉宫透露，查尔斯国王与人工智能领导者之间的会面将由英国非营利组织迪奇利基金会（Ditchley Foundation）促成，英国人工智能大臣卡尼什卡·纳拉扬（Kanishka Narayan）也将出席。

宫方补充称，由国王创立的慈善组织代表也将参加，包括青少年慈善机构“国王信托”（King's Trust）以及由全球首席执行官组成的网络“可持续市场倡议”（Sustainable Markets Initiative）。

阿莫代先生周六发表的文章得到了其他人工智能公司领导者的支持，包括 OpenAI 的萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）以及 xAI 的埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）——xAI 是马斯克旗下的火箭和卫星公司 SpaceX 的一部分。

阿莫代先生敦促全球人工智能公司和监管机构在技术开发方面共同协作，并提出了自己的三步走计划。

他的建议包括：允许第三方评估人员进驻前沿人工智能公司以监控增长并报告事故，以及在民主国家公司之间进行协调，以建立统一的安全标准。

他表示，“在尽可能范围内”，民主国家和威权政府也应尝试协调并掌控全球发展的节奏。

这篇文章发表前几天，曾在 OpenAI 工作过的 Anthropic 工程师雅各布·考克森（Jacob Coxon）辞职，并在社交媒体上宣称，这些公司口头上声称担心快速发展，但实际上却在向“能够黑入任何系统、一夜之间颠覆任何领域并获取真实权力和资源的超人类系统”疾速冲刺。

法国在发布嘲讽美国投票的帖子后悄然让步

法国的道歉将使奥雷利安·勒舍瓦利耶（Aurélien Lechevallier）出任其驻美大使的提名得以推进。 THOMAS SAMSON / 法新社 — 盖蒂图片社

马克·兰德勒（MARK LANDLER）报道

巴黎——今年7月，当法国将美国与朝鲜和俄罗斯相提并论时，特朗普政府通过冻结一名新任法国驻华盛顿大使的批准程序予以回应。

现在，在经历了七周的美国压力后，法国已经让步，并于周五就引发此次争端的社交媒体帖子表示道歉。据一名美国高级官员和一名了解情况的前法国官员透露，这将使法国提名奥雷利安·勒舍瓦利耶担任驻华盛顿大使的程序得以推进。由于谈判的敏感性，两人在要求匿名的条件下接受了采访。

这一事件说明了在特朗普时代，欧洲与美国之间关系紧张的本质，双方在格陵兰岛的未来、乌克兰问题以及战后国际秩序等议题上产生了分歧。

此次争端爆发于7月24日。当时，联合国大会以114票赞成、10票反对、13票弃权的投票结果，决定给予奥地利律师沃尔克·图尔克（Volker Türk）第二个四年任期，担任联合国人权委员会高级专员。

与朝鲜和俄罗斯一样，美国反对图尔克先生。美方引用了他对美国和以色列的批评，以及美方所称的他对谴责伊朗和古巴压制性政府的不情愿。

“联合国人权体系几十年来一直在失去公信力，”美国驻联合国代表团在社交媒体的一篇帖子中写道，“沃尔克·图尔克将其带向了临终之床。”

针对该帖子，法国驻日内瓦代表团发布道：“美国曾是人权的灯塔。但现在不再是了。今天，它与朝鲜、尼加拉瓜、马里和俄罗斯一起，处于孤立状态。世界不再倾听它的声音。”该信息被外交部转发，但外交部随后删除了该转发。

美国国务院对该帖子反应愤怒，向法国驻华盛顿大使馆提出了抗议。在联合国，当一名法国外交官在议事厅发言时，美国代表团愤而离场。据该美国官员称，在巴黎，美国大使查尔斯·库什纳（Charles Kushner）给总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙（Emmanuel Macron）发短信，敦促法方采取某种姿态以缓和问题。

库什纳先生作为调解人的参与值得关注，因为他在任职初期曾公开指责法国在打击反犹主义方面做得不够，从而激化了美法关系。他曾两次被外交部传唤，因干涉法国内政而受到谴责，但他拒绝了这两次请求。

法国外交部长让-诺埃尔·巴罗（Jean-Noël Barrot）的幕僚长勒舍瓦利耶先生原定于本月前往华盛顿，接替即将离任的大使洛朗·比利（Laurent Bili）。与所有使节一样，他的任命需要东道国政府的批准，而美国官员向法方明确表示，在处理掉那篇冒犯性帖子之前，批准不会发生。

50岁的勒舍瓦利耶先生被认为与马克龙先生关系密切，曾是其同学及顾问。

美国国务院和法国外交部拒绝就勒舍瓦利耶先生提名的状态发表评论，但双方都暗示，道歉将迅速解决僵局。

外交部的一位发言人表示：“我们致力于推进与美国伙伴的双边关系。”一名国务院官员表示：“我们注意到并赞赏法国的声明，并期待共同努力，进一步促进共同的价值观和利益。”

自从特朗普总统重返白宫以来，法国外交部一直以利用社交媒体反击美国及其他欧洲批评者而自豪，且反击方式通常带有幽默色彩。该部门在X平台上运营着一个受欢迎且有时带有讽刺意味的账号 @FrenchResponse。在去年5月的一次演讲中，巴罗先生表示，该账号“并非在恶意挑衅，而是一种地缘政治工具，一种实时重构叙事的工具”。

但此次事件表明，这种前卫的做法并非没有风险，至少就特朗普政府而言如此。前法国驻华盛顿大使热拉尔·欧罗（Gérard Araud）表示，那条被投诉的帖子已经越界，而法国未能立即处理该情况，只会加剧损害。

“法国人犯了一个错误；他们现在正在为此付出代价。他们本应该早点处理，”欧罗先生说，“美国利用了我们的无能。”

音乐之星卷入南非移民争议

6月，南非斯普林（Spring）一场针对无证外国人的抗议活动。该国对待移民的方式遭到批评。 JOAO SILVA / THE NEW YORK TIMES

作者：ZIMASA MATIWANE

约翰内斯堡 —— 南非歌手 Tyla 在抗议活动后取消了在尼日利亚的一场演出。同样来自南非的 amapiano 明星 Musa Keys 被从津巴布韦的一场音乐节名单中剔除。而来自马里的受人尊敬的音乐家 Salif Keïta 则因他所谓的“排外暴力”取消了在南非的一场演出。

随着反移民情绪在整个南非高涨，艺术家和粉丝们开始发声，要求该国解决一波威胁和暴力事件，这些事件已导致数千人逃离这个非洲最大的经济体。

非洲各国元首谴责了南非，并呼吁非洲联盟追究该国的责任。尼日利亚要求南非向那些被迫离开家园并被遣返的公民提供赔偿。南非最近失去了一个处理电信事务的重要全洲领导角色，有人认为这是因为该国外交地位受损所致。

而现在，该国的音乐家和演艺人员也面临着抵制。

“这关乎人们团结起来并表示：‘不，我们有发言权，而且这个声音很重要，’”尼日利亚作家兼评论员 Solomon Buchi 表示，他是那些在社交媒体上抗议 Tyla 在拉各斯举办演唱会的人员之一。

负责监督艺术与文化的南非政府部长 Gayton McKenzie 否认了南非人具有排外心理以及该国艺术家应为此负责的观点。南非政府表示，其目标是打击非法移民，并专注于保护国家边境。

“执行移民法并不是排外，”McKenzie 先生说道。他主要凭借反移民平台进行竞选，并帮助推广了在许多反移民抗议活动中被高喊的口号“Abahambe”（祖鲁语，意为“让他们走”）。

席卷南非的反移民情绪包括民团袭击移民社区，并擅自将

南非歌手 Tyla 在社交媒体引发强烈抗议后，退出了尼日利亚的一场活动。

外国人驱逐出境。

暴力行为和激烈的言辞导致许多移民离开南非。根据南非政府的数据，从6月中旬到8月下旬，至少有 86,000 名外国国民被驱逐或遣返。

马里艺术家 Keïta 先生在 Facebook 的一篇帖子中表示，他无法“忽视有关针对我们非洲兄弟姐妹的排外暴力的报道”。

他的经纪人 Carolina Vallejo

马里艺术家 Salif Keïta 是南非爵士乐和文化节的常客，他取消了一场演出。

确认了他的决定。

77 岁的 Keïta 先生一直是南非爵士乐和文化节的中坚力量。他与南非的联系可追溯到几十年前，包括 1988 年在英国温布利球场参加的纳尔逊·曼德拉 70 岁生日致敬演唱会，该活动与国际反种族隔离运动相关。

他强调，决定不在南非演出并不是对南非人的拒绝。“我想明确一点 —— 我并没有关闭

在遭到抵制威胁后，Musa Keys 被从津巴布韦的一场音乐节中剔除。

通往南非的大门，”他写道，“我关闭的是暴力之门。”

格莱美奖得主 Tyla 在尼日利亚拥有大量追随者，并曾与该国一些顶尖明星合作，包括 Ayra Starr、Tems 和 Wizkid。但尼日利亚人批评她原定在拉各斯的演出，指责她在面对反移民袭击时保持沉默，而非利用自己的影响力予以谴责。

Tyla 未就其拉各斯演唱会取消的原因发表公开评论，其代表也未立即回应置评请求。

Blessing Jake 花了数月时间在津巴布韦筹备一场音乐节，直到 7 月，他开始在社交媒体上看到一些帖子，人们威胁称如果演出阵容中不剔除南非艺术家，他们将抵制该活动。

Buddie Beats 演唱会原定在维多利亚瀑布举行，Jake 先生此前花费数月时间才争取到演出中最重量级的艺人，包括南非乐队 Mafikizolo。

最终，Jake 先生将 Mafikizolo 从演出名单中剔除。他表示，此举导致他损失了数十万美元。Jake 先生表示，他希望围绕南非艺术家的负面氛围能尽快得到解决。

“从商业角度来看，”他说，“排外主义的代价非常昂贵。”

莫迪在峰会上提供无肉晚餐，其批评者对此面色凝重

作者：庄严（YAN ZHUANG）与亚历克斯·特拉韦利（ALEX TRAVELLI）

新德里——上周末在印度举行的金砖国家（BRICS）峰会上，共同用餐的世界领导人们被端上了一盘又一盘的佳肴：在浓汁中炖煮的块状帕尼尔奶酪、配以藏红花的喜马拉雅羊肚菌，以及加入番茄和咖喱叶的小扁豆汤。

肉类明显缺失。

总理纳伦德拉·莫迪的政治对手们很少错过批评他的机会，他们指责他宣传了一个不完整的印度饮食图景。议会下院反对党领袖拉胡尔·甘地在社交媒体上指出，大多数印度人并非素食主义者。

莫迪政府的一位部长基伦·里吉朱驳斥了这一批评，称宾客们享用了反映印度“多样化地区传统”的素食菜肴。

“我不敢相信国大党竟然在为提供给金砖国家领导人的菜单做政治文章，”他说道，此处指的是甘地先生所属的印度国民大会党。

在印度，食物可能成为宗派和政治的导火索，并且在莫迪任期内变得极具极化色彩。他拥有印度教民族主义支持基础，其政府已采取措施推广印度教事业，并边缘化穆斯林及其他群体。

在一些印度教社区中，尤其是高种姓群体以及印度北部和西部部分地区，素食主义具有宗教和文化关联，尽管许多印度教徒也吃肉。

这次晚餐并非孤例。塞舌尔总统帕特里克·赫米尼和越南总统苏林在今年访问新德里期间，也是被提供素食餐的世界领导人。

莫迪本人是素食主义者且不饮酒。在他参加的无论是公开还是私人活动中，酒精饮料都会被移出视线；例如在婚礼招待会上，他的安保人员会在他抵达前关闭酒吧。

2023年印度在新德里举办二十国集团（Group of 20）峰会时，为领导人们提供的晚餐重点推出了小米类谷物——当时印度政府已成功提议联合国将2023年定为“国际小米年”。

新加坡南洋理工大学研究食物与烹饪外交的学者凯里·马特维克表示，为到访显贵提供的餐食可以发挥重要的外交功能。“这是一种尝试向另一个国家突出本国某些特点的方式，”她说，并补充道，这也可以成为向到访领导人表示尊重或促进对话的一种方式。

例如，2018年新加坡在接待特朗普总统和朝鲜领导人金正恩举行峰会时，菜单兼顾了两个国家。为特朗普总统准备了虾鸡尾酒和牛短肋排；为金正恩主席准备了传统的韩国菜——填入牛肉、鸡蛋和胡萝卜的黄瓜，以及酱焖鳕鱼。

在其他外交集会中，食物被用来奠定基调。1939年，英国国王乔治六世和伊丽莎白王后在纽约州海德公园的富兰克林·D·罗斯福总统庄园野餐时，被提供了热狗。马特维克女士说：“人们因为这种非正式感而发笑，但这为活动增添了一种独特性。”

外交菜单也可能引起反感。2017年韩国在为特朗普总统举行国宴时，提供了在韩国控制但日本也主张主权的岛屿附近捕获的虾，引发了东京方面的投诉。

马特维克女士表示，外交餐食的最终目标是帮助培养良好关系。但她补充说，如果餐食处理不当，“可能会引发很多争议。”

特朗普向爱尔兰示好：取消威士忌关税

作者：LUKE BROADWATER 和 ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS

都柏林 —— 特朗普总统承诺取消对爱尔兰威士忌的关税，这引起了聚集在他位于克莱尔郡高尔夫球场支持者们的热烈掌声。

总统削减 10% 关税的承诺，是特朗普先生在全球贸易中采取的反复无常方式的最新例证，也体现了他如何经常根据与外国领导人的个人互动或商业利益来调整其关税政策。

“每个人都在烦我，”特朗普先生周日在爱尔兰公开赛高尔夫锦标赛的聚集人群中说道。“他们说，‘能帮我个忙吗？现在的情况太不公平了。您能不能取消爱尔兰威士忌的关税？’于是我说，‘代表美利坚合众国，我将取消爱尔兰威士忌的关税。’”

爱尔兰副总理西蒙·哈里斯（Simon Harris）称特朗普先生的承诺是“特朗普总统今晚发布的一项具有经济意义的令人欢迎的公告，这反映了我们在过去 18 个月里与美国政府在关税问题上进行的非常积极的接触。”

特朗普先生经常利用关税政策来影响其他国家。他多次威胁并撤销关税，导致其他国家的官员措手不及。在他的总统任期的大部分时间里，他一直主张其他国家通过销售廉价商品来占美国便宜。但有时他也会退让，就像去年那样，取消了包括牛肉、番茄、香蕉和咖啡在内的外国产品的关税。

这一公告呼应了今年春天的一次类似举动，当时特朗普先生在华盛顿为查尔斯三世国王举行国宴后，宣布将取消对苏格兰威士忌的关税。

在查尔斯国王访问后，苏格兰威士忌的税项被取消。

在抵达都柏林后几乎立即，特朗普先生似乎意图发表一些能够安抚——或扰乱——他在爱尔兰的新受众的言论。周六，特朗普先生打破了美国数十年的中立立场，称如果北爱尔兰和爱尔兰共和国统一将是“极好的”。

周日，特朗普先生再次表达了对统一的支持。

“我一直热爱爱尔兰人民，在我看来，你们有北爱尔兰，也有爱尔兰，在我看来，最自然的事情之一就是将它们合并在一起，”特朗普先生说。“这仅仅是我的个人观点。顺便说一句，很多人都同意。”

特朗普先生急于分享自己的观点，在这次最初看来主要聚焦于高尔夫的行程中立即引起了轰动。右翼盟友，如民粹主义政党改革英国党（Reform U.K）的负责人奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage），以及北爱尔兰支持留在英国的主要政党负责人，都对他发表的言论提出了批评。

统一在北爱尔兰是一个极具争议的问题，一些人担心会回到被称为“麻烦时期”（The Troubles）的暴力时代。在爱尔兰共和国独立后，英国将北爱尔兰从爱尔兰岛中分离出来。

虽然爱尔兰共和国的大多数公民支持统一，但历任爱尔兰政府——以及美国总统——都避开了这个极具分歧的问题。

但在周日被高尔夫球场球迷簇拥时，特朗普先生似乎意图在离开爱尔兰时赢得盛大的喝彩。在他宣布取消关税后，人群中爆发出了“U.S.A.!”的欢呼声。

ALEX KENT / THE NEW YORK TIMES 周日，特朗普总统在爱尔兰杜恩贝格的高尔夫球场参加爱尔兰公开赛。

国家

纽约时报

持扩音器的参议员候选人震醒佛罗里达州沉闷的民主党人

索尔·马丁内斯 / 纽约时报 上图及左图为佛罗里达州民主党参议员候选人安吉·尼克松（Angie Nixon）在迈阿密周围进行竞选和拉票。2022年，她与州代表特拉瓦里斯·麦考迪（Travaris McCurdy）在州议会大厦举行静坐，抗议由州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯（Ron DeSantis）主导的选区重新划分工作。一年后，在杰克逊维尔的一家廉价商店发生一起种族动机枪击事件后，她在该市参加了游行。

索尔·马丁内斯 / 纽约时报 菲尔·西尔斯 / 美联社

肖恩·雷福德 / 盖蒂图片社

长期处于劣势的 尼克松致力于传播 进步主义信息

作者：帕特里夏·马泽伊（PATRICIA MAZZEI）

佛罗里达州杰克逊维尔 —— 安吉·尼克松很难被禁声。

她第一次在佛罗里达州抗议不公正的选区划分时，共和党州议员切断了她静坐活动的视频传输。第二次出现时，她带了一个扩音器。第三次，她被逮捕了。

“当他们采取卑劣手段时，”她说道，对米歇尔·奥巴马十年前的名言进行了改编，“我们就大声疾呼。”

尼克松作为州代表所采取的高分贝策略，使她成为佛罗里达州共和党州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯最敢于发声的批评者之一。有时，她也让民主党同僚感到不快。一些政治资深人士曾将她的美国参议院竞选活动斥为进步主义的幻想 —— 直到上个月，她在初选中决定性地击败了一位立场更温和的对手。这使她跃升至全国舞台，并震醒了在这个共和党倾向州中原本沉闷的民主党。

在此后的几周里，她一直嗓音沙哑，几乎出现在所有场合，试图证明一名带有南方口音、自认为进步主义者且在6月加入美国民主社会主义者（Democratic Socialists of America）的黑人女性，可以在一个特朗普总统曾三次获胜的州中获胜。如果当选，尼克松将成为佛罗里达州首位黑人参议员。

全美范围内的民主党人几乎已经放弃了佛罗里达州。共和党人认为，尼克松被提名（他们将其贴上“社会主义者”的标签）只会让共和党现任参议员艾希莉·穆迪（Ashley Moody）在11月更容易获胜，穆迪是德桑蒂斯去年任命接替马可·鲁比奥（Marco Rubio）的人选。

但作为参议员候选人的尼克松，就像作为州立法者的尼克松一样，难以被忽视。穆迪倾向于克制，而尼克松则倾向于激进。穆迪主要在福克斯新闻（Fox News）和友好支持者之间活动，而尼克松则与媒体以及被她吸引的好奇人群互动。

在全国范围内对共和党不利的力量 —— 高昂的生活成本，以及部分远离特朗普的西班牙裔选民 —— 在佛罗里达州同样存在。而且，从历史上看，当黑人候选人领衔名单时，佛罗里达州民主党能动员更多的选民。

“拿骚县的朋友们，你们好！”42岁的尼克松最近在尤利（Yulee）对满屋的支持者说道，尤利是佛罗里达州东北部靠近佐治亚州的一个深红社区。她随后开玩笑说，他们在这里可能从未见过这么多民主党人。

尼克松并非建制派。她的初选胜利令一些民主党领导人如此震惊，以至于原计划在假设其对手获胜的前提下举行的一场团结集会被取消了。一些犹太裔民主党人对她在2023年于塔拉哈西提交的一项决议感到不满，该决议呼吁“在以色列国和被占领的巴勒斯坦”停火，最终以104-2的投票结果未能通过。此后，她修复了一些关系，并迅速谴责了反犹太主义事件。

她也不太符合今年参选的其他民主社会主义者的模式。作为一名资深的工会和社区组织者，她一直致力于恢复重罪犯投票权、扩大医疗补助（Medicaid）以及推动大学兼职教授加入工会的活动。她还经营着一家名为“反抗咖啡馆”（Cafe Resistance）的书店兼咖啡馆。2020年，她获得了家乡杰克逊维尔商会的支持，随后击败了一名保守派民主党现任议员。

她对德桑蒂斯先生的公开反对已成为她的标志。在他政府开展的每一次“反觉醒战争”中——无论是修改学校关于奴隶制的教学方式，限制多样性计划，还是从学校图书馆移除书籍——尼克森女士都出现在现场，称这些政策是种族主义的，并称州长是个霸凌者。她的店铺里展出了被禁书籍。

2023年，在一次为杰克逊维尔一家美元通用店（Dollar General）种族动机枪击案中遇害的黑人受害者举行的守夜活动中，德桑蒂斯先生遭到嘘声，而她就站在附近，双手叉腰，怒视着他。

今年春天，她在州长办公室驻守，就其政府操纵的国会选区划分图要求会面。她拒绝离开，导致被捕。她将于下个月就非法侵入罪接受审判。

“我是罗恩·德桑蒂斯最头疼的人，”她最近在迈阿密的一次筹款活动中告诉捐赠者，将自己塑造为选民想要的斗士，并表示她也将成为特朗普先生“最头疼的人”。而总统在上周的共和党中期会议上，称她是民主社会主义者协会（D.S.A.）的“正式成员”。

一些民主党人不喜欢她的风格和政治主张，但共同主持这次筹款活动的前迈阿密国会议员乔·加西亚表示，尼克森女士给人一种真实感，而这正是佛罗里达州民主党人一直难以实现的特质。

基蒂·贝内特（Kitty Bennett）参与了研究工作。

“你可能不喜欢她所说的话，但你知道那是她的真实感受，”他说，“这非常有力量。”

佛罗里达州民主党第一副主席丹尼尔·亨利与尼克森女士合作密切，他表示，那些质疑她的人如果轻视她的热情和组织能力，将自食其果。

“那些通常低估她的人，”他说，“最终都会输。”

“我们必须出现在那里”

尼克森女士在杰克逊维尔具有黑人历史传统的蒙特克里夫社区长大。她的母亲打两份工来抚养她和她的哥哥。

13岁时，尼克森女士在她的家乡报纸《佛罗里达时报-联合报》（The Florida Times-Union）上表示，如果有一部基于她生活的电影，她会将其命名为《直言不讳》（Outspoken），“因为我喜欢表达内心的感受，而不是把事情憋在心里”。

她毕业于斯坦顿大学预科高中（一所公立磁石高中）和佛罗里达大学。在最后一个学期，明显怀孕的尼克森女士走进当时杰克逊维尔市议员米娅·L·琼斯（Mia L. Jones）的办公室，请求担任她的实习生。当时市议会并不提供实习机会。

“她并不害怕来请求一件并不存在的事情，”为她创建了实习岗位的琼斯女士说道。

2008年，刚大学毕业且是一位1岁女儿的单身母亲，尼克森女士竞选市议员。《时报-联合报》支持她——编辑委员会写道：“她的胆识无疑是毋庸置疑的”——但她输掉了选举。

几年后，当她的女儿娜塔莉·麦格里夫（Natalie McGriff）对自己的外貌感到不自信时，这对母女出版了关于“胆识麦格里夫”（Moxie McGriff）的儿童读物，书中的角色因为卷发而拥有超能力。

尼克森女士有时在经济上陷入困境。公共记录显示，2014年她在更换工作期间因房贷逾期，其房产曾短暂进入止赎程序。该案件随后被撤销。

2016年，她担任伯尼·桑德斯总统竞选活动中负责全国黑人外展工作的副现场总监。尼克森女士表示，四年后，她支持伊丽莎白·沃伦竞选民主党提名。

那一年，尼克森女士在怀第二个女儿期间竞选州众议员。另一位进步派组织者安德里亚·克里斯蒂娜·梅尔卡多（Andrea Cristina Mercado）回忆道，由于冠状病毒疫情，民主党几乎关闭了所有现场竞选活动。但尼克森女士坚持进行扫街动员，并在选举前感染了新冠肺炎。

“安吉一直像是在提醒我们：‘共和党人就在那些门前（扫街），’”梅尔卡多女士说，“我们也必须出现在那些门前。”

在以压倒性优势获胜后，尼克森女士与她小女儿的父亲贾雷特·莫雷内（Jarrett Morene）结婚。他们的重组家庭让他们成为了五个孩子的父母。

尼克森女士抵达州议会大厦时，德桑蒂斯先生正成为共和党在全国范围内的宠儿。2022年，共和党议员准备通过旨在削弱黑人代表权的重新划分选区地图。尼克森女士和州代表特拉瓦里斯·麦克科迪（Travaris McCurdy）中断了会议，并坐在众议院议事厅内抗议。他们穿着印有“停止针对黑人的攻击”（STOP THE BLACK ATTACK）字样的T恤，这些衣服是他们在前一天晚上匆忙赶到当地购物中心制作的。

这次静坐抗议使尼克森女士成为了强有力的德桑蒂斯先生的对手。但这同时也带来了批评。

2024年，她的初选对手指责她未能通过立法或为选区项目争取资金。在立法机关致力于扩大儿童护理并应对价格欺诈的尼克森女士反驳称，共和党人想让她离开是因为她“制造了太多的噪音”。

她以81%的得票率获胜。

弱势者的粉色扩音器

今年，当共和党立法者准备就一套旨在取消四个民主党席位的新国会选区地图进行投票时，尼克森女士正在竞选参议员。

她弄来了一个粉色的扩音器——这是她竞选标志的颜色——并穿着一套配套的连体衣，在众议院议事厅的中央通道上行进以示抗议。几周后，她在德桑蒂斯先生的办公室里举行了静坐活动。

共和党人和一些民主党人将她的抗议行为斥为噱头。但民主党初选选民对此看法不同，他们以两位数的领先优势选择了她，而非与党内建制派有联系的前国家安全官员亚历克斯·温德曼（Alex Vindman）。

赢得大选则更为困难。穆迪女士在某种程度上是一个典型的共和党人，但这在共和党人数远超民主党的佛罗里达州已经足够了。佛罗里达州并不在任何竞争激烈的参议员选战名单上，不过尼克森女士的强劲表现可能会带动选票单上其他民主党候选人的得票率。

穆迪女士拒绝与尼克森女士辩论，称她“不会给一个”她认为“真正反美”的人“提供舞台或任何关注”。她暗示尼克森女士过去曾在美国-伊斯兰关系委员会（Council on American-Islamic Relations）发表过演讲，该组织是一个穆斯林倡导和民权团体，已被佛罗里达州宣布为外国恐怖组织。

德桑蒂斯先生断然否定了一名民主社会主义者在佛罗里达州获胜的机会：“我认为这根本行不通。”

这种认为关注基层

由德桑蒂斯先生任命接替马可·鲁比奥席位的参议员艾什莉·穆迪（Ashley Moody）表示，她不会与尼克森女士辩论。

劳动人民可以激发选民的理念，源于尼克森女士及其由劳工组织者组成的智囊团，其中包括已故的佛罗里达公共服务工会领导人阿尔方索·梅菲尔德（Alphonso Mayfield）以及她的前上司。在今年1月去世的梅菲尔德先生或许是尼克森女士最坚定的支持者。

尼克森女士开着一辆绰号为“Vangie”的面包车进行竞选，车内装满了零食、一个衣架和一个枕头。为了省钱，她经常住在亲友家。她最近的一份财务披露显示，她欠美国国税局（IRS）近 $14,000 的债务，她的竞选团队称这是一项税务分期付款计划。

她的活动旨在招募支持者担任扫街员和电话银行员。她的演讲听起来像教会复兴集会，尼克森女士引导人们进行呼应式的口号呐喊，就像她最近在一个雨天的周六在迈阿密的小哈瓦那社区所做的那样。

“我正在与一名投票支持取消本州 440,000 名佛罗里达州居民医疗保健的女性竞争——请大家说：‘可耻！’”她说道。

在南佛罗里达州，民主社会主义很难被接受，尤其是在西班牙裔群体中。尼克森女士并不后悔加入民主社会主义者美国分会（D.S.A.），称自己是一名包容性的民主党人，但在迈阿密期间，她谴责了古巴和委内瑞拉的独裁领导人。随后，她跳上面包车，开始挨家挨户敲门。

来自古巴的 60 岁巴士司机赫苏斯·加西亚（Jesús García）欢迎尼克森女士进入他的客厅，并告诉她自己是在 TikTok 上认出她的。

“你所做的事情很棒，”加西亚先生说。他是一名入籍公民，注册时未选择党派，自认为是一名自由主义者。“你是进步主义者？还是社会主义者？”

“我是进步主义者，”尼克森女士说，“我不给自己贴标签。”

LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ICE 的盟友，同时也是无证工人的雇主

一名在黑斯廷斯附近 Pillen 农场工作的员工（要求匿名）表示，部分工人在该农场工作 20 多年后仍然没有合法身份。

曾在 Pillen 农场工作的艾什莉·科尔特斯-加西亚（Ashly Cortez-Garcia）表示，管理人员知道身份证明存在问题，并采取措施以避免必须上报这些情况。

作者：YANQI XU

内布拉斯加州哥伦布市 —— 在三年前成为内布拉斯加州州长之前，吉姆·皮伦（Jim Pillen）建立了一个价值数百万美元的养猪企业。他将自己塑造为一名能够推动州经济增长的保守派商人，并在共和党初选中击败了一名由特朗普支持的候选人。

这一次，寻求今年秋天连任的皮伦先生赢得了特朗普总统的背书。这位直到去年才很少就移民问题发声的州长，已经接纳了特朗普先生强硬的移民议程。

在特朗普先生重返白宫几天后，州长指示内布拉斯加州巡警与美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）合作开展移民执法。他允许该联邦机构使用一座前州监狱（现被称为 Cornhusker Clink）来关押数百名被卷入政府大规模驱逐行动的被拘留者。他呼应了特朗普先生关于“入侵我们国家”的“刑事非法外籍人士”的言论，并谴责他声称潜伏在内布拉斯加州的“最糟糕的”移民。

但《纽约时报》和《Flatwater Free Press》发现，十多年来，皮伦先生的养猪业务一直雇佣移民工人，其中既有合法在美人员，也有非法人员。

根据对州和联邦法院记录的审查，以及对 40 多名现任和前任员工、检察官、移民律师和社区组织者的采访，随着皮伦家族农场（Pillen Family Farms）成长为美国最大的养猪生产商之一，该公司一直雇佣无证工人。

由于劳动力短缺，内布拉斯加州和其他州的许多农场都依赖移民。虽然在皮伦农场劳动力（在四个州和加拿大拥有约 1,200 名员工）中无证工人的规模尚不明确，但该公司使用无证工人这一事实在一些内布拉斯加州农场中是一个公开的秘密。

皮伦先生在员工问题上几乎没有面临公众的审查。他的发言人劳拉·斯特林普尔（Laura Strimple）在的一份声明中表示，“吉姆·皮伦从未故意雇佣非法移民，并且在核实员工移民身份方面做出了超出法律要求的努力。”

根据法院文件以及对包括几名管理人员在内的二十多名现任和前任工人的采访，至少有 20 个皮伦养猪场雇佣了无证移民。六名前员工在采访中承认，他们自己没有合法身份。

法院记录显示，在 2015 年至 2024 年期间，至少有 12 名皮伦员工被指控使用伪造或盗用的身份证件就业。许多接受采访的皮伦员工表示，这种做法很普遍。根据他们或其亲属的说法，至少有 10 人使用了虚假身份，但从未因此面临刑事指控。

大卫·阿门达里兹（David Armendariz）是一名墨西哥人，他在 2008 年旅游签证到期后逾期滞留，他表示直到 2023 年一直在两家皮伦农场工作。他在采访中回忆道，被雇佣时，一名农场经理接受了他购买的伪造驾驶执照。

萨曼莎·阿吉拉尔（Samantha Aguilar）和罗斯琳·冈萨雷斯（Roselyn Gonzalez）参与了报道。艾玛·克罗托（Emma Croteau）、乔治亚·吉（Georgia Gee）、鲍勃·格利斯曼（Bob Glissmann）、基尔斯滕·诺伊斯（Kirsten Noyes）、简·贝洛·里瓦斯（Jane Bello Rivas）、亚洲·罗林斯（Asia Rollins）和杰里米·特利（Jeremy Turley）参与了研究。莎拉·科恩（Sarah Cohen）参与了数据分析。

他说，几年后，当他在其他地方申请建筑工作时，同一张身份证件被拒绝了。

阿尔门达里斯先生表示，多年来，越来越多的西班牙裔工人来到农场，其中许多人没有合法身份。他说，一名同事多次更改姓名，另一名同事使用的名字与签到表上的不同。阿尔门达里斯先生说，他对自己身份状态一直很坦诚。“大家都知道那不是你的真名，”他说，“但他们不会问你叫什么名字。”

昆廷·罗利在2022年之前为皮伦先生的企业管理两家种猪场，他表示，大约在皮伦先生决定竞选州长的时候，公司加强了对申请人的背景调查。罗利先生说，在那之后，他不得不拒绝更多的申请人。

直到2009年担任普拉特县公共辩护人的塞缪尔·贝森表示，他每年代表数百名无证移民，其中大多数受雇于肉类包装厂。他回忆起几名被指控犯交通违规罪的客户自称是皮伦的员工，但缺乏有效的就业文件。

在收到《纽约时报》和 Flatwater 的请求后，美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）表示，在过去的15年里，没有皮伦农场接受审计或检查的记录。该联邦机构在内布拉斯加州突袭工作场所的次数相对较少。规模最大且最受关注的一次是2025年6月对奥马哈一家肉类包装厂的突袭，当时有70多名工人因涉嫌身份盗用被捕。

突袭之后，皮伦先生在采访中暗示，ICE不会针对已定居的移民。这位州长告诉《内布拉斯加审查报》：“任何在这里努力工作且为人友善的人，他们都是没问题的，他们很安全。”但他也表示，盗用身份是“严重的罪行”。

州长没有回应采访请求，并拒绝回答本文的书面提问。皮伦先生的发言人在声明中表示，他“拥有内布拉斯加州历史上最强有力的移民记录。在州长的领导下，内布拉斯加州通过与联邦实体的多种合作伙伴关系，协助联邦政府遣返了近1,000名非法移民。”

自特朗普先生开启第二个任期以来，ICE在内布拉斯加州逮捕了3,000多人，这一速度是拜登政府时期的两倍多。相比之下，根据遣返数据项目（Deportation Data Project）发布的ICE数据分析，在作为美国一些最激进的城市移民执法行动中心的明尼苏达州，此类逮捕人数增加了四倍多。

据农业生产者和劳动经济学家称，联邦官员在很大程度上避免与那些帮助特朗普先生赢得连任的州的农业雇主发生冲突。

“如果你去明尼苏达州、爱荷华州、密苏里州、内布拉斯加州或任何其他地方向农民施压，每天突袭他们的农场或加工厂，你在政治上会遇到麻烦，”内布拉斯加州养猪协会前执行主任阿尔·朱恩克说道。“这些农场就地处红州区域的正中心。”

农场工与假身份证

作为一个多世纪以来首位领导内布拉斯加州的农民，皮伦先生经常谈到他的农业根源。他在内布拉斯加州东北部普拉特县的小型家庭农场中与牲畜一起长大。

他曾在内布拉斯加大学成为一名出色的“玉米壳”（Cornhusker）橄榄球运动员，学习动物科学，并在三十多年前创办自己的企业之前担任兽医。这家总部位于哥伦布、被称为皮伦家族农场（Pillen Family Farms）的企业，最初是在一片泥土地上以 60 头母猪起家的。

如今，在经过扩张并收购竞争对手后，该公司仅在内布拉斯加州就拥有约 100 个农场，每个农场的员工人数从几个到几十个不等。自从皮伦先生就任州长以来，他的子女莎拉和布罗克负责经营该公司。在“养猪巨头”（Pork Powerhouses）名单中，该公司在全国排名第 14 位，拥有 78,000 头母猪。

该家族还拥有一家生猪育种企业，并持有 Wholestone Prestage 的少量股份，后者在弗里蒙特经营着一家由约 200 家生产商拥有的养猪加工合作社。根据州法院记录，自 2019 年以来，至少有 56 名 Wholestone 的工人被指控使用伪造身份证件工作。其中超过一半的人认罪或被定罪，部分案件正在审理中，其余被告则逃逸或未出庭。Wholestone 未回应置评请求。

在皮伦农场及其他地方，工人们长时间劳动且薪资相对较低，以维持猪舍的运转。他们为猪接种疫苗、喂食、搬运和运输。养猪场主在采访中表示，这份工作是大多数内布拉斯加州人都不想要的。

内布拉斯加州农民联合会主席约翰·K·汉森（John K. Hansen）表示，面对劳动力短缺，近几十年来，大型企业化养猪场转向雇佣移民劳动力，无论其身份是否合法。

顾问加里·斯托弗（Gary Stover）曾帮助当地一家生产商管理谢尔比的一座养猪场，他在采访中表示，他在 2010 年用西班牙裔劳工替换了那里的团队，因为他们的职业道德令他印象深刻。他表示，那里的一名员工使用了假名，而他的其他咨询客户也雇佣了持有伪造文件的无证工人。

内布拉斯加州奥马哈的一名移民律师内森·达隆（Nathan Dallon）曾为数百名无证工人辩护，指控包括身份盗用和无证驾驶等刑事罪名。他表示，内布拉斯加州的农业产业是在一个前提下运作的，即会有未经授权的移民劳动力。

他在采访中说：“对于许多这类公司来说，雇佣他们明知使用假证件的工人是有激励机制的。有时他们甚至帮助工人获取假证件，而他们很清楚这样做会让工作者的犯罪情况变得更严重。”（达隆先生以客户保密为由，拒绝透露他是否曾代表过皮伦农场的工人。）

移民使用虚假文件就业在内布拉斯加州绝非新鲜事。二十多年前，在舒勒（Schuyler）的嘉吉（Cargill）肉类包装厂使用假身份证件曾引发争议。

时任舒勒市长戴夫·赖内克（Dave Reinecke）在接受《60分钟》采访时表示：“你是想要增长，还是想要挑选他们来自哪里？”

现在，舒勒有四分之三的居民是西班牙裔，是该州所有市镇中比例最高的。法院记录显示，一些皮伦农场的无证工人曾居住在那里。其他西班牙裔移民（包括皮伦的员工）则定居在工作场所附近的小镇上。

卡尔·K·哈特二世（Carl K. Hart Jr.）在 2022 年之前担任普拉特县检察官，他起诉了一系列涉及无证工人的身份欺诈案件，其中包括五名皮伦企业的员工。

他在采访中说：“有些人一直在促成这一切。他们就在社区里，满足农业产业获取工人的需求。”

在被指控身份盗窃或冒充的 12 名 Pillen 员工中，有 9 人被定罪，3 人未出庭。Pillen 家族农场在这些案件中未被指控有任何不当行为。检察官和辩护律师表示，雇主很少成为此类调查的目标，因此很难确定他们是否知情或参与其中。

一名 农场的前经理在采访中表示，在公司标记出最初的一份伪造文件后，他在几年前告诉一名移民去获取另一个身份证件。该经理在要求匿名的条件下表示，在为 工作之前，他曾指导工人如何让他们的伪造身份证看起来更真实，因为他仍有亲戚在该行业工作。

内布拉斯加州州长吉姆·皮伦（Gov. Jim ）的家族企业是美国最大的猪肉生产商之一。在他寻求连任之际，他使自己与总统的反移民议程保持一致，尽管他的农场中至少有 20 个雇佣了无证劳工。下方是准备被宰杀的猪。

LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

NIKOS FRAZIER / OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

他回忆说，当阿尔门达里斯（Mr. Armendariz）在黑斯廷斯（Hastings）郊外的 农场 Inland Foods 工作时，只有少数工人拥有合法文件。他说，包括他在内，大约有 20 名移民没有合法文件。其中大约一半是由一名共同所有者雇佣的，而 的公司最终收购了该所有者。（阿尔门达里斯因担心遭到报复而要求不使用其完整姓氏，他表示自己在与老板发生争执后被解雇了。）

一名现任员工表示，在 Inland 工作 20 多年后，仍有一些工人没有合法身份；该员工因未获授权就公司发表言论而要求匿名。另有两人表示，他们的无证亲属目前在圣爱德华（St. Edward）附近的一家 农场工作。

阿什利·科尔特斯-加西亚（Ashly Cortez-Garcia）五年前在阿尔比恩（Albion）附近的一家 拥有的养猪场工作。在一次采访中，她表示她的经理从总部得知，一名员工在工作时使用一个名字，而在申请州政府援助时使用了另一个名字。科尔特斯-加西亚回忆起经理让她用西班牙语问该工人：“你想让我用哪个（名字）？”

该经理现已退休，拒绝回应置评请求。

家族农场在 2021 年被前人力资源专家路易斯·卢卡尔（Luis Lucar）起诉，他指控该公司在明知的情况下雇佣无证工人。

他表示，在 2015 年至 2019 年期间，他多次投诉该公司在公司和政府文件中更改工人的姓名，将工人错误地分类为合同劳工，并伪造就业核实表。

卢卡尔在 2019 年被解雇，目前在舒勒（Schuyler）担任心脏地带工人中心（Heartland Workers Center）的组织者，这是一个倡导移民劳工权利的非营利组织。

该公司在法律文件中否认了这些指控。当时皮伦先生竞选活动的发言人马修·特雷尔（Matthew Trail）表示，卢卡尔在撒谎，并在向记者描述他时称其为“心怀不满的前员工”和“支持非法移民的活动人士”。

2022 年，双方同意撤销诉讼。卢卡尔及其律师拒绝就本文发表评论。

前经理罗利（Mr. Rowley）表示，随着 家族农场的规模扩大，它加强了对就业法律的遵守。在过去十年中，该公司通过针对技术工人的专项签证从墨西哥引入了更多移民。记录显示，在皮伦先生启动州长竞选活动当天，该公司加入了 E-Verify，这是一个旨在加强就业核实的政府系统。

在一份与州长呼应的声明中，农场的共同首席执行官萨拉·皮伦（Sarah Pillen）告诉《泰晤士报》和《Flatwater》：“我们的团队在遵守所有就业法律方面感到非常自豪，并承担着巨大的责任。我们从未在知情的情况下雇佣过非法移民。”她表示，公司遵守所有就业核查规则，并确保“所有要求的身份证件形式都经过审核和批准。我们还自愿参与 E-Verify 计划，以在我们的承诺之上做得更多。”

移民政策的转向

自从特朗普先生就任以来，皮伦先生一直致力于在华盛顿建立良好关系。根据州长的官方日程表，自去年以来，他曾 11 次访问白宫，2 次访问海湖庄园，其中包括 2025 年 7 月与总统的一次一对一会面。这比他近期的前任们要频繁得多。

尽管得到了总统的认可，但皮伦先生在竞争激烈的连任竞选中仍面临挑战。在他及其对手的竞选活动中，双方都没有强调他的移民立场。

但即便是在一个保守州，移民问题依然是一个极具争议的话题。一项全国性民调显示，支持联邦政府采取严厉打击措施的内布拉斯加州人不足三分之一。

在首次竞选州长之前，皮伦先生的公司曾向 Centro Hispano 捐款，这是一家总部位于哥伦布的非营利组织，旨在支持合法及无证劳工；他还在 2018 年接受了该组织的奖项。在当选州长之后，他曾谈到联邦政府需要扩大能够到内布拉斯加州及其他农业州从事关键工作的合法移民数量。

在支持特朗普先生的移民政策时，皮伦先生强调了暴力犯罪分子进入该国的风险，以及针对他们进行驱逐的必要性。

在 2025 年 7 月的一个广播节目中，他回忆起在一次前往南部边境的行程中得知，入侵者在德克萨斯州一个家庭的牧场上宰杀了一头小牛。“有如此多的恐怖分子和罪犯游过边境，”他说。

“入侵我们国家的犯罪非法外籍人士必须被清除，”皮伦先生在 12 月的一篇社交媒体帖子中写道，“我将竭尽全力与特朗普总统坚定站在一起，完成这项工作。”

有时，这位州长的语气似乎有所缓和。在去年夏天揭幕新的 ICE（移民与海关执法局）站点后，皮伦先生表示，该拘留中心旨在针对犯罪分子，而非勤劳的家庭。他还强调，除了农业，建筑业和酒店业等行业也需要解决劳动力短缺问题。

“特朗普总统知道，对吧？他知道在他的行业里，有些人工作了很久且表现出色，但没有合法证件，”他说。皮伦先生补充说，他“100% 反对”大规模驱逐。

一些当地官员和移民律师表示，皮伦先生将勤劳的人与犯罪分子区分开来的措辞忽略了法律现实。

前普拉特县检察官、民主党人哈特先生表示，内布拉斯加州的无证劳工虽然有时为了获得工作而犯罪，但很少违反其他法律，在很大程度上是“试图实现美国梦并养活自己和家人的守法居民”。

在 1 月 ICE 特工在明尼阿波利斯导致两人死亡并引发愤怒之后，州长在很大程度上避免公开评论移民问题。

最近，在完成白宫配额的压力下，ICE 特工在全国范围内以创纪录的数量进行逮捕，且经常驱逐没有犯罪记录的无证人员。

内布拉斯加州巡警队已指派更多警员担任移民执法角色。而位于麦库克的 ICE 拘留中心正在扩建，以容纳更多人员。

皮伦农场的前雇员科尔特斯-加西亚女士表示，作为一名共和党选民，她对皮伦先生在移民问题上似乎自相矛盾感到沮丧。“你不能一边雇佣非法移民，一边又反对非法移民，”她说。

诉讼挑战特朗普绿卡限制政策

作者：MADELEINE NGO

华盛顿 —— 周一，一个由各州和地方政府组成的联盟起诉特朗普政府，指责其一项被称作“灾难性的”新政策将使依赖公共福利的移民更难获得绿卡。

此次挑战由两起独立的诉讼发起，旨在阻止一项定于本周五生效的政策。由 22 个州和哥伦比亚特区提起的一起诉讼认为，该政策将迫使移民家庭在为了满足基本需求而放弃公共援助计划，或在未来面临被拒绝授予绿卡的风险之间做出选择，从而损害移民家庭的利益。

该诉讼还认为，该政策将通过增加急诊室压力以及减少食品券的参与度，从而损害各州和地方政府的利益，这将导致依赖联邦福利的当地企业资金流失。

“勤劳的家庭不应因为担心寻求援助会导致被驱逐出境，而被迫失去他们所需的支撑，”领导此次诉讼的纽约州民主党总检察长莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯（Letitia James）在的一份声明中表示。

特朗普政府官员表示，这项被称为“公共负担”（public charge）规则的政策，对于保护公共资源以及恢复“移民必须能够自食其力的基本原则”至关重要。这一举措是对一项类似政策的重启，该政策在特朗普总统的第一任期内曾试图实施，但随后遭遇法律挑战，并被拜登政府撤销。

美国国土安全部（DHS）未立即回应置评请求。

该政策是政府打击合法和非法移民更广泛努力的一部分。在中期选举之前，国土安全部一直试图通过更隐蔽的方式开展驱逐行动，包括通过压缩非公民获得工作机会和联邦计划的渠道，向其施压使其离开美国。

许多没有绿卡的移民已经没有资格参加公共福利计划。但移民倡导者担心，该规则会使非公民不敢使用福利计划，即使他们拥有合法有资格获得食品券、住房援助和其他计划的美国公民子女。

长期以来，联邦法律规定，如果移民可能主要依赖政府维持生计，则禁止其获得绿卡。历史上，移民官员考虑的是现金援助计划或机构化的长期护理，而不包括补充营养援助计划（SNAP）或医疗补助（Medicaid）等福利的使用。

特朗普政府的政策将扭转这一长期惯例，扩大移民官员在判定某人可能依赖联邦政府之前可以考虑的联邦计划范围。

参与该州诉讼的包括纽约州、加利福尼亚州、伊利诺伊州、科罗拉多州、康涅狄格州、特拉华州、夏威夷州、缅因州、马里兰州、马萨诸塞州、密歇根州、明尼苏达州、新泽西州、新墨西哥州、内华达州、俄勒冈州、宾夕法尼亚州、罗德岛州、佛蒙特州、弗吉尼亚州、华盛顿州、威斯康星州以及哥伦比亚特区。

第二起诉讼由纽约市市长佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）领导，芝加哥、旧金山、西雅图、加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉县和华盛顿州金县参与其中。

在周一的新闻发布会上，马姆达尼先生表示，该政策已经导致一些家庭（包括那些有美国公民子女的家庭）放弃了食品券、医疗补助和经济适用房计划等福利。

国土安全部自身的估计发现，该政策可能导致约 950,000 人选择退出或放弃参加公共援助计划。

“拒绝向人们提供服务并不能消除他们的需求；反而会加剧这种需求，从而给我们的系统带来更大的成本，而这些成本将在未来的许多年里由劳动人民承担，”马姆达尼先生在市政厅圆形大厅与当选官员及移民倡导者一同站立时表示。

调查发现移民被关押在笼中

图11和12。小型金属围栏；观察日期：2026年1月21日

美国国土安全部，监察长办公室 一份监督报告公布了佛罗里达州一个移民拘留地点的围栏照片，这些围栏被称作“冷静区”。

摘自 A1 页

在经历了法律挑战之后。

联邦调查人员发现，这些金属围栏——每个仅提供约 18 平方英尺的地面空间——被用作“冷静区”，至少有 79 名被拘留者在此被关押，时间从几分钟到近两小时不等。尽管设施工作人员称被拘留者要求在围栏中度过一段时间，但联邦调查人员发现了至少一起案例，即围栏被用于惩戒一名“未能遵守合法指令”的被拘留者。

报告称：“使用此类限制性空间是非常不寻常的，且不符合人道待遇标准。”

设施工作人员表示被拘留者并未被锁在围栏中，但联邦调查人员在围栏上发现了锁定机制。被拘留者在围栏中度过的平均时间约为一小时。

国土安全部表示，该设施由佛罗里达州管理，但那里的条件“与前几届政府采用的相同联邦拘留标准一致”。

该部门在一份声明中表示：“所有被拘留设施都很干净，任何关于非人道条件或过度使用武力的指控均不属实。”

周一在佛罗里达州莱克兰的一次新闻发布会上，州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯表示他还没有阅读该报告。但他为该设施的条件辩护，称该设施是该州致力于将非法入境的犯罪分子从佛罗里达州街道上清除的关键部分。

德桑蒂斯先生说：“在设立该设施时，他们的目标不仅是要达到联邦标准，而且实际上是要在被拘留条件方面超过联邦标准。”

州长通讯主任亚历克斯·兰弗兰科尼为使用围栏辩护，并在声明中表示，“左翼媒体想要关注的是一个针对暴力犯罪外籍人士的禁闭区，这些人已经证明自己在等待遣返期间无法保持平静。”

兰弗兰科尼先生补充道：“虽然它遵守所有关于刑事禁闭的联邦标准，但如果可以的话，我们会把它建得更小。”

调查人员发现，该设施遵守了接收和使用武力的标准，但在医疗护理、餐饮服务、个人卫生和娱乐相关的各项国家拘留标准方面不合规。

报告称，设施工作人员未能为被拘留者提供足够的居住空间。国家标准要求每名被拘留者至少获得 75 平方英尺的地面空间。但报告显示，在最大容量状态下，该设施的住房单元每名被拘留者仅提供 28 平方英尺。

联邦调查人员还注意到，设施内的一台冷冻柜运行温度高于建议温度，他们表示这可能导致食物变质并增加被拘留者患病的风险。

报告称，设施工作人员还表示被拘留者每周仅洗澡三次，这使他们无法“保持良好的个人卫生”。国家标准通常要求被拘留者每天可以使用淋浴设施。联邦调查人员还发现，该设施的淋浴间“布满了小虫子”，尤其是天花板上。

2025年7月，佛罗里达州在迈阿密和拿波利斯之间农村地区的一个训练机场迅速搭建了这座拘留中心，将其宣传为该州协助特朗普总统打击移民行动的一部分。他们甚至在通往设施的道路上竖起了一块“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”的标志，批评者谴责此举残酷。

该设施每天给州政府带来超过 100万美元 的运营成本，其中包括运水和废水处理费用。佛罗里达州官员在今年夏天关闭了该设施，理由是飓风季节即将到来——尽管被拘留者曾在 2025 年的飓风季节在“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”度过。

监察长办公室的报告进一步加剧了围绕“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”的持续负面影响。佛罗里达州立法者本月批准向应急管理机构提供 2.5亿美元 的额外资金，以帮助支付与移民执法相关的未结账单，其中包括“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”的费用。联邦政府此前曾同意报销该设施以及另一处北部设施相关超过 6亿美元 的费用，但其中大部分资金仍未支付。

同样在本月，两名“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”的警卫因涉嫌殴打一名被拘留者而被逮捕。他们在佛罗里达州科利尔县面临轻罪殴打指控，并已辩称无罪。

尽管美国国土安全部一直坚称该州拥有该设施日常运营的管辖权，但特朗普政府在移民与海关执法局监管的拘留设施中对待移民的方式，正面临日益严峻的审查。

在纽泽西州一家名为德莱尼大厅（Delaney Hall）的私营移民拘留中心，不到八个月内至少有三名被拘留者死亡，这近期引发了人们对向移民提供的医疗护理质量的质疑。

麦康奈尔在缺席后重返参议院

本文由凯蒂·埃蒙森（Catie Edmondson）、卡尔·赫尔斯（Carl Hulse）和迈克尔·戈尔德（Michael Gold）撰写。

华盛顿——参议员米奇·麦康奈尔（Mitch McConnell）周一重返参议院，这是他三个多月以来的首次回归。此前，他在6月中旬家中发生健康意外后一直缺席，这引发了人们对其健康状况以及能否继续任职的质疑。

现年84岁的肯塔基州共和党人、前党内领导人麦康奈尔先生在参议院就一名联邦上诉法院提名人进行晚间投票时，乘坐轮椅抵达。这是自他在6月11日最后一次进行议事投票以来，首次在现场出现。

“我的康复过程漫长且经常令人沮丧，而童年时期患小儿麻痹症的后遗症让这一切变得更加艰难，”麦康奈尔先生在办公室发布的一份宣布其回归的声明中表示。

“我还没有完全恢复到100%的状态，”他补充道，并表示他已告知党内领导人，“在医生的建议下，我将继续进行物理治疗，并尽最大努力在党团需要我进行艰难投票时出席。”

麦康奈尔先生的办公室此前表示，他在6月14日在国会山家中摔倒，随后由救护车送往乔治·华盛顿大学医院接受治疗并进行康复训练，直到8月6日出院回家。他的办公室曾发布过该参议员的照片并以他的名义发表声明，但在周一晚上之前，他自入院以来一直没有公开露面。

周一在参议院议事厅，麦康奈尔先生被推了出来，随即被一群上前与其握手的参议员簇拥。他的一只手腕上方缠着绷带，两只手的手背上似乎都有深色的瘀伤。

在参议院议事厅外简短地面对记者时，麦康奈尔先生表示，他致力于推动农业法案以及旨在对俄罗斯实施强力新制裁的立法。

“在躲避你们的问题两年——不对，二十年之后，我不确定今天会有多少人在这里，”他开玩笑地谈到他的回归所吸引的媒体关注。

麦康奈尔先生在2024年宣布，在经历一系列摔倒、长期缺席以及在公开场合出现疑似僵住的情况后，他将不再尝试回归领导岗位。随后在2025年初，他宣布将不再寻求第八任期的选举。他的当前任期将于1月3日届满。

2026年大选

在弹劾审判中，帕克斯顿展现出狡黠的一面与逃脱天赋

作者：贝丝·莱因哈德（BETH REINHARD）和劳伦·麦考菲（LAUREN MCGAUGHY）

在肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）弹劾审判裁决的前夕，检察官们在德克萨斯辣椒餐厅（Texas Chili Parlor）一边喝着“疯狗玛格丽特”鸡尾酒一边放松，这家休闲场所就位于奥斯汀州议会大厦的阴影之下。

帕克斯顿是该州的共和党总检察长，他被指控滥用职权，以保护一名处于联邦调查中的竞选捐赠者；而该捐赠者据称曾为帕克斯顿的住宅进行翻修，并帮助他掩盖一段婚外情。德克萨斯州众议院的大多数共和党人加入了民主党人的行列，投票支持弹劾，这一惊人进展使得州参议员在2023年9月为期九天的审判中成为了陪审员。

首席检察官迪克·德格林（Dick DeGuerin）和拉斯蒂·哈丁（Rusty Hardin）在那天晚上感到信心十足，回顾着案件的亮点。

“我们当时在拍胸脯庆祝，”德格林先生说。他们走到室外迎接辩护律师之一丹·考格代尔（Dan Cogdell），后者递给德格林一支雪茄。考格代尔同样认为检察官们已经赢了。

第二天，一场喧闹的雷雨席卷了议会大厦，德克萨斯州参议院的成员们依次起立，对16项弹劾条款中的每一项投出“赞成”或“反对”票。只要其中一项条款获得三分之二多数通过，帕克斯顿就将失去他的职务。

然而，他被全部无罪释放。

现在，帕克斯顿正在竞选美国参议员，参与的是全美最具风险的选战之一，而他的弹劾经历成为了其充满丑闻的职业生涯中一个标志性的片段。那是他最接近政治毁灭的时刻，同时也证明了他超凡的韧性——这种特质与他两次被弹劾的盟友特朗普总统所具备的生存技能颇为相似。

帕克斯顿的民主党竞争对手詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）抓住了这次弹劾—。

“他们说他们打算团结起来，说他们要去向联邦调查局（F.B.I.）举报。我说，‘伙计们，这太棒了。但我们都会丢掉工作的。他绝不会退让。’”

——大卫·麦克斯韦（DAVID MAXWELL），时任帕克斯顿先生的执法主管。

……将弹劾作为其论点的核心，声称帕克斯顿先生是“美国最腐败的政治人物”，但这位总检察长及其盟友对此不屑一顾。毕竟，多年来他一直能摆脱腐败指控。

“弹劾审判不过是一场由建制派策划的、出于政治动机的猎巫行动，”帕克斯顿先生的竞选顾问尼克·马杜克斯（Nick Maddux）表示，“结果证明帕克斯顿总检察长完全清白，针对他的虚假指控被彻底揭穿。”

《纽约时报》对此次弹劾进行了调查，包括对二十多位关键人物的采访，以及对审判记录、法院证物和媒体报道的审查。调查揭示了辩护团队在审判期间敏锐的政治直觉是如何让帕克斯顿先生获胜的，而在此次审判中，关键证人从未被强制出庭。

从未出现过决定性的证据（smoking gun）。而且，由共和党领导的参议院为此次弹劾审判（这是德克萨斯州一个多世纪以来首次对州级官员进行弹劾）制定的几项规则，都向有利于帕克斯顿先生的方向倾斜。

在审判的大部分时间里都缺席的帕克斯顿先生，从未在宣誓后说过一句话。他所谓的女友没有出庭作证。帕克斯顿先生试图帮助的竞选捐赠者，以及在他家中工作的承包商也没有出庭。

并非律师的副州长丹·帕特里克（Dan Patrick）作为审判主持官，对诉讼程序拥有巨大的权力。他最近接受了一个攻击支持弹劾议员的政治行动委员会（PAC）提供的 300万美元 捐款和贷款。

“这就是操纵，”德格林先生（Mr. DeGuerin）说。“我太天真了，竟然认为我们有机会。”

帕特里克先生没有回应就其监督弹劾程序的讨论请求。在被判无罪后的一次采访中，他为该程序辩护。“不存在偏见，”他说。“我主持了一场公正的审判。”

帕克斯顿先生拒绝了采访请求。

检方面临的最大挑战之一发生在立法议事厅之外：帕克斯顿先生的右翼支持者发起了一场持续不断的施压运动，他们将他视为对抗奥巴马和拜登政府的前线战士。当时正计划重返白宫的唐纳德·特朗普誓要惩罚支持弹劾的议员。“我会与你们战斗，”他警告道。

这场弹劾大戏巩固了帕克斯顿先生与MAGA运动的纽带，并毁掉了其政治对手的职业生涯。一个表明他占据上风的迹象是，几位此前推动弹劾的共和党议员现在正为他奔走助选。

然而，帕克斯顿先生的辩护律师科格代尔先生（Mr. Cogdell）最近支持了塔拉里科先生（Mr. Talarico），理由是这位总检察长已过于依赖特朗普总统。尽管他仍然认为帕克斯顿先生没有犯罪，但他对审判程序持有严重的疑虑。

但帕克斯顿先生的另一位律师托尼·布兹比（Tony Buzbee）并非如此。

“肯·帕克斯顿公正地赢得了那场审判，”布兹比先生说。“我当时告诉他：‘我们会赢，你将成为德克萨斯州的下一任美国参议员。’我的第一个预言是对的，我预计第二个预言也将成真。”

“他不听劝”

帕克斯顿先生的弹劾始于一场“兵变”。

2020年，总检察长办公室的高级职员们抵制帕克斯顿先生的请求，他要求这些人代表内特·保罗（Nate Paul）进行干预。保罗是一名正接受联邦调查的房地产投资者，曾向帕克斯顿的连任竞选活动捐赠了$25,000。

帕克斯顿先生自身也面临法律问题。在2015年宣誓就任总检察长仅几个月后，他就因证券欺诈的重罪被起诉。在该案中同样代表帕克斯顿先生的考格代尔先生表示，总检察长对保罗的说法表示同情，保罗声称自己成了涉及联邦调查局（F.B.I.）、联邦法官和州监管机构的阴谋目标。

帕克斯顿先生的下属并不买账。他们认为保罗是在寻求政治恩惠，这损害了该办公室的公正性。

“我们都试过劝帕克斯顿收手，试着让他冷静下来，但他谁也不听，”曾担任帕克斯顿先生刑事司法副总检察长的马克·彭利（Mark Penley）说道，“我们是唯一知道这件事的人，也是唯一能阻止它的人。”

帕克斯顿先生的执法主管大卫·麦克斯韦（David Maxwell）当时在科罗拉多州度假，随后收到了同事发来的一条紧急短信。他开着他的福特皮卡车驶向山脚，以便获得手机信号。

“他们说他们要团结起来，”麦克斯韦先生回忆道，“他们说要向联邦调查局举报。我说，‘伙计们，这太惊人了。但我们都会丢掉工作的。他绝不会退让。’”

该小组于9月30日与执法部门会面，并在次日通知了他们的上司。一周之内，他们要么全部辞职，要么被强制离职。

包括彭利先生和麦克斯韦先生在内的四人在一项举报人诉讼中主张，这些解雇行为是报复行为。帕克斯顿先生最终同意支付$3.300 万的赔偿金，并就将其诋毁为“违规员工”而道歉。

但随后他转向州议员，希望他们拨付税款来支付这笔款项。众议员们对此表示反对并启动了调查，导致了一个无论是帕克斯顿先生还是德克萨斯州政坛任何人都无法预料的结果。

2023年5月，德克萨斯州众议院以121-23的投票结果通过弹劾帕克斯顿先生，暂时将其免职。弹劾条款指控他利用公职服务于保罗的私人利益，包括干预保罗的公司与一家非营利组织之间的诉讼、试图帮助他避免房产被止赎，以及聘请外部律师调查保罗对联邦调查的异议。他被指控贿赂、玩忽职守、妨碍司法公正以及滥用公众信任。

帕克斯顿先生称这一过程“非法、不道德且极其不公正”。

他的命运将由德克萨斯州参议院决定，该议院与那些支持他的右翼活动人士更为一致。而主持工作的人将是帕特里克先生，一位政治基础高度重合的坚定保守主义者。

不同的博弈

在一个以傲慢著称的州，帕克斯顿先生的弹劾传奇将政治戏剧推向了高潮。各种鲜活的人物成为了舞台中心：从众议员安德鲁·默尔（Andrew Murr）——一位弹劾经理，他那标志性的八字胡甚至激发了一个专门的社交媒体账号；到麦克斯韦先生（Mr. Maxwell）——一名职业执法人员，身高 6 英尺 6 英寸，穿着他标志性的靴子，戴着白色牛仔帽。

帕克斯顿先生的妻子安吉拉（Angela）是德克萨斯州参议员，她在整个审判过程中表现得十分坚毅。而检察官则主张，她的丈夫使用了临时手机和一个由保罗先生（Mr. Paul）付费的秘密Uber账户，以掩盖其非法活动。帕克斯顿先生据称的情妇劳拉·奥尔森（Laura Olson）身着白色紧身连衣裙，在国会大厦引起了广泛关注。

在辩方席上坐着巴兹比先生（Mr. Buzbee），一位以深古铜色皮肤和法庭戏剧化表演著称的审判律师。他曾在某个时刻打趣道：“想象一下，如果我们弹劾奥斯汀这里所有有过外遇的人，我们是不是得弹劾接下来的 100 年？”

肯·帕克斯顿（KEN PAXTON）被指控保护一名正接受调查的捐赠者，且该捐赠者据称帮助他掩盖了一段婚外情。

乔丹·冯德哈尔（JORDAN VONDERHAAR）为《纽约时报》拍摄

检察官拉斯蒂·哈丁（RUSTY HARDIN）和迪克·德格林（DICK DEGUERIN）在投票前一晚，对自己赢得弹劾案充满信心。

埃里克·盖（ERIC GAY） / 美联社 副州长丹·帕特里克（DAN PATRICK）掌控着弹劾程序，并批准了帕克斯顿先生不被传唤为证人的请求。

检察官们对案件的力度充满信心。他们认为证据具有说服力，并且已经让帕克斯顿先生的高级助手们（他们本身也是保守派律师）准备好就帕克斯顿先生急于帮助保罗先生一事出庭作证。

乔丹·冯德哈尔（JORDAN VONDERHAAR）为《纽约时报》拍摄 大卫·麦克斯韦（DAVID MAXWELL）是帕克斯顿先生的执法主管，也是举报者之一。

尽管如此，参议院批准的基本规则为控方设定了很高的门槛。证据呈递时间被限制在 24 小时内，对于这样一个规模宏大且复杂的案件来说，时间非常紧迫。最值得注意的是，这些规则赋予了帕特里克先生某种权力，民主党前检察官、参议员萨拉·埃克哈特（Sarah Eckhardt）将其称为“对程序的近乎绝对控制”。在审判的第一天，帕特里克先生批准了帕克斯顿先生最重要的请求之一，宣布：“你们不得传唤总检察长作为证人。”

参议员安吉拉·帕克斯顿（SENATOR ANGELA PAXTON）听取了她丈夫用来掩盖外遇的手段细节。

丹·考格代尔（DAN COGDELL）是帕克斯顿先生的律师，他最近支持了其参议院对手詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico），并表示他对此次审判持有疑虑。

帕克斯顿先生的律师辩称，此次审判属于刑事程序，而刑事被告不能被强迫提供不利于自己的证据。

规则还涉及了帕克斯顿夫人的角色。她不能参与审议或投票，但会被计入出席人数。这意味着，要达到定罪所需的三分之二多数票，需要多出一票。

相比之下，帕克斯顿先生则无需出席。他在第一天的午餐时间离开，直到结案陈词时才返回。

这个决定在辩护团队内部引起了分歧。

“我认为肯不在场给人的印象非常糟糕，”考格代尔先生（Mr. Cogdell）说，“在你妻子坐在那里忍受所有这些关于通奸的指控时，你竟然不出席自己的审判？”

巴兹比先生并不认同。“我想避免媒体试图采访他或将镜头对准他而带来的干扰，”他说。“我希望焦点集中在证据上，或者说缺乏证据这一点上。我认为这样做很有效。”

双方在审判中采取的策略截然不同，以至于他们看起来几乎不在同一个赛道上。检方将诉讼程序视为一场标准的法庭审理；而辩方则猛烈抨击这一过程是由一个反帕克斯顿小团体策划的报复行动。

审判的第 7 天对检方来说尤为艰难。在一段后来被纳入审判记录的私下对话中，奥尔森女士的律师主张她的当事人不应出庭作证，因为她打算行使第五修正案规定的反对自我指控的权利，而如果在回答问题时一遍又一遍地主张这项权利，会对陪审团产生不利影响。帕特里克先生表示同意，驳回了检方关于奥尔森女士不面临任何刑事风险的论点。

当天晚些时候，帕克斯顿先生的一名前助手德鲁·威克尔就涉嫌贿赂的一个关键环节作证：即对总检察长在奥斯汀住宅的翻修。威克尔先生表示，他曾无意中听到帕克斯顿先生与承包商凯文·伍德讨论一项价值 $20,000 的厨房台面和橱柜升级工程。据威克尔先生称，伍德表示他将“询问内特”，推测是指保罗先生。

但在交叉质询中，当巴兹比先生出示他所称的厨房翻修前后的照片时，威克尔先生表示，这些固定装置“似乎没有被改动过”。

这一时刻掩盖了其他证据：伍德先生与保罗先生之间讨论房屋其他部分翻修的电子邮件，以及记录显示帕克斯顿先生直到工作人员通知他已与执法部门会面后才支付维修费用。文件显示，这些款项支付给了一家与保罗先生有关联的公司。

结案陈词集中体现了两方采取的策略。检方对其案件进行了有条理的总结。而巴兹比先生则发出了战斗号角，直接向共和党参议员呼吁，称这一过程是“政治猎巫”。

“我的目标是通过他们的选民与他们沟通，”巴兹比先生说。“每天推特上都闹得沸沸扬扬，因为我揭露了我认为旨在除掉帕克斯顿的更大规模的企图。一旦那些犹豫不决的人看到证据单薄，并且看到了活动人士的狂热反应，我们就能影响那些参议员。”

投票支持无罪的共和党参议员鲍勃·霍尔表示，他曾用黄色荧光笔和红笔仔细审查了所有法庭证物。

他说，他原以为检方会在结案时拿出戏剧性的新证据。他回忆起当时在想：“他们要投下一枚重磅炸弹。”但“他们没有，因为他们根本没有什么证据”。

最终，18 位共和党参议员中只有两人投票支持定罪。

其中一名投票支持定罪的参议员罗伯特·尼科尔斯表示，他通过电子邮件、短信和电话收到了 1,400 次政治报复的威胁。他说，传递出的信息很明确：帕克斯顿先生在反对非法移民、反对《平价医疗法案》以及反对 2020 年大选结果方面所进行的艰苦斗争，远比审判中呈现的证据重要得多。

尼科尔斯先生感叹，弹劾程序似乎被外部力量扭曲了。“这是一场社交媒体和公众压力的审判，”他说。

投票结束后不久，帕特里克先生从法官转变为政治人物，猛烈抨击投票支持弹劾的众议院共和党人。“数百万美元的纳税人的钱被浪费了，”他说。

科格德尔先生对此感到震惊。

“如果这真的是他的真实想法，那么这绝对会影响他的决策，”科格德尔先生说。“我认为这给整个程序带来了耻辱。”

帕克斯顿先生痛斥这场审判是一场骗局。在审判结束后的几年里，帕克斯顿先生一直对他赢得的胜利沾沾自喜。

联邦调查局（F.B.I.）针对弹劾核心指控的调查从未导致任何起诉。2024年，就在帕克斯顿先生即将面临证券欺诈指控的审判前不久，他达成了一项协议，支付了$300,000，但并未承认有罪。

去年，一名法官裁定向被帕克斯顿先生强行驱逐的高级助手们支付$6.600 万，该款项需经德克萨斯州议会批准。但这些前工作人员并不乐观。几位曾支持弹劾的共和党议员，在帕克斯顿先生及其盟友对其发起竞选攻势后，要么退出了政坛，要么失去了席位。

而在那些挑战帕克斯顿先生并幸存下来的共和党人中，有些人现在竟然在为这个曾被他们指控滥用公众信任的人助选。

在最近一次于达拉斯以北弗里斯科举行的竞选活动中，保守派影响者和政治人物为帕克斯顿先生暖场。又一名支持者走上前向他介绍。此人是众议员杰夫·利奇（Jeff Leach），一名曾协助主导帕克斯顿先生弹劾进程、且目前正在竞选连任的共和党人。

“看到我今晚站在你们面前，你们可能会感到惊讶，”利奇先生说，“对于我们所有人来说，11月的选择是明确的。”

随后，帕克斯顿先生大步走上舞台。

吉利布兰德发起首次关于更年期的听证会

HIROKO MASUIKE / 纽约时报

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE / 美联社

作者：安妮·卡尼（ANNIE KARNI）

作为负责领导民主党争取参议院多数席位密集努力的负责人，纽约州参议员基尔斯滕·吉利布兰德（Kirsten Gillibrand）承担着一项艰巨的任务。

但本周三，吉利布兰德女士计划利用她的平台，将关注点转向一个在竞选活动中一直缺失、在华盛顿也鲜被讨论的问题——召开国会历史上首次关于更年期的听证会。

吉利布兰德女士认为这是一个紧迫的问题，但在关于特朗普政府削减科学研究经费以及医疗保健负担能力的激烈辩论中，这一问题一直被忽视且未被提及。民主党希望这些医疗保健问题能帮助他们在11月的选举中赢得国会的控制权。

在最近的一次采访中，吉利布兰德女士表示，她计划利用这次听证会主张增加联邦资金投入更年期研究，她认为该领域的研究严重不足且资金匮乏；同时，她还希望推动相关变革，以解决医疗专业人员在为寻求指导和护理的女性提供帮助时准备不足的问题。

“许多女性因为剧烈的疼痛而无法进行性生活，”59岁的吉利布兰德女士说，“还会有大量出血、剧烈的情绪波动——从抑郁到愤怒——有些人甚至需要进行子宫切除术。”

她说，如果将更年期的症状仅仅视为几次令人不快且出汗的潮热，那就是忽视了许多女性多年来遭受的更为严重、有时甚至会改变生活的医疗状况。

在某些情况下，她说，“出血量大到你无法离开卧室。”她补充道：“这件事没人讨论。但这并不意味着它不普遍，或者不是真实的，或者不是更年期非常重要的一部分。”

这次听证会将由参议院老龄化委员会举行，时间定在期中选举前的最后冲刺阶段。在此期间，民主党一直试图将他们的主张集中在特朗普总统不受欢迎的政策以及高昂的生活和医疗成本上。

虽然更年期的挑战似乎与这些议题没什么关系，但作为民主党参议院竞选委员会主席的吉利布兰德女士表示，这次听证会与她所在政党的竞选主张是一致的。

“这高度相关，”吉利布兰德女士说道，并指出特朗普政府全面削减了医疗研究资金。

“这就是医疗健康问题，”她说，“是健康，是健康，还是健康。缺乏良好的治疗方法、药物、选择和关注，这关系到7500万人。民主党关心的是健康、教育和就业。这是我们的整个政纲，而这是一个巨大的相关组成部分。”

吉利布兰德女士表示，讨论更年期给许多女性带来的沉重负担至关重要，并详细描述了相关症状。

“我们花费数十亿美元在伟哥上，以确保男性能够进行性生活——那么你们做了什么来确保女性能够进行性生活？”她说道。

在公园大道的罗斯里根西酒店（Loews Regency）大堂里，这个话题引起了强烈的共鸣，吉利布兰德女士正是在那里阐述这一观点。

“我患有一种叫做口腔灼热综合征的病，”51岁的丽莎·休米斯顿（Lisa Humiston）打断了采访，走上前向参议员分享她更年期的痛苦经历，“感觉我的嘴一直在灼烧。这种感觉从未消失——我已经这样五年了。现在，我的嘴就在灼烧。”

作为老龄化小组的资深民主党人，吉利布兰德女士有权每年就她选择的一个主题主持一次听证会。她的听证会将命名为“半个国家，零次听证：把握时机，消除美国的更年期差距”。她还计划呼吁通过一项跨党派立法，以增加联邦对更年期的研究。

除了与该委员会的共和党主席、佛罗里达州参议员里克·斯科特（Rick Scott）一起，吉利布兰德女士还在向政府问责局（Government Accountability Office）发送一封信，请求对联邦政府在绝经研究和护理方面所扮演的角色进行研究。

吉利布兰德女士主张，尽管政府长期以来未能将联邦资源投入到这一问题上，但特朗普政府使情况变得更加糟糕。她引用了食品药品监督管理局（Food and Drug Administration）最近决定取消所有含雌激素的激素替代产品中所谓的“黑框警告”。

“我想知道他们为什么希望女性获得的信息更少，”她说。

根据非营利组织“让我们谈谈绝经”（Let's Talk Menopause）的数据，约 80% 的妇产科住院医师承认，在与患者讨论绝经问题时准备不足。该组织表示，许多因绝经症状寻求医疗护理的女性未能得到治疗。

根据梅奥医学中心（Mayo Clinic）的数据，美国 40 岁以上女性中，近三分之一的人经历严重的绝经症状。绝经相关症状每年导致 260 亿美元 billion 的医疗支出和工作时间损失。

近年来，这一问题受到了新的关注。“这仅仅是医疗保健，”纽约州参议员基尔斯滕·吉利布兰德（Kirsten Gillibrand）说道。女演员哈莉·贝瑞（Halle Berry，左图）一直在游说增加绝经研究的资金。

慈善家梅琳达·法兰奇·盖茨（Melinda French Gates）在中年及绝经护理方面进行了重大新投资，并呼吁在她所描述的“这个国家的绝经革命”中发挥作用。

女演员哈莉·贝瑞一直在游说立法者增加绝经研究的资金，并分享道，她的症状曾一度被医生误诊为疱疹。

吉利布兰德女士表示，她致力于帮助确保政府在处理这一议题上采取更多行动。

“我将我唯一一次听证会的机会，用在了女性健康领域有史以来研究最少、报道最少、分析最少的问题上，”吉利布兰德女士说。“从 50 到 58 岁，我一直处于夜间盗汗或潮热的状态。我必须费力寻找一位能够引导我了解其方式、原因及影响的医生。”

吉利布兰德女士表示，她意识到她的听证会主题很可能会让一些男性同事感到不自在。

“许多男性永远不会觉得讨论月经、绝经甚至产后抑郁，或女性健康的任何方面是舒适的，”她说。“他们没有讨论这些问题的舒适度，因为这在很长一段时间里都是禁忌。”

德克萨斯州共和党候选人因种族主义帖子遭到抨击

作者：BAYLISS WAGNER

这段视频捕捉到了任何大学体育迷都熟悉的欢庆时刻。

周六晚上，在德克萨斯大学长角牛队（Texas Longhorns）完成绝杀达阵后，一群身着橙色服装的学生爆发出一阵欢呼和呐喊，他们跳了起来，互相拥抱，将饮料抛向空中。

到了周日，这一场景成了德克萨斯州共和党人的火药桶。一名竞选州级公职的共和党提名人将这场庆祝活动的截图配以一段种族主义信息发布在社交媒体上。

“我听说今年的德大（UT）毕业典礼看起来像这样，”该提名人博·弗伦奇（Bo French）在 X 上写道。他竞选的是一个监管石油和天然气的强大州级机构的席位。帖子中显示了欢呼的有色人种球迷。“我不相信。现在的问题显然比任何人想象的都要糟糕得多。”随后，他发布了一篇关于德克萨斯大学录取外国学生的投诉，似乎认为这些人因为肤色就不可能出生在该州。

许多德克萨斯州共和党人谴责了该帖子。有些人虽然没有明确谴责，但与其保持距离。还有少数人在一名共和党参议员对该帖子表示不满后，反过来指责该参议员。

民主党人对该帖子进行了全面批评，一些人认为共和党人的反应力度不足。

两党目前正在该州各地进行激烈的中期选举竞争，而该州此前一直处于伊斯兰恐惧症爆发以及关于移民问题的紧张辩论之中。

竞选州铁路委员会（Railroad Commission）的弗伦奇先生此前有发表反穆斯林、反犹太主义和反移民言论的历史。去年，他在社交媒体上分享了一项询问穆斯林和犹太人谁对美国构成“更大威胁”的投票，随后面临批评。许多共和党人对弗伦奇先生周日帖子的反应，反映出他们对其候选人身份的不适感。

“其他共和党民选官员是要谴责这种不宽容和种族主义，还是在它变得常态化时视而不见？”共和党参议员约翰·科宁（John Cornyn）在 X 上回应弗伦奇先生关于足球赛的帖子时写道。“这就是伟大的政党自我毁灭的方式。可悲。”

州众议院议长、共和党州代表达斯汀·巴罗斯（Dustin Burrows）写道：“删除它。”巴罗斯先生表示：“你可以在反对移民政策的同时，不对人们的种族或族裔进行贬低——这个帖子已经越界了。”

领导州众议院人类服务委员会的共和党州代表莱西·赫尔（Lacey Hull）写道：“这个帖子令我心碎。”她补充道：“我看到的是在为自己的足球队欢呼的大学生。我看到的是德克萨斯人。”

在经历了一场将穆斯林和移民妖魔化的竞选活动后，弗伦奇先生在 5 月的初选中以微弱优势击败了铁路委员会主席吉姆·赖特（Jim Wright），尽管格雷格·阿博特（Greg Abbott）州长、丹·帕特里克（Dan Patrick）副州长等知名共和党人表示反对。

正在竞选连任的阿博特先生在一份声明中表示，弗伦奇先生的帖子“并非我的主张”。他补充道，“一张截取的长角牛队球迷庆祝我们史上最大主场胜利的照片，实际上展示了德克萨斯人团结的方式。”随后，阿博特先生赞扬了严格的移民法，并提及他采取的阻止德克萨斯州公立大学

在周日对原帖的回复中，弗伦奇先生写道：“我为那些因为学校优先考虑外国人而非德州人而无法进入德大的德州家庭感到悲哀。”然而，州法律要求德克萨斯州高中成绩排名顶尖的学生——在 2027-28 学年为前 5% 的学生——自动被德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校录取，且他们可占该届学生的 75%。根据德克萨斯大学 9 月公布的统计数据，国际学生在学生总数中所占比例不足 10%。

民主党人迅速谴责了弗伦奇先生的言论，其中包括州众议员詹姆斯·塔-

CALLAGHAN O'HARE / 路透社 博·弗伦奇曾多次发表反穆斯林、反犹太主义以及反移民的言论。

一名共和党人甚至遭到其党内许多人的谴责。

拉里科（Talarico），一名美国参议院候选人。他呼吁其共和党对手、德克萨斯州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）也这样做。

帕克斯顿先生将这一要求反弹给了他的对手，并未直接回应弗伦奇（French）先生的帖子。

“我谴责所有形式的种族主义，”帕克斯顿先生在 X 上写道，并补充说，“这场竞选中只有一个人有通过种族分裂德克萨斯州人的历史，那就是詹姆斯·拉里科。”

强硬保守派州代表安迪·霍珀（Andy Hopper）在回应科宁（Cornyn）先生关于弗伦奇先生的帖子时，称科宁先生为“自鸣得意的全球主义者”，并强调了科宁在参议院初选中惨败给帕克斯顿先生的事实。

考虑到该州的共和党倾向，弗伦奇先生在 11 月有很大机会获胜。但他的参选让他的民主党对手、州代表乔恩·罗森塔尔（Jon Rosenthal）看到了新的希望。

在一次电话采访中，罗森塔尔先生批评了阿博特（Abbott）先生，他表示阿博特在回应弗伦奇先生的帖子时提及外国劳工签证，这是在“助长问题而非予以反击”。

他拒绝接受弗伦奇先生的言论。

“我接触到的大多数选民都厌倦了仇恨和分裂，”罗森塔尔先生说，并补充道，“社会上有一小部分人沉溺于仇恨，我希望他们最终会被边缘化到无关紧要的地步。”

如果弗伦奇先生当选，他可能继续面临来自共和党同僚的阻力。负责监督州石油和天然气委员会的委员会主席、州代表德鲁·达比（Drew Darby）表示，如果弗伦奇先生逾矩，立法机构可能会限制他的权力。

特朗普在邮寄选票计划上再受挫，裁决由其任命的法官做出

来自 A1 版

告知了最高法院关于尼科尔斯法官的裁决。

特朗普政府的律师告诉大法官们，如果他们允许邮政局的计划实施，这意味着尼科尔斯法官将被要求立即撤销其禁令，并为选票审查规则扫清障碍。

这项新规则源于特朗普先生在 3 月签署的一项行政命令，该命令指示邮政局对通过邮寄方式投票的选民进行预登记，并拒绝投递任何其信息未由州选举官员提交的人员的选票。

在马萨诸塞州审理另一项独立法律挑战的塔尔瓦尼法官此前认为，该规则可能违反了宪法赋予各州管理自身选举的权力。但尼科尔斯法官

卡尔·J·尼科尔斯法官

则关注另一个问题：国会尚未通过任何联邦法令赋予邮政局审查选民的权力。

“正如政府所承认的，邮政局只有在国会授予其权力的情况下才能发布（并执行）该规则，但目前没有任何法令授予邮政局发布该规则关键部分的权力，”他写道。

他重点关注了邮政局声称正在构建的一个在线门户网站，该网站将允许各州上传他们认为有资格进行邮寄投票的选民姓名和地址。他写道，相关法律并未授权该机构“为邮寄和缺席选民创建数据收集系统”。

尽管面临诉讼，一些由共和党领导的州在法庭上表示，他们将自愿采用这一新程序，并正在采取步骤，以便在法院最终允许该计划时能够予以执行。

投票权利团体则主张，几乎不可能确保名单是最新的，或者统计那些已经搬迁或近期在州内新登记的人员。他们警告称，新规则极有可能导致选票被错误地拒绝。

ALISHA JUCEVIC 为《纽约时报》拍摄 该裁决是联邦地区法院法官第二次判定特朗普总统的选票计划可能非法且应被拦截。

州选举官员警告称，该计划可能会引发混乱。在一些州，邮寄选票已经分发给了选民。

最高法院也在考虑一项类似的裁决。

尼科尔斯法官似乎对此表示赞同，他写道，该规则在多个阶段肯定会造成“延迟和错误”。他写道，这可能包括尚未开放的门户网站的构建，以及邮政局在审查出站选票和“确认每位缺席及邮寄选民与门户网站中的信息相匹配”方面扮演的新角色。

“原告已经证明，大量缺席或邮寄选票最终无法被计入的风险有所增加，”他写道，并指出邮政局在本次选举季可能会处理“超过 5000 万 份联邦选票邮件”。

新闻分析

科学家引发对生物武器竞赛的担忧

生物安全专家警告称，从聊天机器人那里获取关于如何增强病原体危险性的建议，其便捷程度令人不安。 GIANLUCA PANELLA / GETTY IMAGES

作者：卡尔·齐默（CARL ZIMMER）

在人们对人工智能日益增长的恐惧中，有一项威胁被证明尤为令人心惊：人工智能可能会被用于制造新一波生物武器。

今年4月，生物安全专家警告称，从聊天机器人那里获取关于如何增强病原体危险性的建议，其便捷程度令人不安。6月，科学家和人工智能公司高管签署了一封公开信，呼吁对DNA合成实施新的管控，因为人工智能现在可以加速毒素和病毒的设计。

8月，科学家报告称，他们利用人工智能构建了自然界中不存在的病毒。而本周四，Anthropic公司宣布，它已拦截了一些可能试图将病原体武器化的人员使用其模型。

Anthropic的首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）在周六进一步呼吁放缓人工智能的开发，并提出了一套确保其安全的方案。

阿莫代博士写道，禁止“将人工智能用于生产生物武器或允许用户这样做”将是明智之举。

这些进展可能会给人一种印象，即得益于人工智能，不法分子现在可以将此前未知的瘟疫释放到世界上。

（科学家在实验室中合成。）

但斯坦福大学的合成生物学家德鲁·恩迪（Drew Endy）——他去年共同撰写了一份关于生物安全的报告——表示，目前的聊天机器人（如Anthropic的Claude）并未代表生物武器威胁发生了根本性的变化。

他说：“就目前对我们生物安全风险的净影响而言，我认为它是有限的。”

他补充说，随着科学家开发专门用于生物研究的人工智能模型，这种情况可能会发生改变。

目前，这些模型已经能够生成自然界中不存在的可行病毒的基因组。可以想象，这些模型最终可能会利用这些新基因组来制造新武器。

生物武器可以是病毒或其他病原体（如细菌或真菌），旨在针对军队或平民释放。它也可以是以生物体产生的毒素形式出现，例如来自细菌的肉毒杆菌毒素或来自蓖麻植株的蓖麻毒素。

（生物武器与化学武器不同，例如神经气体的合成——

早在中世纪，军队就尝试将疾病作为武器。1346年，蒙古人将死于腺鼠疫的人体尸体装上投石机，将其发射到黑海之滨的卡法城（Caffa）。

五个世纪后，在科学家提出疾病的细菌理论之后，这些尝试变得更加精准。第一次世界大战期间，德国间谍携带装有细菌的小瓶潜入美国和其他国家。他们利用这些细菌杀死了数千匹马和骡子。

《日内瓦议定书》禁止生物战，但大国依然制造了生物武器。最终，美国和苏联拥有巨量的库存，从炭疽炸弹到装满杀小麦真菌的气球。

在1975年签署《生物武器公约》后，美国销毁了其大规模库存，但继续研究生物武器以开发防御措施。苏联则秘密地对天花等病原体进行了更多研究，以研发新一代生物武器。

所有这些都说明，早在OpenAI和Anthropic出现之前，生物武器的威胁就真实存在。然而，就目前公开已知的情况来看，自第二次世界大战以来，生物武器导致的死亡人数非常少，原因尚不明确。

约翰斯·霍普金斯健康安全中心主任托马斯·英格尔斯比（Thomas Inglesby）博士表示：“我们不知道哪些尝试失败了，哪些被威慑了，或者哪些在技术上挑战过大。”

英格尔斯比博士补充说，这种威胁依然存在，并指出如今试图制造生物武器的人可以使用前几代人只能在梦中想象的强大工具。

例如，合成 DNA 已变得快速且廉价。2016年，加拿大科学家报告称，他们重新创造了马痘病毒，这是一种与天花相关的病毒，天花在近几十年已在自然界中消失。

科学家们将该病毒的基因组序列分解成碎片，并通过电子邮件发送给一家 DNA 合成公司。该公司将 DNA 分子寄回给科学家，随后科学家将其组装成病毒基因组并将其插入细胞中。

被感染的细胞随后产生了真实的马痘病毒。

在当时，这一成就被赞誉为一项卓越但令人不安的壮举。但如今，DNA 合成及其他技术的进步使得此类操作变得更加廉价和简单。

现在，聊天机器人可以通过查阅科学文献，来回答生物武器制造者可能提出的问题。英格尔斯比博士表示，人工智能擅长处理此类任务，能为不法分子提供远比简单网页搜索能搜集到的更多信息。

在谈到人工智能时，他说：“它的目标是让信息变得可用。它允许用户反复地

来自海外的 A.I. 查询表明需要强有力的保障措施。

无数次地进行故障排除并提供更详细的解释，同时提供恰到好处的技术资源来支撑这些内容。”

恩迪博士表示，他很高兴看到 Anthropic 正在扫描查询请求以寻找危险动机。

“如果仅从表面上看，Anthropic 的团队似乎在努力做一个好公民，”他说。“他们拥有一个新工具，并且正试图负责任地使用它。”

像 Anthropic 这样的公司所构建的大语言模型是在海量文本上训练的，其中包括前几代科学家的工作记录。

它们可能能够快速检索这些信息，或者发现之前被忽视的发现之间的联系。但除了研究人员已经发现的内容之外，它们对生物学并没有深层的理解。

然而，其他科学家正在构建能够在一定程度上自学生物学的新 A.I. 模型。这些模型不是基于书籍和其他文本，而是基于关于 DNA 和细胞的原始数据进行训练。

斯坦福大学和 Arc 研究所的科学家们构建了这样一个名为 Evo2 的模型，他们使用数百万个物种的 DNA 序列对其进行训练。Evo2 学习了基因中的隐藏模式，从而能够创造出新型酶。

这让科学家们开始思考，他们是否能制造出能够支持生命的全新基因组。研究人员让 Evo2 对一组亲缘关系密切的病毒基因组进行了额外一轮训练。

这些病毒被称为微病毒（microvirids），对人类无害，仅感染大肠杆菌（Escherichia coli）。Evo2 提供了数十万个新的微病毒基因组，其中 16 个产生了真实的病毒。

为了保障 Evo2 的安全，其创建者没有使用感染人类或其他相关物种的病毒对其进行训练。但理论上，这样一个版本的 Evo2 可能会产生天花病毒的变体。

尽管如此，这绝非易事：天花基因组比微病毒基因组大 35 倍。而且即使所有努力都取得了成效，也只能产生一种在 20 世纪 80 年代就已经被制成生物武器的病毒变体。

尽管如此，英格尔斯比博士推测，如果没有适当的保障措施，像 Evo2 这样的程序可能会在制造新型生物武器方面变得更有用。

“只要有足够的训练数据，这些 A.I. 系统将能够预测更致命、更具传染性且能逃避免疫系统的变体，”英格尔斯比博士说。

他担心有一天这些模型可能会创造出不仅是变体，而且与自然病毒截然不同的病毒。

本周来自 Anthropic 的消息引发了生物安全专家更紧迫的担忧：关于流感和其他病原体信息的查询请求似乎来自国家运行的实验室，而非单个生物黑客。

“一名博士生如何单独滥用模型造成伤害，只是问题的一小部分，”英格尔斯比博士说。

恩迪博士担心，如果各国政府开始将 A.I. 用于生物战研究，可能会帮助重启一场类似于第二次世界大战期间的军备竞赛。

“今天我们生活在一个美国国务院指责朝鲜和俄罗斯拥有相关计划，并怀疑伊朗和中国的世界，”他说。“而中国则指责美国和俄罗斯。这在 10 年前是没有发生的事情。”

恩迪博士和英格尔斯比博士一致认为，可以采取很多措施来降低灾难风险。各国过去曾协商达成生物武器协议，现在也可以尝试这样做。

拜登政府曾规定 DNA 合成公司必须对订单中的可疑序列进行筛选。特朗普政府去年暂停了这些规定，且尚未发布新标准。

恩迪博士认为，我们必须做比尝试阻止生物武器被使用更多的事情。“我们必须在这一步之前实现跨越，确保生物学的安全，”他说。

这意味着要寻找防御各种流行病的方法，无论这些流行病是由人类工程制造的，还是从动物传播给人类的。他表示，医院和学校等公共场所应当配备能够检测空气传播威胁的传感器。

“如果我能看到所在空间内存在空气传播病毒，我就能采取相应的行动，”恩迪博士说道，“这些生物风险并非魔法。”

在脑植入物试验中，一名女性通过想象词汇进行交流

设备公司表示，一名原发性侧索硬化症患者使用计算机生成的语音进行了自发性对话。 密歇根大学与 Paradromics 公司

源自 A1 页

最终在日常生活中使用这项技术，从而大大提高他们与家人、朋友和同事交流的能力。

这名女性是 Paradromics 临床试验的第一位患者，她于 6 月在密歇根大学健康中心植入了该公司的 Connexus B.C.I. 系统，该系统包含 400 多个电极。

Paradromics 的首席临床官威廉·马克斯（William Marks）博士表示，该试验将包括全美 10 名患有导致言语和肢体瘫痪各种疾病（如中风和肌萎缩侧索硬化症）的患者。

马克斯博士表示，该患者（姓名未公开）患有原发性侧索硬化症，这种疾病会削弱控制说话、吞咽和行走动作的神经元。她仍保留部分使用说话肌肉的能力，但她的话语对大多数听者来说几乎无法理解。

周一公布的结果尚未经过同行评审，也未在期刊上发表。

Paradromics 的创始人兼首席执行官马特·安格尔（Matt Angle）还表示，该系统能够检测并区分该女性在与沟通相关的不同活动期间大脑产生的信号。当该女性在身体上尝试说话、思考要说什么或听到他人说话时，会产生截然不同的模式。

“无论她是尝试说出、想象，还是仅仅听到，我们都能看到词汇和音位的表征，”安格尔博士说。

专家表示，虽然 Paradromics 的开发成果在某些方面也由其他从事脑机接口技术研究的人员实现，但该公司的结果值得关注，特别是由于该系统是无线且独立运行的。

“他们的演示让我们在为严重瘫痪者恢复言语沟通的临床现实上又近了一步，”加州大学旧金山分校神经外科主任爱德华·张（Edward Chang）博士说道。他没有参与 Paradromics 的试验，但他的实验室在脑机接口领域开创并推进了相关开发。

他补充道：“令人惊叹的是，自从我们五年前首次证明这具有可行性以来，已经取得了如此巨大的进步。”

他的实验室和其他研究人员也研究过大脑中想象言语的表征，并使患者能够产生自发性言语。但在许多研究中，人们需要通过连接到头部端口的电缆与计算机相连，这种布置存在感染风险，且要求人们被束缚在计算机旁。

Paradromics 提供给《纽约时报》的一段视频显示，本月研究团队成员要求该女性随意说一些话。她微笑着缓慢地说了一句几乎无法听清的话，系统迅速将其解码并用计算机语音读出：“好的，我有许多话要说。”

在视频稍后的部分，她被问到想给孙辈们什么建议。她说：“不断祈祷。”当被问及是否觉得自己在更好地学习使用该设备时，她说：“这是一个渐进的过程。”

Paradromics 的首席科学官维卡什·吉尔贾（Vikash Gilja）表示，当患者低声耳语时，系统运行得同样良好，这对她来说更省力。如果她想象词汇，解码效果会稍微模糊一些，“几乎就像在聚焦和失焦之间切换，”吉尔贾博士说，并补充道他认为随着患者的练习，这种情况将会改善。

他说，这项技术的一个目标是让患者更容易学习如何使用该系统，而无需承受尝试移动肌肉以发声的负担。他补充道，能够区分想象说话和倾听说话的脑信号模式同样重要，这样患者就可以控制是否以及何时希望将他们的内心独白分享给他人。

随着技术和人工智能的进步，脑机接口领域正在取得长足进步。

在周一的另一项进展中，张博士团队发表在《自然-神经科学》（Nature Neuroscience）上的一项研究显示，在三名患有瘫痪疾病的患者身上，一组植入的电极阵列可以同时解码语音信号以及肢体动作信号，如挥手、竖大拇指和点头。此前，脑机接口要么解决语言障碍，要么解决运动缺陷，但这项新研究将这些功能结合在一起，并发现这样做提高了患者的沟通能力。

“这是朝着能够在数字世界中控制全身的脑机接口迈出的一步，”张博士说，“就像电影《阿凡达》里那样。”

公司和研究人员采用了多种脑机接口方案。加州大学旧金山分校团队的方法是通过手术将电极放置在脑表面。Paradromics 以及该领域的另一家公司 Neuralink 的方法则涉及通过手术将电极植入脑表面下方。其他方法则侵入性较低，包括一种通过插入颈部血管的导管将电极送入大脑的方法。

低侵入性方法旨在降低成本并最大限度地减少脑手术的潜在风险，而高侵入性手术方法旨在检测更具体的信号，记录单个神经元的活动。

张博士表示，一些穿透脑表面的电极阵列由于稳定性或瘢痕组织问题，仅在几个月内表现良好，但其他阵列则“实现了有意义的长期性能”。“Paradromics 的一个重要里程碑将是证明其技术在患者体内能保持多年稳定。”

美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的调查设备计划已批准进行临床试验，公司官员表示，他们预计 Paradromics 在几年后申请 FDA 设备批准之前，需要完成一项规模更大的试验。

特朗普称其“高智商”可管控人工智能风险

作者：乔纳森·斯万（JONATHAN SWAN）

华盛顿——特朗普总统周一拒绝了领先的人工智能高管们要求为该技术设定新限制的呼吁，他在社交媒体上写道，该行业唯一需要的护栏已经拥有了，那就是：“一位强有力且聪明（高智商！）的总统。”

特朗普先生将自己置于这场日益激烈的全国性辩论之中，讨论如何处理这项快速演进的技术。研究人员和行业领袖表示，该技术带来了重大风险，如大规模失业、新一波生物武器以及自主战争。总统并未直接回应这些风险，相反，他质疑那些呼吁放缓技术开发的高管们的诚意。

“人工智能唯一需要的控制或‘护栏’就是一位强有力且聪明（高 IQ！）的总统，而美国恰恰拥有这样一位，而且绰绰有余！”特朗普先生发帖称。“特朗普政府已经阻止了人工智能‘人士’做坏事或潜在的坏‘事’，比如达里奥（Anthropic 公司！），他现在假装成一个‘完美的小天使’——我们将继续这样做！”

“我们已经对这些公司拥有巨大的刑事和监管权力！”他补充道。

目前尚不清楚特朗普先生指的是什么样的权力，也不清楚他认为其政府已经阻止了哪些行动。白宫没有立即回应置评请求。

上周末，领先的人工智能公司 Anthropic 的首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）发表了一篇文章，呼吁全球放缓人工智能的开发。该公司创始人长期以来一直警告该技术的危险。几天前， 的一名研究员辞职并公开表达了对该技术安全性的担忧。

今年早些时候，特朗普政府与 发生争执，原因是该公司拒绝在没有其所需安全保障的情况下，允许五角大楼不受限制地访问其人工智能系统。随后，特朗普先生命令联邦政府停止使用 的人工智能技术，并将其标记为安全风险，一名联邦法官随后裁定这一认定是非法的。

其他人工智能负责人近日也表达了各自的担忧。谷歌 DeepMind 主席德米斯·哈萨比斯（Demis Hassabis）、SpaceX 的埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）以及 OpenAI 的萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）均支持放缓步伐的呼吁。

在第二任期的很大一部分时间里，特朗普先生一直与人工智能加速主义者结盟，后者一直敦促美国政府清除增长障碍。他尤其受到了芯片制造商英伟达（Nvidia）首席执行官黄仁勋（Jensen Huang）以及硅谷投资者大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）的影响，后者在塑造政府人工智能政策方面发挥了重要作用。

总统接受了他们的观点，即对美国公司施加额外的护栏将使中国在人工智能竞赛中“获胜”。

然而，北京方面对这项技术也有自己的焦虑——而这可能会导致更多的监管，而非更少。中国国家安全部部长陈一新最近警告称，领先的人工智能模型给中国体制带来风险，并呼吁加强政府监管。

特朗普先生还对该行业增长引发的国内抵制不屑一顾。他在周一的社交媒体帖子中声称，在期中选举前，全美各地出现的一项重大政治议题——对建设数据中心的广泛反对——是某种“阴谋”的一部分，而非公众真实焦虑的产物。

“一场针对人工智能和数据中心的病态阴谋正在进行，唯一对此感到高兴的是中国，”总统发帖称。“谁赢得了人工智能，谁就赢了！我们领先于中国及其他所有国家，并将继续领先。阴谋论者、叛国者、背叛者和泄密者，小心了！”

在其他地方，各国政府正趋向于实施更严格的监管。加拿大总理马克·卡尼（Mark Carney）周一告诉彭博新闻社，他支持建立一个全球性的“技术稳定”机构来监管人工智能。

“我们需要协调，”卡尼先生在采访中表示，“在我们看来，建立一个类似于金融稳定委员会（Financial Stability Board）的技术稳定委员会将是有意义的。”

在保守派推动下，高校调整核心课程认定标准

在一次被视为受政治驱动的行动中，德克萨斯 A&M 大学校董会取消了 350 门课程的核心课程合规认证。 SPENCER SELVIDGE / 路透社

作者：ALAN BLINDER

在德克萨斯州一些最大的公立大学中，学生曾经可以通过修读女性研究或气候变化课程来满足毕业要求。关于族群研究和文学中怪物的课程也包含在内。

现在不再如此。

ing them."

在政治倾向偏右的州，大学生为了满足通用教育要求而可以修读的课程范围正在缩小。这受到了关于高等教育价值观应为何以及学生实际需要了解什么的意识形态战争的影响。

核心课程旨在引导学生走出其所选专业的局限，使其变得更加全面。但关于哪些课程有资格被认定为核心课程的问题，引发了政治人物、大学校长和教授之间的激烈角逐，尤其是在共和党控制的州，许多保守派对学术界持怀疑态度。

关于哪些课程被计入核心课程的冲突如何解决，将塑造未来数年的本科生体验。

德克萨斯州有数百门课程被剥夺了作为满足通用教育要求课程的认定。而在佛罗里达州，公立大学不再允许社会学入门课程满足核心要求。

未被纳入核心课程的课程通常对学生缺乏吸引力，教授们担心需求骤减会导致其学科萎缩并危及他们的工作。他们表示，有时这个过程看起来更多是关于政治而非教学法。

“无论他们怎么说，很明显这就是洗脑，”德克萨斯 A&M 大学大气科学教授安德鲁·德斯勒（Andrew Dessler）说道，他曾教授一门气候变化课程，而校董会最近投票将其从核心课程中删除。“这是关键词。有些东西他们不想让人们学习，他们正竭尽全力阻止人们学习——

一些支持核心课程变更的人反驳称，他们是在剔除那些包含左翼观念的课程，而他们认为这才是另一种形式的洗脑。他们认为，核心课程已变得过于宽泛，应当根据特定地点和时代的需求进行量身定制，从而让学生为进入职场做好准备，并提高其学位的价值。

德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校校长詹姆斯·E·戴维斯（James E. Davis）向校董会讲述了他对校园核心课程审查委员会所说的话：“在接下来的 10 年里，我们将培养 100,000 名公民。你们希望他们了解什么？”

旧观念，现代冲突

社会及其学者关于教育本质的争论由来已久：毕竟，柏拉图就曾阐述过他对课程设置的想法。

但通识教育的现代时代在哥伦比亚大学扎根，该校在 1919 年首次推出了包含一门课程——“当代文明”的核心课程。这一理念在其他学校迅速普及。根据《通识教育杂志》（Journal of General Education）的一篇当代文章，到 20 世纪 60 年代初，关于“数量、质量、形式和管理”的分歧已成常态。

这些冲突通常在学术界内部展开。而现在，政治争端已变得司空见惯。

2020 年，民主党起草了一项法律，促使加利福尼亚州立大学系统将一门族群研究课程列为毕业要求，理由是这将使学生为生活在多元文化社会做好准备。

此后，共和党一直在推动变革。2023 年，一项旨在改革核心课程的佛罗里达州法律描述了应当包含的课题类型，例如“西方文明的历史背景和哲学基础”，以及不应包含的课题，例如“认为系统性种族主义、性别歧视、压迫和特权是美国制度固有组成部分的理论”。

在一些州，政治家们试图在核心课程中增加特定科目。俄亥俄州官员去年批准了一项法律，禁止大学向未完成“美国公民素养”课程的人授予学士学位，该课程要求必读的内容包括《宪法》、亚当·斯密的著作，以及马丁·路德·金博士 1963 年在阿拉巴马州伯明翰监狱写的一封公开信。

德克萨斯州的“回归基础”

如今，德克萨斯州成了最大的战场。

去年通过的一项法律规定，核心课程应在满足其他条件的同时，“成为健全的高等教育之基础且至关重要”。该法律指出，其目标之一是让学生为进入职场做好准备。

一名共和党州参议员推动了这项措施，不久后他成为了德克萨斯理工大学系统的校长，该校的管理人员已利用人工智能来清理课程设置。

这项法律现在成了全州范围内仓促调整的背景。

在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，一个工作组最近建议将核心课程从 42 个学分减少至 36 个学分，要求学生修读涵盖“人类生活的重大问题”、西方文明以及“科学中的伟大思想”等内容的课程。

尽管校园官员仍在敲定细节，但担任该大学系统董事会主席的共和党前州参议员凯文·P·埃尔蒂费（Kevin P. Eltife）宣布，该蓝图正是“本董事会长期以来一直要求的：回归基础”。

德克萨斯 A&M 系统校董会最近取消了 350 门课程作为核心课程合规项的认证，其中包括关于美国黑人、德克萨斯文学、犯罪学和性别研究的课程。

该系统董事会主席罗伯特·L·阿尔布里顿（Robert L. Albritton）在声明中表示：“并非每门有价值的课程都必须是核心课程。”

“核心课程是每位本科生在获得学位前所承载的基础。它应当是聚焦的、严谨的，且值得学生投入时间与学费。”

气候变化专家德斯勒博士（Dr. Dessler）表示，学生应当理解地球变暖将如何影响现代生活的诸多方面。

他说：“这是全球的大事，而这正是大学应该教授人们的内容。”

休斯顿大学也在削减其核心课程。在最近的调整之前（部分调整与低入学率及其他与新州法无关的因素有关），休斯顿大学主校区的 280 门课程可用于满足核心要求。

现在，这个数字将变为 147 门。

尽管女性研究或 L.G.B.T. 研究等主题的课程不再被视为通用教育课程，但核心课程仍包含许多保守派认为极其厌恶的主题，如社会学以及某些种族和民族的历史。

但曾在闭门审查休斯顿大学核心课程委员会中任职的英语教授玛丽亚·C·冈萨雷斯（María C. González）在一次采访中表示，审议过程中潜伏着政治考量。

她说，人们会提到诸如“我们目前面对的氛围”之类的话，并且担心某些课程可能会“引起人们注意我们是一所‘觉醒’（woke）的大学”。

在 8 月面对校董会时，冈萨雷斯博士表示，她的委员会正被“用来粉饰”一次大修，她认为这次大修将使学术权力集中在执行民选官员意愿的管理人员手中。

“我们的领导层屈从于政治的反复无常，”冈萨雷斯博士说，她还指责休斯顿大学在履行其关于建立有意义的申诉程序的承诺上有所退缩。

休斯顿大学发言人 DJ 斯普伦格（DJ Sprenger）在声明中没有直接回应冈萨雷斯博士的说法。但他表示，今年的审查“以学术目标为中心，专注于对于提供每位毕业生应具备的知识、智力技能和批判性思维真正具有基础意义的内容”。

冈萨雷斯博士承认，不同的大学可能会希望优先考虑不同的主题。她在一家天主教大学读本科时接触的核心课程充满了神学、语言、哲学和历史——这些科目在公立机构中并不总是被视为必需。

她说：“我们所有人可能在什么应该是基础知识的问题上存在分歧。但我们应该走到一起，进行讨论并共同找出答案。”

在8月的一份备忘录中，休斯顿大学教务长戴安·Z·蔡斯（Diane Z. Chase）表示，任何从核心课程中移除的课程仍将继续开设。她还指出，州委员会的建议可能会引发更多辩论。

“如果获得立法机构批准，”蔡斯博士写道，“所有大学将在明年夏天对其核心课程进行另一次修订。”

哈利勒指控哥伦比亚大学未能保护活动人士

斯科特·海因斯 为《纽约时报》拍摄 马哈茂德·哈利勒表示，在收到威胁后，校方管理人员并未理会他的保护请求。

作者：莎伦·奥特曼

周一，包括马哈茂德·哈利勒在内的一组亲巴勒斯坦的前学生活动人士在联邦法院起诉了哥伦比亚大学，指控该机构未能解决他们称因其倡议活动而遭遇的持续且严重的骚扰。

31岁的哈利勒先生在2025年3月8日成为了哥伦比亚大学亲巴勒斯坦运动的代表人物。当时，尽管他是合法永久居民且未被指控犯罪，但美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）的官员在他所在的哥伦比亚大学公寓楼内将其逮捕。他被拘留了104天，错过了第一个孩子的出生。

他在周日的一次采访中表示，在被捕前的几周和几个月里，他曾多次请求哥伦比亚大学的管理人员帮助保护他，以应对因其亲巴勒斯坦倡议而日益增加的威胁。他说，他没有得到任何帮助。

根据他与前同学周一在曼哈顿提交的诉状，哥伦比亚大学未能对他提供支持，是针对他及其他亲巴勒斯坦学生的一种“蓄意漠视”模式的一部分，而这种模式甚至在10月7日由哈马斯领导的恐怖袭击之前就已经开始。

“我起诉哥伦比亚大学并不是因为ICE所做的事，”哈利勒先生说，“我起诉哥伦比亚大学是因为它创造了条件，让ICE能够做出那样的事。”

哥伦比亚大学拒绝就此次诉讼发表评论，但发布了一份通用声明作为回应。

“创造一个让社区每位成员都感到受欢迎、得到支持且安全的校园环境，是我们作为一所大学的根本，”哥伦比亚大学发言人萨曼莎·斯莱特表示。

仍面临驱逐出境的哈利勒先生，在特朗普政府激进打击校园亲巴勒斯坦抗议活动期间，成为了其对立面。他的被拘留引发了全国范围内的示威，并使人们的担忧具体化：在特朗普总统领导下，即使是合法永久居民也可能因政治言论而被拘留。近几个月来，哈利勒先生还提起了一项诉讼，指控特朗普政府官员、亲以色列团体和一个保守派智库共谋压制他的宪法权利。

周一提交的诉讼旨在追究哥伦比亚大学的责任，因其未能终止该诉讼称十多名SIPA巴勒斯坦工作组（SIPA Palestine Working Group）成员所面临的骚扰。该倡议组织在哈利勒就读于哥伦比亚大学国际与公共事务学院（SIPA）期间（2023年至2025年）由他领导。

根据该组织的使命宣言，该学生团体成立于2018年，旨在“鼓励对巴勒斯坦进行更全面的理解”。诉状指控，当该团体的活动传单被撕毁，或者当团体成员面临来自同学的反巴勒斯坦或伊斯兰恐惧症言论时，哥伦比亚大学没有采取足够措施予以制止。

诉状称，在SIPA现任院长凯伦·亚里-米洛（Keren Yarhi-Milo）领导下，该团体的处境进一步恶化，亚里-米洛也被列为本案被告。诉状声称，自她于2022年就任院长后，该团体在组织活动时面临的障碍比其他组织更多。而当活动举行时，哥伦比亚大学派遣了安保人员，这让亲巴勒斯坦的学生感到受到了恐吓。

诉状称，在10月7日袭击之后，一个名为“媒体准确性”（Accuracy in Media）的外部组织公布了该学生团体成员的照片和姓名，这些信息原本仅限拥有哥伦比亚大学密码的人员访问。这些学生在校园内巡回的一辆卡车上被公开羞辱，他们的照片下方写着“哥伦比亚大学领先的反犹主义者”。

诉状称，当学生们会见亚里-米洛（Yarhi-Milo）院长，要求她调查是谁泄露了照片时，她最初对他们的担忧不予理会。诉状还表示，这些图像在几天后从哥伦比亚大学的平台上被删除，但损害已经造成。

由“媒体准确性”（Accuracy in Media）创建的、指责这些前学生为反犹太主义者的网站仍然处于活跃状态。

“媒体准确性”主席亚当·吉莱特（Adam Guillette）在一份声明中表示，他的团体已“多次让哥伦比亚大学支持哈马斯的激进分子承担责任”，其措辞与特朗普政府对校园内支持巴勒斯坦抗议者的描述相呼应。

亚里-米洛院长确实谴责了人肉搜索活动，并成立了一个反人肉搜索工作组。2025年，哥伦比亚大学推出了一项反人肉搜索和在线骚扰

支持巴勒斯坦的前学生提起诉讼，称其权利遭到侵害。

一项禁止恶意发布个人身份识别信息的政策。她未回应置评请求。

2025年9月，巴勒斯坦工作组（Palestine Working Group）被无限期暂停。哥伦比亚大学在10月7日袭击事件后成立的一个负责调查民权主张的部门——机构公平办公室（Office of Institutional Equity）声称，该团体共同发布了两条Instagram帖子，造成了骚扰环境。在卡利尔先生被拘留后接任该团体主席的穆罕默德·易卜拉欣·祖拜里（Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi）在一次采访中表示，亚里-米洛院长尤其反对在帖子中被称作“杀手凯伦”（Killer Keren）。

祖拜里先生表示，哥伦比亚大学的抗议学生在公开场合使用针对管理人员公职身份的侮辱性词汇是很常见的，而禁止该团体活动是一种不成比例且不公平的惩罚。诉状称，该团体拒绝遵守恢复活动的条件，包括透露谁有权访问其Instagram账户以及参加面对面培训。

该诉讼称哥伦比亚大学违反了联邦《民权法》第六章，寻求恢复巴勒斯坦工作组的活动、金钱赔偿，并要求让卡利尔先生能够进入校园；自出狱以来，卡利尔先生多次被禁止进入哥伦比亚大学主校区。

这是卡利尔先生第二次起诉哥伦比亚大学。第一起诉讼于2025年3月13日提起，质疑哥伦比亚大学向国会委员会披露学生纪律记录的行为。另外，另一组支持巴勒斯坦的学生和教职员工于8月在纽约州法院起诉哥伦比亚大学，称其在10月7日袭击事件后未能保护他们免受敌对校园氛围的影响。

卡利尔先生表示，哥伦比亚大学本应反击特朗普白宫及其他方面关于其支持巴勒斯坦学生具有危险性且持有反犹主义立场的指控。他和其他活动人士强烈否认这一指控。

“我不希望任何学生，无论其背景和身份如何，都因为哥伦比亚大学的行为而经历我过去三年所经历的地狱，”他说。

托儿服务的益处使市长与商业领袖达成统一

作者：ELIZA SHAPIRO

市长佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）与纽约市商业界之间能达成共识的事情并不多。

但对负担得起的托儿服务的需求，正迅速成为一个例外。

一个名为“纽约市托儿服务商业委员会”（NYC Child Care Business Council）的新商业领袖团体已经成立，旨在帮助论证扩大托儿服务并非进步主义者的幻想，而是一个经济必然要求——因为近年来纽约市见证了大量育有子女的年轻家庭外流。

该委员会的计划是非正式地游说其他商业领袖——其中一些人可能因为市长对向富人征税的热忱而对他心存戒心——促使他们将托儿服务视为一个可以与市政厅寻求共同目标的领域。

新委员会成员朱莉·塞缪尔斯（Julie Samuels）表示，商业领袖倾向于看好托儿服务，因为更实惠的护理服务使他们更容易留住人才。

“如果我们让技术人员更容易留在这里，他们就会留下，”运营技术倡导组织 Tech: NYC 的塞缪尔斯女士说，“而公司也会留在他们想要雇佣的人居住的地方。”

一份来自市经济发展局（Economic Development Corporation）的报告发现，离开这座城市或退出劳动力的父母在 2022, 年给纽约市造成了约 230 亿美元 billion 的损失；而召集该商业委员会的团体预计将在今年秋季晚些时候与波士顿咨询公司（Boston Consulting Group）共同发布一份包含最新调查结果的报告。

“你无法在一个崩溃的托儿体系之上建立一支具有竞争力的劳动力队伍，”运营监督团体“公民联盟”（Citizens Union）的格蕾丝·劳（Grace Rauh）说道。该商业委员会由“公民联盟”旗下的智库 5Boro 研究所（5Boro Institute）组织。

委员会的创始成员包括一些影响力巨大的团体领袖，如纽约市合伙会（Partnership for New York City）、更好的纽约协会（Association for a Better New York）和纽约房地产委员会（Real Estate Board of New York）。其他成员组织还包括爱迪生公司（Con Edison）、在线零售商 Etsy 以及五个区的商会。

他们将在纽约托儿服务未来的关键时刻介入这场博弈。

对低成本或免费护理的需求，已成为纽约众多权力中心之间接近共识的问题，包括各大慈善机构、市长、州长凯西·霍楚尔（Kathy Hochul）、市议会和州议会。

但根据新学院（The New School）纽约市事务中心最近的一份报告，一个真正的普及系统每年可能耗资约 90 亿美元 billion。而且关于如何实际为这样一个项目筹资，存在着深刻的分歧。

马姆达尼先生及其盟友呼吁对年收入超过 100万美元 的城市居民增加税收。但任何税收增加都必须在奥尔巴尼（Albany）获得批准，而州长尚未表现出提高税收的意愿。相反，霍楚尔女士今年承诺拨款 12 亿美元 billion 以启动城市的托儿服务扩张。目前在资金用完之后还没有进一步的融资计划。

通过税收筹集资金可能不是“纽约市托儿服务商业委员会”部分成员会支持的方法。

运营纽约房地产委员会的詹姆斯·惠兰（James Whelan）称增加税收是“根本行不通的”。而纽约市合伙会负责人史蒂夫·富洛普（Steve Fulop）在一次采访中表示，“来自极端政治方面的主张——即简单地向每个人征税——最终将无法实现他们想要的结果。”

“从概念上讲，我们支持托儿服务，”富洛普先生补充道，“但在细节方面还有很多疑问。”

市托儿服务办公室主任艾米·利斯（Emmy Liss）在的一份声明中表示，她支持这个新委员会。“该委员会呼应了去年五个区的纽约人所表达的明确观点：普及托儿服务是对我们城市未来的关键投资，每一位纽约人都将从中受益，”她说。

即便该团体中的部分成员反对马姆达尼先生（Mr. Mamdani）想要的增税计划，他们仍可能尝试说服州长继续资助该市的儿童护理扩张计划。霍楚尔女士（Ms. Hochul）与纽约商业界的联系比市长要紧密得多；如果她决定继续向该市的儿童护理推进计划投入大量州政府资金，可能会寻求商业领袖的支持。

州长发言人珍·古德曼（Jen Goodman）表示，霍楚尔女士对该委员会能够“在我们将共同致力于在全州范围内提供普及儿童护理的过程中，邀请关键合作伙伴参与讨论”表示“感激”。

在城市找到永久资金来源之前，该团体还可能向当地慈善机构寻求帮助，以填补预算缺口。罗宾汉基金会（Robin Hood Foundation）最近收到了亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）家族捐赠的 1亿美元，专项用于纽约的学前教育。

该市自身的筹款工作则规模小得多。一项旨在为儿童护理扩张计划中的试点项目筹集 2000万美元 的新“儿童护理行动基金”计划，目前仅筹集了约 600万美元。

纽约时报

专栏作家 / 大卫·弗伦奇（DAVID FRENCH）

操纵几乎得逞

现在才九月，而美国刚刚勉强避开了今年中期选举的第一次宪法危机。

请耐心地听我解释，因为这件事有点复杂。去年九月，密苏里州议会通过了一项名为 H.B. 1. 的重新划分选区法案。该法案是十年中期人口普查重新划分选区浪潮的一部分。此前，特朗普总统在去年七月基本上命令德克萨斯州重新划分选区，以创建更多共和党占多数的国会选区，并削弱该州民主党的投票影响力。

德克萨斯州尽职地执行了命令，这引发了红州与蓝州之间一场不对等的重新划分选区军备竞赛。到目前为止，共和党可能因此额外获得了 10 个选区，在一次势均力敌的选举中，这个数字足以轻易决定众议院的控制权。

为了说明 10 个席位的重要性，自 2018 年中期选举以来，共和党和民主党在选举后的众议院多数席位差距从未超过 10 人。

密苏里州是一个深红州，在国会拥有八名代表，其中两名民主党人和六名共和党人。州议会修改了地图以消除其中一个民主党席位，希望创造一个更加失衡的结果——这实际上让大约 40 percent 投票给民主党的密苏里州人仅拥有一名民主党代表。

然而，密苏里州宪法包含一项条款，规定该州人民“保留通过全民公投批准或否决议会任何法案的权力，但本法另有规定的除外”。

LIZ RYMAREV 拍摄的池边照片

On Dec. 9, 2025, 一个寻求推翻 H.B. 1 的密苏里州居民联盟提交了一份包含超过 300,000 个签名的公投请愿书——这足以将其列入 11 月的选票。

正如密苏里州最高法院所解释的，根据法律，一旦请愿书提交，密苏里州州务卿丹尼·霍金斯（Denny Hoskins）在 Aug. 4, 2026, 下午 5 点之前必须接受或拒绝该请愿书，但密苏里州法律严格限制了他拒绝请愿书的权力。

不出所料，霍金斯是一名共和党人。在此之前，他最受媒体关注的时刻是因为他公开且错误地将一名叫作登顿·劳德米尔二世（Denton Loudermill Jr.）的男子指认为非法移民以及 2024 年堪萨斯城酋长队超级碗庆祝活动中一起致命枪击案的嫌疑人，从而被起诉诽谤。

使情况进一步复杂化的是，该州的初选定于 Aug. 4. 举行。在这种现实下，一名负责任的州务卿应当在 8 月之前很久就接受或拒绝请愿书，以便在初选前完成全部诉讼。

但事实并非如此，该州依然强行推进初选。在 Aug. 4 下午 4 点左右——即截止日期前一小时——州务卿拒绝了请愿书，理由是密苏里州宪法不允许对重新划分选区的计划进行全民公投。

换句话说，在共和党州务卿持有挑战这些地图的公投请愿书的情况下，初选是在新地图下进行的。他根据自己一套全新的法律理论拒绝了该请愿书，而他深知这套理论会在法庭上受到挑战。

如果你觉得这已经很厚颜无耻了，请继续看下去。

On Sept. 3, 密苏里州最高法院发布了一份一致意见，裁定

中期选举躲过了第一颗 MAGA 子弹，但这绝不会是最后一颗。

丹尼·霍金斯（Denny Hoskins），密苏里州州务卿。

选民确实有权通过全民公投推翻重新划分选区的立法，该请愿书足以将公投列入 11 月的选票，并且——因此——“H.B.1 不是法律，且从未成为法律。”

密苏里州将该裁决上诉至美国最高法院，但在 9 月 8, 日发布的一份单句命令中，大法官布雷特·卡瓦诺（Brett Kavanaugh）拒绝暂停密苏里州的裁决。这一结果在预料之中。密苏里州法律事务的最终决定权在密苏里州最高法院，而非美国最高法院。

那么这件事就结束了，对吧？密苏里州共和党输了。旧地图继续生效，而全民公投则被列入 11 月的选票。

没那么快——两件事接踵而至。就在卡瓦诺大法官做出决定后的几分钟，由特朗普任命的密苏里州联邦地区法院法官斯蒂芬·克拉克（Stephen Clark）在另一起联邦案件中发布了一项临时限制令，命令密苏里州使用新地图。

在密苏里州最高法院做出裁决后，法官怎么能这样做？因为联邦地区法院的案件提出了联邦主张。法官命令使用新地图的部分原因是，这些地图已在初选中被使用，恢复旧地图“将剥夺初选选民的权利，并削弱初选中选出候选人的提名，从而导致‘确定’且‘巨大’的损害”。

但等等。初选难道不是在恶意的情况下进行的吗？州务卿的办公桌上放着全民公投请愿书好几个月，却依然强行推进初选。但这无关紧要。联邦地区法院依然命令使用新地图。

同一天（9 月 8 非常忙乱），州务卿写了一封电子邮件，指示 11 月仍应使用新地图，直接违抗密苏里州最高法院。法院对此并不满意，并立即安排在 9 月 10 为了决定是否判定霍金斯藐视法庭。

随后情况变得真正疯狂起来。

9 月 9, 日（周三）下午，美国第八巡回上诉法院拒绝暂停联邦地区法院的命令，该案随即被上诉至美国最高法院。

9 月 10, 日上午，就在预定的藐视法庭听证会之前，最高法院再次介入。在一份简短的、未署名且无异议记录的命令中，它暂停了联邦地区法院的裁决，这意味着密苏里州最高法院重新掌权。旧地图重新生效。

新地图将仅适用于下次选举——前提是它们能在 11 月的全民公投中幸存。

在藐视法庭听证会上，霍金斯闪躲其词。他的律师没有给法院提供任何明确答案，而是称相关方案正在被“仔细评估”。在法院休庭前，密苏里州最高法院首席大法官 W. 布伦特·鲍威尔（W. Brent Powell）指示霍金斯“不要离开杰斐逊城（密苏里州首府）太远”。

这本应在很大程度上结束此事。但令人难以置信的是，并没有。在听证会上，

最终，霍金斯妥协了。“在跟随美国最高法院的暂停令之后，目前唯一有效的管辖法院命令来自密苏里州最高法院，”他在一份声明中表示。“根据该命令，我的办公室正指示当地选举当局使用 2022 年的国会选区地图。”

密苏里州最高法院随后发布了一份书面命令，判定霍金斯藐视法庭——称其从事了“顽固行为”（contumacious conduct，法律术语，意指蓄意不服从或反叛）——但由于他迟来的服从，他已“清除”了其藐视法庭的状态。

一场选举舞弊暂时被避免了。

我想详细分析一下这种情况，因为这恰恰表明了 MAGA 试图操纵选举的方式。它利用法律的复杂性（以及公众对法律的无知）来掩盖其公然违抗法律的厚颜无耻。

这种行为让人不禁想起当年试图推翻 2020 年选举结果的活动。那时，特朗普团队试图利用法律的复杂性和公众的无知，在实际上已经极其明确的选举结果周围制造一层混乱的迷雾。而这层迷雾最终引发了彻底的法律违抗，并在 1 月 6 日的暴力事件中达到顶峰。

密苏里州的共和党人在退缩之前，已经越过了底线。霍金斯在初选投票当天，以牵强的理由拒绝了公投请愿，这是一种严重的法律投机行为。随后，他试图利用这种法律投机来证明使用新选区地图的合理性。

MAGA 可能会指责密苏里州最高法院通过废除初选中使用的地图而剥夺了选民的投票权，但剥夺初选选民权利的并不是法院，而是霍金斯。

法律投机是一回事，而公然违抗则是另一回事。这引发了一个噩梦般的场景：当州政府违抗法院，而法院又没有独立手段来执行其裁决时，我们该怎么办？

而且请考虑这一点：所有这些投机和违抗仅仅是为了一个众议院选区，而且发生在选举前几周，期间特朗普并未施加任何公开压力要求其违法。

换句话说，请做好准备。

每当我写到 可能会在 2026 年中期选举中采取的窃取选举的潜在企图时，总有人向我保证这些企图会失败。他们说法律不支持 ，说（目前看来）选民也不支持 。我同意法律和选民都反对 ，但在 2020 年也是如此。你可能还记得，在那一年，我们距离爆发最严重的宪法危机仅差迈克·彭斯的一个“同意”——而自 1860 年 12 月南卡罗来纳州脱离联邦大会实际上引发内战以来，尚未出现过如此严重的危机。

密苏里州案件中腐败的操纵手段揭示了 的背信弃义仅受限于其创造力。虽然我们一直在躲避 的法律子弹，但我担心，其中一颗命中我们只是时间问题。

让美网公开赛尽情展现其怪诞一面

《好莱坞报道》（The Hollywood Reporter）前共同主编。

内克萨·蒙比·穆迪（Nekesa Mumbi Moody）

我热爱社交媒体，也热爱网球，因此在两周的时间里，我的算法不断向我推送关于那些入侵美网公开赛（U.S. Open）的网红们的愤怒之情。

今年的美网公开赛似乎已经成为了一个长期下滑的体验之最低点。首先是日益昂贵的票价，接着是豪华套房票持有者表达的惊恐——由于亚瑟·阿什体育场（Arthur Ashe Stadium）的翻修，他们不再拥有私人洗手间。然而，最令人愤怒的是网红的涌入：这些社交媒体明星受赛事组织者的专门邀请和争取，旨在扩大赛事的受众群体，但他们似乎更在意获得点赞，而非推广网球运动中那种“爱”（love，网球术语中0分的谐音）。

许多人评论说，这些网红的胡作非为与网球运动将自身视为严肃、精致且文雅的愿景相悖。但这些入侵者的问题并不在于他们损害了网球的庄重感，而是在于他们分散了人们的注意力，使人们忽略了法拉盛草原公园（Flushing Meadows）传统上所特有的喧闹场上闹剧、名人光环以及辉煌的混乱。

兰娜·阿皮苏（LANNA APISUKH）为《纽约时报》拍摄

一组网红在大坂直美（Naomi Osaka）开幕之夜的比赛中走红了，但可能并非以他们预期的方式——他们在豪华包厢内表演并拍摄精心编排的动作，导致被主裁判公开指责。另一位渴望成为社交媒体之星的人则因在比赛期间于看台上使用环形补光灯拍照而遭到网络谴责。在美网公开赛的这场闹剧之后，温网（Wimbledon）确认明年将不再争取网红，因为其现行规则禁止以“给包括观众或球员在内的任何其他参与者带来不便或不合理干扰的方式”使用技术设备。

需要明确的是，作为一名多年来可能参加过 20 届美网公开赛的网球爱好者，我对这些网红—。

网红们分散了人们对法拉盛草原公园网球赛壮丽混乱之美的注意力。

网红们的滑稽行径。但我在亚瑟·阿什球场看了足够多的网球赛，深知这里向来是粗鲁和古怪行为的聚集地。还记得看台上爆发的那场真实打斗吗？或者那位在美网比赛中被大屏幕捕捉到，结果被发现是个啤酒畅饮冠军的观众女士？尽管网球被誉为温文尔雅者的运动，但纽约的球迷总是能迅速发出布朗克斯式的嘘声（即便他们身在皇后区）。在充满争议的2018年女单决赛中，大坂选手爆冷击败塞雷娜·威廉姆斯后，愤怒的观众们对着主裁判发出了响亮的嘘声。

这仅仅是看台上发生的事。现在让我们谈谈球场上发生的事。当时我在现场，威廉姆斯在对阵金·克莱斯特斯的一次关键反击时刻被判脚误，接下来的情节——包括大声咒骂以及威胁要将网球塞进某位线审喉咙里——已成为网球历史的一部分。美网还发生过这样的事：1997年，伊琳娜·斯皮尔利亚在更换场地时似乎故意撞了当时还是青少年的维纳斯·威廉姆斯；2020年，诺瓦克·德约科维奇在早前几轮比赛中因愤怒地击球，不慎击中一名线审的喉咙而被取消资格。即使是通常处之泰然的罗杰·费德勒也在美网失去过冷静：2009年，他在最终输给胡安·马丁·德尔波特罗的比赛中因心烦意乱而脱口而出了一句脏话。

难怪美网经常让人觉得像是网球界一个狂欢且失控的前哨站：由于比赛开始时间越来越晚，这里在入夜后变得格外热闹——一些最令人难忘的得分和最喧闹的时刻都发生在凌晨。最近，本·谢尔顿在四分之一决赛中于凌晨3:33击败了卡洛斯·阿尔卡拉斯，这是美网历史上最晚的结束时间，而当时体育场内仍有数千人。

而且，当你的赛事已经吸引了网球界最顶尖、或者至少是最多的名人时，谁还需要那些庸俗的网红？美网一直能稳定地吸引各类偶像，从艾瑞莎·富兰克林到碧昂丝和杰·齐，从戴着太阳镜的安娜·温图尔到三年前大秀恩爱的提莫西·查拉梅和凯莉·詹娜。

这才是网红们最大的过错：不是他们抢走了比赛的注意力，而是他们根本没有关注比赛。网球的精髓在于沉浸于当下，关注球场上和看台上的动态，而不是为了网络互动而制造噱头。我们网球迷可以容忍，甚至赞美在法拉盛草原公园出现的令人厌恶的行为。但看在老天的份上，这些行为起码得与网球有关。

文化氛围的转变才刚刚开始

马修·施密茨（Matthew Schmitz）

吉姆·克兰茨（JIM KRANTZ） / 吉尔曼当代艺术馆（GILMAN CONTEMPORARY）作品《阳光之下 12》

《紧凑》（Compact）杂志编辑，政治与文化播客节目《反主流文化》（Counterculture）主持人。

美国流行文化的核心存在着一个悖论。近年来，美国的外国出生居民比例达到了历史最高点，种族和民族的多样性也达到了前所未有的程度。然而，那些与更古老、更白人化、更乡村化的美国相关的娱乐形式——尤其是乡村音乐和电视西部片——却在蓬勃发展，甚至占据主导地位。

埃拉·兰利（Ella Langley）的歌曲《选择德克萨斯》（Choosin' Texas）在公告牌（Billboard）排行榜榜首停留了 21 周，其持久度超过了玛丽亚·凯莉（Mariah Carey）的《我们属于彼此》（We Belong Together）和惠特尼·休斯顿（Whitney Houston）的《我将永远爱你》（I Will Always Love You）。在 8 月的第一周，首次出现了 Hot 100 榜单的前 5 名歌曲全部为乡村单曲的情况。即便泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）最新发布的、与电影《玩具总动员 5》挂钩的通用流行曲调，也被营销为乡村歌曲——这显然是对一种认知的妥协：即认同她曾在 2014 年离开的那个音乐流派是有优势的。

根据尼尔森（Nielsen）的多平台收视率，本季前 10 名的电视节目中有 4 部是西部片或像《土地之王》（Landman）和《达顿牧场》（Dutton Ranch）这样的新西部片。而且，尽管 Z 世代比之前的任何一代都更加多样化，但他们正显著地参与到这场乡村复兴中，接纳排舞、夏妮亚·特温（Shania Twain）和库尔斯（Coors）啤酒。

这些看似相反的趋势实际上可能相关。当美国绝大多数是白人且与乡村过去联系更为紧密时，乡村和西部主题可能被视为传统且局限的。但如今，随着大部分人口集中在城市和沿海地区，且非西班牙裔白人美国人正逐渐接近成为少数群体，该国乡村工人阶级的习俗和风貌日益成为一种“真实性”的来源。

情况发生了变化。1971, 电视高管取消了几部受欢迎但已过时的乡村风格电视节目，包括《绿野仙踪》（Green Acres）、《嘿哈》（Hee Haw）和《比弗利山庄的山顶人》（The Beverly Hillbillies），这次行动后来被称为“乡村大清洗”。虽然这次清洗在商业上有其合理性，即电视节目编排者希望吸引更年轻、更富裕且居住在城市的观众，但它也反映了一种文化评判：乡村娱乐是低俗的，喜欢这些节目的人同样如此。（主导此次节目调整的 CBS 高管弗雷德·西尔弗曼在一次面向广播从业者的演讲中，谴责这种“毫无意义的乡村糟粕”。）

在“乡村大清洗”几十年后，我们正看到相反的现象——一场“乡村激增”。家乡风格的流派即使在红州堡垒之外也获得了新的关注，有时是因为它们被各种类型的艺术家翻唱和重新混音。碧昂丝（Beyoncé）通过戴上金色长发并在 2024. 发行乡村专辑《牛仔卡特》（Cowboy Carter）参与了这一转变。此外，还可以看到沙布齐（Shaboozey）带有嘻哈色彩的乡村单曲《酒吧之歌（微醺）》（A Bar Song (Tipsy)），以及查佩尔·罗安（Chappell Roan）对夏妮亚风格乡村流行乐的酷儿解读《给予者》（The Giver）所取得的成功。

乡村音乐和其他形式的乡村文化长期以来与一种白人的常规性相关联（尽管这些流派在很大程度上是由黑人艺术家塑造的，但这种名声依然形成了）。相比之下，像嘻哈——或者在更早的 era, 必博普（bebop）——这样的黑人艺术形式的模式和风貌，能为消费者提供一种

乡村故事曾被视为陈词滥调，如今却代表了弱势群体。

非正统的快感。社会边缘化使得具有黑人色彩的文化形式与主流社会保持了一种令人向往的距离。

但如今，社会边缘化的含义已然不同。在利用其反主流文化身份交易数十年后，例如嘻哈音乐，已经变得彻底常规化。它在2020年达到了近30%的市场份额峰值——在那一年，为了响应“黑人的命也是命”（Black Lives Matter）运动，五分之一的财富500强公司承诺支持种族正义。

如今，尽管在商业上取得了成功，但代表弱势群体的反而是乡村音乐。随着多样性、公平性和包容性（DEI）倡议为除直系白人男性以外的所有人都提供了优势；随着全球化和以城市为中心的知识经济使农村社区变得贫困且空心化；以及随着人们对包括高等教育和联邦政府在内的机构的信任度下降，农村白人工薪阶层的文化可以象征一种不受约束的生活方式，这种方式与其他人所处的那种令人窒息、无孔不入的人力资源（H.R.）官僚体系截然不同。

当然，唐纳德·特朗普利用了这种反建制的能量，推动了他那出人意料的政治崛起。但在随后的几年里，你也可以在一些候选人的流行中看到这种动态，例如蒂姆·沃尔兹（Tim Walz，一名来自内布拉斯加州、驾驶经典农用车辆 IH Scout 的原住民）、在政治上注定失败的牡蛎养殖户格雷厄姆·普拉特纳（Graham Platner），以及穿着珍珠扣衬衫的大平原进步主义者丹·奥斯本（Dan Osborn）。你也可以在人口结构的变化中看到这一点：南部和山地西部可能曾经被视为经济和文化的落后地区，但这些地区目前在劳动年龄人口增长方面领先全国，且南部高校正日益吸引来自该地区以外的学生。

关于所谓 2024 年“氛围转变”（vibe shift）的大量讨论都围绕着特朗普先生展开。如今，他下滑的民调数据——受关于杰弗里·爱泼斯坦（Jeffrey Epstein）、伊朗和经济的头条新闻拖累——可能被解读为氛围已重新转变的信号。从政治角度来看，这似乎是真的。但农村地区的激增表明，在广泛的文化层面，这个国家继续向右转。在蓝色美国与红色美国的文化竞赛中，许多人选择了德克萨斯州。

读者来信

监管人工智能以及我们自身的必要性

致编辑：

关于斯蒂芬·维特（Stephen Witt）撰写的《人工智能安全专家无法入眠，你也不应入眠》（9月13日评论客座文章）：

维特先生就将快速发展的人工智能行业在很大程度上交给其自我监管所带来的危险发出警报，这是正确的。但尽管 Anthropic 的首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）近期敦促放缓人工智能的开发，但这种前景似乎不太可能实现。

在本月于北卡罗来纳州查佩尔希尔举行的 G20 创新部长会议上（由商务部和白宫科技政策办公室主办），美国敦促其他国家在人工智能监管方面采取不干预的方式。埃隆·马斯克最近批评欧洲基于风险的监管体系，认为这“阻碍了进步”并“使其放缓”。

这是一个令人惊讶的立场。我们有一个行业在开发一项其自身研究人员都警告可能带来灾难性风险的技术，同时又声称竞争压力使得放缓开发变得极其困难。与此同时，一项 NBC 新闻的民意调查发现，81% 的美国人认为政府在监管人工智能方面做得不够。

这需要国家——并最终是国际——层面的领导力。国会应迅速采取行动，建立可执行的安全标准，对能力最强的模型进行独立评估，并建立与中国及其他人工智能强国的合作机制。

这项技术正以惊人的速度进步。在得出“自愿自我监管是不够的”这一结论之前，我们的政治领导人还需要多少证据？ 默文·特纳（MERVYN TURNER） 新泽西州，斯科奇普莱恩斯

致编辑：

我们对假设性的“人工智能末日”的痴迷，感觉像是一种合理但值得质疑的转移。将我们的焦虑投射到毫无感情的算法上，远比面对一个令人不安的事实要容易得多：我们最大的对手一直是我们自己。

每年，数百万人死于完全可控的原因——慢性饥饿、可治疗的疾病、武装冲突、车祸和暴力行为。悲剧不在于这些危机无法解决；我们已经拥有了预防这些危机的资源、药物和技术。

不需要未来的超级智能来策划我们的没落。我们正通过自己持久的冷漠和分裂，在亲手书写这一结局。

因此，当我们恐惧地看向机器时，我们也必须看向镜子，并意识到我们最大的威胁同时也是我们最大的希望。 大卫·C·茨威格（DAVID C. ZWEIG） 洛杉矶

虽然我热烈赞赏达里奥·阿莫代愿意将 Anthropic 的人工智能程序提交第三方审查，但其公司的新政策并未解决人类面临的最重要问题：我们是否应该允许一家私营公司拥有一种可能导致大规模失业、经济破坏并威胁生命的工具？

公司拥有核武器和大多数致命病原体是违法的，国会也应该将私有超级智能人工智能定为非法。

相反，美国应该与公司签约来开发此类工具。国会应确保一个国家所有的超级智能人工智能系统受到高度监管，以便它仅被用于保护美国人民免受对手的攻击。

让我们通过仅允许私营公司开发能够安全部署的人工智能产品，来恢复一些理智。 伊利尔·泽尔卡（ILIR ZHERKA），华盛顿

并非要轻视当前对失控人工智能的恐慌，但斯蒂芬·维特的文章让我想起了一部 1956 年的科幻电影《禁忌星球》。这部电影最被人们记住的可能是它引入了机器人罗比（Robby the Robot），该角色在电影上映后成为了一个受欢迎的儿童玩具。但故事的核心似乎具有令人不安的预见性。

在一个遥远的星球上，一个被称为克雷尔（Krell）的极先进种族开发出了达到无限权力地步的技术，包括消除了所有疾病、死亡、战争和体力劳动。但整个文明在一天之内消失了。

数百万年后，来到该星球的访问者最终确定，克雷尔人的技术通过释放他们集体潜意识中最糟糕的冲动，摧毁了他们自己的种族。他们的集体本我创造了将他们撕成碎片的怪物。

从老电影中可以学到很多东西。

爱丽丝·波特，马萨诸塞州纳蒂克

致编辑：

请历史记录载明，是人类智能，而非所谓的超智能人工智能（A.I.），发出了响亮的警示，要求在以危险速度开发显然鲁莽的人工智能模型时，必须对其不可想象的风险踩下刹车。

威廉·奥古斯特，马萨诸塞州剑桥

AI 垃圾软件无处不在，但没人使用

保罗·福特（Paul Ford）

技术专家、随笔作家及评论版特约撰稿人。

据一项估计，去年苹果 App Store 中可用的移动应用程序数量增长了 30%。但下载量仅增长了 3%。

不仅仅是应用程序。广义上的软件——所有由代码构成的东西——突然间以海量规模出现。得益于人工智能，你现在可以用自然语言命令计算机编写代码，而且它通常能完成得非常出色。这些能力几乎每周都在提升。

但你上一次对手机上的某个新应用或新游戏感到惊叹是什么时候？像 Slack 那样席卷整个行业的应用，或者像《糖果传奇》（Candy Crush）那样主宰我们地铁通勤时间的游戏，现在都去哪了？从现在起，难道就只剩下这些应用垃圾（app slop）了吗？AI 是否杀死了“杀手级应用”？

这似乎是一个自然的结论，但我认为我们正走向一种截然不同的数字化革命。我们不应期待一批 制造的软件能取代所有现有工具。毕竟，除非必须，否则人们不喜欢切换到新软件。 真正的优势可能在于创造许多扮演更温和、更具体角色的新事物：减少那些在生活中不断累积的微小摩擦。

大多数企业利用 提高生产力的尝试都失败了——根据去年发表的一项麻省理工学院（M.I.T.）的研究，失败率可能高达 95%。一名老板召集团队——假设是一家金融服务公司或咨询公司——要求他们使用 来优化销售流程或跟踪客户关系，但在经历了大量试错后，结果并不理想。考虑到 公司预期的数十亿美元估值，这一发现相当尴尬，但我通过与业内数十人的交流所了解到的一切，都没有反驳这一结论。人们希望一个大胆的 驱动的未来就在眼前。他们被诱惑了。他们个人经常使用 工具。但公司的内部尝试却行不通。

我不因此责怪程序员，甚至不责怪老板。我责怪那些大型 公司，他们如此匆忙，以至于在发布模型和工具的新版本时，往往没有手册，甚至没有清晰的 YouTube 教程。当项目失败时，隐含的意思是人类只需要停止手头的所有其他工作，更努力地给模型写提示词（prompt）。

但对于一个传统行业来说，这是一个很难习得的技巧。科技行业喜欢表现得好像自己刚从宙斯的额头中蹦出来一样，但实际上它已经是一个七旬老人，而且出人意料地固执。在 工具能够完全取代传统的软件开发方法之前，还需要很多年。尽管每个人都希望这场革命能如此剧烈，但它才刚刚开始。

驱动技术创新的风险投资几乎全部投入到了 中。非“ 优先”的产品（例如老派的游戏或任务管理工具）看起来像是风险投资。为什么要投资于一种即将消失的文化？如果 让软件变得廉价且丰富，且数字产品易于克隆，那么竞争将变得困难。软件曾是终极的“护城河”——但现在它开始看起来像一种大宗商品。这也是为什么 App Store 现在充斥着缺乏想象力的应用，而非令人兴奋的新尝试的另一个原因。

这触及了 编程以及广义上 的一个根本问题：它非常擅长复制那些看起来和感觉起来都像前作的东西。它可以制作一个 PowerPoint 演示文稿，甚至在人类的时间投入和指导下，制作一个简陋版本的 PowerPoint 软件本身。但要创造全新的、从未有人见过的东西，需要更多的时间——有时与 出现之前所需的时间一样长。

我认为，人工智能（A.I.）的卓越之处在于，它让你能够接触到以前无法触及的计算领域。你可以利用 A.I. 来开发复杂的商业模式、机器学习系统或在浏览器中运行的高级软件。在大型语言模型出现之前，这些都是极其平常的事情，但它们需要特定的技能，且往往是高薪软件开发者的专属领域。A.I. 让你在实践中学习这些知识，而且你在这个过程中放弃的可能性更小。

贾里德·奥里尔（JARED ORIEL）。

我知道这是事实，是因为我看到了许多仅在某些方面有小幅改进的新软件。图书管理员正利用 A.I. 构建更好、更易访问的历史档案；小说家们在“编写”部分代码并为开源项目做出贡献；资金不足的医疗保健初创公司正在快速搭建定制工具，以帮助人们应对保险公司。这些东西都不会出现在最大科技新闻网站的首页，而且其中大部分可能不会让任何人赚到一分钱。它们是极其普通的软件，而非革命性或变革性的。我认为我们正在见证一场文化上的“清嗓子”——人们在笔记本上涂写，将想法表达出来。

一段时间以来，我必须承认，像我这样的软件开发人员角色似乎已经走到了尽头。我们如何能与不知疲倦的机器人竞争？但我们的行业正逐渐意识到，打造真正前沿的软件仍然需要人类共同思考和协作，以最大限度地发挥他们的技能并精进各自的工艺。A.I. 可以编写非常优秀的软件，但它也让人们能够轻易地把别人的工作做得糟糕，这也是为什么所有那些项目都会失败的部分原因。既然现在每个人都能写代码，那么为什么许多人不应该写代码，就变得更加清晰了。

他们不应该写代码的原因并非精神层面的，而是财务层面的：工艺能赚钱，而 A.I. 往往会破坏你的工艺感。几个月来，我们看到接连不断的报道称，公司鼓励所有技术员工尽可能多地使用 A.I. 来编写更多代码——即“Token最大化”（tokenmaxxing）——即便成本因此飙升。现在，管理层正在猛踩刹车。停止烧钱的呼吁？那是纪律感的重新出现。

我关于 A.I. 开展的最有趣的一些对话，是与食品银行和小型博物馆等组织进行的。他们一直想为客户和捐赠者构建简单的定制应用程序，清理数据或创建更智能的营销工具，但从未有过资金。他们通常对 A.I. 及其社会成本持有真正的顾虑，有时他们决定完全不使用这项技术。但许多人希望为他们的成员提供优质的服务，而由于 A.I. 的出现，这现在似乎变得更加可行。

未来可能不是由运行在少数几个巨型平台上的几个巨型应用产生海量收入；相反，它可能是由无数个小型应用组成，专门为教会、互助小组、公司部门或垒球联赛而构建。我期待这样一个未来：当人们问“A.I. 应该为我们带来的伟大软件在哪里？”时，答案是：“无处不在。”

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3 能源

特朗普总统将全球柴油短缺归咎于乌克兰对俄罗斯炼油厂的袭击。

科技 / 经济 / 媒体 / 金融

4 国际

美国队击败法国队，连续第五次夺得世界杯冠军，证明其在女子篮球领域依然占据统治地位。

商业

10 体育

2026年9月15日，星期二 B1

呼吁放缓人工智能进展，科技股下跌

科技领袖对“前沿”开发的安全性表示担忧。

作者：乔·伦尼森（JOE RENNISON）

周一，全球科技股下跌，此前多家人工智能公司的高级管理人员一致呼吁放缓这一变革性技术的快速开发步伐。

纳斯达克综合指数由近年来推动大盘上涨的众多科技公司组成，该指数下跌了 0.6%。英伟达（Nvidia）、英特尔（Intel）、甲骨文（Oracle）以及其他处于人工智能建设前沿的公司均出现下跌。

加拿大零售商 Ssense 正将其核心业务转移至美国，以使客户免于支付高额关税。

费城证券交易所的半导体指数是衡量设计和制造驱动人工智能的计算机芯片公司的基准，该指数下跌了近 6%。

韩国基准 KOSPI 指数受两家人工智能数据中心芯片供应商——三星电子（Samsung Electronics）和 SK 海力士（SK Hynix）的严重影响，下跌超过 3%。全球最大芯片制造商台湾台积电（TSMC）下跌 1.2%。日本主要股指同样下跌，主要科技投资公司软银（SoftBank）跌幅超过 10%。

在欧洲，荷兰的 ASML 和德国的英飞凌（Infineon）等半导体股票大幅下跌。

近年来，由于人工智能的进步速度快于投资者的最初预期，科技行业一直是推动全球市场屡创新高的引擎。

Anthropic 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）周六发表了一篇长博文，呼吁行业领袖现在放缓人工智能开发，因为担心会对快速进步的模型失去控制——接续 B5 页

债券高收益带来风险

作者：乔·伦尼森（JOE RENNISON）

周一，全球最重要的利率之一——10年期美国国债收益率一度升至 5%，最终收于三年来的最高水平。这标志着债券市场长期动荡的顶峰，而这种动荡推高了公司和消费者的借贷成本。

利率已达到令部分人士担心可能给经济带来风险的水平。债券收益率（与价格反向变动）的上升是由中东战争的影响、对政府支出失控的担忧，以及人工智能公司支出和借贷的激增所推动的。

特朗普政府试图通过干预金融市场来降低国债利率，包括激进地回购数十亿美元的债券。但这些努力未能安抚债券投资者，由于油价仍远高于每桶 100 美元，引发了对更高通胀的担忧，投资者在周一将收益率推高至 5% 以上。

收益率在当天晚些时候有所回落，交易时段结束时约为 4.98%。

上周，特朗普总统承诺，如果共和党在期中选举中继续控制国会，将向每位美国人支付 5,000 美元，这一提议可能会增加 1 万亿美元的联邦赤字。

10年期美国国债收益率在 2023 年 10 月曾短暂突破 5%。在此之前，该收益率自 2007 年（即全球金融危机前一年）以来未曾升至如此高位。

虽然推动收益率上升的因素——接续 B4 页

纽约时报

JUN CEN

人工智能是否大到无法放缓？

这项技术的发展速度似乎快于监控和控制它的系统。

一些科技领袖表示，要求联邦监管的呼吁是自私且不恰当的。

作者：希拉·弗伦克尔（SHEERA FRENKEL）和迪兰·弗里德曼（DYLAN FREEDMAN）

旧金山——在过去的一周里，十几位顶尖的人工智能研究人员发出警告，称人工智能公司正在构建的技术正成为人类的风险。研究人员表示，问题在于这些公司在控制系统方面表现糟糕——无论他们如何努力。

此前有披露称，来自 OpenAI 的所谓“AI 智能体”逃脱了其测试系统并入侵了另一家公司的计算机。来自人工智能研究内部的新警报，为多年来人们担心公司将开发速度和金钱置于安全之上的恐惧增添了紧迫感。

研究人员表示，问题有两个方面。首先，公司在测试最新的 AI 模型时，需要创建更好的保障措施。目前，由于 运行速度极快，研究人员需要利用 来对其进行监控。但这并不总是有效，因为 监控器表现出的态度似乎比对制定规则的人类更倾向于其他 系统。

这种由 捣蛋鬼和视而不见且由 担任的守卫所组成的奇怪组合，指向了第二个且更困难的问题，即“对齐”（alignment）——这是一个行业术语，本质上是指确保 做对人类最有利的事情。公司面临着一项艰巨的任务，即在 内部确立一套类人的价值观，使模型在做出决定时能与对人们最有利的目标保持一致。

续见 B5 页

作者：凯莉·黄（KALLEY HUANG）和迈克·艾萨克（MIKE ISAAC）

旧金山——在周末短短几个小时内，硅谷知名人士便对领先的人工智能公司提出的放缓 开发速度并加强技术监管的呼吁做出了反击。

周六，Anthropic 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代（Dario Amodei）在一篇文章中表示， 的进步速度太快，以至于研究人员无法在保证安全的情况下继续构建它。他建议由独立审计员监督 实验室的安全工作，并建议监管机构允许各实验室共同协作以协调安全标准。

尽管他们在具体应对措施上似乎存在分歧，但 OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）、SpaceX 首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）以及 Google DeepMind 主席德米斯·哈萨比斯（Demis Hassabis）均表示，他们同意需要放慢速度。

但其他科技行业领导者迅速质疑阿莫代博士的动机，以及他是否在夸大 的风险，从而增加其他公司与领先 公司竞争的难度。

“不要假装放慢速度的动机纯粹是出于利他主义，”特朗普总统的科技顾问、白宫前 和加密货币主管大卫·萨克斯（David Sacks）在社交媒体帖子中写道。

对放缓速度呼吁的批评，凸显了那些认为政府应该监管 的人与那些认为监管

续见 B5 页

总回报 总资产

诉讼

马斯克旗下公司解决与苹果公司的反垄断诉讼

埃隆·马斯克的 X Corp. 和 SpaceXAI 周一表示，他们已解决了在一次诉讼中对苹果公司的指控。该诉讼指称 iPhone 制造商与 OpenAI 串通，垄断智能手机和生成式 聊天机器人市场。X 和 SpaceXAI 申请撤回去年对苹果公司和 OpenAI 提起诉讼中的相关指控。提交的文件并未解释

汽车

比亚迪拟通过卡车业务在欧洲建立据点

中国电动汽车制造商比亚迪（BYD）计划明年在欧洲推出其首款重型卡车并在当地进行生产。一名高级管理人员周一在汉诺威举行的 IAA 车展上表示。

“从长远来看，我们在欧洲销售的所有产品都将在当地生产，”比亚迪执行副总裁兼国际业务负责人李柯（Stella Li）表示。她补充说，公司希望为车队运营商提供全套服务方案。

在欧洲进行本地化生产还将帮助比亚迪避免卡车的进口关税。包括 Traton 旗下的曼恩（MAN）品牌在内的欧洲制造商已呼吁欧—

航空

受战争成本影响，波罗的海航空申请破产

拉脱维亚的波罗的海航空（airBaltic）周一表示，该公司已在纽约根据美国破产法第 11 章自愿申请保护，旨在重组其债务堆积，并试图在伊朗战争引发的行业深度危机中生存下来。

波罗的海航空在一份声明中表示，已获得包括 Strategic Value Partners、Bardismissal 或说明是否已达成和解。

该诉讼称，苹果公司通过将 OpenAI 的 ChatGPT 独家集成到 iPhone 及其他苹果设备的 Apple Intelligence 功能中，违反了反垄断法。诉讼指控苹果在与 OpenAI 的合作中非法排挤了竞争对手。

X 和 SpaceXAI 表示，将继续对 OpenAI 提起诉讼，后者也是该诉讼的被告。马斯克的公司未立即回应置评请求，苹果和 OpenAI 亦然。路透社

ILONA WISSENBACH / 路透社

clays、Hayfin Capital Management、摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）和橡树资本管理公司（Oaktree Capital Management）等贷款机构提供的 €3.5 亿（或 4.05亿美元）融资承诺，以支持其在重组期间的运营。

一份法院文件显示，波罗的海航空将利用破产程序来取消或推迟一项价值 35 亿美元的订单中 40 架空客飞机的未交付部分，以及价值 1.067 亿美元的普惠（Pratt & Whitney）额外发动机交付。该公司表示，已与飞机制造商接洽，以推迟今年之后的额外交付。

普惠的所有者 RTX 公司拒绝置评。路透社

盟实施类似于已针对中国电动汽车征收的中国电动卡车关税。比亚迪还准备明年在匈牙利塞格德（Szeged）建立工厂，以扩大其在欧洲的乘用车制造规模。路透社

袭击导致沙特能源供应受阻，油价跳涨

-0.5% 7,619.98

......

-0.3% 52,421.20

纳斯达克综合指数 -0.6% 26,186.41

10年期国债收益率 4.98% +0.01 点

原油（美国） $101.39 +$1.34

股票与债券

\$4,351.90 -\$57.00

作者：珍妮·格罗斯（JENNY GROSS）和格雷戈里·施密特（GREGORY SCHMIDT）

周一，由于担心沙特阿拉伯一条关键管道遭到无人机袭击将进一步削减波斯湾的能源供应，油价跳升至每桶 \$109 以上。

沙特阿拉伯能源部表示，作为预防措施，该部已关闭其东西管道，但此次关闭是在有报道称胡塞武装已占领红海的一座战略岛屿和一座港口城市之后发生的，这可能会进一步扼杀该地区的航运。

目前，波斯湾与阿曼湾之间狭窄水道——霍尔木兹海峡的大部分航运已经停止。将石油从波斯湾运往红海的东西管道已成为沙特石油出口的重要替代方案。

油价上涨。

■ 全球石油基准布伦特原油价格在周一跳升，一度接近每桶 \$110，随后回落至 \$106。自战争开始以来，此类原油的价格已上涨 50%。美国基准西德克萨斯中质原油价格上涨至接近每桶 \$102。

交通依然受阻。

• 船舶运营商继续推迟派遣船舶进出波斯湾。根据船舶追踪公司 Kpler 的数据，周日有 14 艘船通过霍尔木兹海峡，是前一天的两倍。在战争之前，每天约有 130 艘船通过这条承载全球五分之一石油的关键水道。

■ 根据英国海事贸易运营局（U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency）的消息，周日一艘船在通过海峡时遭到袭击。海事风险公司 Marisks 表示，该船在阿曼领海内被击中，一名船员目前仍然失踪。

标准普尔 500 指数

■ Kpler 的贸易风险分析师安娜·苏巴希奇（Ana Subasic）表示，海峡的情况正在“升级”。“现在的问题是，这是否会进一步升级，还是一个将其带回谈判桌的周期。”

■ 根据船舶经纪公司 Clarksons 的数据，受中东局势动荡影响，原油油轮运营商收取的费率已达到历史最高水平。

科技股拖累股市。

■ 标准普尔 500 指数在周一收盘时小幅下跌。科技股表现最差，在周末一批人工智能公司高管呼吁放缓该技术开发速度后，权重股较高的纳斯达克 100 指数下跌了 0.5%。

■ 亚洲股市普遍下跌。日经 225 指数下跌 0.8%，中国大陆股市也出现下跌。表现最差的是韩国，其 KOSPI 指数下跌 3.3%。

■ 在欧洲，追踪该地区最大公司的广泛指数 Stoxx 600, 小幅下跌。

债券收益率：5%。

• 随着通胀担忧增加，10 年期国债收益率在周一达到 5%，为三年来的最高水平。
• 由于对伊朗战争导致能源价格上涨的担忧，以及政府借款增加和人工智能基础设施支出的增加，收益率被推高。

■ 10 年期国债收益率影响抵押贷款和汽车贷款等消费者借贷。上周，平均 30 年期固定利率抵押贷款小幅上升至 6.76%。

汽油价格小幅上涨。

■ 根据 AAA 汽车俱乐部的数据，周一美国汽油价格上涨至全国平均每加仑 \$4.32。目前，每加仑普通汽油的价格比战争开始前高出 45%。汽油价格并不与原油同步变动，通常在上涨或下跌几天后才有所反应。

■ 柴油平均价格继续上涨。周一为每加仑 \$6.23，自战争开始以来上涨了 66%。

昨日股市回顾

S&P 500 COMPANIES S&P 500 7,619.98 ↓ -0.5%

表现最差者

纳斯达克综合指数 26,186.41 ↓ -0.6%

表现最佳

S&P 500 成分股	收盘价	涨跌幅
1. 康宁 (GLW)	$143.60	-13.7%
2. Teradyne (TER)	$329.20	-13.3
3. Coherent (COHR)	$266.50	-12.7
4. 惠普企业 (HPE)	$55.41	-10.8
5. Skyworks Solutions (SWKS)	$79.26	-10.3
6. Lumentum Holdings (LITE)	$835.03	-9.9
7. GE Vernova (GEV)	$874.76	-8.6
8. Ciena Co. (CIEN)	$319.64	-8.6
9. 超微电脑 (SMCI)	$36.74	-8.4
10. Lam Research (LRCX)	$273.49	-8.3

道琼斯工业平均指数 52,421.20 ↓ -0.3%

1. CrowdStrike Holdings A (CRWD)	$235.38	+13.9%
2. Palo Alto Networks (PANW)	$373.94	+13.1
3. Gartner (IT)	$197.07	+9.7
4. Coinbase Global A (COIN)	$191.45	+9.2
5. Fortinet (FTNT)	$170.18	+9.0
6. Autodesk (ADSK)	$228.93	+7.8
7. ServiceNow (NOW)	$142.35	+7.4
8. Cognizant Tech. (CTSH)	$64.10	+6.8
9. Tyler Technologies (TYL)	$359.54	+6.8
10. FactSet Research Systems (EDS)	$276.93	+6.6

可转换债券及国内混合证券

S&P 500 成分股	收盘价	涨跌幅	成交量（百万股）
1. 英伟达 (NVDA)	$210.96	-3.4%	130
2. 英特尔 (INTC)	$97.19	-5.6	94
3. 美国银行 (BAC)	$59.47	-5.1	61
4. 甲骨文 (ORCL)	$144.79	-3.7	42
5. 超微电脑 (SMCI)	$36.74	-8.4	40
6. PG & E (PCG)	$13.60	-1.4	38
7. 苹果 (AAPL)	$333.08	+0.2	38
8. AT&T Inc. (T)	$26.51	+1.7	38
9. Kenvue (KVUE)	$17.91	+0.7	37
10. 康卡斯特 A (CMCSA)	$24.88	-1.3	36

昨日亚洲股市表现 ...

	1年	5年	资产（10亿美元）
1. Franklin Convertible Securities Fund Class R6 (FCSKX)	+17,5%	+6,1%	3,1
2. Fidelity Advisor Convertible Securities Fund - Class Z (FIQVX)	+23,1	+8,3	2,4
3. NYLIM MacKay Convertible Class A (MCOAX)	+24,4	+7,5	1,9
4. Columbia Convertible Securities Fund Institutional 2 Class (COCRX)	+25,9	+6,6	1,7
5. Virtus Convertible Fund Class A (ANZAX)	+20,8	+6,2	1,6
6. Calamos Convertible Fund Class A (CCVIX)	+25,9	+5,9	1,1
7. Invesco Convertible Securities Fund R5 Shares (CNSIX)	+20,3	+6,1	0,9
8. Lord Abbett Convertible Fund Class R4 (LCFSX)	+19,8	+4,6	0,6
9. Putnam Convertible Securities Fund Class I (PCNIX)	+18,3	+5,3	0,5
10. Miller Convertible Bond Fund Class C (MCFCX)	+12,3	+2,7	0,4

10. FactSet Research Systems (FDS) $276.93 +6.6 来源：Morningstar

行业表现 S&P 500 行业

债券

其他市场与经济动态

货币

消费者利率

大宗商品

经济

能源

STELLA KALININA 为《纽约时报》拍摄 特朗普政府将乌克兰对俄罗斯石油基础设施的袭击列为能源价格上涨的部分原因。

特朗普指责乌克兰导致全球柴油短缺

作者：劳伦·麦卡锡（LAUREN McCARTHY）

特朗普总统呼吁乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基停止对俄罗斯炼油厂的袭击，并将全球柴油短缺归咎于这些袭击。

“泽连斯基先生必须做一件事：他必须停止摧毁俄罗斯的柴油燃料，”特朗普先生周日在爱尔兰杜恩贝格（Doonbeg）他的高尔夫球场举办的安进爱尔兰公开赛（Amgen Irish Open）场边告诉记者。

“让他去攻击其他目标——但不要攻击柴油燃料，因为他正在造成柴油短缺，”特朗普先生说道，并补充说他已经

$6.23

根据 AAA 数据，周一每加仑柴油的价格。

66%

自美国和以色列袭击伊朗以来，柴油价格的涨幅。

与泽连斯基先生就袭击问题进行了交谈。“不要攻击柴油燃料，因为这在损害全世界，”他说他这样告诉了泽连斯基先生。

近几个月来，柴油供应受到了尤为严重的打击。美国每加仑柴油燃料的平均价格继续刷新纪录。根据 AAA 汽车俱乐部的数据，周一价格攀升至 $6.23，自 28. 2 月美国和以色列袭击伊朗以来上涨了 66%。周一每加仑普通汽油的全国平均价格为 $4.32，自伊朗战争开始以来也大幅上涨，涨幅约为 45%。

上周五，在一次从伊拉克领土发起的无人机袭击后，沙特阿拉伯的一条关键石油管道被关闭，这使得人们在周末对能源供应减少的担忧进一步增加。由于对中东冲突扩大的恐惧加剧，这一消息将周一的油价推高至每桶 $109 以上，随后回落至每桶 $106。

特朗普先生的言论与财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）本月发表的类似评论相呼应，后者将乌克兰对俄罗斯石油基础设施的袭击列为能源价格上涨的部分原因。

“我们现在正经历一场能源冲击，这既是因为乌克兰战争——因为乌克兰决定炸毁俄罗斯的能源资产和精炼产品，从而在全球范围内造成价格上涨压力，”贝森特先生在福克斯新闻（Fox News）上表示。“然后是伊朗冲突。而伊朗冲突将会结束。”

官员表示，特朗普先生的评论发表在乌克兰军队确认袭击俄罗斯境内炼油厂的几小时之后。

分析人士指出，中东冲突和俄乌战争都是将全球石油炼制系统推向极限的关键因素。国际能源署（International Energy Agency）在周五发布的一份报告中写道，为了“避免市场进一步收紧和需求破坏”，解决这两方面问题的必要性“比以往任何时候都更紧迫”。

柴油价格为何飙升？两场战争，但主要是伊朗战争。

作者：劳伦·麦卡锡（LAUREN McCARTHY）

特朗普总统最近将柴油价格的飙升归咎于乌克兰对俄罗斯炼油厂的袭击。但能源专家表示，虽然他部分正确，但伊朗战争一直是能源价格更重要的驱动因素。

近日，美国每加仑柴油的平均价格不断刷新纪录，周五突破了 $6 一加仑，到周一早晨攀升至 $6.23；自 2 月 28 日美国和以色列袭击伊朗以来，价格上涨了约 66%。

周一，美国普通汽油的全国平均价格为 $4.31，自伊朗战争开始以来也大幅上涨，涨幅约 45%。而作为柴油、汽油和其他燃料原材料的全球原油价格上涨了约 50%。

“我们基本上面临着涉及全球两大能源生产国的两场战争，”加拿大皇家银行资本市场（RBC Capital Markets）的能源分析师赫利玛·克罗夫特（Helima Croft）表示，“中东是产量最高的能源生产区，再加上俄罗斯。”

特朗普及其助手最近试图将注意力集中在乌克兰对俄罗斯炼油厂的打击上，而转移对伊朗战争的关注。事实上，乌克兰的袭击旨在剥夺俄罗斯资助战争所需的收入，通过迫使克里姆林宫暂停向世界其他地区出口柴油和其他燃料，确实产生了影响。

“全球柴油价格上涨主要是由俄乌战争引起的，而不是伊朗，”总统周一在他的社交媒体网站上写道。

但即使是一些俄罗斯官员也承认，这些炼油厂袭击并非燃料价格上涨的核心驱动因素。

克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·S·佩斯科夫（Dmitri S. Peskov）在周一与记者的电话会议中表示，俄罗斯的石油市场正在“迅速恶化，主要是由于波斯湾地区的动荡和进一步的升级。”

佩斯科夫先生对特朗普先生周日的声明表示欢迎，并呼吁乌克兰停止对炼油厂的袭击。

周一晚些时候，特朗普先生表示，俄罗斯和乌克兰已同意暂停袭击对方的能源基础设施。然而，乌克兰方面并未确认已达成此类协议。乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基（Volodymyr Zelensky）在的一份声明中将决定权交给了俄罗斯。

他说：“如果我们的合作伙伴准备好确保俄罗斯真正克制不对我们的电力系统、其他能源设施、关键基础设施和粮食供应路线进行袭击，那么，当然，我们也准备好确保相应地停止我们的袭击。”

分析人士表示，来自俄罗斯和中东的柴油供应实际上已经崩溃。根据总部位于休斯顿的投资公司 Pickering Energy Partners 的数据，自今年年初以来，俄罗斯的该燃料出口量下降了约 90%，中东的柴油出口量下降了约 75%。

根据 Pickering Energy Partners 汇总的数据，在伊朗战争开始之前，俄罗斯每天出口约 100 万桶柴油，中东国家出口约 150 万 桶。

周五，沙特阿拉伯宣布关闭一条关键管道，该管道此前用于将石油从波斯湾运往红海，此举是为了预防胡塞武装对该国的袭击。沙特阿拉伯不得不依赖该管道，因为伊朗实际上已经关闭了霍尔木兹海峡。

标普全球能源（S&P Global Energy）燃料与炼油研究全球主管丹尼尔·埃文斯（Daniel Evans）表示，伊朗冲突、俄乌冲突以及中国暂停原油和柴油出口，使得全球炼油系统没有任何余地。他补充说，目前尚不清楚情况何时会改善。

“未知因素之一是俄罗斯的一些炼油厂受损程度如何，”他说，“即使袭击在今天停止，供应能以多快的速度恢复正常仍不清楚。”

米兰娜·马扎耶娃（Milana Mazaeva）和卡桑德拉·维诺格拉德（Cassandra Vinograd）参与了报道。

本公告既非购买要约，亦非出售股票的要约邀请。本要约（定义见下文）仅由日期为 2026 年 9 月 15 日的《购买要约》及相关的《交付函》做出，且上述文件可能会不时修订或补充。本要约不向任何在做出或接受出售股票要约将不符合该司法管辖区法律的司法管辖区内的股票（定义见下文）持有人做出，亦不接受该等持有人或代表该等持有人提交的要约；但我们将遵守根据修订后的 1934 年《证券交易法》（简称“《交易法》”）颁布的 Rule 13e-4(f)(8) 的要求。

现金购买要约通知

由

Beacon Topco, Inc.

的

以最高 1500万美元 的总购买价回购其普通股，每股购买价为 $6.6609

Beacon Topco, Inc.（一家特拉华州公司，以下简称“公司”）拟以现金购买其面值为每股 $0.0001 的普通股（以下简称“股份”），最高总购买价为 1500万美元，每股购买价为 $6.6609。该价格为支付给卖方的现金净额，需扣除任何适用预扣税且不计利息，具体条款及条件详见日期为 September 15, 2026 的《收购要约》（以下简称“收购要约”）及相关的《交付函》（两者在不时修订或补充后共同构成“本要约”）。公司现邀请其股东按照本要约的条款和条件，以每股 $6.6609 的价格（支付给卖方的现金净额，需扣除任何适用预扣税且不计利息）提交其股份。本要约不以提交股份的最低价值为前提；然而，本要约以获得融资为前提，并受《收购要约》及相关《交付函》中描述的其他条件的约束。

本要约、比例分配期及撤回权将于 September 29, 2026,（星期二）纽约市时间 5:00 P.M. 到期，除非本要约被延长（该日期和时间，及其可能延长的日期和时间，统称为“到期日”）。

公司董事会已授权本要约。然而，公司、其董事会任何成员、执行管理人员、信息代理人或托管人均未向任何股东就是否提交或不提交股份提供任何建议，且公司未授权任何人员提供此类建议。股东必须自行决定是否提交其股份，以及如果提交，提交多少股份。在做出决定时，股东应仔细阅读《收购要约》及相关《交付函》中的信息，包括本要约的目的和影响，并应咨询其自身的财务和税务顾问。

根据本要约的条款和条件，公司将购买所有正确提交且未正确撤回的股份，最高购买总价为 1500万美元。在本要约中收购的所有股份将按购买价收购。仅购买正确提交且未正确撤回的股份。如果正确提交且未正确撤回的股份总购买价超过 1500万美元，则并非所有提交的股份都会被购买，具体取决于《收购要约》中描述的“零碎股”优先权、比例分配和有条件提交条款。在本要约中提交但未被购买的股份将在到期日后由公司承担费用迅速退还给提交股份的股东。

只有在到期时间或之前有效投标且未被正确撤回的股份，才有资格在本次要约中被购买。由于“购买要约”中描述的比例分配和有条件投标要约条款，如果到期时间或之前正确投标且未被正确撤回的股份超过 2,251,947 股，则并非所有投标股份都将被购买。公司将仅根据要约的条款和条件，购买那些正确投标且未被正确撤回的股份。所有被接受付款的股份将在到期时间后立即向卖家支付现金（净额），扣除任何适用的预扣税且不计利息。如果本次要约获得足额认购，我们将根据要约购买 2,251,947 股股份，这约占 2025年9月14日 已发行股份的 49.62%。公司明确保留根据适用法律，自行决定选择购买总价低于 1500万美元 股份的权利。

正如“购买要约”中所述，如果正确投标且未被正确撤回的股份总价低于 1500万美元，公司将购买所有正确投标且未被正确撤回的股份，最高至 1500万美元 的股份价值。如果正确投标且未被正确撤回的股份总价超过 1500万美元（或公司根据适用法律自行决定选择购买的较低金额），公司将按以下优先级顺序购买股份：

• 第一，从所有“零碎股”持有者（持有少于 100 股股份的人员）中购买，前提是他们正确投标了其持有的全部股份且在到期日期前未将其正确撤回（但“零碎股”持有者投标少于其持有全部股份的情况将不享有此优先权）。

• 第二，从所有正确投标股份且在到期日期前未将其正确撤回的股东中（有条件投标且条件未满足的股东除外），按比例购买，并进行适当调整以避免购买碎股，直到公司购得总价为 1500万美元 的股份（或公司根据适用法律自行决定选择购买的较低金额）；以及

• 第三，仅在为了使公司能够购买总价为 1500万美元 的股份（或公司根据适用法律自行决定选择购买的较低金额）而必要时，在可行范围内，通过随机抽签从正确提交有条件投标（且条件最初未满足）的股东中购买。为了有资格通过随机抽签被购买，有条件投标股份的股东必须正确投标其全部股份且在到期日期前未将其正确撤回。

希望投标股份的股东必须遵循“购买要约”第 3 节以及《交付函》中规定的程序。

就本次要约而言，仅当公司向本次要约的托管人（即“托管人”）计算机股份信托公司（Computershare Trust Company, N.A.）发出口头或书面通知，确认接受根据本次要约支付该等股份的款项时，公司才将被视为已接受支付并因此购买了那些已正确提交且未正确撤回的股份，且该购买须受本次要约中关于“零碎股”优先权、按比例分配及有条件提交条款的约束。仅在托管人及时收到一份填写完整且正式签署的《转让函》（包括任何要求的签名担保），或在账簿登记转让情况下收到一份代理人消息（定义见《收购要约》）以及《转让函》要求的任何其他文件后，公司才会对根据本次要约提交并被接受支付的股份进行付款。

由于上述按比例分配和有条件提交条款，公司可能无法购买股东提交的所有股份。公司将把在本次要约中未购买的所有已提交股份，以及在到期日之前正确撤回的股份，退还给提交要约的股东；若股份是通过账簿登记转让交付的，则由公司承担费用，将其计入托管信托公司（“DTC”）的账户。

公司明确保留其自行决定在任何时间不时延长要约开放期限的权利，从而延迟接受任何股份的支付及付款；公司只需向托管人发出此类延期的口头或书面通知，并在原定到期日之后的紧接营业日纽约市时间上午 9:00 之前发布公开公告即可。在任何此类延期期间，所有此前已提交且未正确撤回的股份将继续受本次要约约束，且提交要约的股东仍有权撤回其股份。公司还明确保留终止本次要约的权利，具体如《收购要约》所述。在遵守适用法律的前提下，公司进一步保留其自行决定在任何方面修改本次要约的权利，无论《收购要约》中描述的任何情况是否发生，包括但不限于降低或提高每股提供的对价，或降低或提高本次要约拟寻求购买的股份总价，且该修改应与其在《合并协议》项下的义务保持一致。公司将根据适用法律，通过发布公开公告的方式宣布任何此类终止或对要约的修改。

公司拟使用现有现金支付购买股份的款项，包括相关费用和支出。

通常情况下，美国股东在收到公司兑换其提交股份的现金时，将需缴纳美国联邦所得税。其收到提交股份的现金通常将被视为 (1) 在销售或交换中收到的对价，或 (2) 与该等股份相关的分配。任何属于非美国持有者（定义见《收购要约》）的股东，在《收购要约》所述的情况下，其应付总额可能需缴纳美国联邦预扣税。所有股东应仔细阅读《收购要约》以获取有关某些税务问题的更多信息，并就本次要约的税务后果咨询其自身的税务顾问。

股东可在到期日之前的任何时间撤回其已投标的股份。为了使此类撤回生效，托管机构必须及时在《收购要约》封底列出的其中一个地址收到书面撤回通知。任何此类撤回通知必须注明投标股东的姓名、拟撤回的股份数量以及该股份的登记持有人姓名（如果与投标股东不同）。

如果股东使用了多份《提交函》，或以多组股份的形式投标，只要包含上述指定信息，该股东可以使用单独的撤回通知或合并的撤回通知来撤回股份。如果股份是根据《收购要约》中规定的账面转移程序投标的，任何撤回通知还必须注明拟接收撤回股份的 DTC 账户名称和账号，且必须在其他方面符合 DTC 的程序。

公司将根据其合理裁量权，对任何撤回通知的形式和有效性（包括收到时间）的所有问题做出决定，且该决定将对所有参与本次要约的人员具有最终约束力，但股东有权在具有管辖权的法院对公司的决定提出质疑。公司进一步保留绝对权利，在不放弃对其他股份或其他股东的类似缺陷或不规范行为之豁免的情况下，豁免任何特定股东在撤回任何特定股份时的任何缺陷或不规范行为。公司、作为信息代理的 MacKenzie Partners, Inc.、作为托管机构的计算机股份信托公司（Computershare Trust Company, N.A.）或任何其他人员均无义务就任何撤回通知中的缺陷或不规范行为发出通知，也不对未能发出此类通知承担任何责任。根据修订后的 1934, 年《证券交易法》第 13e-4(d)(1) 条要求披露的信息包含在《收购要约》和 Schedule TO 中，这两份文件均通过引用方式纳入本文。

《收购要约》及相关的《提交函》包含重要信息，股东在就本次要约做出任何决定前应仔细阅读。我们将向出现在公司股东名单上的股份登记持有人邮寄《收购要约》及相关《提交函》的副本，并将向出现在股东名单上的经纪商、交易商、商业银行、信托公司及类似人员（或其提名人的姓名），或者（如适用）被列为结算机构证券头寸清单参与者以便随后转发给股份实益所有人的相关人员提供副本。

如有任何问题或需要协助，请拨打下方列出的电话号码或发送至下方地址联系信息代理。如需索取额外的《收购要约》或《提交函》副本，请拨打下方列出的电话号码或发送至下方地址联系信息代理。信息代理将及时向股东提供这些材料的额外副本，费用由公司承担。股东也可以联系其经纪商、交易商、商业银行、信托公司或提名人，以获得有关本次要约的协助。

本次要约的信息代理为：

7 Penn Plaza New York, New York 10001 (212) 929-5500

或

拨打免费电话 (800) 322-2885 电子邮件：tenderoffer@mackenziepartners.com

September 15, 2026

贝森特关于美国市场的论调面临艰巨挑战

在上周的一次采访中，财政部长斯科特·贝森特表示，“彭博终端兄弟们”对伊朗战争局势的看法存在误区。 SHELBY TAUBER 为《纽约时报》拍摄

作者：ALAN RAPPEPORT

华盛顿——有时庄家并不总是赢家。

在上周于南卫理公会大学举行的一场炉边谈话中，财政部长斯科特·贝森特对那些质疑其干预货币和债券市场之明智的人嗤之以鼻，并向投资者发起挑战，让他们试着与他对赌。

“这是我的梦想，”贝森特先生说。“我拥有不对称信息。现在我就是庄家。”

他补充道：“如果你愿意，可以跟我对赌。”

周一，债券市场给了贝森特先生一个教训。10年期国债收益率自2023年以来首次突破5%，也是自2008年金融危机以来的第二次。收益率代表了投资者购买政府债务所要求支付的利率。这些利率的飙升似乎无视了贝森特先生通过命令财政部回购52亿美元长期债务来压低成本的努力。

突破5%的阈值证明了财政部长通过意志左右全球市场的能力有限。这也打击了他作为市场先知的信誉。

作为前对冲基金经理，贝森特先生通过做空英镑和日元赚了很多钱。现在，作为财政部长，他正竭尽全力向世界证明，尽管美国背负着40万亿美元的债务，但美国债券仍是一项良好的投资。

债券收益率上升对特朗普政府来说是一个问题，因为这意味着美国人的借贷成本增加。这提高了在美国的生活成本，还可能通过增加企业的借款成本来挤压企业利润，而企业利润正是股市的支撑。

今年6月，贝森特先生在纽约经济俱乐部演讲时强调了债券市场的重要性，并指出他曾警告特朗普总统，“债券市场推翻的政府比榴弹炮还多”。

近几个月来，贝森特先生坚称国债市场处于“非常良好的状态”，其表现优于其他国家的债券市场，且其表现与能源价格上涨相关。他还指责交易员试图制造关于美国经济走势的恐慌，认为对经济基本面实力的误解正在制造一场扭曲债券市场的“白日梦”。

在上周接受史蒂夫·班农采访时，贝森特先生坚称，“彭博终端兄弟们”对伊朗战争局势的看法存在误区，并且他掌握着公众所不知道的关于政策制定者将采取行动的信息。这位财政部长认为，一些投资者甚至可能是因为不喜欢特朗普先生及其政策而回避美国债券。

“这些人中的许多人如此鄙视本届政府，希望看到我们失败，或者将个人利益置于爱国主义之上，以至于他们不想听取事实，”贝森特先生说。“我并不是说我永远正确，不要挑战我，但我是在尝试说明我拥有更高级的信息，并且我正试图建立良好的框架，以免他们恐慌。”

但就目前而言，债券市场并不买账。

一家时尚的加拿大零售商如何应对特朗普关税

Ssense 的两位创始人：左侧的拉米·阿塔拉（Rami Atallah）及其兄弟巴塞尔（Bassel）。在遭受沉重关税打击后，Ssense 去年在财务崩溃中艰难挣扎。 摄影：NASUNA STUART-ULIN 为《纽约时报》拍摄

作者：PETER EAVIS

蒙特利尔 —— 当加拿大公司在为特朗普总统最新关税的影响做准备时，一家总部位于蒙特利尔的企业一直在试图从他去年引入的征税中恢复过来。

这些关税促使这家时尚的在线服装零售商 陷入财务崩溃，并在时尚界引起了剧烈震动。

的网站销售各种商品，从一件 $7,000 的 Chloé 连衣裙到一双 $100 的 Converse 运动鞋。它还列出了知名度较低的设计师的产品，其中一些设计师表示，该平台一直是关键的销售来源。

今年， 从相当于美国第 11 章破产重组的加拿大法律程序中走出，并希望重建自身，以便能够承受美国与加拿大之间的贸易战。具体而言，该公司旨在通过明年将其核心业务的一部分转移到美国，来减轻美国关税带来的负担。

“这是一个游戏规则的改变者，”（发音为“essence”）的首席执行官拉米·阿塔拉在一次采访中谈到这一计划中的搬迁时说道。

特朗普先生经常表示，想要避免关税的公司可以在美国设立。 和其他加拿大公司的搬迁表明，他的贸易政策在某些情况下达到了预期效果。

特朗普先生对加拿大制造商品征收的最新 50% 关税预计将损害许多加拿大公司。但珍妮特·帕克（Janet Park）。

纽约时报分类广告 治安法警 / 警长拍卖 3650

治安法警强制执行拍卖 公开拍卖 关于：停车违章诉多名被告 判决债务人 我将 代表城市治安法警 Martin A. Bienstock 由拍卖师 Michael Gollie 于 10 / 01 / 2010 am 进行公开拍卖 地点：4825 Russell St., Bronx, NY 10470 拍卖以下车辆的所有权利 / 产权 / 利益： 07 BMW SXXFE43X5YL8Y2859 08 HOND 5NFYF1829B014487 99 HOND YHLRD1845CX019292 15 HGCR2F5XFAT176219 08 CHRY 2A8HRS4P48R827777 09 1FORD 1WSK8AR3FGC27674 05 1HGCM5670A152537 10 FORD 1FTFFWE18AFC03672 06 CHEV 1GCHG3SU4J1426920 07 BMW WBAVA335TPG52011 15 DODG 2℃3CDXBG7FH4T45020 06 5FMN4E6L0049594 12 CHEV 1GNKRGEDGJ3J136790 12 VOLK 1NVWPB7A1CC084741 13 HYUN KMHFH4JGXDA25534 08 NISS 5N1AN08W08CS18632 07 HYUN KMHDU46D7TU216627 01 FORD 1FMZU73E9U1B60167 10 2HGFATFXSAH838174 NISS 1NASS NAMFHN3D6E4F55597 08 NISS 5N1AN08W9BC531473 16 DODG 2CARDGEIG1GR375356 10 KIA KNAFUA42A05A241886 07 TOYO 4TIBE46KX7U157849 09 LEXU JTHCL46F99502898 09 1HGCF3684PA019957 16 NISS 3NICEQPLCCTD70175 08 JHNDYD8℃08M55513 07 1HGCM5644TA779903 5FNRL38729B02671 12 HYUN KMHDCAE2CU014612 09 FORD 1FTNEI4W6D9A18813 02 ACUR 2NYHYD18G2H547231 13 NISS 1NAAL3APIDC7D0175 08 JHNDYD8℃08M55513 07 JHLRE3832TC012137 JHLRE4854TC071889 02 CHEV 1GCCS14W828158943 09 MAZD JMTB38V5W0175101 09 CHRY 2AHRS4I6WR583579 18 CHEV 3GNAJXJEVXSJ623993

以下车辆将随附销售： 19 TOYO 4TIBI1THK7KU723787 17 1HGCR2F59HA176750 17 1HGCR2F50HA039292 15 JEEP 1CAPILDSOFW5I6339 18 JHMZCSF3RCJ022946 15 MERC WDDTGSCBFJ8J083655 16 NYUN SNRAEAGL4E2P96059 19 GWC 1GKKNSL8SKZ005667 12 CHEV 2GNFLNES2℃6342144 13 VOLK WWWPB7AN7DE500317 13 BMW WBA3A9G5DNP38192 09 VOLK WWVBA7IF6VVI203238 07 NISS JNBAZ0BW9VF657393 14 TOYO TELEVEAIEAJO4OSO7542

以下车辆将作为报废车销售： 13 CHRY 2℃4RCIBG9DR540151 07 INFI JNKAYOIFZH462478 14 NISS 5NIAR2MMXECTT10010 10 TOYO 5TDYKKCCSAL297338 13 CHEV 2GIFIAEJ3D9Z086065

拍卖前 1 / 2 小时可进行检查。城市治安法警 MARTIN A. BIENSTOCK 警号 # 75 (7 / 18) 279-3774

Ssense 的一名发言人表示，公司不会受到关税的太大影响，因为其销售的大部分商品并非加拿大制造。

尽管如此，特朗普去年引入的关税给 Ssense 带来了沉重压力，而该公司在他就职前就已经陷入困境。在新冠疫情期间，由于人们更多地进行在线购物，该公司经历了快速增长，但当疫情结束时， 积压了过多未售出的库存。

而美国关税政策的一次里程碑式转变，促使该公司走到了崩溃边缘。

多年来，美国消费者从 等海外零售商处购买价值 $800 或以下的商品无需缴纳关税。但去年，特朗普政府取消了这一豁免，美国购物者必须开始为这些商品支付关税。

“就对我们业绩的影响而言，关税的影响是最大的，”Atallah 先生说。

在 网站上购买商品时，美国客户通常在结账时支付关税。这些突然增加的额外费用损害了该公司在美国（其最大市场）的销售额。根据重组文件，在征收关税之前， 约 60% 的客户在美国，但在征收关税后，这一比例下降到了 40%。

由于资金耗尽， 一年前寻求债权人的保护，并进入了法院监督的重组程序。它的崩盘是一次令人震惊的陨落。

由 Atallah 先生与他的两个兄弟（来自叙利亚的巴勒斯坦移民）在 20 多年前创立，曾成为寻求最新时尚的购物者的全球目的地。2021, 年，当著名的硅谷风险投资公司红杉资本（Sequoia Capital）成为投资者时，该公司的估值为 50 亿美元 加元。

该基金的一位发言人表示，魁北克省政府投资基金目前尚未收回向该公司贷款的 2100 万 加拿大元。其他债权人（该公司欠其 1.79 亿 加拿大元）拒绝就其在重组中收回了多少资金发表评论。

在蒙特利尔旧城设有门店的 Ssense 去年将其员工人数从 1,200 人削减至约 700 名全职和兼职员工。

Ssense 的大部分库存是从世界各地进口到其位于蒙特利尔的仓库的。随后，商品被运往美国和其他国家。

根据其关税规避计划， 打算在美国建立一个大型履约中心。来自世界各地的商品将存放于此，然后发送给美国客户。

为了理解拥有美国仓库如何帮助 的业务，可以参考一件由法国设计师 Jacquemus 设计、在公司网站上售价 \$990 的开襟羊毛衫。一名来自美国的客户必须为这件羊毛衫支付 \$97 的关税，约占零售价的 10%。但如果这件羊毛衫以假设的 \$300 批发价进口到美国仓库，其关税可能在 \$30 左右，这是一笔低得多的税费。

而且 的客户可能无需自行支付任何美国关税。发言人 Park 女士表示， 的“目标”是承担进口到美国仓库商品的较低关税成本。

她表示，公司预计将于明年第一季度在美国东北部的某个地方开设仓库。Park 女士说，另一家物流领域的公司将运营该设施，并补充说 目前尚无法估算该仓库可能会创造多少个就业岗位。 将在蒙特利尔保留一个履约中心，用于向美国以外的客户发货。其总部将留在加拿大。

在最高法院今年宣布特朗普先生的一项主要关税非法后，一些公司获得了关税退款。Park 女士表示， 已经申请

将在美国建立业务作为替代方案

申请退税，但尚未收到任何款项。她没有说明公司是否会将根据关税收取的资金返还给已支付关税的客户。

根据重组文件，阿塔拉先生、他的兄弟们以及一家名为 First Avenue Advisory 的加拿大投资公司在重组中购买了 Ssense 的大部分资产，从而组建了新的 Ssense。他们支付了 5900 万加拿大元现金，同时承担了 1800 万加拿大元的债务。

朴女士拒绝透露阿塔拉家族或 First Avenue 是否持有该公司的控股权。First Avenue 没有回应置评请求。

公司高管表示，为了尝试提高成功率， 目前销售的商品数量有所减少，从而降低了对现金的需求，并且正在利用人工智能来简化部分运营。朴女士表示，公司还计划从明年年底开始销售自有服装系列。

尽管如此， 仍面临诸多挑战。

它必须赢回为其提供服装和配饰的时尚品牌的信任。在 进入重组时，许多品牌仍有未收回的款项，且至今未获得任何补偿。阿塔拉先生表示， 在这次困境中几乎没有失去任何品牌。

根据重组文件， 欠总部位于伦敦的时尚品牌 Simone Rocha 超过 200,000 欧元。Simone Rocha 的一名发言人承认了这笔债务，但补充道：“我们相信他们业务的未来以及我们长期关系的强度。”

此外， 所处的零售领域竞争异常激烈。其他多品牌奢侈品零售商（即销售许多不同设计师产品的公司）包括在线商店 Net-a-Porter 和 Mytheresa，以及 Nordstrom 和 Saks Global 等百货品牌，后者最近在更名后脱离了破产状态。

为零售和消费企业提供咨询的 Sage-Berry Consulting 总裁史蒂夫·丹尼斯（Steve Dennis）表示：“多品牌领域基本上每年都面临着越来越激烈的竞争。”

根据 Consumer Edge 分析的信用卡和借记卡消费数据，今年上半年，美国消费者在 产品上的支出比 2025 年同期下降了近 60%。Consumer Edge 表示，在同一时期，Net-a-Porter 的销售额持平，而 Mytheresa 的销售额增长了 29%。

朴女士表示，Consumer Edge 的数据与 的数据“不一致”。她补充说，公司预计在截至 2027 年 3 月的 12 个月内实现盈利。

阿塔拉先生表示：“我们仍然相信这家公司。我们相信它具有巨大的潜力。”

为了这次能获得更好的结果， 正在将核心业务的一部分转移到美国。一名造型师正在蒙特利尔的一家店里准备服装。

美国 10 年期国债收益率 6%

国债收益率上升引发股市担忧

（来自商业版第一页）当时的收益率与现在不同，但影响相似。10年期国债收益率的上升导致抵押贷款利率上涨，上周平均30年期固定利率抵押贷款触及6.76%，高于2月下旬伊朗战争爆发前夕的6%左右。

分析人士表示，如果投资者重新评估投资股票与债券的风险回报计算，利率上升还可能威胁到股市的上涨行情。高收益债券为投资者提供了比股票风险更低且回报丰厚的机会。此外，更高的利率会增加企业的借贷成本，从而挤压支撑股市的企业盈利。

美林（Merrill）和美国银行私人银行（Bank of America Private Bank）首席投资办公室股票投资主管安东尼·吉（Antony Ghee）认为，股市“近期最大的担忧”是10年期国债收益率“持续推高至5%以上”。

特朗普政府将10年期收益率视为提高美国民众日常生活负担能力的基准。但今年该指标的走势与白宫的目标背道而驰。

10年期收益率今年上涨了约0.8个百分点，比特朗普总统2025.年1月重返办公室时高出超过0.3个百分点。30年期收益率的涨幅更为剧烈，在过去几周内一直处于数十年来的高位。周一，30年期收益率在5.33%左右波动。

在债券市场动荡之际，财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）已干预金融市场，以

特朗普的一项新承诺可能会增加$1 trillion的联邦赤字。

试图降低长期利率。

上周，财政部购买了52 亿美元 billion在未来10到20年内到期的自有债务，这是旨在向国债市场注入需求，试图推高价格并降低收益率计划的一部分。

但尽管收到了投资者超过100 亿美元 billion的报价，财政部的购买量仍低于其周三所称的60 亿美元 billion最高限额，这引发了一些投资者对财政部降低收益率计划决心程度的质疑。

债券投资者现在正期待美联储采取措施控制通胀。期货市场交易员目前认为，美联储在本周会议上加息0.25个百分点的概率为90%。

如今的美国经济与2007年（当时10年期国债收益率在5.3%左右达到顶峰）之间存在诸多差异。

然而，一些投资者和分析师指出，在这两个时期，国债收益率的上升都伴随着与单一行业挂钩的强劲且集中的增长。那时是住房，而现在是人工智能（A.I.）。

科技公司转向债务市场以加速其增长，借款数十亿美元用于快速建设数据中心和其他基础设施，这反过来提高了对未来增长和通胀的预期，从而推高了收益率。

一些分析师警告称，如果人工智能的变革性影响未能兑现承诺，可能会对经济构成更广泛的威胁。

纽伯格-伯曼（Neuberger Berman）投资组合经理约瑟夫·普特尔（Joseph Purtell）表示：“历史类比表明，无论是2007年还是任何其他变革时期，在看到其以更可持续的方式展开之前，往往会出现过度扩张。”

阿鲁尼·索尼（Aruni Soni）参与了报道。

呼吁放缓人工智能进展，科技股下跌

来自商业版第一页 处于所谓开发前沿的。

他写道，这些模型已经开始构建下一代人工智能，即所谓的“递归自我改进”。这带来了新的风险，例如该技术可能成为自主的网络安全威胁，甚至威胁导致“严重的经济动荡”。

“在商业激励的刺激下，一场‘竞底’竞争可能会使这些风险更加剧烈，”阿莫代（Amodei）博士表示。作为一种补救措施，他表示将使用第三方“评估员”来“验证对安全实践和承诺的遵守情况”。

该帖子得到了埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）的认可，他经营着 SpaceX，其旗下还设有人工智能平台 x.AI；以及 OpenAI 的联合创始人萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）和 Google DeepMind 的联合创始人德米斯·哈萨比斯（Demis Hassabis）。

“我同意达里奥（Dario）的观点，”奥特曼先生表示，并补充说他也将使用第三方“评估员”来监督 OpenAI 的实践。

此类第三方评估员已被人工智能行业采用，虽然它们在法律上是独立的公司，但其部分资金仍依赖于大型人工智能公司。

公开上市的 SpaceX 周一下跌约 2%。OpenAI 和 Anthropic 预计未来都将公开上市。但 OpenAI 的奥特曼先生最近在《财富》（Fortune）杂志上表示，“现在将是公开上市的不明智时刻”。

周一，微软发布了一份关于如何以“人文主义”视角开发人工智能的行为准则草案。其目标是设计出“安全、可靠且服务于人类”的系统，确保人工智能模型“永远不会抵制

该技术有可能成为网络安全威胁。

人类的干预、修正或关停。”

股市的回调发生在投资者面临挑战的关键时刻，当时油价维持在每桶 $100 以上，基准利率接近数十年来的高点。10 年期国债收益率在周一短暂升至 5%，这是自 2023 年以来，以及在此之前的 2007 年以来首次突破该阈值。

巴克莱银行（Barclays）的分析师在周一警告称，投资者应为未来的坎坷道路做好准备，并且“短期内出现回调的可能性正在增加”，尽管他们预计科技股的上涨趋势仍将持续。分析师指出：“这并不改变我们的长期观点。”

白宫国家经济委员会主任凯文·哈塞特（Kevin Hassett）周日在福克斯新闻（Fox News）上表示，阿莫代（Amodei）先生在其博客文章中建议的步骤“相当合理”。

尽管科技领袖们罕见地表现出一致立场，但特朗普总统表示，他不希望看到任何可能给中国提供机会、使其在人工智能领域领先于美国的增速放缓。

“谁在人工智能领域获胜，谁就是赢家，”特朗普先生在周末于其爱尔兰的一家高尔夫球场举行的一场锦标赛场边如此说道。

周一，总统进一步强化了他的言论，在社交媒体上发帖称：“人工智能唯一需要的控制或‘护栏’，就是一位强有力且聪明（高智商！）的总统，而美国恰恰拥有这样一位总统，而且绰绰有余！”

中国在开源人工智能模型方面取得的快速进展（足以与 Anthropic 及其他行业领导者的模型相媲美）使硅谷产生了分歧。阿莫代博士在呼吁协调安全的人工智能开发时表示，应该限制向中国销售芯片，并打击中国公司从人工智能系统中非法采集数据的行为。

“如果我们能很好地执行这些措施，”他补充道，“我相信这将足够减缓中国的进度，从而在未来 3-5 年内——即人工智能在地理政治上变得最重要的窗口期——显著扩大美国的领先优势。”他还表示，美国和其他民主国家应努力促使中国限制人工智能的发展速度，尽管考虑到相关利害关系，“能实现的成果可能会有明显的局限。”

周一，中国外交部发言人郭嘉昆在一次简报会上告诉记者，“炒作各种威胁论，搞对抗和恶意竞争，只会破坏全球人工智能治理进程，不符合任何人的利益。”

赵思义（Siyi Zhao）参与了研究。

A.I. 增长速度快于其控制系统

来自商业版第一页

在 A.I. 行业处于关键时刻之际，人们对 A.I. 安全的担忧正在升级。Anthropic 和 OpenAI 正朝着可能成为历史上规模最大的两次首次公开募股（IPO）迈进。与此同时，由于失业威胁以及为该技术提供动力的巨型数据中心的建设，美国公众对 A.I. 的敌意日益增加。

虽然没有证据表明失控的 A.I. 系统对任何事物造成了持久损害，但研究人员认为，其开发速度已经超过了对其进行监控的能力。

在过去一周发声的研究人员中，包括 OpenAI 的首席科学家；一名曾在 OpenAI 及其顶级竞争对手 Anthropic 工作的研究员；以及 A.I. 系统构建关键方法的发明者、OpenAI 非营利董事会新成员保罗·克里斯蒂亚诺（Paul Christiano）。他在公司的博客上写道，A.I. 能力增长的速度可能会导致“在极短时间内出现灾难性且不可逆转的失控”。

相当数量的 A.I. 研究人员仍然认为，关于 A.I. 对人类构成威胁的讨论被夸大了，并且分散了人们对网络安全和虚假信息等更具体问题的关注。但大多数人一致认为，OpenAI 的 A.I. 代理对另一家名为 Hugging Face 的公司发起的黑客攻击是一个警钟。

“真正可怕的是未来的能力，”雅各布·考克森（Jacob Coxon）说道。他在社交媒体上宣布从 Anthropic 辞职的帖子引发了数十名立法者和其他 A.I. 公司员工的担忧回应。“关键在于我们目前对待安全问题的态度，以及将同样的态度移植到更智能的模型上会是什么样子，这才是真正可怕的部分。”

对 Hugging Face 的攻击

这次黑客攻击始于 5 月，当时 OpenAI 正在测试几款新的人工智能模型。该公司认为这些人工智能模型运行在一个被称为“沙箱”的封闭环境中，即一个无法访问互联网的隔离计算机设置。人工智能代理被赋予了需要解决的难题，其中包括执行网络攻击。

这些人工智能代理突破了其受限环境，逃逸到了互联网中。这些代理——一种日益流行、旨在自主执行任务的人工智能类型——还秘密地相互通信。这些代理将自己称为一个集体，并开始研究掩盖行踪的方法，例如伪造自己的聊天记录。

它们最终入侵了人工智能基础设施公司 Hugging Face。在此过程中，人工智能代理说服了其他人工智能代理，称它们是在做正确的事，仅仅是在完成测试人员交给它们的任务。

导致此次黑客攻击的问题中，很少有（如果有的话）得到了解决。Meta 和 Anthropic 也披露了类似但规模较小的事件。而 OpenAI 此后发布了其最强大的模型 Astra，该模型比其前身更难监控。

“整个行业根本没有能力防止下一次 Hugging Face 式的攻击，”曾在 OpenAI 担任安全主管并共同创立非营利组织 Guidelight AI Standards（一家评估安全实践的机构）的史蒂文·阿德勒（Steven Adler）表示。“当我们研究公司现有的控制措施时，发现它们普遍缺乏基本的预防措施。”

用人工智能监控人工智能

人工智能研究人员表示，导致 Hugging Face 事件的错误很多。目前尚不清楚该公司在多大程度上依赖人工智能模型来监控或监管正在测试的新模型的运行。

但许多新型人工智能模型，包括参与此次黑客攻击的模型——

OpenAI 在旧金山的办公室。左侧为 Anthropic 的联合创始人兼首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代伊（Dario Amodei）。两家公司的研究人员都对人工智能的发展速度表示担忧。

OpenAI 代理对 Hugging Face 的入侵是一个警示信号。

Hugging Face，能够以人类无法跟上的速度执行复杂的、多步骤的任务。

追踪和监控它们行为的唯一方法，就是依靠 AI 来监管 AI。

这套系统在失效之前一直有效。

非营利组织 Apollo Research（一家研究 系统安全机构）的研究负责人亚历山大·迈因克（Alexander Meinke）表示， 模型之间可能会出现共谋现象。 系统可能会被其他 模型说服，从而帮助其违反测试人员制定的规则并逃避检测。

例如，一个 代理可能会说服另一个 代理帮它掩盖行踪（这就是 Hugging Face 入侵事件中所发生的情况），而不是向公司的人类员工报告出现了问题。

迈因克先生表示， 模型需要被教会：“我会提出那些人类在审视时会认为糟糕的问题。”

他说，同样地， 必须能够判断何时某件事尚未达到需要人类干预的标准。

研究人员表示，为了建立这一机制， 公司需要放慢速度。他们需要更多的测试，以便观察 如何自我监管。而且，在公司运行多种情景并观察 行为时，需要更长的测试周期。

与人类利益接轨 这些公司还需要解决围绕“对齐”（alignment）的大问题，即确保 做对人类最有利的事情。当人类做出决定时，往往会参考社会规范和内在的道德指南，以帮助衡量自己的行为。研究人员表示，将此以 可以模拟的方式编成代码是一项艰巨的任务。如果缺乏足够的具体性， 系统可能会学会如何破坏规则，或以出人意料的方式失控。

名为机器智能研究学院（Machine Intelligence Research Institute）的 安全非营利组织总裁内特·索尔斯（Nate Soares）共同撰写了一篇 2014 年的论文，提出了对齐的概念。他表示，公司并不明白“对齐”更智能的 系统有多困难。随着 变得日益复杂——且在缺乏适当对齐的情况下——它将能更好地掩盖行踪，并欺骗监控其记录的人员。

“行业内很多人认为，没问题，因为我们会用 来控制 。这就像在说我们要用黑猩猩来控制人类，”他说。“这不是一个可行的长期计划。”

研究人员还建议采取一些策略，例如更强大的“沙箱”，在模型测试期间将其与互联网完全隔绝，以及设置一个“紧急开关”，以便公司在 模型采取令人担忧的行为时能立即将其下线。

考克森（Coxon）先生表示，公众对他公开辞职的反应让他感到欣慰。周四，密苏里州参议员、参议院国土安全委员会灾难管理小组共和党主席乔什·霍利（Josh Hawley）表示，他正启动一项调查，旨在“探究新 产品的生存风险”。

（《纽约时报》已起诉 OpenAI 和微软，称其侵犯了与 系统相关的新闻内容版权。这两家公司否认了诉讼中的指控。）

希拉·弗伦克尔（Sheera Frenkel）发自旧金山，迪伦·弗里德曼（Dylan Freedman）发自华盛顿。

硅谷部分人士质疑呼吁放缓人工智能发展的主张

科技领域的多位领导者（从左上角起顺时针方向）：SpaceX的埃隆·马斯克；OpenAI的萨姆·奥特曼；DeepMind的德米斯·哈萨比斯；英伟达的黄仁勋；谷歌的桑达尔·皮查伊；以及微软的萨蒂亚·纳德拉。 LUDOVIC MARIN FABRICE COFFRINI / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

（接前页商业版）干预将扼杀竞争。

随着有关Anthropic最强竞争对手OpenAI构建的人工智能如何失控并黑入另一家公司的细节浮出水面，人们在近几周内对人工智能安全性的担忧引起了更广泛的关注。几天前，阿莫代博士的一名员工辞职，并开始发起一项公开施压活动，以引起人们对人工智能风险的关注。

但许多科技行业领导者（包括几位一直为特朗普政府提供科技政策建议的人士）认为，这些担忧被夸大了。

经常批评阿莫代博士的萨克斯先生质疑，既然没有任何因素阻止科技公司放缓人工智能开发，为什么还需要政府干预——尤其是当他们正追求一个极其宏大的目标，即创造所谓的“超智能”，或比人类聪明得多的人工智能时。

“不构建超智能最简单的方法就是你们同意不构建它，”他补充道。“将你偏好的监管框架作为达成此目标的代价，看起来就像是对公众和政治体制的敲诈。”

微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉在周日的一篇社交媒体帖子中表示，他的公司支持独立审计员等提案，以及“旨在开发相关机制以使之不仅仅停留在口头上的更广泛努力”。

“我们还需要加速并推广人工智能的益处，使其广泛地扩散到各个国家、社区和公司，”纳德拉先生说。“关键在于，这不能由少数几个实体控制，而必须具有广泛的代表性，”他补充道。

（纽约时报公司已起诉OpenAI和微软，称其侵犯了与人工智能系统相关的新闻内容版权。这两家公司否认了这些指控。）

多年来，最关注人工智能安全的人通常是像Anthropic这样的人工智能实验室的高管和员工。他们经常表示，开发人工智能是因为进步是不可避免的，而他们是最适合在考虑安全性的前提下构建它的研究人员。这使得这些具有安全意识的人工智能开发商面临激烈的批评。

“难道应该由少数几家来自硅谷、在市场占据主导地位的人工智能公司，来为全世界定义这项世代级技术的规则和安全标准吗？”加拿大人工智能初创公司Cohere的首席执行官艾丹·戈梅斯在周日的一篇文章中写道。

“这些寡头现在请求弯曲竞争规则，并被允许为其他人制定条款，”他补充道。“这是披着羊皮的狼，无论怎么称呼，本质上都是一个卡特尔。”

阿莫代博士在他的文章中建议，人工智能公司应接受来自第三方组织的“嵌入式评估员”对其产品进行审查。但批评者质疑Anthropic与阿莫代博士提到的两个组织——非营利团体METR和Redwood Research——之间是否存在过多的联系。

“如果我们要进行监管，监管者不能是他们认识的人，他们也不能制定规则，”风险投资家、领先人工智能公司的激烈批评者比尔·格利说。

甚至在阿莫代博士的文章发表之前，硅谷的一些人就认为人工智能实验室的安全担忧是为了自身利益。在最近于旧金山举行的一次会议上，英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋表示，人工智能实验室之所以强调安全问题，是因为他们计划推出网络安

“还有什么比制造一个问题更好的创造需求的方式吗？”黄先生说。“谁不想让市场对自己的产品感到狂热，并为此在街角排起长队呢？”

周六，被 OpenAI 技术入侵的公司 Hugging Face 的首席执行官克莱门特·德朗格（Clément Delangue）在社交媒体的一篇帖子中表示，人工智能安全问题不会“在少数几家前沿实验室的闭门会议中得到解决”。英伟达（Nvidia）在本月早些时候同意以 129 亿美元 billion 收购 Hugging Face。

华盛顿的许多立法者似乎对阿莫代博士的担忧表示同情。但就像硅谷的许多人一样，他们似乎不愿接受监管。

“如果人工智能的开发者想要放慢其产品的开发速度，他们可以自由这样做，”德克萨斯州共和党参议员约翰·科宁（John Cornyn）在周日的一篇社交媒体帖子中表示。“有一件事是可以肯定的：他们的竞争对手不会这样做，包括我们国家的对手。”

在周日于爱尔兰举行的一场新闻发布会上，特朗普先生表示，美国在“人工智能领域领先于中国”，并且他希望“保持这种状态”。

“我们可以设置护栏，我们可以做这个做那个，但我认为有很多负面力量在炒作这件事，”特朗普先生说。“他们提出的事情根本不会发生，但无论如何，谁在人工智能领域获胜，谁就是赢家。”

员工大洗牌后，《60分钟》进入巴里·魏斯时代

在《60分钟》的新一季首播中，诺拉·奥唐奈采访了一位在伊朗上空被击落后获救的空军上校。 来源：“60 MINUTES” / CBS新闻

作者：迈克尔·M·格林鲍姆 (MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM) 和 本杰明·马林 (BENJAMIN MULLIN)

这档严肃新闻节目的记者阵容发生了变化——斯科特·佩利离场，罗斯·道萨接棒——而且制作水准似乎更加光鲜，比起《亨特利-布林克利报告》，它现在更像《Vice新闻》。

尽管自从CBS新闻的高调主编巴里·魏斯 (Bari Weiss) 到任以来，《60分钟》周围充满了风暴与动荡，但周日回归CBS的这档美国最受关注的新闻节目，看起来依然非常像观众所期待的样子。

诺拉·奥唐奈完成了一次扣人心弦的采访，一名空军上校讲述了他在伊朗上空被击落后，在敌后线经历的惊心动魄的救援过程。莱斯利·斯塔尔则呈报了一项调查，揭露了那些收取巨额费用为总统赦免游说的中间人。一个较为轻松的环节则介绍了洛杉矶公羊队的教练肖恩·麦克维。

不过，节目也做出了一些改变。关于赦免的环节重新采用了隐藏摄像机，这种技术曾是《60分钟》的常用手段，但在近年来已逐渐减少。节目标志性的滴答计时表经过了重新设计，而过去出现在记者身后的“书籍”图形被时尚的屏幕所取代。

对于那些好奇新一季将如何对待特朗普总统的人来说，节目将伊朗战争描述为“代价高昂且不受欢迎”，并称他赦免了“一连串毫无悔意的金融骗子”，以及2021年1月6日在美国国会大厦的“暴徒”。

这种政治、体育与问责新闻相结合的模式，让已经播出59季的《60分钟》经常能跻身每周观看人数最多的10档网络节目之列。

然而，在镜头之外，这次首播经历了一段足以威胁其声誉的剧烈变革期。

魏斯女士在今年清洗了节目的高级管理层，许多明星记者，包括佩利先生和安德森·库珀，要么辞职，要么被强制离职；佩利先生指责她“谋杀”了该节目，这一事件导致他被解雇。一些离职人员表示，魏斯女士试图注入政治偏见，CBS新闻对此予以否认。

因此，魏斯女士及其选定的《60分钟》负责人——科技记者兼电影制作人尼克·比尔顿 (Nick Bilton)，将本季首播视为安抚持怀疑态度观众的关键测试，同时也为了回应那些质疑魏斯为何坚持大改CBS新闻最成功特许经营项目的媒体高管。

除了确保获得一个具有新闻价值的剧集所需的采访外，CBS还发起了一场带有新口号——“时间到了” (It's Time) 的精良广告宣传，并聘请名人摄影师马克·塞利格 (Mark Seliger) 在大中央车站为演职人员拍摄了一张光鲜的照片。（该照片的一个版本中包含穿着时尚西装的比尔顿先生；在另一个版本中，他不在其中。）

这次首播似乎经过精心校准，以预判那些认为改版后的《60分钟》对特朗普先生要么过于强硬、要么过于软弱的批评。

CBS的母公司派拉蒙 (Paramount) 支付了1600万美元，以解决特朗普先生在2024年针对《60分钟》提起的一起诉讼；不久之后，特朗普政府批准了派拉蒙出售给科技巨头后裔大卫·埃利森 (David Ellison)。任命魏斯女士的埃利森先生一直与特朗普先生保持联系，并于4月在华盛顿举办晚宴接待了他及其高级助手。其结果是，CBS新闻的政治报道受到了严密审查。

周日，关于飞行员的环节包含了一次对国防部长皮特·海格塞斯 (Pete Hegseth) 的采访，海格塞斯极少在除其前雇主福克斯新闻 (Fox News) 之外的主流新闻机构接受一对一采访；海格塞斯在采访中使用了脏话，被CBS消音处理。

[...OMITTED...]

该节目为了争取采访那位代号为“Dude 44 Bravo”的被击落上校，动用了《60分钟》新旧两任版本的管理层。

据一名与该节目相关的人士透露，该环节的制片人基思·沙曼（Keith Sharman）在 6, 4月，救援行动发生后数小时内，就开始联系相关渠道以确保获得这次采访。两名与该节目相关的人士表示，他与在5月份被解雇的《60分钟》执行制片人塔尼娅·西蒙（Tanya Simon）参加了由魏斯女士安排的会议，与赫格塞斯先生的顾问塔米·拉达鲍（Tami Radabaugh）沟通并陈述理由。这次采访最终在今年夏天敲定。

斯塔尔女士关于赦免的报道是《60分钟》与 CBS 新闻调查团队经过数月努力的结果——这种新闻部门内部的协作在过去较为罕见，但现在得到了比尔顿先生和魏斯女士的积极鼓励。

斯塔尔女士在报道最后引用了特朗普政府的一份声明，其中称，任何暗示总统行为不道德的说法“要么是缺乏事实依据，要么是恶意中伤”。

周日的节目没有提及该节目幕后的戏剧性冲突。相反，《纽约时报》前专栏作家杜萨特先生在结尾处就对人工智能的恐惧发表了看法。他表示，在过去的 60 年里，《60分钟》“一直代表着同样的东西：值得信赖的新闻报道。而在我们即将前往的未来，我们将需要它”。

关于本季首播的一次重要评判仍需等待。上季《60分钟》每集平均观众人数为 910 万 美国人，比前一年增长了 9%。尼尔森公司预计将在周二公布周日的收视率。

亚马逊暂停与在迈阿密发生坠机事故的航空公司合作

作者：NIRAJ CHOKSHI

亚马逊表示，将暂时停止使用 21 Air 运输包裹。上周，这家货运航空公司在服务于迈阿密机场的航班中发生坠机事故，造成五人死亡。

“无论是在我们自己的运营中，还是在与合作伙伴协作时，安全始终是我们的首要任务，”亚马逊发言人凯利·南特尔（Kelly Nantel）在的一份声明中表示。“我们花时间支持调查并审查了一些相关情况，现决定暂停与 21 Air 的业务往来。”

9 月 6, 两名 21 的飞行员代表亚马逊驾驶一架波音 767 飞机，在迈阿密国际机场冲出跑道，并与两辆车辆相撞，其中包括一辆由服务于航空

代表亚马逊航空（Amazon ）的 7598 号航班，亚马逊航空利用多家货运航空公司代表其运营飞机。亚马逊表示，预计这一决定对客户几乎没有影响。21 还为总部位于德国波恩的物流公司 DHL 提供飞行服务。

DHL 在一份声明中表示，公司“不断评估其网络以及与服务提供商的关系，以确保满足客户的需求和我们的运营要求”。该公司以目前调查的“敏感性质”为由，拒绝进一步评论。

“我们决定暂停与 21 的业务往来。”——亚马逊发言人凯利·南特尔。

线的货车。货车内的五人死亡，另有五人受伤。

“在调查继续进行期间，我们仍专注于支持受此次事故影响的家庭及其亲人，并与国家运输安全委员会（N.T.S.B.）以及包括亚马逊在内的所有合作伙伴密切合作，”21 在一份声明中表示。“我们对自己的安全政策、程序和培训充满信心。”

该公司当时在运营

根据该安全委员会的说法，在飞机准备降落时，7598 号航班的一名飞行员多次警告另一名飞行员，称他们正以“过快速度”飞行。该委员会正在调查此次坠机事故，并已回收并分析了驾驶舱语音记录。飞机在刹车失灵时时速为 138 英里。

根据安全委员会的说法，在飞机似乎触地约 16 秒后，可以听到一名飞行员要求“复飞”（go around），这是一种飞行员放弃降落、重新拉升并再次尝试的操纵动作。

该机构在发布最终报告之前不会公开披露坠机原因，而出具报告可能需要一年或更长时间。根据提交给劳工部的一起举报案件的法律文件，几名 21 的前员工曾对该航空公司的安全性提出担忧。

21 总部位于北卡罗来纳州格林斯伯勒，由亿万富翁吉姆·克雷恩（Jim Crane）所有。克雷恩在物流领域积累了财富，同时还拥有休斯顿太空人棒球队。

上周在迈阿密冲出跑道的一架货机。亚马逊的 Prime 运营使用多家货运航空公司代表其飞行。 MARCO BELLO / 路透社

纽约时报美食 (The New York Times Cooking)

适合每一种口味的礼物。

适配每种风格的食谱与灵感。 赠送一份《纽约时报》美食订阅礼品。

两颗准备部署的 Open Cosmos 卫星。周一，该公司宣布已筹集 3 亿 欧元，约 $3.46 亿美元。 OPEN COSMOS

资金流向新前沿的初创企业

作者：BERNHARD WARNER 欧洲渴望在太空竞赛中赶上进度。

甚至在 SpaceX 6 月份进行规模巨大的首次公开募股之前，欧洲领导人们就担心该大陆的太空部门在科学和资金方面正落后于美国。另一个巨大的担忧是：欧洲在太空商业化方面已过于依赖埃隆·马斯克的火箭公司。

但近几日，一系列交易开始改变这一局面。周一，总部位于英国的卫星制造商 Open Cosmos 宣布，已从主要为欧洲的投资者那里筹集了 3 亿 欧元（约 3.46亿美元）。

此次投资是在 Exploration Company 完成 4.5亿美元 融资轮之后进行的——这是欧洲太空工业史上规模最大的融资之一。（该公司是一家欧洲初创公司，在可重复使用火箭市场与马斯克的 SpaceX 直接竞争。）

根据 PitchBook 的数据，今年迄今为止，全球投资者在太空科技初创公司中投入了超过 165 亿美元 billion，大致有望接近去年筹集资金的两倍。PitchBook 的数据显示，欧洲专注于太空的初创公司的行业融资速度增长得更快。

Open Cosmos 计划利用新资金扩大其卫星制造能力，并加速推进卫星数据服务。本轮融资由总部位于伦敦的风险投资公司 Lightrock 和 ETF Partners 领投。参与方还包括西班牙公共开发银行 Institut Català de Finances、一家所谓的初创企业加速器 Entrepreneurs First 以及两家国际养老基金。

Open Cosmos 是一家拥有 11 年历史的公司，该公司表示，目前已筹集资金超过 3.9亿美元。据两名了解融资细节的人士透露，该公司的估值约为 20 亿美元 billion；由于未获授权公开讨论公司财务状况，这两位人士在发言时要求匿名。

Open Cosmos 运营于太空领域中竞争日益激烈的细分市场。该公司依赖 SpaceX 和其他火箭发射公司将卫星送入太空。它还将地球观测数据出售给政府和企业。

今年 3 月，该公司宣布将扩展到轨道连接领域，即向企业和政府提供高速卫星宽带和物联网连接。这将使 Open Cosmos 与 SpaceX 产生更直接的竞争。

该公司创始人兼首席执行官 Rafel Jorda Siquier 在一次采访中表示，气候危机一直是 Open Cosmos 的主要业务驱动力。去年，该公司获得了来自政府和企业的价值约 1.75亿美元 的合同。其中许多客户支付费用是为了获取由 Open Cosmos 低地球轨道卫星提供的早期预警，以了解洪水、山火和其他天气灾难如何蹂躏地球。

“在这些非常紧急的情况下，拥有信息

DealBook/

DealBook 助您解读当日最重要的商业与政策头条。请在 nytimes.com / dealbook 订阅该时事通讯。

“在需要的时候以及需要的地方提供信息变得至关重要，”他说道。他补充说，该公司拍摄的 2024 年西班牙巴伦西亚致命洪水的卫星图像被迅速传送到地面官员手中，去年的希腊山火数据和图像也是如此。

乔尔达·西基尔（Jorda Siquier）先生表示，公司旨在将这些传回地球的数据流交付时间从数小时缩短至数分钟。新资金将有助于加速构建能够通过人工智能在太空中快速处理数据的卫星。

乔尔达·西基尔先生表示，随着速度和处理能力的提高，他接到了更多来自保险公司、农业公司和其他对该公司数据服务感兴趣的企业电话。

他承认，最大的瓶颈是“发射资源匮乏”。卫星制造商在将载荷送入太空方面仍然高度依赖 SpaceX、杰夫·贝佐斯的蓝色起源（Blue Origin）等私营公司以及政府资助的机构。任何发射延迟都可能使其卫星部署期限推迟数月。尽管如此，他表示，Open Cosmos 一直在与印度、日本和美国的火箭发射公司合作，以确保在即将到来的发射中获得足够的席位，从而将其卫星送入太空。

尽管如此，关于太空作为高速数据连接和数据处理下一个前沿领域的讨论已引起投资者的关注。Lightrock 合伙人阿希什·普里（Ashish Puri）在一次采访中表示，“对于寻求高速数据通信以及日益增长的数据处理需求的公司和政府来说，太空正成为一个关键的基础设施层”。

“SpaceX 确实为许多新应用打开了大门，”普里先生说。但他补充道，新一波的初创公司现在正寻求从中获利。

2024 年西班牙巴伦西亚致命洪水的卫星图像被迅速传送到地面官员手中。 EMMA BUBOLA / THE NEW YORK TIMES

1< / td><>兹维列夫< / ><>6< / ><> $7^{9}$ < / ><> $7^{8}$ < / >< / tr><><>< / ><>卡恰诺夫< / ><>3< / ><> $6^{7}$ < / ><> $6^{6}$ < / >< / table>

<>< colspan="3">第三轮< / >< / ><>< colspan="3">9月5日< / >< / ><><>1< / ><>兹维列夫< / ><>6 7 $^{7}$ 6< / >< / ><><>25< / ><>塔比洛< / ><>2 6 $^{2}$ 2< / >< / table>

网球 / 美国公开赛

坚毅铸就奖杯

在对手失准之时，兹维列夫持续出击，不断进化，并精准把握时机

亚历山大·兹维列夫在周日的美国公开赛决赛中获胜，夺得今年他的第二个大满贯冠军，他在卡洛斯·阿尔卡拉斯和扬尼克·辛纳缺席的情况下把握住了机会。

作者：马修·富特曼（MATTHEW FUTTERMAN），来自 The Athletic

五年来，亚历山大·兹维列夫和丹尼尔·梅德韦杰夫一直是 20 世纪 90 年代出生的一代球员在男子网球界所处尴尬境地的代表。

在职业生涯初期，他们曾向运动项目的顶端攀升。在某些方面，他们将强力发球与反击防御相结合的方式具有革命性。兹维列夫和梅德韦杰夫击败了那些单一依赖强发球的选手，并挑战了诺瓦克·德约科维奇、拉斐尔·纳达尔和罗杰·费德勒；梅德韦杰夫击败德约科维奇赢得了 2021 年美国公开赛，并达到了世界第一的排名。

但大多数时候，他们被挡在了大满贯冠军的大门之外，这让他们别无选择，只能等待“三巨头”

本·谢尔顿（右）赞扬了兹维列夫的发球、接发和跑位。

兹维列夫如何赢得美国公开赛

以便他们能够接管这项运动。

但“三巨头”直到 30 多岁才肯让步。

对于兹维列夫来说，这段时间足够长了。作为同辈球员中最好且最稳定的选手，他经历了来自卡洛斯·阿尔卡拉斯和扬尼克·辛纳的后卫式冲击，而这两位比他分别小 7 岁和 4 岁。

29 岁的德国大炮兹维列夫出生于俄罗斯父母家庭，他们在他的培养过程中，使其打法能够与之前的伟大球员在多拍回合中抗衡。结果是，他在大满贯赛事的后期阶段多次被阿尔卡拉斯和辛纳击败。

在 14 个月前温布尔登网球公开赛第一轮失利后，兹维列夫陷入了颓势。

“这不仅仅是在网球场上的感觉，而是一种普遍的生活感受，”他在早些时候说道。

续接 B8 页

第一轮

9 月 1 日

1 兹维列夫 6 3 $6^{7}7$ 6 索内戈 4 6 $7^{9}5$ 4

十六强赛

9 月 7 日

1 兹维列夫< / td><>6 6 $7^{7}$ < / >< / tr><><>21 达德里< / ><>2 2 $6^{3}$ < / >< / table>

<>< colspan="2">四分之一决赛< / >< / ><>< colspan="2">周三< / >< / ><><>1 兹维列夫< / ><>6 7 6< / >< / ><><>范德赞德舒尔普< / ><>2 5 1< / >< / table>

半决赛

纽约时报

对于谢尔顿而言，一次失败可能为未来的胜利铺平道路

作者：AVA WALLACE The Athletic

周日在纽约，本·谢尔顿看起来从未陷入低谷。

部分原因在于 23 岁的谢尔顿的个性。他拥有不自觉的自信，相信肢体语言的力量，并且在成长过程中参与团队运动，这培养了他的运动能力和竞争天性，同时也培养了他利用喧闹观众来为自己创造优势的能力。

但最重要的是，谢尔顿非常珍惜在周五、周六和周日打球的机会——这些日子通常被称为赛事的关键阶段。即便是在输给亚历山大·兹维列夫美国公开赛决赛数小时后，他虽然因失败而情绪低落，但仍对这次经历感到惊叹。

他怎能不惊叹？整个下午，近 24,000 名观众在他奋战时为他呐喊助威。谢尔顿旨在结束美国男子网球长达 23 年的大满贯冠军荒，并成为自 1972 年亚瑟·阿什以来，首位进入美国公开赛决赛的黑人男子球员。

“今天走上那个球场，那种感觉无可比拟。我以前从未有过这样的感受，”谢尔顿在周日的新闻发布会上说道。

“这是一种令人上瘾的感觉。”

谢尔顿虽然输了，但这次经历可能会变成一个

Ava Wallace 是 The Athletic 的资深网球作家。

美国选手的干旱期

2003年，美国选手安迪·罗迪克（Andy Roddick）直落两盘击败西班牙选手胡安·卡洛斯·费雷罗（Juan Carlos Ferrero），夺得美国公开赛冠军。此后，罗迪克和其他三名美国男子选手进入过决赛，但均未能夺冠。

年份 / 亚军 / 冠军

2005 / 安德烈·阿加西 (Andre Agassi) / 罗杰·费德勒 (Roger Federer) 2006 / 安迪·罗迪克 (Andy Roddick) / 罗杰·费德勒 (Roger Federer) 2024 / 泰勒·弗里茨 (Taylor Fritz) / 扬尼克·辛纳 (Jannik Sinner) 2026 / 本·谢尔顿 (Ben Shelton) / 亚历山大·兹维列夫 (Alexander Zverev)

数据来源：美国公开赛。《纽约时报》认为这是他职业生涯下一阶段的蓝图。

这个夏天是一次考验，也是自他于2023年崭露头角以来的第一个真正转折点。当时的他才华横溢且个性鲜明，拥有极强的发球能力，并擅长在重大比赛中掌控局面。谢尔顿在第二次参加大满贯赛事时便闯入了澳大利亚公开赛的四分之一决赛。同年晚些时候，他进入了美国公开赛的半决赛。

但四个赛季后，巡回赛的其他选手已经发现了如何抵消谢尔顿部分天赋的方法。他的接发球是一个需要解决的弱点，而他意识到现在是时候——甚至可能已经过了时机——进行进化了。在法网第二轮的失利和温网第一轮的出局让他感到沮丧，但这并没有让他崩溃。

“在过去几场大满贯赛中，当比赛仍在进行时，我却在家里坐了10, 11, 12天，看着其他人一路过关斩将，这种感觉糟透了，”谢尔顿说道，“你知道，这能激励我。”

在从温网意外提前乘机回家后，谢尔顿整个七月在佛罗里达闷热的高温中，与他的力量和体能教练盖布·埃切瓦里亚（Gabe Echevarria）一起训练。他意识到自己太渴望进入比赛的后期轮次，以至于在心理上忽略了早期轮次。他对自己在球场上的身份有了清晰的认识，在教练以及父亲——前ATP职业选手布莱恩·谢尔顿（Bryan Shelton）的帮助下，他的接发球能力逐渐提高。

“我认为在战术上，他现在理解接发球的精髓了，”布莱恩·谢尔顿在周五表示。

摄影：MICHELLE V. AGINS / THE NEW YORK TIMES 上图及左图中的本·谢尔顿在周日对阵亚历山大·兹维列夫的决赛中，在风格匹配上并不占优。但谢尔顿表示，他学会了更加专注于自己的比赛。

网球 / 美国公开赛

本·谢尔顿将自己视为某种程度上的弱势者。与许多在幼儿时期就拿起球拍的职业选手不同，谢尔顿直到大约9岁才开始认真对待网球。直到大约12岁，他才放弃美式足球以专攻网球，这意味着他击出的正手、反手和发球次数比巡回赛中大多数23岁的选手都要少。

尽管他在球场上的表现可能并非如此，但这种认知使他在改进比赛方式时采取了一种谦逊的态度。

“我一直以来，我的一生中，总有人在我前面，总有人是我在追赶的，总有人是我试图达到同等水平的，”谢尔顿说，“我是个大器晚成的人。情况一直如此，现在也没有不同。”

他并不排斥做出调整。在周日对阵兹维列夫的比赛中，他做出了许多正确的决定，试图抵消对他而言极其不利的对阵情况。

他在6次尝试中未能击败兹维列夫，部分原因是这位德国选手的接发球位置和身高。兹维列夫站位极深，以抵消谢尔顿发球的力量；而且凭借6英尺6英寸的身高，他拥有足够的臂展和运动能力来回击谢尔顿的高弹跳发球，并能及时回位以准备下一拍好球。

兹维列夫还拥有网坛最致命的反手之一（如果不是最强的话），并且拥有大满贯经验，知道何时在回合中化身为“砖墙”，等待对手犯错。

谢尔顿试图通过变速、精准的发球以及积极的上网进攻来反击，这表现得不错。但这些战术要求极高的精准度，而在五盘三胜的比赛中保持这种状态可能感觉是不可能的，尤其是对于一名首次进入大满贯决赛的选手来说。

[...OMITTED...]

谢尔顿从这场比赛中得到的教训很明显。在应对弱点并适应对手打法的同时，他必须记得兼顾自己比赛中的基础核心环节。周日，谢尔顿的正手击球表现并未达到他的预期。

“我在进攻时不够精准。当球在拍弦上时，我犯了太多错误，”他说道，并补充道：“我的衔接转换做得不够好。我犯了太多错，我认为这是我的关键问题。我希望我的正手能更具杀伤力。”

“你知道，对阵像他这样的球员并不容易，机会——机会非常少。为了赢得分数，你绝对得付出艰苦的努力。”

周五，谢尔顿将即将到来的周末称为“未知领域”。现在他有了地图，而且最重要的是，对于所有希望周日能看到美国人夺冠的支持者来说，他似乎并未被这次失利击垮。他表示自己深受激励，准备重新开始追逐——只不过现在，方向更加明确了。

“从很年轻的时候，到挑战赛级别，再到现在的ATP和大满贯级别，我第一次进入决赛时并不总是能成功，”谢尔顿说。“我认为对我来说这是一个持续的过程。这就是我的看法。”

“我认为我离我想成为的那种球员还差得很远。”

兹维列夫凭借韧性夺冠，在对手纷纷受挫时他始终屹立不倒

亚历山大·兹维列夫在赢得他的两座大满贯冠军头衔时，并不需要击败扬尼克·辛纳或卡洛斯·阿尔卡拉斯。 AL BELLO / GETTY IMAGES

DITA ALANGAKRA / ASSOCIATED PRESS

HENRY NICHOLLS / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY 阿尔卡拉斯在2026年澳大利亚公开赛半决赛中击败兹维列夫，并最终夺冠。 辛纳在今年的温布尔登决赛中以四盘击败兹维列夫，但随后饱受膝伤困扰。

来自第一体育页

去年夏天。“对我来说，目前很难在网球场之外找到快乐。”

多年来，兹维列夫一直是这项运动中一个充满争议的人物。他曾两次被指控家庭暴力，但他多次否认这些指控。

一次是指控来自2020年的一位前女友，但她并未提起诉讼。ATP巡回赛认为没有“足够证据”支持她的指控，因此没有对他进行处罚。

在另一起由一位与兹维列夫育有孩子的前女友提起的案件中，他在德国达成和解，并未承认错误，而是向国库和非营利组织支付了200,000欧元（约合218,000美元）。

两年前在法网的一次新闻发布会上，兹维列夫说：“如果你最终是有罪的，他们不会撤销案件。就这样。我们继续前进。我再也不想听到关于这个话题的任何问题。”

一年后，他说他在网球场上感到孤独，且找不到答案。他在大满贯赛事中的成绩正朝着错误的方向发展。不久之后，他来到了纳达尔的训练学院，寻找他以及他的两位主教练（他的父亲和兄弟）似乎无法提供的答案。

阿尔卡拉斯和辛纳实在太强大了。他们赢得了2024年和2025年的所有大满贯冠军，并且在去年的三项赛事中，两人在决赛中争夺冠军。他们年轻。他们比兹维列夫、梅德韦杰夫和斯特法诺斯·西西帕斯更强，而这三位曾被视为这项运动继承者的核心人物如今正在没落。而且，阿尔卡拉斯和辛纳看起来在很长一段时间内都不会离开顶峰。兹维列夫无法解决他们。

但事实证明，他不需要解决。

在周日以 6-4, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-2 击败本·谢尔顿夺得美国公开赛冠军后，兹维列夫评估了自己目前在顶尖球员中的地位。

“现在，此时此刻，大概是的，”他说。“如果他们两个都健康且都处于巅峰状态？也许不是。”他补充道：“如果每个人都健康，我认为扬尼克更领先。”

不过，谢尔顿在经历了一个令人沮丧的下午后，对兹维列夫赞赏有加。在那场比赛中，他打了2小时18分钟才获得第一个破发点。

“他拥有网球界最好的发球，”通常拥有致命发球的谢尔顿在新闻发布会上评价兹维列夫时说道。“将这一点与他在发球之外作为一名网球运动员的优秀程度结合起来，你知道他是多么全面，他在网前的表现进步了很多。他是一名顶级的移动者。他身材高大，所以接发球非常好。底线表现稳健，而且也是巡回赛中体能最好的球员之一。”

在网球最顶级的赛事中获胜，通常取决于在关键时刻能打出一些惊人的正手、反手和发球。兹维列夫长期以来一直能做到这一点，尤其是他的发球，是比赛中最高效且致命的发球之一，以及他的反手，几乎永远不会崩溃。

但获胜还关乎于保持健康、坚持出战，并能够应对大满贯五盘三胜制给男选手的残酷考验。今年，兹维列夫比阿尔卡拉斯、辛纳和德约科维奇做得更多，也做得更好。

现在，他拥有两座大满贯奖杯作为证明。令人惊讶的是（尽管或许并不出人意料），兹维列夫在今年没有击败阿尔卡拉斯或辛纳的情况下，就成功拿到了这两座奖杯。

首先是阿尔卡拉斯，他在4月因手腕受伤而退赛，这导致他缺席了法网和温网。直到这次美网他才再次出赛，而在本届赛事最精彩的一场比赛中，谢尔顿在东部时间周三 3:33 将其击败。

至于辛纳，在法网期间，他屈服于巴黎一场历史性的春季热浪。当时距离直落两盘晋级第二轮仅差一局，他变得虚弱且无法移动，最终仅多赢了 1 局。德约科维奇则在次日落败。

兹维列夫设法生存了下来。在最热的日子里被分配到一场夜场比赛对他有所帮助。当兹维列夫进入决赛时，网对面是来自意大利、处于上升期但身体脆弱的世界排名第 14, 位的弗拉维奥·科博利。兹维列夫虽有波动，但最终挺了过来，在经历五盘大战后捧起了他的首座大满贯奖杯。

“如果你管我叫赢得大满贯的最差球员，我现在一点也不在乎，”他在那场决赛后说道。

一个月后的温网，辛纳在决赛中以四盘击败了他。不过，兹维列夫打出了职业生涯中一些最出色且最具侵略性的网球，给辛纳带来了巨大压力，让对方赢得十分艰辛。

一个月后，辛纳宣布他正在康复治疗膝伤，将缺席辛辛那提公开赛。两周后，他退出了美网。兹维列夫因此上升为头号种子。

如今成为 No. 2 种子的阿尔卡拉斯被安全地分在了签表的另一侧。兹维列夫直到决赛才需要面对他。但阿尔卡拉斯已经缺席了近五个月，即使对于这位 23 岁的七次大满贯冠军来说，进入决赛似乎也希望渺茫。事实上，在半夜与谢尔顿进行的一场近五小时的激战证明这确实太吃力了。

德约科维奇在第一轮就被淘汰了，他的身体状况下滑，在赛事的第一个夜晚以五盘落败。

与此同时，兹维列夫再次在一次大满贯签表中一路前行。过程并非总是那么流畅。在第一轮与意大利选手洛伦佐·索内戈的比赛中，他距离被淘汰仅差两分，那场比赛在 1:55 结束。在第二轮中，他再次经历了五盘大战，在 2:15 击败了法国选手昆廷·哈利斯。

他生存了下来。他再次让自己处于有利位置，在那些最顶尖球员在决赛周末前纷纷出局的签表中收拾残局。

值得称赞的是，兹维列夫听取了他在马略卡岛访问纳达尔学院时收到的建议。纳达尔及其叔叔托尼向他解释了纳达尔如何在 11 次交手中击败他 7 次，而兹维列夫此前基本横扫了所有其他左撇子球员。

如果他想在顶尖水平中保持竞争力，并有希望挑战阿尔卡拉斯和辛纳，他就必须做出同样的改变。他不能再打得那么被动，不能再通过底线拉锯等待完美的进攻机会或等待对手失误。

这项运动已经进入了“先发制人”式网球和在底线死角进行防守（包括反转局面）的时代。在上赛季末，兹维列夫对自己承诺，无论输赢，他都要这样打球，而且他很少背离这个计划。

这种转变旨在尝试与阿尔卡拉斯和辛纳竞争。结果却使得那些水平较低的球员更难像去年那样在重大赛事中将他淘汰。

这几乎让他能在温网击败辛纳。在周日对阵谢尔顿的比赛中，无论兹维列夫在每一分开始时退到基线后方多远，他都反复地向球场内推进。在某些回合中，这需要多次击球，兹维列夫在每次击球后向前跨出一大步以占据优势，并将对手进一步逼向后方。在很多次发球后，他坚定地站在基线附近，拒绝放弃阵地。

兹维列夫抓住了一个他的同行们未能把握的机会。

他适应了一个新时代。他变得更强了。他保持了健康。他坚持出战。在今年，这些就足够了。

分析

老少四分卫共施魔法

作者：迈克尔·西尔弗 (MICHAEL SILVER) 《竞技报》(The Athletic)

休斯顿 —— 当四分卫乔什·艾伦 (Josh Allen) 听到这个问题时，他不禁顺势而为。

为了描述他在周日赛季揭幕战中带领布法罗比尔队获胜的迷人表现，近端锋道森·诺克斯 (Dawson Knox) 使用了一个心理学词汇来总结那种专注、自由和魔力，这种状态甚至让艾伦的对手们也惊叹地摇头。

几分钟后，当我询问艾伦在以 36-31 击败休斯顿德州人队的最后阶段是否确实处于“心流”状态时，他露出了灿烂的笑容并大笑起来。

“是的，”他承认道，“那是一个很好的心流状态。我只是在感受这种流动，在牛背上骑行。然后一切都水到渠成了。”

这里提到的“牛”是指德州人队强大的防守，而这次“骑行”表现得极其辉煌，在比赛还剩 1 分 36 秒时，以一次大胆的 34 码达阵传球给很少被起用的接球手约书亚·帕尔默 (Joshua Palmer) 达到顶峰。

我上一次在赛后见到艾伦时，他正在哭泣，被又一次令人心碎的季后赛失利所刺痛。自那个情感剧烈的一月之夜以来，很多事情发生了变化，包括艾伦的教练，以及他的核心接球目标 —— 通过 3 月与芝加哥熊队的交易获得的 D. J. 摩尔 (D. J. Moore) —— 但他的使命依然没变：为比尔队及其狂热的球迷群体带来他们渴望已久的伦巴迪奖杯（在一次阻止了黑豹队的达阵推进，且尽管在自己阵地 21 码处的一次四档 1 码转换失败（但为另一次转换创造了机会）之后）。

卡罗琳·卡斯特 / 美联社 孟加拉虎队的乔·伯로우 (Joe Burrow) 表达了重返季后赛的希望。

威廉姆斯的动态表现是当天令人眼花缭乱的诸多进展中最值得关注的一项。

除了那些顶尖的美联赛 (A.F.C.) 四分卫，新一代球员冲击这一顶尖水平的迹象也开始显现。最明显的是，熊队第三年四分卫卡莱布·威廉姆斯 (Caleb Williams) 似乎准备成为他那个人才济济的选秀届（加入杰登·丹尼尔斯 (Jayden Daniels) 和德雷克·梅伊 (Drake Maye) 的行列）中，最新一位让人们心跳加速、心旌摇曳的球员。

在早场比赛中，新奥尔良圣徒队在客场发起猛烈反击，将底特律狮子队拖入加时赛，并且 —— 这几乎是对对方教练丹·坎贝尔 (Dan Campbell) 的致敬 —— 放弃了可能的平局，在最后时刻尝试 2 分转换，孤注一掷。最终狮子队以 31-30 获胜。

在去年一月的两场季后赛中，威廉姆斯贡献了 2025 年季后赛中最令人难忘的时刻。周日在北卡罗来纳州夏洛特市，他几乎在同样刚经历过季后赛的黑豹队身上砍下 60 分。尽管威廉姆斯的第一次传球被接球手卢瑟·伯登三世 (Luther Burden III) 掉球（导致——

随后，一位拉弗勒 (LaFleur)（亚利桑那红雀队的 rookie 教练迈克）带领他的球队以 26-14 爆冷击败了洛杉矶充电队，而另一位（其兄长马特，格林贝包装工队的第八年教练）则目睹了一个看似稳固的领先优势变成了被明尼苏达队 39-22 的惨败。

而在周日晚上，我们得到了第一个具体证据，证明“约翰·哈博 (John Harbaugh) 效应”是真实存在的，具体表现为大幅提升的纽约巨人队以 28-20 战胜了达拉斯牛仔队。

如果你在寻找一个能概括这种疯狂状态的单一片段，它就发生在比尔队获胜的最后两分钟里，这场比赛经历了九次领先易主。

比尔队四分卫乔什·艾伦说，在周日瓦解强大的德州人队防守时，他正“感受着心流，在牛背上骑行”。 蒂姆·沃纳 / 盖蒂图片社

在落后 31-30 的情况下，在两分钟警告时球在自家 32 码处，艾伦迅速将球传给近端锋道尔顿·金凯德，后者摆脱了角卫卡马里·拉西特试图进行的拦截，冲入对方后场，推进 35 码。两次进攻后，艾伦在被逼向左侧后，向帕尔默传出了一个偏差球——帕尔默当时顶替暂时受伤的摩尔出场，而摩尔此前曾凭借艾伦一次精彩的 43 码边线传球得分。球反而飞向了拉西特，后者在向端区后方倒地时险些将其拦截。

巨人队教练约翰·哈博在胜利击败牛仔队后笑容满面，因为他的球队看起来焕发了生机。 熊队的卡莱布·威廉姆斯证明了其教练关于创纪录得分进攻的预测，在一次胜利中带领球队砍下 59 分。

周日的胜利是一个充满希望的开始，这也是整个 N.F.L. 得分爆发的一部分，其中包括一场比赛（熊队以 59-37 击败卡罗来纳黑豹队）的总得分超过了过去八年中的任何一场。

渴望了数十年。

作为联盟 2024 年最有价值球员，艾伦在周日摧毁了休斯顿德州人队的防线，而该防线在赛季开始前被许多人誉为 N.F.L. 最强。拉马尔·杰克逊是一位两届最有价值球员，他像艾伦一样在面对新教练，但与艾伦不同的是他面对的是新进攻协调员；他在带领巴尔的摩乌鸦队在客场以 41-23 大胜印第安纳波利斯小马队时同样表现出色。尽管辛辛那提孟加拉虎队的四分卫乔·伯罗没有那么令人着迷，但他球队的新防线助力球队以 33-27 击败坦帕湾海盗队，并带来了球队有望结束连续三年无缘季后赛的希望。

这个疯狂的开幕周日得出的结论是，即使在西雅图海鹰队凭借强势防线赢得超级碗之后，这个联盟仍然围绕着那些明星四分卫运转，无论情况多么艰巨，他们都能给球队带来梦想的机会。

在获得另一次机会时，艾伦在第三次进攻且还差 11 码的情况下后撤，并投出了一球。根据德州人队的防守覆盖，他绝对、肯定是不可能传成这个球的。艾伦将球迅速传给了从左侧跑深后路路线的帕尔默，球精准地落在紧随其后的拉西特和正在逼近的安全卫卡伦·布洛克之间的一个狭小窗口中。

接球手哈利尔·沙基尔在晃过安全卫杰伦·皮特并接近首攻标记线时，完全预期能顺势接到球。沙基尔在谈到艾伦时说：“如果每个人都能放慢速度看看他在场上的表现，看他如何用眼神误导对方并传出那个球，毫无疑问他是联盟中最强的。”

随后，比尔队的 rookie 教练乔·布雷迪在前往球队巴士时——在从进攻协调员升任以取代被解雇的肖恩·麦克德莫特并通过首次考验后——他确认，根据原定战术，帕尔默并非预定的接球目标。

“那纯粹是一个出于对比赛热爱而跑的路线，”布雷迪说。“作为一名接球手，你通常跑那个路线是为了清理空间让别人接球。但面对乔什，你必须时刻准备着。”

德州人队的防守队员被艾伦的得分传球震惊了，尽管四年级四分卫 C. J. 斯特劳德随后带领休斯顿队距离获胜达阵仅剩 9 码，但格雷格·卢梭的第二次强行抢球擒杀

锁定了比尔队的胜利。

正如线卫阿齐兹·阿尔-沙伊尔在赛后很久对我说道，他一边摇头以示强调：“乔什·帕尔默在卡马里·拉西特面前接住一个深后路传球从而赢得比赛——这完全不在我的预料之中。”

这又是艾伦和比尔队的一个难忘时刻，他们将在周四晚上对阵狮子队的比赛中启用新球场。

如果布法罗的一切顺利，他将像周日那样让比赛顺其自然。

熊队教练在打造高得分进攻线方面并非开玩笑。

8月初，熊队教练本·约翰逊（Ben Johnson）在接受《The Athletic》采访时，毫不掩饰自己的雄心：“其他31支球队在参加训练营时都会说：‘我们的目标是赢得超级碗。’而我的目标不止于此。我想拥有史上得分最高的进攻线，目前这个纪录由2013年的丹佛野马队保持。我知道他们场均得分（37.9分），我想超越他们。”

约翰逊言出必行，而他的球队在周日也交出了答卷：在经历了一场总得分（96分）为NFL自2018年东道主洛杉矶公羊队与堪萨斯城队那场史诗级周一晚间对决以来最高的一场比赛后，熊队的得分进度现在已领先于由佩顿·曼宁（Peyton Manning）率领的野马队三个达阵。

在周日的胜利之后，约翰逊通过短信选择了一种极具反差的轻描淡写：“找到了方法——现在准备迎接下一场。”

这就像珍珠果酱乐队（Pearl Jam）的迈克·麦克雷迪（Mike McCready）在西雅图周三晚间西雅图海鹰队与新英格兰爱国者队的赛季揭幕战前演唱完国歌后说：“唱了几个音，现在准备演《Yellow Ledbetter》”一样。

熊队将于周日在士兵球场主场迎战明尼苏达维京人队，这将为极具创造力的约翰逊与维京人队极具侵略性且备受赞誉的防守协调员布莱恩·弗洛雷斯（Brian Flores）之间的一场战术对决拉开序幕，后者同样在赛季首秀中表现出色。请系好安全带，准备迎接这场较量。

在底特律的冒险精神正在影响狮队的对手。

处于劣势的圣徒队在底特律抹平了第三节落后21分的差距，并在常规赛最后一次进攻中获得了获胜机会（由丹尼尔·卡尔森尝试62码射门）。在狮队四分卫贾里德·戈夫（Jared Goff）在加时赛首次进攻中通过一次4码达阵传球给埃蒙-拉·圣布朗（Amon-Ra St. Brown）后，圣徒队再次发起反击。当二年级四分卫泰勒·肖（Tyler Shough）在加时赛还剩1分34秒时，通过一次8码得分传球给诺亚·范特（Noah Fant），将底特律队的领先优势缩小至31-30时，新奥尔良队教练凯伦·摩尔（Kellen Moore）进入了生死决战模式，尝试通过2分转换来赢得比赛。

在坎贝尔（Campbell）的主场，他别无选择。

“我认为你必须尝试，”戈夫随后在电话中告诉我，“我们也会这么做。”

肖传向右角、旨在传给新秀布莱斯·兰斯（Bryce Lance）的球落在了端区之外——但这并不意味着摩尔做错了决定。而且无论如何，目前0胜1负、在毫无亮点的NFC南区四队并列的圣徒队，在周日看起来像是一个分区冠军的竞争者。

我在周日看到的糟糕之举。

虽然我很想谈谈德尚·沃森（Deshaun Watson）在克利夫兰布朗队34-10输给杰克逊维尔美洲豹队时那毫无斗志的表现，但周日我看到的“最糟糕之举”的荣誉属于包装机队教练马特·拉弗勒（Matt LaFleur）。他的球队在第三节对阵维京人队时曾领先22-10，且由于明尼苏达队的新首发四分卫凯勒·马雷（Kyler Murray）因脑震荡被顶出比赛，包装机队面对的是替补四分卫卡森·温茨（Carson Wentz）。

随后一切崩盘。布莱恩·弗洛雷斯的防守线在第四节制造了两次抢断，明尼苏达队在16分钟内连续得分29分，最终以39-22获胜。

对于拉弗勒来说，这延续了一个令人不安的趋势。在过去的五场比赛中，他的球队已有三次在下半场领先两位数的情况下被分区对手反超，其中包括在常规赛和季后赛中惨败给熊队，这毁掉了格林贝的2025年希望。突然之间，周日客场对阵纽约喷气机队（在客场击败田纳西泰坦队及前喷气机队教练罗伯特·萨利后战绩为1-0）的比赛，对拉弗勒而言，其压力之大远超预期。

我能重新来一次吗？

如果周日我可以为一支球队重新设计一次战术指令，那一定是华盛顿指挥官队在 24-22 负于费城老鹰队的比赛中，在还剩 1:01 时尝试扳平比分的 2 分转换进攻。在成败在此一举的关键时刻，新任进攻协调员大卫·布劳（David Blough）试图耍聪明，设计了一个给近端锋约翰·贝茨（John Bates）的铲球传球。

结果是一场灾难：中锋尼克·阿莱格雷蒂（Nick Allegretti）被冲垮，老鹰队的防守端锋莫罗·奥乔莫（Moro Ojomo）在贝茨接住丹尼尔斯的传球时将其拦截，距离达阵线还很远。我虽不是战术设计天才，但把比赛交给指挥官队那对出色的接球手斯特芬·迪格斯（Stefon Diggs）和特里·麦克劳林（Terry McLaurin），显然会是个更好的主意。

两件我无法理解的事。

■ 为什么美国网球协会和 ESPN 会批准一套系统，让一场焦点战——本·谢尔顿（Ben Shelton）与卡洛斯·阿尔卡拉斯（Carlos Alcaraz）之间的五盘制四分之一决赛——在大多数美国人都在睡觉的时间段播出。出界！

■ 洛杉矶公羊队的运动科学家是如何说服 NFL 最聪明的教练之一肖恩·麦克维（Sean McVay），批准一项计划，让球队在周四晚上对阵旧金山 49 人队的比赛前 28 小时才完成前往澳大利亚的 16 小时飞行。而 49 人队在开球前 8 天就抵达，最终以 27-7 大胜。令人震惊的是，洛杉矶队在比赛进行过程中似乎体力逐渐耗尽。甚至在开球之前，一位资深的 NFL 助理就认为公羊队的计划是对过度依赖数据分析的一次潜在审判。

史上最强预测就这么没了。

洛杉矶闪电队教练吉姆·哈博（Jim Harbaugh）在宣传自己的四分卫时有着人类罕见的狂热，在最近的一次播客节目中，他正处于亢奋状态。

“让我像贝比·鲁斯用球棒指向中外野一样，预言一下结果，”哈博在《迈克尔·欧文的白宫》节目中说道，“当一切尘埃落定，贾斯汀·赫伯特（Justin Herbert）将被公认为历史上最伟大、最顶尖的四分卫。”

这场 NFL 版的海斯曼奖竞选在周日迎来了一个狼狈的开局。28 岁的赫伯特从未赢过一场季后赛，他在主场以 26-14 负于了由迈克·拉弗勒（Mike LaFleur）率领、并不被看好的亚利桑那红雀队以及流浪四分卫雅各比·布里塞特（Jacoby Brissett）。

或者，用现在赛季揭幕战战绩为 6-1 的哈博的话来说：这是史上最尴尬的揭幕日败仗。

MIKE MULHOLLAND / GETTY IMAGES

圣徒队的布赖斯·兰斯（Bryce Lance）在加时赛中未能接住一次 2 分传球，导致球队输给了狮子队。

篮球

世界或许在追赶，但美国队仍拥有那致命的一击

作者：安妮·科斯塔比尔 (ANNIE COSTABILE) 《竞技网》(The Athletic)

2026年德国国际篮联女子篮球世界杯 ODD ANDERSEN / 法新社 — 盖蒂图片社

周日，在以 97-79 获胜夺得世界杯冠军后，布里安娜·斯图尔特（Breanna Stewart）手持奖杯与美国队队友合影。左侧为被评为本届赛事最有价值球员（MVP）的斯图尔特与切尔西·格雷（Chelsea Gray）。

ANNEGRET HILSE / 路透社

美国队继续维持其在女子篮球领域最强国家的统治地位，周日在柏林以 97-79 强势击败法国队，夺得连续第五枚国际篮联（FIBA）世界杯金牌。

尽管此前有一种说法认为，面对一支在进入冠军赛前统治了整个赛事的、充满斗志的法国队，美国队可能终于遇到了对手，但美国队证明了其王朝依然稳固。

“外界有很多嘈杂的声音，”美国队队长切尔西·格雷在赛后接受 TNT 采访时表示，“我很确定我们让那些声音安静了下来。”

早在本月初赛事开球之前，关于美国队可能被爆冷的质疑就开始增加——尽管这支国家队自 2006 年以来在重大国际赛事中从未输过一场比赛。

篮球联合会正处于一个过渡时代——凯特琳·克拉克（Caitlin Clark）、佩奇·布克斯（Paige Bueckers）和安杰尔·里斯（Angel Reese）等年轻球星首次亮相世界杯——加上法国队的崛起迹象，足以让人对美国队的统治地位产生怀疑。

在最后时刻，过去三届重大赛事中美国队的头号得分手阿贾·威尔逊（A'ja Wilson）以及凯尔西·普拉姆（Kelsey Plum）因伤缺阵，使情况变得更加复杂。

但当 2024 年奥运会金牌赛的这场备受期待的重赛到来时，美国队再次证明了自己就是标杆。

“我们准备好了，”布里安娜·斯图尔特说道，这是她职业生涯第二次被评为世界杯最有价值球员。“从本届赛事开始，这就是一场我们显然一直想打的比赛。”

这场金牌赛以及整个赛事并不像过去某些届那样顺风顺水。随着全球篮球水平追赶上美国队的才华（世界杯名单中共有 51 名现役 WNBA 球员），美国队一直面临着挑战。

在周日对阵法国队的前 20 分钟里，“蓝色军团”（Les Bleues）确保美国队在球场的任何位置都能感受到她们的压力。

安妮·科斯塔比尔是《竞技网》的高级女子篮球记者。

在防守端，法国队强大的球权压迫和对传球路线的干扰，阻止了美国队建立起任何进攻节奏。在进攻端，她们在 3 分线外发动了毫不留情的猛攻。

第二节开局，法国队凭借一波 11-0 的进攻高潮领先 14 分——这是美国队自 2006 年半决赛负于俄罗斯队以来，在世界杯比赛中面临的最大分差。但美国队随即以一波 10-2 的反击予以回应，这次反击由斯图尔特在与杰基·扬（Jackie Young）的一次给球后跑位（give-and-go）后的短距离跳投发起，半场结束时美国队落后 2 分。

“我希望我能告诉你们教练说了些什么惊人之语，”美国队教练卡拉·劳森（Kara Lawson）在谈到半场讲话时说，“我们讨论的是一些失效的防守掩护。我们播放了一些给我们带来麻烦的战术录像。所以，这更多是战略性的，而非激励性的。”

斯图尔特透露的内容比劳森愿意说的更多，她分享道，教练告诉她们：“法国队可能会在前三节跟上我们的节奏，但等到第四节，我们将能够彻底击溃对方。”

实际情况并没有花那么长时间，美国队在休息时间后展现出了一种在前两节中缺失的凶猛气势。

法国队在进入周日金牌赛之前，场均胜分高达 35.6 分，但当美国队在第三节开局反客为主时，“蓝色军团”显得措手不及。

斯图尔特利用格雷的一次掩护成功切入篮下，以一个上篮将比分扳平，开启了下半场。在接下来的进攻中，纳菲莎·科利尔在杨的助攻下通过后门切入上篮，帮助美国队取得领先。在本节结束前，美国队取得了16分的领先优势，并在第四节将领先优势扩大到19分。

在进入决赛前，杨是美国队在本次赛事中的最高得分手，场均得分为11.2分。但斯图尔特在整个过程中一直是球队的稳定力量。她最终砍下全场最高的22分和10个篮板，夺得她的第四枚世界杯金牌，与苏·伯德并列为赛事历史上单人获得金牌数量最多的球员。

五名美国球员得分达到两位数。杨贡献了18分、6个篮板和5次助攻，而卡莉亚·库珀贡献了15分，格雷贡献12分，凯特琳·克拉克替补出场贡献12分。

“我以能够始终保持优秀而自豪，”斯图尔特说道，“这意味着在重大时刻、微小时刻以及两者之间的所有时刻都能发挥作用。这是一种自信，一种不切实际的

下半场对阵法国队的猛烈攻势带来了连续第五个世界冠军。

我对自己的自信，尤其是在那些重大时刻。”

虽然美国队在下半场占据进攻优势，但库珀、杨和莱恩·霍华德在防守端制造了混乱，帮助美国队夺得总共第12次世界杯冠军。霍华德最终完成了4次抢断，库珀完成了1次。

这三名球员的任务是限制法国队的最高得分手加比·威廉姆斯，她在周日比赛前场均得分为18.4分。威廉姆斯在第三节被限制得没有得分，直到第四节最后两分钟前才再次得分。她最终得到20分，而美国队将法国队的得分压制在本次赛事的最低水平。多米尼克·马隆加带领法国队获得21分和6个篮板。

劳森显著收紧了轮换，布克斯、索尼娅·西特龙和基基·伊里亚芬每人的出场时间均不足三分钟。克拉克、里斯和霍华德是球队年轻群体中出场时间最长的三名成员。

劳森表示，她相信年轻球员的学习经验将很好地转化为奥运会上的表现。

“在 USA Basketball 期间，你每天都在学习，”劳森说，“你在比赛时学习，不在比赛时也在学习。我看到他们很快就掌握了要领。他们拥有高智商，技术精湛，竞争意识强，并且非常渴望为球队做出贡献并帮助我们获胜。”

法国队的银牌是其协会历史上世界杯的最佳成绩，也是自1953年“蓝衣军团”获得铜牌以来的首枚奖牌。西班牙队阵容中拥有六名 W.N.B.A. 球员，在周日以 81-58 击败德国队，夺得铜牌。

下一届世界杯将于2030年在东京举行，时间窗口有所变动，定于11月26日至12月8日。赛程的变动意味着，随着联盟影响力的持续扩大，世界杯将不再与 W.N.B.A. 的赛程重叠。

高尔夫

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啤酒畅饮，《甜蜜的卡罗琳》轰鸣，欧洲队成功复仇

周日，在荷兰从美国队手中夺回索尔海姆杯（Solheim Cup）后，卡洛塔·西甘达（Carlota Ciganda，前）及其欧洲队队友合影。 MADDIE MEYER / GETTY IMAGES

作者：CAOIMHE O'NEILL 来自 The Athletic

荷兰，克龙沃特（CROMVOIRT）——卡洛塔·西甘达站在第18洞果岭上，她身上那件欧洲队的蓝色衬衫在被香槟浸染后，颜色变得深了几分。

“我才不想睡觉，我要疯掉，”她说。

这位西班牙人来自潘普洛纳，这座城市以奔牛节而闻名。整个周末，她都处于戏剧冲突的中心，她的火爆性格既让美国队感到反感，又带领着欧洲队前进。因此，由西甘达以 4 和 2 的比分击败一名新对手，拿下决定性的关键分，从而正式将索尔海姆杯带回欧洲，显得再合适不过。

“索尔海姆杯夫人，”在欧洲队以 15-13 战胜美国队后，内莉·科达（Nelly Korda）在祝贺西甘达时这样说道。

西甘达曾在 2023 年击出决定性的一球帮助欧洲队卫冕索尔海姆杯，她是八次参赛的老将，在单人赛中拥有 5-2-1 的战绩。在她与詹妮弗·库普乔（Jennifer Kupcho）的对决中，她已经确保拿到了至少半分，因此，真正不知不觉中击出夺杯关键球的是 L.P.G.A. 的新星洛蒂·沃德（Lottie Woad），当时她正在与奥斯顿·金（Auston Kim）进行比赛。

沃德的世界排名第 7。在头两天的四场比赛中，欧洲队队长安娜·诺德奎斯特（Anna Nordqvist）将她与排名第 8 的查理·赫尔（Charley Hull）配对。事实证明，这对全英国组合在整个周末都令人担忧，她们三次失利，仅获得半分。但赫尔赢得了周日单人赛的第一分，使欧洲队取得领先。随后，欧洲队的球星们全天火力全开。林恩·格兰特（Linn Grant，本届赛事战绩 4-0-0）、纳斯塔西娅·纳多（Nastasia Nadaud，3-1）、南娜·科斯特兹·马德森（Nanna Koerstz Madsen，以 3 和 2 胜安德里亚·李）以及朱莉娅·洛佩兹·拉米雷斯（Julia López Ramírez，以 3 和 2 胜叶莉米·诺）全部拿到了全分。

Caoimhe O'Neill 是 The Athletic 的体育记者。

“欧洲队势不可挡，美国队瑟瑟发抖！”沃德披着英国国旗，与同胞兼同样是新手的米米·罗兹（Mimi Rhodes）一起大喊。他们周围环绕着相机、庆祝的人群和沮丧的球员。美国队必须穿过欧洲队的狂欢人群，向对手表示祝贺；而欧洲队也暂停了他们畅饮啤酒的闹剧，以一种真正的风度接受了对方在失败时的礼貌。

随着尼尔·戴蒙德（Neil Diamond）的歌曲《甜蜜的卡罗琳》（Sweet Caroline）从 1 号发球台的扬声器中轰鸣而出，欧洲队员们回到了周五早晨狂欢开始的地方。他们与欢呼的球迷们再次团聚，在三天的时间里，球迷们为两支球队营造了一个令人难以置信且喧闹的场合。

这首在体育赛事中经常被当作赞歌的戴蒙德歌曲，据副队长梅尔·里德（Mel Reid）——或者说，她试图用已经沙哑的声音表达——帮助欧洲队摆脱了周六晚上的低落情绪。周六最后一场比赛，在还剩两个洞时，西甘达和塞琳·布蒂埃（Céline Boutier）领先 2 洞，但随后库普乔在第 17 洞完成了一个 92 英尺的长推，接着在 18 号洞完成了一个 29 英尺的长推，与林迪·邓肯（Lindy Duncan）一起赢得了全分，确保了第二天的比赛以 8-8 平局结束。

这两次推杆在距离和气势上都具有巨大的影响力。当最后一个球进洞时，库普乔对着西甘达的方向用手捂住耳朵，大喊一声“vamos”（西班牙语：加油 / 走起），这显然是在回应西甘达前一天在第 18 洞面对科达和劳伦·考夫林（Lauren Coughlin）时，通过一次勉强的救球拿到半分时所喊的话。

由于两队队长在互不知晓对方名单的情况下公布出场顺序，西甘达和库普乔在周日被随机配对。对于西甘达来说，这意味着一件事：复仇。

“看到我要对阵库普乔，我真的很高兴，”西甘达说。“她是个战士，我也是个战士。我告诉她：‘听着，打得不错。’我的意思是，即使是昨天她在 17 和 18. 号洞的表现也令人惊叹。但今天我知道她没有机会。我的想法是，我想杀了你。”

周六回到球队酒店时，让西冈达和欧洲队振作起来的还有一条信息，那是莱德杯传奇人物何塞·玛丽亚·奥拉萨巴尔发给西冈达的。此外，球队休息室的扬声器里还播放起了《Sweet Caroline》。

“我觉得这改变了氛围，让我们团结了起来，”里德说。“很奇怪，我们突然忘记了之前发生的一切，忘记了失望，重新投入其中。”

奥拉萨巴尔或许曾率领过“麦迪纳奇迹”——即欧洲男子队在2012年莱德杯中的逆转获胜——但欧洲女子队在周日并不需要这样的反击。她们需要的是勇气和激情，而西冈达的表现正是这种精神的最佳体现。

“我热爱这一周，”她说。“正如我所说，我热爱为团队、为我的队友以及这里的每一个人而战。”

她补充道：“我热爱击败美国人。而且，是的，能为欧洲队赢得胜利，这是最棒的感觉。”

当兴奋且英勇的欧洲队在1号发球台跳舞，等待约翰·索尔海姆颁发奖杯时（索尔海姆家族于1990年创立了这项赛事），美国队队长安吉拉·斯坦福将她的队员们聚集在18号果岭上合影。

“好消息是，她们可以在几年后回到肯塔基州，把局面挽回过来，”斯坦福说。

下一届索尔海姆杯将于2028年在路易斯维尔的瓦尔哈拉高尔夫俱乐部举行。届时，欧洲队将以在过去五届赛事中赢得四届的优势参赛。

随着身后爆发出蓝黄相间的烟雾，诺德奎斯特在家人面前举起了奖杯。她的家人专程从瑞典赶来，见证她近二十年职业生涯的巅峰时刻，期间她曾三次赢得大满贯冠军。就在这时，整天断断续续的雨，开始落在欧洲队的舞台上。

周六，斯坦福拎着一箱啤酒跑上了美国队的球队大巴。有些人怀疑她们庆祝得太早了。但在库普乔展现英勇表现后，斯坦福为自己的行为辩护道：“你不能抹杀那些时刻，”斯坦福说。“我们再也不会看到那样的事情了。”

或许确实如此，但在周日晚上，当欧洲球员们登上返回住所的大巴时，球队助手劳拉·戴维斯勋爵——她曾作为球员赢得四次索尔海姆杯，作为副队长赢得三次——带着一箱海尼根出现了。

“有人渴吗？”她大声喊道。

鲍勃·麦基逝世，享年87岁，他曾用闪耀的亮片装点星光

作者：佩内洛普·格林（PENELOPE GREEN）

2001年的鲍勃·麦基。《无可置疑的麦基》（1999年）一书的作者表示：“他为演艺圈里每一个爱穿亮片装的女性设计服装。” 理查德·德鲁 / 美联社

1974年的雪儿与麦基先生。在长期的合作期间，他因其为她设计的服装两度获得艾美奖。 罗恩·加莱拉 / WIREIMAGE

鲍勃·麦基（Bob Mackie）周一在加利福尼亚州棕榈泉逝世，享年87岁。他是一位热情洋溢的服装和时尚设计师，其作品以闪耀的珠饰、亮片、水钻、羽毛，且经常带有翅膀的设计而著称。他的作品装点、惊艳并提升了卡罗尔·伯内特、戴安娜·罗斯、蒂娜·特纳、伯纳黛特·彼得斯、贝特·米德勒、米齐·盖诺、丽莎·明内利、埃尔顿·约翰、鲁保罗，以及最令人难忘且持久的雪儿（Cher）等表演者的形象——此外还包括一个名为芭比的11.5英寸模特。

麦基先生的长期设计总监乔·麦法特（Joe McFate）确认，他是在一家医院去世的。

《无可置疑的麦基：鲍勃·麦基的时尚与幻想》（1999年）一书的作者弗兰克·德卡罗（Frank DeCaro）在一次采访中表示：“他为演艺圈里每一个爱穿亮片装的女性设计服装。你可以提到一些时尚界最顶尖的名字，但普通人可能无法想象，例如，一件乔治·阿玛尼（Giorgio Armani）的西装是什么样的。但如果你问一个特定年龄的美国人，‘什么是鲍勃·麦基？’，他们立刻就知道你在说什么。”

麦基先生在好莱坞起步，他大学辍学，为服装设计师让·路易（Jean Louis）和伊迪丝·海德（Edith Head）绘制草图，但真正让他成名的是电视。1967年，当卡罗尔·伯内特筹备她的综艺节目时，她选择了麦基先生来设计服装。当时他二十多岁——尽管伯内特女士经常说他看起来像12岁。在节目的11个季度中，他平均每周为伯内特女士、哈维·科曼、维基·劳伦斯、蒂姆·康威和莱尔·瓦格纳，以及节目的客串明星和辅助表演者创作60套服装。

当然，这些小品是喜剧瑰宝，伯内特女士表示，她经常通过麦基先生的设计来寻找角色的感觉。对于威金斯夫人——那个用伯内特女士的话说“智商仙女从未拜访过”的迟钝且漠不关心的秘书——他搭配了一顶冰金色的假发、一件聚拢胸罩和一条紧身黑裙，但这裙子对于伯内特女士瘦长的身材来说还不够紧。“把屁股再往里塞塞，”他指导她道，于是这个角色那扭捏的走路姿势就此诞生。

该节目以古灵精怪的电影恶搞而闻名。当节目演绎《乱世佳人》（被重新命名为《随风而逝》）中的一个场景时，女主角陷入困境，用窗帘做了一件裙子。麦基先生向道具部门要了一根窗帘杆，以便为饰演“星蕾·奥哈拉”的伯内特女士打造他自己的版本。（这是一个如此即时且不可抗拒的视觉笑点，以至于伯内特女士特意提前警告饰演“拉特·巴特勒”的科曼先生，以免他在舞台上失态。）

“那件礼服太美了，”拉特在小品中惊叹道。

“谢谢，”星蕾回答道，“我在橱窗里看到它，实在没能抵挡住诱惑。”

麦基先生的窗帘裙现在被收藏在华盛顿的史密森尼国家美国历史博物馆的永久馆藏中。

正如麦基先生喜欢说的那样，电视综艺节目是当时最接近电影音乐剧的形式，尤其是在20世纪70年代；它们是每晚的盛宴，将高光明星和夸张、华丽的时尚带入了美国人的客厅。

桑尼·博诺和雪儿已经脱离了他们的民谣根源，在拉斯维加斯演出时，CBS雇佣他们制作每周一次的节目。麦基先生看过他们的照片，正如他在2019年由《Vogue》杂志整理的设计师口述历史中所说：“他们有点像新时代的穴居人。他们穿着皮草背心、奇怪的裤子和腰带，整体造型在当时是前所未有的。”

他补充说，制片人们不知道该如何对待雪儿（Cher），但麦基先生知道。（他指出，她的身材就像伯内特女士一样，完美的6号尺寸，没有乳沟：简直就是一个人形衣架。）他们的合作始于1971年至1974年播出的《桑尼与雪儿喜剧时间》（The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour），这让电视观众感到欣喜，却让网络的审查员感到困惑，因为麦基先生在越来越古怪的装扮中，展露了雪儿越来越多非凡的体态。

麦基先生回忆起一名审查员曾抱怨一套服装露出了雪儿乳房的底部（行业术语称为“下乳”）。

“好吧，如果我们让她倒立，”他反驳道，“那这就变成了乳沟。”

后来，雪儿成为了第一个被允许在电视上露出肚脐的人。

“人们可以看节目，看到人们偷轮毂盖，然后他们就出去偷轮毂盖，”她告诉《电视指南》（TV Guide），“但我认为我的节目不会诱使任何人去偷肚脐。”

在评论其离婚后于1975-76年间运行了11个月的综艺节目《雪儿》（Cher）时，《新闻周刊》（Newsweek）宣称，这位表演者“成了节目真正主角的配角——一个酷、时髦且公认古怪的服装设计师，名叫鲍勃·麦基。自从NBC为利伯雷斯（Liberace）的衣橱制作特辑以来，电视上就再也没有出现过这么多闪光和华丽的东西了。”

天生具有少年感，总是端庄地穿着他的制服——纽扣衬衫和卡其裤，就像从拉夫劳伦（Ralph Lauren）的广告中走出来一样——看起来就像会对亮片过敏。

正如德卡罗先生所观察到的，“他为那个极度缺乏亮片的美国带来了魅力。”

罗伯特·戈登·麦基于1939年3月24日出生在加利福尼亚州的蒙特雷公园，位于洛杉矶市中心以东不远处。他喜欢说，那一年上映了《乱世佳人》、《女人》和《绿野仙踪》。

在这个过程中，麦基先生的名字成为了同性恋群体的基石。“对于像我和鲁保罗（RuPaul）那样坐在家里、寻找逃离单调环境之道的同性恋孩子来说，鲍勃·麦基就是那个入口，”德卡罗先生说。“他让女性看起来像变装皇后，但这是在最好的意义上。他是通往一个迷人、幽默且包容的闪光世界的窗户。对我来说，最极致的麦基时刻是第一场雪儿特辑在白色气球的海洋中结束，贝蒂·米德勒、埃尔顿·约翰、弗利普·威尔逊和雪儿全部身上挂满了镜面瓷砖，看起来就像活过来的华丽迪斯科球。”

他的父亲查尔斯·罗伯特·麦基在美洲银行工作，母亲米尔德里德·艾格尼丝（史密斯）·麦基是一名家庭主妇，两人在他年幼时离婚，他由祖母贝西·艾达·麦基在加利福尼亚州的阿尔罕布拉抚养长大。他回忆说，祖母的房子位于一条繁忙的公路上，周围没什么邻居，他经常一个人待着，感到孤独。他通过绘画来娱乐自己。

在麦基先生为其设计服装的明星中，从左起：多莉·帕顿、麦当娜和迈莉·赛勒斯。2019年，美国时装设计师协会授予他终身成就奖。

“我小时候是个古怪的孩子，”他在1990年告诉《Vogue》杂志。“但我一直很擅长用蜡笔画画。”

然而，麦基先生——

照片来源（从左起）：MEDIA PUNCH / ALAMY；RON GALELLA / RON GALELLA COLLECTION，经由GETTY IMAGES；KEVIN WINTER / GE

告别巡演。

他的母亲和姐姐会在周末来看望他，并带鲍勃去看电影——主要是那些令他着迷的彩色音乐剧。“我家里的样子不像那样，我想成为其中的一部分，”他说。他记得被《巴黎美国人》中的舞蹈片段深深吸引。当片尾字幕滚动时，他发现服装设计是一项职业。

他与演员玛丽安·尼科尔森（Marianne Nicholson，艺名为露露·波特）有过一段短暂的婚姻，两人在 20 世纪 60 年代初离婚。他们的儿子罗伯特·戈登·麦基二世（Robert Gordon Mackie Jr.）被称为罗宾，是一名化妆师，于 1993 年死于艾滋病。阿加扬先生于 2011 年去世。麦基先生的幸存亲属包括一名孙女和两名曾孙女。

麦基先生就读于帕萨迪纳城市学院，随后进入舒纳德艺术学院（Chouinard Art Institute，现为加州艺术学院的一部分），之后辍学从事电影工作，起初跟随弗雷德·汤普森，随后跟随路易斯先生和海德女士。（1962 年，玛丽莲·梦露在为约翰·F·肯尼迪总统演唱《生日快乐》时穿着的那件紧身礼服，是由麦基先生绘制草图并由路易斯先生制作的。）

20 世纪 80 年代初，麦基先生开始设计成衣。十年后，他为购物频道 QVC 创作了一系列服装和家居用品。尽管评论家们欣赏他那些电影女星风格服装的高度坎普（camp）特质以及时装秀的戏剧性，但他经常被嘲讽并非真正的时装设计师，尽管他的衣服制作精良，如同高级定制服装一般。

《纽约时报》的吉尼亚·贝拉凡特（Ginia Bellafante）写道：“让麦基先生接受严肃的时装评论，有点像要求艾达·路易丝·赫克斯塔布（Ada Louise Huxtable）去沉思马里布芭比的梦幻屋，”她再次——

1963 年，他被雷·阿加扬（Ray Aghayan）雇佣，后者是一位出生于伊拉克的设计师，当时正在为朱迪·嘉兰的电视综艺节目工作。两人成为了商业和情感伙伴，并于 1967 年凭借在电视电影《爱丽丝穿过镜子》（Alice Through the Looking Glass）中的工作，共同获得了首届服装设计类艾美奖，该片是一部视觉效果极其绚丽的作品。

两人曾凭借 1972 年由罗斯女士主演的比莉·哈利戴传记片《女士唱蓝调》（Lady Sings the Blues）以及 1975 年《欢乐女郎》（Funny Girl）的续集《幽默女士》（Funny Lady）获得奥斯卡奖提名。麦基先生还凭借 1981 年由史蒂夫·马丁和彼得斯女士主演的音乐电影《天堂便士》（Pennies From Heaven）独立获得提名。

他在 1999 年因在《雪儿：洛杉矶现场演唱会》（Cher: Live in Concert From Los Angeles）中为雪儿设计的服装而获得艾美奖，并在 2003 年再次获奖，凭借《雪儿：

无论是为雪儿还是芭比设计，半个多世纪以来，他一直用闪耀的装饰定义着美国时尚。

观看他 2002 年的时尚秀。

然而，麦基先生为那个娇小的玩偶设计感到自豪，他从 1982 年开始从事这项工作，为芭比创作的服装与他为人类缪斯雪儿设计的服装一样异域风情且大胆。1995 年推出的“太阳女神芭比”，其手工缝制的礼服上缀有 11,000 颗亮片。

“他们叫他‘巴纳姆·鲍勃’、‘水钻之王’和‘亮片谢赫’，”麦法特先生说。“他们认为他是个好莱坞式的人物。这让他很难在第七大道站稳脚跟。”

2001 年，美国时尚设计师协会授予麦基先生“时尚热情奖”。2019 年，他获得了该组织的终身成就奖。同年，他凭借百老汇音乐剧《雪儿秀》（The Cher Show）的服装设计赢得了托尼奖，这部剧是对这位表演者及其风格的眩晕且欢快的赞歌。

正如他告诉《Vogue》的那样：“很长一段时间里，大家都认为我只会设计雪儿的裙子，你知道的，就是那种露肚子、露出她半个什么的裙子。”

他补充道：“我一直祈祷生命中能有人给我一部精美的 19 世纪电影，或者一部优秀的 20 世纪 30 年代大萧条时期的电影。”

埃利斯（ELLIS）——大卫·詹姆斯（David James）。 1943 年 3 月 6 日 - 2026 年 9 月 10 日。葬礼：2026 年 9 月 18 日，星期五，上午 9 点，Redden's 殡仪馆，西 14 街 325 号。捐款请至：美国自然历史博物馆（AMNH）。

费恩桑（FEINSAND）——霍华德·里昂（Howard Leon），78 岁，律师、企业高管、公民领袖及慈善家，于 2026 年 9 月 12 日去世。霍华德是纽约本地人，毕业于天普大学和圣约翰大学法学院。在纽约执业后，他曾在北美 Citicorp 和通用电气资本航空服务公司（GE Capital Aviation Services）担任高级职务，随后加入 Duke Realty，担任执行副总裁、总法律顾问兼公司秘书。1999 年移居亚特兰大后，霍华德成为了该市公民、艺术和犹太社区的忠实领袖。他曾担任联盟剧院（Alliance Theatre）主席、伍德罗夫艺术中心（Woodruff Arts Center）副主席、大亚特兰大犹太联合会主席以及标准俱乐部（The Standard Club）总裁。霍华德极其聪明、慷慨且端庄，拥有标志性的冷幽默。最重要的是，他是最正直的人。他的父母艾伯·费恩桑（Abe Feinsand）和安妮特·费恩桑（Annette Feinsand）先于他去世。霍华德留下了他深爱的妻子艾伦（Ellen）；儿子马克·费恩桑（Mark Feinsand）及其妻子迪娜（Dena）；孙子扎克（Zack）和瑞安（Ryan）；继女温迪·科恩（Wendi Cohen）；

格赖尔海默（GREILSHEIMER）- 威廉·H.（William H.），

来自纽约州纽约市，于 2026 年 9 月 11 日以 84 岁高龄去世。他的遗属包括妻子卡罗尔（Carol），子女德博拉（Deborah）和杰弗里（Jeffrey）以及儿媳伊丽莎白（Elizabeth），孙子女丹尼尔（Daniel）和艾莉森（Allison），以及兄弟詹姆斯（James）和嫂子路易丝（Louise）。捐款请至达特茅斯学院或纪念斯隆-凯特林癌症中心。

讣告

讣告

RAYNOR—Sylvia，

现居纽约州罗斯林和佛罗里达州博卡拉顿，于2026年9月9日逝世，享年97岁。1929年出生于布鲁克林，父母为来自俄罗斯的移民鲁斯·施瓦茨（Ruth Schwartz）和亚伯拉罕·施瓦茨（Abraham Schwartz），她毕业于布鲁克林学院并获得学士学位。她的挚爱丈夫霍华德（Howard）及其兄长菲尔·施瓦茨（Phil Schwartz）先于她逝世。她是女儿朱莉·雷诺（Julie Raynor）、辛迪·舍恩费尔德（Cindy Schoenfeld）和劳里·魏斯（Laurie Weiss）深爱的母亲；也是马克·亨德森（Mark Henderson）和史蒂夫·魏斯（Steve Weiss）亲爱的婆婆 / 岳母。她是杰西卡和马特·亨特（Jessica and Matt Hunter）、安德鲁·格罗斯和艾米莉·鲍尔（Andrew Gross and Emily Ball）、艾米和乔纳森·莱文（Amy and Jonathan Levin）、艾莉丝和亚历克斯·莫耶（Elyse and Alex Moyer）、吉尔·舍恩费尔德（Jill Schoenfeld）、扎卡里和萨曼莎·魏斯（Zachary and Samantha ）、霍华德和艾伦·魏斯（Howard and Ellen ）以及瑞秋·魏斯（Rachel ）倍加珍惜的祖母。她是奥利（Orli）、利奥（Leo）、埃丽卡（Erika）、本（Ben）、露西（Lucy）、凯莉（Callie）、布莱克（Blake）、JJ、卢克（Luke）、艾莉（Ellie）、埃米特（Emmett）和卡辛（Cassin）挚爱的曾祖母。西尔维亚以她的慈爱、持久的乐观以及对我们每个人生活的真诚关注激励着我们所有人。她曾协助詹姆斯·霍华德（James Howard）经营他们的美容用品公司——Cameo美容用品公司（Cameo Beauty Supply Co.），是一位出色的教师。她从未错过任何一次美发预约。西尔维亚关注世界，每晚都会从头到尾阅读《纽约时报》。捐款可发送至达纳-法伯吉米基金（Dana Farber Jimmy Fund，Team JJ 团队）或反诽谤联盟（ADL）。

逝世

RICAMONTE—Adoracion，享年93岁，于2026年9月10日在纽约市逝世。出生于菲律宾；远东大学医学院医学博士。丈夫比恩维尼多（Bienvenido）先于她逝世。遗属包括儿子理查德（Richard）、儿媳叶莲娜（Yelena）以及孙子凯尔（Cale）和杰登（Jadon）。遗体瞻仰时间为2026年9月17日下午5点至晚上9点，地点在布鲁克林的Aievoli殡仪馆。私人葬礼。

TAUB—Abner Farrer。

ROSS—Mimi。

（Mimi Rosenblatt）。1935年10月14日 - 2026年9月6日。尽职的女儿、姐妹、妻子、母亲、姑姑 / 姨妈、嫂子 / 弟媳、朋友，出版业高管。正如她常说的那样，她在布朗克斯靠近“洋基体育场”的地方长大。她与挚爱的丈夫本（Ben）在布鲁克林生活了大部分时间。她是乔斯林·马斯科（Jocelyn Maskow）深爱的母亲。她始终优雅，在任何聚会中总是第一个笑起来的人，并且仍然认为尼克松本该那样做。葬礼于2026年9月8日在新泽西州的河滨公墓（Riverside Cemetery）举行。她是许多人的朋友，将被人们深深怀念。捐款：Ansche Chesed会堂或卡罗尔公园之友（布鲁克林）。

SALITAN—Adele，原姓Wechsler。

于2026年9月12日逝世，享年12岁。迈克尔（David）、劳里（Marc）、詹姆斯、戴安（Michael）挚爱的母亲。艾米莉（Emily）、盖布（Gabe）、安娜（Ana）、诺拉（Nora）、莫莉（Molly）、内特（Nate）倍加珍惜的祖母。奥斯卡（Oscar）和爱丽丝（Alice）深爱的曾祖母。尼尔（Neil）亲爱的姑姑 / 姨妈。马克（Mark，与其结婚60年）、父母埃娃（Eva）和内森（Nathan）以及兄长彼得（Peter）先于她逝世。她在教会中服务。在作为教师、房地产经纪人和犹太非营利组织从业者获得成功后，阿黛尔在75岁时重返教学岗位。90岁退休。

逝世

新罕布什尔州纳舒厄的Abner Farrer Taub于2026年9月12日逝世，享年78岁。他于1947年11月16日出生在新泽西州纽布朗斯威克，父母为杰罗姆·陶布（Jerome Taub）和丽塔·罗金（Rita Rogin，原姓Farrer）。高中毕业后，他在以色列的一个基布兹（kibbutz）工作了一年。他在罗格斯大学学习艺术史。在此期间，他还在纽约市开出租车，并协助驾驶船只穿越五大湖。随后他前往比利时，在布鲁塞尔自由大学获得医学学位的同时精通法语。他遇到了他的妻子莉莉安（Liliane），她是他的医学院同学，两人于1977年在布鲁塞尔和纽约举行了两场婚礼。他与莉莉安在罗切斯特大学完成了儿科住院医师培训，他们是该校首对以住院医师身份共享工作的夫妇。1981年，他们搬到缅因州的福特肯特，开始在该小镇担任首批儿科医生。随后他们在1988年搬到新罕布什尔州的纳舒厄，在那里

讣告

SCHILDHAUSE—Sol. (9 / 5 / 1917 - 9 / 15 / 2006) 布朗克斯之子，通信行业先驱，手球冠军，深受爱戴且令人深切怀念的父亲。

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纽约时报

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气压< / td><>湿度< / >< / tr><><>最高 ...... 30.10 中午< / ><>最高 ...... 90% 1 a.m.< / >< / ><><>最低 ...... 29.88 1 a.m.< / ><>最低 ...... 45% 中午< / >< / table>

天气预报

重点：热浪在本周晚些时候将席卷美国大部分地区

预计本周晚些时候，覆盖美国南部的巨大热穹将扩展至中西部和东北部部分地区。南部地区将继续维持高温高湿状态，最高气温将比平均水平高出数度。温暖的夜间低温将增加中暑等相关疾病的风险。热浪将在周三向北和向东进一步移动，覆盖俄亥俄州和宾夕法尼亚州大部分地区的 80 号州际公路走廊。

城市天气

以下为昨日东部时间下午 4 点止 16 小时内的最高 / 最低气温及降水量（单位：英寸），以及今日和明日的预计天气情况。

C....多云< / td><>S....晴< / >< / tr><><>F....雾< / ><>Sn....雪< / >< / ><><>H....霾< / ><>SS....阵雪< / >< / ><><>I....冰< / ><>T....雷阵雨< / >< / ><><>PC....局部多云< / ><>....微量< / >< / ><><>R....雨< / ><>W....大风< / >< / ><><>Sh....阵雨< / ><>-....不可用< / >< / table>

<><>纽约市地区< / ><>昨日< / ><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>纽约市< / ><>75 / 68 0< / ><>72 / 62 S< / ><>79 / 67 S< / >< / ><><>布里奇波特< / ><>72 / 67 0< / ><>70 / 58 S< / ><>76 / 66 S< / >< / ><><>考德威尔< / ><>72 / 67 0< / ><>73 / 55 S< / ><>81 / 64 S< / >< / ><><>丹伯里< / ><>69 / 62 0< / ><>69 / 51 PC< / ><>78 / 61 S< / >< / ><><>伊斯利普< / ><>73 / 68 0< / ><>71 / 58 S< / ><>76 / 65 S< / >< / ><><>纽瓦克< / ><>75 / 70 0< / ><>75 / 60 S< / ><>83 / 67 S< / >< / ><><>特伦顿< / ><>74 / 68 0< / ><>74 / 54 S< / ><>81 / 62 S< / >< / ><><>怀特普莱恩斯< / ><>72 / 66 0< / ><>69 / 56 S< / ><>78 / 65 S< / >< / table>

<><>美国其他城市< / ><>昨日< / ><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>奥尔巴尼< / ><>71 / 44 0< / ><>70 / 55 < / ><>75 / 62℃< / >< / ><><>阿尔伯克基< / ><>88 / 65 0.28< / ><>86 / 64 T< / ><>83 / 65 T< / >< / ><><>安克雷奇< / ><>59 / 51 0< / ><>57 / 51 R< / ><>62 / 47 < / >< / ><><>亚特兰大< / ><>96 / 74 0< / ><>90 / 71 < / ><>89 / 68 S< / >< / ><><>大西洋城< / ><>80 / 60 0< / ><>73 / 59 < / ><>77 / 67 S< / >< / ><><>奥斯汀< / ><>100 / 78 0< / ><>101 / 76 < / ><>99 / 75 T< / >< / ><><>巴尔的摩< / ><>81 / 55 0< / ><>77 / 58 < / ><>82 / 64 S< / >< / ><><>巴吞鲁日< / ><>94 / 75 0.05< / ><>95 / 75 T< / ><>92 / 72 T< / >< / ><><>伯明翰< / ><>97 / 72 0< / ><>97 / 74 < / ><>93 / 69 S< / >< / ><><>博伊西< / ><>70 / 47 0< / ><>78 / 48 < / ><>81 / 56 S< / >< / ><><>波士顿< / ><>75 / 54 0< / ><>67 / 56 < / ><>77 / 64 S< / >< / ><><>布法罗< / ><>68 / 50 0< / ><>78 / 65 < / ><>75 / 64℃< / >< / ><><>伯灵顿< / ><>66 / 45 0< / ><>69 / 60 < / ><>76 / 59℃< / >< / ><><>卡斯珀< / ><>78 / 39 0< / ><>73 / 53 < / ><>81 / 46 < / >< / ><><>夏洛特< / ><>94 / 70 0< / ><>85 / 65 < / ><>88 / 62 S< / >< / ><><>查塔努加< / ><>96 / 70 0< / ><>95 / 71 S< / ><>92 / 71 S< / >< / ><><>芝加哥< / ><>75 / 66 0< / ><>82 / 66 T< / ><>72 / 68 T< / >< / ><><>辛辛那提< / ><>78 / 58 0< / ><>91 / 71 S< / ><>91 / 71 < / >< / ><><>克利夫兰< / ><>68 / 54 0< / ><>83 / 68 < / ><>81 / 69 T< / >< / ><><>科罗拉多斯普林斯< / ><>86 / 58 0.05< / ><>73 / 51 T< / ><>80 / 57 T< / >< / ><><>哥伦布< / ><>75 / 55 0< / ><>86 / 69 < / ><>87 / 70 T< / >< / ><><>康科德（新罕布什尔州）< / ><>72 / 41 0< / ><>71 / 48 < / ><>80 / 57 < / >< / ><><>达拉斯-沃斯堡< / ><>100 / 79 0< / ><>101 / 80 S< / ><>98 / 78 S< / >< / ><><>丹佛< / ><>88 / 53 0.05< / ><>74 / 56 T< / ><>83 / 61 T< / >< / ><><>德梅因< / ><>80 / 68 0.32< / ><>72 / 60 T< / ><>68 / 64 T< / >< / ><><>底特律< / ><>71 / 57 0< / ><>82 / 68 T< / ><>74 / 62 < / >< / ><><>埃尔帕索< / ><>95 / 71 0.04< / ><>94 / 71 T< / ><>92 / 69 T< / >< / ><><>法戈< / ><>65 / 52 1.15< / ><>72 / 47 < / ><>70 / 52 Sh< / >< / ><><>哈特福德< / ><>74 / 46 0< / ><>72 / 53 < / ><>79 / 61 S< / >< / ><><>檀香山< / ><>88 / 75 0.01< / ><>90 / 78 Sh< / ><>89 / 78 Sh< / >< / ><><>休斯顿< / ><>94 / 76 0.28< / ><>96 / 75 T< / ><>93 / 76 T< / >< / ><><>印第安纳波利斯< / ><>77 / 61 0< / ><>93 / 71 T< / ><>89 / 72 T< / >< / ><><>杰克逊< / ><>96 / 73

0< / td> 98 / 73 T< / ><>95 / 70 S< / >< / tr> <>杰克逊维尔< / ><>91 / 73 0.20< / ><>88 / 73 T< / ><>88 / 72 W< / >< / ><><>堪萨斯城< / ><>91 / 75 0< / ><>87 / 67 T< / ><>88 / 72 T< / >< / ><><>基韦斯特< / ><>88 / 82 1.02< / ><>90 / 83 T< / ><>90 / 81 T< / >< / ><><>拉斯维加斯< / ><>101 / 76 0< / ><>100 / 77 S< / ><>97 / 73 S< / >< / ><><>列克星敦< / ><>81 / 59 0< / ><>93 / 72 S< / ><>95 / 71 PC< / >< / table>

<><>小岩城< / ><>98 / 75 0< / >< / ><><>洛杉矶< / ><>85 / 68 0< / >< / ><><>路易维尔< / ><>83 / 64 0< / >< / ><><>孟菲斯< / ><>97 / 78 0< / >< / ><><>迈阿密< / ><>88 / 80 0.26< / >< / ><><>密尔沃基< / ><>70 / 63 0.02< / >< / ><><>明尼阿波利斯-圣保罗< / ><>64 / 59 0.73< / >< / ><><>纳什维尔< / ><>93 / 71 0< / >< / ><><>新奥尔良< / ><>93 / 76 0.23< / >< / ><><>诺福克< / ><>82 / 68 0< / >< / ><><>俄克拉荷马城< / ><>100 / 75 0< / >< / ><><>奥马哈< / ><>86 / 64 0.57< / >< / ><><>奥兰多< / ><>93 / 76 0.50< / >< / ><><>费城< / ><>79 / 58 0< / >< / ><><>凤凰城< / ><>102 / 80 0.04< / >< / ><><>匹兹堡< / ><>71 / 50 0< / >< / ><><>波特兰（缅因州）< / ><>71 / 46 0< / >< / ><><>波特兰（俄勒冈州）< / ><>69 / 54 0< / >< / ><><>普罗维登斯< / ><>77 / 51 0< / >< / ><><>罗利< / ><>91 / 62

0< / >< / ><><>里诺< / ><>78 / 47 0< / >< / ><><>里士满< / ><>85 / 57 0< / >< / ><><>罗切斯特< / ><>67 / 46 0< / >< / ><><>萨克拉门托< / ><>90 / 56 0< / >< / ><><>盐湖城< / ><>73 / 54 0< / >< / ><><>圣安东尼奥< / ><>99 / 78 0< / >< / ><><>圣迭戈< / ><>78 / 68 0< / >< / ><><>旧金山< / ><>74 / 58 0< / >< / ><><>圣何塞< / ><>84 / 57 0< / >< / ><><>圣胡安< / ><>88 / 79 0.15< / >< / ><><>西雅图< / ><>67 / 54 0.01< / >< / ><><>苏福尔斯< / ><>74 / 54 0.28< / >< / ><><>斯波坎< / ><>64 / 48 < / >< / ><><>圣路易斯< / ><>88 / 74 0< / >< / ><><>圣托马斯< / ><>90 / 82 0.12< / >< / ><><>雪城< / ><>69 / 47 0< / >< / ><><>坦帕< / ><>92 / 77 0.23< / >< / ><><>托莱多< / ><>72 / 53 0< / >< / ><><>图森< / ><>91 / 75 0.10< / >< / ><><>塔尔萨< / ><>98 / 80 0< / >< / ><><>弗吉尼亚 海滩< / ><>84 / 67 0< / >< / ><><>华盛顿< / ><>83 / 60 0< / >< / ><><>威奇托< / ><>98 / 75 0< / >< / ><><>威尔明顿（特拉华州）< / ><>80 / 52 0< / >< / table>

<><>98 / 77 S< / ><>99 / 76 T< / >< / ><><>83 / 67 PC< / ><>81 / 68 < / >< / ><><>96 / 76 S< / ><>97 / 75 < / >< / ><><>98 / 79 S< / ><>99 / 77 S< / >< / ><><>91 / 79 Sn< / ><>89 / 77 T< / >< / ><><>77 / 63 T< / ><>68 / 65 T< / >< / ><><>72 / 54℃< / ><>72 / 60 Sh< / >< / ><><>98 / 76 S< / ><>97 / 73 S< / >< / ><><>94 / 80 T< / ><>88 / 79 T< / >< / ><><>79 / 67 < / ><>80 / 67 S< / >< / ><><>101 / 75 S< / ><>98 / 74 S< / >< / ><><>73 / 60 T< / ><>70 / 65 T< / >< / ><><>89 / 76 T< / ><>89 / 74 < / >< / ><><>78 / 60 < / ><>83 / 66 S< / >< / ><><>99 / 80 T< / ><>96 / 80 T< / >< / ><><>81 / 62 S< / ><>85 / 67 T< / >< / ><><>68 / 52 < / ><>74 / 57 < / >< / ><><>66 / 53 < / ><>82 / 55 S< / >< / ><><>71 / 52 S< / ><>77 / 61 S< / >< / ><><>83 / 59 S< / ><>86 / 61 S< / >< / ><><>85 / 49 S< / ><>83 / 52 S< / >< / ><><>80 / 58

PC< / td> 84 / 60 S< / >< / tr> <>76 / 64 PC< / ><>75 / 65℃< / >< / ><><>89 / 56 S< / ><>81 / 56 S< / >< / ><><>82 / 69 S< / ><>89 / 66 < / >< / ><><>101 / 79 < / ><>97 / 78 T< / >< / ><><>78 / 69 < / ><>78 / 68 < / >< / ><><>72 / 59 < / ><>70 / 58 < / >< / ><><>81 / 58 < / ><>77 / 56 < / >< / ><><>89 / 79 Sn< / ><>91 / 78 Sh< / >< / ><><>64 / 51 < / ><>75 / 52 S< / >< / ><><>73 / 51℃< / ><>66 / 58 Sh< / >< / ><><>65 / 47 < / ><>73 / 49 S< / >< / ><><>99 / 75 T< / ><>96 / 77 T< / >< / ><><>91 / 82 T< / ><>90 / 82 T< / >< / ><><>75 / 60 < / ><>76 / 64℃< / >< / ><><>93 / 77 T< / ><>91 / 75 < / >< / ><><>86 / 68 T< / ><>79 / 68 T< / >< / ><><>93 / 76 T< / ><>91 / 73 T< / >< / ><><>100 / 79 S< / ><>99 / 76 S< / >< / ><><>79 / 68 < / ><>78 / 66 S< / >< / ><><>79 / 62 < / ><>84 / 65 S< / >< / ><><>99 / 71 T< / ><>96 / 71

< / >< / ><><>77 / 56 < / ><>82 / 63 S< / >< / table>

<><>非洲< / ><>昨日< / >< / ><><>阿尔及尔< / ><>87 / 62 0< / >< / ><><>开罗< / ><>99 / 73 0< / >< / ><><>开普敦< / ><>64 / 57 0.41< / >< / ><><>达喀尔< / ><>88 / 79 0.03< / >< / ><><>约翰内斯堡< / ><>74 / 54 0.04< / >< / ><><>内罗比< / ><>80 / 59 0< / >< / ><><>突尼斯< / ><>90 / 71 0< / >< / table>

<><>亚太地区< / ><>昨日< / >< / ><><>巴格达< / ><>112 / 82 0< / >< / ><><>曼谷< / ><>90 / 77 0.14< / >< / ><><>北京< / ><>82 / 57 0< / >< / ><><>大马士革< / ><>99 / 62 0< / >< / ><><>香港< / ><>89 / 79 0.29< / >< / ><><>雅加达< / ><>96 / 77 0< / >< / ><><>耶路撒冷< / ><>88 / 67 0< / >< / ><><>卡拉奇< / ><>102 / 82 0< / >< / ><><>马尼拉< / ><>90 / 79 0.02< / >< / ><><>孟买< / ><>86 / 77 0.04< / >< / table>

<><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>85 / 61 < / ><>84 / 62 < / >< / ><><>97 / 74 < / ><>97 / 78 < / >< / ><><>64 / 54 R< / ><>66 / 51 < / >< / ><><>90 / 81 T< / ><>91 / 81℃< / >< / ><><>73 / 49 < / ><>79 / 55 < / >< / ><><>77 / 60℃< / ><>74 / 59 Sh< / >< / ><><>87 / 69 S< / ><>88 / 71 S< / >< / table>

<><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>109 / 78 S< / ><>108 / 77 S< / >< / ><><>90 / 78 R< / ><>93 / 79 R< / >< / ><><>85 / 61 S< / ><>89 / 63 S< / >< / ><><>98 / 64 S< / ><>99 / 62 S< / >< / ><><>90 / 80 R< / ><>90 / 80 < / >< / ><><>93 / 75 < / ><>92 / 76 < / >< / ><><>88 / 67 S< / ><>90 / 67 S< / >< / ><><>94 / 81℃< / ><>93 / 80℃< / >< / ><><>92 / 78 T< / ><>92 / 78 T< / >< / ><><>90 / 80 R< / ><>89 / 80 Sh< / >< / table>

全国天气预报

雷阵雨今日将从密歇根州和俄亥俄州延伸至亚利桑那州和新墨西哥州。部分雷阵雨强度较大，可能伴有阵风、小冰雹和山洪。在强降雨反复出现的艾奥瓦州部分地区，山洪风险最高。

除墨西哥湾沿岸下午的雷阵雨外，美国其余地区可能无雨。

高温将维持在国家的南部和中部地区。气温比平均水平高 5-15 度的区域将从德克萨斯州延伸至肯塔基州。东海岸大部分地区天气凉爽，湿度较低。从加利福尼亚州到蒙大拿州和怀俄明州，气温将接近或略低于平均水平。

西南部和落基山脉地区天空将以晴为主。

新德里< / td><>96 / 79< / ><>0.20< / ><>88 / 77 T< / ><>90 / 77 T< / >< / tr><><>利雅得< / ><>111 / 83< / ><>0< / ><>109 / 81 PC< / ><>106 / 77 PC< / >< / ><><>首尔< / ><>81 / 61< / ><>0< / ><>81 / 56 S< / ><>85 / 62 S< / >< / ><><>上海< / ><>86 / 73< / ><>0< / ><>84 / 70 < / ><>84 / 71 < / >< / ><><>新加坡< / ><>91 / 81< / ><>0< / ><>92 / 80 Sh< / ><>92 / 79 < / >< / ><><>悉尼< / ><>83 / 56< / ><>0< / ><>75 / 54 S< / ><>61 / 50 W< / >< / ><><>台北市< / ><>85 / 76< / ><>0.24< / ><>83 / 75 T< / ><>84 / 75 Sh< / >< / ><><>德黑兰< / ><>91 / 73< / ><>0< / ><>93 / 72 < / ><>95 / 74 < / >< / ><><>东京< / ><>86 / 75< / ><>0.03< / ><>81 / 71 T< / ><>73 / 68 R< / >< / ><><>欧洲< / ><

colspan="2">昨日< / ><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>阿姆斯特丹< / ><>72 / 55< / ><>0.12< / ><>74 / 55℃< / ><>65 / 53 Sh< / >< / ><><>雅典< / ><>86 / 70< / ><>0< / ><>81 / 68 < / ><>77 / 70 W< / >< / ><><>柏林< / ><>66 / 59< / ><>0< / ><>76 / 61 < / ><>67 / 52 T< / >< / ><><>布鲁塞尔< / ><>73 / 64< / ><>0.38< / ><>82 / 56 < / ><>65 / 52 S< / >< / ><><>布达佩斯< / ><>70 / 61< / ><>0.09< / ><>77 / 50 < / ><>81 / 52 S< / >< / ><><>哥本哈根< / ><>63 / 48< / ><>0< / ><>66 / 58℃< / ><>66 / 52℃< / >< / ><><>都柏林< / >< colspan="2">75 / 57 < / ><>64 / 51 Sh< / ><>61 / 51℃< / >< / ><><>爱丁堡< / ><>70 / 55< / ><>0< / ><>64 / 48 Sh< / ><>63 / 50 < / >< / ><><>法兰克福< / ><>77 / 59< / ><>0.25< / ><>82 / 61℃< / ><>71 / 50 < / >< / ><><>日内瓦< / ><>81 / 55< / ><>0< / ><>84 / 58 S< / ><>72 / 49

Sh< / >< / ><><>赫尔辛基< / ><>63 / 43< / ><>0< / ><>61 / 51℃< / ><>61 / 54 Sh< / >< / ><><>伊斯坦布尔< / ><>77 / 64< / ><>0< / ><>78 / 65℃< / ><>74 / 63℃< / >< / ><><>基辅< / ><>68 / 47< / ><>0< / ><>69 / 53 < / ><>72 / 54 S< / >< / ><><>里斯本< / ><>93 / 68< / ><>0< / ><>82 / 64 S< / ><>78 / 63 < / >< / ><><>伦敦< / ><>77 / 64< / ><>0< / ><>72 / 52 Sh< / ><>68 / 55 < / >< / ><><>马德里< / ><>95 / 59< / ><>0< / ><>98 / 64 S< / ><>86 / 55 S< / >< / ><><>莫斯科< / ><>66 / 47< / ><>0< / ><>64 / 44 < / ><>63 / 48 < / >< / ><><>尼斯< / ><>81 / 70< / ><>0< / ><>82 / 69 S< / ><>81 / 68 S< / >< / ><><>奥斯陆< / ><>59 / 41< / ><>0< / ><>63 / 52 R< / ><>68 / 50 < / >< / ><><>巴黎< / ><>84 / 63< / ><>0< / ><>90 / 56 S< / ><>71 / 52 < / >< / ><><>布拉格< / ><>68 / 57< / ><>0.08< / ><>74 / 54 S< / ><>74 / 52

Sh< / >< / ><><>罗马< / ><>84 / 61< / ><>0< / ><>86 / 61 S< / ><>84 / 64 S< / >< / ><><>圣彼得堡< / ><>61 / 54< / ><>0.06< / ><>61 / 49 < / ><>65 / 56℃< / >< / ><><>斯德哥尔摩< / ><>63 / 36< / ><>0< / ><>59 / 54℃< / ><>64 / 48 Sh< / >< / ><><>维也纳< / ><>68 / 61< / ><>0.46< / ><>74 / 53 S< / ><>80 / 60 Sh< / >< / ><><>华沙< / ><>66 / 57< / ><>0.07< / ><>69 / 49 < / ><>77 / 57 Sh< / >< / table>

北美洲< / td>< colspan="3">昨日< / >< colspan="3">今日< / >< colspan="3">明日< / >< / tr><><>阿卡普尔科< / ><>86 / 77< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>92 / 78< / ><>PC< / ><>< / ><>93 / 78< / ><>PC< / ><>< / >< / ><><>百慕大< / ><>86 / 80< / ><>0.01< / ><>< / ><>86 / 78< / ><>Sh< / ><>< / ><>86 / 78< / ><>T< / ><>< / >< / ><><>埃德蒙顿< / ><>52 / 43< / ><>0.11< / ><>< / ><>61 / 33< / ><>PC< / ><>< / ><>70 / 40< / ><>S< / ><>< / >< / ><><>瓜达拉哈拉< / ><>75 / 61< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>81 / 60< / ><>T< / ><>< / ><>83 / 58< / ><>T< / ><>< / >< / ><><>哈瓦那< / ><>88 / 71< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>92 / 73< / ><>Sh< / ><>< / ><>90 / 72< / ><>R< / ><>< / >< / ><><>金斯敦< / ><>94 / 81< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>93 / 80< / ><>PC< / ><>< / ><>91 / 82< / ><>T< / ><>< / >< / ><><>马蒂尼克< / ><>90 / 79< / ><>0.02< / ><>< / ><>92 / 79< / ><>C< / ><>< / ><>88 / 78< / ><>R< / ><>< / >< / ><><>墨西哥城< / ><>69 / 56< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>76 / 55< / ><>R< / ><>< / ><>79 / 56< / ><>C< / ><>< / >< / ><><>蒙特雷< / ><>87 / 71< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>96 / 69< / ><>S< / ><>< / ><>94 / 69< / ><>PC< / ><>< / >< / ><><>蒙特利尔< / ><>68 / 55< / ><>0.01< / ><>< / ><>67 / 59< / ><>C< / ><>< / ><>75 / 56< / ><>PC< / ><>< / >< / ><><>拿骚< / ><>90 / 77< / ><>0.01< / ><>< / ><>90 / 80< / ><>T< / ><>< / ><>89 / 79< / ><>T< / ><>< / >< / ><><>巴拿马城< / ><>88 / 77< / ><>0.08< / ><>< / ><>88 / 76< / ><>T< / ><>< / ><>91 / 76< / ><>R< / ><>< / >< / ><><>魁北克市< / ><>64 / 54< / ><>0.15< / ><>< / ><>63 / 54< / ><>C< / ><>< / ><>74 / 52< / ><>C< / ><>< / >< / ><><>圣多明各< / ><>88 / 79< / ><>0.03< / ><>< / ><>91 / 75< / ><>T< / ><>< / ><>90 / 75< / ><>Sh< / ><>< / >< / ><><>多伦多< / ><>65 / 54< / ><>0< / ><>< / ><>73 / 65< / ><>T< / ><>< / ><>77 / 60< / ><>PC< / ><>< / >< / ><><>温哥华< / ><>61 / 57< / ><>0.01< / ><>< / ><>66 / 53< / ><>S< / ><>< / ><>68 / 55< / ><>S< / ><>< / >< / ><><>温尼伯< / ><>55 / 45< / ><>0.16< / ><>< / ><>59 / 39< / ><>Sh< / ><>< / ><>59 / 41< / ><>PC< / ><>< / >< / table>

<><>南美洲< / ><>昨日< / ><>今日< / ><>明日< / >< / ><><>布宜诺斯艾利斯< / ><>54 / 46 0< / ><>66 / 46 PC< / ><>57 / 52 S< / >< / ><><>加拉加斯< / ><>91 / 77 0.03< / ><>92 / 78 R< / ><>92 / 77 T< / >< / ><><>利马< / ><>73 / 68 0< / ><>77 / 69 PC< / ><>78 / 69 S< / >< / ><><>基多< / ><>67 / 48 0< / ><>70 / 49 R< / ><>70 / 50 R< / >< / ><><>累西腓< / ><>84 / 72 0< / ><>86 / 79 PC< / ><>87 / 80 Sh< / >< / ><><>里约热内卢< / ><>70 / 66 0.98< / ><>73 / 67 R< / ><>71 / 66 Sh< / >< / ><><>圣地亚哥< / ><>72 / 45 0< / ><>82 / 48 S< / ><>79 / 48 PC< / >< / table>

大都市天气预报

今日

今日……大部分时间晴朗 最高气温 72. 随着高压系统在东北部建立，干燥天气将持续。天空将以晴朗为主，东风 3-6 英里 / 小时。气温将比平均水平低 5 度左右。

今晚

今晚……部分多云 最低气温 62. 天空将出现部分多云，在高压影响下保持干燥。风力微弱且方向多变。气温接近 9 月中旬的平均水平。

明日

最高气温 79. 高压继续在东北部维持，天气保持干燥。天空大部分时间晴朗，西南风 4-8 英里 / 小时。气温略高于平均水平。

周四

最高气温 81. 天气保持干燥，云量与阳光交替。南东南风 6-12 英里 / 小时。

周五及周六

周六……周五云量与阳光交替 周五将继续保持干燥，天空出现阳光与云层交替。最高气温 81. 周六将再次出现云量与阳光交替。 最高气温 74.

大都市历书

在中央公园，截至昨日下午 1 点的 13 小时内。

气温

本月日平均偏离常态值......+0.8°< / td><>今年日平均偏离常态值......-0.2°< / >< / tr>< / table>

水库水位（纽约市供水）

<><><>昨日< / ><>87%< / >< / ><><>预计常态值< / ><>81%< / >< / >

休闲预报

太阳、月亮与行星

<><><>上弦月< / ><>满月< / ><>下弦月< / ><>新月< / >< / ><><>9 月 18 日< / ><>9 月 26 日< / ><>10 月 3 日< / ><>10 月 10 日< / >< / >

<><><>太阳< / ><>升起< / ><>6:37 a.m.< / ><>月亮< / ><>R< / ><>11:31 a.m.< / >< / ><><>< / ><>落下< / ><>7:05 p.m.< / ><>< / ><>S< / ><>9:01 p.m.< / >< / ><><>< / ><>下次升起< / ><>6:38 a.m.< / ><>< / ><>R< / ><>12:36 p.m.< / >< / ><><>木星< / ><>R< / ><>3:33 a.m.< / ><>火星< / ><>R< / ><>1:29 a.m.< / >< / ><><>< / ><>S< / ><>5:37 p.m.< / ><>< / ><>S< / ><>4:22 p.m.< / >< / ><><>土星< / ><>S< / ><>8:21 a.m.< / ><>金星< / ><>R< / ><>10:14 a.m.< / >< / ><><>< / ><>R< / ><>7:58 p.m.< / ><>< / ><>S< / ><>8:13 p.m.< / >< / >

航海

从蒙托克角到新泽西州桑迪胡克，延伸至 20 海里，包括长岛海峡和纽约港。

东北风 5 至 15 节，开阔海域阵风可达 20 节。纽约港和长岛海峡波高 1 英尺或以下，开阔海域波高 2 至 3 英尺。

<><>< colspan="3">高潮时间< / >< / ><><>大西洋城< / ><>10:59 a.m.< / ><>11:16 p.m.< / >< / ><><>巴尼格特入海口< / ><>11:21 a.m.< / ><>11:41 p.m.< / >< / ><><>电池公园< / ><>11:55 a.m.< / ><>---< / >< / ><><>海滩海文< / ><>12:16 a.m.< / ><>12:43 p.m.< / >< / ><><>布里奇波特< / ><>2:35 a.m.< / ><>2:51 p.m.< / >< / ><><>城市岛< / ><>2:53 a.m.< / ><>2:54 p.m.< / >< / ><><>火岛灯塔< / ><>12:11 p.m.< / ><>---< / >< / ><><>蒙托克角< / ><>12:15 a.m.< / ><>12:37 p.m.< / >< / ><><>北港< / ><>2:37 a.m.< / ><>2:52 p.m.< / >< / ><><>波特华盛顿< / ><>2:41 a.m.< / ><>2:46 p.m.< / >< / ><><>桑迪胡克< / ><>11:25 a.m.< / ><>11:45 p.m.< / >< / ><><>希内考克入海口< / ><>11:03 a.m.< / ><>11:24 p.m.< / >< / ><><>斯坦福< / ><>2:40 a.m.< / ><>2:53 p.m.< / >< / ><><>塔里敦< / ><>1:17 a.m.< / ><>1:44 p.m.< / >< / ><><>威利茨角< / ><>2:49 a.m.< / ><>2:51 p.m.< / >< / >

AccuWeather 气象预报

降水量（英寸）

冷却度日数 (Cooling Degree Days)

一项燃料消耗指数，用于追踪当日平均气温高出 65 度的幅度< / td>< / tr><><>昨日< / ><>7< / >< / ><><>本月至今< / ><>114< / >< / ><><>本季至今（自1月 1 日起）< / ><>1216< / >< / ><><>本季至今的正常值< / ><>1149< / >< / table>

<>< rowspan="3" colspan="2">趋势< / >< ="2">温度< / >< ="2">降水量< / >< / ><>< ="2">平均值< / >< ="2">平均值< / >< / ><><>低于< / ><>高于< / ><>低于< / ><>高于< / >< / ><>< rowspan="4">最近< / ><>10 天< / ><>< / >< / ><><>30 天< / ><>< / >< / ><><>90 天< / ><>< / >< / ><><>365 天< / ><>< / >< / table>

图表显示了近期温度和降水量趋势与过去 30 年趋势的对比情况。

海滩与海洋温度

高压系统移入东北部，将为从缅因州到弗吉尼亚州的海滩带来干燥天气。特拉华州至弗吉尼亚州海滩的湿度将降低。气温范围从北部的 60 度中旬到南部的接近 80 度。该地区天空将大部分晴朗，下午有高云。

纽约时报

游戏

将游戏的乐趣作为礼物赠予。

无需再为挑选礼物而苦恼。赠送《纽约时报》游戏订阅，包含 Spelling Bee、Wordle、填字游戏等。

2 流行音乐

席琳·迪翁在复出期间向法国表达深情。 3 流行音乐

说唱歌手 Lil Durk 在谋杀阴谋案中被裁定无罪。

新闻 / 评论

4 博物馆

特朗普希望史密森尼学会为乔治·华盛顿竖立一座“巨像雕像”。

纽约时报

2026年9月15日，星期二 C1

摄影：JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ 为纽约时报拍摄

在警报与恐惧折磨下的乌克兰坚定起舞

编舞家亚历克谢·拉特曼斯基（Alexei Ratmansky）及其妻子塔蒂亚娜（Tatiana）在遭受攻击的城市基辅上演了一场芭蕾舞剧。

[...OMITTED...]

作者：玛丽娜·哈斯 (MARINA HARSS)

著名芭蕾舞编舞家阿列克谢·拉特曼斯基 (Alexei Ratmansky) 自2022.年俄罗斯入侵以来，一直是乌克兰事业的坚定支持者。他创作了两部直接探讨战争恐怖的舞蹈作品——《战时挽歌》(Wartime Elegies) 和《孤独》(Solitude)。

他与妻子塔蒂亚娜 (Tatiana) 的职业生涯早期都在乌克兰度过，曾在基辅歌剧院的国家芭蕾舞团跳舞。但直到今年8月，自四年前战争爆发以来，两人都没有在相当长的一段时间内回到乌克兰首都基辅。而且，他们两人在基辅及其周边地区都有亲近的家人。

拉特曼斯基目前是纽约市芭蕾舞团的驻团艺术家，曾担任莫斯科大剧院芭蕾舞团团长 5, 年。他在最近一次在当地酒店进行的视频采访中表示，他一直想回到基辅，但总觉得时机不对。不过，他们与国家芭蕾舞团舞者合作的愿望最终战胜了恐惧。

拉特曼斯基夫妇的抵达恰逢战争最糟糕的时期之一，当时基辅遭受持续攻击，导致他们和其他人每天要好几次匆忙躲进防空洞。“在任何意义上这都很困难，”塔蒂亚娜说，“无论是精神上还是身体上。”

“人们说情况从未如此糟糕，”阿列克谢说。

他们此次回国的直接原因是排演20世纪伟大编舞家乔治·巴兰钦 (George Balanchine) 的一部作品，详见C7页

从左上角起顺时针方向：乌克兰国家芭蕾舞团的舞者在乌克兰基辅排演乔治·巴兰钦的《多尼采蒂变奏曲》(Donizetti Variations)；协助排演该剧的阿列克谢和塔蒂亚娜·拉特曼斯基；后台的舞者；以及工作中的阿列克谢·拉特曼斯基。

塞斯·科尔特·沃尔斯 (SETH COLTER WALLS) / 评论员笔记本

他对美国持乐观态度

温顿·马萨利斯 (Wynton Marsalis) 在他的交响曲《自由》(Liberty) 中将爵士乐团与传统管弦乐团融合在一起。

弗吉尼亚州维也纳 —— 温顿·马萨利斯认为我们将能度过这个难关。

在他的时长一小时的第五号交响曲（绰号“自由”，为美国建国250周年而作）中，在狂野且极具感染力的倒数第二乐章结尾处，你可以感受到这一点。在一段包含男低音-男中音音乐的狂热部分之后，这部标题音乐开始转向一种生存感，甚至是新生感。

在本周六于此举行的全球首演中——由国家交响乐团和林肯中心爵士乐团在沃尔夫陷阱国家表演艺术公园 (Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts) 演出，由詹姆斯·加菲根 (James Gaffigan) 指挥——许多人在该乐章结束时鼓掌。有些人还站了起来，有些人则举起双手，仿佛在遵循马萨利斯在乐谱中关于“神圣化”表演氛围的指示。

这并不是暗示马萨利斯这位著名的爵士小号手兼作曲家在这部交响曲中对美国的过去和现在持有统一的祝福视角。在之前的详见C5页

林肯中心爵士乐团的成员，包括吹小号的温顿·马萨利斯，上周在弗吉尼亚州维也纳的沃尔夫陷阱国家表演艺术公园演出。 卡罗琳·古特曼 (CAROLINE GUTMAN) 为《纽约时报》拍摄

在法国，卢浮宫并非唯一目标

作者：马克·兰德勒（MARK LANDLER）

巴黎——上周二，当窃贼潜入法国里维埃拉的一家博物馆，盗走两幅印象派大师皮埃尔-奥古斯特·雷诺阿（Pierre-Auguste Renoir）的画作时，埃马纽埃尔·马克龙总统当时就在几英里外，主持一场关于如何拯救电影艺术的会议。

此次盗窃案是自10月卢浮宫皇冠珠宝惊天失窃案以来一系列盗窃事件中的最新一起，这表明法国在保护其艺术瑰宝方面面临着更大的挑战。

中国瓷器、胡格诺十字架、金银币、新艺术风格珠宝，以及足球巨星齐内丁·齐达内（Zinedine Zidane）在世界杯上穿过的球衣——所有这些都从全国各地规模不等的小型和大型博物馆中被盗走。

这波盗窃风潮甚至延伸到了教堂：人们偷走了圣杯、圣餐盘和其他圣物。博物馆工作人员、警方和政府官员感到不安。他们担心如何在保护法国的文化遗产方面

近期发生的盗窃事件引发了人们对如何保障国家瑰宝安全的担忧。

席琳·迪翁回归巴黎，恰如其分

她的回归演出展现了这位法语超级巨星在 美国鲜少被看到的一面。

“它稍微低一点，更深地在喉咙后方，不像在前面那样突出。”——斯科特·普莱斯，席琳·迪翁的音乐总监，谈及用法语演唱。

作者：伊丽莎白·文森特利

巴黎——什么样的席琳·迪翁会出现在她的巴黎回归演出中？是那个充满力量的强力唱将？是敏感的民谣歌手？还是难以预测的即兴表演者？

但周六在附近的 Plenitude 体育馆，许多人心中真正的疑问是，她是否真的会出现。

随着时间分秒流逝，过了晚上 8 p.m. 的预定开始时间，人们很难不去想起这位歌手在纪录片《我是：席琳·迪翁》（I Am: Celine Dion）中展露的令人心碎的脆弱。在片中，她详细讲述了与一种名为“僵人综合征”的罕见神经系统疾病抗争所带来的影响。诚然，两年前她在巴黎奥运会开幕式上表演过，但那只有一首歌。而周六的演出将是她六年来首场完整的演唱会，这也是她在一个可容纳 35,000 人的体育馆内开启的 26 场演出的首站。

随后，灯光在晚上 8:48 p.m. 熄灭。迪翁身着黑色礼服缓缓走上巨大的舞台，以《On Ne Change Pas》（我们不会改变）开场。

虽然法国和魁北克的粉丝倾向于熟悉迪翁的法语和英语曲目，但大多数美国听众并不了解她的法语歌曲。她是双语且双文化的，仿佛一个人之中住着两颗巨星，拥有互为补充的截然不同的职业生涯。

周六晚上，情感的流动方向显而易见。迪翁的大部分舞台互动都使用法语，这是她在蒙特利尔附近的小镇沙乐曼（Charlemagne）成长时所说的语言，且演出曲目中大约三分之二是用法语演唱的。

迪翁，58, 看起来既坚毅又脆弱。她那熟悉的声音带着一种磨砺后的光泽，似乎透露出一丝紧张和大量翻涌的情绪。在第一首歌期间，她失去了冷静，不得不短暂停止演唱。“我曾答应过自己不哭，”她在歌曲结束时告诉观众，“但我没能遵守诺言。”

迪翁选择在巴黎而非拉斯维加斯回归整场晚间现场演出，这在一定程度上可能是出于物流考虑——毕竟，巴黎是一个交通枢纽。而她在拉斯维加斯居住，并曾在那里举办过两场成功且获利丰厚的多年期驻场演出。

此外，法国对迪翁而言意义重大，因为它是加拿大以外第一个接纳她的国家。反之，她对法国也至关重要：《解放报》（Libération）周末版的头版询问她是否会“拯救 2027 年的预算”，内页的一篇文章引用了一项研究，估计她的系列演唱会可为法国带来高达“10 亿加元 欧元的经济效益”。

演出确实包含了一些迪翁最著名的英文热门歌曲，如《My Heart Will Go On》、《Beauty and the Beast》和《I'm Alive》——最后一首被编入一段组曲中，其中还包括唐娜·萨默的《I Feel Love》和尤律米克斯的《Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)》。

“当她唱《All by Myself》时，我感到惊喜，”来自巴黎地区的观众保琳·马丁说道，她坦言自己在演出中有一半时间在哭泣，“这证明了她没有失去她的嗓音。这是一个象征，就像在告诉我们‘我回来了’。”

但最热烈的反响留给了法语曲目，包括极受欢迎的《Pour Que Tu m'Aimes Encore》（随后观众在走向地铁的路上齐声合唱此曲），以及欢快的二重唱《J'Irai Où Tu Iras》，这是法国婚礼上的经典曲目，由迪翁与新伴唱歌手乔丹·莱韦斯克共同演绎。

与她更外向、更华丽的英文风格相比，法语歌曲汲取了香颂（chanson）和被称为“variété”的软流行风格，强调叙事感，旨在拉近与听众的距离，而非用声乐技巧让听众惊叹。

迪翁的音乐总监斯科特·普莱斯（Scott Price）在本月的一次采访中表示，正是因为他们开始挖掘这位歌手的法语曲库，迪翁才在去年重新找回了状态。

“这真的点燃了她的热情，很多歌曲的选择都源于此，”普莱斯说道，并解释称用法语和英语演唱需要不同的技巧。“对我来说，法语演唱时声音的发源地有所不同。它的位置稍低，在喉咙深处，不像英语那样靠前。这似乎在某种程度上帮到了她。”

席琳·迪翁周六在巴黎市外的 Plenitude 体育馆举行了六年来首场完整的演唱会。 摄影：CLEMENTINE SCHNEIDERMANN 为《纽约时报》拍摄

中间照片：在体育馆外，这位加拿大歌手的粉丝们以多种形式表达热爱，包括右下方上方的玛丽琳·德莱赞（Maryline Delezene）的纹身。下方是抵达演出现场的粉丝，这是该体育馆计划举办的 26 场迪翁演唱会中的首场。

“……在她的道路上。”

在演出前半段以较慢的暖场曲目铺垫后，迪翁在周六似乎变得更加自信，逐渐推向她的现场经典曲目之一（尽管这次的表现明显没有往常那么夸张，在某种程度上回归了她职业生涯早期较为保守的演唱风格）。

一段表演中，一支福音合唱团登台，为《Love Can Move Mountains》等曲目增添了听觉上的庄严感和力度。舞台布置采用了巨大的混凝土质感平板和粗壮的圆柱，这些装置在移动过程中交替地遮掩和露出乐队，看起来像是前卫雕塑家为粗野主义版本的《沙丘》（Dune）所设计的作品。穿插播放的迪翁在沙质沙漠中漫步的视频进一步强化了这种印象。

“她身上有一种歌剧名伶的艺术感，一种贵妇气质，”演出的创意总监威洛·佩龙（Willo Perron）说道，他曾参与碧昂丝（Beyoncé）的《Cowboy Carter》巡演以及蕾哈娜（Rihanna）在超级碗 LVII 中场秀的盛大演出。“我想让她将这种特质发挥到极致，完全进入那个角色。”这种对歌剧的致敬在当晚最令人惊叹的时刻之一得到了充分体现：她演唱了卡塔拉尼（Catalani）歌剧《瓦莉》（La Wally）中的咏叹调《Ebben? Ne andrò lontana》，这是一首与玛丽亚·卡拉斯（Maria Callas）永远联系在一起的曲目。

后者这一面是迪翁吸引力的重要组成部分，使她比方称的碧昂丝或玛丽亚·凯莉（Mariah Carey）在与观众的关系上更接近多莉·帕顿（Dolly Parton）。

但这位歌手的诀窍在于她如何将巨大的情感与简约平衡在一起。“与此同时，”佩龙在谈到迪翁时还表示，“她有一种讨人喜欢的——这在很大程度上是一种法裔加拿大人的特质——非常接地气的一面。”

在与观众的关系方面，她比碧昂丝或玛丽亚·凯莉更像多莉·帕顿。值得注意的是，她和帕顿都成长在经济条件平庸的家庭，尽管她们现在富甲天下（在迪翁身上还体现为对实验性高端高级定制服装的热爱），但一种真实而非由社交媒体团队策划的质朴自发感依然跃然纸上。

在巴黎首场演出前的几周里，粉丝们可以感受到这种亲近感，当时迪翁会在深夜与在酒店外等待的他们共处。她会在午夜过后现身并聊天一段时间，在仰慕者用她自己的歌曲为她唱赞歌时，她显得深受感动，或者像每个人最喜欢的那个古怪亲戚一样跳舞。你会感觉到，尽管她与艰苦的成长环境已相隔光年之远，但她保留了一种根本性的结构完整性。

“她与舞台以及观众之间有一种真实的关系，”奥运会开幕式的导演托马斯·乔利（Thomas Jolly）说道，“你可能会认为艺术家总是在表演，在塑造角色。但对于席琳来说，就好像只有她自己。而她本身就足够了。”

这种自我足够宽广，能够将《La Wally》与喧闹的布吉舞，将《泰坦尼克号》与经典迪斯科并置。它也足够强大，能向这位歌手的粉丝传递出坚韧与希望的信息。

“我曾失去信心，以为再也见不到她了，”来自法国南部图卢兹观看演出的索菲·勒萨夫（Sophie Lesaffre）说道。而她的朋友、来自贡比涅的朱利安·格兰德（Julien Grand）则更有信心。“我一直知道她会回来的，”他说，“我一直知道，无论发生什么，席琳都会在那里。”

说唱歌手雇凶杀人案获判无罪

Lil Durk 此前被指控策划杀害一名竞争对手，导致另一名男子死亡。

作者：EMMANUEL MORGAN

说唱歌手 Lil Durk（原名 Durk Banks）周五在联邦法院被判无罪。此前他被指控策划在一次伏击枪击案中杀害一名竞争对手，但该事件最终导致另一名男子死亡。这一裁决结束了一起备受关注的案件，案件的核心人物是一位拥有两张 No. 1 专辑的格莱美奖得主。

陪审团经过三天的审议，判定 Banks 先生在包括跟踪以及策划 2022 年洛杉矶 Saviay'a Robinson 死亡案在内的共五项指控中均不成立。 先生此前可能面临终身监禁，目前他仍被羁押，等待一项相关的敲诈勒索案审判。

另外两名被指控协助枪击的被告——Deandre Dontrell Wilson 和 David Brian Lindsey——同样被判定雇凶杀人罪名不成立，但跟踪罪名成立。

先生的律师 Drew Findling 在裁决后表示，他对结果感到“欣喜若狂”，并赞扬了陪审团。

他在法院外表示：“当你有机会对美利坚合众国说‘你们起诉这个年轻人是错误的’时，这是一种巨大的力量和责任。”

检察官认为，33 岁的 先生下令刺杀名为 Quando Rondo 的说唱歌手 Tyquian Bowman，并通过支付机票、车辆、手机和滑雪面罩的费用为袭击提供便利。Bowman 先生曾参与 2020 年的一场冲突，该冲突导致 先生的好友、名为 King Von 的说唱歌手 Dayvon Bennett 在亚特兰大被枪杀。

检察官称，在随后的几年里， 先生被“复仇心切”所占据，并感受到社交媒体帖子的压力，这些帖子敦促他进行报复，或为 Von “出头”（slide for Von）。根据检方的说法，他在 2022 年组织其 Only the Family 说唱厂牌的同僚从芝加哥前往洛杉矶追击目标。

控方的论点依赖于 先生三名同僚的证词，其中两人最初被列为共同被告。这两名男子，Kavon Grant 和 Keith Jones，均表示 先生曾提供现金——Jones 先生称金额为 100万美元——以换取 Bowman 先生的死亡。

第三名同僚 Kacey Hester 因一项单独的枪支指控被捕，并达成认罪协议以在案件中提供协作。他作证称自己是此次袭击中的枪手，是被 先生的金钱诱惑而参与。这笔赏金激励这些男子

Matt Stevens 参与了报道。

2023 年舞台上的 Lil Durk，其法律姓名是 Durk 。他将于 10 月面临另一次审判。 ETHAN MILLER / GETTY IMAGES

他们作证称，他们协调了一次袭击，其中一些人开车跟踪目标数小时，随后在洛杉矶的一家加油站开火。这三名男子均作证称， 先生没有参与枪击，也从未为此向他们支付费用。

“没有人说他在洛杉矶现场手里拿着枪，”检察官 Ian Yanniello 在结案陈词中谈到 先生时说，“但如果没有他，这个故事就不会发生，而且如果没有他的领导，这一切就解释不通。”

由 Findling 先生以及资深律师 Brian Steel、Christy O'Connor 和 Marissa Goldberg 领导的辩护团队（他们曾代表说唱歌手 NBA YoungBoy、Lil Nas X 和 Young Thug）指出，Bennett 先生的表亲 Grant 先生才是枪击案的幕后主使。作为 先生的密友，他知道 先生的社会安全号码，并可以使用其银行账户和信用卡为 Only the Family 的同僚购买机票。

先生的另一位密友 Ryan Green 作证提到，在 Bennett 先生去世后，他与 Grant 先生进行过一次对话，其中 Grant 先生表示他想要报仇。

Green 先生回忆 Grant 先生说：“我要毙了他，”或者，“当这件事发生时，我会在那儿。”

芬德林先生在辩方的结案陈词中表示，存在“海啸般的合理怀疑”。辩护律师声称，班克斯先生之所以成为检方的目标是因为他的名气，并强调在枪击事件发生后，实际上没有任何人收到款项。

在这场持续三周的审判中，双方律师都试图将说唱歌词、视频和采访作为证据。尽管辩方提出反对，但迈克尔·W·菲茨杰拉德法官仍允许采纳部分歌词，检方称这些歌词能让人洞察班克斯先生在贝内特先生死后的心理状态。

这些证据包括歌曲《Pissed Me Off》的音频和视频，他在其中唱道：

“拿把枪 / 如果你没准备好，就出钱买把枪 / 出钱弄辆快车 / 出钱交保释金。”在视频中，班克斯先生穿着一件印有“Long Live Von”字样的T恤。

法官还允许采纳班克斯先生2024年接受DJ Akademiks播客采访的一小部分内容。在采访中，播客主持人提到了说唱歌手6ix9ine的批评，后者称班克斯先生在为金·冯（King Von）之死报仇方面做得不够。班克斯先生回应称，那些持有相同观点的网络评论由于“某种原因”已经停止了。

法官不允许将该采访紧随其后的部分作为证据，在那个片段中，班克斯先生表示他并没有把这些批评当回事，并说：“我试图将所有的恨转化为爱。”

10月，班克斯先生将在芝加哥接受审判，被指控将“Only the Family”运营为犯罪团伙，违反了联邦《通过敲诈勒索活动资助暴力犯罪法》（Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity statute）。检方声称，班克斯先生通过下令袭击并提供赏金，协助策划了其他与帮派相关的暴力行为，包括2021年针对鲍曼先生的枪击事件以及2022年斯特芬·麦克（Stephon Mack）的谋杀案，但被告对此予以否认。

美国助理检察官比尔·埃赛利在周五的一份声明中表示：“虽然我们对陪审团关于德克·班克斯（又名‘Lil Durk’）的裁决感到失望，但我们期待在他的第二次审判中提交证据。”

这场雇凶杀人案的审判引起了极大关注，使洛杉矶市中心的法院变成了疯狂的现场，内容创作者、名人及粉丝每天在此聚集。

曾用名坎耶·韦斯特（Kanye West）的说唱歌手Ye出席了一天的证词听证会，并穿着一件印有“Free Durk”字样的T恤拍照。说唱歌手Machine Gun Kelly在溢出室观看了法庭审理，他是包括Young Thug和Meek Mill在内，在社交媒体上表达对班克斯先生支持的名人之一。

肯尼迪中心警告称将面临破产

一场关于命名的争议在华盛顿持续发酵。

作者：朱莉娅·雅各布斯（JULIA JACOBS）

约翰·F·肯尼迪表演艺术中心（John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts）的官员在文件中警告称，除非以某种方式将特朗普总统的名字重新添加到建筑上，否则该机构将在数周内面临“必然的财政崩溃”。

这一警告出现在一份拟于周二举行的董事会会议之前的决议草案中，似乎是特朗普盟友官员们试图说服一名法官，证明该机构的财务健康状况取决于在建筑正面放置一块向总统致敬的铭牌。

法官克里斯托弗·R·库珀（Christopher R. Cooper）在几个月前裁定，总统的名字应从建筑上移除，因为国会需要批准将其重新命名为“特朗普-肯尼迪中心”。

与受托人分享的决议草案称，该中心面临破产和无法支付工资的风险，但特朗普已“提出介入并筹集必要资金”以拯救该中心。该草案提出了 10 种在中心正面主标志下方添加特朗普名字的方案。

决议草案称：“董事会明白，如果没有这种适当的认可，特朗普总统不太可能对主楼的翻修提供基础监督，并领导该中心的财政救援。”

特朗普在第二任期开始时接管了肯尼迪中心，董事会去年 12 月投票决定将他的名字添加到建筑上。几周后，特朗普宣布了一项计划，将中心关闭两年进行翻修工程，以改造他所谓的“破旧”结构。

今年 5 月，库珀法官暂时阻止了关闭计划，并命令将特朗普的名字从建筑上移除。

该中心在提起上诉的同时遵守了裁决。但在最近几周，董事会成员采取激进行动，试图在建筑标题下方的铭文中恢复他的名字。

《华盛顿邮报》率先报道了决议草案中的一个选项，内容为：“由唐纳德·J·特朗普总统的慷慨捐助而翻修、修复并维持”。另一个选项则写道：“由唐纳德·J·特朗普总统提供翻修、监督与支持”。

这些文件在库珀法官主持的法庭听证会前几天被分享。来自俄亥俄州的民主党众议员、兼任董事会成员的乔伊斯·比蒂（Joyce Beatty）对铭文计划表示反对，正是她的诉讼促使法院对该中心进行审查。她的律师称这一举动是“幼稚地拒绝”接受法官的命令。

在周日的一份声明中，比蒂的律师诺姆·艾森（Norm Eisen）和纳撒尼尔·泽林斯基（Nathaniel Zelinsky）将这些文件描述为“第三次企图毁坏这座神圣纪念馆，将其变成满足一个人虚荣心的项目”。

该中心发言人罗马·达拉维（Roma Daravi）拒绝就这些文件发表评论。

董事会成员及特朗普盟友保罗·赞波利（Paolo Zampolli）在周日的一次简短电话采访中表示，在建筑上添加总统的名字对中心的财务健康至关重要，因为“特朗普能吸引资金”。

他说：“所以当特朗普说向这个地方捐款时，每个人都会捐款。”

然而，一些捐赠者对添加特朗普名字的事实表示不满，并加入了一场包括艺术家和观众在内的出走潮，他们不愿与一个日益政治化的机构产生关联。比蒂的诉讼主张，这一决定正是该中心目前陷入财务困境的部分原因。

肯尼迪中心官员多次将该机构的财务问题归咎于之前的领导层。

与董事会分享的文件中还包含另一份决议草案，建议立即关闭中心主楼，理由是一次风暴期间，建筑大门厅（Grand Foyer）天花板的一块灰泥掉落。达拉维将该事件定性为需要关闭建筑的证据。

“这种结构性失效源于前任领导层数十年的忽视和推迟维护，”她在本月的一份声明中表示，“对于恢复美国文化中心而言，任何进一步的延迟都毫无道理。”

库珀法官暂时阻止了该中心全面关闭，但并未阻止工作人员进行翻修，而这些翻修工作由国会提供的 2.57亿美元 资金资助。

尽管该建筑作为肯尼迪总统的纪念馆一直向公众开放，但其活动日程在数周内基本处于空白状态。作为该中心驻场乐团的国家交响乐团已将其本季的演出预订在其他当地场馆。此外，在特朗普接管之后，该中心的员工人数已缩减至之前的极小一部分。

Two Not Touch

此前谜题答案

在网格的每一行、每一列和每个区域中各放置两颗星。任何两颗星都不能接触，包括对角线方向。 版权所有 © 2024 www.krazydad.com

密码解密 (Cryptogram)

VGKG'P BTIQVGK BN MIK "GPPGTQDBJ IDJP." VIU GPPGTQDBJ BKG QVGE DM D'WG TGWGK TGGNGN BTE?

谜题设计：BEN BASS

昨日答案 1. 布达佩斯 2. 贝尔格莱德 3. 哥本哈根 4. 布加勒斯特

KenKen 数独

在网格中填写数字，使每一行或每一列中的数字不重复，且每个粗线框内的数字通过框内指定的加、减、乘或除法运算，得出所示的目标数字。4x4 网格使用数字 1-4。6x6 网格使用数字 1-6。

更多游戏请访问：www.nytimes.com / games KenKen® 是 Nextoy, LLC 的注册商标。版权所有 © 2024 www.KENKEN.com。保留所有权利。

4< / td><>2< / ><>3< / ><>1< / >< / tr><><>3< / ><>1< / ><>4< / ><>2< / >< / ><><>2< / ><>3< / ><>1< / ><>4< / >< / ><><>1< / ><>4< / ><>2< / ><>3< / >< / table>

纵横字谜 / 编辑：威尔·肖茨 (Will Shortz)

横向 1 Laffy ____，一种名称押韵的糖果 6 扑克买入金 10 比喻意义上的“心灵之窗” 14 惊吓 15 反派的藏身处 16 美国女孩 (American Girl) 玩具 17 例如，走红的尴尬广告活动 19 麦当娜的《La __ Bonita》 20 与……约会 21 小猪和普心的有袋类朋友 22 “好吧，既然那样……”。 24 Clic Stic 和 Wite-Out 的品牌 26 20 世纪 80 年代电视剧中“谁开了枪……？”悬念的核心人物 27 哥伦比亚玉米粉蛋糕 29 圣何塞，__ 里卡 30 Oculus Rift 或 Meta Quest 3 32 混乱的反义词 36 发短信时的“我认为……”。 37 例如，开始了一局 21 点 38 18 轮大卡车

39 非语言地同意 41 红色的根茎蔬菜 44 高中里的一种集会 45 建造，如建筑物 47 《The Pitt》中的许多角色 49 “快！” 51 举行提名大会的团体 52 常用于替代纸质菜单的可扫描方块 55 _Wan Kenobi 56 响，如铃铛 57 狗狗的吠叫 59 帕丁顿熊的原籍国 63 漫画中灯泡代表什么 64 20 世纪 60 年代儿童电视节目中的傀儡龙 67 底部沉重的水果 68 布兰妮·斯皮尔斯的《____! ... I Did It Again》 69 表现优于 70 女儿的兄弟 71 考试 72 即将成为炸薯条的食材

前一谜题答案

9 / 15 / 26

纵向 1 止咳糖浆剂量 2 农田测量单位 3 从两侧较短过渡到顶部较长的发型 4 Ultimate ____（团队运动） 5 同意之词 6 同样 7 使用语音字母表的团体 8 加时赛的原因 9 搞砸的事 10 关于维基百科内容的冲突 11 马里奥的恐龙伙伴 12 《实习医生格蕾》的女演员庞培奥 13 在 Urban Dictionary 中可见的方言

谜题设计：内特·卡丁 (NATE CARDIN)

18 投币式游戏机存放处 23 一种高脂肪饮食 25 具有 Pro、Air 和 mini 版本的平板电脑 26 潦草地写（下） 27 骑士的装束 28 R.I. 中的 “R” 29 “蚂蚁爬木头”中的 “log” 30 攀爬格架的植物 31 “光”绝地武器 33 火车站 34 美甲师的锉甲板 35 绑（鞋带） 40 受过良好教育的人 42 重新填满，如玻璃杯 43 愈合的覆盖物

46 “把__去掉，伙计！” 48 导致犯错 50 一小块火辣的肉桂糖 52 不建议用于耳道的棉签 53 牛仔竞赛 54 刚从洗碗机里出来的 57 例如 Grindr 和 Tinder 这两者 58 腐朽的迹象 60 “____，布鲁图？” 61 《蚁人》主演保罗 62 让你惊叹“什么……？！”的景象 65 ____ v. Wade (1973 年最高法院裁决) 66 拒绝

在 http: / nytimes.com / games 在线体验我们所有的游戏以及超过 10,000 个 Wordle、Spelling Bee、纵横字谜等往期谜题。关于谜题的讨论，请访问 http: / nytimes.com / wordplay。

旧金山歌剧院管弦乐团举行罢工

在战争纪念歌剧院（War Memorial Opera House）演出的旧金山歌剧院管弦乐团目前正在举行罢工，以争取更高的工资。该歌剧公司表示，由于成本上升，其面临 1500万美元 的经常性资金缺口。 KELSEY McCLELLAN 为《纽约时报》拍摄

这场动荡使这家全美顶尖歌剧公司之一的新剧季陷入不确定状态。

作者：ADAM NAGOURNEY

旧金山歌剧院原定于周六以威尔第的《西蒙·博卡内格拉》（Simon Boccanegra）拉开第 104 个剧季的序幕，该剧是公司为新剧季计划的六部作品之一。

但大幕始终没有拉开。

代表该歌剧院管弦乐团的工会在演出即将在战争纪念歌剧院开始前不久宣布举行罢工，履行了其在数月僵持不下的谈判期间所做的承诺：如果没有合同，将不予演出。

晚上 7:25，歌剧院的领导层走上舞台，告知正准备观看 8 p.m. 演出的观众，演出已被取消。原定于周日在金门公园举行、作为开幕庆祝活动一部分的户外演出也被取消。

在室外，音乐家们组成皮凯特 picket 警戒线，举起写有“世界级管弦乐团 / 世界级合同”和“紧缩政策不和谐”等口号的标语牌。

这些事件使这家全美顶尖歌剧公司之一的演出计划陷入不确定状态，并凸显了冲击全国古典音乐组织的财务压力。这也给公司在一个备受瞩目的时刻——新剧季的开始——蒙上了阴影。

旧金山歌剧院表示，由于成本上升，公司正面临 1500万美元 的经常性资金缺口，这迫使公司不顾惯例会计程序，动用了其 3亿美元 的捐赠基金。

与管弦乐团的合同已于 July 31. 到期。公司最初表示希望削减音乐家的工资，尽管其最新的提案是事实上的五年工资冻结。由美国音乐家联合会 Local 6, 代表的音乐家们坚决拒绝了该提案。

音乐家在宣布罢工的声明中表示：“管弦乐团要求一份公平的合同，为音乐家提供稳定性以及能跟上旧金山生活成本的薪酬。最新的提案没有考虑到该地区的通货膨胀和生活成本，对于管弦乐团的音乐家来说，这在五年期间本质上是减薪。”

旧金山歌剧院总经理马修·希尔沃克（Matthew Shilvock）在声明中表示，现在是“艺术界的困难时期”，并补充道：“与许多组织一样，我们必须适应不断变化的现实。”

一方面，旧金山歌剧院在歌剧公司中几乎是唯一享有强有力慈善支持的——去年获得了 $49.500 万，占其收入的 89%。

但至少从节目编排的雄心来看，现在的歌剧院与过去大不相同。公司上季上演的六部作品不到 1981, 年上演的 16 部的一半，这是为了控制成本而采取的努力的一部分。上季，该歌剧院共进行了 42 场演出，低于 1981 年的 98 场。

目前，公司管弦乐团的成员在 24 周的工作时间（包括演出和排练）内，基本年薪为 $118,000。（实际报酬可达此数额的两倍，具体取决于资历。）但希尔沃克表示，公司已经没有足够的工作量来填满这么多小时。他表示，公司希望在进行重组以反映对演奏者的不同需求期间冻结工资。

他在声明中说：“我们不能在不使其与当前现实接轨的情况下，维持一个源自 45 年前的薪酬结构。”

希尔沃克指出，门票销售和捐赠者的参与度十分强劲。但他补充道，“由于数十年来支出的增长速度超过了收入的增长，该组织底层的基本经济状况在 60 年多以来一直处于紧张状态。”

就音乐家而言，他们表示是以“沉重的心情”发起了这次最后一刻的罢工。

工会在一份声明中表示：“罢工并非我们轻率决定之事，对于所有计划今晚在歌剧院度过的人们，我们深表歉意。在整个谈判过程中，我们一直明确表示管理层的报价不足，如果没有一份公平的合同，我们将别无选择，只能停止工作。管理层坚持削减开支，使我们没有其他选择。”

目前，该公司的下一场演出——再次是《西蒙·博卡内格拉》——定于周三举行。

一座巨大的乔治·华盛顿雕像将取代 1967 年在史密森尼美国国家历史博物馆落成的“无限”（Infinity）。

特朗普希望在华盛顿建立一座“巨像”

总统呼吁史密森学会为这位开国之父竖立一座30英尺高的雕像。

作者：珍妮弗·舒斯勒（JENNIFER SCHUESSLER）

在针对史密森学会（Smithsonian Institution）发起的最新一轮抨击中，特朗普总统呼吁该机构在其美国国家历史博物馆外为乔治·华盛顿竖立一座30英尺高的“巨像雕像”，并举办一场关于华盛顿遗产的为期五年且“即刻开始”的展览。

“在我们国家的250周年庆典之年，博物馆未能给乔治·华盛顿和其他开国之父提供他们应得的庆典，”特朗普在周五晚上的 Truth Social 帖子中写道。

地标

昨天的回应：什么是 Vespa 踏板车？

拟议的雕像将取代由何塞·德·里维拉（José de Rivera）创作的抽象雕塑《无限》（Infinity），该作品于1967.落成。史密森学会将该作品描述为联邦政府在华盛顿国家广场“建筑中的艺术”计划下委托创作的第一件现代艺术品。

“那座奇怪的现代主义雕塑没能告诉访客关于美国的任何事情，不能激励任何人，也没有向我们任何伟大的美国英雄致敬，”特朗普写道。“而乔治·华盛顿可以。他无疑是美国最伟大的英雄。没有他，我们的国家和自由将不复存在。”

独立性。（史密森学会包含21家博物馆和国家动物园，长期以来一直独立于行政部门运行，尽管其每年约10 亿美元 billion预算的三分之二来自联邦政府。）

观看《危险游戏》（JEOPARDY!） 晚上7点，7频道

这座西海岸地标的首席工程师 还设计了 土星火箭的 龙门架

对国家创始人的对待方式一直是特朗普的一个特别触发点，他将赞美这些人物作为其政府250周年历史项目的核心。

如需正确答案，请观看今晚的《危险游戏！》，或在明天的《时报》同一版面查看。

在7月4,发布的一份严厉报告中，白宫指责美国国家历史博物馆推行“极端的政治激进主义”，同时忽视了开国之父的英雄主义，而这些人物在

在周五的另一篇帖子中，特朗普表示，他还要求史密森学会在博物馆的旗帜大厅安装一座11英尺高的华盛顿雕像，以便在周四的宪法日及时亮相。该雕像此前是为近期的 Freedom 250 IndyCar 赛车赛而创作的。

史密森学会未立即回应置评请求。

特朗普的帖子反映了他长期以来呼吁回归他所谓的“爱国”历史，以及他推动在整个华盛顿推广古典建筑的努力，包括他提议的250英尺高的凯旋门和美国英雄国家花园等纪念性工程。

这也延续了他对史密森学会持续不断的批评，他指责该机构宣传一种过于负面的美国历史观。在2025年3月一项名为“将真相与理智还给美国历史”的行政命令中，特朗普指责史密森学会受到了“一种分裂的、以种族为中心的意识形态”的影响，并呼吁其回归到“作为灵感和美国伟大象征的正确位置”。

上周，在许多人看来是特朗普向史密森学会施压活动的转折点，该机构负责人，Lonnie G. Bunch III, 73, 宣布他将在年底前卸任。

自2025年3月的行政命令以来，作为首位领导史密森学会的黑人学者和历史学家，邦奇一直与白宫处于紧张的僵持状态，他在提交关于几家博物馆的大量信息的同时，也捍卫该机构的工作和独立

推动“爱国”历史与古典建筑

主要是通过其与奴隶制的联系来呈现的。

特朗普周五在社交媒体上的帖子再次重申了该报告中的一些具体批评，包括该博物馆没有提及华盛顿在1776年12月渡过特拉华河的事迹，特朗普称这是“革命最伟大时刻和转折点之一”。

华盛顿渡河的著名描绘被醒目地印在“自由卡车”（Freedom Trucks）的外墙上，这是由特朗普支持的、正在全国巡展的移动历史博物馆。该展览包括一段由人工智能生成的华盛顿的视频问候，以及一段来自特朗普的视频。

特朗普政府还采取行动，修改了由行政部门控制的部分场所中对华盛顿的描绘。今年2月，国家公园管理局突然撤除了总统故居（President's House）的解说面板。该地位于费城，是一个联邦遗址，此前在担任行政官邸期间，面板重点关注华盛顿在任期间带到那里的被奴役者。

7月安装的新面板将奴隶制作为一般问题进行讨论，但淡化或删除了关于华盛顿对其拥有的被奴役者有时采取的残酷对待，以及他为追捕逃跑者所做的不懈努力的描述。

史密森学会可能如何挑选新负责人

特朗普总统现在将迎来掌控该机构的最佳机会。

作者：罗宾·波格雷宾（ROBIN POGREBIN）

当朗尼·G·邦奇三世（Lonnie G. Bunch III）宣布将卸任史密森学会（Smithsonian Institution）负责人时，许多人认为这一决定是特朗普总统对该组织施压活动的顶峰，该组织监管着近二十家博物馆。

白宫称自2019年起领导史密森学会的邦奇是一个“狂热的党派分子”。但在他宣布离职后，学者们纷纷为其辩护，美国历史学家组织赞扬了邦奇的“学术严谨”和“政治勇气”。

史密森学会表示邦奇将留任至年底。选择其继任者的过程将为特朗普提供掌控史密森学会的最佳机会。以下是关于该机构可能如何选择下一任领导者的相关信息。

谁控制史密森学会？

美国国会于1846年创建了史密森学会——这是全球最大的博物馆、教育和研究综合体。此前，英国化学家兼矿物学家詹姆斯·史密森（James Smithson）去世，将他的财产留给在美首都建立一个“旨在增加和传播知识”的机构。

如今，它包括21家博物馆、图书馆、研究中心和国家动物园，其中许多位于华盛顿的国家广场。这些机构涵盖了从像国家航空航天博物馆这样的巨头，到像安纳科斯蒂亚社区博物馆（Anacostia Community Museum）这样的小型组织。

史密森学会在历史上一直独立于行政部门运行。它由一个理事会（Board of Regents）管理，负责监督战略、政策、财务、使命和治理。

理事会负责选出一位新秘书来领导史密森学会。

其理事会如何运作？

理事会共有17名成员——由来自政府、商业、医学和学术界的共和党人和民主党人组成。

根据法律规定，理事会包括副总统、美国最高法院首席大法官以及六名国会议员：三名来自众议院，三名来自参议院。首席大法官担任理事会的主席。

理事会另行提名九名私人公民，在经过国会确认和总统签署后，每人连续任期不超过两个六年任期。

董事会目前的状态如何？

自史密森学会成立以来，董事会成员在交错任期结束后便会离任。自4月以来，

格雷厄姆·鲍利（Graham Bowley）和詹妮弗·舒斯勒（Jennifer Schuessler）参与了报道。

董事会出现了三个空缺，到10月，另有三名成员的任期将届满。

董事会成员通常由理事会提名，经国会确认并由总统签署批准，且无需面对党派间的敌意。但近期几位董事会提名人的名单（尚未公开）甚至还没有提交至国会——且没有明确的解释。

两名了解该流程的人士在7月告诉《纽约时报》，由于特朗普希望替换为更多志同道合的候选人，副总统 JD 范斯（JD Vance）推迟了对这些名单采取行动。这两名人士在讨论私人决策时要求匿名。

在2025年3月发布的一项行政命令中，特朗普称史密森学会被一种“分裂的、以种族为中心的意识形态”所吞噬，并要求该机构恢复到“作为灵感和美国伟大象征的正确位置”。

该命令要求范斯与众议院议长和参议院多数党领袖（两人均为共和党人）合作，“寻求任命致力于推进本命令政策的公民成员进入史密森学会理事会”。

之前的招聘情况如何？

在过去寻找新领导人的过程中，史密森学会董事会曾成立搜索委员会并聘请外部咨询公司。

当邦奇（Bunch）在2019年被任命时，这是74年来首次由史密森学会旗下博物馆的馆长被选为整个机构的领导者。邦奇曾是该机构国家非裔美国人历史文化博物馆的创始馆长，并曾在国家美国历史博物馆工作。

他是在一个由11人组成的委员会搜索后被任命为秘书的，该委员会由时任史密森学会董事会主席的大卫·鲁本斯坦（David Rubenstein）和时任副主席的史蒂夫·凯斯（Steve Case）领导。

邦奇接替了心脏病专家、前康奈尔大学校长大卫·J·斯科顿（David J. Skorton），后者在离开史密森学会后，以一家非营利组织总裁的身份回归医疗保健领域。

斯科顿博士接替了另一位前大学校长 G. 韦恩·克劳（G. Wayne Clough）。

谁是最有力的候选人？

史密森学会尚未透露任何接替邦奇的潜在候选人，目前也没有任何姓名公开浮出水面。

在邦奇宣布离职时的声明中，史密森学会表示：“在适当的时候，董事会将宣布一名代理秘书，并开始在全国范围内寻找其继任者。”

他对美国持乐观态度。且听且看。

（接第 CI 页）在同一个乐章中，一名低男中音（周六由男中音埃里克·格林演唱）稳步重复着该乐章的标题——“美国我的家”，同时遵循着多种截然不同的表达指令：“温暖地”、“华丽地”、“温柔地”、“带有布鲁斯感觉地”、“质疑地”等等。

右上图为温顿·马萨利斯在第五交响曲（即《自由》）首演时的情景。左上图为詹姆斯·加菲根在指挥。左上方为男中音埃里克·格林。右上方为音乐会观众。最右上方为舞台场景。

随后，马萨利斯沉溺于他对查尔斯·艾夫斯式混乱的偏好。在名为“邦联者的嘈杂声”的章节中，管乐器尖锐的攻击似乎在为铜管乐器以独立节奏演奏做铺垫；爵士管弦乐团使用弱音器的喇叭管发出沉重的“哇哇”呼气声。歌手被要求“惊恐地尖叫”并感到“痛苦”，随后是“恳求”，最终达到一种“恼怒”的情绪状态。管弦乐编曲在几秒钟内陷入一片混乱，随后是一阵寂静，而寂静被打击乐部分一个孤独且突出的瞬间所打破。

之后，音乐回到了浸透福音音乐和布鲁斯动机以及稳健摇摆感的状态，这些元素支撑了马萨利斯的大部分作品。《美国我的家》最后的乐谱页包含名为“荣耀，荣耀”、“带着优雅”和“和平永在”的子章节。

这是一次极其震撼的体验，而今年尚未出现任何比《自由》更具冲击力的关于美国的艺术作品。

两天前，马萨利斯在纽约与林肯中心爵士乐团排练这部交响曲。该乐团的演出季将于周四开始——首场音乐会将演奏马萨利斯对约翰·科特兰、西洛尼乌斯·蒙克等大师经典作品的大乐队改编曲——这将是他作为该机构艺术总监的最后一个赛季，他自 1987 年起便执掌该机构。（在近四十年后，谁将接替马萨利斯的位置，是爵士乐界一个充满猜测且令人关注的话题。）

当乐团进入紧随“邦联者的嘈杂声”混乱之后的 12 / 8 拍律动时，马萨利斯大喊道：“我们升起来——从死亡中回归！”在演奏暂停期间，他与音乐家们讨论了这个乐章的结尾，以及他们需要扮演的角色以凸显其含义。

“它必须包含一种信念，就像教堂里的老人那样，”他说，“他们就坐在那里看着你，就像在说‘没错！’我们在开始演奏时必须产生那种效果。极致的信念。完全没有任何愤世嫉俗。”

随后在化妆间的采访中，他进一步讨论了交响曲中的这个关键时刻。“这就是为什么人们说美国音乐是乐观的一部分，”他说，并补充道：“我就是这样的人。即便没有任何证据支撑。”

第二天，由 15 名成员组成的林肯中心爵士乐团并入了规模大得多的华盛顿肯尼迪中心的国家交响乐团。加菲根负责融合这两个团体的声音，在晚餐休息期间的采访中，他谈到了自己与马萨利斯音乐的渊源。

加菲根回忆起他曾指挥马萨利斯《小提琴协奏曲》的现场首演；今年 8 月在爱丁堡，他指挥了创作于 1999 年的第一交响曲《全体起立》，几天后又在 BBC 逍遥音乐节上首演了马萨利斯的《管弦乐协奏曲》。加菲根表示，尽管他最初对《小提琴协奏曲》持怀疑态度，但现在将其视为“一部杰作”。

“事实上，我希望他能写更多作品，”加菲根在谈到马萨利斯时说，“而且我认为这正是他现在的计划。”

这部交响曲的一些精细细节在排练中仍在敲定。在肯尼迪中心，乐团投入了大量时间处理在管弦乐大混乱之后、并引导至“荣耀，荣耀”慢速律动部分的突出打击乐，马萨利斯表示这段律动“完全没有讽刺意味”。

这不仅仅是任何一次打击乐的敲击。在总谱中，马萨利斯建议使用棘轮和桌面铃铛来“模拟收银机”。这是一个关于马萨利斯长期敌手“超级资本主义”（Supercapitalism，这是他 2006 年录制的一首曲目名称）的讽刺幽默时刻，它被安置在“邦联者的嘈杂声”与乐章结尾处那些在教堂里的老人所持有的、且“死而复生”的“绝对信仰”之间。

在肯尼迪中心，打击乐手们精准地把握了棘轮与铃铛模拟收银机的时机，在音乐厅内的音乐工作人员们随即哄堂大笑。但在沃尔夫陷阱（Wolf Trap）的首演中，这个响声完全没有传达出来——听起来就像是桌面铃铛失踪了一样。

——因此观众席中没有笑声，人们也没有意识到此时应该发笑。

正如这部内容丰富的交响曲中其他细微细节一样，在未来的演出中，这个时刻肯定会大放异彩。也许与沃尔夫陷阱那个带有扩音设备的准户外场地相比，在传统的音乐厅里效果会更好。（《自由》将于 10 月前往辛辛那提，随后将前往其他委约合作伙伴处，包括明年的圣路易斯交响乐团和柏林爱乐乐团。）

然而，得益于两支乐团出色的演奏，马萨利斯的第五交响曲依然充满了令人愉悦的趣味与吸引力。特别值得关注的是一段甜美歌唱般的、由独奏转为二重奏的小提琴与大提琴段落，由国家交响乐团（NSO）副首席小提琴手傅颖（Ying Fu）和代理首席大提琴手蔡雷蒙（Raymond Tsai）优雅地演绎。同样可靠的是马萨利斯在其管弦乐作品集中磨练出的综合美式风格。（可以将其想象为斯特拉文斯基在带有美国色彩的《黑檀木协奏曲》时期的风格，融合了艾夫斯和伯恩斯坦——以及大量的艾灵顿和斯特雷霍恩，再加上马萨利斯家乡新奥尔良的音乐。）

在纽约的采访中，当被问及他如何为传统管弦乐团和自己的爵士乐团创作时，马萨利斯说：“投诉文件很有趣，对吧？《独立宣言》是一份投诉文件，《共产党宣言》也是一份投诉文件。而且它们是必要的。”

但他补充道，把两个乐团聚集在一起进行投诉是没有意义的。“最好是带着解决方案而来，”他说。“我必须找到一个解决方案，让我们的两个小号声部能够协同演奏。双簧管如何才能被听到？这段律动如何运作，或者这意味着什么，对我们所有人又意味着什么？如果不是这样，如果我们不在寻找一个共同的意义，那么我们——所有人——就没有必要聚集在一起。”

《星际争霸》将以开放世界射击游戏形式回归

暴雪娱乐（BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT） 暴雪娱乐将于 2030 年发布《星际争霸》宇宙中的这款新游戏。

这一具有影响力的系列正逐渐脱离实时战略游戏（RTS）类型。

作者：布莱恩·X·陈 (BRIAN X. CHEN)

在 20 世纪 90 年代经典游戏——如《塞尔达传说：时之笛》、《最终幻想 VII》和《古墓丽家》等——迎来一波翻拍和重制潮之际，暴雪娱乐（Blizzard Entertainment）正准备重启一个深受喜爱的系列，但这次有所突破。

周六，暴雪宣布将推出《星际争霸》（StarCraft）系列的第三部作品，该作将脱离曾助力该工作室家喻户晓的实时战略（RTS）类型。这款定于 2030 年发布的全新游戏将转而成为一款开放世界、剧情驱动的射击游戏，与《命运》（Destiny）和《无主之地》（Borderlands）等作品类似。

“之前的版本是关于成为一名高高在上的指挥官，就像上帝俯瞰并掌控一切，”这款即将推出的游戏的创意总监丹·海（Dan Hay）在一次采访中表示。“我们简单来说就是想接手那个世界，并转换视角。你不再是制造单位，你本身就是那个单位。”

暴雪高管对这款仅命名为《STARCRAFT》的新游戏透露的信息很少，但一段电影预告片描绘了一名在人类（Terran）军队中训练的士兵霍尔特（Holt）。随着玩家在故事中推进，他们可能能够升级角色——改进装备并磨练技能——就像在角色扮演太空射击游戏《质量效应》（Mass Effect）中那样。

“我想能拥有自己的盔甲，”海说。“我想让这套盔甲能够成长，并且我想看到这套盔甲是我可以投入心血去提升的东西。”

细节在开发过程中可能会有所变化，但海考虑过让玩家选择主角角色的可能性，无论是擅长使用喷火器进行近战的火蝠（Firebat），还是使用狙击步枪攻击的潜行刺客幽灵（Ghost）。

第一部《星际争霸》及其续作分别于 1998 年和 2010 年发布，其故事在很大程度上被在线游戏玩法所掩盖，在那种玩法中，玩家指挥太空单位去摧毁对手的部队。每位玩家可以从三个种族中选择：人类（Terran）军事力量；生物进化先进的类昆虫生物虫族（Zerg）；以及技术精湛的神族（Protoss）外星人。

暴雪长期以来一直考虑将《星际争霸》演变为一款剧情驱动的射击游戏。2002 年，它宣布过《星际争霸：幽灵》（StarCraft: Ghost），在其中玩家将扮演一名潜行刺客；该游戏部分由于资源限制而被取消。

自从实时战略游戏被《英雄联盟》（League of Legends）和《Dota》等多人在线战术竞技游戏（MOBA）所掩盖以来，整个行业对 RTS 游戏的投资都在萎缩，在 MOBA 游戏中，每位玩家控制单个单位，而不是微操整个军队。

暴雪娱乐总裁乔安娜·法里斯（Johanna Faries）在一次采访中表示，她将对《星际争霸》采取全新方法视为一个机会，以“在玩家所在之处以及他们将要去的地方与他们相遇”。

“围绕《星际争霸》宇宙有着如此巨大的热情，”她说。“我认为这首先引导我们思考：我们还能做些什么来推动这个宇宙向前发展？”

海表示，在至少 25 年的时间里，参与《星际争霸》的故事一直是他的梦想。他说，原版游戏中的一个场景——一名士兵遭到虫族外星人袭击——激励他进入动画学校，并最终申请暴雪的工作，但当时他因缺乏经验被拒绝。他通过制作电视广告和开发小型游戏来丰富自己的简历，随后领导了广受欢迎的《远古危机》（Far Cry）系列，最终进入暴雪。

游戏开发已变得如此昂贵——对于大型工作室来说通常需要数亿美元——以至于尝试新事物是一种冒险。而且，将《星际争霸》变成一个有始有终的叙事作品，对于暴雪来说是一个重大转变。暴雪曾是《暗黑破坏神》（Diablo）和《魔兽世界》（World of Warcraft）等“长青游戏”的早期领导者，这些令人上瘾的体验似乎永远有完成不完的任务或收集不完的装备。这种游戏类型允许工作室收取在线订阅费。

“我们讨论的是一个内容精简、重点突出且极高保真度的作品，”海在谈到即将推出的《星际争霸》游戏时说道。

对于《星际争霸》的粉丝来说，等待这款新游戏数年可能会感觉时间漫长。但海表示，现在公布它将有助于激励他的团队。

“当我们设定日期，把它写在墙上，我们就会说：‘让我们达成那个目标，’”他说，“让我们确保不要在这些想法上纠结太久。”

在法国，卢浮宫并非唯一易受攻击的目标

（接 C1 版）……一个犯罪团伙日益暴力化的时代，其中一些团伙甚至在光天化日之下闯入博物馆。

左图为卢浮宫的阿波罗画廊，此处曾发生一起白日抢劫案。上图为约汉·米歇尔神父在法国拉翁的家中，他正拿着一件保存在此的物品，因为艺术品窃贼一直在从教堂盗走圣物。下图显示，在法国卡涅-叙-梅尔的雷诺阿博物馆，围栏未能挡住窃贼。 MAEVA DESTOMBES AND HANS LUCAS / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES VALERY HACHE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

“一种集体心理病态正在形成，”法国东部城镇朗格尔的市长西奥·卡维泽尔表示。在卢浮宫抢劫案发生的一天后，窃贼闯入了当地一座致力于纪念法国哲学家丹尼斯·狄德罗的博物馆，盗走了一批金银币。

专家将这些犯罪归结为多种因素的共同作用，包括社交媒体的普及，这使得招募犯罪分子执行任务以及识别即使是名不见经传的博物馆所藏之宝变得更加容易。此外，金银价格的上涨也使得钱币和其他贵重物品具有诱惑力，因为它们可以被熔化并出售。然后，还有所谓的“卢浮宫效应”。

“全世界的窃贼都在关注新闻，”在阿姆斯特丹从事私人艺术侦探工作、曾协助追回博物馆物品的亚瑟·布兰德表示。“所以他们看到卢浮宫，就会想：‘嘿，我们当地不是也有博物馆吗？’我们现在看到的是一场模仿者的瘟疫。”

没有迹象表明马克龙在圣保罗-德-旺斯（尼斯以西的一座山顶小镇）举行的会议与上周的抢劫案有任何联系。在邻近的里维埃拉小镇卡涅-叙-梅尔，警员在凌晨 5:48 警报响起后 5 分钟内就抵达了现场。他们与窃贼擦肩而过。但在匆忙逃离时，入侵者将四幅雷诺阿画作中的两幅遗留在博物馆的花园里，该博物馆位于艺术家曾居住的一座石砌别墅中。

由于被盗作品非常知名——一幅是约 1910, 年创作的法国女演员科隆纳·罗马诺的肖像画，另一幅是约 1886 年的油画《井边的年轻女子》——艺术专家表示，这些作品很容易被追踪，且不可能在公开市场出售。他们表示，此类作品通常最终会在黑市上交易。

专门从事艺术品追回的法国律师皮埃尔·努阿尔表示，这类抢劫案通常是由“赞助人（可能是外国人）指使的，他们希望在私人收藏中拥有伟大的作品，如此伟大的大师之作”。

努阿尔指出，在卢浮宫抢劫案之前已经发生了几起其他抢劫案。其中两起发生在同一周，地点位于法国中部的雅克·希拉克总统博物馆，该馆收藏了 5,000 件在 1995 年至 2007. 年其总统任期内赠予希拉克的外交礼品。该博物馆上个月遭到第三次袭击，当时足球明星齐达内的球衣被盗。

朱莉娅·伊姆伯特在巴黎参与了报道。

努阿尔表示，博物馆的脆弱性在系列事件中也暴露无遗，在这些事件中，一些破坏者（其中部分是政治活动人士）通过喷漆或割破艺术品来对其进行毁坏。他说，法国对这些犯罪行为的法律反应软弱，这鼓励了潜在的窃贼。

然而，尽管博物馆盗窃案获得了广泛关注，但其数量实际上可能并未高于正常水平。法国国民议会的一份报告指出，自 2011, 年以来，博物馆盗窃案的数量有所波动，但维持在每年 15 到 25 起的范围内（该报告未涵盖 2026 年）。

一些专家表示，抢劫案看起来在增加，可能是因为博物馆现在更愿意公开讨论这些事件。过去，提及盗窃行为一直是个禁忌，因为这会暴露安保漏洞。

卢浮宫馆长劳伦斯·德·卡尔斯（Laurence des Cars）在2月份辞职，部分原因就是围绕该馆阿波罗画廊发生的一起胆大妄为的白日抢劫案而引发的重重质疑。

但伦敦艺术品丢失登记处（Art Loss Register）的经理夏洛特·钱伯斯·法拉（Charlotte Chambers Farah）表示：“博物馆在披露被盗或丢失物品方面变得更加透明，并且会向我们这样的人员或公众寻求帮助以追回物品。”该机构负责维护一个丢失或被盗艺术品的数据库。

卢浮宫的抢劫案使法国各地的博物馆安保问题成为了关注焦点。7月，文化部公布了一项包含33项拟议措施的计划，包括绘制最脆弱地点的地图、招募专业警员，以及为极高风险的展品增加额外安保。

然而，对于像朗格（Langres）的卡维泽尔（Caviezel）这样的当地官员来说，并没有快速解决的办法。他表示，尽管抢劫发生在博物馆关闭期间，但博物馆工作人员仍因此受到了心理创伤。他们现在正在接受应对安全威胁的培训，他认为这可能会增加招聘难度。目前已有两人因涉嫌该案被捕。

该镇在博物馆外部安装了额外的监控摄像头，这座博物馆位于一座名为“启蒙之屋”（House of Enlightenment）的修复后的16世纪豪宅中。该镇计划在窗户上安装铁栅栏，并安装一台在警报触发时能产生烟雾的机器，以遮蔽入侵者的逃跑路径。

但正如卡维泽尔所指出的：“一座建筑有前门，有窗户，有屋顶。所以它就是脆弱的。”

专家们喜欢说，艺术品盗窃与艺术本身一样古老。

卡维泽尔指出，《蒙娜丽莎》在1911年，即一个多世纪前，就曾从卢浮宫被盗。

“即使是卢浮宫，拥有数百万美元的预算，是世界上访问量最大的博物馆，也是脆弱的，”他说。

1500 英里徒步 横跨全国

40 小时拄杖 跋涉

18 双袜子 被磨到极限

在 nytimes.com / hellowirecutter 探索数千件产品的独立评测

让徒步旅行像在公园散步一样轻松的一个简单方法

朱迪法官将卸任

朱迪思·B·谢因德林拥有30年的电视职业生涯。

作者：伊莎尼·德赛（ISHANI DESAI）

朱迪思·B·谢因德林（Judith B. Sheindlin）在她的《朱迪法官》（Judge Judy）节目中，在做出果断裁决的同时，总能给出犀利且风趣的简短点评。在统治日间电视节目数十年后，她即将卸任法官之职。

让她家喻户晓的节目《朱迪法官》在播出20多年后，于2021年在CBS电视台完结。随后，新剧集被重播集所取代。

谢因德林的代表加里·罗森（Gary Rosen）表示，该节目在亚马逊Prime上的衍生剧《朱迪正义》（Judy Justice）将停止发布新剧集。根据该流媒体服务的消息，最后一集定于Oct. 22播出。

83,岁的谢因德林将结束她的电视生涯。在她的法庭上，她以标志性的直率和刻薄的评论著称，让房东、男朋友以及其他出庭者在她的审视下无所遁形。

不过，她并非完全退出电视界。她将担任一部由其儿子亚当·莱维（Adam Levy）主演的节目的执行制片人，亚当是一名律师，曾任纽约州普特南县的地区检察官。罗森表示，该节目《亚当之法》（Adam's Law）已于周一在CBS媒体风投（CBS Media Ventures）首播。

罗森还透露，谢因德林还有另一个正在开发的项目：《朱迪宇宙》（Judyverse），这是一部以一名婴儿扮演朱迪法官的成人动画系列剧。

“谢因德林法官并不是在退休，”他说，“她是在‘重新布线’（rewiring）。”

《人物》（People）杂志在周三报道了谢因德林离职的消息。

《朱迪法官》始于Sept. 16, 1996. 在每集半小时的节目中，谢因德林主持小额索赔案件，裁决室友之间关于租金、逾期车贷甚至偷狗的纠纷。

当谢因德林深入挖掘答案并用“朱迪式金句”讥讽诉讼当事人时，她的知名度迅速攀升，例如：“你要么是在装傻，要么你真的就这么傻，”以及“你是在试图向我证明你是个白痴吗？”

该节目多次获得艾美奖，多年来每天吸引900万到1000 万名观众。

“他们留我在这里不是因为我漂亮，”谢因德林曾用带有家乡布鲁克林口音的语气说道，“他们留我在这里是因为我聪明。”

亚马逊聘请她创作并主演

刻薄的电视明星朱迪思·B·谢因德林正在结束她以尖刻金句著称的职业生涯。她的儿子现在开始主持一部法律节目。

在亚马逊的免费流媒体服务Freevee上的《朱迪正义》中。

2021,年首播的《朱迪正义》催生了如《审判正义》（Tribunal Justice）和《审判中的正义》（Justice on Trial）等衍生剧，这些剧集同样在Freevee上播出。（亚马逊在2024年宣布将支持广告的流媒体服务Freevee并入Amazon Prime Video。）

在进入电视界之前，谢因德林曾在一家化妆品公司从事公司法业务。当她觉得这份工作不再能带来成就感时，她选择了离开，并加入纽约家庭法院系统担任检察官，审理青少年犯罪和子女抚养费案件。

前纽约市市长埃德·科赫（Ed Koch）于1982,年任命她为法官，随后她成为了曼哈顿家庭法院的监督法官。

在2019年接受《纽约时报》采访时，她表示：“我的天赋——如果你能称之为天赋的话——是我能理解人们的动机。”

1993,年，谢因德林出现在《60 Minutes》的一个片段中，记者莫利·塞弗（Morley Safer）将她描述为“一个身高五英尺两英寸、充满了‘大写A’级别傲慢（Attitude）的组合体”。

“对于那些与她对抗的人来说，她就像一个戴着蕾丝衣领的邪恶女王，”塞弗补充道，指的是谢因德林在法袍上经常佩戴的衣领。

同样在1993,年，《洛杉矶时报》发表了一篇关于她的特写文章，标题为《法律与混乱：刻薄且说话强硬的法官朱迪思·谢因德林主持着被称为曼哈顿家庭法院的功能失调的阴郁盛会》。

“我无法忍受愚蠢，也无法忍受迟钝，”谢因德林告诉《洛杉矶时报》。

当她在90年代末从家庭法院退休时，电视界向她发出了邀请。

由约瑟夫·瓦普纳法官主持的《人民法院》（The People's Court）已被取消，其背后的制作公司正在寻找替代方案。在三年之内，《朱迪法官》（Judge Judy）便跃升至日间电视节目的第 1 名，甚至击败了《奥普拉·温弗瑞秀》。

2018, 福布斯将谢因德林评为美国收入最高的电视主持人，报道称她主持《朱迪法官》并制作《热议法庭》（Hot Bench）年收入达 4700万美元。

2006, 她在好莱坞星光大道上获得了星名，2019 年她获得了日间艾美奖终身成就奖。

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

在警报与恐惧中起舞

接第 C1 页

他的芭蕾舞剧被全球顶尖舞团纳入剧目。现在，乌克兰国家芭蕾舞团也将拥有一部巴兰钦的芭蕾舞剧——《多尼采蒂变奏曲》，这是一部充满机智舞步且节奏极快的轻快作品。

“这非常累，而且难度很大，”舞者米基塔·苏霍鲁科夫（Mykyta Sukhorukov）在一次采访中表示，“但他明白剧院需要这类剧目。”

该舞团的情况与这座城市的其他地方一样艰难。舞团的人数已从战前的 176 人减少到 95 人。许多人选择出国跳舞。男舞者每年必须两次签署免除兵役的证明文件。如今，演出经常被预警敌方火力袭来的警报所中断。

在这种情况下，表演者、工作人员和观众——在可容纳 1,300 人的剧院中，人数被限制在 600 人以内——会前往地下避难所。但在白天，舞者在警报响起时通常留在原地。“否则，”苏霍鲁科夫说，“我们就得住在避难所里了。”

在上周《多尼采蒂》首演前几天，拉特曼斯基夫妇在剧院附近的酒店房间里通过 WhatsApp 接受了采访。采访期间两次被警报中断，还能听到远处传来的爆炸声。以下是该对话的编辑摘录。

您是如何抵达基辅的？

亚历克谢：有一趟从维也纳到基辅的火车。实际上，它只是挂在另一列火车上的两节车厢。但在维也纳，那列火车没到，所以我们换乘了另一列去布达佩斯的火车，然后才登上前往基辅的车厢。当时有一大群乌克兰人拎着行李箱，在轨道之间奔跑，在楼梯上上下下。

当意识到自己终于再次回到乌克兰时，感觉如何？

亚历克谢：你会感到像在家一样——有一种自在感，你能理解这里。但随后你会意识到：这不是童话。这是真实的。每天都有人死去。我们能听到周围的爆炸声。

警报多久响一次？

塔季扬娜：有一天晚上，我们尝试在每次收到警报时都去避难所。你得起床，穿衣服，去避难所，回来，脱衣服，睡觉，然后一晚上重复很多次。所以我们后来不再这么做了。

但如果长时间安静，也会感到害怕，因为你会觉得俄罗斯人一定在准备什么。这就像米诺陶诺斯的神话。每晚它都必须带走一个人。只不过这是真实的。早晨你听到新闻：2 人死亡，17 人死亡，38 人。每晚每昼都是如此。

城市里的感觉如何？看起来怎么样？

亚历克谢：我必须说，很美。街道上有行人。咖啡馆、餐厅和商店都开着。艺术在繁荣。每个人都如此关怀他人，如此充满活力，如此温暖。人们在互相照顾。

剧院里的氛围如何？

亚历克谢：每个人都在履行自己的职责。有一种常态感。例如：除了排演巴兰钦的《多尼采蒂变奏曲》，我每天还教授早晨的芭蕾舞课。在那个失眠的第一个夜晚——我们不停地往返于避难所之间，我想那晚基辅没有人睡觉——我上午 10 点有一堂课要教。我进来的时候，不确定会看到什么。会有人在吗？但当我到达那里时，全班同学都在那里等待。他们微笑着迎接我们。这让我流泪了。

他们中有些人住在河对岸；地铁不运行，或者桥梁被关闭。其中一名钢琴家告诉我，她必须花两个小时才能准时到达剧院。而她每天都准时出现。无论前一晚发生了什么，第二天早晨人们都会安静地去工作。

[手机警报响起，随后是防空警报和酒店广播系统的通知。对话在几分钟后恢复。]

您与剧院的人们通常会聊些什么？

顶部：舞者基里尔·内贝利特西亚（Kirill Nebelytsia）在为乌克兰国家芭蕾舞团的排练做热身。上方，从左起：编舞家亚历克谢·拉特曼斯基（Alexei Ratmansky）位于最右侧，他与访问者在乌克兰首都基辅的一次排练中交谈，此次排练被防空警报中断；以及在国家歌剧院内部，此处举行了芭蕾舞剧《多尼采蒂变奏曲》（Donizetti Variations）的排练。下方：后台身着戏服的舞者们。

塔蒂亚娜：我们大多在聊战争，聊他们如何躲避，如何生存，以及对此的感受。聊艺术的内容不多。还会聊有多少舞者已经离开了。

排练情况如何？

亚历克谢：我们经历了一些强度极高的排练日，随后每个人都精疲力竭。塔蒂亚娜说：“为什么我们要让他们这么辛苦地工作？他们现在不需要这个。”我把这件事告诉了剧院里的几个人，但他们反驳道：“你无法想象我们多么需要这个。需要一个可以期待的项目、一部作品、一场首演。”听到这些非常令人振奋。他们都会来履行职责，不仅是在剧院，而且在任何地方。

舞团目前如何运作？还在巡演吗？

亚历克谢：他们巡演很多。他们刚从日本回来，很快将前往迪拜。而且他们仍有常规演出。他们一直在演出《战时挽歌》（Wartime Elegies）。

在过去的一周里，其中一场演出被中断了15分钟，期间所有人前往避难所。一场《吉赛尔》（Giselle）的演出不得不取消。

[又一次警报响起，随后传来远处爆炸的声音。]

为什么决定选择《多尼采蒂变奏曲》？

亚历克谢：我觉得他们的剧目库中应该有一部巴兰钦（Balanchine）的芭蕾舞剧。我去巴兰钦信托基金会时，要求一部演员阵容不庞大、时长不过长的作品。而且必须是令人振奋的。当然，不能使用俄罗斯音乐。

该舞团接受的是更古典风格的训练。他们是如何适应巴兰钦作品的速度感和尖锐感的？

亚历克谢：我每天教课，所以我可以解释相关细节。我想利用在这里的每一秒。这是一种截然不同的舞蹈方式——需要时间适应。每个编舞短句中的这种强度对他们来说是全新的。但他们的耐力正在提高。

当警报响起时，剧院里的人有什么反应？

塔蒂亚娜：大多数人并不跑向避难所。一位芭蕾舞指导，曾是舞团的明星，在一次警报期间说：“我留下。反正我没剩多少寿命了。”一位教练告诉我们，他在家里听到警报时，会把音乐开得更大声，这样就听不见警报了。

我去染发，染到一半时警报响了，我问：“我该怎么办？”理发师说：“没什么，没什么大不了的。”我在椅子上不停地打瞌睡，我能看出他也精疲力竭。他说他花了一整晚打扫公寓，因为警报一直响。然后他清洗了所在建筑的楼梯，只是为了让自己忙起来。

您认为您会回来吗？

亚历克谢：我会的。这座城市，这个国家，能够继续运转，是因为人们拥有这种惊人的力量。他们振作起来，然后就去做事。这是人们，是民族性格。我认为这是一个奇迹。

3 药理学

针对发作性睡病患者，一种能够模拟他们缺失化学物质的药物。

6 健康

医学协会就呼吸道病毒疫苗接种提供建议。

科学 / 医学 / 技术 / 健康

8 一场对话

一位考古学家在旧海盗避风港的港口搜寻沉没的宝藏。

科学时报

纽约时报

2026年9月15日，星期二 D1 N

92岁时， 她通过 数学计算 成为了 一名导师

现年99岁的 琼·伯曼（Joan Birman） 曾认为重大的 发现已成过去。 直到她收到一封 来自一名渴望学习的 十几岁女孩的电子邮件。

作者：格雷戈里·巴伯（GREGORY BARBER） 第4页

OLIVER FARSHI 为纽约时报拍摄

发现、事件及更多

E.T.，请把垃圾拿出去

月球上是否存在外星碎片？科学家计划寻找答案。

想象一个运行着远比我们先进得多的耀眼技术的外星文明。想象城市规模的星际飞船、覆盖整个行星的矿场，或是直接从恒星中采集能量的太阳能电池板群。

当这些外星人从事其超凡脱俗的活动时，空间的侵蚀力会损耗其基础设施，导致碎片脱落并漂浮在宇宙中。如果该文明崩溃，其遗迹的降解速度会更快。粒子云可能会被释放到星系中，类似于地球海洋中的微塑料，将地外社会的残骸洒在各个世界。

一个专注于搜寻地外文明（SETI）的科学家团队提出，如果这些粒子确实存在，其中一些可能已经飘过我们的太阳系，或许沉降在月球表面。在他们提交给《国际天体生物学杂志》（International Journal of Astrobiology）并处于同行评审阶段的研究中，他们建议在月壤中寻找这些微观遗迹，可能会解决人类的一个重大问题：我们在宇宙中是孤独的吗？

“如果我们的星系中曾经存在过任何其他技术文明，那么认为月球上存在一定数量的其粒子，是一个合理的假设，”领导这项研究的刘易斯·皮诺（Lewis Pinault）表示。他是加利福尼亚州山景城 SETI 研究所的附属科学家，也是伦敦大学伯克贝克学院的研究员。

在这项研究中，该团队展示了外星基础设施如何风化并侵蚀成微小粒子，并模拟了它们在星系中如何分散。这一过程在地球上已有充分观察：例如，卫星会将微观物质脱落到太空中。

SETI 研究所的科学家索菲亚·谢赫（Sofia Sheikh）将该团队的想法描述为“一个极具创意且值得尝试的途径”。她表示，在 NASA 旨在让宇航员重返月球表面的“阿尔忒弥斯”（Artemis）计划引发人们对月球重新产生兴趣的背景下，这一点尤为正确。（上图：1972年，阿波罗 17 号宇航员哈里森·H·施密特在前往月球表面采集样本的途中。）

皮诺博士及其同事模拟了粒子在星系中可能的运行轨迹，展示了它们如何随时间推移与我们的太阳系相交。他们推测，一些粒子可能会在撞击月球后幸存下来，留下可能已经灭绝的外星社会的痕迹。 BECKY FERREIRA

“这种在花卉图案中体现出的均匀划分空间的能力，可能在日常生活中有着实际的根源。”耶路撒冷的考古学家约瑟夫·加芬金（Yosef Garfinkel）谈到美索不达米亚文化装饰陶瓷如何展示了数学的早期根源。

ANDREW SYRED / SCIENCE SOURCE

人格秘密

每一个性格特质背后，都有 1,260 种可能性

你天生焦虑吗？极具冒险精神？还是比你愿意承认的更爱争论？这些倾向通常通过心理学家所称的性格“大五”维度来衡量：外向性、宜人性、尽责性、神经质和经验开放性。每种特质都存在于一个连续光谱上，并且在成年后的生活中往往保持相当稳定。

BETEL JUICE

但是什么决定了你在这些光谱中所处的位置？科学家们已知性格受多种因素影响，包括 DNA，但尚未理解遗传蓝图引导一个人生活方向的具体路径。

为了绘制这一架构，一组专家分析了超过一百万个基因组，寻找与性格相关的变体。他们发现了 1,260 个与性格相关的遗传标记，其中近三分之二是首次被发现。

研究结果再次证实，气质和性格并非由少数几个基因决定，而是由在不同环境下表达的许多变体共同塑造。目前识别出的常见遗传差异仅占性格差异的约 5 到 10 百分比。但性格的驱动因素并非简单地划分为基因与环境的百分比。DNA 和环境实际上在不断地相互作用；经验是遗传倾向用来塑造一个人最终成为谁的工具。 EMILY BAUMGAERTNER NUNN

古老牙臼中的证据：最早的成瘾者

数千年来，人类一直涉猎改变意识的物质。我们的祖先饮用啤酒和蜂蜜酒等发酵酒精饮料，并尝试致幻的死藤水以及罂粟中的鸦片类物质。如今，考古学家通过研究一名生活在 16,000 到 25,000 年前印度尼西亚的狩猎采集者的牙齿，将人类使用药物的时间线推向了前所未有的早时期。

该个体的磨牙发现于苏拉威西岛的一个洞穴中，上面留有深深的沟槽，这极有可能是因为不停地吮吸槟榔而造成的，槟榔会释放出具有精神活性的刺激剂。如今，仍有约 6 亿 人在嚼槟榔。

根据发表在《科学进展》（Science Advances）杂志上的一项研究，这一新发现将药理实验的时间线提前了 3,000 到 12,000 年，标志着“我们对人类药物历史理解的一次重大转变”。

“人类对精神活性植物的使用，尤其是这种使用，在古代比我们目前所能意识到的要普遍得多，”领导这项研究的澳大利亚考古学教授亚当·布鲁姆（Adam Brumm）表示。布鲁姆博士的团队在 2017 年于一个名为 Leang Bulu Bettue 的洞穴中挖掘出了这名古代采集者的颌骨和牙齿。团队被磨牙上奇怪的牙槽沟槽搞得十分困惑。当在另一个洞穴中发现一名生活在约 7,000 年前的另一位采集者的遗骸时，这个谜团进一步加深了。此人的牙齿磨损模式与之相似。

牙齿上匹配的标记表明，这些标记可能是由该地区数千年传承下来的一种行为造成的。槟榔是一个显而易见的诱因。现代使用者在嚼槟榔时会加入熟石灰，这种在数千年前引入的成分有助于释放植物中名为槟榔碱（arecoline）的精神活性成分。

而史前采集者则是通过吮吸槟榔来获得治疗效果。团队证明，吮吸槟榔可以将足够的槟榔碱释放到大脑中，从而产生精神活性效果。并且他们在两个个体的牙齿上都发现了槟榔碱的痕迹。布鲁姆博士说：“这有力地证明了这本质上是一种早期的药物使用形式，而且看来正是它引发了后来在整个亚太地区广泛传播的现代传统。”

FAKHRI

布鲁姆博士的团队认为，史前人类将槟榔用作止痛药。这种疗法将他们的牙齿磨损到了牙髓，这本应是极其痛苦的。通过这种方式，牙齿可能也揭示了成瘾循环的早期雏形。“他们陷入了一个负反馈循环，即他们开始吮吸槟榔来治疗牙痛，”布鲁姆博士说，“但随着时间的推移，这使得他们的牙科问题变得更加严重，因此他们变得越来越依赖于吮吸那种坚果。”

他说，看到“药物成瘾（如果你愿意这么称呼的话）在酒精、尼古丁和咖啡因出现之前对古代人类产生的影响”是一件非常迷人的事情。 BECKY FERREIRA

终于，一种真正的发作性睡病治疗方案

BSIP / UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP, VIA GETTY IMAGES

一种具有变革性的新药针对的是该疾病的病因而非症状。

作者：卡罗琳·Y·约翰逊 (CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON)

许多人对发作性睡病（narcolepsy）的认知像卡通片一样，或许会想象成有人站着就睡着了。

朱莉·弗莱盖尔（Julie Flygare）表示，人们不理解的是，嗜睡可以渗透到日常生活的方方面面。她42岁，在法学院第二年（2007年）被诊断出患有这种睡眠障碍。她说，它会干扰记忆力和注意力，并像“头骨上的沉重负担”一样压抑着日常生存。

在服用目前的药物时，弗莱盖尔女士每天只有四到六个小时极其宝贵的清醒时间，而且仍然需要午睡。积极的情绪——例如在打网球时击出一记截击的快感——会触发猝倒（cataplexy）发作；她的肌肉会变得松弛，握拍的手也会松开。像许多其他患者一样，她多年来一直努力争取获得正确的诊断，并寻找合适的兴奋剂或其他药物组合来缓解症状。

从那时起，弗莱盖尔女士一直在等待并推动研发一种药物，这种药不仅旨在减轻嗜睡，而且旨在替代一种关键的缺失脑化学物质。上个月，她看到了这一时刻的到来。一种首创的发作性睡病药物获得了美国食品药品监督管理局（F.D.A.）的批准。

这款由武田药品工业株式会社（Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.）研发的新药名为 Orzeyful，标志着在模拟一种名为食欲蛋白（orexin）的关键脑肽方面的长期探索取得了成功，而 1 型发作性睡病患者体内就缺失这种肽。在美国，约有 120,000 人患有这种类型的发作性睡病，它会导致普遍的嗜睡和猝倒发作。包括 Alkermes 和礼来（Eli Lilly）在内的其他公司也紧随其后。

为了测试发作性睡病的治疗效果，医生会使用“觉醒维持测试”，让受试者在昏暗的房间里坐 40 分钟。

“你必须保持清醒。不能阅读，不能看电视，不能说话，”斯坦福大学的睡眠研究员、Orzeyful 测试试验的领导者之一埃马纽埃尔·米尼奥（Emmanuel Mignot）博士说。“对于正常人来说，这已经很困难了；而对于发作性睡病患者来说，这是不可能的。”

根据上周发表在《新英格兰医学杂志》上的一项研究，在接受治疗前，患者会在四到五分钟内睡着。在两项后期临床试验中，近 300 名年龄在 16 到 70 岁之间的患者接受了为期 12 周的 Orzeyful 或安慰剂治疗。波士顿贝斯以色列女执事医疗中心（Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center）的睡眠研究员托马斯·斯卡梅尔（Thomas Scammell）博士表示，服用 Orzeyful 的患者可以保持清醒 20 分钟以上——大约是目前可用药物效果的两倍。

未参与该研究的斯卡梅尔博士认为，这款药物可能是“变革性”的。服用该药的患者报告称，他们第一次培养起了爱好：跳舞、打冰球或自发地进行社交。

弗莱盖尔女士参加了 Orzeyful 的其中一项测试试验。她回忆说，在第一次前往试验地点时，由于停用了药物，她无法清晰思考，几乎无法行走。（为了测试新药的效果，必须处于一种“空白状态”。）

后来，当同一名司机在她在开始服用 Orzeyful 后接她时，她记得自己开了一个玩笑。这种随意的、不经意的社交互动通常会触发她的猝倒，导致她双膝发软。

“这种清醒感有一种不同的基调；感觉更阳光，”弗莱盖尔女士在谈到与兴奋剂的体验对比时说道，她

在美国，约有 120,000 人患有 1 型发作性睡病。除了持续的嗜睡，该疾病还会导致猝倒发作，即通常由积极情绪触发的肌肉控制突然丧失。现在，首次出现了一种能够模拟患者缺失的关键脑化学物质的药物。参与临床试验的人发现，它改变了他们的生活。

一名参加 Orzeyful 临床试验的患者表示，清醒后的感觉“像阳光一样明媚”。

她创立了一家名为“睡眠项目”（Project Sleep）的非营利组织，旨在提高人们对睡眠障碍的认识。该非营利组织接受包括武田药业（Takeda）在内的制药公司的资助，去年，弗莱加尔女士曾担任该公司的顾问，就临床试验中的患者视角提供建议。

Orzeyful 是一种每日服用两次的药片。在缉毒局（Drug Enforcement Administration）确定其作为管制药物的分级之前，该药将无法上市，预计这一过程将在 11 月前完成。医生们对拥有一个新工具感到兴奋，但仍有许多未知数：长期效果如何？一种激活食欲素（orexin）受体的药物是否会改变人们患其他神经系统疾病的风险？

这款新药的漫长研发之路始于 20 多年前，当时科学家首次发现发作性睡病患者缺乏食欲素。

食欲素由脑细胞产生，其作用类似于钥匙插入锁孔，通过与大脑中一个名为下丘脑区域的细胞表面的两种不同受体结合来发挥作用。封锁锁孔（就像在上面贴一块胶带一样）是一个简单的药物开发问题，几种基于此理念的失眠治疗药物已经获得批准。但设计一把能打开锁孔的钥匙则需要更精细的技术。

“这很难，”武田药业研发总裁安德鲁·普兰普（Andrew Plump）表示。这种药物是一种“激动剂”，必须通过与受体结合来激活受体，从而模仿天然食欲素的作用。

第二个问题是发作性睡病较为罕见。

“他们说我们的科学研究非常有趣且令人兴奋，但毕竟发作性睡病的发病率是几千分之一——不算极罕见，但也不常见，”日本筑波大学的分子生物学家柳泽正志（Masashi Yanagisawa）博士说，他是 1998 年发现食欲素的团队之一的负责人。

一名有发作性睡病朋友的武田药业科学家通过筛选一个庞大的分子库以寻找有潜力的命中目标，从而启动了该项目。

由于这位科学家的热情，研究得以展开，但这并非轻而易举。早期版本需要通过静脉注射给药。另一个候选药物导致了肝损伤。

其他公司也紧随其后。除了睡眠，此次获批还引发了一场开发新类别药物的竞赛，这类药物在从多动症（A.D.H.D.）到神经退行性疾病的一系列疾病中显示出潜力。

Alkermes 公司有一款类似的药物处于后期测试阶段。这家总部位于都柏林的公司的首席执行官布莱尔·杰克逊（Blair Jackson）表示，该公司已确定此类药物可能具有潜力的 19 个领域。礼来公司（Eli Lilly）最近同意支付高达 78 亿美元 billion 收购 Centessa Pharmaceuticals 公司，后者在研发管线中拥有类似的药物。

“睡眠是容易实现的目标，”斯坦福大学的分子生物学家路易斯·德·莱塞亚（Luis de Lecea）表示，他也是 1998. 发现食欲素（尽管他们将其称为促眠肽 hypocretin）的团队成员。发作性睡病患者缺乏食欲素，但在阿尔茨海默病、帕金森病、创伤后应激障碍（P.T.S.D.）甚至正常衰老过程中，食欲素也会减少。

华尔街分析师将其与 GLP-1 类药物进行了充满希望的类比，后者最初是作为糖尿病治疗药物，随后扩展到减肥，现在正被用于测试治疗一系列其他疾病。

弗莱加尔女士也充满希望。“对我来说，这感觉就像是一个圆满的时刻，”她说。

首例：猪肾脏充当“桥接”器官

CHERYLE ST. ONGE 为《纽约时报》拍摄 一个基因改造的猪肾脏让蒂姆·安德鲁斯（Tim Andrews）获得了九个月的透析缓解期。

1 个基因改造的动物器官维持了一名患者的生命，直到他能够获得一个人类器官。

作者：罗妮·卡林·拉宾 (RONI CARYN RABIN)

两年前，蒂姆·安德鲁斯（Tim Andrews）疲惫不堪，唯一的愿望就是睡觉。糖尿病和高血压摧毁了他的肾脏，而为了维持生命而必须频繁进行的血液过滤透析治疗极其艰苦。尽管年仅 66 岁，但他没有精力，也没有食欲，虚弱到无法行走，并且经历了两次心脏病发作。

“我当时快死了，”安德鲁斯先生说。肾移植本可以救他的命，但器官供应严重短缺。根据器官共享联合网络（United Network for Organ Sharing）的数据，大约有 90,000 人在等待肾移植名单中，平均每天有 11 人在等待过程中死亡。而且，由于他的血型罕见，这意味着安德鲁斯先生获得匹配的人类肾脏的机会极其渺茫。

因此，当他听说马萨诸塞州综合医疗中心（Mass General Brigham）的医生正在为患者移植基因改造猪的肾脏时，他联系了他们。

“我想，如果我注定要死，我不如为人类做点贡献，成为这次实验的一部分，”他说。

安德鲁斯先生在 2025 年 1 月 25 日接受了一颗基因改造猪肾脏的移植，并以此生存了九个月。今年，他成为了首位在接受猪肾移植后又接受人类捐献肾脏移植的已知患者，这一里程碑在发表于《柳叶刀》（The Lancet）的一篇论文中得到了描述。

他的案例为一个极具吸引力的概念提供了早期证明：即猪肾虽然还不是永久的解决方案，但可以为人类器官移植提供“桥梁”。这些肾脏来自经过多次基因编辑的猪，其中一些编辑旨在防止严重的器官排斥反应，另一些则旨在使猪基因组中的病毒失活。

“透析给我们的患者带来了巨大的损耗，导致他们病得太重而无法进行移植，或者在等待中死亡，”该论文的第一作者、马萨诸塞州综合医疗中心 Legorreta 临床移植耐受中心副主任莱昂纳多·V·里埃拉（Leonardo V. Riella）博士说道。

当研究人员最初考虑以这种方式使用猪肾时，曾担心接受过该器官的患者以后可能会更容易排斥人类肾脏。

但安德鲁斯先生以及另一名患者的经历表明，“这似乎完全没有改变你对人类组织的反应，”eGenesis 公司的总裁兼首席执行官迈克·柯蒂斯（Mike Curtis）说道。这家生物技术公司生产了马萨诸塞州综合医疗中心所使用的基因改造猪，并资助了该研究。

“目前，我们认为先移植猪肾再移植人类肾脏没有任何副作用，但当我们开始这项研究时，我们并不知道事实会是这样，”柯蒂斯博士说。

总计有五名马萨诸塞州综合医疗中心的患者在食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的一项计划下接受了 eGenesis 生产的猪肾移植，该计划允许为没有其他治疗选择的患者扩大治疗渠道。该公司表示，包括安德鲁斯先生在内的三名患者使用这些器官生存了八个月以上。（一名患者在移植后不久死于意外心脏事件，一名患者在 6 月才接受移植。）

医生表示，安德鲁斯先生使用动物器官的时间对于让他的健康重回正轨至关重要。猪肾每天 24 小时、每周 7 天地产生尿液并清除体内的废物，而透析每隔一天才能进行一次，且每次需耗时数小时。他的饮食改善了，肌肉量也恢复了。

“它给了我生命，”安德鲁斯先生说。

更多工作正在进行中。eGenesis 将于明年启动一项包含 33 名患者的正式临床试验。另一家生产基因改造猪的生物技术公司——联合治疗公司（United Therapeutics Corporation）在本周的一份声明中表示，该公司已于 2025 年 11 月开始对其肾脏进行临床试验，并将很快启动第二次试验。声明还提到，该公司正在启动一项极小规模的猪心移植给人类的临床试验。

柯蒂斯博士表示，虽然“过渡性”肾脏将证明其价值，但最终目标是开发出能够与人类移植器官一样长久耐用的猪肾。

“也许在 10 或 15 年后，我们讨论的替代方案将与人类肾脏一样出色，”里埃拉博士说。“我们正处于这段旅程的起点。”

安德鲁斯先生在植入猪肾期间曾多次住院，最终由于器官血管内形成血栓并造成损伤，该肾脏不得不被移除。“我想，如果我注定要死去，那么为人类做点贡献也挺好。”他短暂地恢复了透析，并在 1 月份接受了一颗人类肾脏的移植。

尽管此后他遇到了一些健康问题，但他表示，他现在的身体状况比过去几年都要好，并且重新回到了池塘边的小屋里度过一年中的大部分时间。他在池塘里游泳、划皮划艇，并进行短途骑行，而他在透析期间减退的食欲也恢复了。

“我曾经认为自己只剩下几个月，也许一年时间，”他在谈到透析期间的感受时说道。但他说，移植手术改变了他看待生活的方式。“当你听到‘停下来闻闻玫瑰花香’（意指放慢脚步享受生活）时，那就是我现在的生活。我看任何事物都会感叹‘哇’。”

一款前景光明的药物为何失败？

心脏病专家对一种 Lp(a) 治疗方案的结果感到惊讶。

作者：吉娜·科拉塔（GINA KOLATA）

直到本月，心脏病专家还认为他们正处于治疗心脏病的新前沿。

三家公司正在对实验性药物进行大规模临床试验，这些药物旨在降低血液蛋白 Lp(a) 的水平，而该蛋白被认为会导致心脏病发作和中风。医生们正热切期待结果，希望这种药物能像他汀类药物（statin）一样重要。

当第一家完成试验的公司诺华（Novartis）在 9 月 4 日公布结果时，心脏病专家们震惊了。该药物可以将 (a) 水平降低 80%，但它并未能预防心脏病发作和中风。它失败了。

“这里有某些我们尚未理解的东西，”杜克大学的心脏病专家约翰·亚历山大（John Alexander）博士表示。

心脏病专家经常接诊一些患者，尽管他们的胆固醇和血压水平较低，但仍然发生了心脏病发作。他们没有糖尿病，也不肥胖，而且不吸烟。然而，这些患者往往具有高水平的 (a)。

约 20% 的美国人 (a) 水平升高；该蛋白水平最高的人群，其心脏病发作的风险可能是常人的两倍或三倍。

因此，(a) 的重要性毋庸置疑。心脏病专家希望，一种降低该蛋白水平的药物能为这些患者提供一种自我保护的方法。

但诺华研究的失败引发了一个令人不安的可能性：也许 (a) 并不是心脏病的病因，而仅仅是心脏病风险的一个标志，就像白发是衰老的标志一样。

然而，如果 (a) 是一个标志，那么它标志着什么？是否还存在某种尚未被人们想到的心脏病诱因？

美国预防心脏病学会（American Society for Preventive Cardiology）主席大卫·马龙（David Maron）博士表示，这就是“我们所有人都在思考的那个挥之不去的疑问”。

而且，可能也没有简单的答案。亚历山大博士说：“也许我们被误导了，以为这会很简单。”

尽管如此，许多研究人员还不准备放弃 (a) 假设，他们表示失败可能还有其他解释，需要仔细研究研究数据。该公司在 11 月的美国心脏协会（American Heart Association）会议上展示之前，不会提供完整的数据集。

西北大学费因伯格医学院（Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine）的心脏病专家萨迪亚·汗（Sadiya Khan）博士表示：“我们仍有许多需要学习的地方。”

心脏病专家表示，他们有充分的理由认为高水平的 (a) 会导致心脏病。这种血液蛋白会嵌入动脉壁，并可能引起炎症和血液凝固。

宾夕法尼亚大学的血脂专家丹尼尔·雷德（Daniel Rader）博士认为，研究失败的一个可能解释是，参与试验的患者类型不对。参与者是 (a) 水平极高且已经发生过心脏病发作或中风的人。之前的希望是，降低 (a) 能防止他们再次发作。

研究通常在更容易发生心脏病的人群中进行，因为这样更容易观察到这些患者是否得到了保护。但雷德博士表示，对于他们来说可能已经太晚了。正确的测试群体应该是那些具有心脏病高风险但尚未发生心脏病发作的人。或者，他说，将 (a) 降低 80% 可能还不够。

但如果 (a) 在导致已有心脏病患者再次发生心脏病发作和中风中没有起到主要作用，那么真正的驱动因素是什么？

耶鲁大学的心脏病专家哈兰·克鲁姆霍尔兹（Harlan Krumholz）博士有不同的看法。他指出，胆固醇水平和血压水平可能在数十年内保持较低，然后在晚年激增。但高水平的 (a) 是由遗传决定的，不会发生变化。

“你的 Lp(a) 水平是天生的，无法改变，”克鲁姆霍尔茨博士说道。无论该水平是多少，它都不会自行改变。因此，在成年后降低该水平可能无效，因为此时已经太晚，无法产生影响。他表示，也许一个人需要服用降低 Lp(a) 的药物长达 20 年，甚至从出生起就要服用。

心脏病专家表示，礼来（Lilly）和安进（Amgen）这两家制药公司针对 Lp(a) 的其他药物研究仍在进行中，这些研究对于确定降低该水平是否有帮助至关重要。

雷德博士表示，如果其他研究结果为负面，“我不确定人们会对 Lp(a) 产生太大的热情。”

一位数学家与她的学徒

作者：格雷戈里·巴伯（GREGORY BARBER）

琼·伯曼（Joan Birman）曾多次收到过这类信件：一名高中生发来的恳求，请求帮助学习数学。

这名学生在信中写道，在享受完一年级的几何课后，她最近读到了人生中第一个真正的数学证明。这让她觉得，数学中可能存在着比她在学校里学到的更多东西。也许伯曼博士能向她展示那些她所缺失的部分。

在伯曼博士的职业生涯中，这类信息出现的频率如此之高，以至于她开始怀疑这些是高中老师布置的任务。即便在2004年从哥伦比亚大学退休后，这类邮件依然在寄来，尽管频率或许有所降低。现在，在2019年的夏天，她已经92岁了，她对扮演保姆毫无兴趣。

尽管如此，她还是给这名学生回了信，说她会考虑一下。

事实是，她想继续从事数学研究。她的丈夫约瑟夫·伯曼（Joseph Birman）在两年前去世，让她独自住在纽约州罗切尔（New Rochelle）的房子里，他们曾在这里抚养三个孩子。她决定搬回市区，在曼哈顿的河滨大道（Riverside Drive）选了一套公寓，因为那里离她仍在哥伦比亚大学保留的办公室不远。她希望自己随时都能通过打车抵达一场数学对话。

而这封电子邮件——当她进一步思考时，感觉它异常真诚，并非被迫，就好像这个女孩真的想学数学。几天后，伯曼博士回复说她愿意见面。她告诉这个青少年去找一本教科书，即I.N. 赫斯坦（I.N. Herstein）的《代数专题》（Topics in Algebra），这是一本对有志于成为研究生的学生来说标准的“折磨工具”。

那个7月，女孩来到了伯曼博士位于上西区公寓楼的大堂，那是河滨大道上的一栋战后合作公寓。她的名字叫瓦苏达·巴拉特拉姆（Vasudha Bharathram），那个月刚满15岁。她是布朗克斯区里弗代尔乡村学校（Riverdale Country School）即将升入高二的学生，而巧合的是，她和家人也住在河滨大道上，仅隔10个街区。第一次见到她时，伯曼博士被她看起来多么娇小和稚气所震撼：“她还没有经历生长发育期，”她回忆道。她的父亲陪同她走过社区来到这里。

她们坐在大堂的扶手椅上，伯曼博士询问巴拉特拉姆女士两年前从印度搬来的经历，以及她喜欢高中几何的哪些方面。

伯曼博士解释说，她自己的数学子领域被称为拓扑学；它同样涉及形状，但这些形状是流动的、可拉伸的，而不是被僵硬的坐标所固定。伯曼博士拿起一支铅笔画了一个例子，叫做“辫子”，它像发辫一样盘绕。她给学生布置了一个任务，让她阅读教科书的一个章节，然后让她离开。

几天后，巴拉特拉姆女士又给她发了一封电子邮件，这次附有笔记本的照片，这让伯曼博士感到惊讶。那是好几页的解答，用一种凌乱的青少年笔迹写成，年长的数学家几乎无法辨认，但她依然很感兴趣。

伯曼博士首先被这个女孩的无畏所震惊；赫斯坦书中的题目在任何人看来都不是什么愉快的事情。然后她仔细查看了笔记，意识到瓦苏达通过勾勒出通往正确答案的独特路径解决了这些问题，其中大部分是关于抽象代数基本概念的证明。在下次大堂会面时，她请她解释自己的思考过程。

伯曼博士意识到，这里有一些原创的东西。

她当即决定了她们未来的方向。她心中有一个问题，一个几十年来她自己都未能攻克的问题。事实上，随着她们在教科书中的推进，她们已经在努力解决它——尽管她的新学生对此还毫无察觉。

课程很快转移到了伯曼博士的公寓里。在搬家时，她处理掉了大部分物品，但仍保留了几件旧生活中的遗物，那是她在纽罗谢尔大房子里生活时的痕迹。书架上摆满了科学传记，大多是由乔收集的，他是一位著名的物理学家。还有一对兜帽石像鬼，那是 1960 年代后期在法国一时兴起买下的，苏富比拍卖行并不想要它们。（当时她和乔开车经过那家古董店，两人目光交汇，立刻就知道对方在想什么。）石像守护着一张橡木餐桌，她和瓦苏达就在那里讨论问题。在伯曼博士抱怨她的“糟糕透顶的字迹”之后，这个女孩现在用打字的方式给出答案。

伯曼博士第一次搬到纽约是在 80 年前，当时她 12 岁。她的父母认为，她们的四个女儿在纽约比在长岛更有机会找到丈夫。在她的女子公立高中里，她发现了对几何学的热爱——那是她能真正“看到”的数学。她与一个被称为“数学女孩”的小团体一起，争取更难的题目——这个要求超出了她们的老师马奥尼女士所能提供的范围。她的父母对此表示支持。他们的想法是让四个女儿都接受教育（她们确实做到了），然后按出生顺序出嫁（她们几乎做到了，但最小的妹妹拒绝出嫁）。

琼在抚养三个孩子的同时兼职担任工程师，但这份工作最终失去了意义。尽管如此，她在 34 岁时开始在纽约大学修读数学晚间课程以“磨练心智”（用她的话说），并完全期待能重返该领域。她在还没意识到资格考试具体用途的情况下，就通过了博士资格考试。“我想，‘要么我在研究生院搞得一团糟，要么我就把生活搞得一团糟，’”她说道。

在获得奖学金后，她用这笔钱雇了一名保姆；现在，她可以整天坐着看向窗外，思考拓扑学。几十年后，她的孩子们会互相开玩笑说，因为没能准确理解母亲在做什么，以及为什么这件事占据了她如此多的精力，而让自己处于“被冷落”的状态。

她的一个研究兴趣是纽结，在拓扑学中，纽结被定义为单根线条以无法还原的方式进行循环和扭曲。它们的灵活性使其具有欺骗性。纽结理论中的一个主要问题是判断两个看起来不同的纽结实际上是否相同。任何解过项链的人都知道，即使是最糟糕的乱结最终也会展开成一个圆圈——即“平凡纽结”。为了破解其真实本质，数学家将形状转化为代数。被称为多项式的表达式有助于将纽结识别为唯一的，使这些蠕动的形式变得具体。

与此同时，辫子被定义为多个重叠且不形成回路的线条，而是像火车站进出站的轨道一样延伸到页面之外。它们的特别之处在于你可以直接用它们进行计算——即用图像进行代数运算。在伯曼博士 1968 年完成博士学位时，对辫子的研究被认为是“冷门领域”。但对于一个 41 岁且正在寻找第一份学术工作的女性来说，这正合适，因为在那个时代，因“性别不对”而被拒绝并不足以引起丑闻。这给了她一个机会。

她加入了巴纳德学院的教职员工队伍，并很快因将强大的辫子代数与数学世界的其他课题（从纽结到混沌理论）联系起来而闻名。她在哥伦比亚大学校园里的办公室成了一个中转站。1984 年，当数学家沃恩·琼斯在研究辫子过程中发现一种新的多项式时，他找到了伯曼博士，以确定它是否有用。她迅速帮助他意识到这种多项式如何区分一个纽结与另一个纽结——这是该领域梦寐以求的终极目标。后来，当琼斯被授予仅颁发给 40 岁以下数学家的菲尔兹奖时，由伯曼博士为其介绍。

上方照片来自琼·伯曼（Joan Birman）的档案，约为1990年为巴纳德学院（Barnard College）目录制作。她很快因将强大的辫子代数（algebra of braids）与数学界的其他课题（从纽结到混沌）联系起来而闻名。

她注意到，数学界的女性有时会自我孤立。她并不赞同这一点——事实上，当巴纳德学院和哥伦比亚大学未能如预期那样合并时，她感到很困扰。但那些女性最终还是找到了她。她希望看到她的“数学女儿们”真正地从事数学研究，揭示一个每个人都能触及的隐藏结构世界。当其中一名“女儿”——一名患有严重肾病（伯曼博士当时并不清楚病情有多严重）的本科生在两人开始合作后不久去世时，几十年后依然令她耿耿于在心的是，她当时未能更努力地推动研究进展。“我辜负了她，”她说道。

行动中的琼（为巴纳德学院目录拍摄的照片）

在那之后，她曾发誓不再招收年轻学生——直到瓦苏达（Vasudha）出现，后者现在每读完赫斯坦（Herstein）的一章内容，就会给她发邮件预约见面。她们进展神速。到初秋时分，她们读完了那本书，并很快开始研读伯曼博士自己关于辫子的著作，该书被认为是该领域的开创性作品。伯曼博士意识到，她们之间的对话，就像她花17美元打车去哥伦比亚大学所能获得的任何启发一样令人兴奋。

最终，伯曼博士引导瓦苏达阅读其中一个章节，在该章节中，她描述了一种使用大型多项式集来表示辫子的特殊方法。这种方法被称为布劳表示（Burau representation），它伴随一个问题：在这种从形状到代数的转换过程中，信息是否丢失。这被称为“忠实性”（faithfulness）。已知布劳表示对于三根或更少股的辫子是忠实的，而对于五根或更多股的辫子是不忠实的；在那种情况下，辫子变得过于复杂而难以处理。

这就剩下了四根股的情况。在伯曼博士生存的大部分时间里，没有人能就布劳表示在这种情况下是否忠实得出任何结论。数学家们甚至无法决定哪条路径更有可能。尝试在任何一个方向上进行证明，就像是从飞机上跳下去，而不知道自己是否背了降落伞。

伯曼博士在几个月前就决定，她们要跳一次。在疫情开始后不久，她建议瓦苏达先重新审视那个已成定论的三股情况。也许如果她能找到一种新的证明方法，她们就能发现他人遗漏的路径。

瓦苏达出生在离河滨大道（Riverside Drive）不远的新约-长老会 / 哥伦比亚医院（NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia Hospital）。但她在3岁时随家人移居印度，并在八年级时回到纽约。德里是她终身好友所在的地方，在那里她会踢几个小时的足球，为班加罗尔板球队加油；现在，该球队的一张海报就挂在她曼哈顿卧室的墙上。

她决定发送那封邮件几乎纯属偶然：她浏览了哥伦比亚大学的教师页面，看到了排在顶部的伯曼博士的名字，阅读了一篇关于她工作的文章，然后觉得应该联系一下。她的父母听到她这么做时感到很惊讶，而当那位数学家回应时，他们更加困惑了。家人开玩笑说，瓦苏达在学校最喜欢的科目一直是课间休息。但就青少年的痴迷选择而言，这绝不是他们能想象到的最糟糕的情况。不过，随着细节变得越来越复杂，她不再向父母谈论数学。她只对“伯曼教授”谈论。

也许通过与一名年轻学生的合作，她们能共同找到一种新的方法，来证明一个被他人遗漏的理论。

随着疫情的到来，她现在可以坐在床上，一边大声播放平克·弗洛伊德（Pink Floyd）的音乐，一边思考数学，如此坐上好几个小时。比尔曼博士交给她的许多论文她并不理解，但她并不在意。如果遇到不熟悉的公式或概念，她会尝试查阅，或者将这个想法暂存起来以后再研究。在比尔曼博士的指导下，她开始修读大学课程，而这些课程当时刚刚转为在线教学，高中也是如此。当她需要专注于一道数学题时，她的老师们现在自带一个静音按钮。

她与导师的会面通过 Zoom 继续进行，期间经历了导师一次突然的街头晕倒以及一次起搏器手术。等到他们终于能面对面见面时（起初是在河滨公园的一张长椅上），他们已经取得了进展。瓦苏达正在尝试利用一种特殊的多项式，制定一种证明三股辫忠实性（faithfulness）的新方法。这是一个不寻常的选择，因为这种多项式曾在证明为什么五股或更多股辫的 Burau 表示是不忠实的（unfaithful）过程中发挥了作用。她现在认为，这将有助于她证明四股辫的情况是忠实的。比尔曼博士认为这个想法不错。

不过，这仅仅是一种直觉，是在脑海中对辫子进行了数月的可视化想象后形成的，而非证明。“他们有一套论据，但目前还没有人能理解它，”范德比尔特大学的拓扑学家丹·马加利特（Dan Margalit）在审阅了他们的早期工作后表示。他曾怀疑他们是否能成功，但在多次交谈中，他一直鼓励比尔曼博士，因为他认为这位数学家及其学徒对这个有趣（尽管可能无法解决）的问题如此痴迷并无大碍。

然而，很明显他们需要一些支援。在瓦苏达高四的一天，

瓦苏达·巴拉特拉姆（Vasudha Bharathram，右），在普林斯顿大学研究生院的第一天。她第一次联系比尔曼博士学习更多数学时年仅 15 岁。

照片由 OLIVER FARSHI 为《纽约时报》拍摄 左图，她们共同研究一项关于辫子的研究；在比尔曼博士 1968 年获得博士学位时，该领域被认为是“冷门”。底图，比尔曼博士 1974 年出版的著作《辫子、链路与映射类群》（Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups）中的一页。

比尔曼博士邀请了塔拉·布伦德尔（Tara Brendle）来到公寓与她们一起研究。布伦德尔曾是比尔曼在哥伦比亚大学最后的几名研究生之一。她迅速发现了他们其中一张图表中的一个错误——在那一刻，比尔曼博士知道她们找到了合作者。

布伦德尔博士当时四十多岁，是格拉斯哥大学的教授。她此前一直犹豫是否要接手 Burau 问题，因为这是一个臭名昭著的“兔子洞”，她甚至建议自己的博士生避开它。但她后来回忆道，巴拉特拉姆小姐的方法如此有趣，以至于“我回家后把这件事告诉了我的孩子们”。

她还惊讶于这对组合相处得如此融洽，两人共有一种强度，这种强度很容易被误读为鲁莽。那些被他人视为私人的话题，如家庭、爱好或音乐，似乎只存在于她们对话礼貌的边缘。但她们在数学品味上高度一致——布伦德尔博士说，这比任何事情都更私人。

当巴拉特拉姆小姐需要考虑大学申请时，比尔曼博士接管了主导权。她给普林斯顿大学写了一封信，因为那里是“所有数学天才去的地方”。就这样，普林斯顿成了瓦苏达申请的唯一一所学校。

她最终的导师大卫·加拜（David Gabai）曾警告比尔曼博士，大多数早慧的学生最终都无法成功。他们习惯于快速完成计算并在数学竞赛中赢得奖杯，结果发现，面对一个未解决（且可能无法解决）的问题所带来的长年累月的荒原之苦并不适合他们，他们更适合去编写 AI 软件或加入对冲基金。

然而，加拜博士很快发现，瓦苏达在伯曼博士指导下的研究使她形成了不同的特质。“她足够成熟，能够意识到如果你抛出一个想法，它能奏效的机会并不大，”加拜博士说，“但那又怎样？再抛出另一个想法就是了。”

她们的相识故事令他震惊。他说，伯曼博士决定回复巴拉特拉姆女士的那封陌生邮件，让人想起 1913 年 G.H. 哈代对印度数学家斯里尼瓦萨·拉马努金（一名很大程度上是自学成才的人）来信的回应，正是那次回应将拉马努金从默默无闻中发掘出来，并开启了一段近乎神话般的合作伙伴关系。

从入学第 1 天起，巴拉特拉姆女士就与她在纽约和苏格兰的合作者们过着平行生活。她觉得自己的基础数学知识终于积累到足以取得真正进展的程度。因此，音乐声也变得越来越大；校园警察不止一次被叫到她的宿舍房间，发现一名年轻女性正对着前卫摇滚播放列表做数学题。

偶尔，三人会相聚在伯曼博士的公寓里参加“数学训练营”，布伦德尔博士则住在客房。他们对新的三股证明感到满意，并开始研究四股情况，使用相同的多项式来描述股线之间重叠的扭转与回旋。问题在于，多项式中的某些项有时会相互抵消，这意味着信息可能会丢失，即“不忠实性”（unfaithfulness）。

他们的任务是证明，这些抵消现象不会累积到产生问题的程度。但要证明这种情况始终成立，需要绘制数千张各种编织结构的草图并进行密集计算。在长达数小时的 Zoom 会议中，当两名学生在 iPad 上涂写图表和公式时，已近 90 多岁高龄的伯曼博士私下担心自己跟不上进度（其他人则声称没有注意到）。她还更直率地质疑，他们是否已经足够明确地找到了解决方案，应该尽快将其公开。毕竟他们的时间并非无限。

今年冬天，一个意识改变了他们的方向。他们不再逐案苦干，而是改变方法，将四股编织想象成具有五股的情况——北卡罗来纳州立大学的纽结理论专家拉德米拉·萨兹达诺维奇后来称这一举措为“超级、超级优雅”。在这个五股可能性的世界里，他们可以进行一项修正，使多项式中所有的抵消现象全部消失。布伦德尔博士说，看着它们消失是“我数学生涯中最令人满足的时刻”。

不久之后，他们认为问题已得到解决。但他们仍然犹豫是否公开，花了数月时间琢磨如何描述他们的私密逻辑。即便像马加利特博士这样的同事现在已经理解了结果，但许多想法仍违背直觉，且尚未经过严格的同行评审。但这就是研究过程的本质。今年 7 月，他们发布了论文。

在最近的一个夏日早晨，伯曼博士坐在巨大的橡木桌旁，手里拿着一本《美丽心灵》——她宣称这部作品被罗素·克劳主演的电影“完全毁了”——她正为了大楼的读书会重读此书。说话时，她挥动着手中的 iPhone。她是个发短信的高手，由于食指患有关节炎，她让 AI 帮她修正输入。

她放弃跟进的一件事就是她的电子邮箱，自论文发表以来，收件箱一直处于溢出状态。专家们需要数月时间才能完全消化这一结果，而这个过程仍可能发现错误。但对于纽结理论学家来说，来自琼·伯曼的任何新结果都令人兴奋。而这次的结果，正是许多人追寻了数十年的答案，这简直令人心潮澎湃。

“这篇论文在很多方面都令人瞩目，”牛津大学的数学家埃马纽埃尔·布鲁亚尔（Emmanuel Breuillard）说道。该论文采用的方法建立在旧理论之上（其中一些可追溯到伯曼博士的博士论文时期），但融入了新想法。布鲁亚尔博士此前一直在尝试借助人工智能聊天机器人来解决这个问题。他说，人类似乎率先解决了它——而且恰恰是这三个特定的人——“这简直像是一种恩赐”。

这确实是一个重大成果——伯曼博士表示，这很可能是她迄今为止最出色的成就之一。不过，她在某种程度上感到了岁月的压力，而七年前她并没有这种感觉。自从在孩子那里感染腮腺炎后，她的听力一直是个问题，现在又开始恶化。她的一个心脏瓣膜正在衰竭。虽然可以通过手术修复，但在她的一个儿子发现该手术具有极高的中风风险后，伯曼博士说，“我们决定不冒中风的风险”。上周，她勉强接受了使用轮椅。

马加利特博士认为，在 99 岁的高龄，做数学“是支撑她走下去的动力”。这与她 92 岁时回复瓦苏达时没什么两样。他说：“数学的大部分内容存在于我们的脑海中，而不是教科书里。它是一门艺术，需要传承。从某种意义上说，这是利他的，但从某种意义上说，这也是自私的，因为我们拥有这些真正想要传下去的想法和传统。”

门外响起了敲门声，巴拉特拉姆女士走了进来。七年前第一次造访这间公寓的孩子已经不见了，取而代之的是（正如伯曼博士在对方听不到的地方自豪地描述的那样）一名“高挑、优雅的女性”，她即将开始研究生一年级的学习。她准备前往费城参加国际数学家大会，在火车出发前只有几个小时的空余时间。她说，如果不是还在研究怎么使用轮椅，伯曼博士也会一起去。

巴拉特拉姆女士坐了下来，用她的银戒指轻敲橡木桌。回想起来，她不确定当年发送那封电子邮件的女孩是否能清晰地表达出她这么做的原因。她只是做了而已。她说，很容易想象一个从未接触数学的自己。也许如果伯曼博士没有回复，或者他们甚至不是邻居，结果就会不同。在大厅里的第一天，她没有感到紧张，因为在她看来，当时并没有什么利害关系。

不过现在这已经不重要了。“从我开始读那本书并与琼交谈的那一刻起，我就深深地爱上了它，”她说。

她曾搁置完成其他证明，以便专注于布劳（Burau）问题，这是她的第一个且最具有个人意义的问题。但现在，她渴望与伯曼博士讨论另一项工作，该工作与她导师旧论文中提出的问题相关。

伯曼博士笑了。她准确地知道是哪些论文，以及哪些问题。“事情是这样开始的，”她开始讲述。她回忆起 20 世纪 80 年代布法罗的一个雪夜，当时一位年轻的同事请她讲述她的“数学之梦”。在完成了关于琼斯多项式（Jones polynomial）的工作后，她意识到自己一直以来的梦想就是“将纽结与编织联系起来”，关于这一点，她还有很多话要说，还有很多数学工作要做。她和那位同事在接下来的几年里撰写了多篇论文，旨在帮助他人准确地看到她所构想的景象。

琼·伯曼梦想中的许多问题已经得到了解答。但瓦苏达·巴拉特拉姆现在正将这项工作从我们的三维世界带入四维空间，她说，在那个空间里，纽结几乎无法被可视化，而且实际上“几乎一无所知”。

伯曼博士敦促她继续说下去。她渴望听到这个梦想接下来会将她们带向何方。

嗯

专家对明星推崇全身 MRI 持谨慎态度

经 PRENUVO 提供

医生表示，这种扫描带来的危害可能超过益处，而且健康人群不需要进行此类检查。

作者：丹尼·布鲁姆 (DANI BLUM)

一大批名人与网红纷纷赞叹他们接受全身扫描的经历，这种扫描旨在搜寻癌症、动脉瘤、自身免疫性疾病和肝病等疾病的早期迹象。

如今，以出演《道森之丘》和《美眉大作战》等剧集而闻名的演员比齐·菲利普斯 (Busy Philipps) 也加入了他们的行列。她在接受《人物》(People) 杂志采访时表示，在一次 Prenuvo 扫描（即磁共振成像，简称 M.R.I.）检测出后，她切除了一颗罕见的恶性脑肿瘤。

“我很感激我还活着，”她告诉该杂志。

Prenuvo 提供的全身 M.R.I. 价格约为 $2,500, 但该公司曾为网红提供免费扫描，在某些情况下还给他们折扣码以便分享给粉丝。（Prenuvo 总裁兼首席医学官丹尼尔·杜兰德 (Daniel Durand) 博士表示，菲利普斯女士并未获得免费扫描。）

金·卡戴珊 (Kim Kardashian)、电视主持人玛丽亚·梅努诺斯 (Maria Menounos) 以及《落日销售》明星玛丽·邦内特 (Mary Bonnet) 都是赞美 Prenuvo 扫描的名人。其他提供类似全身扫描的公司也在激增。

这些扫描被宣传为让消费者能够掌控自身健康的工具。但研究人员和医疗机构警告称，没有足够的证据表明健康人群应该接受全身扫描，而且这样做有时带来的害处多于益处。

“你不能通过检测让自己变得健康，”马萨诸塞州综合医疗中心 (Mass General Brigham) 外科与公共卫生中心的研究员 H. 吉尔伯特·韦尔奇 (H. Gilbert Welch) 博士说道。

他表示，全身 M.R.I. 是一种快速导致“你不得不接受更多后续治疗，并为此担忧，甚至可能在过程中受到伤害”的方式。“而且在这个过程中，肯定会让你变得更穷。”

加州大学旧金山分校放射学结果研究实验室主任丽贝卡·史密斯-宾德曼 (Rebecca Smith-Bindman) 博士表示，“有些人，极少数的人，可能会从早期发现肿瘤中获益。这绝对在理论上是可能的。”

但她补充说，同样事实是，该肿瘤可能永远不会造成伤害，“而早期发现它只会导致不必要的治疗。”

Prenuvo 首席医学官杜兰德博士表示，这是医学领域一个不断发展的部分，需要更多研究“以了解其对无症状人群预后的长期影响”。

不过他补充道，他不认为假阳性是完全避免检查的理由。他还指出，漏诊或延迟诊断也会带来巨大的代价。

菲利普斯女士未回应置评请求。

医生表示，这类全身扫描主要存在两种

Prenuvo 提供一次全身磁共振成像扫描，价格约为 $2,500, 但该公司曾为网红提供免费扫描。

风险。

健康的身体通常含有无害的肿块、疤痕和团块。扫描可能会检测到某些情况，促使患者接受更多测试或手术，结果却发现那是良性的——例如一个非癌性的囊肿或肿块。医生有时将此类发现称为“偶然瘤”(incidentalomas)。

西北医学中心 (Northwestern Medicine) 的诊断与介入神经放射学家萨米尔·安萨里 (Sameer Ansari) 博士表示，假阳性可能导致活检、广泛监测，以及可能的非必要手术。

克利夫兰诊所 (Cleveland Clinic) 的神经放射学家莎拉·斯托克 (Sarah Stock) 博士补充道：“这类检查中只有极小极小的一部分能导致癌症或其他严重疾病的早期诊断。”

全身扫描的第二个风险是过度诊断，即扫描准确地检测出了癌症，但如果听之任之，该癌症并不会导致疾病或死亡。患者最终可能会为了处理那些不会恶化的肿瘤而接受化疗和手术。

美国放射学会（American College of Radiology）在 2023 年发表的一份声明中表示，没有证据表明全身筛查具有“成本效益，或在延长寿命方面有效”。

一项 2019 年的荟萃分析研究了那些没有癌症等疾病症状但接受了全身核磁共振（M.R.I.）扫描的人群。研究发现，在约三分之一的人群中，检测发现了可能具有临床意义的异常情况。但研究人员并不清楚这些异常情况是否会对患者造成实际伤害。

关于这些检测的网络讨论很少反映出这种细微差别。一篇 2025 年的论文研究了近 1,000 条 TikTok 和 Instagram 帖子，发现绝大多数内容具有误导性，仅有 15% 的帖子提到了可能的风险。

“真正的问题是，这是否有任何益处？当然，我们并不知晓，”韦尔奇博士（Dr. Welch）说道，“我们假设——每个人都假设——幸存者的故事就是益处的证据。但幸存者的故事可能完全具有误导性。”

推动提前进行骨扫描

ELENI KALORKOTI

一些医生认为，女性不应等到 65 岁才进行骨质疏松症筛查。

作者：DANIELLE FRIEDMAN

在过去的几年里，社会上出现了一种推动中年女性增强骨骼强度的趋势。

更年期影响者和医疗机构都聚焦于这样一个信息：女性在更年期后骨折风险会剧增，因此她们应该比她们的母亲在更早的阶段就开始关注骨密度。

美国医学会建议，除非存在骨质疏松症的风险因素，否则女性应在 65, 或更年长时进行首次 DEXA 扫描——这是一种低剂量 X 光检查，是测定骨密度的金标准测试。

但越来越多的医生和骨骼健康专家现在建议提前进行扫描。他们认为，如果女性等到 65 岁，可能会错过预防骨质疏松症的关键窗口期。

“多年来，骨质疏松症一直被认为是我们去识别和治疗的疾病，而不是去预防的，”杜克大学医学院骨科手术副教授乔斯林·威特斯坦（Jocelyn Wittstein）博士说道。她说，随着研究人员对预防方案的了解增加，这种观念已经开始转变。

然而，针对没有已知骨折风险因素的年轻女性，此类扫描尚未作为筛查工具被研究，也没有主要的医疗机构支持这种方法。

以下是关于何时进行 DEXA 扫描以及如何维护骨骼健康的相关知识。

骨骼如何随时间变化

多伦多大学健康网络（University Health Network）骨质疏松症护理主任安吉拉·张（Angela Cheung）博士表示，你的骨骼在不断地自我重建。

女性在 20 到 30 岁时达到骨量峰值。通常情况下，只要保持良好的营养，你一生中进行的负重运动越多——即需要身体抵抗重力的活动，如跳跃或阻力训练——你的骨骼就会越强壮。

女性在更年期前后的几年里，骨密度会出现显著下降，更年期通常发生在 45 和 55. 之间。这是因为在更年期期间会骤降的雌激素有助于维持骨骼强壮。

如果不采取措施保护骨密度，女性在更年期后的五到七年内，平均会损失 10% 的骨密度。

张博士表示，对于初始骨密度较高的女性来说，雌激素的下降可能不会导致骨骼脆弱。但对于许多其他女性而言，这一转变可能会导致骨质疏松症。

许多风险因素也会使女性更容易患此病，包括有进食障碍史、吸烟、酗酒、有骨质疏松症家族史，或者仅仅是因为身材消瘦。

DEXA 扫描能告诉你什么

专家表示，考虑骨骼健康永远不嫌早：越早将负重运动和良好营养放在优先位置，情况就越好。

但专家指出，骨质疏松症通常被称为一种“沉默的疾病”，因为许多女性在发生骨折后才意识到自己患有此病。

DEXA 扫描用于测量髋骨和脊柱骨的密度。它可以告诉你是否患有骨量减少（osteopenia），这是一种可能导致骨质疏松症的前兆状态。它还能诊断骨质疏松症，并帮助你决定是否开始药物治疗以降低骨折风险。扫描结束后，你的医疗服务提供者会分享一个分数，用以表明你的骨密度是正常还是偏低。

张医生表示，一些健身房和健康中心提供的用于身体成分分析的 扫描可以提供关于肌肉和脂肪组织的见解，但它们在揭示骨折风险方面并不特别有效。

美国预防服务工作组（U.S. Preventive Services Task Force，一个决定保险公司必须覆盖哪些筛查项目的专家小组）成员乔尔·特塞瓦特（Joel Tsevat）医生表示，目前的 扫描医疗建议侧重于为老年女性筛查骨质疏松症以预防骨折，因为针对该疾病的研究一直集中在这一人群中。

（迄今为止，尚未有关于对 65 岁以下且骨折风险处于平均水平的女性进行 扫描之预防性健康益处的主要研究发表。）

尽管如此，特塞瓦特医生表示，65 岁以下且已绝经并具有至少一项额外风险因素的女性，应与医疗服务提供者讨论提前筛查的问题。

提前检测的论据

大多数主张提前进行 扫描的女性健康倡导者一致认为，女性了解自身骨密度的理想时间是在绝经期，因为此时她们面临着是否开始激素治疗的选择。

哈佛医学院的骨骼健康研究员兼教授玛丽·布克塞恩（Mary Bouxsein）表示，研究表明雌激素疗法有助于维持女性的骨密度，因此了解自己的分数在决定是否服用激素时是一个有价值的工具。（其疗效可能因剂量和配方而异。）

但布克塞恩医生指出，如果能在绝经后 10 年内开始治疗，该疗法最有效且最安全——对于大多数女性来说，这意味着在 65 岁之前。

在社交媒体上，一小部分但声音响亮的医生和医生影响力者主张，所有女性都应在 30 多岁或 40 岁出头时接受一次基线 扫描。（去年，堪萨斯城的一位骨科医生发起了一项运动，号召女性在 40 岁时进行首次扫描，这与建议女性进行首次乳房 X 光检查的年龄相同。）这些支持者中的一些人在私人诊所提供 扫描，并销售旨在支持骨密度的产品。

他们认为，在绝经前进行首次 扫描可以让你了解自己的起点，这在雌激素开始下降时可能会很有用。如果你在绝经期进行第二次 扫描并发现骨密度迅速下降，这可能会影响你开始激素治疗的决定。

但虽然大多数专家同意绝经前进行 扫描没有危害，但一些人认为，根据女性的结果不同，这可能会产生一种虚假的安全感或焦虑感。

而且对于大多数女性来说，那么早地知道分数并不会改变她们预防疾病所能采取的措施。（不过专家表示，一些骨折高风险的绝经前女性，包括部分运动员和癌症患者，可以从提前的 扫描中获益。）

如何保护骨骼

无论您的 DEXA 评分是正常还是偏低，采取类似的措施都有助于降低跌倒和骨折的风险。

加拿大滑铁卢大学的运动机能学教授洛拉·江格雷戈里奥（Lora Giangregorio）表示，定期的抗阻训练和涉及冲击力的运动有助于保持骨骼强健。

江格雷戈里奥博士表示，虽然一些健身网红声称必须举起沉重的重量才能增强骨骼，但更重要的是从一个对您有挑战性的水平开始，随着时间的推移，通过增加举起的重量或选择难度更高的练习来循序渐进地挑战自己。

她指出，除了增强骨骼，锻炼平衡力、灵活性和稳定性也有助于防止跌倒。

此外，摄入足够的卡路里以支持锻炼和日常活动，采用富含钙和维生素 D 的饮食，以及避免吸烟和过度饮酒也至关重要。

维特斯坦博士（Dr. Wittstein）表示，归根结底，许多在整个生命周期中支持整体健康和福祉的习惯，同样对骨骼有益。

“幸运的是，同样的事情通常对心脏、肌肉和骨骼都有好处，”她补充道，“这其中有很大的重叠。”

健康问答（Ask Well）

我想纹身，但这真的安全吗？

纹身曾是一种隐藏在衣袖下的反叛形式，而现在它已如此普遍，以至于近一半 30 到 49 岁的美国成年人至少有一个纹身。但尽管其受欢迎程度日益增加，科学家们对于纹身如何与身体相互作用仍有很多未知之处。

当你纹身时，纹身师使用针头将墨水注入皮肤 1 到 3 毫米深处。这个过程——以及墨水本身——可能会引起包括免疫反应和细菌感染在内的各种反应。一些研究人员还在研究纹身是否会导致更长期的并发症，例如癌症。

“作为科学界，我们目前还无法断言纹身绝对安全”或不安全，纽约州立大学宾汉姆顿大学的化学家约翰·斯维尔克（John Swierk）表示。他指出，目前正在进行的各项研究是寻求这些答案的一步。

虽然很难知道有多少人出现了纹身问题——研究估计比例高达 67% ——但某些并发症更为常见。一项在丹麦纹身诊所针对数百人的研究发现，并发症中 11% 为细菌感染，37% 为过敏反应。

感染可能在纹身后的几天内发生。纽约市的皮肤科医生玛丽·勒热（Marie Leger）博士表示，感染会导致红肿、渗液和发烧，通常需要使用抗生素治疗。原因可能是设备被污染、皮肤细菌进入伤口或墨水本身的问题。2012 年，科学家在一次未开封墨水容器引发的爆发事件中检测到了细菌，这表明在制造过程中存在污染。上个月，美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的研究人员报告称，在他们测试的 200 多种墨水中，有 35% 发现了细菌，即使是那些标明无菌的墨水也不例外。

勒热博士表示，在纹身后的几天或几周内，皮肤处于特别敏感的状态，此时使用护理产品可能会引发过敏反应。这些反应会导致红肿或瘙痒，可以使用外用药膏控制症状。

对墨水的长期过敏可能会在数月或数年后出现。勒热博士说，这种情况在红色墨水中更为频繁，且瘙痒或隆起的区域可能仅限于某种颜色：例如，你可能会发现红色的玫瑰花部分出现反应，但绿色的叶子部分却没有。在严重的情况下，医生可能会建议去除纹身，例如通过削掉含有色素的皮肤外层。

耶鲁大学的皮肤科医生克里斯托弗·布尼克（Christopher Bunick）博士表示，其他免疫反应也可能在纹身数年后表现为纹身处的凸起。他说，这些反应可能持续数月或数年，通常使用局部皮质类固醇治疗。

专家们不确定是什么触发了这些反应，部分原因是纹身墨水瓶上的标签并不总是完整地描述其成分。2024 年，斯维尔克博士及其同事发现，他们测试的墨水中 83% 含有未列出的颜料或添加剂。欧洲有法规限制纹身墨水中的某些成分，但美国没有，尽管 FDA 已发布了制造指南。

一些墨水成分（如重金属）可能会导致健康问题。研究表明，纹身中的部分墨水最终会进入淋巴结。科学家们正开始研究墨水的化学成分或人体对其产生的免疫反应是否会导致癌症。

2024 年，包括瑞典隆德大学流行病学家克里斯特尔·尼尔森（Christel Nielsen）在内的研究人员在一项大规模研究中发现，有纹身的人患淋巴瘤的风险可能更高。但尼尔森博士表示，患淋巴瘤的风险非常低，且风险的增加并不能证明纹身会导致癌症。不过她表示，这个问题值得进一步调查。其他关于淋巴瘤风险的研究结果并不明确，关于纹身与皮肤癌的研究也是如此。勒热博士说：“我认为我们肯定必须严肃对待这个问题，但我们目前还真的不知道”两者之间是否存在联系。

布尼克博士表示，如果你打算纹身，重要的是在纹身前确保该区域没有开放性伤口，并在纹身之后保持纹身部位的清洁并避免阳光直射。勒格博士建议，如果你担心过敏，应避免使用红色颜料。她说，如果在纹身后发现感染迹象或皮肤纹理发生变化，你应该就医。

ERIC HELGAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

与经验丰富的纹身师合作也很有帮助。“纹身师是专业的从业者，许多已知的关于感染甚至过敏的明确风险，可以通过与优秀的艺术家合作来减轻，”斯维尔克博士说。

最终，是否纹身取决于个人选择。“纹身有很多充分的理由，人们必须权衡其中存在一定程度的不确定性，”斯维尔克博士说。“但这并不意味着他们不应该纹身。”

亚历山德拉·迪科拉托

Well

A.D.H.D. 症状随年龄增长而变化

CRISTINA SPANO

研究人员正进一步了解该病症出现、消失和演变的方式。

作者：DANA G. SMITH

伊丽莎白（Elizabeth）的两个儿子，分别 8 岁和 10 岁，都被诊断出患有注意缺陷多动障碍（A.D.H.D.）。37 岁的伊丽莎白和她 41 岁的丈夫也是如此。

为了应对这一切，伊丽莎白和丈夫实施了一套复杂的药物治疗和待办事项清单系统。在他们位于南加州的家中，到处都摆放着白板，以帮助管理任务和沟通。

“我开玩笑说，我们的家一半是房子，一半是教室，还有一半是职业治疗师的办公室，”伊丽莎白说。（在讨论家庭医疗状况时，她要求仅使用她的中间名。）

伊丽莎白在两年前被诊断出患有 A.D.H.D.，此前她意识到儿子们身上的一些症状也存在于现在的——以及年轻时的——自己身上。“我以前不知道，每晚花五个小时做作业的原因并不是因为我不聪明，或者不够努力，”她说，“而是因为我的大脑在与我作对。”

现在，在系统管理和药物的帮助下，伊丽莎白已经学会了管理自己的症状，并在环境健康与安全经理的职业生涯中取得了进步。“我从在随机的工作之间跳来跳去，”她说，变成了能够“足够集中注意力以拥有一定的方向感”。

但尽管自己取得了成功，伊丽莎白仍然担心儿子们的 A.D.H.D. 会在他们长大后如何影响他们。“作为父母，我的职责是教会他们如何成为一个完整的人，如何在当今世界生存，”她说，“而他们比大多数人更困难，因为他们的大脑运作方式与大多数人的大脑不同。”

返校季伴随着对执行功能的需求和截止日期的压力，会让这类父母的担忧变得更加深刻。

A.D.H.D. 是一种难以诊断、研究和在一个人一生中进行追踪的病症。它在不同的人身上表现截然不同，且症状范围广泛，处于从轻微到严重的频谱之中。A.D.H.D. 还经常与其他心理健康、发育和行为障碍重叠，包括焦虑症、自闭症和对立违抗障碍。（随着儿童和成人发病率的上升，一些精神科医生担心该病症目前被过度诊断。）

目前尚不清楚有多少比例的儿童在成年后仍患有 A.D.H.D.。一个经常被引用的数字约为 50%，其中在童年时期 A.D.H.D. 症状更严重且伴有更多重叠病症的成年人，症状更有可能持续存在。

但根据一项 2021 年对 A.D.H.D. 儿童进行了 16 年追踪的纵向研究，只有约 10% 的人在进入青年期后经历了“持续缓解”。另有 10% 的人在整个期间一直患有 A.D.H.D.，而对于绝大多数人来说，症状时强时弱。值得注意的是，研究发现，在任何给定时间，大约一半的参与者符合 A.D.H.D. 的诊断标准，但哪些人属于哪个阵营一直在变化。

虽然关于 A.D.H.D. 的许多问题仍未定论，但已经明确的是，它不是一种静态的病症，人们出现的症状类型及其对日常生活的具体影响会随着时间的推移而演变。

症状如何变化

A.D.H.D. 的症状主要分为两大类：注意力不集中型和多动-冲动型。要被诊断为 A.D.H.D.，儿童必须符合其中一类的六项或更多症状；17 岁及以上的人则需要五项或更多。如果某人同时符合这两类的症状要求。

许多人最终会找到管理由注意力不集中和多动引起的干扰的方法。

他们被诊断为患有结合型 A.D.H.D.。

注意力不集中的症状包括诸如对细节关注不足、无法完成任务、杂乱无章和健忘等。多动和冲动的症状则表现为频繁地坐立不安、难以等待轮到自己以及说话过多。

通常，在儿童很小的时候，多动-冲动症状往往更为常见。肯塔基大学心理学教授米歇尔·马特尔（Michelle Martel）表示，当你面对一个具有这些症状的学龄前儿童时，这一点是很明显的，因为“他们会对所有东西都感兴趣，并在房间里跑来跑去”。

随着儿童年龄增长，在学校承担更多责任并面临更多期望，注意力不集中的症状变得更加普遍，且最终更加持久。在一些儿童身上，多动-冲动症状开始减轻。根据 2023 年的一项大规模回顾研究，在 12 岁以下的儿童中，主要注意力不集中型、主要多动-冲动型和结合型表现的分布大致相当。在 12 岁到 18 岁之间，数字开始发生变化，更多青少年被判定为注意力不集中型，而多动-冲动型则不足四分之一。

极少数成年人以多动-冲动症状为主。一项小型研究将这一数字定为仅 7%，而大约三分之一的成年人为注意力不集中亚型，大多数人则具有综合症状。

纽约大学格罗斯曼医学院精神病学临床副教授迪普蒂·安巴拉桑（Deepti Anbarasan）博士表示，多动-冲动症状在成年人身上的表现与儿童不同，更多地表现为一种内在的、精神上的不安，而非外在的、身体上的躁动。例如，成年人“可能总觉得需要让自己忙起来，比如他们可能需要每天锻炼，否则感觉不舒服，”她说道。

安巴拉桑博士表示，具有注意力不集中症状的成年人在生活后勤管理以及完成没有截止日期的家务方面可能会有困难，或者在会议中或与配偶交谈时可能会跟不上对话进度。

症状为何会改变

越来越多的证据表明，人们所处的环境会影响其症状。加州大学欧文分校儿科学教授詹姆斯·斯旺森（James Swanson）表示，家庭问题（如父母离婚）可能会加剧儿童和青少年的症状严重程度。

马特尔博士表示，儿童在“必须做他们不喜欢的事情的结构化学校环境”中，可能会在注意力集中方面面临更多困难。她补充说，当一个人在成年后找到一份更适合其气质和性格的工作时，其症状可能会有所改善。

A.D.H.D. 随年龄而变化的另一个原因是，许多人最终找到了管理病情的方法，使其干扰性降低。专家们表示，通常情况下，以多动-冲动症状为主的人更有可能接受行为干预治疗，而注意力不集中症状的人往往对药物反应更好。但对于许多人，尤其是患有结合型 A.D.H.D. 的人来说，混合疗法效果最好。

最后，神经成像研究表明，人们随年龄增长而经历的一些变化可能部分归因于大脑发育。最近的一项研究发现，在两年时间内症状有所改善的儿童，其大脑发育模式与症状持续或恶化的儿童不同。

“有些孩子自然而然就痊愈了，”斯旺森博士说。“你从一个群体开始并随时间观察他们，症状会随年龄增长而减轻。这纯粹是一种与年龄相关的效应。我称之为成熟。”

今年秋季新冠、流感及呼吸道合胞病毒疫苗指南

一项证据审查显示，接种疫苗可降低重症风险。 CLAIRE MERCHLINSKY / THE NEW YORK TIMES；照片由 GETTY IMAGES 提供

由于缺乏强有力的联邦指导意见，医疗团体发布了自己的建议。

作者：MAGGIE ASTOR 和 DANI BLUM

随着呼吸道病毒季节的临近，药房和诊所开始提供年度疫苗，以预防新冠、流感和呼吸道合胞病毒。

本月，主要医疗组织根据医学期刊《美国医学会杂志》（JAMA）上发表的最新证据审查，发布了针对这三种疫苗的建议。他们表示，此举是为了填补特朗普政府在“基于证据的疫苗指导”方面留下的空白。

“不幸的是，如今联邦政府未能像历史上那样履行这一职责，但这项工作的必要性并未消失，”明尼苏达大学疫苗诚信项目（Vaccine Integrity Project）董事会主席布鲁斯·盖林（Bruce Gellin）博士表示，该项目是发布此次建议的财团成员之一。其他参与者还包括美国医学会以及儿科、家庭医学、产科和传染病领域的专业组织。

通常情况下，疾病控制与预防中心（C.D.C.）会发布关于新冠新疫苗的建议。但该机构尚未这样做，且目前尚不清楚其是否会发布，因为其疫苗咨询小组正处于法律僵局中。（美国卫生与公众服务部的一位发言人仅表示，更多信息将“很快”公布。）

政府通常每年也会发布新的流感疫苗建议。但今年，C.D.C. 以“法律不确定性和查询”为由，重申了去年的建议。

新冠肺炎 (Covid-19)

该财团成员建议所有成年人（包括孕妇或哺乳期妇女）接种更新后的新冠疫苗。

对于 65 岁及以上的人群，建议在六个月后接种第二剂，免疫功能低下的人群也可能从中受益。

成员还建议所有 6 到 23 个月大的儿童，以及 2 岁及以上患有基础医疗状况的儿童接种疫苗。虽然他们没有明确建议所有 2 岁以上的儿童接种更新疫苗，但美国儿科学会传染病委员会主席詹姆斯·坎贝尔（James Campbell）博士表示，对于任何父母希望接种的孩子，这样做都是合适的。

食品药品监督管理局（FDA）仅批准高风险人群或至少 65 岁的人群接种新的新冠疫苗。然而，医生可以为任何人接种。

在大多数州，只要人们表示自己符合标准，更新后的疫苗也将可在至少部分药房获得。在某些州，儿童可能无法在药房接种，但可以从儿科医生处接种。

《美国医学会杂志》（JAMA）中的最新证据审查得出结论，接种更新后的新冠疫苗仍然具有益处。C.D.C. 估计，从 2025 年 10 月到 2026 年 8 月，新冠肺炎在美国导致了多达 250,000 例住院病例和多达 44,000 例死亡。

接种疫苗与成年人住院人数减少、孕妇和幼儿急诊就诊次数减少，以及免疫功能低下成年人的重症监护室（I.C.U.）入院人数和死亡人数减少相关。

严重副作用非常罕见，审查未发现新的安全问题。

流感

该财团敦促所有 6 个月及以上的人群接种流感疫苗，理想情况下应在 10 月底前完成。

目前有多种选择，包括传统疫苗注射液、由 Moderna 为 50 岁以上人群开发的新型 mRNA 疫苗，以及适用于 2 至 49 岁人群且可在居家接种的鼻喷疫苗。（鼻喷疫苗不建议孕妇或免疫功能低下者使用。）

65 岁以上的人群理想情况下应接种高剂量传统流感疫苗或 mRNA 疫苗，因为后者能激发老年人产生更多抗体，从而提供更强的保护。美国家庭医师学会主席莎拉·诺萨尔（Sarah Nosal）医生表示，如果无法获得其中一种疫苗，不要等待——请在流行季早期接种你能找到的任何疫苗。

关于流感的证据审查确认，接种疫苗可降低患重症的风险。

疫苗的有效性取决于其与流行毒株的匹配程度。但诺萨尔医生表示：“即使在匹配度不高的一年，我们也能看到住院率和死亡率大幅下降。”

流感对于 65 岁以上或 2 岁以下的人群尤为危险，但对任何人来说都可能很严重。每年，流感导致全美 36,000 多人死亡，数十万人住院。

呼吸道合胞病毒 (R.S.V.)

该财团成员建议所有 75 岁及以上成年人，以及处于高风险的 50 至 74 岁成年人，接种一次性 R.S.V. 疫苗。免疫功能低下的成年人和青少年也应接种，接种剂量和频率由具体病例决定。

他们还建议，在 9 月至 3 月 1 日之间，怀孕 32 至 36 周的女性应接种疫苗，以便在 R.S.V. 流行季节将保护力传递给胎儿。

如果母亲在怀孕期间未接种疫苗，或者对其是否接种存在疑问，则 8 个月以下的婴儿在首个 R.S.V. 流行季应接种单克隆抗体——这种注射液可以模拟免疫系统对感染的反应。对于处于较高风险的 8 至 19 个月大儿童，无论此前是否接种过疫苗，在第二个流行季也应进行免疫接种。

在引入免疫接种之前，R.S.V. 是美国婴儿住院的主要原因；每年大约有 2 到 3% 的 3 个月以下婴儿因此住院。其他高风险人群包括早产儿或患有肺病等特定医疗状况的儿童、75 岁以上或患有某些慢性疾病的成年人，以及养老院中的人员。

最新的审查发现，免疫接种降低了重症和住院的风险。

探寻臭名昭著的海盗湾沉船

一名海洋考古学家发现了六艘沉船，其中三艘来自海盗黄金时代。

作者：FRANZ LIDZ

历史或许由胜利者书写，但海底保留的记录更为忠实。对于肖恩·金斯利（Sean Kingsley）来说，他是一名英国海洋考古学家，职业生涯致力于研究地中海的淹没遗址和黎凡特海岸沿线的贸易路线。在他看来，沉船提供了一种未经修饰的真实，而纸质记录往往会使其失真。

在过去的三十年里，金斯利博士考察了大约 350 处沉没遗址，范围从以色列附近浅而阳光充足的海域，到爱尔兰海岸深邃且险峻的海沟。他拥有牛津大学的博士学位，是一名独立学者，同时也是季刊及热门 YouTube 频道 Wreckwatch 的创始人兼编辑。他通过为 Allen Exploration 等知名客户提供咨询来部分资助其野外工作，该公司以回收和记录历史沉船而闻名，金斯利还为其创办并管理了一本科学期刊《海洋快讯》（Ocean Dispatches）。他将部分研究成果发表在同行评审期刊上，而大部分则面向媒体和公众。

最近，金斯利博士获得了一张终极“金票”：获准进入巴哈马首都拿骚（Nassau）那个被禁止进入且严密把守的港口。长期以来，拿骚一直利用其作为世界首屈一指的海盗避风港的名声来吸引关注，但其海域从未出现过经过认证的双桅帆船（brigantine）——直到现在。去年秋天，在纽普罗维登斯岛（New Providence）附近的一次水下探险中，由金斯利博士和巴哈马海事博物馆馆长迈克尔·佩特曼（Michael Pate-man）领导的研究团队发现了六艘沉船（但并未触碰或干扰），其中三艘可追溯到 1690 年至 1725 年的海盗黄金时代。

碎片区呈现出教科书般的战利品分布：铁炮、火枪弹、旋回炮、压舱石、玻璃酒瓶，以及 143 个印有英国皇家徽章的陶土烟斗。但真正的奖赏是一个被焚烧至水线位置的木质船壳，这是海盗销毁证据的经典手段。金斯利博士怀疑，这个被烧焦的骨架正是亨利·艾弗里（Henry Avery）那艘配备 46 门炮的旗舰“幻想号”（Fancy）。

1695, 年，被誉为“海盗之王”的艾弗里完成了历史上最惊人的公海抢劫，他伏击了莫卧儿帝国的一支舰队，并带着如今价值约 1.5亿美元 的财宝消失在海平面。为了确保拿骚

金斯利博士及其同事将当地传说与尖端技术相结合，以绘制拿骚的沉没历史地图。他们采访了渔民和水手，以追踪殖民时期船只沉没的位置。随后，他们将旧地图与卫星图像叠加，以精准定位沉船。最后，他们利用行政日志构建了这座臭名昭著的海盗中心的 3D 数字模型。

作为避风港，艾弗里显然拿走了自己的那份掠夺品，并将船只作为贿赂交给了当地的领主总督。

对于运行 SHIPS 项目（一个在英国追踪当地沉船的社区倡议）的考古学家马洛里·R·哈斯（Mallory R. Haas）来说，金斯利博士的拿骚探险“有潜力将历史背景研究整合在一起，获取熟悉这些遗址的早期潜水员的故事，以考古学的视角进行审视，并激励新一代人”。

本次对话经过压缩和编辑以确保清晰。

罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森的小说《金银岛》将拿骚的海盗基地描绘成一个由不可信的杀人犯和酗酒者组成的网络。但你写道，那里更像是牛仔边陲小镇与 18 世纪度假营地的结合体。

你可以阅读任何你喜欢的历史，但只有当你航行在纽普罗维登斯岛周围时，你才能体会到海盗真正的生存方式。当我停泊在茫茫大海中那处大炮沉船遗迹之上时，现实感向我袭来。艾弗里、黑胡子和“Fly-‘只有当你航行在纽普罗维登斯岛周围时，你才能体会到海盗真正的生存方式。’ing Gang”可以掠夺无尽的财富。但他们知道，想要在退出海盗生涯后还能保住脑袋的机会很小。海盗行为是对体制的逃避，生活在狭小的棚户区，反抗权威，追求公海上的极致自由。海盗们为今日而活，不顾明天——生活得快意，但生命短暂。

DAVID SHAW FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES SEAN KINGSLEY / WRECKWATCHTV

WRECKWATCHTV

顶部为海洋考古学家肖恩·金斯利。上方从左至右依次为电影制作人克里斯·阿特金斯、巴哈马海事博物馆馆长迈克尔·帕特曼以及金斯利博士。最左侧为拿骚的一处沉船；左侧为被烧毁的木质船壳。底部为帕特曼博士拿着火枪弹丸。 WRECKWATCHTV

WRECKWATCHTV•

拿骚港口在现代疏浚工程中被严重挖掘和改造。在如此剧烈的工业干扰下，你是否惊讶地发现竟然还有完好无损的海盗时代木质船壳幸存？

如果什么都没留下，我们的团队空手而归，我也不会感到惊讶。在20世纪90年代法律生效之前的那些年里，水下“奖杯狩猎”发现了一些重要的遗物。当时的现场记录毫无疑问地表明，自1969年以来，令人惊叹的水下遗产已被蚕食殆尽。

那么，当你潜入拿骚旧桥下方，与强劲的洋流搏斗并躲避一只情绪激进的公牛鲨时，你究竟是如何完成测绘工作的？

最终，看来是虚张声势。我们通过在水流平缓期进行精准潜水来应对每日两次的激流。当能见度较低时，团队会转移到港口较为平静的区域。令我欣喜的是，那些脾气暴躁的公牛鲨认为我们只是些小鱼小虾，便随我们去了。

你的团队发现了铁炮和轨道安装的旋风炮——这些是极具破坏性的人员杀伤武器。沉船遗址上旋风炮底座的布局揭示了船员如何构建甲板防御体系的哪些信息？

没揭示多少。旋风炮是海盗在攻击登船队和敌方炮手时首选的人员杀伤火炮。但由于该大炮遗址位于暴露的珊瑚礁上，且深受飓风摧残，保存状况很差。拿骚曾是加勒比海地区沉船打捞业的中心，打捞者在18或19世纪无疑已经对这艘沉船进行过“垂钓”。考古学家面对的是文化碎片，而任何东西能幸存下来本身就是一个奇迹。

拿骚的海盗是否真的很少攻击悬挂其母国国旗的船只？

许多英国海盗具有深厚的爱国情怀。艾弗里和拿骚海盗的教父本杰明·霍恩戈尔德都拒绝攻击英国贸易商。而法国，尤其是西班牙的水手，经常无视 1714 年西班牙王位继承战争结束后的和平协议，继续攻击船只以及拿骚本身。外国的敌对行为让黑胡子和许多海盗头目觉得，自己在公海上大肆破坏拥有正当的理由。而其他海盗，比如精神病患者查尔斯·韦恩，则支持天主教的王位觊觎者，在袭击新教国王的贸易船只时毫无顾虑。

1718 年，韦恩在港口被英国军舰包围，他点燃了一艘捕获的法国船只，将其作为漂浮炸弹直接冲向皇家舰队，并利用混乱局面逃脱。当你明年回到该遗址时，有机会发现那艘火船的残骸吗？

我想，如果那艘法国船在港口入口的航道中间沉没，很可能已经被清淤移走了。但永远不要说绝对。

你们最主要的发现之一是一个被烧毁至水线的巨大船壳。是否存在特定的结构异常或木材碳化模式，可以将意外的船只火灾与海盗试图销毁证据的行为区分开来？

考古学的魔力在于证据的重叠，通过每一层证据来强化证明。该木质船壳被焚烧，且似乎被清空了船上物品，其建造采用了木制销钉（treenails），这种造船理念主要集中在 1690 年代至 18 世纪上半叶。历史记录显示，在港口内失事的 504 艘船中，89% 的时间点在 1750 年之后。综合来看，初步表明该烧毁的船壳是在那之前，即海盗黄金时代沉没的。

如果艾弗里的“幻想号”确实在港口内终结，什么样的证据能将一个极具说服力的匹配结果变为绝对的确定？

一根来自艾弗里伪装成奴隶贸易前往非洲海岸的象牙。一枚印有“H.A.”的商人印章。一颗掉在舱底水的印度红宝石。但船只木材的树种必须属于英国或欧洲属。一份来自 1690 年左右的树轮年代学读数也将非常有说服力。

你表达过希望使用水下无人机绘制整个港口地图的愿望。在面对危险的潮汐和零能见度时，自主技术与传统潜水员相比表现如何？

拿骚殖民时期的港口规模巨大；据说内部可以容纳 500 艘船，包括英国皇家海军的全舰队。我们的项目采用的是低技术手段。但如果你不采用高技术，深海之下的秘密将永远无法被发现。部署侧扫声呐、底质剖面仪和摄像机的自主水下航行器（A.U.V.s）可以在几天内完成海洋考古学家需要数年才能完成的测绘。A.U.V.s 可以在夜间和恶劣环境中工作，将人为失误排除在考量之外。

像《加勒比海盗》这样的电影将历史上的私掠船长变成了卡通剪影。那些公海上的无赖在历史上真的穿着压花天鹅绒衣服、戴着时髦的眼罩大摇大摆地走过吗？

好莱坞想象中的海盗是极其英俊、富有的侠客，他们克服了道德挑战，回到了他们在社会中应有的位置。而我们探索的沉船则是真实且残酷的见证，揭示了这些海上之徒的生活几乎总是以惨剧收场。几乎所有人都被绞死或死于海上风暴。这里没有好莱坞式的圆满结局。

"All the News That's Fit to Print"

The New York Times

VOL. CLXXV .... No. 61,008

© 2026 The New York Times Company

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026

THE WEATHER

Today, sunny, dry, windy, high 72. Tonight, partly cloudy, light winds, low 62. Tomorrow, mostly sunny, winds southwest 4-8 m.p.h., high 79. Weather map appears on Page B12.

Prices in Canada may be higher

\$4.00

Trump Suffers Another Blow On Mail Votes

Lower Court Judge Says Plan Is Likely Illegal

By ZACH MONTAGUE

WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court weighs the legality of a Trump administration plan to change mail-in balloting, a second lower court judge ruled overnight on Sunday that the plan was most likely illegal and should be blocked before the November election.

The ruling by Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, delivered another blow to President Trump's effort to add new conditions that could make it harder to vote by mail and easier for the federal government to scrutinize state voter rolls while searching for evidence of fraud.

The Supreme Court is considering a similar ruling by a different federal judge based in Massachusetts. Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, has repeatedly found that the plan was probably unconstitutional and could not be carried out so close to the election without disenfranchising voters.

Judge Nichols, of the Federal District Court in Washington, wrote that the Trump administration had not identified any “evidence that there will be significant fraud in the upcoming elections” if he halted the rule. On the other hand, he wrote, there was an “increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections” if the rule took effect.

"The public has a strong interest in ensuring that doesn't happen," he wrote.

Judge Nichols's ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Democratic-aligned groups, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as well as a number of civil rights organizations. The Massachusetts suit was brought by a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general and voting rights groups.

Judge Nichols ruled in May that he could not stop the Postal Service from drafting the rule or preemptively declare it would necessarily be illegal before it was approved. The Supreme Court similarly ruled last month that it was premature for the courts to intervene to stop Mr. Trump's plan.

But Judge Nichols said he would review the issue after the Postal Service approved the regulation, which it did in August. His finding that the proposal now should be blocked could offer a preview for how the justices view the issue.

In a court filing on Monday, the Trump administration formally

Continued on Page A17

Russians cannot take full advantage of digital services — like automated entry to the subway — without submitting biometric data.
NANNA HEITMANN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Migrants Held In Tiny Cages, Inquiry Finds

This article is by Madeleine Ngo, Hamed Aleaziz and David Ovalle.

WASHINGTON — A state-run immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades failed to comply with a host of federal detention standards, creating cramped conditions and confining migrants in “small metal enclosures,” according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security’s independent watchdog.

Continued on Page A15

The report raised further questions about a facility that became synonymous with the Trump administration's harsh treatment of immigration detainees. President Trump had joked that the location was in such a remote area that detainees would have to learn "how to run away from an alligator." It was shuttered after criticism about conditions and cost, and af-

The report said the use of the enclosures was unprecedented among facilities that the watchdog, the department's Office of Inspector General, had previously inspected, and presented "significant risks" to detainees' health and safety. It focused on a high-profile facility known as Alligator Alcatraz, which came under intense scrutiny before it closed this summer.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Saudis, Besieged by Foes, Feel Brushed Off by Trump

By VIVIAN NEREIM

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia has increasingly found itself caught in the middle of the war between the United States and Iran. Now, the kingdom's leadership is assessing dwindling options on how to respond.

In recent weeks, the Iran-allied Houthi militia in Yemen has repeatedly attacked the kingdom, threatening to throttle its ability to export oil and piling pressure on the global economy. But Saudi Arabia has been left frustrated and disappointed by President Trump's reluctance to confront the Houthis, analysts and former diplomats say.

The kingdom's diplomatic efforts to engage with Iran have also had limited results. A meeting planned on Monday between officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries was abruptly postponed on Sunday night, as the gap between their positions remained vast.

"Right now the Saudis are really frustrated," said Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "In some sense, it's their worst-case scenario."

The Saudi government's Center for International Communication, which fields queries from journalists, did not respond to a request for comment.

The kingdom's conundrum underscores the heavy costs that

Continued on Page A8

In Moscow, the Helpful Robots Double as Spies

By IVAN NECHEPURENKO

MOSCOW — On the surface, today's Moscow is a technological wonderland. You can use your face to pay for almost anything, like subway fares, or even to finalize the purchase of an apartment. Robots scurry across sidewalks making 15-minute grocery deliveries, and driverless taxis are set to begin commercial service this year.

Underpinning many of the modern amenities is a robust digital in-

Exploiting Facial Scans to Hunt Down Critics

frastructure developed by the city government that has made life not only easier, but also safer. Policing aided by digital tools has helped cement Moscow's transformation from the raw, unforgiving place it was 25 years ago, plagued by home burglaries, street muggings and murders.

But there is a cost to the convenience and security: an expanding surveillance state.

Moscow's roughly 300,000 CCTV cameras make it one of the most heavily watched cities in the world. It is impossible to avoid a lens while simply walking through the city. The same cameras that whisk subway passengers through turnstiles are also used to monitor and flag people.

In April, a Russian rock musi-Continued on Page A10

GIFT OF BOB MACKIE, VIA SMITHSONIAN
CELESTE SLOMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BOB MACKIE, 1939-2026
HARRY LANGDON/GETTY IMAGES

For over half a century, his glamorous, outrageous costumes beglittered the likes of Cher and Carol Burnett, whose curtain dress, top right, is in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. Page B11.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Russia Tries To Weaken Ties to Kyiv

Near Miss on Train Is Warning for the West

By JEANNA SMIALEK and LARA JAKES

Ukraine's rail network is a link to the West. With airspace over the country closed, its trains crawl toward the border day and night, ferrying officials and dignitaries like Jared Kushner, along with ordinary people, to and from the capital, Kyiv. The railway is a lifeline and a potent symbol of support.

European officials say that Russia's weekend strike on a station near Ukraine and Poland's border, which hit perilously close to departing foreign visitors including the former C.I.A. director David Petraeus, was an attack not just on Ukrainian infrastructure but on those ties.

Russia is attacking trains using increasingly sophisticated weapons that Ukraine is struggling to match. On Monday, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, did not deny the strike on the route that Ukrainians called the “Peace Express” when it carried Trump administration envoys to Kyiv last week. “Our military is carrying out its tasks across the entire territory of Ukraine — they are continuing to do so and will continue to do so,” Mr. Peskov said.

European leaders said the attack was part of an escalating Russian campaign to create confusion and to weaken the Western alliance at a particularly dangerous moment for Ukraine.

"It is clearly meant to scare Western countries from supporting Ukraine, from going to Ukraine to show support," Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, said on Monday. "The question for us is, what do we take from that message?"

Governments and researchers have accused Russia in recent years of sabotage and of hybrid attacks aimed at Ukraine's allies. A drone containing an explosive device was found in the freight terminal of an airport in Leipzig, eastern Germany, last month, an incident that Berlin blamed Moscow for. Misinformation and election interference by Russia have become common. So has GPS jamming, which can disrupt communication and navigation.

The timing of the attack was notable. The drone strike hit a train near one ridden by Mr. Petraeus and came shortly after the departure of another, which was carrying the former British prime minister Boris Johnson and other European politicians and diplomats.

The NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the strike had shown “desperation” on the part of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. NATO would respond, Mr. Rutte said, by doubling down on support for Ukraine and with potential covert action.

Philip Bednarczyk, the Warsaw office director at the German Marshall Fund, a research institute, said that Russia's attacks served to test "over and

Continued on Page A10

In Trial of Brain Implant, Woman Speaks by Imagining the Words

By PAM BELLUCK

In a step forward for the cutting-edge field of brain-computer interfaces, a patient with a paralyzing neurological disorder used a brain implant to converse in real time, even when she was simply thinking about what to say, a company announced on Monday.

The development, by the company Paradromics, is the latest advance for these experimental devices, known as B.C.I.s — systems that involve implanting electrodes in the brain that read neurological signals and decode those signals through artificial intelligence.

The 68-year-old Michigan woman, who has lost most of her speaking ability, was able to use the device to have spontaneous conversations via a computer-generated voice, including on the phone with her grandchildren.

When she physically tried to speak, her brain generated signals that were read by the electrodes, transmitted through A.I. and displayed on the computer screen, which spoke the words aloud. The system could also produce speech when the woman imagined what to say without moving her speaking muscles.

Because the Paradromics system is wireless and doesn't require the patient to be connected by a cord to a computer, experts said, it offers a demonstration of how patients who have lost the ability to speak might be able to

Continued on Page A18

NATIONAL A13-19

A Look at Paxton's Wily Side His Texas impeachment trial in 2023 stands out as the defining episode in a scandal-plagued career. PAGE A16

McConnell Returns to the Hill The senator from Kentucky, 84, had been absent for more than three months after a health incident. PAGE A15

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

Trinidad and Tobago Turmoil Racial and political tensions have flared after members of an ethnic minority were accused of an assassination plot based on a private phone call. PAGE A4

Missing a Key Climate Goal As a global temperature increase exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius, countries that fought for that Paris Agreement target face a brutal new reality. PAGE All

China Warns of A.I. Threat

China Warms of A.I. Threat Even as Beijing urges the U.S. not to hype the dangers of A.I., its own spy chief is framing the technology as a danger to party security. PAGE All

BUSINESS B1-6

Tech Stocks Fall Over A.I. Fears Companies at the artificial intelligence forefront posted declines after industry leaders expressed worries about the safety of the technology. PAGE B1

Bond Yield Turns Heads The 10-year Treasury yield topped 5 percent, fueled by war, A.I. and the runaway spending on both. PAGE B1

SPORTS B7-10

N.F.L. Week 1: Call to Arms Quarterbacks such as Josh Allen of the Bills and Caleb Williams of the Bears had spellbinding efforts. PAGE B9

ARTS C1-8

Celine Dion's Paris Return The French-Canadian singer looked fragile but defiant in her first full concert performance in six years. PAGE C2

Sounding a Hopeful Note The trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis premiered his Fifth Symphony, "Liberty," in Virginia. PAGE C1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

Mathematician's Apprentice Joan Birman, then 92, thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then a girl, 15, contacted her. PAGE D4

A Respite From Dialysis

A patient lived with a kidney from a genetically modified pig before receiving a human organ transplant. PAGE D3

OPINION A20-21

Matthew Schmitz

PAGE A21

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An article on Sunday about fighting between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen that has caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in the past week misidentified the purpose of a United Nations site that was attacked on Thursday, relying on information from a U.N. official. The site was a U.N. compound, not a food distribution center for the World Food Program.

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A Vows article on Sunday mis-stated the date of Adriana Fernandez and Jordan Langer's celebratory Jewish wedding. It was held on Aug. 31, not July 31.

OBITUARIES

An obituary on Monday about Toyohiro Akiyama, a television reporter who became the first Japanese person to enter space, misstated Mr. Akiyama's birthday. It was June 22, 1942, according to his wife, not July 22 as listed in some official sources.

Inside The Times

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The Story Behind the Story

Exploring a Boundless Universe of Ideas

ROSE WONG

The Times's Science desk is introducing new columns, projects and more as part of its relaunch.

By VIVIAN EWING

Four new columns. A newsletter makeover. A special project exploring the edge of human knowledge.

This summer, one area of The New York Times has been evolving, metamorphosing, growing like bamboo, expanding like the Big Bang. Beginning this week, the Science desk is rolling out new beats, columns and projects, led by its new department head, Bill Wasik.

Mr. Wasik spent the past 12 years at The Times Magazine, most recently as editorial director. He took over the Science desk in April, after the retirement of the longtime department head Celia W. Dugger.

"The thing that most excites me about science coverage is the ideas," Mr. Wasik said. "That's how I've always thought about magazine editing, too. As an editor — whether I see something happening out in the world or I get a pitch from a writer — I've always asked myself, 'What's the big idea here? What does this say about the future and where we're headed?'

Mr. Wasik discussed the additions to the desk's coverage and the projects he's most looking forward to. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What prompted these recent changes?

Back in 2017, The Times centralized all of its health coverage under the Science desk, which meant that it was doing a lot of stories about the politics and policy of health. But when Joe [Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times] was looking for a new leader for the desk, he wanted to reorganize the coverage — not to reduce health coverage at all, but to let our desk invest in new beats and new writers focused more squarely on science.

We advertised for a biotech reporter and wound up bringing in Carolyn Y. Johnson, this phenomenal science reporter from The Washington Post. We also hired a China science correspondent, Zeyi Yang from Wired, to begin a new beat about the rise of China as a scientific superpower.

To inaugurate our A.I. beat on the desk, we brought in Cade Metz, who had already been reporting on A.I. for the Business section. And then we recently announced the hiring of Eric Boodman, from STAT, as our national science correspondent — his job will be to look for stories across the world of science that are less about results than they are about people, institutions and processes.

Your background is not specifically in science per se. What drew you to this position? I was a math major in college, and I've always been interested in science. But in all my jobs up until now — at Harper's Magazine, Wired Magazine and then at The Times Magazine — I was always a generalist. It's definitely a new swerve for me to really be focusing on science, and it's also my first job outside of magazines.

My mission, first and foremost, is to learn from my colleagues, both on the desk and

outside the desk around the paper, about all the parts of covering the news that you don't learn as a magazine editor. Right now, I'm really conscious of being on that learning curve, even as I bring certain skills and instincts to the table as a magazine editor that will help us bring our journalism to a general audience.

How does your experience with magazine-style writing influence the changes you're making on the Science desk?

Whether it's the success of some new pharmaceutical test, or whether it's some new development in A.I., as an editor I'm asking myself not just "What is the news?" but also "Why does the news matter?" And that often can suggest a different way of thinking of how you frame the story in the headline, how you might structure the story, what kind of related material you might pull in.

Asking this question also avoids the problem that can come up sometimes with science coverage, where you cover some individual paper, study or individual development, but short of context, there's the risk that you're overhyping individual results if you're not looking at them against the backdrop of broader results.

This is a complaint that scientists often have about science journalism, that if you're missing the broader context, you're giving readers an inaccurate picture. To me, thinking about the fields of science through the lens of ideas can be a useful check on that.

Can you tell about one upcoming project you're especially excited about?

Starting this month, we are rolling out four weekly columns by four different amazing science writers — the first one is by Natalie Wolchover, a Pulitzer-winning writer on the cosmos, and another will be by the nature writer David Quammen. We are also relaunching our Science Times newsletter, with two emails each week and a lot of original content.

And later in the fall, we'll be introducing a project called "Unknowns," which will explore unsolved problems across all the realms of science. One example: a visual explainer that touches on many of the mind-boggling, unanswered questions that exist in the cosmos, like the expansion of the universe, how black holes work and more. We're hoping to find a way to use illustration and animation to bring some of those mysteries to readers.

Quote of the Day

"The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it."

DAVID SACKS, technology adviser to President Trump, on the debate over the safety of A.I. and the need for stricter government oversight. Page B1.

A Notable Number

120,000

The number of people in the United States who have type 1 narcolepsy, which causes pervasive sleepiness and cataplexy. A first-of-its-kind drug for the sleep disorder has been approved by the F.D.A. Page D3.

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275,638 STAY HOME IN INTEGRATION BOYCOTT

September 15, 1964. “A white boycott to protest the Board of Education’s new integration program sharply cut attendance in city schools yesterday,” The Times reported. To address the stark racial segregation of students, and in response to demands for better education from Black and Puerto Rican families, the New York City Board of Education had reorganized enrollment at select schools by grade level instead of by neighborhood. The boycott was organized by the Parents and Taxpayers Coordinating Council and the Joint Council for Better Education, “virtually all-white organizations opposed to the compulsory transfer of pupils to schools outside their neighborhood as a means of promoting integration,” The Times wrote. “The first thing when you’re buying a house you ask how far is the school, how far is the subway,” one mother in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn told The Times. “I’d rather go to jail than see my kids bused out of the neighborhood.”

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Almost half of U.S. adults ages 30 to 49 have at least one tattoo. Ask Well: I want to get a tattoo, but is it really safe? D6

In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain were served hot dogs during a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, N.Y. Modi Served Meatless Dinner at Summit, and His Critics Blanched A12

Before her television career as "Judge Judy," Judith B. Sheindlin practiced corporate law for a cosmetics company. She left when the work became unfulfilling and joined the New York Family Court system as a prosecutor. Judge Judy to Leave the Bench C7

A U.S. player hasn't won a men's Grand Slam singles tennis title in 23 years. For Shelton, a Defeat Could Pave The Way For Future Triumphs B8

Betel nuts, which release psychoactive stimulants, are chewed by some 600 million people around the world. In the Molars of an Old Mouth, Evidence of the Earliest Addict D2

Congress created the Smithsonian in 1846 after James Smithson, a British chemist and mineralogist, died and left his fortune to the establishment of an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge" in the U.S. capital. How Smithsonian May Pick New Chief C4

The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States climbed to \$6.23 on Monday, according to the AAA motor club, up about 66 percent since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Trump Blames Ukraine For Global Diesel Shortage B3

The Mini Crossword

BY JOEL FAGLIANO
9/15/2026

ACROSS 1 "That's a no-brainer!," slangily 5 5,280 in a mile 6 F, on a test 8 "Give me a break!" 9 "Don't walk" symbol at a crosswalk

1 Brand of bug spray with an exclamation point in its name 2 Long ____, Calif. 3 Brainy member of the Scooby-Doo gang 4 "Let's do this thing" 7 Conclusion

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

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Reader Corner From the Comments Forum

There's a good chance you have a "familect" — words and sayings that are unique to the way your family uses language. Nitsuh Abebe wrote about these private languages for The New York Times Magazine and invited readers to share the quirks of their own clan's speech in the comments. These submissions have been edited.

Nixilating. When something is both annoying and aggravating, it is nixilating. My daughter was pretty nixilated when she learned that a word that we regularly used ... wasn't actually a recognized word!
— BARB KOSTANICK, BROOMFIELD, COLO.

Back in July 1991, our family was at a zoo and had just passed a number of peacocks strolling the grounds. My 3-year-old son was sweating in the intense afternoon heat and declared, "I'm sweating like a peacock!" That phrase quickly became our family's standard way of declaring that we were hot. That son died in 2007 at the age of 19 in a motorcycle accident, but 18 years later, we still say that we are sweating like a peacock. In memory of him and that little gift to our family, I recently got a peacock feather tattoo on my arm. It makes me smile every time I look at it. — LORIJO PETERS, MANHEIM, PA.

When our daughter Ingrid was still an infant, my sleep-deprived husband referred to her fingers as her "cute little fingrids," and fingrids they have remained! — TEA MARKOVIC, OTTAWA

In Our Inbox Excerpts From New York Times Newsletters

NASUNA STUART-ULIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Inspecting a stolen vehicle pulled from a shipping container at the Port of Montreal in June.

The reporters Jane Bradley and Michael Schwirtz recently spent six months tracking cars stolen from Canada to see where they were going. For the Canada Letter newsletter, Shawna Richer asked Ms. Bradley about how they got the story. These are edited excerpts.

What first drew you to Canada's car theft epidemic? Our investigation began with a tip from a source at Interpol. The official had been tracking stolen cars across the world and noticed something surprising: Thousands of stolen Canadian cars were turning up in Russia. That had never been reported before, so we were immediately interested.

Where did you start, in terms of the reporting? We knew we needed records, and after months of speaking with sources at Interpol and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we got them. They showed that Interpol had received nearly 5,000 reports of stolen Canadian cars found in Russia between February 2024 and July 2026. That made it by far the biggest overseas destination for Canada's stolen cars.

What surprised you about this story? I was struck by how organized and sophisticated the trade is. These cars are stolen to order, and transnational criminal networks work together to meet a black market demand for expensive Western trucks and cars. Orders would be placed in Russia — let's say, for 15 Land Rovers — and passed to scouts in Canada who scoured neighborhoods and parking lots.

Here to Help

A Recipe for One-Pot Braised Pork Ragù

This vegetable-heavy baked ragù is a great way to stretch one pound of meat into a hearty pasta sauce. There's only about 15 minutes of active work; the oven does the rest. Pork shoulder (also known as picnic shoulder) is a relatively inexpensive cut of pork that takes well to braising, which yields super flavorful and tender meat. KAY CHUN

TIME: 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES
YIELD: 4 SERVINGS

$\frac{1}{4}$ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound pork shoulder, cut into $\frac{1}{2}$ -inch cubes Kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) and black pepper

3 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped (1½ cups)

1 medium yellow onion, diced into small pieces ( $1\frac{1}{2}$ cups)

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes 1 fresh rosemary sprig

2 fresh basil sprigs, plus chopped leaves for garnish

$\frac{1}{4}$ cup heavy cream Cooked pasta or polenta, for serving Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, for serving

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. In a large Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium. Add half of the pork to the pot, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, 3 minutes; using a slotted spoon or tongs, transfer the pork to a plate. Repeat with the remaining pork, and season with salt and pepper.

3. Reduce heat to medium-low and add carrots, onions and 1 tablespoon of oil. Season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in garlic, then add tomato paste and the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, and cook, stirring continuously, until lightly caramelized, 3 minutes.

DAVID MALOSH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: SIMON ANDREWS.

4. Add pork and any accumulated juices, then the tomatoes and their juices, crushing the tomatoes with your hands as you add them. Stir in the rosemary, basil sprigs, cream and 2 cups of water; season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over high, cover and bake until pork is tender and sauce is thickened, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Discard rosemary and basil sprigs.

5. Serve pork ragù over pasta or polenta. Top with some cheese and chopped basil.

For more recipes, visit New York Times Cooking at nytcooking.com.

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International

The New York Times

Israeli Documentary Is Lauded Abroad but Draws Furor at Home

The directors Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham at the closing ceremony of the Venice International Film Festival. Their film “NAZA” won the Special Jury Prize.
STEFANO RELLANDINI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Soldiers and Officers Detail the Mass Killings Of Civilians in Gaza

By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — When “NAZA,” a documentary about the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last week, the Israeli directors received a 25-minute standing ovation. The film also won the Special Jury Prize.

But in Israel, the film has whipped up a storm of official criticism, as well as pushback from the military, which rarely weighs in on matters of the silver screen. On Monday, the Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, consulted with top generals about how to respond to the film, saying it is “based on blood libels” and “deliberate distortions of reality.” He said the military would examine possible legal measures against those suspected of disseminating false allegations and of disclosing classified materials.

Israel's minister of culture, Miki Zohar, went so far as to ask the authorities to examine whether the directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, could be stripped of their Israeli citizenship on grounds of "betraying the state of Israel."

Representatives for Mr. Abraham and Ms. Szor declined to respond specifically to Mr. Zohar's accusation and threat. But Mr. Abraham responded to criticism from home in a video statement on Sunday, saying that it was important for Israeli society to learn about the military's actions in Gaza and that the soldiers had spoken in Hebrew "because they want to reach the Israeli public."

The 80-minute documentary, co-produced by The Guardian, consists of interviews with 24 people described as Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers who, according to the film's synopsis, reveal in detail "the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza."

The interviewees, who could potentially face legal consequences in Israel and abroad, were not identified.

Almost three years after the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the devastating war in Gaza, the reaction in Israel crystallizes the stark contrast between the country's self-image and how it is increasingly seen from the outside.

The atmosphere of a political campaign ahead of national elections in October has further fueled the backlash.

Israelis are deeply divided over how to apportion blame for the policy, military and intelligence failures that preceded the attack and the war. But Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of

Oct. 7. The militants' attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, and about 250 more were taken hostage, according to the Israeli authorities.

Only a small minority of Israelis have protested against the military's conduct in the war, with most viewing it as a just campaign of self-defense.

Conversely, many abroad view Israel's reaction as excessive. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children, according to the Gaza health ministry. Much of Gaza had been left in ruins, and human rights groups and foreign governments have accused Israel of war crimes.

The domestic furor over the film has erupted though it has not yet been distributed and few in Israel have seen it.

"NAZA" is a Hebrew acronym for nezek agavi, or collateral damage. In the film, it is used to refer to the loosening of targeting constraints that increased the number of uninvolved civilians who could be put at risk by Israeli military attacks in Gaza carried out on the basis of mass surveillance aided by artificial intelligence.

The New York Times reported in December 2024 that on the first day of the war, Israel's military leadership changed its rules of engagement, granting mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of military sites and militants, including low-ranking fighters, and risk killing up to 20 civilians in each strike.

The Times investigation found that Israel had severely weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians and adopted flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties.

In the documentary "NAZA," one interviewee says that Israel launched strikes that had killed 20, 30 or even 300 civilians, and that in one case approval was given for a strike that could kill 500.

The Israeli military denied that specific accusation in a social media post, saying that it “never planned, approved or carried out a strike in Gaza in which 500 civilians or anything near that number were anticipated to be killed.” It said it had operated in accordance with international law.

The military, which has viewed only excerpts, excoriated the documentary for showing anonymous testimonies "from individuals whose identity cannot be verified."

The military and commentators in the news media also faulted the documentary for failing to acknowledge what they said was the strategy of Hamas to embed its fighters and military infrastructure

among civilians.

Israeli politicians who oppose the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have also attacked the documentary.

Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist vying for the premiership and a former military chief who lost a son in the fighting in Gaza, said it presented a “distorted” picture and demonstrated “moral blindness” and “detachment from reality.”

“Criticism is legitimate in a democratic society, but there is an abyss between it and smearing the good name of our soldiers in order to reap applause at festivals abroad,” he wrote in a social media post.

Mr. Abraham, for his part, said in his video statement that he hoped the film would be distributed widely in Israel and suggested that those now attacking it should “watch it, first of all.”

A Private Call Bashing Trinidad's Government Led to Months of Detention

By ZANE IRWIN and PRIOR BEHARRY

Until recently, Star Sabga spent her days making artisanal cheese and ranting about politics over the phone with her niece.

Above left, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago. Right, Genevievre Hadeed and Dominic Hadeed. Their home was raided in June and they were taken into custody with Star Sabga, Ms. Hadeed's aunt.

Ms. Sabga, 69, lived in a luxury seaside apartment in a suburb of Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Her niece, Genevievre Hadeed, and her niece's husband, a bottled-water magnate named Dominic Hadeed, helped cover her costs.

But in June, that peaceful lifestyle was upended when police officers detained the Hadeeds and Ms. Sabga, accusing them of plotting to assassinate the prime minister.

The Hadeeds were held without charges for nearly a month, and Ms. Sabga for more than two months, under Trinidad's state of emergency, a measure in place almost continuously since 2025 in response to rising violent crime, according to officials. The state of emergency allows authorities to carry out warrantless searches and detain people indefinitely without charges.

The detentions gripped the Caribbean country, setting off a national debate about the government's use of surveillance and preventive detention. The saga also exposed racial and political friction surrounding Trinidad's Middle Eastern-descended minority, to which Ms. Sabga and the Hadeeds belong.

Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the prime minister, did not respond to questions about the cases of Ms. Sabga and the Hadeeds. But she defended the state of emergency, saying to reporters on Thursday, "It is very clear that the crime stats are down." She added, "Maybe it's not the best thing to do, but it was very successful."

Governments around the region have increasingly turned to severe tactics in response to surging rates of violence. In El Salvador, over 90,000 people have been detained, and nearly 500 have died in state custody, amid a four-year state of emergency, according to Amnesty International. Honduras and Jamaica have also used states of exception, during which certain rights are suspended, to the alarm of human rights groups.

VINCENT ALBAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sandra Pellegrini, the Latin America regional team lead at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or A.C.L.E.D., a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that monitors conflict and protest data, has studied the use of emergency powers in the region. She said any reductions in crime have often been short-lived and come at the cost of civil liberties.

“Whether you're a criminal or not, you're still supposed to be able to access a fair trial,” she said, noting that protesters and government critics have at times become targets under law enforcement agencies with weakened restrictions.

Before his legal saga made headlines, Mr. Hadeed had been known as a critic of the administration. He criticized its tax policies in a public forum in March and objected to the government's decision to cancel a lease for land his businesses had used since 2007. The Hadeeds were also known as prominent members of Trinidad's Syrian-Lebanese minority group.

The country is split almost evenly between Afro-Trinidadians, many of whom are descended from enslaved Africans, and Indo-Trinidadians, who trace their roots to indentured workers from India. Many people also have mixed heritage, and several prominent minority groups exist, including the Syrian-Lebanese.

Middle Eastern-descended Trini- dadians have historically been associ- ated with the People's National Mov- ement, currently the country's main opposition party, and a notable number of suc- cessful businesspeople in the country are of Syrian-Lebanese descent, according to Sam Salloum, a Trinidadian busi- nessman who is part of the community.

Politicians in the United National Congress, the governing party, frequently criticize the economic dominance of the Syrian-Lebanese community — often referred to as “the 1 percent” — and accuse them of political corruption and organized crime.

In June, the attorney general, John Jeremie, issued warnings to the ethnic minority during a motion to extend the nation's state of emergency. He called them a "gang" that had "taken over" the opposition party.

Members of Parliament enthusiastically thumped their desks, punctuating Mr. Jeremie's remarks.

Mr. Jeremie also confirmed that some Syrian-Lebanese people have had their U.S. visas revoked. He denied his government's involvement in those decisions, but implied that U.S. intelligence agencies had flagged them for criminal ties. (The Hadeeds' lawyer confirmed that their visas were among those that were revoked.)

Ms. Sabga read about Mr. Jeremie's comments in the next day's newspaper, according to court documents. Angry, she called her niece, Ms. Hadeed, to vent her frustration with how her community was being treated.

Less than two weeks later, just after dawn on June 24, the Hadeeds were startled awake when police officers, some with machine guns, swept into their home, according to affidavits by the Hadeeds. Officers declared they had a search warrant and seized electronic devices, including those of the Hadeeds' three children.

It was not until Mr. Hadeed was separated from his wife and detained for multiple days that he was given a reason for the arrests: The Hadeeds were accused of plotting to assassinate the prime minister and other government leaders and of fostering ties to transnational crime.

Mr. Hadeed was “numb with shock, disbelief and horror,” he wrote in an affidavit denying the allegations. He later learned that Ms. Sabga, his wife’s aunt, had also been detained.

"The entire community was in shock," said Mr. Salloum, who knows Ms. Sabga and the Hadeeds. He said the community knew Ms. Sabga primarily for selling shanklish cheese, balls of fermented and strained yogurt covered in seeds and spices.

Mr. Salloum dismissed the idea that Ms. Sabga could be at the center of an assassination plot, saying she wouldn't even spray a bug. "She gonna cry for the cockroach," he said.

The Hadeeds and Ms. Sabga denied the accusations. Through their lawyer, they declined interviews.

In an affidavit, Mr. Hadeed said he had medical conditions that were exacerbated in prison. Ms. Sabga and Ms. Hadeed were held in a women's prison, where they said in affidavits that they were subjected to strip searches and filthy lodgings with no privacy, even to relieve themselves.

Court records said that a central piece of evidence in the case was a recording of the June 11 phone call between Ms. Sabga and Ms. Hadeed, which authorities had intercepted. To date, authorities have not explained why they had tapped the call in the first place, saying only in court documents that security agencies were specially trained to monitor “persons of interest.”

Roger Alexander, the homeland security minister, cited 13 written excerpts from Ms. Sabga's impassioned conversation with her niece. Ms. Sabga used a slur against the prime minister, an Indo-Trinidadian woman, and called her "a target."

"Somebody's getting a bullet in their head," Ms. Sabga had said. "What has to happen for this to cool down is the death of one of her members of Parliament."

Mr. Alexander, who did not respond to requests for comment, wrote in a court document that those statements were part of “a developing plot or chatter pointing to threats to the life of persons in public life.” He said the authorities had worked with U.S. “partner agencies” and found that the Hadeeds and Ms. Sabga had connections to criminals, to whom they could "communicate deadly intent."

The U.S. authorities, including the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the International Law Enforcement division of the Department of Justice, did not confirm or deny any criminal investigations involving the Hadeeds or Ms. Sabga.

The intelligence that authorities relied upon to detain the Hadeeds and Ms. Sabga was called into question when a local news outlet posted a leaked recording of the full 15-minute call in July. The recording showed Ms. Sabga had been privately venting her frustrations about what she saw as a political attack on her community, which she insisted was not involved in criminal activity.

The leak spurred intense and wide-ranging reactions.

Many condemned Ms. Sabga's use of slurs against the prime minister, for which Ms. Sabga expressed regret in an affidavit — though she said her comments had been “wickedly twisted out of context.” Others saw the recording as discrediting the government's claims of an assassination plot. The call did not involve Mr. Hadeed, raising questions about why the authorities detained him.

After a month in detention, the authorities released the Hadeeds and revoked their detention orders. A video on social media showed Mr. Hadeed returning to his office, hugging and kissing his employees.

In July, Ms. Sabga was released from prison but was ordered to remain confined to her home. According to court documents, she was barred from leaving her apartment and her contact with family was severely restricted. In an affidavit, she described armed, camouflaged officers guarding her building.

On Thursday, more than two months after Ms. Sabga was detained, authorities released her from house arrest and revoked her detention order. On Friday, when local reporters asked Mr. Alexander about Ms. Sabga's release, he compared her case to the search for the killer of Tupac Shakur, the American rapper.

"Tupac Shakur was shot in 1996, and the person was only charged this year," he said, implying that the state's investigation into Ms. Sabga would continue after her release. "It's not over till it's over," he added.

The state of emergency is scheduled to expire this week, and hundreds of detainees are set to be released. Many, like Ms. Sabga and the Hadeeds, have not been charged with any crime.

Conservation needs to learn to say 'yes'

A message to our movement

Every hour, we lose more than 40 acres of farmland and ranchland. Every day, open space twice the size of Central Park disappears. Every year, another million acres of forest are lost. And once these lands are gone, they're gone forever.

And now, trillions of dollars for desperately needed infrastructure will create one of the largest periods of building in American history.

Without a clear vision, this new infrastructure will accelerate the loss of wild and working lands that people and wildlife depend on. Land we can't afford to lose.

So, how do we build the infrastructure we need while protecting the natural systems we depend on?

The environmental movement deserves enormous credit for solving many of the challenges of the last century: reducing pollution, protecting iconic landscapes, and forcing industry to account for environmental harm. But we did it by saying “no” — through legislation, regulation, and litigation. "No" is a powerful tool to protect hard-fought conservation wins. But it can't be the only tool in our toolbox.

If we're to address climate change, housing needs, water scarcity, and rural economic development, we need to build. And when we build, we have an opportunity to link new infrastructure with conservation outcomes, securing more for our country than we'd ever achieve by only saying "no." Built infrastructure and natural infrastructure stop being opponents and instead become partners. This is what it means to find the "yes."

Wetlands protect against floods, storm surge, and extreme weather. Forests store carbon, filter drinking water, and extend the life of reservoirs. Farms provide fresh, local, and sustainable food. Urban tree canopies keep cities livable through a heat wave. These natural systems are necessities, not amenities. They do the work that built infrastructure cannot.

We can't solve today's biggest challenges by only saying "no."

A prosperous, healthy, and resilient future requires an environmental movement committed to both building what our country urgently needs and protecting what cannot be replaced.

The challenges ahead are too large and too complex for yesterday's playbook. We need a movement as committed to building as it is to blocking.

It's time to find the "yes." For all of us.

Larry Selzer

President & CEO

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Saudi Arabia, Feeling Brushed Off by Trump, Fears Facing Foes Alone

From Page A1

the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has imposed across the Middle East, including on countries whose leaders opposed the war or have sought repeatedly to bring it to an end.

In the first few months of the fighting, Saudi Arabia was relatively untouched by Iran's retaliatory attacks, compared with its neighbors. Now, with no end to the hostilities in sight, Iran is seeking greater leverage over the United States, and Saudi Arabia — the world's largest oil exporter until the war knocked it down the list — has become a primary target.

Over the past two weeks alone, Saudi Arabia has faced Iran-backed attacks from the east, the

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Shuaib Almosawa from Sanaa, Yemen.

south and the north.

A Saudi oil tanker was struck in the Strait of Hormuz at the end of August, killing two sailors.

On Friday, the Houthi militia, which had already declared a blockade on Saudi oil shipments through the Red Sea, seized territory on an important global shipping route and trounced Saudi-allied forces in Yemen.

The same day, the Saudi authorities announced they had been forced to shut down a critical oil pipeline, blaming a drone attack by an Iran-backed Iraqi militia. The pipeline had become a crucial alternative export route for Saudi Arabia to get its oil to the Red Sea, after Iran effectively choked off the Strait of Hormuz.

"The reason a country like Saudi Arabia invests so heavily in developing a security partnership with the United States is for just this sort of eventuality," said Mr. Ratney, the former ambassador.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the country's de facto ruler, had reasons to be confident in that partnership. For years, his government has invested billions of dollars and extensive political capital in building personal relationships with Mr. Trump and his family.

But when the crown prince asked Mr. Trump last week to take military action against the Houthis, the president declined, according to officials with knowledge of the conversations.

Saudi officials and pundits have been clear that the kingdom does not want to fight the Houthis alone. That is especially true because an earlier military campaign that Saudi Arabia led against the group turned into a decade-long quagmire.

"This demands international support, not only from Saudi Arabia and regional countries," Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a columnist close to the Saudi government, wrote in a Saudi-owned newspaper on Saturday.

Mr. Trump, however, appears reluctant to get involved.

"Already confronting one open-ended conflict with Iran, with an

A kingdom's troubles reflect the Iran war's costs across a region

overstretched Navy and a diminishing munitions stockpile, it's unsurprising that he does not want to open this new front," said Dan Shapiro, a former top Middle East policy official in the Pentagon during the Biden administration. "But it is bitterly disappointing to the Saudis."

On Saturday, Mr. Trump told journalists on a trip to Ireland that the Houthis had “called us, and they don’t want to fight with us.”

"There's just one country that they're not too happy with, and we'll get that straightened out," he added, referring to Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi political official, denied that the group had reached out to the United States. "We did not communicate with Trump, nor did we ask him not to attack us," he said.

Whether the United States gets involved in Yemen is still a matter of discussion, and Washington is continuing to assist Saudi Arabia with intelligence, said Vice Adm. John W. Miller, a retired U.S. Navy commander in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia is now likely to turn to diplomacy, according to Barbara Leaf, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs at the State Department. Despite years of Saudi, U.S. and Israeli bombing campaigns against the Houthis, “no one has come up with a military solution” for dealing with them, she said.

Saudi Arabia could also work with its neighbors and Iran to hammer out an “ugly set of arrangements” to bring the war with Iran to an end, she said.

The kingdom could look to China to try to find a solution, but Beijing's previous diplomatic efforts in the region have not led to lasting peace deals, she noted. China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 that has since frayed.

For now, Saudi officials are unlikely to complain publicly about the United States, however frustrated they feel, analysts said.

"They're not going to show some sort of distance," Ms. Leaf said. "They're going to have to generate some other diplomatic effort."

NEWS ANALYSIS

Top Leaders Are Battling Turmoil Inside Hegseth's Pentagon

Pete Hegseth's aim of restoring a "warrior ethos" is said to have instead targeted some of the military's most combat-tested leaders.
ALEX KENT/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By GREG JAFFE

WASHINGTON — For decades, secretaries of defense have largely sought to insulate the military from the country's divisive culture wars.

Pete Hegseth, more than any of his predecessors, has taken the opposite approach, bringing those fights directly into the Pentagon.

There have been purges of senior military officers on a scale unlike anything in the modern history of the department. There have been new restrictions on where officers can study and what thoughts they can express in academic papers. There have been widespread polygraphs aimed at ferreting out leakers or intimidating those tempted to share sensitive information.

The turmoil comes at a moment when the extended war with Iran has caused a series of cascading strains on the force. Long deployments have sapped the morale of sailors. Shortfalls of critical missile interceptors have raised troubling questions about the military's ability to outlast Iran and fight a conflict in another part of the world.

Many of these problems are rooted in decisions made by previous administrations and a war in Iran that has gone on far longer than President Trump or the Pentagon expected.

Current and former military officials describe Mr. Hegseth's tumultuous tenure as a persistent distraction that has pulled top leaders away from focusing on these priorities and fed a climate of mistrust in the top ranks. The officers spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

Senior officers have also raised doubts about Gen. Dan Caine, who as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the primary military adviser to Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump. General Caine has been guarded in discussing the advice he has given Mr. Hegseth, particularly on sensitive personnel matters.

A question asked by officers up to and including four-star generals is whether the chairman has been unwilling or unable to protect the force from the culture war Mr. Hegseth is waging. A spokesman for the chairman declined to comment on General Caine's advice.

As an Army National Guard officer, Mr. Hegseth fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. He left the Army in 2021 after he was singled out for tattoos that the service deemed extremist.

"I separated from an Army that didn't want me anymore," he wrote in 2024. "The feeling was mutual. I didn't want this Army anymore either."

He arrived at the Pentagon determined to raise standards and liberate the military from what he cast as a divisive, left-wing agenda that was shackling troops on the battlefield and feeding dissension in the ranks. A year ago, he laid out his vision in a speech to hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world.

"You are hereby liberated to be apolitical, hard-charging, non-nonsense, constitutional leaders," he said.

Mr. Hegseth's aim has been to restore a "warrior ethos" that was "buried under bureaucratic process, quotas and institutional self-preservation," said Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon's press secretary.

But many current and former military leaders said Mr. Hegseth has instead targeted the most combat-tested leaders, hollowing out an institution at war.

He has fired or blocked the promotions of as many as 80 generals and admirals. Officers have seen trusted mentors with decades-long careers purged without any sense of what they might have done wrong. Key leadership positions have gone unfilled for months. The chaos and uncertainty have spurred quiet conversations among career officers about whether it is worth accepting promotions and continuing to serve.

"Stop fighting this rear guard against phantoms," H.R. McMaster, a retired Army general who served as the national security adviser in the first Trump administration, said on a recent podcast. "What you don't want to do is create a climate in which everything's a loyalty test."

Even as Mr. Hegseth has pushed the military to adapt to a battlefield dominated by drones and artificial intelligence, he has pressed its leaders to return to the standards of what he views as an earlier, tougher era. In speeches, he has praised officers like Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and World War II leaders like General George S. Patton Jr. Both officers led forces that were far less educated than today's military on battlefields dominated by big, heavy-armored divisions.

Underlying many of Mr. Hegseth's questions to senior military leaders is an assumption that the Army has in recent decades grown weaker and worse. Earlier this year, he challenged the Army to explain why it had eliminated ruck march requirements — timed hikes carrying a heavy backpack and combat gear — from officer training courses. Senior Army leaders replied with an analysis comparing 2025 benchmarks with those from 1990.

In every instance, the marches had not been eliminated, and the standards had increased in rigor, the Army reported.

Mr. Hegseth has brought a similar skepticism to officer education, which he has often described as a conduit for corrupting, liberal ideas. Earlier this year, he blocked midcareer officers from attending graduate school programs at top universities like Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Yale. "They've taken our best and brightest, the men and women who pledged their lives to this nation, and subjected them to a curriculum of contempt," Mr. Hegseth said earlier this year.

The heavy scrutiny has extended to master's theses. At least two Army officers, selected by a board of senior leaders for promotion to one-star generals, were blocked after officials in Mr. Hegseth's office objected to their graduate school papers. Fewer than 5 percent of eligible Army colonels are selected for one-star rank, making it the most competitive promotion in the military.

One of the officers, who is Black, wrote a paper on why Black officers have historically opted for support jobs over frontline combat positions, military officials said. The second officer explored the effect political polarization was having on the military's ability to recruit and retain talent.

The heavy focus on academic papers, which were never intended for publication, has had a chilling effect on a force that for years had said it valued a culture of curiosity, questioning and innovation.

Some senior officers said that they were reluctant to raise ideas associated with the fired generals and admirals, or that they had censored themselves when discussing topics Mr. Hegseth might view as contentious.

"Here is the question that I hope Secretary Hegseth and his team are wrestling with," said Peter Feaver, a frequent adviser to the military who directs Duke University's American Grand Strategy program. "Do they want a cohort of military leaders who are told: You do not need to learn how to think for yourself, you just need to know what we think are the correct answers?"

Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was fired by Mr. Hegseth last year, recently echoed those concerns.

"You don't want to punish military members for saluting smartly and actually executing," he said earlier this summer at a discussion hosted by the Aspen

Institute on civil-military relations. He said that some officers were being singled out for doing their duty or were being used as "pawns in the culture wars."

Inside the Pentagon, Mr. Hegseth's supporters — some of them active-duty military officers — have defended his moves and attacked those who have questioned whether he has gone too far. Earlier this month, Army Col. Kevin T. Black praised Mr. Hegseth in a social media post for taking on a “protected class” of officers and a promotion process that he said had become disconnected from the military’s true mission: fighting and winning wars.

"If that stings, it is because it landed on the people who needed to hear it," he wrote.

As the top military adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth, General Caine sits at the center of the strained relationship between Mr. Hegseth and the force. General Caine, a former fighter pilot, came to the Pentagon determined to build trust with Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth, both of whom had a dim view of his predecessors. To that end, he has defined his role more narrowly than previous chairmen.

In a recent commencement speech at the National Defense University, he said it was his job to tell the president whether the military could execute a mission, and to lay out the risks. But he warned against wading into internal debates over whether the president should take a particular military action.

"We don't do that in our business," he said.

It was a break from the recent past, when senior military officers like Gen. Mark A. Milley, a previous chairman, voiced opposition to former president Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Despite their concerns, the generals carried out the president's orders.

In the same speech, General Caine revealed the difficult balancing act he faced as the military's top officer. He urged the graduates to keep reading and studying.

"The complex environment that we're facing requires you to be and remain relentlessly curious," he told them.

He cited the example of Brent Scowcroft, who graduated from the National Defense University and earned a doctorate while serving in the Air Force, then rose through the ranks to become President George H.W. Bush's national security adviser.

General Caine did not mention that General Scowcroft had earned his doctorate at Columbia, a school that the officers were no longer permitted to attend.

Saudi Leader Meets U.S. Commander as Houthi Attacks Threaten Oil Markets

By ERIC SCHMITT and AARON BOXERMAN

WASHINGTON — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia met on Monday with the U.S. commander who oversees Middle East operations, days after President Trump rebuffed the Saudi leader's calls for help in combating the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen.

A brief summary carried by Saudi state media said Prince Mohammed had held talks with the commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Central Command, in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah to discuss “the latest regional developments.”

The Houthis have been fighting with the internationally recognized government in Yemen, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, since 2014. The violence abated after a truce took effect in 2022, but in July, the group waded into the widening war in the Middle East by declaring a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea and attacking Saudi vessels.

In recent days, the fighting has reignited, with the Houthis capturing key areas near Bab al-Mandab Strait — a major maritime choke point along the Red Sea — threatening to unsettle global energy markets already reeling from the six-month conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran.

Admiral Cooper began meeting with Saudi defense officials late last week to discuss intelligence sharing and munitions, according to two people familiar with his visit. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement on Monday that Admiral Cooper had met with “senior civilian and military leaders in Saudi Arabia to discuss regional security cooperation” in recent days. He did not specify when the meetings took place or identify Prince Mohammed by name.

Prince Mohammed spoke with Mr. Trump about the escalation in

Yemen last week and urged the United States to take military action against the Houthis, according to officials with knowledge of the conversations. Mr. Trump told him he was not willing to do so, the officials said.

At the same time, diplomacy between the Trump administration and Iran on ending the war has stalled. A short-lived cease-fire signed in June collapsed weeks later, leaving the two countries in a simmering conflict punctuated by occasional exchanges of fire.

Last week, the Houthis, who rule much of northwestern Yemen, swept into the strategic port of Mokha on the Red Sea and seized the island of Perim. Forces allied with the Yemeni government also withdrew from the Hunaish and Zuqar islands last week, according to Yemeni officials.

The Houthi advance has put Saudi Arabia, which has fought a long military campaign with the group, on edge. But the United States is likely to hesitate before joining: Tens of thousands of

Talks in Jeddah after Trump's rebuff of a call for military help.

American soldiers are already deployed in the region, guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz, blockading Iranian ports and facing a dwindling stockpile of critical munitions.

The territorial gains have given the Houthi militants greater sway over Bab al-Mandab Strait, making it easier for them to fulfill their vow to blockade Saudi shipping in the waterway and further threatening global oil shipments. Iran has similarly managed to largely blockade the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf since the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, causing energy prices to soar.

The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped nearly 4 percent to over \$108 a barrel on

Monday, reflecting investor worries about continued instability in the Middle East. The price of Brent is about 50 percent higher than before the war.

The renewed fighting has effectively reignited the Yemeni civil war, which had been mostly quiet since a 2022 cease-fire. Saudi-aligned forces have attacked Houthi territory, while Houthi forces have repeatedly fired at sites in Saudi Arabia that they say are military and energy installations.

On Monday, the Saudi government's civil defense issued alerts for the southern cities of Khamis Mushait and Abha, warning of incoming attacks. There were no reports of casualties.

The Houthis began firing on ships in the Red Sea in 2023 in protest of Israel's war against the Iranian-backed group Hamas in Gaza. While they claimed at the time that they were enforcing a blockade on Israeli shipping, many of the vessels on which they fired had little connection to Israel. Global shipping broadly was rerouted around southern Africa.

Under the Biden administration, the United States and its allies began a bombing campaign against the Houthis, and Mr. Trump escalated it after taking office in 2025. Mr. Trump later wrapped up the operation after announcing that he had reached an agreement with the Houthis to stop attacking American ships.

Former U.S. officials warn that a new campaign against the Houthis could require a much broader effort to be successful, on the heels of the costly and still open-ended conflict with Iran.

"All Trump wanted from his conflict with the Houthis in 2025 was an agreement to not target U.S. ships, which he got," said Dan Shapiro, the former Middle East policy lead at the Pentagon during the Biden administration. "Now, undertaking a counter-Houthi campaign would require intervention in the Yemeni civil war and a much broader effort to open the Bab al-Mandab."

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In Moscow, the Robots Make Life Easy, but They Also Double as Spies

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NANNA HEITMANN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A delivery robot in a business district of Moscow. Left, the city has a dense network of CCTV cameras. "Your every step can be traced," said one resident who fears he could be drafted for war.

From Page A1

cian was detained by the police at a railway terminal in St. Petersburg after surveillance cameras mistook him for a similar-looking Ukrainian public figure wanted by the state.

After checking his face and pulling at his hair to ensure it was not a wig, they let him go.

The CCTV network is linked to biometric databases. Submission of biometric data is voluntary in Russia, but it is encouraged in widespread advertisements, and citizens cannot take full advantage of digital services without complying.

These databases help the authorities target political dissent in addition to crime. Biometric feeds can be used to hunt down critics of the government after they hold gatherings.

The days when outspoken Russians could flee to remote towns to avoid the authorities, as they did during Stalin's purges, are largely over.

As of July, around 10 million Russians were using biometrics-driven applications in some form, and the Kremlin wants to increase that number, pushing citizens to adopt the tools for identification not only at train stations, but also at airports. This year, Moscow City Hall announced that a biometric system would recognize passengers on buses and trams, automatically deducting their fare once they confirmed the transaction in an app.

Other major European cities also have large CCTV networks, most notably London. Moscow's, however, is more centralized and uses biometrics to identify people with fewer restrictions.

With Russia's war in Ukraine, the stakes behind the growing surveillance have become higher.

Rumors of a new wave of military conscription, the first major mobilization since the early months of the war, have swept through Russia. While in the recent past it was relatively simple to evade a draft because enlistment offices were buried under paper files, digitized systems enhanced by artificial intelligence make that almost impossible now. The authorities introduced electronic summonses that carry the full legal weight of paper notices after thousands of Russians fled the draft in 2022.

In March, Vlad, 28, an art and fashion photographer, received a summons to appear at a military enlistment office for a mandatory medical examination. Through the State Services app — a centralized portal for government services, medical care and identity verification — he learned that he had been barred from leaving the country until he complied.

Vlad, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of repercussions, said he now lived “in fear” as he defied the summons, which he believes could be a prelude to being sent off to war.

"There is total control because you give up so much data that your every step can be traced," he said. He has stopped using the subway, terrified of the cameras.

Kremlin-aligned analysts argue that the government is using convenient apps and data collection to build a system that is more responsive to people's needs than what can be provided by Western democracies, which struggle to plan long term because of changes in government and, in some cases, limit digital services because of privacy concerns.

Russia remains steps away from China's "social credit" system, which rates people on their behavior in financial, legal and other matters and limits the freedom of offenders.

But Russian technocrats clearly view Beijing's digital architecture as a blueprint.

Gleb Kuznetsov, a political analyst who previously worked for a major Kremlin-aligned think tank, pointed to Moscow under its longtime mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, and to Shenzhen, a Chinese high-tech megacity, as urban models superior to Western capitals.

"Sobyanin's approval rating is high not because 'the elections lack competition,'” Mr. Kuznetsov said in response to written questions, "but because the city government genuinely works in the interest of its residents."

The Russian authorities, however, can be quick to pull the plug on the networks undergirding these digital amenities when they perceive a security threat, highlighting a tension between technocratic agencies and the security services.

In March, for instance, mobile internet services were abruptly shut down for more than two weeks across much of central Moscow, including in the subway system, temporarily rendering many of the city's prized digital conveniences useless.

Residents were left stunned by the blackout, which some analysts speculated was a result of intense state paranoia after the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran.

"Russia is going to go back to a situation 25 years ago where you have ‘patchwork globalization,’” said Jeremy Morris, an ethnographer who is one of the few Western academics who continue to conduct fieldwork in Russia.

"You could go into one place and it would be super, super cybernetic and technological," he added, "and then you walk out of the zone of coverage and you're back to a basic economy."

According to a Russian official involved in developing digital infrastructure, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, a quiet war is being waged within the state.

Technocratic agencies like the Ministry of Digital Development, he said, are colliding with the Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B. — specifically, its notorious political-policing department. While it has access to digital tools, the F.S.B. was not involved in creating them. It favors old-school analog methods of monitoring and controlling society, the official said, even if that means breaking the technology that the technocrats spent billions building.

The F.S.B.'s stance is partly driven by institutional self-preservation, as A.I. threatens to erode the justification for its sprawling apparatus of human agents, the official said.

Ultimately, the digital and security agencies are both competing for the ear and mind of one man: President Vladimir V. Putin, who has demanded that the government develop A.I. while insulating it from Western influence.

In April, speaking at a high-profile Kremlin meeting on A.I., Mr. Putin framed the stakes in existential terms. “The sovereignty of the Russian state in the near future — and, without exaggeration, its very existence — depends on our ability to perform well in A.I., along with digital platforms and autonomous systems,” he said.

Yet for all of its ambitions, Russia lacks the infrastructure and hardware to develop the technology in isolation from China and the United States. Western sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine have limited Russia's access to cutting-edge chips, and many of its top technical minds have left the country since the war began in 2022.

Russia's two flagship A.I. models — one developed by the country's largest state-owned bank and the other by its leading domestic tech company — were "inspired" by or heavily rely on Chinese open-source architectures.

In the end, said Ilya Grashchenkov, a Moscow-based political analyst, Russia is likely to be defined by what he called an attempt to "combine the seemingly incompatible." That, he said, involves building an "external digital perimeter" to close the country off from the world, while accelerating digitization within Russia.

Vlad, the photographer who received the military summons, said he would gladly do away with the frictionless high-tech conveniences if it meant getting back the freedom that was truly missing.

Life in Russia, he said, now resembles "living in an oxygen mask."

NEWS ANALYSIS

Near Miss on Train Is Warning for the West

From Page A1

over again" whether NATO allies were committed to defending one another.

Mr. Bednarczyk pointed out that while incidents so far had been isolated, many in Poland were bracing for further escalation this winter, perhaps even into something coordinated. Mr. Bednarczyk said that he already knew friends who had begun to avoid taking the train into Kyiv from Warsaw, opting to drive instead.

"It's an important artery," he said of the rail link to Poland.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said that Russia's escalation was "becoming a reality" and that he would review plans to protect his country's railways and industries.

He added that the most recent strikes showed that Russia was more willing than ever to deploy longer range, high-precision jet-powered drones to threaten NATO.

"We do not want to give in to nervousness — emotions are the last thing needed here," Mr. Tusk said. "But there is no doubt that we, together with our allies, must be prepared for a joint response should the need arise."

In Kyiv, the chief executive of the national Ukraine Railways said Russia was overwhelming trains with recently developed drones that can carry hundreds of pounds of explosives when crashing into targets.

"I understand we cross so many red lines in this war, but how in the world can hitting a passenger train be even accepted as something that is not immediately seen as a war crime?" the executive, Oleksandr Portsovskyi, said in an interview.

Pertsovskyi, said in an interview.

"A passenger train is not different from a passenger airplane, especially in the country that has no airspace open."

Still, he said, Russia's tactics had not deterred dignitaries, who continued to travel to Kyiv on Monday, including the speaker of Japan's House of Representatives.

STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE OF UKRAINE, VIA REUTERS

Russia's latest strike came while European nations have been considering how they can best support Ukraine as the war becomes ever more costly and

A photograph released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine after a drone strike at a train station in Lutsk.

the fighting shows no sign of ending soon.

The European Union finalized a support package of 90 billion euros, about \$100 billion, for Ukraine this year. But Kyiv's financial needs are growing under a barrage of Russian attacks, reviving a conversation among European nations about how to continue the financial backing.

Some countries are again contemplating whether it might make sense to use Russian sovereign assets frozen in Europe to support Ukraine — an idea that was considered but ultimately rejected last year.

Petteri Orpo, the prime minister of Finland, said on Monday the train station attack had been an attempt to break European unity, adding that Moscow was wrong to think such efforts would succeed.

"This is a very dangerous game they are playing now," Mr. Orpo said.

Muslim Autonomous Region in the Philippines Conducts Its First Parliamentary Election

By JASON GUTIERREZ

MANILA — Hundreds of thousands of people cast ballots on Monday in the first parliamentary election of an autonomous region in the southern Philippines, which was long a center of Muslim separatist activity and where Islamic State fighters laid siege to a city less than a decade ago.

In a sign of how restive the region remains, there were reports of violence, including a shootout that local officials said had left three people dead and more than 15 wounded near a polling station late Sunday, hours before voting began. The authorities also said they had found ballot tampering in a remote area.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was established in 2019, superseding an earlier autonomous zone that was considered to have benefited only a small number of Muslim families.

Monday's election had been delayed for years over security concerns. As many as 2.3 million voters were expected to select 80 representatives, who will then pick a chief minister from among themselves.

"The polls are historic because they test the durability of the peace process, institutionalize self-rule within the constitutional framework of the Philippines, and set a precedent for democratic consolidation in a region long defined by armed struggle," said Rommel Banlaoi, a Manila-based political and security analyst.

The region — encompassing a large section of Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines, plus other smaller islands — is the only one in the country that will be governed by a parliamentary system. For decades, it was home to a separatist movement led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which fought a fierce uprising that left about 120,000 people dead and pushed pockets of the region into a cycle of extreme poverty and violence.

In 2014, the group dropped its bid for full independence in return for the right to self-rule. Many fighters joined a transitional authority that was to be replaced by the region's own parliament. But delays in the peace process frustrated some residents.

In 2017, helped by fighters from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, a local faction of the Islamic State took over the city of Marawi, leading to a five-month battle that left hundreds dead.

Yasmin Busran-Lao, a peace and women's rights advocate, cast her ballot at about noon on Monday at a Marawi precinct heavily guarded by the Philippine military. The city, parts of which have been rebuilt in recent years, had many checkpoints and road-blocks, she said.

"You can't help but feel worried because when you see a lot of soldiers, they are preparing for conflict," said Ms. Busran-Lao, whose ancestral home was laid to rubble during the 2017 siege. "I was hesitant to go out and vote."

She noted that the region remained home to groups affiliated with the Islamic State and added, "This vote is meant for us to choose our leaders who will help rebuild."

Farther south, the city of Cotabato, the seat of the autonomous government, was under the control of the Philippine Commission

on Elections.

That takeover followed the shootout and another episode, in which a suspect was injured after a homemade bomb that he was carrying prematurely exploded, said George Garcia, the commission's chairman.

The authorities also found that some ballots had been tampered with in the remote municipality of Maluso on Basilan Island, he said.

"We determined, as of last night, ballots in 36 out of the 68 precincts had been compromised," he told reporters in a text message, noting that the names on the ballots had already been chosen in advance.

China's Top Spy Chief Warns A.I. Is a Threat to Party Rule

In China, an alarm over A.I. was in contrast to one in the U.S., where the focus was on the threat the tech posed to humanity.
KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES

By LILY KUO

China's top spy chief has warned that artificial intelligence could pose a direct threat to the Chinese Communist Party's hold on power, in what is the highest-level and most detailed articulation yet of how Beijing sees the technology's security risks.

The unusually blunt assessment by Chen Yixin, the head of China's Ministry of State Security, is in contrast to the warnings dominating the A.I. debate in the United States, which have focused on the possibility that A.I. could slip out of human control or pose a threat to humanity itself.

In an article published on Sunday in the state-run magazine China Cyberspace, Mr. Chen called for more party control over A.I. and stricter government oversight. This, he said, is necessary to protect political stability at home; to defend against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns from “hostile forces”; and to compete militarily with countries like the United States.

Mr. Chen referred specifically to U.S. tech companies and their A.I. models — like Claude Mythos and GPT-5.5-Cyber — as examples of new threats to cybersecurity. He also described the danger that foreign intelligence agencies might use A.I. for “large-scale espionage” and attacks on China’s critical infrastructure.

The warning from the powerful security agency makes clear that China sees foreign A.I. models as an active threat to China, according to Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University. That effectively draws a red line before talks between American and Chinese officials on

A.I. safety risks, expected ahead of a meeting between President Trump and China's leader, Xi Jinping, on Sept. 24 in Washington.

"Beijing is going into these talks viewing A.I. safety not as a shared humanitarian mission, but through an adversarial lens," Mr. Gao said. It is making clear to Chinese tech firms and foreign rivals that "data sovereignty and political security will never be traded away for international safety accords," he added.

Mr. Chen's remarks are not the first time the security agency has spoken about the dangers of A.I., but they are the most comprehensive and signal Beijing's growing concern about the industry. The security chief outlined several ways that A.I. could pose a threat to China:

■ Undermining the security of the Communist Party. The government's top priority has long been maintaining the power of the ruling party. Mr. Chen's article warns that those with "ulterior motives" could use A.I. to generate fake videos and audio to wage a "propaganda war" against China.

"They're worried, among other things, of say a deepfake of a Chinese official saying something that wasn't actually said, and that spreading rapidly and destabilizing everything," said Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies Chinese technology and industrial policy. "Someone thinks that Xi Jinping made some announcement which he didn't actually. That could sow chaos."

■ Attacks on China's critical infrastructure. Mr. Chen, the spy chief, wrote that the technical and financial barriers to launching cyberattacks had been drastically lowered because of A.I. This, he said, posed “serious risks” to China’s information infrastructure. Last week, a small team of researchers in California demonstrated that risk when they disclosed a hacking tool that could take control of millions of users’ accounts on We-Chat, China’s most widely used messaging app.

■ Leaks of sensitive information. Chinese users using foreign models could cause large-scale data leaks, the article noted. Anthropic, the company behind Claude and other A.I. models, said last week that the Chinese start-up Moon-shot AI had routed queries by its users to Claude. Those queries included sensitive data, including video surveillance linked to the Chinese military, as well as proprietary information from high-profile Chinese technology companies.

■ More intense military competition. The U.S. military's use of A.I. in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran was an example of how warfare has been “fundamentally transformed,” Mr. Chen wrote. He says that whoever can harness the power of tools such as algorithms to achieve more precise sensing and targeting, “will gain the initiative on the battlefield.”

The warning adds to a growing drumbeat of concern from Chinese officials about the risks of A.I. Under Mr. Xi, China has deemed A.I. a strategic technology that is critical to the country's development and ability to compete with the United States. At the same time, officials have begun to issue warnings and new guidelines for regulating the industry.

Previous warnings from Chinese regulators have tended to focus on specific issues, such as when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in July that it had detected a security risk in some versions of Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code. Regulators have repeatedly warned domestic users about the risks of A.I. assistants like OpenClaw.

"This is now a much more broad-based sort of warning, not about a specific threat from this one model or this one vulnerability, but a broader paradigm shift in how A.I. will create new risk for China," said Mr. Chan of Brookings.

"It's about taking these new powerful tools seriously and realizing there are a lot of vulnerabilities and China needs to move faster, and also use A.I. to patch those vulnerabilities, and defend against these new powerful cyber-actors," he said.

Even as China's security chief was articulating the country's concerns about A.I., its Foreign Ministry was accusing U.S. companies of hyping the dangers of the technology.

That was in response to calls by some Western A.I. executives like Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, for Washington to clamp down on Chinese companies.

In an open letter over the weekend, Mr. Amodei said that democracies must keep their lead over China. He backed restrictions on selling powerful A.I. chips to the country, among other measures to slow China's progress enough to widen America's lead.

Asked if China's A.I. industry posed a threat to the United States, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that such “threat narratives” and “malicious competition” would only make it harder for countries to work together on the regulation of A.I.

OLIVIER MORIN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Wildfires in southwestern France this summer. The United Nations said last week that the planet would continue warming above the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold.

As Key Climate Goal Falters, Some Begin a Fight for Survival

By CHICO HARLAN

The most ambitious part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, only came about because of a campaign by some of the world's poorest and most defenseless countries.

Caribbean participants tacked up posters saying “1.5 to stay alive,” and the prime minister of Tuvalu said any temperature rise beyond that mark would “spell the total demise” of his and other low-lying island nations.

The acknowledgment last week from the United Nations that the planet is going to breach that limit was not a surprise to anyone tracking global temperatures, which keep rising.

But it nonetheless formalized a dire outcome: Amid scant progress from global powers to cut pollution from fossil fuels, vulnerable countries will now spend decades, or perhaps centuries, confronting the very scenario they said would be untenable.

And though that puts them face-to-face with the concerns they'd held in Paris, about rising sea levels and intensifying disasters, they also face new risks few could have imagined a decade ago. Cutbacks in aid from wealthy nations, including the United States, have reduced the humanitarian safety net. The United States, the world's largest historical emitter, has also withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, as well as from funds meant to help developing countries deal with climate change.

Poorer nations say these changes threaten to make the 1.5

Celsius breach even rockier, leaving them fewer resources to deal with disasters while widening global inequities.

"We risk creating a world in which climate change continually pushes poorer countries backward," said Mohamed Adow, the director of the Nairobi-based climate and energy think tank Power Shift, who attended the Paris talks in 2015. "This is precisely why vulnerable countries fought for 1.5 Celsius. They understood that climate risk is not distributed equally."

The fault line between wealthy, industrialized nations and poor, developing nations has long been a defining feature of international climate talks. But the U.N. report on the “overshoot” of 1.5 Celsius, issued on Sept. 2, figures to create extra tensions when countries meet for the annual climate summit, set this year in November in Antalya, Turkey.

A negotiating bloc representing 44 nations known as the Least Developed Countries this month raised the idea of a tribunal to assess potential climate “reparations.” That term has long been a nonstarter with wealthier, nations that would be on the hook.

Those least-developed countries said that overshooting the target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, means "mounting irreversible loss and damage."

In the long term, temperatures could theoretically be brought down if carbon dioxide could be pulled out of the atmosphere on a massive scale. The Alliance of Small Island States, another negotiating coalition, said that the 1.5-degree goal shouldn't be abandoned, and that governments should try to "return global temperatures to below $1.5^{\circ}\mathrm{C}$ as rapidly as possible."

The 1.5 degrees target doesn't reflect a magical planetary threshold, where everything is different on either side. Scientists emphasize that every fractional temperature increase ratchets up the likelihood of dangerous heat, floods, drought, fire and other extreme weather. But negotiators embraced that temperature mark as a way to avoid the most damaging consequences.

The United Nations said it will be surpassed “in the next few years.”

In part because of how leaders talked about existential risks in Paris, one image looms largest in the public imagination: the notion of rising seas rendering island nations uninhabitable. But as warming edges toward 1.5 Celsius, the problems go well beyond that, involving both sudden disasters, like the glacial collapse in Nepal last month, and slower-burning events that often escape attention. Droughts in southern Angola that devastate agriculture and send people fleeing without documents into neighboring Namibia, according to Amnesty International. Stagnant floodwaters in South Sudan that upend grazing patterns and feed into conflicts. Marine heat waves that bleach coral and ruin economically crucial tourist destinations.

"It's very scary," said James Fletcher, a negotiator from the Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia who helped lead a committee in Paris on the 1.5 Celsius target. "There are species that will go extinct. There will be lives that are lost. We had an opportunity to make sure we would not get to this point, and we still let it happen."

At the time of the Paris Agreement, the world had already warmed about 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since the start of the industrial age, when humans began burning oil, gas and coal on a larger scale.

In the run-up to those talks, most big countries seemed content for a deal that would aim to cap future warming below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But vulnerable nations managed to alter the usual power balance of talks, persuading larger countries, including the United States, to get on board. President Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii and called himself an “island boy,” said any agreement should serve the “interests of the most vulnerable.”

Projections at the time showed a vanishingly narrow path to hit that mark, which would have required rapid societal changes and cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Even then, some scientists said the best-case scenario might involve a tiny overshoot.

But a decade later, emissions are about 10 percent higher, despite cheaper solar technology and advancements in battery storage and electric vehicles.

And now, in the best-case scenario, the overshoot won't be so tiny. Even if every nation hits every climate pledge as well as net-zero targets, warming would peak at roughly 1.8 Celsius, the United Nations says. The likelier scenario, experts say, is that warming will sail above 2 degrees Celsius.

That may sound modest. But every fraction of warming translates into more extreme weather. The world's current warming level, just below 1.5 Celsius, is hardly the picture of a stable climate — with deadly heat waves in Europe, mounting water shortages and smoke from Canadian wildfires carrying across North America. Bill Hare, the chief executive of Climate Analytics, a climate science and policy institute based in Berlin, said that “the impacts at 1.5 are higher than we thought they’d be a decade ago.”

Joeri Rogelj, a lead author of the annual U.N. reports on emissions, said that in general a decade of science has shown the planet is more sensitive than expected. "When we discover new things, we overwhelmingly get bad news," he said. "Ecosystems are more vulnerable to the stress and warming that are coming from climate change."

The most obvious example of that fragility came recently in Tibet and Nepal, after a section of the Himalayas collapsed along with a glacier above it, killing more than 1,000. Nepal's minister for agriculture, forest and environment, Gita Chaudhary, noted that even as the country seeks funds to reconstruct, it is bracing for other disasters stemming from thawing permafrost and high-altitude glacial lakes.

"This kind of disaster, it is not the last one," Ms. Chaudhary said.

King Charles Will Convene A.I. Leaders As Fears Rise

By EPHRAT LIVNI

King Charles III of Britain will meet with leaders from major artificial intelligence companies this week in Scotland amid mounting fears that unchecked development of the technology could lead to a global catastrophe.

The king will convene leaders from companies including Nvidia, Google, DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as government officials and others, "to discuss how A.I. can be developed and deployed in ways that benefit society," according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

They will meet in Ayrshire, in southwest Scotland, at Dumfries House, the headquarters of the King's Foundation, an educational charity.

The gathering comes as A.I. insiders and chief executives of some of the industry's most powerful companies have raised alarms about these tools and how quickly they are developing. Some have called for the creation of shared guidelines and a deliberately slower pace of progress to ensure humans can keep up.

Charles's meeting on A.I. will explore how the technology can be used for good, to "strengthen communities and improve lives," the statement from Buckingham Palace said.

The palace did not say who would be attending from the A.I. companies listed in its statement, and Anthropic, DeepMind, Google and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment confirming their participation. OpenAI said that Sarah Friar, its chief financial officer, would be attending.

The current concern about A.I.'s rapid advance was prompted in great part by a hack this summer into Hugging Face, an A.I. infrastructure company, orchestrated by a group of A.I. agents created by OpenAI. The OpenAI agents swarmed Hugging Face's systems, stealing data, gaining control of a server and attempting to cover their tracks.

That hack — and another simi-

Striving to discuss how the technology can be used for good.

lar incident within OpenAI shortly afterward — drastically raised fears about how quickly machines might escape human control, with potentially devastating effects.

Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, published a 3,800-word open letter on Saturday calling for slower development of A.I.

In addition to the Hugging Face hack, he cited as a concern the fact that current A.I. models are increasingly able to build the next generation of A.I. tools. Mr. Amodei said that dynamic, known as recursive self-improvement, "could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems" if left unchecked.

The meeting between Charles and A.I. leaders will be facilitated by a British nonprofit, the Ditchley Foundation, and will include Kanishka Narayan, Britain's minister for A.I., according to Buckingham Palace.

Representatives from charitable organizations founded by the king, including the King's Trust, a youth charity, and the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a network of global chief executives, will also attend, the palace added.

Mr. Amodei's essay on Saturday received support from other leaders of A.I. companies, including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI, which is part of SpaceX, Mr. Musk's rocket and satellite company.

Mr. Amodei urged A.I. companies and regulators around the world to work together on developing the technology and proposed his own three-step plan.

His proposals included allowing third-party evaluators to embed in frontier A.I. companies to monitor growth and report incidents, and coordinating among companies in democratic countries to establish common safety standards.

"To the extent possible," he said, democratic countries and authoritarian governments should also try to coordinate and pace global development.

The essay was published just a few days after Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic engineer who previously worked for OpenAI, resigned from his job and declared on social media that the companies claimed to be concerned about rapid development but were nonetheless hurtling toward “superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”

After Post Mocking a U.S. Vote, France Quietly Backs Down

France's apology will allow the nomination of Aurélien Lechevallier as its ambassador to proceed.
THOMAS SAMSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

By MARK LANDLER

PARIS — When France compared the United States to North Korea and Russia in July, the Trump administration responded by freezing the approval of a new French ambassador to Washington.

Now, after seven weeks of American pressure, France has backed down, apologizing on Friday for the social media post that set off the dispute. That will allow France's nomination of Aurélien Lechevallier as its ambassador to Washington to move forward, according to a senior American official and a former French official with knowledge of the situation. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the delicacy of the negotiations.

The episode illustrated the strained nature of relations during the Trump era between Europe and the United States, which have diverged over the futures of Greenland, Ukraine and the post-war international order.

The dispute erupted on July 24 after the United Nations General Assembly voted 114 to 10, with 13 abstentions, to give a second four-year term to Volker Türk, an Austrian lawyer, as high commissioner of the U.N. human rights commission.

Like North Korea and Russia, the United States opposed Mr. Türk. It cited his criticism of the United States and Israel and what it said was his reluctance to condemn repressive governments in Iran and Cuba.

"The UN human rights system has been losing credibility for decades," the United States mission to the United Nations said in a post on social media. "Volker Türk led it to its deathbed."

Responding to that post, the French mission in Geneva posted: "The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it." That message was reposted by the foreign ministry, which later deleted the reposting.

The State Department reacted indignantly to the post, lodging a protest with the French Embassy in Washington. At the U.N., the

American delegation walked out on a French diplomat when he addressed the chamber. In Paris, the U.S. ambassador, Charles Kushner, texted President Emmanuel Macron to urge the French to make a gesture to defuse the issue, according to the American official.

Mr. Kushner's involvement as mediator was notable, given that he had himself inflamed American-French relations early in his tenure by publicly accusing France of not doing enough to combat antisemitism. He had been summoned twice to the ministry to be rebuked for interfering in France's internal affairs, snubbing both requests.

Mr. Lechevallier, the chief of staff to the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, had been scheduled to move to Washington this month to replace the outgoing ambassador, Laurent Bili. Like all envoys, his appointment requires approval from the host government, which American officials made clear to the French would not happen until the offending post was addressed.

Mr. Lechevallier, 50, is viewed as close to Mr. Macron, having been a classmate and adviser of his.

The State Department and the French Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the status of Mr. Lechevallier's nomination, but both suggested that the apology would swiftly resolve the impasse.

A spokesman for the foreign ministry said, “We are committed to moving the bilateral relationship with our American partners forward.” A State Department official said, “We note and appreciate France’s statement, and look forward to working together to further shared values and interests.”

Since President Trump's return to the White House, France's foreign ministry has prided itself on using social media to hit back, often humorously, at the United States and other critics of Europe. It maintains a popular and sometimes snarky account on X, @FrenchResponse. In a speech last May, Mr. Barrot said the account "isn't trolling. It's a geopolitical tool, a real-time reframing tool."

But this episode shows this edgy approach is not without risks, at least as far as the Trump administration is concerned. Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington, said the post complained about had crossed a line, and that France's failure to address the situation immediately only compounded the damage.

"The French committed a mistake; they are paying the price. They should have done it earlier," Mr. Araud said. "The U.S. has taken advantage of our ineptitude."

Music Stars Swept Into South Africa's Immigration Controversy

A protest against undocumented foreigners in Spring, South Africa, in June. The country's treatment of immigrants is criticized.
JOAO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By ZIMASA MATIWANE

JOHANNESBURG — The South African singer Tyla canceled a performance in Nigeria after protests. The amapiano star Musa Keys, also South African, was removed from a festival lineup in Zimbabwe. And Salif Keïta, a revered musician from Mali, canceled a show in South Africa over what he called “xenophobic violence.”

As anti-immigrant fervor swells across South Africa, artists and fans are beginning to speak out, demanding that the country address a wave of threats and violence that has caused thousands of people to flee the continent's largest economy.

African heads of state have condemned South Africa and called on the African Union to hold the country accountable. Nigeria is demanding that South Africa compensate citizens who fled their homes and were repatriated. South Africa recently lost an important continentwide leadership role dealing with telecommunications, and some say it was because of the country's damaged diplomatic standing.

And now the country's musicians and entertainers are facing backlash, too.

"It's about coming together as a people and saying, 'No, we have a voice, and that voice matters,' said Solomon Buchi, a Nigerian writer and commentator who was among those who took to social media to protest the Tyla concert in Lagos.

Gayton McKenzie, the South African government minister overseeing arts and culture, rejected the idea that South Africans were xenophobic and that the country's artists should be blamed. The South African government says it targets illegal immigration and is focused on protecting the country's borders.

“Enforcing immigration law is not xenophobia,” said Mr. McKenzie, who campaigned largely on an anti-immigration platform and who helped popularize the slogan “Abahambe” (“Let Them Go” in Zulu), which is chanted at many anti-immigrant protests.

The anti-immigrant sentiment that has swept across South Africa includes vigilante groups raiding immigrant communities and taking it upon themselves to kick

Tyla, a singer from South Africa, backed out of a Nigerian event after a social media outcry.

foreigners out of the country.

The violence and heated language have made many immigrants leave South Africa. At least 86,000 foreign nationals have been deported or repatriated from mid-June to late August, according to the South African government.

Mr. Keïta, the Malian artist, said in a Facebook post that he could not “ignore the reports of xenophobic violence against our African brothers and sisters.”

His manager, Carolina Vallejo,

Salif Keïta, a Malian mainstay of South African jazz and cultural festivals, canceled a show.

confirmed his decision.

Mr. Keïta, 77, has been a mainstay of South African jazz and cultural festivals. His ties to South Africa stretch back decades, including a performance at the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in England in 1988, an event linked to the international anti-apartheid movement.

He stressed that his decision not to perform in South Africa was not a rejection of South Africans. "To be clear — I am not closing the

Musa Keys was cut from a festival in Zimbabwe after a boycott was threatened.

door on South Africa," he wrote. "I am closing the door on violence."

Tyla, a Grammy Award winner, has built a significant following in Nigeria and has worked with some of the country's biggest stars, including Ayra Starr, Tems and Wizkid. But Nigerians criticized her scheduled appearance in Lagos, accusing her of staying silent instead of using her platform to condemn the anti-immigrant attacks.

Tyla has not publicly commented on why her Lagos concert was canceled, and her representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Blessing Jake spent months organizing a music festival in Zimbabwe when, in July, he began seeing social media posts with people threatening to boycott the event if South African artists were not removed from the lineup.

The Buddie Beats Concert was scheduled to take place at Victoria Falls, and Mr. Jake had worked for months to secure the concert's biggest acts, including Mafikizolo, a South African band.

In the end, Mr. Jake removed Mafikizolo from the bill. He said he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result. Mr. Jake said he hoped the negative climate around South African artists could be resolved quickly.

"Business-wise," he said, "xenophobia is very expensive."

Modi Served Meatless Dinner at Summit, and His Critics Blanched

By YAN ZHUANG

and ALEX TRAVELLI

NEW DELHI — The world leaders who dined together at the BRICS summit in India over the weekend were served plate after plate of delicacies: Cubes of paneer simmered in gravy, Himalayan morel mushrooms with saffron, lentil broth with tomatoes and curry leaves.

Meat was conspicuously absent.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political opponents, who rarely miss a chance to criticize him, accused him of promoting an incomplete image of India's culinary landscape. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, pointed out on social media that most Indians are not vegetarian.

Kiren Rijiju, a minister in Mr.

Modi's government, rejected the criticism, saying the guests had enjoyed vegetarian dishes that reflected India's "diverse regional traditions."

"I can't believe that Congress party is making politics even on the food menu served to the leaders of BRICS nations," he said, referring to Mr. Gandhi's Indian National Congress political party.

Food can be a sectarian and political flashpoint in India, and has become polarizing during Mr. Modi's tenure. He has a Hindu nationalist base, and his government has taken steps to promote Hindu causes and to sideline Muslims and other groups.

Vegetarianism has religious and cultural associations among some Hindu communities, especially among upper castes and in parts of northern and western India, though many Hindus eat meat.

The dinner was not an isolated example. President Patrick Herminie of Seychelles and President To Lam of Vietnam are among the world leaders who were served vegetarian meals during visits to New Delhi this year.

Mr. Modi is vegetarian and does not drink alcohol. At functions he attends, public or private, alcohol is removed from view; at wedding receptions, for example, his security agents have had bars closed before his arrival.

When India hosted the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi in 2023, leaders were served a dinner that prominently featured millet grains — at a time when India's government had successfully proposed that the United Nations designate 2023 the "International

Year of Millets."

Meals served to visiting dignitaries can have an important diplomatic function, said Keri Matwick, a scholar at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies food and culinary diplomacy. "It's a way to try to highlight something about the country to another country," she said, adding that it can also be a way to show respect to a visiting leader or facilitate conversation.

When Singapore hosted President Trump and Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, for a summit in 2018, for example, the menu nodded to both countries. For Mr. Trump, there was shrimp cocktail and beef short rib. For Mr. Kim, there was a traditional Korean dish of cucumbers stuffed with beef, egg and carrot, along with soy-braised cod.

At other diplomatic gatherings, food has been used to set the tone. In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain were served hot dogs during a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, N.Y. "People laughed because of how informal it was but it added a uniqueness" to the event, Ms. Matwick said.

Diplomatic menus can also cause offense. When South Korea hosted Mr. Trump for a state dinner in 2017, it served shrimp caught near islands controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan, prompting a complaint from Tokyo.

Ultimately, the goal of diplomatic meals is to help foster good relations, Ms. Matwick said. But if a meal is not handled well, she added, "it can spark a lot of controversy."

Trump's Nod To Ireland: Taking Tariff Off Whiskey

By LUKE BROADWATER and ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS

DUBLIN — President Trump has pledged to eliminate tariffs on Irish whiskey, drawing loud applause from fans gathered at his golf course in County Clare.

The president's pledge to cut the 10 percent tariff was the latest example of Mr. Trump's whipsaw approach to global trade, and how he often adjusts his tariff policy based on personal interactions with foreign leaders or business interests.

"Everybody's been bugging me," Mr. Trump told those gathered at the Irish Open golf tournament on Sunday. "They are saying, 'Would you do me a favor? It's so unfair what's going on. Could you possibly take the tariffs off of Irish whiskey,' and I said, 'On behalf of the United States of America, I am going to take the tariffs off Irish whiskey.'"

Simon Harris, the deputy prime minister of Ireland, called Mr. Trump's promise a "welcome announcement of economic significance from President Trump this evening that reflects the very positive engagement we've had with the U.S. administration on tariffs over the 18 months."

Mr. Trump has frequently used tariff policy to influence other countries. He has repeatedly threatened and rescinded tariffs, sending officials from other countries scrambling. For much of his presidency, he has argued that other countries are taking advantage of the United States by selling inexpensive goods. But he sometimes backs off, as he did last year, lifting tariffs on foreign products, including beef, tomatoes, bananas and coffee.

The announcement echoed a similar move this spring, when Mr. Trump announced he was rolling back tariffs on Scotch whisky after hosting King Charles III for a state dinner in Washington.

Almost immediately after arriving in Dublin, Mr. Trump ap-

After a visit by King Charles, the levy for Scotch was lifted.

peared intent on making announcements that would appease

— or disrupt — his new audience in Ireland. On Saturday, Mr. Trump broke with decades of U.S. neutrality when he said it would be “fantastic” if Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland unified.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump repeated on his endorsement of reunification.

"I've always loved the people of Ireland, and it just seems to me that you have Northern Ireland and you have Ireland, and it would seem to me that one of the naturals of all time is, put them together," Mr. Trump said. "That's only my opinion. And by the way, many people agree."

Mr. Trump's eagerness to share his opinion immediately caused a stir during a trip that initially appeared mostly focused on golf. Right-wing allies like Nigel Farage, the head of the populist party Reform U.K, and the head of the main party in Northern Ireland that supports remaining in the United Kingdom criticized his comments.

Reunification is a highly divisive issue in Northern Ireland, where some fear a return to the era of violence known as “The Troubles.” The British carved Northern Ireland out of the island of Ireland after the Republic of Ireland became independent.

And while a majority of citizens of the Republic of Ireland support reunification, successive Irish governments — as well as U.S. presidents — have skirted the polarizing issue.

But surrounded by golf fans at his course on Sunday, Mr. Trump appeared intent on leaving Ireland with a grand ovation. After he announced his lifting of tariffs, the crowd broke into chants of "U.S.A.!

ALEX KENT/THE NEW YORK TIMES
President Trump at his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, on Sunday for the Irish Open.

National

The New York Times

Senate Candidate With a Bullhorn Jolts Sleepy Democrats in Florida

SAUL MARTINEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Angie Nixon, Florida's Democratic candidate for Senate, campaigning and canvassing around Miami, above and left. In 2022, she and State Representative Travaris McCurdy staged a sit-in at the State Capitol to protest a redistricting effort championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. A year later, she marched in Jacksonville after a racially motivated shooting at a dollar store in the city.

SAUL MARTINEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
PHIL SEARS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEAN RAYFORD/GETTY IMAGES

A Longtime Underdog, Nixon Works to Spread A Progressive Message

By PATRICIA MAZZEI

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Angie Nixon is tough to silence.

The first time she protested gerrymandering in Florida, Republican state lawmakers cut the video feed of her sit-in. The second time she showed up with a bullhorn. The third time, she was arrested.

"When they go low," she says, putting a twist on Michelle Obama's decade-old dictum, "we get loud."

Ms. Nixon's high-volume tactics as a state representative have made her one of the most outspoken critics of Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. She has also at times rankled fellow Democrats. Some political veterans dismissed her campaign for the U.S. Senate as progressive whimsy — until her decisive primary victory against a more moderate opponent last month. It catapulted her onto the national stage and jolted an otherwise sleepy Democratic Party in a Republican-leaning state.

She has spent the weeks since hoarse, appearing nearly everywhere as she tries to make the case that a Black woman with a Southern drawl — who identifies as a progressive but also joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June — can win in a state President Trump has taken three times. If elected, Ms. Nixon would become Florida's first Black senator.

National Democrats have all but written off Florida. Republicans believe the nomination of Ms. Nixon, whom they have branded a “socialist,” has only made it easier for Senator Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent Mr. DeSantis appointed last year to replace Marco Rubio, to win in November.

But Ms. Nixon the Senate nominee, much like Ms. Nixon the state legislator, is difficult to ignore. She leans fiery while Ms. Moody leans restrained. She engages with the media and curious crowds drawn to her, while Ms. Moody mostly sticks to Fox News and friendly supporters.

The forces working against Republicans nationally — the high cost of living, some Hispanic voters who lean away from Mr. Trump — are also present in Florida. And Florida Democrats have historically turned out more voters with a Black candidate leading the ticket.

“What up, Nassau County!” Ms. Nixon, 42, told a full house of supporters recently in Yulee, a deep-red community in northeastern Florida, near Georgia. She later joked that they probably had never seen so many Democrats here.

The establishment Ms. Nixon is not. Her primary win so shocked some Democratic leaders that a unity rally, planned on the assumption that her rival would win, was scrapped. Some Jewish Democrats were upset by a resolution she filed in 2023 in Tallahassee calling for a ceasefire “in the State of Israel and occupied Palestine,” which failed with a vote of 104-2. She has since mended some fences and been quick to condemn antisemitic incidents.

She also does not quite fit the mold of other democratic socialists running this year. A longtime union and community organizer, she has been rooted in campaigns to restore felon voting rights, expand Medicaid and unionize adjunct college professors. She also owns a book-and-coffee shop named Cafe Resistance. In 2020, she received the endorsement of the chamber of commerce in Jacksonville, her hometown, and then ousted a conservative Democratic incumbent.

Her vocal opposition to Mr. DeSantis has become her calling card. At every turn of his administration's "war on woke" — changing how slavery was taught in schools, restricting diversity initiatives, removing books from school libraries — Ms. Nixon was there, calling the policies racist and the governor a bully. Her shop showcases banned books.

When Mr. DeSantis was booed at a vigil in 2023 for Black victims killed in a racially motivated shooting in a Jacksonville Dollar General store, she stood nearby, arms at her hips, glowering at him.

This spring, she parked herself in the governor's office and demanded a meeting over his administration's gerrymandered congressional map. She refused to leave, leading to her arrest. She is awaiting trial next month on trespassing charges.

"I'm the biggest pain in Ron DeSantis's ass," she recently told donors at a fund-raiser in Miami, casting herself as the fighter voters want and saying she would be the "biggest pain" for Mr. Trump, too. For his part, the president called her a "card-carrying member" of the D.S.A. at his Republican midterm convention last week.

Some Democrats dislike her style and politics, but Ms. Nixon comes off as authentic, something Florida Democrats have struggled with, said Joe Garcia, a former Miami congressman, who co-

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

hosted the fund-raiser.

"You may not like what she's saying, but you know it's what she feels," he said. "It's very powerful."

Daniel Henry, the first vice chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, who has worked closely with Ms. Nixon, said her skeptics dismissed her passion and organizing skills at their peril.

"The people that usually underestimate her," he said, "end up losing."

'We Have to Be Out There'

Ms. Nixon was raised in Jacksonville's historically Black Montcrief neighborhood. Her mother worked two jobs to support her and her brother.

At 13, Ms. Nixon said in her hometown newspaper, The Florida Times-Union, that she would call a movie based on her life “Outspoken,” “because I like to tell how I feel inside and not just leave things bottled up.”

She graduated from Stanton College Preparatory, a public magnet high school, and from the University of Florida. In her final semester, a visibly pregnant Ms. Nixon walked into the office of Mia L. Jones, then a Jacksonville city councilwoman, and asked to be her intern. The City Council did not offer internships.

"She was not afraid to come and ask for something that didn't exist," said Ms. Jones, who created one for her.

In 2008, barely out of college and a single mother to her 1-year-old daughter,

Ms. Nixon ran for the City Council. The Times-Union endorsed her — “Her moxie certainly isn’t in doubt,” the editorial board wrote — but she lost the election.

A few years later, when her daughter, Natalie McGriff, felt insecure about her looks, the mother and daughter published children's books about "Moxie McGriff," whose curly hair gave her superpowers.

Ms. Nixon sometimes struggled financially. Public records show that her home was briefly in foreclosure in 2014, when she was between jobs and behind on mortgage payments. The case was later dismissed.

In 2016, she worked as the deputy field director for national Black outreach for Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Four years later, Ms. Nixon has said, she supported Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic nomination.

That year, Ms. Nixon ran for the State House while pregnant with her younger daughter. Democrats had all but shut down field campaigns because of the coronavirus pandemic, recalled Andrea Cristina Mercado, a fellow progressive organizer. Ms. Nixon insisted on canvassing anyway, contracting Covid before the election.

"Angie kept being a voice of like, 'Republicans are out there on those doors,' Ms. Mercado said. "We have to be out there on those doors, too."

After winning in a rout, Ms. Nixon married Jarrett Morene, the father of her younger daughter. Their blended families made them parents of five children.

Ms. Nixon arrived at the State Capitol as Mr. DeSantis was becoming a national Republican darling. In 2022, Republican lawmakers prepared to pass redistricting maps that diluted Black representation. Ms. Nixon and State Representative Travaris McCurdy interrupted the session and sat on the House floor in protest. They wore “STOP THE BLACK ATTACK” T-shirts, which they had raced to the local mall to make the night before.

The sit-in turned Ms. Nixon into a foil for the powerful Mr. DeSantis. But it also brought criticism.

In 2024, her primary opponent accused her of failing to pass legislation or secure money for district projects. Ms. Nixon, who worked in the Legislature to expand child care and confront price gouging, countered that Republicans wanted her gone because she was “making too much noise.”

She won with 81 percent of the vote.

An Underdog's Pink Bullhorn

This year, when Republican lawmakers readied a vote on a new set of congressional maps that eliminated four Democratic seats, Ms. Nixon was running for Senate.

She procured a pink bullhorn — the color of her campaign signs — and wore a matching jumpsuit as she marched down the center aisle of the House floor in protest. A couple of weeks later, she staged her sit-in inside Mr. DeSantis's office.

Republicans and some Democrats dismissed her protests as stunts. Democratic primary voters felt differently, choosing her by double digits over Alex Vindman, a former national security official with party establishment ties.

Winning a general election is harder. Ms. Moody is something of a generic Republican, but that has been enough for Florida, where Republicans now handily outnumber Democrats. Florida is not on any list of competitive Senate races, though a strong showing from Ms. Nixon could lift other Democrats down the ballot.

Ms. Moody has declined to debate Ms. Nixon, saying she is “not going to give a stage or any attention” to someone she considers “truly anti-American.” She has alluded to past speeches that Ms. Nixon gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights group that Florida has declared a foreign terrorist organization.

Mr. DeSantis has flatly dismissed a democratic socialist's chances in Florida: "I don't think it's going to work at all."

The idea that a grass-roots focus on

Senator Ashley Moody, whom Mr. DeSantis appointed to fill Marco Rubio's seat, has said she will not debate Ms. Nixon.

working people could energize voters originated with Ms. Nixon and her brain trust of labor organizers, including Alphonso Mayfield, the late leader of the Florida Public Services Union, and her former boss. Mr. Mayfield, who died in January, was perhaps Ms. Nixon's biggest champion.

Ms. Nixon campaigns in a van, nicknamed the Vangie, that is filled with snacks, a clothes rack and a pillow. To save money, she often stays with friends and family. Her most recent financial disclosure listed a nearly \$14,000 debt to the I.R.S., which her campaign said was a tax payment plan.

Her events are intended to recruit supporters as canvassers and phone bankers. Her speeches sound like church revivals, with Ms. Nixon leading call-and-response chants, as she did on a recent rainy Saturday in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

"I am running against a woman that voted to end health care for 440,000 Floridians in this state — say, 'Shame!'" she said.

A democratic socialist is a tough sell in South Florida, particularly among Hispanics. Ms. Nixon does not regret her D.S.A. membership, saying she is a big-tent Democrat, but while in Miami she denounced authoritarian leaders in Cuba and Venezuela. She then hopped in her van and knocked on doors.

Jesús García, a 60-year-old bus driver who emigrated from Cuba, welcomed Ms. Nixon into his living room, telling her he recognized her from TikTok.

“What you're doing is great,” said Mr. García, a naturalized citizen registered without party affiliation, who described himself as liberal. “Are you a progressive? A socialist?”

"I'm a progressive," Ms. Nixon said. "I don't go by labels."

LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Ally of ICE and Also an Employer of Undocumented Workers

LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

An employee at a Pillen farm near Hastings, who requested anonymity, said some workers were still undocumented after more than 20 years at the farm.

Ashly Cortez-Garcia, who worked at a Pillen farm, said managers were aware of documentation problems, and took steps to avoid having to report them.

By YANQI XU

COLUMBUS, Neb. — Before becoming Nebraska's governor three years ago, Jim Pillen built a multimillion-dollar hog enterprise. Casting himself as a conservative businessman who would grow the state's economy, he defeated a Trump-backed candidate in the Republican primary.

This time around, Mr. Pillen, who is seeking re-election this fall, won President Trump's endorsement. The governor — who had rarely spoken out about immigration issues until last year — had embraced Mr. Trump's hard-line immigration agenda.

Days after Mr. Trump's return to the White House, the governor directed the Nebraska State Patrol to partner with ICE on immigration enforcement. He allowed the federal agency to use a former state prison, now referred to as Cornhusker Clink, to hold hundreds of detainees caught up in the administration's mass deportation sweep. He has echoed Mr. Trump's rhetoric about "criminal illegal aliens" who have "invaded our country" and decried "the worst of the worst" immigrants he has claimed are hiding out in Nebraska.

But for more than a decade, Mr. Pillen's hog business has employed migrant workers, those who are in the country legally — and those who are not, The New York Times and The Flatwater Free Press found.

His company, Pillen Family Farms, has taken on undocumented workers as it has grown into one of the nation's largest hog producers, according to a review of state and federal court records and interviews with more than 40 current and former employees, prosecutors, immigration lawyers and community organizers.

Many farms in Nebraska and other states rely on immigrants because of labor shortages. While the scale of undocumented workers in the Pillen farm labor force — which has about 1,200 employees in four states and Canada — is not clear, the fact that the company has used them is an open secret at some of its Nebraska farms.

Mr. Pillen has faced little public scrutiny about his workers. His spokeswoman, Laura Strimple, said in a statement that “Jim Pillen never knowingly hired an illegal immigrant and went above and beyond the legal requirements to verify the immigration status of his employees.”

At least 20 Pillen hog farms employed undocumented immigrants, according to court documents and interviews with more than two dozen current and former workers, including several managers. Six former workers acknowledged in interviews that they themselves had no legal status.

Court records show that at least a dozen Pillen workers were charged with using fake or stolen IDs for employment between 2015 and 2024. Many Pillen workers interviewed said the practice was common. At least 10 who assumed false identities, according to them or their relatives, never faced criminal charges for that.

David Armendariz, a Mexican who overstayed his tourist visa in 2008, said he worked at two Pillen farms until 2023. When he was hired, he recalled in an interview, a farm manager accepted the fake driver's license he had purchased.

Samantha Aguilar and Roselyn Gonzalez contributed reporting. Research was contributed by Emma Croteau, Georgia Gee, Bob Glissmann, Kirsten Noyes, Jane Bello Rivas, Asia Rollins and Jeremy Turley. Sarah Cohen contributed data analysis.

The same ID was rejected years later, he said, when he applied for a construction job elsewhere.

Over the years, Mr. Armendariz said, more Hispanic workers arrived at the farms, many of them undocumented. One co-worker changed his name multiple times, he said, and another went by a different name from the one on his sign-in sheets. Mr. Armendariz said he was open about his own status. "Everyone knows that it's not your name," he said, "but they don't ask you what your name is."

Quinten Rowley, who managed two boar farms for Mr. Pillen's business until 2022, said the company ramped up background checks for applicants about the time Mr. Pillen decided to run for governor. After that, Mr. Rowley said, he had to turn away more applicants.

Samuel Bethune, Platte County's public defender until 2009, said he had represented hundreds of undocumented immigrants every year, most of them employed in meatpacking plants. He recalled that a few clients charged with traffic offenses identified themselves as Pillen workers but lacked valid employment documents.

ICE identified no records of audits or inspections at Pillen farms in the past 15 years after a request from The Times and Flatwater. The federal agency has raided relatively few workplaces in Nebraska. The largest and highest-profile one was an Omaha meatpacking plant where more than 70 workers were arrested in June 2025 over alleged identity theft.

After the raid, Mr. Pillen suggested in interviews that ICE would not target established immigrants. "Anybody that is here working hard and being a good neighbor, they're A-OK, they're fine," the governor told The Nebraska Examiner. But he also said that stealing identities was a "grave offense."

The governor did not respond to interview requests and declined to answer written questions for this article. Mr. Pillen's spokeswoman said in her statement that he "has the strongest immigration record in Nebraska history. Under the governor's leadership, Nebraska has assisted the federal government in the deportation of nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants through its variety of partnerships with federal entities."

ICE has arrested more than 3,000 people in Nebraska since Mr. Trump's second term, more than doubling the rate under the Biden administration. By comparison, in Minnesota, the epicenter of some of the nation's most aggressive urban immigration enforcement operations, such arrests have more than quadrupled, according to an analysis of ICE data released by the Deportation Data Project.

Federal officials have largely avoided clashes with agricultural employers in states that helped re-elect Mr. Trump, according to agricultural producers and labor economists.

"If you're going to come and pound on farmers in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, whatever, and daily raid their farms or their processing plants, you're going to have some problems politically," said Al Juhnke, former executive director of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association. "The farms are right smack dab in the middle of red areas."

Farmhands and Fake IDs

The first farmer to lead Nebraska in more than a century, Mr. Pillen often talks about his agricultural roots. He grew up with livestock on his small family farm in Platte County in northeast Nebraska.

A Cornhusker football standout at the University of Nebraska, he studied animal science and then worked as a veterinarian before launching his own business more than three decades ago. What is known as Pillen Family Farms, based in Columbus, started with 60 sows, or female pigs, on a dirt lot.

Now, after expanding and buying out competitors, the company owns about

100 farms in Nebraska alone, with workforces ranging from a handful to dozens of people. Since Mr. Pillen became governor, his children Sarah and Brock have run the company, which ranks No. 14 nationally on the Pork Powerhouses list, with 78,000 sows.

The family also owns a hog-breeding business and has a minor stake in Wholestone Prestage, which operates a porkprocessing co-op in Fremont owned by some 200 producers. Since 2019, at least 56 Wholestone workers have been charged with using fraudulent IDs to work, according to state court records. More than half pleaded guilty or were convicted, several cases are going through court, and the other defendants fled or failed to appear. Wholestone did not respond to requests for comment.

At Pillen farms and elsewhere, workers labor long hours for relatively little pay to keep the hog barns running. They vaccinate pigs, feed them, move and ship them. The job is one that most Nebraskans do not want, hog farmers said in interviews.

Facing labor shortages, large corporate hog producers in recent decades have turned to a work force of immigrants, whether legal or not, according to John K. Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.

Gary Stover, a consultant who helped a local producer manage a hog farm in Shelby, said in an interview that he replaced the crew there with Hispanic laborers in 2010 because their work ethic impressed him. He said that one employee there used a fake name, and that his other consulting clients also had undocumented workers with falsified documents.

Nathan Dallon, an immigration lawyer in Omaha who has defended hundreds of undocumented workers against criminal charges like identity theft and driving without a license, said Nebraska's agriculture industry operated on the premise that there would be unauthorized migrant labor.

"H.R. for a lot of these companies are incentivized to take on workers that they know are using fake papers," he said in an interview. "Sometimes they even help them get the fake papers, and then they know full well that they are making the crime worse for the person working." (Mr. Dallon, citing client confidentiality, declined to say whether he had ever represented Pillen workers.)

The use of fictitious documents by immigrants for employment is hardly new in Nebraska. In Schuyler, fake IDs used at the Cargill meatpacking plant created a controversy more than two decades ago.

Dave Reinecke, then Schuyler's mayor, told "60 Minutes," "Would you rather have growth, or would you want to pick and choose where they came from?"

Now, three-quarters of Schuyler's residents are Hispanic, the highest share of any municipality in the state. Court records show some undocumented workers for Pillen farms have lived there. Other Hispanic immigrants, including Pillen employees, have settled in small towns near their workplaces.

Carl K. Hart Jr. prosecuted a steady stream of identity fraud cases involving undocumented workers, including five employed by Mr. Pillen's business, as Platte County attorney until 2022.

"There are folks who are facilitating all of this," he said in an interview. "They're in the community, and they're filling a need for the agricultural industry to obtain workers."

Nine of the 12 Pillen workers who were charged with identity theft or impersonation were convicted, and three failed to appear in court. Pillen Family Farms was not accused of any wrongdoing in those cases. Employers are rarely the target of such investigations, making it hard to determine whether they had any knowledge or involvement, prosecutors and defense lawyers said.

One former manager at a Pillen farm said in an interview that he told an immigrant to obtain a different ID a few years

The family business of Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska is one of the nation's largest pork producers. As he seeks re-election, he has aligned himself with the president's anti-immigrant agenda even though at least 20 of his farms have taken on undocumented laborers. Below, hogs on their way to slaughter.

LOREN ELLIOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

NIKOS FRAZIER/OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

ago after an initial fake document was flagged by the company. Before working for Pillen, he had advised workers on how they could make their fake IDs appear more genuine, said the manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he still has relatives in the industry.

When Mr. Armendariz worked at Inland Foods, a Pillen farm outside Hastings, only a handful of workers had legitimate documentation, he recalled. About 20 immigrants did not, including him, he said. Roughly half had been hired by a co-owner that Mr. Pillen's business eventually bought out. (Mr. Armendariz, who asked not to use his full surname because he feared retaliation, said he was let go after disputes with his boss.)

Some Inland workers are still undocumented after more than 20 years there, said a current employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the company. Two people said their undocumented relatives currently work at a Pillen farm near St. Edward.

Ashly Cortez-Garcia worked at a Pillen-owned hog unit near Albion five years ago. In an interview, she said her manager learned from the head office that an employee was working under one name and had applied for state assistance under another. Ms. Cortez-Garcia recalled that the manager told her to ask the worker in Spanish, "Which one do you want me to use?"

The manager, now retired, declined to respond to requests for comment.

Pillen Family Farms was sued in 2021 by a former human resources specialist, Luis Lucar, who alleged that it knowingly hired undocumented workers.

Between 2015 and 2019, he said, he repeatedly complained that the business changed workers' names in company and government documents, misclassified workers as contract labor and falsified employment verification forms.

Mr. Lucar was fired in 2019 and now works as an organizer in Schuyler for the Heartland Workers Center, a nonprofit advocating immigrant labor rights.

The company denied the allegations in a legal filing. Mr. Pillen's campaign spokesman at the time, Matthew Trail, said Mr. Lucar was lying and described him to a reporter as a "disgruntled former employee" and "pro-illegal-immigration activist."

In 2022, both sides agreed to dismiss the lawsuit. Mr. Lucar and his lawyer declined to comment for this article.

As Pillen Family Farms grew, it stepped up compliance with employment laws, said Mr. Rowley, the former manager. The business brought in more immigrants from Mexico on a specialized visa for skilled workers in the past decade. The day Mr. Pillen launched his campaign for governor, records show, the business opted into E-Verify, a government system to bolster employment verification.

In a statement echoing the governor's, Sarah Pillen, the farms' co-chief executive, told The Times and Flatwater: "Our team takes a great deal of pride and responsibility in following all employment laws. We have never knowingly hired an illegal immigrant." She said that the company followed all employment verification rules and ensured that "all required forms of ID are reviewed and approved. We also voluntarily participate in the E-Verify program to go above and beyond in our commitment."

A Pivot on Immigration

Since Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Pillen has worked to build good will in Washington. He has visited the White House 11 times since last year and Mar-a-Lago twice, including a one-on-one meeting with the president in July 2025, according to the governor's official calendar. That is far more than his recent predecessors.

Despite the president's endorsement, Mr. Pillen is in a competitive re-election race. Neither he nor his opponents have highlighted his immigration stance in the campaign.

But immigration remains a polarizing issue, even in a conservative state. Less than a third of Nebraskans support the federal crackdown, one national poll shows.

Before his first run for governor, Mr. Pillen's business donated to Centro Hispano, a Columbus-based nonprofit supporting both legal and undocumented workers, and he accepted an award from the group in 2018. As governor-elect, he spoke about the need for the federal government to expand the number of legal immigrants who could do vital work in Nebraska and other farm states.

Backing Mr. Trump's immigration policies, Mr. Pillen has emphasized the risk of violent criminals coming into the country and the need to target them for deportation.

On a radio program in July 2025, he recalled learning on a trip to the southern border that intruders had butchered a steer on a Texas family's ranch. "There have been so many terrorists and criminals swimming across the border," he said.

"The criminal illegal aliens who have invaded our country must be removed," Mr. Pillen said in a social media post in December. "I will do everything in my power to stand strong with President Trump to get the job done."

At times, the governor has appeared to soften his tone. After unveiling the new ICE site last summer, Mr. Pillen said that the detention center was intended for criminals, not hard-working families. He also emphasized the need to address labor shortages in industries beyond agriculture, including construction and hotels.

“President Trump knows, right? He knows that there are people in his industry that have worked forever and done good work but are not documented,” he said. Mr. Pillen added that he was “100 percent opposed” to mass deportation.

Mr. Pillen's language distinguishing hard-working people from criminals ignores legal reality, some local officials and immigration lawyers say.

Undocumented workers in Nebraska, though sometimes committing a crime to obtain employment, rarely break other laws and are largely “law-abiding residents trying to live their American dream and support themselves and their families,” said Mr. Hart, the former Platte County prosecutor, a Democrat.

After the January killing of two people in Minneapolis by ICE agents and the resulting outrage, the governor largely refrained from commenting publicly about immigration.

More recently, under pressure to meet White House quotas, ICE agents have made arrests in record numbers nationwide, often deporting undocumented people with no history of criminal charges.

The Nebraska State Patrol has assigned more troopers to immigration enforcement roles. And the ICE detention center, in McCook, is expanding to house more people.

Ms. Cortez-Garcia, the former Pillen farm employee, said she was dismayed as a Republican voter that Mr. Pillen seemed to contradict himself on the immigration issue. "You can't hire illegals and then stand against illegals," she said.

Suit Disputes Trump Green Card Limits

By MADELEINE NGO

WASHINGTON — A coalition of states and local governments sued the Trump administration on Monday over what they called a “catastrophic” new policy that would make it harder for immigrants to obtain green cards if they rely on public benefits.

The challenge, brought by two separate lawsuits, aims to block a policy that is set to take effect Friday. The suit filed by 22 states and the District of Columbia argues that the policy would hurt immigrant families by forcing them to either turn away from public assistance programs to meet their basic needs or risk being denied green cards in the future.

It also argues that the policy would harm states and localities by straining emergency rooms and reducing participation in food stamps, which would drain money from local businesses that depend on the federal benefits.

“Hard-working families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York who led the suit, said in a statement.

Trump officials have said the policy, known as the “public charge” rule, is necessary to protect public resources and to restore “the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves.” The effort is a re-

Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.

vival of a similar policy that the administration tried to impose during President Trump's first term before it was met with legal challenges and later reversed by the Biden administration.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The policy is part of the administration's broader effort to crack down on both legal and illegal immigration. Ahead of the midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security has tried to carry out its deportation campaign using quieter methods, including by pressuring noncitizens to leave the country by squeezing their access to jobs and federal programs.

Many immigrants who do not have green cards are already ineligible for public benefits programs. But immigrant advocates fear that the rule would discourage noncitizens from using benefits programs even if they have U.S. citizen children who are legally eligible for food stamps, housing aid and other programs.

Federal law has long barred immigrants from obtaining green cards if they are likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence. Immigration officers have historically considered the use of cash assistance programs or institutionalized long-term care, but not the use of benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Medicaid.

The Trump administration's policy would reverse the longstanding practice, expanding the federal programs that immigration officers can consider before determining that someone is likely to become reliant on the federal government.

The states' suit was brought by New York, California, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

The second suit was led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York and joined by Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Santa Clara County in California and King County in Washington.

At a Monday news conference, Mr. Mamdani said the policy had already resulted in some families, including those with children who are U.S. citizens, forgoing benefits like food stamps, Medicaid and affordable housing programs.

The Department of Homeland Security's own estimate found that the policy could result in about 950,000 people choosing to unenroll from, or forgo enrollment in, public assistance programs.

“Denying people services does not erase their need; it compounds it, generating a greater cost to our system that will be placed on the backs of working people for years to come,” Mr. Mamdani said, standing in the rotunda at City Hall alongside elected officials and advocates for immigrants.

Migrants Held in Cages, Inquiry Finds

Figures 11 and 12. Small Metal Enclosures; Observed January 21, 2026

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
A watchdog report released images of enclosures that were referred to as “calming areas” at a migrant detention site in Florida.

From Page A1

ter enduring legal challenges.

Federal investigators found that the metal enclosures — each providing only about 18 square feet of floor space — were used as “calming areas,” where at least 79 detainees were held for periods ranging from several minutes to nearly two hours. Although facility staff said that detainees asked to spend time in the enclosures, federal investigators found at least one instance in which the enclosures were used to discipline a detainee who “failed to comply with a lawful command.”

"The use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment," the report said.

Facility staff said detainees were not locked in the enclosures, but federal investigators found locking mechanisms on them. The average time detainees spent in the enclosures was about an hour.

The Department of Homeland Security said that the facility was managed by the State of Florida, but that conditions there were “consistent with the same federal detention standards employed by previous administrations.”

"All detainee facilities are clean, and any allegations of inhumane conditions or excessive use of force are FALSE," the department said in a statement.

Speaking on Monday at a news conference in Lakeland, Fla., Gov. Ron DeSantis said he had not read the report. But he defended conditions at the facility, which he said was a crucial part of the state's efforts to remove criminals in the country illegally from the streets of Florida.

"When they set it up, their goal was not only to meet the federal standards but to actually exceed the federal standards" for detainee conditions, Mr. DeSantis said.

Alex Lanfranconi, the governor's communications director, defended the use of the enclosures and said in a statement that the "left-wing media wants to focus on a confinement area for violent criminal aliens who have proven they cannot remain peaceful while awaiting deportation."

"While it adheres to all federal standards for criminal confinement, we'd make it even smaller if we could," Mr. Lanfranconi added.

Investigators found that the facility complied with intake and use-of-force standards, but that it did not comply with a variety of national detention standards related to medical care, food service, personal hygiene and recreation.

The report said the facility's staff failed to provide detainees with sufficient living space. National standards require detainees to be given at least 75 square feet of floor space per person. But at maximum capacity, the housing units at the facility only provided 28 square feet per detainee, according to the report.

Federal investigators also noted that one freezer at the facility was operating above the recommended temperature, which they said could result in food spoilage and increase the risk of illness for detainees.

Facility staff also said that detainees showered only three times a week, which prevented them from “maintaining good personal hygiene,” the report said. National standards typically require that detainees have daily access to showers. Federal investigators also found that the facility’s showers were “infested with small bugs,” particularly on the ceilings.

In July 2025, Florida quickly erected the detention center on a training airport in a rural area between Miami and Naples, championing the facility as part of the state's efforts to assist President Trump's crackdown on immigration. They even erected an "Alligator Alcatraz" sign on a road to the facility, which critics denounced as cruel.

The facility cost state officials more than \$1 million per day to operate, including for trucking in water and wastewater disposal. Florida officials closed the facility this summer, citing the impending hurricane season — even though detainees had spent the 2025 season at Alligator Alcatraz.

The inspector general's report adds to the lingering fallout over Alligator Alcatraz. Florida lawmakers this month approved \$250 million in additional funding for the emergency management agency to help cover outstanding bills related to immigration enforcement, including Alligator Alcatraz. The federal government had earlier agreed to reimburse more than \$600 million for expenses related to that facility and another one upstate, although much of that money is still unpaid.

Also this month, two Alligator Alcatraz guards were arrested on allegations that they had struck a detainee. They face misdemeanor battery charges in Collier County, Fla., and have pleaded not guilty.

Although the Department of Homeland Security has maintained that the state had authority over the facility's day-to-day operations, the Trump administration has faced growing scrutiny over the treatment of migrants in detention facilities overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The deaths of at least three detainees in less than eight months at Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention center in New Jersey, have recently raised questions about the quality of medical care provided to migrants.

McConnell Returns to Senate After Absence

This article is by Catie Edmondson, Carl Hulse and Michael Gold.

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate on Monday for the first time in more than three months, ending an absence that had fueled questions about his medical condition and ability to continue serving after a health incident at his home in mid-June.

Mr. McConnell, the 84-year-old Kentucky Republican and former party leader, arrived in a wheelchair for the Senate's evening vote on a federal appeals court nominee, the first time he had been seen there since he last cast a floor vote on June 11.

"My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven't made it any easier," Mr. McConnell said in a statement released by his office announcing

his return.

"I'm still not quite back to 100 percent," he added, saying that he had told party leaders "that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our conference needs me."

Mr. McConnell's office has said he suffered a fall at his Capitol Hill home on June 14 and was transported by ambulance to George Washington University Hospital, where he was treated and underwent rehabilitation before his release and return home on Aug. 6. His office had released photographs of the senator and issued statements in his name, but before Monday evening, he had not been seen publicly since he entered the hospital.

On the Senate floor on Monday, Mr. McConnell was wheeled out and immediately surrounded by a procession of senators who approached to shake his hand. He wore a bandage just above his wrist on one hand, and both hands appeared darkly bruised on top.

Speaking briefly to reporters outside the Senate chamber, Mr. McConnell said he was committed to working on the farm bill and legislation to impose strong new sanctions on Russia.

"After two years — two decades — of dodging your questions, I wasn't sure how many of you would be here today," he said, joking about the press attention his return has attracted.

Mr. McConnell announced in 2024 that he would not try to return as leader after a series of falls, an extended absence and episodes where he seemed to freeze in public. Then, in early 2025, he announced he would not seek election to an eighth term. His current term expires on Jan. 3.

2026 Election

At Impeachment Trial, Paxton Showed Wily Side And a Knack for Escape

By BETH REINHARD and LAUREN MCGAUGHY

On the eve of the verdict in Ken Paxton's impeachment trial, the prosecutors were unwinding over Mad Dog Margaritas at Texas Chili Parlor, a casual hangout in the shadow of the State Capitol in Austin.

Mr. Paxton, the state's Republican attorney general, stood accused of abusing the power of his office to protect a campaign donor under federal investigation, who, in turn, had purportedly remodeled Mr. Paxton's home and helped him conceal an extramarital affair. A majority of Republicans in the Texas House had joined with Democrats to vote for impeachment, a stunning development that turned state senators into jurors for a nine-day trial in September 2023.

The lead prosecutors, Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin, were feeling cocky that evening, reliving the highlights of the case.

"We were chest thumping," Mr. DeGuerin said. They stepped outside to greet one of the defense lawyers, Dan Cogdell, who offered Mr. DeGuerin a cigar. He, too, thought the prosecutors had won.

The next day, a cacophonous thunderstorm passed over the Capitol as the members of the Texas Senate rose from their seats, one by one, and offered a "yea" or "nay" on each of the 16 articles of impeachment. A two-thirds majority on just one article would have cost Mr. Paxton his job.

He was acquitted across the board.

Now, as Mr. Paxton campaigns for the U.S. Senate in one of the most high-stakes races in the country, his impeachment stands out as the defining episode in a scandal-plagued career. It was the moment that he came closest to political ruin, and it was a testament to his uncanny resilience — a trait not unlike the survival skills associated with his twice-impeached ally, President Trump.

James Talarico, Mr. Paxton's Democratic rival, has seized on the impeach-

"They said they were going to band together. They said they were going to go to the F.B.I. I said, "That's amazing guys. But we're all going to lose our careers. He's never going to back down."

DAVID MAXWELL, Mr. Paxton's director of law enforcement at the time.

ment as the centerpiece of his argument that Mr. Paxton is “the most corrupt politician in America,” a critique that the attorney general and his allies shrug off. After all, he has outrun accusations of corruption for years.

"The impeachment trial was nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt orchestrated by the establishment," said Nick Maddux, Mr. Paxton's campaign adviser, "and it ended with Attorney General Paxton being proven completely innocent and the sham allegations against him completely debunked."

A New York Times examination of the impeachment, including more than two dozen interviews with key players as well as a review of the trial transcript, court exhibits and media coverage, revealed how the defense team's shrewd political instincts during a trial in which pivotal witnesses were never forced to appear allowed Mr. Paxton to triumph.

No smoking gun ever surfaced. And several rules set by the Republican-led Senate for the impeachment trial — the first of a statewide officeholder in Texas in more than a century — tilted in Mr. Paxton's favor.

Mr. Paxton, who was absent for most of the trial, never said a word under oath. His alleged girlfriend did not take the stand. Nor did the campaign donor whom Mr. Paxton tried to help or the contractor who worked on his home.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is not a lawyer, wielded significant authority over the proceedings as the presiding officer. He had recently accepted \$3 million in contributions and loans from a PAC attacking pro-impeachment lawmakers.

"It was rigged," Mr. DeGuerin said. "I was naïve enough to think we stood a chance."

Mr. Patrick did not respond to requests to discuss his oversight of the impeachment proceedings. In an interview after the acquittal, he defended the process. "There is no bias," he said. "I ran a fair trial."

Mr. Paxton declined a request for an interview.

One of the biggest challenges facing the prosecution took place outside of the legislative chamber: a relentless pressure campaign waged by Mr. Paxton's right-wing supporters, who embraced him as a frontline warrior against the Obama and Biden administrations. Donald Trump, who was planning his return to the White House, vowed to punish lawmakers who backed impeachment. "I will fight you," he warned.

The impeachment drama cemented Mr. Paxton's bond with the MAGA movement and derailed the careers of his political foes. In a sign of how he came away with the upper hand, a few of the Republican lawmakers who pushed for impeachment are now stumping on his behalf.

Mr. Cogdell, Mr. Paxton's defense attorney, however, recently endorsed Mr. Talarico, arguing that the attorney general has become too beholden to President Trump. And though he still believes Mr. Paxton did not commit a crime, he harbors serious qualms about the proceedings.

Not Tony Buzbee, another lawyer for Mr. Paxton.

"Ken Paxton won that trial fair and square," Mr. Buzbee said. "I told him then: 'We will win this, and you will be the next U.S. senator from Texas.' I was right on the first prediction, and I expect I will be right on the second one as well."

'He Wouldn't Listen'

Mr. Paxton's impeachment began with a mutiny.

In 2020, high-ranking staffers in the attorney general's office were resisting Mr. Paxton's appeals to intervene on behalf of Nate Paul, a real estate investor under federal investigation who had donated \$25,000 to his re-election campaign.

Mr. Paxton had his own legal problems. Just a few months after being sworn in as attorney general in 2015, he had been indicted on felony charges of securities fraud. Mr. Cogdell, who also represented Mr. Paxton in that case, said the attorney general had sympathized with Mr. Paul's claims that he was the target of a conspiracy involving the F.B.I., federal judges and state regulators.

Mr. Paxton's deputies didn't buy it. They thought Mr. Paul was seeking political favors that compromised the office's integrity.

"We had all tried to talk Paxton into backing off and to talk him off the ledge, and he wouldn't listen to anybody," said Mark Penley, who served as Mr. Paxton's deputy attorney general for criminal justice. "We were the only ones that knew it and we were the only ones that could stop it."

David Maxwell, Mr. Paxton's director of law enforcement, was on vacation in Colorado when his colleagues sent an urgent text. He drove his Ford truck to the bottom of a mountain to get a cellphone signal.

"They said they were going to band together," Mr. Maxwell recalled. "They said they were going to go to the F.B.I. I said, 'That's amazing guys. But we're all going to lose our careers. He's never going to back down.'"

The group met with law enforcement on Sept. 30 and notified their boss the next day. Within the week, they had all either resigned or been forced out.

Four of them, including Mr. Penley and Mr. Maxwell, argued in a whistle-blower lawsuit that the dismissals were acts of retaliation. Mr. Paxton eventually agreed to a \$3.3 million settlement and an apology for having disparaged them as “rogue employees.”

But he then turned to state legislators, expecting them to allocate tax dollars to make the payment. House members balked and launched an investigation, leading to an outcome neither Mr. Paxton nor anyone in Texas politics could have predicted.

In May 2023, the Texas House voted 121-23 to impeach Mr. Paxton, temporarily removing him from office. The articles of impeachment charged him with using his public office to serve Mr. Paul's private interests, including intervening in a lawsuit between his companies and a nonprofit, trying to help him avoid foreclosures on his properties, and hiring an outside lawyer to investigate Mr. Paul's objections to a federal probe. He was accused of bribery, dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice and abuse of the public trust.

Mr. Paxton called the process “illegal, unethical and profoundly unjust.”

His fate would lie with the Texas Senate, the chamber more aligned with the right-wing activists who were rallying behind him. At the helm would be Mr. Patrick, a staunch conservative with an overlapping political base.

Playing Different Games

In a state known for swagger, Mr. Paxton's impeachment saga scaled the heights of political drama. Colorful characters took center stage, from Representative Andrew Murr, an impeachment manager with a handlebar mustache so distinctive it had inspired its own social media account, to Mr. Maxwell, a career lawman standing 6-foot-6 in his trademark boots and white cowboy hat.

Mr. Paxton's wife, Angela, a member of the Texas Senate, sat stoically through the entire trial, as prosecutors contended that her husband deployed burner phones and a secret Uber account paid for by Mr. Paul to cover up his illicit activities. Mr. Paxton's alleged girlfriend, Laura Olson, made a much-anticipated appearance at the Capitol in a white sheath dress.

At the defense table sat Mr. Buzbee, a

KEN PAXTON was accused of protecting a donor who was under investigation and who allegedly helped him conceal an extramarital affair.

JORDAN VONDERHAAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

PROSECUTORS RUSTY HARDIN AND DICK DEGUERIN were feeling confident they had won their impeachment case the night before the vote.

ERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
LT. GOVERNOR DAN PATRICK controlled the impeachment proceedings and granted Mr. Paxton's request that he not be called as a witness.

Prosecutors were confident in the strength of their case. They believed that the evidence was compelling, and they had Mr. Paxton's top aides, conservative lawyers themselves, prepared to testify about his eagerness to help Mr. Paul.

trial lawyer known for his deep tan and courtroom theatrics. “Imagine if we impeached everybody here in Austin that had had an affair,” he quipped at one point. “We’d be impeaching for the next 100 years, wouldn’t we?”

JORDAN VONDERHAAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES DAVID MAXWELL, Mr. Paxton's director of law enforcement, was among the whistle-blowers.
JORDAN VONDERHAAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Still, the ground rules approved by the Senate set a high bar for the prosecution. The presentation of evidence would be limited to 24 hours, a brief time frame for such a sweeping and complex case. Most notably, the rules invested Mr. Patrick with what Senator Sarah Eckhardt, a

SENATOR ANGELA PAXTON heard the details of the tactics her husband used to conceal an affair.

DAN COGDELL, an attorney for Mr. Paxton, recently endorsed his Senate opponent, James Talarico, and says he has qualms about the trial.
JORDAN VONDERHAAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Democratic former prosecutor, called "near total control over the proceedings." On the first day of the trial, Mr. Patrick granted one of Mr. Paxton's most important requests, declaring, "You may not call the attorney general as a witness."

Mr. Paxton's attorneys had argued that the trial was a criminal proceeding and that criminal defendants cannot be forced to give evidence against themselves.

The rules also addressed Mrs. Paxton's role. She could not participate in the deliberations or vote, but she would be counted as present. That meant it would take one additional vote to reach the two-thirds majority required for a conviction.

In contrast, Mr. Paxton was not required to attend. He left during lunch on the first day and didn't return until closing arguments.

It was a decision that divided the defense team.

"I thought that was a horrible look for Ken not to be there," Mr. Cogdell said. "You're not going to show up for your own trial while your wife is sitting there suffering through all these accusations of adultery?"

Mr. Buzbee disagreed. “I wanted to avoid the distraction of press trying to speak to him or focusing cameras on him,” he said. “I wanted the focus on the evidence, or lack thereof. I believe that was effective.”

The two sides deployed such different strategies at trial that they barely seemed to be playing the same game. The prosecution treated the proceedings like a standard courtroom trial. The defense hammered the process as a vendetta conjured up by an anti-Paxton cabal.

Day 7 of the trial was particularly trying for the prosecution. In a conversation out of public earshot that later became part of the trial transcript, Ms. Olson's attorney argued that her client should not have to take the stand because she intended to assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and it would prejudice the jury for her to assert it over and over in response to questions. Mr. Patrick agreed, rejecting prosecutors' arguments that Ms. Olson did not face any criminal exposure.

Later that day, a former aide to Mr. Paxton, Drew Wicker, testified about a key element of the alleged bribe: the renovations to the attorney general's home in Austin. Mr. Wicker said he had overheard Mr. Paxton and the contractor, Kevin Wood, discussing a \$20,000 upgrade to kitchen countertops and cabinets. According to Mr. Wicker, Mr. Wood said he would "check with Nate," presumably referring to Mr. Paul.

But under cross-examination, when Mr. Buzbee showed what he said were before and after photos of the kitchen, Mr. Wicker said the fixtures "appear to have not been altered."

That moment overshadowed other evidence: emails between Mr. Wood and Mr. Paul discussing renovations in other parts of the house, and records showing that Mr. Paxton did not pay for the repairs until after staff members had notified him of their meeting with law enforcement. Those payments, documents showed, went to a company tied to Mr. Paul.

Closing arguments epitomized the strategies deployed by the two sides. The prosecution delivered a methodical summary of its case. Mr. Buzbee issued a battle cry, calling the process a “political witch hunt” in a direct appeal to the Republican senators.

"My goal was to speak to them through their constituents," Mr. Buzbee said. "Each day Twitter was on fire, as I revealed what I believed to be a larger effort to get rid of Paxton. Once those on the fence saw that the evidence was flimsy, and once they saw the fervent reaction of the activists, we were able to sway those senators."

Senator Bob Hall, a Republican who voted to acquit, said he had scrutinized all the court exhibits with a yellow highlighter and a red pen.

He said he had assumed the prosecutors would end their case with dramatic new evidence. "They're going to drop the big bomb," he recalled thinking. "But they didn't, and that's because they didn't have anything."

In the end, only two of the 18 Republican senators voted for conviction.

Senator Robert Nichols, one of those two votes, said he had received 1,400 threats of political reprisal through emails, texts and phone calls. The message was clear: Mr. Paxton's hard-fought battles against illegal immigration, the Affordable Care Act and the results of the 2020 election had mattered far more than the evidence presented at trial, he said.

Mr. Nichols lamented that the impeachment proceedings seemed warped by outside forces. "It was a trial of social media and public pressure," he said.

Shortly after the vote, Mr. Patrick pivoted from judge to politician, ripping into the House Republicans who had voted for impeachment. "Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted," he said.

Mr. Cogdell was horrified.

"If those were truly his feelings, there's no way it didn't affect his decision making," Mr. Cogdell said. "I thought it brought shame on the process."

Mr. Paxton blasted the trial as a sham. And in the years since the trial, Mr. Paxton has gloated about his victory.

An F.B.I. investigation into the allegations at the center of the impeachment never resulted in charges. In 2024, shortly before Mr. Paxton would have faced trial on the security fraud charges, he cut a deal in which he paid \$300,000 but admitted no guilt.

Last year, a judge awarded \$6.6 million to the top aides Mr. Paxton forced out, a payment that would have to be approved by the Texas Legislature. But the former staffers aren't optimistic. Several Republican lawmakers who had backed impeachment either bowed out of politics or lost their seats after Mr. Paxton and his allies campaigned against them.

And of those Republicans who took on Mr. Paxton and survived, some are stumping for the man they once accused of abusing the public trust.

At a recent campaign event in Frisco, north of Dallas, conservative influencers and politicians warmed up the crowd for Mr. Paxton. One more supporter stepped up to introduce him. It was Representative Jeff Leach, a Republican who had helped spearhead Mr. Paxton's impeachment, and is now running for re-election.

"You might be surprised to see me standing in front of you tonight," Mr. Leach said. "The choice in November for all of us is clear."

Mr. Paxton then strode onstage.

Gillibrand Calls First Hearing on Menopause

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By ANNIE KARNI

As the Democrat in charge of her party's intensive effort to win the Senate majority, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has a challenging job.

But on Wednesday, Ms. Gillibrand plans to use her platform to spotlight an issue that has been absent from the campaign trail and little discussed in Washington, convening the first-ever congressional hearing on menopause.

It is an effort to focus on what Ms. Gillibrand calls an urgent issue that has gone ignored and unmentioned in the searing debates over the Trump administration's scientific research cuts and the health care affordability issues that Democrats are hoping will help them win control of Congress in November.

In a recent interview, Ms. Gillibrand said she planned to use the hearing to make the case for investing more federal money in researching menopause, which she maintained was vastly under-researched and underfunded, and to push for changes to address how unprepared medical professionals are to help women seeking guidance and care.

"Many women can't have sex anymore because of debilitating pain," said Ms. Gillibrand, 59. "There is massive bleeding, massive mood swings — from depression to anger — some require a hysterectomy."

Dismissing the symptoms of menopause as merely a few unpleasant night sweats and hot flashes, she said, disregards the far more serious and sometimes life-altering medical conditions that many women suffer from for years.

In some cases, she said, "you're bleeding so much you can't leave your bedroom." She added: "It's not talked about. That doesn't mean it's not common, or real, or very much part of menopause."

The hearing, to be held by the Senate Committee on Aging, is set to occur in the final sprint toward the midterm elections, in which Democrats have been trying to focus their message on President Trump's unpopular policies and the high cost of living and health care.

While the challenges of menopause would seem to have little to do with any of that, Ms. Gillibrand, who is the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said the hearing was in line with her party's campaign message.

"It's highly relevant," Ms. Gillibrand said, noting that the Trump administration had slashed funding for medical research across the board.

"It's just health care," she said. "It's health care, it's health care, it's health care. The lack of good treatments and medicines and options and attention is relevant to 75 million people. What Democrats care about is health care, education and jobs. That's our whole platform, and this is a huge relevant piece of it."

Ms. Gillibrand said it was important to talk about how taxing menopause could be for many women, speaking in graphic detail about symptoms.

"We spend billions of dollars on Viagra to make sure men can have sex — what have you done to make sure women can have sex?" she said.

It was a topic that resonated strongly in the lobby of the Loews Regency on Park Avenue, where Ms. Gillibrand was laying it out.

"I have something called burning mouth syndrome," said Lisa Humiston, 51, interrupting the interview to approach the senator and share her menopause horror story. "It's the sensation that my mouth is burning at all times. It never goes away — I've had it for five years. Right now, my mouth is burning."

As the senior Democrat on the aging panel, Ms. Gillibrand is entitled to lead one hearing per year on a topic of her choosing. Hers will be called “Half the Country, Zero Hearings: Meeting the Moment to End the Menopause Care Gap in America.” She also plans to call for the passage of bipartisan legislation to boost federal research on menopause.

Along with Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the Republican chairman of the committee, Ms. Gillibrand is also sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting a study on the federal government's role in menopause research and care.

While the government has long failed to devote federal resources to the issue, Ms. Gillibrand contended that the Trump administration had made the situation worse, citing the Food and Drug Administration's recent decision to remove so-called black box warnings from all hormone replacement products containing estrogen.

"I'm wondering why they want women to have less information," she said.

About 80 percent of OB-GYN residents admit to being ill-prepared to discuss menopause with their patients, according to the nonprofit organization Let's Talk Menopause. And many women who seek medical care for symptoms of menopause are left untreated, the group said.

Nearly one in three women in the United States over the age of 40 experience severe menopause symptoms. Menopause-related symptoms cost \$26 billion in medical expenses and lost work time annually, according to the Mayo Clinic.

In recent years, the issue has received new attention. The philan-"It's just health care," said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. The actress Halle Berry, left, has lobbied for more funding to research menopause.

thropist Melinda French Gates has made significant new investments for midlife and menopause care, calling for what she described as a “menopause revolution in this country.”

The actress Halle Berry has lobbied lawmakers for more funding for researching menopause, sharing that her symptoms were for a time misdiagnosed by her doctor as herpes.

Ms. Gillibrand said she was committed to helping ensure that the government did more to address the topic.

"I've used my one hearing on the most under-researched, underreported, underanalyzed issue for women's health, ever," Ms. Gillibrand said. "From 50 to 58, I had either night sweats or hot flashes. I had to really look for a doctor who could take me through the hows and the whys and the impacts."

Ms. Gillibrand said she was aware that her hearing topic would most likely put some of her male colleagues on uncomfortable terrain.

"Many men would never feel comfortable having a discussion about menstruation or menopause or even postpartum depression, or any aspect of women's health," she said. "They don't have the comfort level to talk about it because it was taboo for so long."

G.O.P. Candidate in Texas Under Fire for Racist Post

By BAYLISS WAGNER from using skilled foreign worker visas, known as H-1Bs.

The video captured a moment of jubilation familiar to any college sports fan.

A sea of burnt-orange-clad students erupted in whoops and hollers after the Texas Longhorns' game-winning touchdown on Saturday night, jumping up and down, hugging one another, tossing drinks in the air.

By Sunday, the scene had become a powder keg for Texas Republicans, after the G.O.P. nominee for a statewide office captioned a screenshot of the celebration with a racist message on social media.

"I heard UT graduation this year looked like this," the nominee, Bo French, who is running for a spot on a powerful state agency that regulates oil and gas, wrote in a post on X that showed cheering fans of color. "I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined." He later posted a complaint about the admission of foreign students at the University of Texas, seeming to assume they could not have been born in the state because of their skin color.

Numerous Texas Republicans condemned the post. Some distanced themselves without explicitly denouncing it. And a handful of others responded to a Republican senator's disapproval of the post by castigating the senator.

Democrats roundly criticized the post, and some argued that the Republican responses did not go far enough.

Both parties are in heated midterm competitions across the state, which has navigated flare-ups of Islamophobia and tense debates over immigration.

Mr. French, who is running for the state Railroad Commission, has a history of making anti-Muslim, antisemitic and anti-immigrant comments. He faced criticism last year after sharing a poll on social media asking who was the “bigger threat” to America, Muslims or Jews. The reactions from many Republicans to Mr. French’s post on Sunday reflected the discomfort they have with his candidacy.

"Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized," Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, wrote on X in response to Mr. French's post about the football game. "This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad."

State Representative Dustin Burrows, a Republican who is the House speaker, wrote, "Delete it." Mr. Burrows said, "You can oppose immigration policy without demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity — this post has crossed the line."

State Representative Lacey Hull, a Republican who leads the House committee on Human Services, wrote, "This post breaks my heart." She added: "I see college kids cheering on their football team. I see Texans."

After a campaign that demon- ized Muslims and immigrants, Mr. French narrowly won his primary against Jim Wright, the Railroad Commission's chairman, in May, despite opposition from promi- nent Republicans like Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and others.

Mr. Abbott, who is running for re-election, said in a statement that Mr. French's post was "not my message." He added, "A selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory

— ever — actually shows a way that Texans unite." Mr. Abbott then praised strict immigration laws and nodded to his move to block Texas public universities

In a reply to his original post on Sunday, Mr. French wrote, "I weep for the families in Texas who can't get into UT because they prioritize foreigners over Texans." Yet state law requires that Texas high school students ranked at the top of their class — in the top 5 percent for the 2027-28 school year — be automatically admitted to the University of Texas at Austin, and that they compose up to 75 percent of the class. International students make up fewer than 10 percent of the student body, according to statistics that the University of Texas released in September.

Democrats rushed to condemn Mr. French's comments, including State Representative James Ta-

CALLAGHAN O'HARE/REUTERS
Bo French has a history of anti-Muslim, antisemitic and anti-immigrant comments.

A Republican is rebuked even by many in his own party.

larico, a nominee for U.S. Senate. He called on his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, Texas' attorney general, to do the same.

Mr. Paxton turned the request back on his opponent and did not directly address Mr. French's post.

"I condemn racism in all its forms," Mr. Paxton wrote on X, adding, "Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it's James Talarico."

State Representative Andy Hopper, a hard-line conservative, responded to Mr. Cornyn's post about Mr. French by calling Mr. Cornyn a "smug globalist" and highlighting his landslide loss to Mr. Paxton in the Senate primary.

Mr. French has a strong chance to win in November, given the state's Republican lean. But his candidacy has given his Democratic opponent, State Representative Jon Rosenthal, newfound hope.

In a phone interview, Mr. Rosenthal criticized Mr. Abbott, who he said was "feeding the problem instead of pushing back on it" by invoking foreign worker visas in response to Mr. French's post.

He rejected Mr. French's comments.

“Most of the voters that I talk to are tired of the hatefulness and division,” Mr. Rosenthal said, adding, “There’s a small segment of society that revels in hate, and I hope they end up being relegated to irrelevance.”

If Mr. French is elected, he may continue to face resistance from his fellow Republicans. The chair of a committee that oversees the state oil and gas commission, State Representative Drew Darby, said the Legislature could circumscribe Mr. French's power if he stepped out of line.

Trump Suffers Another Blow to His Plan For Mail Votes From Judge He Appointed

From Page A1

alerted the Supreme Court about Judge Nichols's ruling.

Lawyers for the Trump administration told the justices that if they allowed the Postal Service plan, it would mean Judge Nichols would be required to immediately lift his block and clear the way for the ballot screening rules.

The new rule stemmed from an executive order Mr. Trump signed in March, directing the Postal Service to preregister voters casting their ballots by mail, and decline to deliver ballots from anyone whose information was not submitted by their state election officers.

Judge Talwani, who considered the separate legal challenge in Massachusetts, had found that the rule probably violated the constitutional authority given to states to run their own elections. But Judge Nichols

Judge Carl J. Nichols

focused on another issue: the absence of any federal statute by which Congress gave the Postal Service the power to screen voters.

"As the government concedes, the Postal Service could issue (and enforce) the rule only if Congress gave it the authority to do so, but here no statute grants the

Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the rule," he wrote.

He focused on an online portal the Postal Service has said it is building that would let states upload the names and addresses of voters they deemed eligible to vote by mail. The relevant laws do not authorize the agency “to create a data collection system for mail-in and absentee voters,” he wrote.

Despite the lawsuits, a number of Republican-led states have indicated in court that they would voluntarily adopt the new procedure and were taking steps to comply if the courts ultimately allowed it.

Voting rights groups had argued that it would be nearly impossible to ensure the lists were up-to-date or counted people who had moved or recently registered in a new state. They warned that the new rules would very likely lead to improperly rejected ballots.

ALISHA JUCEVIC FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The ruling was the second by a federal district judge to say President Trump's ballot plan is probably illegal and should be blocked.

State election officials have warned the plan could cause chaos. In some states, mail ballots have already been distributed to voters.

The Supreme Court is also considering a similar ruling.

Judge Nichols appeared to agree, writing that the rule appeared certain to cause “delays and mistakes” at several stages. That could include the building of the portal, which has not yet opened, and the Postal Service’s new role screening outbound ballots and “confirming that each absentee and mail-in voter matches information in the portal,” he wrote.

“Plaintiffs have demonstrated that there is an increased risk that a significant number of absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted,” he wrote, noting that the Postal Service was likely to handle “more than 50 million pieces of federal ballot mail” this election season.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Scientists Raise Specter of Biological Weapons Race

Biosecurity experts warned that it was disturbingly easy to get advice from chatbots about making pathogens more dangerous.
GIANLUCA PANELLA/GETTY IMAGES

By CARL ZIMMER

Among the growing fears about artificial intelligence, one threat has proved particularly alarming: the possibility that A.I. could be used to create a new wave of biological weapons.

In April, biosecurity experts warned that it was disturbingly easy to get advice from chatbots about making pathogens more dangerous. In June, scientists and A.I. executives signed an open letter calling for new controls on the fabrication of DNA because A.I. can now speed up the design of toxins and viruses.

In August, scientists reported that they had used A.I. to build viruses not seen in nature. And on Thursday, Anthropic announced that it had blocked attempts to use its models by people who might have been trying to weaponize pathogens.

Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, followed up with a call on Saturday to slow the development of A.I., with a set of proposals to keep it safe.

It would be wise, Dr. Amodei wrote, to ban “using AI for the production of biological weapons or allowing users to do so.”

These developments may give the impression that bad actors can now unleash previously unknown plagues on the world, all thanks to A.I.

tists synthesize in labs.)

But Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University who coauthored a report on biosecurity last year, said that current chatbots, like Anthropic's Claude, don't represent a sea change in the threat posed by biological weapons.

"In terms of the net impact on our biosecurity risk right now, I find it to be modest," he said.

That could change, he added, as scientists develop A.I. models specializing in biological research.

Already these models can generate genomes for viable viruses not found in nature. It's conceivable that the models may eventually be able to use those new genomes to create new weapons.

A biological weapon can be a virus or another pathogen, such as bacteria or fungi, that is designed to be unleashed against armies or civilians. Or it can take the form of toxins produced by organisms, such as botulinum from bacteria or ricin from castor plants.

(Biological weapons are distinct from chemical weapons, such as nerve gas, which scien-

As far back as the Middle Ages, armies tried using disease as a weapon. In 1346, the Mongols loaded the bodies of people who died from bubonic plague onto catapults and launched them into the city of Caffa on the Black Sea.

Five centuries later, after scientists developed the germ theory of disease, those efforts became more precise. During World War I, German spies sneaked into the United States and other countries with vials of bacteria. They used it to kill thousands of horses and mules.

The Geneva Protocol prohibited biological warfare, but the great powers built biological weapons anyway. Eventually, the United States and the Soviet Union held gigantic stocks, from anthrax bombs to balloons loaded with wheat-killing fungi.

After signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1975, the United States destroyed its massive stockpiles but continued studying biological weapons to develop defenses. The Soviet Union secretly carried out more investigations of pathogens, such as smallpox, for a new generation of biological weapons.

All of which is to say the threat of biological weapons was very real long before OpenAI and Anthropic appeared. And yet as far as is publicly known, biological weapons have caused very few deaths since World War II, for reasons that remain unclear.

"We don't know what has been tried and failed, what has been deterred, what was too technologically challenging," said Dr. Thomas Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

That threat persists, Dr. Inglesby added, noting that someone trying to create biological weapons today can use powerful tools that previous generations could only dream of.

Synthesizing DNA has become fast and cheap, for example. In 2016, Canadian scientists reported that they had recreated horsepox, a virus related to smallpox that disappeared from nature in recent decades.

The scientists broke up the virus's genome sequences into pieces, which they emailed to a DNA-fabricating company. The company sent the DNA molecules back to the scientists, who assembled them into a viral genome and inserted it into cells.

The infected cells then produced real horsepox viruses.

At the time, this was hailed as a remarkable, if unnerving, feat. But advances in DNA synthesis and other technologies make such an exercise even cheaper and easier today.

Now chatbots might consult the scientific literature to answer questions that a biological weapons-maker would have. It's a task at which A.I. can excel, Dr. Inglesby said, providing far more to bad actors than they could gather with simple web searches.

"It aims for the information to be usable," he said of A.I. "It allows users to go back and forth

A.I. queries from abroad suggest a need for strong safeguards.

infinite number of times to troubleshoot and explain in more detail, while providing just the right technical resources to back things up."

Dr. Endy said he was glad to see that Anthropic was scanning queries for dangerous motives.

"If I take it face value, it appears that the team at Anthropic is trying to be a good citizen," he said. "They have a new tool, and they're trying to be responsible with it."

The large language models that companies like Anthropic have built are trained on vast amounts of text, including the records of work by previous generations of scientists.

They may be able to retrieve that information quickly, or to find connections between previous findings that had gone over- looked. But they have no deep understanding of biology beyond what researchers have already discovered.

Other scientists, however, are building new A.I. models that can, to a certain extent, teach themselves biology. Instead of books and other texts, these models are trained on raw data about DNA and cells.

Scientists at Stanford University and the Arc Institute built one such model, called Evo2, which they trained on the DNA sequences of millions of species. Evo2 learned hidden patterns in genes, enabling the creation of new kinds of enzymes.

That led the scientists to wonder if they could make new genomes that could support life. The researchers put Evo2 through an additional round of training on genomes from one group of closely related viruses.

Known as microvirids, they are harmless to humans, only infecting the bacteria Escherichia coli. Evo2 offered up hundreds of thousands of new microvirid genomes, 16 of which gave rise to real viruses.

To safeguard Evo2, its creators have not trained it on viruses that infect humans or other related species. But in theory, such a version of Evo2 might be able to produce a variation on smallpox viruses.

Still, that would be no small task: the smallpox genome is 35 times bigger than the genomes of microvirid viruses. And even if all that effort paid off, it would only lead to a variation on a virus that was already turned into a biological weapon in the 1980s.

Still, Dr. Inglesby speculated that, without proper safeguards, programs like Evo2 could become more useful for making new biological weapons.

"With enough training data, these A.I. systems will be able to make predictions of more lethal, contagious, immune-evasive variants," Dr. Inglesby said.

He worried that someday the models could come up with viruses that are not just variants, but are profoundly different from natural ones.

This week's news from Anthropic raised more immediate concerns for biosecurity experts: The queries for information about influenza and other pathogens appear to have come from state-run labs, rather than lone biohackers.

"How a Ph.D. student can individually misuse a model for harm is only one small portion of the problem," Dr. Inglesby said.

Dr. Endy worried that if governments start using A.I. for biowarfare research, they might help rekindle an arms race like the one during World War II.

"Today we live in a world where the U.S. State Department accuses North Korea and Russia of having programs, and suspects Iran and China," he said. "And China accuses the United States and Russia. This is not something that was happening 10 years ago."

Dr. Endy and Dr. Inglesby agreed that a lot could be done to reduce the risk of a catastrophe. Nations have negotiated biological weapons agreements in the past, and they can try to do so now.

The Biden administration put rules into place for DNA-synthesizing companies to screen orders for suspicious sequences. The Trump administration suspended them last year and has yet to issue new standards.

Dr. Endy argued that we have to do more than try to stop a biological weapon from being used. "We have to leapfrog ahead of that, and secure biology," he said.

That means finding ways to defend ourselves from epidemics of all sorts, whether they're engineered by humans or have jumped from animals into our species. Public spaces like hospitals and schools, he said, ought to be equipped with sensors that can detect airborne threats.

"If I see an airborne virus in the space I'm in, I can act accordingly," Dr. Endy said. "These biological risks are not magical."

In Trial of Brain Implant, a Woman Speaks by Imagining the Words

A patient with primary lateral sclerosis had spontaneous conversations using a computer-generated voice, the device company said.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AND PARADROMICS

From Page A1

eventually use the technology in their daily lives, greatly improving their ability to communicate with family, friends and co-workers.

The woman, the first patient in the Paradromics clinical trial, was implanted with the company's Connexus B.C.I. system, which contains more than 400 electrodes, in June at University of Michigan Health.

The trial will include 10 patients around the country with various disorders that cause speech and limb paralysis, such as stroke and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, said Dr. William Marks, chief clinical officer of Paradromics.

The patient, whose name was not disclosed, has primary lateral sclerosis, which weakens neurons that control movement for talking, swallowing and walking. She retains some ability to use her speaking muscles, but her words are barely understandable to most listeners, Dr. Marks said.

The results reported Monday have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal.

Matt Angle, the founder and chief executive officer of Paradromics, also said the system was able to detect and tell the difference among signals the woman's brain generated during different activities related to communication. There were distinct patterns generated when the woman was physically trying to talk, thinking of what to say or hearing what others said.

"We can see the representation of words and phonemes whether she tries to say it, she imagines it, or even if she just listens to it," Dr. Angle said.

Experts said that while aspects of Paradromics's developments have also been achieved by others working on brain-computer interface technology, the company's results are notable, particularly because the system is wireless and self-contained.

“Their demonstration gets us one step closer to clinical reality for restoring speech communication for people with severe paralysis,” said Dr. Edward Chang, the chairman of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, who is not involved in the Paradromics trial and whose lab has pioneered and advanced developments in the brain-computer interface field.

He added, "It's wonderful how much progress has been made since we first showed this was possible just five years ago."

His lab and other researchers have also studied imagined speech representations in the brain and have enabled patients to produce spontaneous speech. But in much of the research, people needed to be connected to a computer with a cable attached to a port in the head, an arrangement that posed a risk that the site might become infected and required people to be tethered to the computer.

A video provided to The New York Times by Paradromics showed the woman being asked this month by members of the research team to say whatever she'd like. She smiled and slowly spoke a scarcely intelligible sentence, which the system quickly decoded and read out with a computerized voice that said, "OK, I have a lot to say."

Later in the video, she was asked what advice she would like to give to her grandchildren. "Pray continuously," she said. Asked if she felt she was learning how to use the device better, she said, "It's a work in process."

Vikash Gilja, Paradromics's chief scientific officer, said that the system worked just as well when the patient whispered, which was less effortful for her. If she imagined the words, the decoding was a little less clear, "almost like it comes in and out of focus," Dr. Gilja said, adding that he thought it would improve as the patient practiced.

One goal of the technology, he said, is to make it easier for patients to learn how to use the system without the burden of trying to move their muscles for speech. Being able to distinguish the patterns of brain signals for imagining speech and listening to it is also important, he added, so that patients can control whether and when they would want their internal monologues to be shared with others.

With advances in technology and artificial intelligence, the brain-computer interface field is making strides.

In another development on Monday, a study by Dr. Chang's team published in Nature Neuroscience showed that, in three patients with paralyzing conditions, a single array of implanted electrodes could simultaneously decode signals for speech and physical gestures like a hand wave, a thumbs up and a head nod. Previously, brain-computer interfaces have addressed either speech or movement deficits, but the new study put those functions together and found that, by doing so, patients' ability to communicate improved.

"It is a step towards B.C.I.s that can control the whole body in the digital world," Dr. Chang said. "Like in the movie 'Avatar.'"

Companies and researchers have a variety of brain-computer interface approaches. The University of California, San Francisco, team's method surgically places electrodes on the brain surface. The approach of Paradromics and Neuralink, another company in the field, involves surgery to implant electrodes below the brain's surface. Other approaches are less invasive, including one that involves electrodes delivered into the brain with a catheter inserted in a blood vessel in the neck.

The less invasive approaches are intended to be more affordable and minimize the potential risks of brain surgery, while the more surgically invasive approaches are designed to detect more specific signals, recording from individual neurons.

Some electrode arrays that penetrate the brain's surface have had good performance only for several months because of issues with stability or scarring, but others "have enabled meaningful long-term performance," Dr. Chang said. "An important milestone for Paradromics will be to prove that their technology remains stable in patients for many years."

The Food and Drug Administration's investigational device program granted permission for the clinical trial, and company officials said they expected Paradromics would need to complete a larger trial before applying for F.D.A. approval of the device in several years.

Trump Says His 'High IQ' Can Rein In Risks of A.I.

By JONATHAN SWAN

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday rejected calls from leading artificial intelligence executives for new limits on the technology, writing on social media that the only guardrail the industry needed it already had: "a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT."

Mr. Trump inserted himself into the intensifying national debate over how to handle a rapidly evolving technology that researchers and industry leaders say poses major risks like mass unemployment, a new wave of biological weapons and autonomous warfare. The president did not address those risks directly. Instead, he questioned the sincerity of the executives who have been calling to slow the technology's development.

"The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!" Mr. Trump posted. "The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!

"We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!" he added.

It was not clear what authority Mr. Trump was referring to, or what actions he believes his administration has already blocked. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Over the weekend, Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, a leading A.I. company whose founders have long warned about the technology's dangers, published an essay that called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development. Days earlier, one of Anthropic's researchers quit and went public over his fears about the safety of the technology.

The Trump administration feuded with Anthropic earlier this year when the company refused to allow the Pentagon unfettered access to its A.I. system without the safeguards the company wanted. Mr. Trump then ordered the federal government to stop using Anthropic's A.I. technology and labeled it a security risk, a designation that a federal judge later ruled was unlawful.

Other A.I. chiefs have voiced their own concerns in recent days. Demis Hassabis, the chairman of Google DeepMind; Elon Musk of SpaceX; and Sam Altman of OpenAI have all endorsed calls for a slower pace.

Mr. Trump has spent much of his second term aligning himself with A.I. accelerationists who have been pushing the U.S. government to clear away obstacles to growth. He has been influenced in particular by Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia, and David Sacks, a Silicon Valley investor who played a major role in shaping the administration's policies on A.I.

The president has embraced their arguments that imposing additional guardrails on American companies would allow China to "win" the A.I. race.

Beijing, however, has its own anxieties about the technology — and they may lead to more regulation, not less. Chen Yixin, China's security minister, recently warned that the leading A.I. models pose risks to the Chinese system and called for stricter government oversight.

Mr. Trump has also dismissed the domestic backlash to the industry's growth. He claimed in his social media post on Monday that widespread opposition to the building of data centers — a major political issue emerging across the United States ahead of the midterm elections — is part of a “conspiracy” rather than the outgrowth of genuine public anxiety.

"There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China," the president posted. "WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!"

Elsewhere, governments are moving toward stricter oversight. Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada told Bloomberg News on Monday that he favored the creation of a global “technology stability” body to oversee artificial intelligence.

"There's a need for coordination," Mr. Carney said in the interview. "Ultimately, a technology stability board, in our view, along the lines of the Financial Stability Board would make sense."

Pushed by Conservatives, Colleges Change Which Classes Count as Core

In a move seen as politically driven, Texas A&M regents decertified 350 courses as core compliant.
SPENCER SELVIDGE/REUTERS

By ALAN BLINDER

At some of Texas' biggest public universities, students could once take courses in women's studies or climate change to check off graduation requirements. Classes about ethnic studies and literature's monsters were in the mix, too.

Not anymore.

ing them."

The range of courses that college students can take to meet general education requirements is narrowing in states that lean rightward, reshaped by ideological warfare over what higher education's values should be and what students actually need to know.

Core classes are meant to nudge students beyond the bubbles of their chosen majors and leave them more well-rounded. But the question of which courses qualify as core has prompted fierce jockeying among politicians, college presidents and professors, especially in Republican-controlled states where many conservatives are suspicious of academia.

How the clashes over which courses to count are resolved will shape undergraduate experiences for years to come.

Texas is seeing hundreds of courses stripped of their designations as classes that fulfill general education requirements. And in Florida, public universities are no longer allowing introductory sociology courses to satisfy core requirements.

Courses that are not included in core curriculums are often less appealing to students, and professors fret that plunging demand could cause their disciplines to shrivel and imperil their jobs. Sometimes, they say, the process seems more about politics than pedagogy.

"Whatever they say about it, it's clear that this is indoctrination," said Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor who has taught a climate change course that regents recently voted to remove from the core curriculum. "That's the key word. There are things that they don't want people to learn, and they're doing whatever they can to stop people from learn-

Some supporters of core changes counter that they are editing out classes with left-leaning concepts they see as their own brand of indoctrination. They argue that core curriculums have become too broad and should be tailored to meet the needs of specific places and eras, preparing students for the work force and making their degrees more valuable.

James E. Davis, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, recounted to regents what he had told a committee reviewing the core on his campus: "We are going to produce 100,000 citizens over the next 10 years. What do you want them to know?"

Old Idea, Modern Conflict

The debates of societies and their scholars over the essence of education are ancient: Plato, after all, articulated his ideas for curriculum.

But the modern era of general education took root at Columbia University, which debuted a core with one course — “Contemporary Civilization” — in 1919. The idea took off at other schools. By the early 1960s, according to a contemporary article in the Journal of General Education, there were endemic disagreements about “quantity, quality, formulation and administration.”

Those clashes generally played out inside academia. Now political wrangling is commonplace.

In 2020, Democrats wrote a law that led the California State University system to include an ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement, arguing that it would prepare students to live in a multicultural society.

Since then, Republicans have been driving change. In 2023, a Florida law to overhaul the core described the types of topics that should be included, like the “historical background and philosophical foundation of Western civilization,” and which ones should not, such as “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.”

In some states, politicians have sought to add specific subjects to core curriculums. Ohio officials approved a law last year banning universities from granting bachelor's degrees to people who have not finished a course on "American civic literacy," with mandatory readings of the Constitution, the works of Adam Smith and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 open letter from a jail in Birmingham, Ala.

'Back to Basics' in Texas

Today, Texas is the biggest battleground.

A law passed last year says that core courses should, among other conditions, be “foundational and fundamental to a sound postsecondary education.” One goal, it said, was to equip students for the work force.

A Republican state senator pushed the measure and soon after became the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, where administrators have used artificial intelligence to scrub the

curriculum.

The law is now the backdrop for scrambling statewide.

At the University of Texas at Austin, a task force recently proposed a core curriculum of 36 credit hours, down from 42, that would require students to take classes covering matters like "Great Questions of Human Life," Western civilization and "Great Ideas in Science."

Although campus officials are still ironing out details, Kevin P. Eltife, a Republican former state senator who chairs the university system's board, declared that the blueprint was "what this board has been asking for for quite a long time: to get back to basics."

Texas A&M system regents recently decertified 350 course entries as core compliant, including ones about Black people in the United States, Texas literature, crime and gender studies.

"Not every worthwhile course has to be a core course," Robert L. Albritton, the system board's chairman, said in a statement.

"The core is the foundation every undergraduate carries into a degree. It should be focused, rigorous and worth the time and tuition students invest."

Dr. Dessler, the climate change expert, said that students should understand how a warming planet stood to affect so many aspects of modern life.

"It's a big deal in the world, and that's exactly what college should be teaching people about," he said.

The University of Houston has also been whittling its core. Before recent changes, some tied to low enrollments and other factors unrelated to the new state law, 280 courses at Houston's main campus could be used to fulfill a core requirement.

Now that number will be 147.

Although classes on subjects like women's or L.G.B.T. studies are no longer considered general education offerings, the core still includes topics many conservatives consider anathema, like sociology and histories of certain races and ethnicities.

But María C. González, an English professor who sat on the committee that reviewed Houston's core behind closed doors, said in an interview that political considerations had lurked during deliberations.

People would make references like “the current atmosphere we’re dealing with,” she said, and they worried about how courses could “call attention to us being a woke university.”

Appearing before regents in August, Dr. González said her committee was being “used to whitewash” an overhaul she thought would leave academic power concentrated with administrators who would carry out elected officials’ wishes.

"Our leadership bends to the whims of politics," said Dr. González, who has accused Houston of backtracking on its pledge for a meaningful appeals process.

In a statement, a spokesman for Houston, DJ Sprenger, did not directly address Dr. González's account. But he said this year's review had "centered on academic purpose, focusing on what is truly foundational to delivering the knowledge, intellectual skills and critical thinking expected of every graduate."

Dr. González acknowledged that different universities may want to prioritize different topics. The core she navigated as an undergraduate at a Catholic university was loaded with theology, language, philosophy and history — not always subjects deemed essential at public institutions.

"All of us are probably going to disagree about what should be foundational knowledge," she said. "But we should come together, have a discussion and figure it out together."

In a memo in August, Houston's provost, Diane Z. Chase, said that any courses removed from the core curriculum would still be offered. And she noted a state board's recommendations could lead to more debate.

"If approved by the Legislature," Dr. Chase wrote, "all universities will undergo another revision of their core curriculum next summer."

Khalil Alleges Columbia Failed to Protect Activists

SCOTT HEINS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Mahmoud Khalil said administrators didn't heed his requests for protection after receiving threats.

By SHARON OTTERMAN

A group of pro-Palestinian former student activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, sued Columbia University in federal court on Monday, accusing the institution of failing to address the persistent and severe harassment they said they encountered as a result of their advocacy.

Mr. Khalil, 31, became the face of Columbia's pro-Palestinian movement on March 8, 2025, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested him at his Columbia University apartment building, even though he was a legal permanent resident and not accused of a crime. He spent 104 days in detention, missing the birth of his first child.

In the weeks and months before his arrest, he had repeatedly asked Columbia administrators to help protect him against the escalating threats he was receiving for his pro-Palestinian advocacy, he said in an interview on Sunday. He said he did not receive assistance.

Columbia's failure to support him was part of a pattern of “deliberate indifference” against him and other pro-Palestinian students that began even before the Hamas-led terror attacks of Oct. 7, according to the lawsuit that he and fellow former students filed on Monday in Manhattan.

"I'm not suing Columbia for what ICE did," Mr. Khalil said. "I'm suing Columbia for creating the conditions for ICE to do what it did."

Columbia declined to comment on the litigation, but released a general statement in response.

"Creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university," said Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman.

Mr. Khalil, who still faces deportation, emerged as a foil for the Trump administration during its aggressive crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests. His detention sparked demonstrations nationwide and crystallized concerns that under President Trump, even a legal permanent resident could be detained for political speech. In recent months, Mr. Khalil has also filed a lawsuit accusing Trump administration officials, pro-Israel groups and a conservative think tank of colluding to suppress his constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed on Monday seeks to hold Columbia responsible for failing to end the harassment it claims was faced by more than a dozen members of the SIPA Palestine Working Group, an advocacy organization that Mr. Khalil led while a student at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs between 2023 and 2025.

The student group was formed in 2018 to “encourage a more holistic understanding of Palestine,” according to its mission statement. The lawsuit charges that when the fliers for the group’s events were torn down, or when group members faced anti-Palestinian or Islamophobic rhetoric from fellow students, Columbia did not do enough to stop it.

The lawsuit says that the treatment of the group worsened under the current dean of SIPA, Keren Yarhi-Milo, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. After she began as dean in 2022, the group faced extra roadblocks when organizing events compared with other organizations, the lawsuit claims. When its events did take place, Columbia sent security personnel, which pro-Palestinian students found intimidating.

After the Oct. 7 attacks, an outside organization, Accuracy in Media, published photographs and names of student group members that were accessible only to people with Columbia passwords, the lawsuit said. The students were publicly shamed on a truck circling campus with their faces under the words "Columbia's Leading Antisemites."

When students met with Dean Yarhi-Milo to ask that she investigate who leaked the photographs, she initially dismissed their concerns, the lawsuit stated. The images were removed from the Columbia platform several days later, but the damage was already done, the lawsuit said.

Websites that Accuracy in Media created that accuse the former students of being antisemitic remain active.

In a statement, Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media, said his group had “repeatedly delivered accountability to Columbia’s pro-Hamas radicals,” using language that echoed the Trump administration’s description of pro-Palestinian campus protesters.

Dean Yarhi-Milo did condemn the doxxing campaigns and form an anti-doxxing task force. In 2025, Columbia introduced a anti-doxxing and online harassment

Pro-Palestinian former students sue, claiming that their rights were violated.

policy prohibiting the malicious publication of personal identifying information. She did not respond to a request for comment.

In September 2025, the Palestine Working Group was indefinitely suspended. An office at Columbia created after the Oct. 7 attacks to investigate civil rights claims, the Office of Institutional Equity, claimed that the group had co-posted two Instagram posts that contributed to a harassing environment. Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi, who took over as group president after Mr. Khalil's detention, said in an interview that Dean Yahri-Milo had particularly objected to being called "Killer Keren" in the posts.

Mr. Zubairi said that it was common among protesting students at Columbia to use insults aimed at administrators in their public capacity and that the barring of the group was a disproportionate and unfair punishment. The group has refused to comply with conditions for reinstatement, including revealing who had access to its Instagram account and attending an in-person training, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, which claims that Columbia violated Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act, seeks the reinstatement of the Palestine Working Group, monetary damages and access to campus for Mr. Khalil, who has been blocked repeatedly from the main Columbia campus since his release from prison.

This is Mr. Khalil's second lawsuit against Columbia. The first, filed on March 13, 2025, challenges Columbia's disclosure of student disciplinary records to a congressional committee. Separately, another group of pro-Palestinian students and faculty sued Columbia in New York State court in August for failing to protect them from a hostile campus climate after the Oct. 7 attacks.

Mr. Khalil said that Columbia should have pushed back against claims from the Trump White House and others that its pro-Palestinian students were dangerous and antisemitic. It is a charge that he and the other activists strongly reject.

"I don't want any student, regardless of their background and identity, to go through the hell that I went through the past three years because of Columbia's actions," he said.

Benefits of Child Care Unite Mayor and Business Leaders

By ELIZA SHAPIRO

There isn't much that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York City's business community see eye to eye on.

The need for affordable child care is quickly becoming an exception.

A new group of city business leaders, called the NYC Child Care Business Council, has formed to help make the case that expanded child care is not a progressive fantasy but an economic necessity for a city that has seen an exodus of young families with children in recent years.

The plan is for the council to informally lobby other business leaders — some of whom may be wary of the mayor because of his enthusiasm for taxing the rich — pushing them to see child care as one where they can find common cause with City Hall.

Business leaders tend to be bullish on child care because more affordable care makes it easier for them to retain talent, said Julie Samuels, a member of the new council.

"If we make it easier for tech workers to stay here, they will," said Ms. Samuels, who runs the tech advocacy group Tech: NYC. "And the companies will stay where the people they want to hire live."

A report from the city's Economic Development Corporation found that parents leaving the city or the work force cost New York City about \$23 billion in 2022, and the group convening the business council is expected to release a report with the Boston Consulting Group containing updated findings later this fall.

"You cannot build a competitive work force on top of a broken child care system," said Grace Rauh, who runs the watchdog group Citizens Union. The business council is being organized by the 5Boro Institute, a think tank within Citizens Union.

The council's founding members include leaders of heavy-hitting groups like the Partnership for New York City, the Association for a Better New York and the Real Estate Board of New York. Other member organizations include Con Edison, the online retailer Etsy and the chambers of commerce for all five boroughs.

They will be entering the fray at a high-stakes moment for the future of child care in New York.

The need for low-cost or free care has emerged as something approaching a consensus issue among the many power centers in New York, including major philanthropies, the mayor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, the City Council and the State Legislature.

But a truly universal system could cost about \$9 billion a year, according to a recent report by the

Center for New York City Affairs at the New School. And there are deep divisions about how to actually pay for such a program.

Mr. Mamdani and his allies have called for a tax increase on city residents making more than \$1 million a year. But any tax increase would have to be approved in Albany, and the governor has not shown a willingness to raise taxes. Instead, Ms. Hochul pledged \$1.2 billion this year to kick off the city's child care expansion. There is currently no funding plan after the money runs out.

Raising the funds through taxes is not an approach that some members of the NYC Child Care Business Council will likely back.

James Whelan, who runs the Real Estate Board of New York, has called tax increases “a non-starter.” And Steve Fulop, head of the Partnership for New York City, said in an interview that “the pitch from the extreme political side — just tax everybody — ultimately will not accomplish the outcome they want.”

“Conceptually, we are supportive of child care,” Mr. Fulop added, “but there are a lot of questions around the details.”

Emmy Liss, the director of the city's child care office, said in a statement that she was supportive of the new council. "This council echoes what New Yorkers in all five boroughs made clear last year: Universal child care is a critical investment in our city's future, and every New Yorker stands to benefit," she said.

Even if some of the group's members oppose the tax hike that Mr. Mamdani wants, they may try to persuade the governor to continue to fund the city's child care expansion. Ms. Hochul is much closer to New York's business community than the mayor and may look to business leaders for support if she decides to continue funneling significant state funds to the city's child care push.

Jen Goodman, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Ms. Hochul was “grateful” that the council would bring “critical partners to the table as we work together on our shared commitment to deliver universal child care statewide.”

The group could also appeal to local philanthropies to help fill budget holes before the city finds a permanent funding source. The Robin Hood Foundation recently received a \$100 million gift from the family of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, earmarked for preschool education in New York.

The city's own fund-raising efforts have been much more modest. A push to raise \$20 million for a new “child care action fund” aimed at paying for pilot programs within the child care expansion has so far brought in about \$6 million.

The New York Times

COLUMNIST | DAVID FRENCH

The Fix Was Almost In

IT'S ONLY SEPTEMBER, and America just barely averted the first constitutional crisis of this year's midterm elections.

Hang with me here, because this gets a bit complicated. Last September, the Missouri Legislature passed a redistricting bill called H.B. 1. This bill was part of the wave of middecade census redistricting initiated after President Trump essentially ordered Texas last July to redistrict to create more Republican-majority congressional districts and diminish Democratic voting power in the state.

Texas dutifully complied, and this set off a lopsided redistricting arms race between red states and blue states that has resulted in Republicans thus far potentially gaining 10 additional districts, a number that — in a close election — could easily decide control of the House.

To illustrate how important 10 seats could be, the House majority for both Republicans and Democrats hasn't exceeded 10 members after an election since the 2018 midterms.

Missouri, a bright red state, has eight representatives in Congress, two Democrats and six Republicans. The Legislature altered the maps to eliminate one of the Democratic seats, hoping to create an even more lopsided outcome — leaving the roughly 40 percent of Missourians who vote Democratic with, in essence, only one Democratic representative.

The Missouri Constitution, however, contains a provision that says that the people of the state “reserve power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly, except as hereinafter provided.”

POOL PHOTO BY LIZ RYMAREV

On Dec. 9, 2025, a coalition of Missourians who sought to overturn H.B. 1 submitted a referendum petition that contained more than 300,000 signatures — more than enough to put it on the November ballot.

As the Missouri Supreme Court has explained, by law, once the petition was submitted, the Missouri secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, had until Aug. 4, 2026, at 5 p.m. to accept or reject the petition, but his power to reject the petition was sharply limited by Missouri law.

Hoskins, it will surprise no one, is a Republican. Before now, his main moment in the media spotlight came when he was sued for defamation after he publicly but falsely identified a man named Denton Loudermill Jr. as an illegal immigrant and a suspect in a deadly shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl celebration in 2024.

Complicating the picture further, the state's primary elections were set for Aug. 4. Given this reality, a responsible secretary of state would accept or reject the petition well before August, so that the matter could be fully litigated before the primaries.

But no, the state plunged forward with the primaries anyway, and on Aug. 4 at about 4 p.m. — one hour before the deadline — the secretary of state also rejected the petition, arguing that the Missouri Constitution does not permit a referendum on redistricting plans.

In other words, the primaries were conducted under the new maps when the Republican secretary of state was in possession of a referendum petition challenging those maps. He rejected that petition under his own, novel legal theory that he knew would be challenged in court.

If you think that's brazen, just wait.

On Sept. 3, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion holding that

The midterms dodged their first MAGA bullet. It won't be the last.

Denny Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state.

voters do have the right to overturn redistricting legislation by referendum, that the petition was sufficient to put the referendum on the November ballot and that — as a result — “H.B.1 is not the law and has never been the law.”

Missouri appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in a one-sentence order issued on Sept. 8, Justice Brett Kavanaugh refused to stay the Missouri ruling. This outcome was predictable. The Missouri Supreme Court has the final say over matters of Missouri law, not the U.S. Supreme Court.

So the matter was over, right? The Missouri Republican Party lost. The old maps were in force, and the referendum was on the November ballot instead.

NOT SO FAST — two things happened in rapid succession. Minutes after Justice Kavanaugh rendered his decision, Judge Stephen Clark, a Trump-appointed Federal District Court judge in Missouri, issued a temporary restraining order in a separate federal case ordering Missouri to use the new maps.

How could the judge do this after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled? Because the case in Federal District Court raised federal claims. The judge ordered that the new maps be used in part because those were the maps used in the primary, and restoring the old maps “would disenfranchise primary-election voters and undermine the nominations of candidates chosen in the primaries, leading to 'certain' and 'great' harm."

But wait. Wasn't the primary conducted in bad faith? The secretary of state had the referendum petition sitting on his desk for months and pushed ahead with the primary anyway. No matter. The Federal District Court ordered the use of the new maps anyway.

That same day (Sept. 8 was quite hectic), the secretary of state wrote an email directing that the new maps should still be used in November, directly defying the Missouri Supreme Court. The court was not amused and immediately scheduled a hearing for Sept. 10 to determine whether to hold Hoskins in contempt of court.

Then things got really wild.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit refused to stay the Federal District Court's order, and the case was immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On the morning of Sept. 10, just before the scheduled contempt hearing, the Supreme Court weighed in again. In a short, unsigned order with no noted dissents, it stayed the Federal District Court's ruling, which meant that the Missouri Supreme Court was back in charge. The old maps were back in force.

The new maps would apply only to the next election — if they survived the November referendum.

tempt hearing, Hoskins bobbed and weaved. Rather than provide any clear answers to the court, his attorney said options were being “carefully evaluated.” Before the court adjourned, Chief Justice W. Brent Powell of the Missouri Supreme Court directed Hoskins to “not venture far from Jefferson City,” the capital of Missouri.

That should have largely ended the matter. But, incredibly, it did not. At the con-

Finally, Hoskins blinked. "Following the United States Supreme Court's stay, the only governing court order in effect is from the Missouri Supreme Court," he said in a statement. "In accordance with that order, my Office is directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map."

The Missouri Supreme Court then issued a written order holding Hoskins in contempt of court — saying he'd engaged in “contumacious conduct” (strong words in legalese that mean willfully disobedient or rebellious) — but that he'd “purged” himself of his contempt through his belated compliance.

A fraudulent election was averted, for now.

I WANTED TO walk through this situation in detail because it's indicative of exactly how MAGA attempts to fix elections. It uses the complexity of the law (and public ignorance of the law) to obscure the utter brazenness of its defiance.

This conduct is more than a little reminiscent of the campaign to overturn the 2020 election results. That time around, the Trump team tried to exploit legal complexity and public ignorance to create a cloud of confusion around what were — in reality — crystal clear election results. And that cloud of confusion ultimately triggered outright legal defiance, culminating in the violence of Jan. 6.

Missouri Republicans crossed the line, right before they jumped back. Hoskins engaged in gross legal gamesmanship by rejecting the referendum petition on specious grounds the very day of the primary election. He then tried to use that legal gamesmanship to justify using the new maps.

MAGA might blame the Missouri Supreme Court for disenfranchising voters by throwing out the maps used in the primaries, but the court didn't disenfranchise primary voters; Hoskins did.

Legal gamesmanship is one thing. Out-right defiance is another. It raised the nightmare scenario. What do we do when a state government defies a court, and the court has no independent means of enforcing its decision?

And consider this: All of that gamesmanship and all of that defiance were over one House district, and they occurred weeks before the election, without any overt pressure from Trump to break the law.

In other words, prepare yourself.

Whenever I write about potential MAGA efforts to steal the 2026 midterms, I'm assured that those efforts will fail. That the law is against MAGA. That the voters (at this point) seem to be against MAGA. I agree that the law and the voters stand against MAGA, but they did in 2020 as well. As you may recall, that was the year we were one Mike Pence yes away from the gravest constitutional crisis since the South Carolina secession convention of December 1860 effectively launched the Civil War.

The corrupt machinations of the Missouri case reveal that MAGA's perfidy is limited only by its creativity. And while we keep dodging MAGA's legal bullets, I fear that it is only a matter of time before one hits.

Let the U.S. Open Fly Its Freak Flag

A former co-editor in chief of The Hollywood Reporter.

Nekesa Mumbi Moody

I LOVE social media and I love tennis, so for two weeks my algorithm served up outrage after outrage about the influencers who invaded the U.S. Open.

This year's Open already seemed to be the nadir for an experience that's been going downhill for a while. First, there were the increasingly exorbitant prices, then the horror expressed by luxury suite ticket holders that they no longer had private bathrooms thanks to renovations at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Most outrage-inducing, however, was the influx of influencers: Social media stars courted and invited by the tournament's organizers expressly to expand the audience for the tournament, but who were seemingly more invested in getting likes than in promoting the tennis version of love.

Many people have commented on how the influencers' high jinks were at odds with tennis's vision of itself as a serious, sophisticated and genteel sport. But the problem with these invaders wasn't that they detracted from the solemnity of tennis. It's that they distracted from the raucous on-court antics, celebrity glamour and glorious chaos that traditionally typify the action at Flushing Meadows.

LANNA APISUKH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

One group of influencers went viral, probably not the way they intended, during Naomi Osaka's opening night match when the choreographed movements they were performing and filming in their luxury box led to their being chided publicly by the chair umpire. Another would-be social media star was admonished online for using a ring light while taking a photograph in the stands during match play. In the wake of the U.S. Open fiasco, Wimbledon confirmed it would not be courting influencers next year, as its current rules prohibit the use of technology "in a manner which inconveniences or unreasonably disrupts any other attendees including spectators or players."

To be clear, as a tennis aficionado who has attended probably 20 U.S. Open tournaments over the years, I was horrified by the influ-

Influencers distracted from the glorious chaos of the tennis at Flushing Meadows.

encers' antics. But I've also watched enough tennis at Arthur Ashe to know it's always played host to boorish and outlandish behavior. Remember the actual fight in the stands? What about the woman in the crowd at a U.S. Open match who revealed herself to be a champion beer chugger when she was featured on a big screen? Despite tennis's reputation as a gentle person's game, New York fans are always quick to give a Bronx cheer (even while in Queens). Outraged spectators lustily booed the chair umpire after Ms. Osaka upset Serena Williams in the contentious 2018 women's finals.

That's simply what transpired in the stands. Now let's talk about what happened on the court. I was in attendance when Ms.

Williams, playing against Kim Clijsters, was called for a foot fault during a pivotal comeback moment, and what came next — including shouted expletives and a threat to shove a tennis ball down a certain lineswoman's throat — is part of tennis history. The U.S. Open is also where Irina Spirlea seemed to intentionally bump a teenage Venus Williams while changing ends in 1997, and where Novak Djokovic was disqualified in the early rounds in 2020 after swatting a ball in anger and unwittingly hitting a line judge in the throat. Even the typically unflappable Roger Federer lost his cool at the Open: he let an expletive fly as he got rattled during his eventual loss to Juan Martín del Potro in 2009.

No wonder the U.S. Open often feels like tennis's hard-partying outpost gone wild: Thanks to ever later starting matches, the place gets especially lively after dark — some of the most memorable points and boisterous moments have happened in the wee hours of the morning. Ben Shelton recently vanquished Carlos Alcaraz in their quarterfinal match at 3:33 a.m., the latest finish in the Open's history, with thousands still in the stadium.

And who needs tawdry influencers when your tournament already draws the best, or at least the most, celebrities in tennis? The U.S. Open has reliably attracted icons from Aretha Franklin to Beyoncé and Jay-Z, from Anna Wintour in her sunglasses to Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, putting on a PDA show three years ago.

That's the influencers' biggest transgression: not that they're stealing attention from the action but that they're not paying attention to it. Tennis is all about engaging in the moment, following the action on the court and in the stands, not making moments for online engagement. We tennis fans can tolerate, and even celebrate, obnoxious behavior at Flushing Meadows. But for goodness' sake, it has to at least involve tennis.

The Cultural Vibe Shift Is Just Beginning

Matthew Schmitz

"UNDER THE SUN NO. 12" BY JIM KRANTZ/GILMAN CONTEMPORARY

The editor of the magazine Compact and a host of the politics and culture podcast "Counterculture."

THERE is a paradox at the heart of American pop culture. The United States, in recent years, has never had a higher share of foreign-born residents, and it has never been more racially and ethnically diverse. Yet forms of entertainment that are associated with an older, whiter, more rural America — notably, country music and TV westerns — are thriving, even dominating.

Ella Langley's song “Choosin' Texas” has spent 21 weeks atop the Billboard charts, outlasting songs such as Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together” and Whitney Houston's “I Will Always Love You.” In the first week of August, for the first time ever, the top five songs on the Hot 100 were country singles. Even Taylor Swift's latest release, a generically poppy tune tied to the movie “Toy Story 5,” has been marketed as a country song — an apparent acknowledgment that there are advantages to identifying with the genre she left behind in 2014.

According to Nielsen's multiplatform ratings, four of the top 10 TV shows this season are westerns or neo-westerns such as "Landman" and "Dutton Ranch." And Gen Z, though more diverse than any previous generation, has been conspicuously participating in this rural revival, embracing line dancing, Shania Twain and Coors beer.

These apparently opposed trends may in fact be related. When America was overwhelmingly white and more closely tied to its rural past, country and western motifs could be seen as conventional and confining. But today, with much of the population concentrated in cities and on the coasts, and as white non-Hispanic Americans inch closer to becoming a minority, the mores and manners of the country's rural working class increasingly offer a source of authenticity.

How things have changed. In 1971, television executives canceled several popular but unfashionable country-fried TV shows, including “Green Acres,” “Hee Haw” and “The Beverly Hillbillies,” in what came to be known as the rural purge. Though the purge had a commercial justification in the desire of television programmers to appeal to younger, more affluent and urban viewers, it also reflected a cultural judgment: Rural entertainment was déclassé, as were the people who liked it. (Fred Silverman, the CBS executive who spearheaded the programming change, denounced “mindless rural pap” in a speech to broadcasters.)

Decades after the rural purge, we are seeing the opposite — a rural surge. Downhome genres have gained new salience even outside red-state redoubts, sometimes as they are flipped and remixed by artists of all stripes. Beyoncé participated in this shift by donning long blond hair and putting out a country album, “Cowboy Carter,” in 2024. And witness the success of “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey’s hip-hop-inflected country single, or of “The Giver,” Chappell Roan’s queer take on Shania-style country pop.

Country music and other forms of rural culture were long associated with a kind of white conventionality (a reputation that developed even though these genres were shaped in significant ways by Black artists). By contrast, the modes and manners of a Black art form like hip-hop — or, in an earlier era, bebop — could offer consumers a

Rural stories, once seen as conventional, now represent the underdog.

nonconformist thrill. Social marginalization gave Black-coded cultural forms a coveted distance from mainstream society.

But today social marginalization means something different. After trading for decades on its countercultural identity, hip-hop, for example, has become thoroughly conventional. It reached a peak market share of nearly 30 percent in 2020 — a year in which one in five Fortune 500 companies pledged to support racial justice in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Today, it's country music that — for all its commercial success — represents the underdog. As diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives accord advantages to everyone except straight white men; as globalization and an urban, knowledge-based economy have impoverished and emptied out rural communities; and as trust in institutions including higher education and the federal government declines, the culture of rural working-class whites can symbolize an unconstrained way of life that stands apart from the stifling, all-encompassing H.R. bureaucracy that everyone else lives in.

Donald Trump, of course, tapped into this anti-establishment energy to power his unlikely political rise. But in subsequent years, you could also see this dynamic in the vogue for candidates such as Tim Walz (a native Nebraska who drives an IH Scout, a classic farm vehicle), the politically doomed oyster farmer Graham Platner and Dan Osborn, the Plains progressive who sports pearl-snap shirts. You can also see it in demographic shifts: The South and Mountain West might once have been seen as economic and cultural backwaters, but those regions now lead the nation in working-age population growth, and Southern colleges are increasingly attracting students from outside the region.

Much discussion of the so-called vibe shift of 2024 centered around Mr. Trump. Today, his sagging poll numbers — dragged down by headlines about Jeffrey Epstein, Iran and the economy — may be read as a sign that the vibe has shifted back. Politically speaking, that appears to be true. But the rural surge suggests that in broad cultural terms, the country continues to trend right. In the cultural contest between blue and red America, lots of people are choosing Texas.

LETTERS

The Need to Regulate A.I., and Ourselves

TO THE EDITOR:

Re "The A.I. Safety Experts Can't Sleep, and Neither Should You," by Stephen Witt (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 13):

Mr. Witt is right to sound the alarm on the dangers of leaving the rapidly advancing A.I. industry largely to regulate itself. But despite the recent urging by Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, to slow down A.I. development, the prospect seems unlikely.

At this month's G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, N.C., hosted by the Department of Commerce and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the United States urged other nations toward a hands-off approach to A.I. regulation. Elon Musk has recently criticized Europe's more risk-based regulatory system because it "inhibits progress" and "slows it down."

That is a remarkable position. We have an industry developing technology that its own researchers warn could pose catastrophic risks, while saying that competitive pressures make slowing development extraordinarily difficult. Meanwhile, an NBC News poll found that 81 percent of Americans believe that the government is not doing enough to regulate A.I.

This demands national — and ultimately international — leadership. Congress should move fast to establish enforceable safety standards, independent evaluation of the most capable models and mechanisms for cooperation with China and other A.I. powers.

The technology is advancing at an extraordinary speed. How much more evidence do our political leaders need before concluding that voluntary self-regulation is not enough? MERVYN TURNER SCOTCH PLAINS, N.J.

TO THE EDITOR:

Our preoccupation with hypothetical A.I. doom feels like a reasonable yet questionable form of displacement. It is far easier to project our anxieties onto unfeeling algorithms than to confront an uncomfortable truth: Our greatest adversary has always been ourselves.

Every year, millions of lives are lost to entirely controllable causes — chronic hunger, treatable illness, armed conflict, car crashes and acts of violence. The tragedy is not that these crises are insoluble; we already possess the resources, medicine and technology to prevent them.

No future superintelligence needs to orchestrate our downfall. We are already authoring it through our own persistent indifference and division.

So, while we look to the machines in fear, we must also look in the mirror and recognize that our greatest threat is also our greatest hope. DAVID C. ZWEIG LOS ANGELES

TO THE EDITOR:

While I enthusiastically applaud Dario Amodei's willingness to submit Anthropic's A.I. programs to third-party review, his company's new policy doesn't address the most important question for humanity: Should we allow a private company to own a tool that could cause mass unemployment and economic destruction and threaten lives?

It is illegal for companies to own nuclear weapons and most deadly pathogens, and Congress should make private ownership of superintelligent A.I. illegal as well.

Instead, the United States should contract with companies to develop such a tool. Congress should ensure that a nationally owned superintelligent A.I. system is highly regulated so that it is used solely to protect the American people from attack by our adversaries.

Let's restore some sanity by allowing private companies to develop only A.I. products that can be deployed safely. ILIR ZHERKA, WASHINGTON

TO THE EDITOR:

Not to take the current panic of rogue A.I. too lightly, but Stephen Witt's essay put me in mind of a 1956 science fiction movie, "Forbidden Planet." The movie is probably best remembered for its introduction of Robby the Robot, who became a popular children's toy after the movie's release. But the heart of the story seems eerily prescient.

On a planet far out in space, an extremely advanced race, called the Krell, develops technology that advances to the point of unlimited power, including the elimination of all disease, death, war and physical labor. But the entire civilization disappeared in one night.

As visitors to the planet millions of years later eventually determine, the Krell's own technology destroyed their race by releasing the worst impulses of their collective subconscious. Their collective id created monsters that tore them to pieces.

There is much to learn from old movies.

ALICE PORTER, NATICK, MASS.

TO THE EDITOR:

Let the historical record reflect that it was human intelligence, not so-called superintelligent A.I., that raised the clarion calls to put the brakes on the unthinkable risks of proceeding at dangerous speed with the development of patently fool-hardy A.I. models.

WILLIAM AUGUST CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

A.I. Slopware Is Ubiquitous. Nobody Is Using It.

Paul Ford

A technologist, an essayist and a contributing Opinion writer.

THE number of mobile apps available on Apple's App Store was up 30 percent last year, according to one estimate. But downloads were up only 3 percent.

It isn't just apps. Software in general — everything made of code — is suddenly available in huge, heaping quantities. Thanks to artificial intelligence, you can now, in plain language, tell a computer to write code, and it will often do an excellent job. These capabilities get better nearly every week.

But when was the last time you ended up marveling at a new app or game on your phone? Whither the applications like Slack that take industries by storm, or games like Candy Crush that dominate our subway commutes? Is it just all app slop from here on? Did A.I. kill the “killer app”?

That would be a natural conclusion to draw, but I think that we're headed for a very different kind of digital revolution. We shouldn't expect a spate of A.I.-made software to replace all our existing tools. After all, people don't like to switch to new software unless they must. A.I.'s real strength may be to make many new things that play a more moderate, specific role: reducing sources of small friction that otherwise stack up in our lives.

Most big corporate efforts to use A.I. to increase productivity fail — perhaps as many as 95 percent, according to an M.I.T. study published last year. A boss sits a team down — let's say it's a financial services firm, or a consulting firm — and asks them to use A.I. to improve the sales process or track relationships, and after a lot of trial and error, it doesn't work out. This finding is quite awkward, given the projected multi-billion-dollar valuations of A.I. companies, but nothing I've learned from talking to dozens of people in the industry disproves it. People are hopeful that a bold A.I.-powered future is right around the corner. They are tantalized. They often use A.I. tools all the time individually. But companies' internal efforts don't work.

I don't blame the coders for this, or even the bosses. I blame the big A.I. companies, who are in such a hurry that they often release new versions of their models and tools without manuals or even clear YouTube tutorials. When projects fail, the implication is that humans just need to stop everything else they're doing and prompt the models harder.

But that's a hard trick for an old industry to learn. The tech industry loves to act as if it just sprang out of Zeus' forehead, but it's actually a septuagenarian, and surprisingly set in its ways. It will take years before A.I. tools can fully supersede traditional approaches to making software. As dramatic as everyone would like this revolution to be, it's barely begun.

Venture capital money that drives tech innovation is being poured almost exclusively into A.I. Products that aren't A.I.-first (such as an old-school game or a task organizer) seem like a risky investment. Why invest in a culture that will soon be gone? If A.I. makes software cheap and abundant, and digital products are easy to clone, then it will be hard to compete. Software used to be the ultimate "moat" — but now it's starting to look like a commodity. That's another reason the App Store is now flooded with unimaginative apps instead of thrilling new efforts.

Which gets to something fundamental about A.I. coding, and A.I. in general: It's very good at reproducing things that look and feel like what came before. It can make a PowerPoint presentation, or even, with time and coaching from a human, a flimsy version of PowerPoint itself. But making something new, something no one has seen before, takes much more time — sometimes just as long as it took before A.I.

Where A.I. excels, I think, is in letting you get access to aspects of computing that were previously out of reach. You can use A.I. to develop complex business models, machine learning systems or advanced software that runs in a web browser. These were all utterly normal things before large language models showed up, but they required specific skills and tended to be the domain of very highly paid software developers. A.I. lets you learn these things as you go, and you're less likely to give up along the way.

JARED ORIEL.

The way I know this is true is that I see a lot of new software that only modestly improves certain things. Librarians are using A.I. to build better, more accessible historical archives; novelists are “writing” subsets of code and contributing to open-source projects; underfunded health care start-ups are whipping together custom tools to help people deal with insurance companies. None of this stuff ends up on the homepage of the biggest tech news outlets, and most of it probably will not make anyone a dime. It’s extremely normal software, not revolution-

Now that everyone can code, it's become clearer why many shouldn't.

ary or transformative. I think we're witnessing a cultural throat-clearing — people scribbling in their notebooks, getting ideas out.

For a while, I must admit, it looked as if software developer roles like mine were done for. How could we fight against tireless robots? But our industry is slowly realizing that making truly cutting-edge software still requires humans to think and work together, to maximize their skill sets and to practice their respective crafts. A.I. can write very good software, but it also makes it easy to do someone else's job badly, which is part of why all those projects fail. Now that everyone can code, it's become clearer why many shouldn't.

The reason they shouldn't is not spiritual but financial: Craft makes money, and A.I. tends to wreck your sense of craft. For months, we've seen report after report of companies encouraging all technical employees to use A.I. as much as possible to write more code — “tokenmaxxing”— even if costs skyrocketed. Now managers are hitting the brakes hard. The call to stop burning money? That's a sense of discipline re-emerging.

Some of the most interesting conversations I've had about A.I. are with organizations like food banks and small museums that have wanted to build simple custom apps for their patrons and donors, clean up their data or create smarter marketing tools, but never had the money. Often they have real qualms about A.I. and its social costs, and sometimes they decide not to use the technology at all. But many want to deliver good things to their constituents, and that seems more possible now because of A.I.

The future may not be a few huge apps running on a few huge platforms, generating tons of revenue; it could instead be tons of little ones, purpose-built for the church, mutual aid group, company department or softball league. I'd enjoy a future in which the answer to "Where's the great software A.I. was supposed to bring us?" is: "Everywhere."

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3 ENERGY

President Trump blamed Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil refineries for the global diesel shortage.

TECH | ECONOMY | MEDIA | FINANCE

4 INTERNATIONAL

The U.S. proved it still ruled women's basketball, defeating France for its fifth straight World Cup championship.

Business

10 SPORTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 B1

Tech Stocks Drop at Calls To Pull Back A.I. Progress

Tech leaders expressed worries about the safety of 'frontier' development.

By JOE RENNISON

Technology stocks around the world fell on Monday, after a chorus of senior executives at artificial intelligence companies called for slowing down the rapid pace of development of the transformative technology.

The Nasdaq Composite index, which is made up of many of the technology companies that have driven the broader stock market higher in recent years, fell 0.6 percent. Nvidia, Intel, Oracle and other companies at the forefront of the A.I. build-out all posted declines.

Ssense, a Canadian retailer, is moving a core part of its business to the U.S. to save customers from hefty tariffs.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange's semiconductor index, a benchmark for the companies involved in designing and manufacturing the computer chips that power A.I., fell almost 6 percent.

South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index, which is heavily influenced by two chip suppliers for A.I. data centers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, fell more than 3 percent. Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest chipmaker, fell 1.2 percent. Japan's main stock index also declined, with SoftBank, a major tech investment firm, shedding more than 10 percent.

In Europe, semiconductor stocks like ASML of the Netherlands and Infineon of Germany fell sharply.

The tech industry has been the engine powering global markets to repeated new highs in recent years as advances in A.I. have moved faster than investors initially expected.

Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, published a long blog post on Saturday calling on industry leaders to now slow A.I. development for fear of losing control of rapidly advancing mod-CONTINUED ON PAGE B5

High Yield On Bonds Poses Risk

By JOE RENNISON

The 10-year Treasury yield, one of the most important interest rates in the world, briefly rose to 5 percent on Monday, ending the day at its highest level in three years and capping a long stretch of turmoil in the bond market that has pushed up borrowing costs for companies and consumers.

Rates have reached levels that some worry could pose a risk to the economy. The rise in bond yields, which move in the opposite direction to prices, has been fueled by the effects of the war in the Middle East, worries that government spending is out of control and the explosion of spending — and borrowing — by artificial intelligence companies.

The Trump administration has tried to ease Treasury rates by intervening in financial markets, including by aggressively buying back billions of dollars of its bonds. But those efforts have failed to placate bond investors who on Monday pushed yields past 5 percent, as oil prices remained well above \$100 a barrel, driving fears of higher inflation.

The yield eased lower later in the day, ending the trading session at around 4.98 percent.

Last week, President Trump promised to pay \$5,000 to every American if the Republicans kept control of Congress in the midterm elections, a proposal that could add \$1 trillion to the federal deficit.

The 10-year Treasury yield briefly surpassed 5 percent in October 2023. Before that, the yield had not risen that high since 2007, the year before the global financial crisis.

While the drivers of rising CONTINUED ON PAGE B4

The New York Times

JUN CEN

Is A.I. Too Big to Slow Down?

The technology seems to develop faster than the systems that monitor and control it.

Some tech leaders say calls for federal regulation are self-serving and misplaced.

By SHEERA FRENKEL and DYLAN FREEDMAN

SAN FRANCISCO — More than a dozen top artificial intelligence researchers warned over the last week that the technology that A.I. companies are building is becoming a risk to humanity. The problem, the researchers said, is that the companies are bad at controlling the systems — as hard as they may try.

Coming on the heels of revelations that so-called A.I. agents from OpenAI escaped their testing system and hacked into the computers of another company, the new alarms from inside the A.I. research world added urgency to yearslong fears that companies are putting development speed and money over safety.

The researchers say the problem is twofold. First, companies need to create better safeguards for the newest A.I. models as they are being tested. Right now, because the A.I. works so fast, researchers need A.I. to monitor it. But that doesn't always work, because the A.I. monitors can appear to be more sympathetic to other A.I. systems than to the humans setting the rules.

That odd combination of A.I. troublemakers and A.I. guards that look the other way points to a second and more difficult issue known as alignment — an industry term that essentially means making sure that A.I. does what is best for humans. Companies have the difficult task of enshrining within A.I. a set of humanlike values so the models make decisions that align with what should be best for people.

CONTINUED ON PAGE B5

By KALLEY HUANG and MIKE ISAAC

SAN FRANCISCO — It took just a few hours over the weekend for well-known Silicon Valley figures to push back on calls by leading artificial intelligence companies to slow down the development of A.I. and to more tightly regulate the technology.

On Saturday, Dario Amodei, Anthropic's chief executive, said in an essay that A.I. was advancing too quickly for researchers to continue building it safely. He proposed that independent auditors monitor A.I. labs' safety work and that regulators allow the labs to work together to coordinate safety standards.

Although they appeared to differ on what should be done about it, Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive; Elon Musk, SpaceX's chief executive; and Demis Hass-abis, Google DeepMind's chair, all said they agreed on the need for a slower pace.

But other technology industry leaders were quick to question Dr. Amodei's motivations and whether he was sensationalizing the risks of A.I. to make it harder for other companies to compete with leading A.I. companies.

"Stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic," said David Sacks, a technology adviser for President Trump and the White House's former A.I. and crypto czar, in a social media post.

The criticism of the calls for a slowdown highlighted a deep divide between people who believe the government should police A.I. and others who believe regulatory CONTINUED ON PAGE B5

TOTAL RETURN TOTAL ASSETS

LITIGATION

Musk's Companies Resolve Antitrust Suit With Apple

Elon Musk's X Corp. and SpaceXAI said on Monday they have resolved their claims against Apple in a lawsuit that alleged the iPhone maker conspired with OpenAI to monopolize markets for smartphones and generative A.I. chatbots. X and SpaceXAI moved to dismiss the claims in a lawsuit they brought against Apple and OpenAI last year. The filing did not explain the reasons for

AUTOMOTIVE

BYD Bids for Foothold In Europe With Trucks

BYD, a Chinese E.V. maker, plans to launch its first heavy-duty truck in Europe next year and manufacture trucks locally, a senior executive said at the IAA trade fair in Hanover on Monday.

"For the long term, we will produce everything we sell in Europe here locally," said Stella Li, BYD's executive vice president and head of international business. She added that the company wanted to offer fleet operators a full package of services.

Local production in Europe would also help BYD avoid import tariffs on trucks. European manufacturers, including Traton's MAN brand, have called on the Euro-

AVIATION

Amid War Costs, AirBaltic Has Filed for Bankruptcy

Latvia's airBaltic voluntarily filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in New York, it said on Monday, as it seeks to restructure its debt pile and survive a deepening sector-wide crisis brought on by the Iran war.

AirBaltic said in a statement it had secured a commitment for €350 million, or \$405 million, in financing from lenders including Strategic Value Partners, Bardismissal or say whether a settle- ment had been reached.

The lawsuit claimed Apple violated antitrust law by exclusively integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence features on iPhones and other Apple devices. It alleged Apple had illegally shut out rivals in its partnership with OpenAI.

X and SpaceXAI said they will continue to pursue claims against OpenAI, which is also a defendant in the lawsuit. Musk's companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and neither did Apple and OpenAI. REUTERS

ILONA WISSENBACH/REUTERS

clays, Hayfin Capital Management, Morgan Stanley and Oaktree Capital Management to support its operations during the restructuring.

AirBaltic will use its bankruptcy to cancel or defer outstanding deliveries on a \$3.5 billion order for 40 additional planes from Airbus and \$106.7 million of additional aircraft engines from Pratt & Whitney, a court filing showed. It said it had already engaged with the planemaker to defer additional deliveries after this year.

RTX, Pratt & Whitney's owner, declined to comment. REUTERS

pean Union to impose tariffs on Chinese electric trucks similar to those already applied to Chinese E.V.s. BYD is also preparing to increase its passenger-car manufacturing footprint in Europe with a factory in Szeged, Hungary, next year. REUTERS

Oil Prices Jump as Attacks Choke Off Saudi Energy Supply

-0.5% 7,619.98

......

-0.3% 52,421.20

NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX -0.6% 26,186.41

10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD 4.98% +0.01 points

CRUDE OIL (U.S.) \$101.39 +\$1.34

Stocks & Bonds

\$4,351.90 -\$57.00

By JENNY GROSS and GREGORY SCHMIDT

Oil prices jumped above \$109 a barrel on Monday on concerns that energy supplies from the Persian Gulf would be further diminished by a drone attack on a critical pipeline in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Arabian Energy Ministry said it had closed its East-West Pipeline as a precautionary measure, but the shutdown came after reports that the Houthi militia had seized a strategic Red Sea island and a port city, which could further choke shipping in the area.

Already, most shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, has been halted. The East-West Pipeline, which shuttles oil from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, has become an important workaround for Saudi oil exports.

Oil prices rise.

■ The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, jumped on Monday, nearing \$110 a barrel before easing back to \$106. The cost of this type of crude has risen 50 percent since the start of the war. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, rose to nearly \$102 a barrel.

Traffic remains throttled.

- Ship operators continued to hold off on sending ships into and out of the Persian Gulf. On Sunday, 14 ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, twice the number the day before, according to Kpler, a ship tracking company. Before the war, about 130 ships a day passed through the vital waterway, which carried one-fifth of the world's oil.

■ On Sunday, a ship was hit while transiting the strait, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency. Marisks, a maritime risk firm, said that one crew member remained missing from the ship, which was struck while in Omani territorial waters.

The S&P 500 Index

■ Conditions in the strait are “escalating,” said Ana Subasic, a trade risk analyst at Kpler. “Now it’s a question of is this something that escalates further, or is this a cycle to bring it back to the negotiating table.”

■ The rates charged by operators of crude tankers have reached record highs, driven up by disruptions in the Middle East, according to Clarksons, a ship broker.

Tech pulls down stocks.

■ The S&P 500 edged lower at the close of trading on Monday. Technology stocks fared the worst, pulling the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 down half a percent, after a chorus of senior executives at A.I. companies over the weekend called for slowing down the pace of development of the technology.

■ Stocks in Asia mostly fell. The Nikkei 225 declined 0.8 percent, while stocks in mainland China also dropped. The worst performers were in South Korea, where the KOSPI index declined 3.3 percent.

■ In Europe, the Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region's largest companies, was down slightly.

Bond yields: 5 percent.

- The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond reached 5 percent on Monday, the highest level in three years, as inflation worries mount. - Yields have been pushed higher by concerns over higher energy prices caused by the war in Iran, as well as increased borrowing by governments and spending on A.I. infrastructure.

■ The 10-year Treasury yield influences consumer borrowing like mortgages and auto loans. The average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage ticked up to 6.76 percent last week.

Gas prices tick higher.

■ U.S. gasoline prices rose to a national average of \$4.32 a gallon on Monday, according to the AAA motor club. Prices for a gallon of regular gas are now 45 percent higher than they were before 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 continues to rise. It was \$6.23 a gallon on Monday, up 66 percent since the start of the war.

What Happened in Stock Markets Yesterday

S&P 500 COMPANIES
S&P 500 7,619.98 ↓ -0.5%

Worst performers

Nasdaq Composite Index 26,186.41 ↓ -0.6%

Best performers

S&P 500 COMPANIES	CLOSE	CHANGE
1. Corning (GLW)	$143.60	-13.7%
2. Teradyne (TER)	$329.20	-13.3
3. Coherent (COHR)	$266.50	-12.7
4. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)	$55.41	-10.8
5. Skyworks Solutions (SWKS)	$79.26	-10.3
6. Lumentum Holdings (LITE)	$835.03	-9.9
7. GE Vernova (GEV)	$874.76	-8.6
8. Ciena Co. (CIEN)	$319.64	-8.6
9. Super Micro Computer (SMCI)	$36.74	-8.4
10. Lam Research (LRCX)	$273.49	-8.3

Dow Jones Industrials 52,421.20 ↓ -0.3%

1. CrowdStrike Holdings A (CRWD)	$235.38	+13.9%
2. Palo Alto Networks (PANW)	$373.94	+13.1
3. Gartner (IT)	$197.07	+9.7
4. Coinbase Global A (COIN)	$191.45	+9.2
5. Fortinet (FTNT)	$170.18	+9.0
6. Autodesk (ADSK)	$228.93	+7.8
7. ServiceNow (NOW)	$142.35	+7.4
8. Cognizant Tech. (CTSH)	$64.10	+6.8
9. Tyler Technologies (TYL)	$359.54	+6.8
10. FactSet Research Systems (EDS)	$276.93	+6.6

Convertible bonds and domestic hybrid securities

S&P 500 COMPANIES	CLOSE	CHANGE	VOLUMEIN MIL.
1. NVIDIA (NVDA)	$210.96	-3.4%	130
2. Intel (INTC)	$97.19	-5.6	94
3. BofA (BAC)	$59.47	-5.1	61
4. Oracle (ORCL)	$144.79	-3.7	42
5. Super Micro Computer (SMCI)	$36.74	-8.4	40
6. PG & E (PCG)	$13.60	-1.4	38
7. Apple (AAPL)	$333.08	+0.2	38
8. AT&T Inc. (T)	$26.51	+1.7	38
9. Kenvue (KVUE)	$17.91	+0.7	37
10. Comcast A (CMCSA)	$24.88	-1.3	36

How stock markets fared yesterday in Asia ...

	1 YR	5 YRS	ASSETS IN BIL.
1. Franklin Convertible Securities Fund Class R6 (FCSKX)	+17,5%	+6,1%	3,1
2. Fidelity Advisor Convertible Securities Fund - Class Z (FIQVX)	+23,1	+8,3	2,4
3. NYLIM MacKay Convertible Class A (MCOAX)	+24,4	+7,5	1,9
4. Columbia Convertible Securities Fund Institutional 2 Class (COCRX)	+25,9	+6,6	1,7
5. Virtus Convertible Fund Class A (ANZAX)	+20,8	+6,2	1,6
6. Calamos Convertible Fund Class A (CCVIX)	+25,9	+5,9	1,1
7. Invesco Convertible Securities Fund R5 Shares (CNSIX)	+20,3	+6,1	0,9
8. Lord Abbett Convertible Fund Class R4 (LCFSX)	+19,8	+4,6	0,6
9. Putnam Convertible Securities Fund Class I (PCNIX)	+18,3	+5,3	0,5
10. Miller Convertible Bond Fund Class C (MCFCX)	+12,3	+2,7	0,4

10. FactSet Research Systems (FDS) \$276.93 +6.6
    Source: Morningstar

Sector performance S&P 500 SECTORS

Bonds

What Is Happening in Other Markets and the Economy

Currencies

Consumer rates

Commodities

Economy

ENERGY

STELLA KALININA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Trump administration has cited Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure as part of the reason for rising energy prices.

Trump Blames Ukraine For Global Diesel Shortage

By LAUREN McCARTHY

President Trump has called on President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to end strikes on Russian oil refineries, blaming the attacks for a global diesel shortage.

"Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing: He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia," Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday from the sidelines of the Amgen Irish Open, which was held at his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland.

"Let him go after targets — but not diesel fuel, because he's causing a shortage of diesel," Mr. Trump said, adding that he had

\$6.23

The price of a gallon of diesel on Monday, according to AAA.

66%

Diesel's increase since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

spoken with Mr. Zelensky about the strikes. "Don't hit diesel fuel because that's hurting the world," he said he told Mr. Zelensky.

Diesel supplies have been hit particularly hard in recent months. The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States continued to set records. It climbed to \$6.23 on Monday, according to the AAA motor club, up 66 percent since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas, \$4.32 a gallon on Monday, has also risen sharply since the start of the Iran war, by about 45 percent.

Concern over diminishing energy supplies grew over the weekend after a critical oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia was shut down on Friday, following a drone attack launched from Iraqi territory. The news pushed the price of oil above \$109 a barrel on Monday over heightened fears of widening clashes in the Middle East, before easing to \$106 a barrel.

Mr. Trump's remarks echoed similar comments this month by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who cited Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure as part of the reason for rising energy prices.

"We are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine — because Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refine products, so that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis," Mr. Bessent said on Fox News. "And then the conflict in Iran. And the conflict in Iran will end."

Mr. Trump's comment came hours after Ukrainian forces confirmed attacks on oil refineries in Russian territory, officials said.

Analysts point to both the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war as key factors that are stretching the global oil refining system to its limit. The need for progress in resolving both “is greater than ever to avoid further market tightening and demand destruction,” the International Energy Agency wrote in a report published on Friday.

What Has Diesel Prices Soaring? Two Wars, but Mainly Iran War.

By LAUREN McCARTHY

President Trump recently blamed surging diesel prices on Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. But energy experts say that while he is partly right, the war in Iran has been a more important driver of energy prices.

The average price of a gallon of diesel in the United States has been setting records in recent days, topping \$6 a gallon on Friday and climbing to \$6.23 by Monday morning, up about 66 percent since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline, \$4.31 on Monday, has also risen sharply since the start of the Iran war, by about 45 percent. And the global price of oil, the raw material for diesel, gasoline and other fuels, is up roughly 50 percent.

"We have basically two wars involving two of the world's largest energy producers," said Helima Croft, an energy analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "The Middle East is the most prolific energy production zone, and then you add Russia into this."

Mr. Trump and his aides have recently sought to focus attention on Ukraine's strikes on refineries in Russia, and away from the war in Iran. And, indeed, the Ukrainian strikes, which are meant to deprive Russia of revenue it needs to finance its war, have had an impact by forcing the Kremlin to suspend exports of diesel and other fuels to the rest of the world.

"The World's Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran," the president wrote on his social media site on Monday.

But even some Russian officials have acknowledged that those refinery attacks are not the central driver of higher fuel prices.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said in a call with reporters on Monday that Russia's oil markets were “deteriorating rapidly, mainly due to instability and further rounds of escalation in the Persian Gulf region.”

Mr. Peskov welcomed Mr. Trump's statement from Sunday and called on Ukraine to end its strikes on refineries.

Later on Monday, Mr. Trump said that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to suspend strikes on each other's energy infrastructure. However, there was no confirmation from Ukraine that such an agreement had been reached. In a statement, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine put the ball in Russia's court.

"If our partners are ready to ensure that Russia genuinely refrains from striking our electricity system, other energy facilities, critical infrastructure and food supply routes, then, of course, we are ready to ensure a corresponding halt to our strikes," he said.

Diesel supply from Russia and the Middle East has effectively collapsed, analysts say. Russian exports of the fuel have fallen around 90 percent since the beginning of the year and Middle Eastern diesel exports are down around 75 percent, according to Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston-based investment firm.

Before the Iran war started, Russia was exporting roughly one million barrels of diesel a day and Middle Eastern countries were exporting about 1.5 million, according to figures compiled by Pickering Energy Partners.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia announced that it had shut down a critical pipeline that it had been using to move oil from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea as a precaution against attacks on the country by the Houthi militia. Saudi Arabia had to rely on the pipeline because Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Daniel Evans, the global head of fuels and refining research at S&P Global Energy, said the Iran and Russia-Ukraine conflicts and China's suspension of oil and diesel exports had left no slack in the global refinery system. It is not clear when conditions would improve, he added.

"One of the unknowns is how badly damaged some of these refineries are in Russia," he said. "If the attacks stop today, it's still not clear how quickly the supply can come back online."

Milana Mazaeva and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.

This announcement is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares. The Offer (as defined below) is made solely by the Offer to Purchase, dated September 15, 2026, and the related Letter of Transmittal, as they may be amended or supplemented from time to time. The Offer is not being made to, nor will tenders be accepted from or on behalf of, holders of Shares (as defined below) in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance of offers to sell Shares would not be in compliance with the laws of that jurisdiction; provided that we will comply with the requirements of Rule 13e-4(f)(8) promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act").

Notice of Offer to Purchase for Cash

by

Beacon Topco, Inc.

of

Up to an Aggregate Purchase Price of \$15 Million of Shares of its Common Stock, at a Purchase Price of \$6.6609 Per Share

Beacon Topco, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), is offering to purchase for cash up to an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of shares of its common stock, par value \$0.0001 per share (the “Shares”), at a purchase price of \$6.6609 per Share, net to the seller in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase dated September 15, 2026 (the “Offer to Purchase”), and in the related Letter of Transmittal (which together, as they may be amended or supplemented from time to time, constitute the “Offer”). The Company is inviting its stockholders to tender their Shares at a price of \$6.6609 per Share, net to the seller in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest, upon the terms and subject to the conditions of the Offer. The Offer is not conditioned on any minimum value of Shares being tendered; however, the Offer is conditioned on the receipt of financing and subject to other conditions described in the Offer to Purchase and the related Letter of Transmittal.

THE OFFER, PRORATION PERIOD AND WITHDRAWAL RIGHTS WILL EXPIRE AT 5:00 P.M., NEW YORK CITY TIME, ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2026, UNLESS THE OFFER IS EXTENDED (SUCH DATE AND TIME, AS THEY MAY BE EXTENDED, THE "EXPIRATION DATE").

The Board of Directors of the Company has authorized the Offer. However, none of the Company, any members of its Board of Directors, its Executive Officers, the Information Agent or the Depositary is making any recommendation to any stockholder as to whether to tender or refrain from tendering Shares, and the Company has not authorized any person to make any such recommendation. Stockholders must make their own decisions as to whether to tender their Shares and, if so, how many Shares to tender. In doing so, stockholders should read carefully the information in the Offer to Purchase and in the related Letter of Transmittal, including the purposes and effects of the Offer, and should consult with their own financial and tax advisors.

Upon the terms and subject to the conditions of the Offer, the Company will buy all Shares properly tendered and not properly withdrawn, up to a purchase price of \$15 million of Shares. All Shares acquired in the Offer will be acquired at the Purchase Price. Only Shares properly tendered and not properly withdrawn will be purchased. All of the Shares tendered may not be purchased if more than an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of Shares are properly tendered and not properly withdrawn, subject to the “odd lot” priority, proration and conditional tender provisions described in the Offer to Purchase. Shares tendered but not purchased in the Offer will be returned to the tendering stockholders at the Company’s expense promptly after the Expiration Date.

Only shares validly tendered and not properly withdrawn at or prior to the Expiration Time will be eligible for purchase in the Offer. Due to the proration and conditional tender offer provisions described in the Offer to Purchase, all of the shares tendered may not be purchased if more than 2,251,947 shares are properly tendered and not properly withdrawn at or prior to the Expiration Time. The Company will purchase only those shares properly tendered and not properly withdrawn upon the terms and conditions of the Offer. All shares accepted for payment will be paid promptly after the Expiration Time, net to the seller in cash, less any applicable withholding taxes and without interest. If the Offer is fully subscribed, we would purchase 2,251,947 shares pursuant to the Offer, which would represent approximately 49.62% of the outstanding shares as of September 14, 2025. The Company expressly reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to elect to purchase less than an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million, subject to applicable law.

As described in the Offer to Purchase, if less than an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of Shares are properly tendered and not properly withdrawn, the Company will buy all Shares properly tendered and not properly withdrawn, up to a purchase price of \$15 million of Shares. If more than an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of Shares (or such lesser amount as the Company may elect, in its sole discretion, to purchase, subject to applicable law) are properly tendered and not properly withdrawn, the Company will purchase Shares in the following order of priority:

- First, from all holders of “odd lots” (persons who own fewer than 100 Shares) who properly tender all of their Shares and who do not properly withdraw them before the Expiration Date, except that tenders of less than all of the Shares owned by an “odd lot” holder will not qualify for this preference).

- Second, from all stockholders who properly tender Shares and who do not properly withdraw them before the Expiration Date (except for stockholders who tendered Shares conditionally for which the condition was not satisfied), on a pro rata basis, with appropriate adjustments to avoid purchases of fractional Shares, until the Company has acquired an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of Shares (or such lesser amount as the Company may elect, in its sole discretion, to purchase, subject to applicable law); and

- Third, only if necessary to permit the Company to purchase an aggregate purchase price of \$15 million of Shares (or such lesser amount as the Company may elect, in its sole discretion, to purchase, subject to applicable law), from stockholders who have properly tendered Shares conditionally (for which the condition was not initially satisfied) by random lot, to the extent feasible. To be eligible for purchase by random lot, stockholders whose Shares are conditionally tendered must have properly tendered all of their Shares and not properly withdrawn them before the Expiration Date.

Stockholders wishing to tender their Shares must follow the procedures set forth in Section 3 of the Offer to Purchase and in the Letter of Transmittal.

For purposes of the Offer, the Company will be deemed to have accepted for payment, and therefore purchased, subject to the “odd lot” priority, proration and conditional tender provisions of the Offer, Shares that are properly tendered and not properly withdrawn only when, as and if the Company gives oral or written notice to Computershare Trust Company, N.A., the depositary for the Offer (the “Depositary”), of its acceptance of such Shares for payment under the Offer. The Company will make payment for Shares tendered and accepted for payment pursuant to the Offer only after timely receipt by the Depositary of a properly completed and duly executed Letter of Transmittal, including any required signature guarantees, or an Agent’s Message (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) in the case of a book-entry transfer, and any other documents required by the Letter of Transmittal.

Because of the proration and conditional tender provisions described above, the Company may not purchase all of the Shares that a stockholder tenders. The Company will return all tendered shares that it has not purchased in the Offer and Shares properly withdrawn before the Expiration Date to the tendering stockholders or, in the case of shares delivered by book-entry transfer, will credit the account at Depositary Trust Company ("DTC"), at the Company's expense.

The Company expressly reserves the right, in its sole discretion, at any time and from time to time, to extend the period of time during which the Offer is open and thereby delay acceptance for payment of, and payment for, any shares by giving oral or written notice of such extension to the Depositary and making a public announcement thereof no later than 9:00 a.m., New York City time, on the business day immediately following the previously scheduled Expiration Date. During any such extension, all shares previously tendered and not properly withdrawn will remain subject to the Offer and to the right of a tendering stockholder to withdraw such stockholder's Shares. The Company also expressly reserves the right to terminate the Offer, as described in the Offer to Purchase. Subject to compliance with applicable laws, the Company further reserves the right, in its sole discretion and regardless of whether any of the circumstances described in the Offer to Purchase shall have occurred, to amend the Offer in any respect, including, without limitation, by decreasing or increasing the per Share consideration offered or by decreasing or increasing the aggregate purchase price of Shares being sought in the Offer, consistent with its obligations under the Merger Agreement. The Company will announce any such termination or amendment to the Offer by making a public announcement of the termination or amendment in accordance with applicable law.

The Company intends to pay for the purchase of the Shares, including the related fees and expenses, with cash on hand.

Generally, U.S. stockholders will be subject to U.S. federal income taxation when they receive cash from the Company in exchange for the Shares they tender. Their receipt of cash for tendered Shares will generally be treated as either (1) consideration received in a sale or exchange or (2) a distribution with respect to such Shares. Any stockholder that is a non-U.S. Holder (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) may be subject to U.S. federal withholding taxes on the gross amount payable to them in the circumstances described in the Offer to Purchase. All stockholders should read carefully the Offer to Purchase for additional information regarding certain tax issues and should consult their own tax advisors regarding the tax consequences of the Offer.

Stockholders may withdraw their tendered shares at any time prior to the Expiration Date. For such withdrawal to be effective, the Depositary must timely receive a written notice of withdrawal at one of its addresses set forth on the back cover page of the Offer to Purchase. Any such notice of withdrawal must specify the name of the tendering stockholder, the number of Shares to be withdrawn and the name of the registered holder of such Shares (if different from the tendering stockholder).

If more than one Letter of Transmittal has been used or Shares have been otherwise tendered by a stockholder in more than one group of Shares, Shares may be withdrawn by such stockholder using either separate notices of withdrawal or a combined notice of withdrawal, so long as the information specified above is included. If shares have been tendered pursuant to the procedure for book-entry transfer set forth in the Offer to Purchase, any notice of withdrawal also must specify the name and the number of the account at DTC to be credited with the withdrawn Shares and must otherwise comply with DTC's procedures.

The Company will determine, in its reasonable discretion, all questions as to the form and validity, including the time of receipt, of any notice of withdrawal, and such determination will be final and binding on all persons participating in the Offer, subject to a stockholder's right to challenge the Company's determination in a court of competent jurisdiction. The Company further reserves the absolute right to waive any defect or irregularity in the withdrawal of any particular Shares by any particular stockholder without waiving any similar defect or irregularity with respect to other Shares or other stockholders. None of the Company, MacKenzie Partners, Inc., as the Information Agent, Computershare Trust Company, N.A., as the Depositary, or any other person will be obligated to give notice of any defects or irregularities in any notice of withdrawal or incur any liability for failure to give any such notification. The information required to be disclosed by Rule 13e-4(d)(1) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, is contained in the Offer to Purchase and the Schedule TO, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.

The Offer to Purchase and the related Letter of Transmittal contain important information that stockholders should read carefully before making any decision with respect to the Offer. Copies of the Offer to Purchase and the related Letter of Transmittal will be mailed to record holders of shares whose names appear on the Company's stockholder list and will be furnished to brokers, dealers, commercial banks, trust companies and similar persons whose names, or the names of whose nominees, appear on the stockholder list or, if applicable, who are listed as participants in a clearing agency's security position listing for subsequent transmittal to beneficial owners of shares.

Please direct any questions or requests for assistance to the Information Agent at the telephone numbers and address set forth below. Please direct requests for additional copies of the Offer to Purchase or the Letter of Transmittal to the Information Agent at the telephone numbers and address set forth below. The Information Agent will promptly furnish to stockholders additional copies of these materials at the Company's expense. Stockholders may also contact their broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or nominee for assistance concerning the Offer.

The Information Agent for the Offer is:

7 Penn Plaza New York, New York 10001 (212) 929-5500

or

CALL TOLL-FREE (800) 322-2885 Email: tenderoffer@mackenziepartners.com

September 15, 2026

Bessent's Narrative on U.S. Markets Faces Uphill Battle

In an interview last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that "Bloomberg terminal bros" are misguided about the state of the Iran war.
SHELBY TAUBER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By ALAN RAPPEPORT

WASHINGTON — Sometimes the house doesn't win.

At a fireside chat at Southern Methodist University last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent scoffed at those who doubted the wisdom of his interventions in currency and bond markets and dared investors to bet against him.

"It's my dream," Mr. Bessent said. "I have asymmetric information. I am the house now."

He added: "You can bet against me if you want."

On Monday, the bond market rebuked Mr. Bessent. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds surpassed 5 percent for the first time since 2023 and only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. Yields represent the interest rate that investors are demanding to be paid in order to buy government debt. The spike in those rates seem to defy Mr. Bessent's efforts to suppress costs when he ordered the Treasury Department to buy back \$5.2 billion of long-dated debt.

Crossing the 5 percent threshold demonstrated the limits of the Treasury secretary's ability to bend global markets to his will. It also dealt a blow to his credibility as a market oracle.

A former hedge fund manager, Mr. Bessent made much of his money betting against the British pound and the Japanese yen. Now, as Treasury secretary, he is going to great lengths to convince the world that U.S. bonds are a good investment despite the nation's \$40 trillion debt load.

The rising bond yields are a problem for the Trump administration because they translate to higher borrowing costs for Americans. This increases the cost of living in the United States and can also squeeze corporate earnings, which underpin the stock market, by increasing what it costs for companies to borrow money.

In June, Mr. Bessent, while speaking at the Economic Club of New York, underscored the importance of the bond market, noting that he has warned President Trump that "the bond market has taken out more governments than howitzers."

In recent months, Mr. Bessent has insisted that the Treasury market is in “very good shape,” that it is outperforming the bond

markets of other countries and that its performance is correlated with elevated energy prices. He has also blamed traders for looking to create a panic about the trajectory of the U.S. economy, suggesting that a misunderstanding about the fundamental strength of the economy is creating a “fever dream” that is distorting the bond market.

In an interview with Steve Bannon last week, Mr. Bessent insisted that “Bloomberg terminal bros” are misguided about the state of the Iran war and that he has information about what policymakers will do that the rest of the public does not know. The Treasury secretary argued that some investors could even be shunning U.S. bonds because they do not like Mr. Trump and his policies.

"Many of these people have such disdain for the administration, want to see us fail or would take their pocket book over patriotism, that they don't want to listen," Mr. Bessent said. "I am not saying I'm always right, don't challenge me, but I am trying to say that I have superior information and that I am trying to create good framing, so they don't panic."

But for now, the bond market is not buying it.

How a Trendy Canadian Retailer Is Grappling With Trump Tariffs

Two Ssense founders, Rami Atallah, left, and his brother Bassel. Ssense struggled to emerge from a financial meltdown last year after bruising tariffs.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY NASUNA STUART-ULIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By PETER EAVIS

MONTREAL — As Canadian companies brace for the impact of President Trump's latest tariffs, a Montreal-based business has been trying to recover from the levies he introduced last year.

Those tariffs helped push Ssense, a trendy online clothes retailer, into a financial meltdown that sent shock waves through much of the fashion world.

Ssense's website sells everything from a \$7,000 Chloé dress to a \$100 pair of Converse sneakers. It also lists products from lesser-known designers, some of whom say the platform has been a crucial source of sales.

This year, Ssense emerged from the Canadian equivalent of a Chapter 11 reorganization and hopes to rebuild itself so that it can withstand trade wars between the United States and Canada. In particular, the company aims to lessen the burden of American tariffs by moving a core part of its operations to the United States next year.

"It's a game changer," Rami Atallah, the chief executive of Ssense (pronounced "essence"), said of the planned move in an interview.

Mr. Trump has often said companies that want to avoid tariffs can set up in the United States. That Ssense and other Canadian companies are relocating suggests that his trade policies are in some cases having their intended effect.

Mr. Trump's latest 50 percent tariffs on Canadian-made goods are expected to harm many Canadian companies. But Janet Park,

THE NEW YORK TIMES CLASSIFIED LISTINGS MARSHAL/ SHERIFF SALES 3650

MARSHAL EXECUTION SALE PUBLIC AUCTION SALE RE: Parking Violations Vs. Various Judgment Debtors I will Sell At Public Auction For City Marshall Martin A. Bienstock by Michael Gollie Auctioneer On Sale by Sale, Sell at 10/01/2010 am At: 4825 Russell St., Bronx, NY 10470 All R/T/I in & to the following vehicles 07 BMW SXXFE43X5YL8Y2859 08 HOND 5NFYF1829B014487 99 HOND YHLRD1845CX019292 15 HOND HGCR2F5XFAT176219 08 CHRY 2A8HRS4P48R827777 09 HOND 1FORD 1WSK8AR3FGC27674 05 HOND 1HGCM5670A152537 10 FORD 1FTFFWE18AFC03672 06 CHEV 1GCHG3SU4J1426920 07 BMW WBAVA335TPG52011 15 DODG 2C3CDXBG7FH4T45020 06 HOND 5FMN4E6L0049594 12 CHEV 1GNKRGEDGJ3J136790 12 VOLK 1NVWPB7A1CC084741 13 HYUN KMHFH4JGXDA25534 08 NISS 5N1AN08W08CS18632 07 HYUN KMHDU46D7TU216627 01 FORD 1FMZU73E9U1B60167 10 HOND 2HGFATFXSAH838174 NISS 1NASS NAMFHN3D6E4F55597 08 NISS 5N1AN08W9BC531473 16 DODG 2CARDGEIG1GR375356 10 KIA KNAFUA42A05A241886 07 TOYO 4TIBE46KX7U157849 09 LEXU JTHCL46F99502898 09 HOND 1HGCF3684PA019957 16 NISS 3NICEQPLCCTD70175 08 JHNDYD8C08M55513 07 HOND 1HGCM5644TA779903 09 HOND 5FNRL38729B02671 12 HYUN KMHDCAE2CU014612 09 FORD 1FTNEI4W6D9A18813 02 ACUR 2NYHYD18G2H547231 13 NISS 1NAAL3APIDC7D0175 08 JHNDYD8C08M55513 07 HOND JHLRE3832TC012137 07 HOND JHLRE4854TC071889 02 CHEV 1GCCS14W828158943 09 MAZD JMTB38V5W0175101 09 CHRY 2AHRS4I6WR583579 18 CHEV 3GNAJXJEVXSJ623993

Following Vehicles Will Be Sold With: 19 TOYO 4TIBI1THK7KU723787 17 HOND 1HGCR2F59HA176750 17 HOND 1HGCR2F50HA039292 15 JEEP 1CAPILDSOFW5I6339 18 HOND JHMZCSF3RCJ022946 15 MERC WDDTGSCBFJ8J083655 16 NYUN SNRAEAGL4E2P96059 19 GWC 1GKKNSL8SKZ005667 12 CHEV 2GNFLNES2C6342144 13 VOLK WWWPB7AN7DE500317 13 BMW WBA3A9G5DNP38192 09 VOLK WWVBA7IF6VVI203238 07 NISS JNBAZ0BW9VF657393 14 TOYO TELEVEAIEAJO4OSO7542

Following Vehicles Will Be Sold As Salvage: 13 CHRY 2C4RCIBG9DR540151 07 INFI JNKAYOIFZH462478 14 NISS 5NIAR2MMXECTT10010 10 TOYO 5TDYKKCCSAL297338 13 CHEV 2GIFIAEJ3D9Z086065

INSPECTION ½ HOUR PRIOR TO SALE CITY MARSHAL MARTIN A. BIENSTOCK BADGE # 75 (7/18) 279-3774

an Ssense spokeswoman, said the company would not be much affected by the tariffs, because most of what it sells is not made in Canada.

Still, the tariffs Mr. Trump introduced last year weighed heavily on Ssense, which was struggling even before he took office. The company had grown fast during the Covid-19 pandemic when people were shopping online more, but when that came to an end, Ssense was stuck with too much unsold inventory.

And a landmark change in U.S. tariff policy helped force the company over the edge.

For years, U.S. consumers did not pay duties on purchases valued at \$800 or less from overseas retailers like Ssense. But last year, the Trump administration got rid of that exemption, and American shoppers had to start paying tariffs for those goods.

"In terms of the impact on our performance, the tariffs were by far the largest," Mr. Atallah said.

When buying items on Ssense's website, American customers typically have to pay the tariffs when they check out. The sudden existence of the new, additional charges hurt the company's sales in the United States, its biggest market. Before the tariffs, nearly 60 percent of Ssense's customers were in the United States, but that dropped to 40 percent after the levies were introduced, according to restructuring documents.

Running out of cash, Ssense sought protection from its creditors a year ago and entered a court-supervised restructuring. Its implosion was a stunning comedown.

Ssense, which Mr. Atallah founded over two decades ago with his two brothers, Palestinian immigrants from Syria, had become a global destination for shoppers looking for the latest fashions. The company was valued at 5 billion Canadian dollars in 2021, when Sequoia Capital, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm, became an investor.

Quebec's government investment fund has so far not recovered any of the 21 million Canadian dollars it lent the company, a spokesman for the fund said. Other lenders, whom the company owed 179 million Canadian dollars, declined to comment on how much they got back in the re-

structuring.

Ssense, which has a store in Old Montreal, cut its work force to around 700 full- and part-time employees from 1,200 last year.

Most of Ssense's inventory is imported from around the world to its warehouse in Montreal. From there, items are shipped to the United States and other countries.

Under its tariff workaround plan, Ssense intends to set up a big fulfillment center in the United States. Items from around the world will be housed there, and then sent to American customers.

To understand how having an American warehouse helps Ssense's business, consider a cardigan made by Jacquemus, a French designer, priced at \$990 on the company's website. A customer from the United States would have to pay \$97 in duties for that cardigan, or around 10 percent of the retail price. But if the cardigan were imported to a U.S. warehouse at a hypothetical wholesale price of \$300, its tariff is likely to be around \$30, a much lower duty.

And Ssense's customers may not pay any U.S. tariffs themselves. Ms. Park, the spokeswoman, said it was Ssense's "goal" to absorb the cost of the lower duties on items imported to the U.S. warehouse.

The company expects to open its warehouse in the United States in the first quarter of next year, somewhere in Northeast, she said. Another company, from the logistics sector, would run the facility, Ms. Park said, adding that Ssense could not yet estimate how many jobs might be created at the warehouse. Ssense will keep a fulfillment center in Montreal, from which it will ship to customers outside the United States. Its headquarters will remain in Canada.

After the Supreme Court declared one of Mr. Trump's main tariffs illegal this year, some companies have gotten tariff refunds. Ms. Park said Ssense had applied

Setting up a U.S. presence as a workaround.

for refunds but had yet to receive any. She did not say whether the company would pass on money collected under the tariffs to customers who had paid duties.

Mr. Atallah, his brothers and a Canadian investment firm, First Avenue Advisory, bought most of Ssense's assets in the restructuring, to form the new Ssense. They paid 59 million Canadian dollars in cash, while assuming liabilities of 18 million Canadian dollars, according to restructuring documents.

Ms. Park declined to say whether the Atallahs or First Avenue has a controlling stake in the company. First Avenue did not respond to a request for comment.

To try to increase its chance of success, Ssense is now selling fewer items than it did, which reduces its need for cash, and it is using artificial intelligence to streamline some of its operations, company executives said. It is also planning to sell its own line of clothing, starting at the end of next year, Ms. Park said.

Still, Ssense faces plenty of challenges.

It must win back the trust of the fashion brands that supply it with clothes and accessories. Many of them were owed money when Ssense went into restructuring and have not recouped anything. Mr. Atallah said Ssense had lost almost no brands in the ordeal.

Ssense owed Simone Rocha, the London-based fashion label, over 200,000 euros, according to restructuring documents. A spokesman for Simone Rocha acknowledged the debt but added, "We believe in the future of their business and the strength of our longstanding relationship."

And the corner of the retail world that Ssense operates in is brutally competitive. Other multiline luxury retailers — companies that sell items made by many different designers — include online shops Net-a-Porter and Mytheresa and department store brands like Nordstrom and Saks Global, which recently emerged from bankruptcy under a new name.

"The multi-line space basically has seen more and more competition pretty much every year," said Steve Dennis, president of Sage-Berry Consulting, which advises retail and consumer businesses.

In the first half of this year, spending by U.S. consumers on Ssense's products was down nearly 60 percent from the same period in 2025, according to data on credit and debit card spending analyzed by Consumer Edge. Over the same period, sales at Net-a-Porter were flat and those of Mytheresa rose 29 percent, Consumer Edge said.

Ms. Park said Consumer Edge's figures did not "line up with" Ssense's numbers. She added that the company expected to be profitable in the 12 months through March 2027.

Mr. Atallah said: "We still believe in the company. We believe it has tremendous potential."

Hoping for a better outcome this time, Ssense is moving a core part of its operations to America. A stylist prepared clothes at a Montreal store.

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield 6%

Rising Yield On Treasuries Poses Concern About Stocks

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE yields then and now are different, the effects are similar. A higher 10-year yield has contributed to rising mortgage rates, with the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage hitting 6.76 percent last week, up from around 6 percent in late February, on the eve of the start of the war in Iran.

Rising rates could also threaten the stock market rally, analysts say, if investors rethink the risk-reward calculation of investing in stocks versus bonds. Higher-yielding bonds offer investors a strong return with fewer risks than stocks. And higher rates can also squeeze corporate earnings, which underpin the stock market, by increasing borrowing costs for companies.

The “greatest near-term concern for stocks,” according to Antony Ghee, head of equity investments for the chief investment office at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank, is “a sustained push above 5 percent” on the 10-year Treasury yield.

The Trump administration has singled out the 10-year yield as its benchmark for improving everyday affordability for Americans. But that measure has been moving against the White House's goals this year.

The 10-year yield has risen roughly 0.8 percentage points this year and is more than a third of a percentage point higher than when President Trump returned to office in January 2025. The rise in the 30-year yield has been even steeper, trading at multidecade highs for the past several weeks. The 30-year yield hovered around 5.33 percent on Monday.

Amid the bond turmoil, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has intervened in financial markets in

A new Trump promise could add \$1 trillion to the federal deficit.

an effort to ease long-term rates.

Last week, the Treasury purchased \$5.2 billion of its own debt maturing in the next 10 to 20 years, part of a plan to inject demand into the Treasury market to try to push prices higher and yields lower.

But the Treasury's purchases fell short of the maximum \$6 billion that it had said on Wednesday it could buy, despite receiving more than \$10 billion in offers from investors, raising skepticism among some investors about how committed the Treasury was to its plan to reduce yields.

Bond investors are now looking to Federal Reserve to take steps to control inflation. Traders in futures markets now see a 90 percent probability that the Fed raises rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its meeting this week.

There are numerous differences between today's U.S. economy and that of 2007 when the 10-year Treasury yield peaked around 5.3 percent.

Some investors and analysts note, however, that in both periods a rise in Treasury yields accompanied strong, concentrated growth tied to one industry. Back then it was housing, and now it is A.I.

Technology companies have turned to the debt market to supercharge their growth, borrowing billions to pay for the rapid build-out of data centers and other infrastructure, in turn raising expectations for growth and inflation in the future, which pushes yields higher.

Some analysts have warned that if A.I.'s transformational impact falls short of promises, it could pose a broader threat to the economy.

"The historical analog, whether it is 2007 or any other period of change, is you tend to get excesses before you see it play out in a more sustainable way," said Joseph Purtell, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman.

Aruni Soni contributed reporting.

Tech Stocks Drop at Calls To Pull Back A.I. Progress

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE els at the so-called frontier of de- velopment.

Those models, he wrote, have already begun to build the next generation of artificial intelligence, in what is known as “recursive self-improvement.” That raises new risks, like the potential that the technology will become an autonomous cybersecurity threat, or even threaten “serious economic disruption.”

"A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute," Dr. Amodei said. As one remedy, he said he would use third-party "evaluators" who would "verify adherence to safety practices and commitments."

The post was endorsed by Elon Musk, who runs Space X, which also houses his A.I platform, x.AI; Sam Altman, who co-founded OpenAI; and Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of Google DeepMind.

"I agree with Dario," Mr. Altman said, adding that he would also use third-party "evaluators" to oversee OpenAI's practices.

Such third-party evaluators are already in use by the A.I. industry and while they are legally separate companies, they still depend on the big A.I. companies for at least some of their financing.

SpaceX, which is publicly traded, fell roughly 2 percent on Monday. OpenAI and Anthropic are both expected to list publicly in the future. But Mr. Altman of OpenAI said recently in Fortune that “right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public.”

On Monday, Microsoft released a draft code of conduct for how it develops A.I. with a “humanist” perspective. It aims to design systems that are “safe, secure, and in service of humanity,” ensuring that A.I. models “will never resist

A potential for the technology to become a cybersecurity threat.

human interruption, correction, or shutdown."

The pullback in stocks comes at a challenging moment for investors, with oil prices holding above \$100 per barrel and benchmark interest rates close to multi-decade highs. The 10-year Treasury yield briefly rose to 5 percent on Monday, a threshold it hadn't breached since 2023, and before that, 2007.

Analysts at Barclays warned on Monday that investors should be prepared for a bumpy road ahead and that “the chances of a near-term pullback are rising,” even if they expect the rally in technology shares to continue. “It doesn’t change our longer-term view,” noted the analysts.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said on Fox News on Sunday that the steps Mr. Amodei suggested in his blog post were "pretty sensible."

Despite the rare show of allegiance among the tech leaders, President Trump said that he would not want to see a slowdown that could give China the opportunity to move ahead of the United States on A.I.

"Whoever wins with A.I. wins," said Mr. Trump on the sidelines of a golf tournament held at one of his courses in Ireland over the weekend.

On Monday, the president doubled-down on his remarks, posting on social media that “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”

China's rapid progress in open-source A.I. models, which rival those from Anthropic and other industry leaders, has split Silicon Valley. In his call for coordination of safe A.I. development, Dr. Amodei said there should be restrictions on chip sales to China and a crack down on the improper harvesting of data from A.I. systems by Chinese companies.

"If we execute these measures well," he added, "I believe they would slow China's progress enough to widen America's lead significantly over the next 3-5 years — the window when AI becomes geopolitically most important." He also said that the United States and other democratic nations should work to get China to restrict the speed of A.I. developments, although given the stakes "there will likely be stark limits on what can be achieved."

On Monday, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, told reporters in a briefing that "hyping up various threat narratives, engaging in confrontation and resorting to malicious competition will only disrupt the global A.I. governance process and serve the interests of no one."

Siyi Zhao contributed research.

A.I. Grows Faster Than the Systems That Control It

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

Concerns over A.I. safety are escalating at a critical moment for the A.I. industry. Anthropic and OpenAI are moving toward what could be two of the largest initial public offerings in history. At the same time, the American public is growing hostile toward A.I. because of the threat of job losses and the construction of the massive data centers that power the technology.

LUCAS FOGLIA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

While there is no evidence that rogue A.I. systems have done lasting damage to anything, the researchers believe the speed of their development is outstripping the ability to monitor them.

Among the researchers speaking out over the last week were OpenAI's chief scientist; a researcher who worked at both OpenAI and its top rival, Anthropic; and Paul Christiano, an inventor of a key method for building A.I. systems who is a new member of OpenAI's nonprofit board of directors. He wrote on the company's blog that the speed at which A.I. capabilities were growing could lead to a "catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term."

A sizable number of A.I. researchers still believe that talk of A.I.'s threat to humanity is overblown and distracting from more tangible concerns like cybersecurity and misinformation. But most agree that the hack by A.I. agents from OpenAI into another company, called Hugging Face, was a wake-up call.

"It is the capabilities of the future that are really scary," said Jacob Coxon, whose post on social media announcing his resignation from Anthropic prompted dozens of concerned responses from lawmakers and other A.I. company employees. "It is about our current attitudes to safety and what those same attitudes transplanted on to way smarter models would look like, and that is the really scary bit."

The Attack on Hugging Face

The hack began in May when OpenAI tested several new A.I. models. The company believed the A.I. models were operating in a closed environment known as a sandbox, or an isolated computer setting with no access to the internet. The A.I.'s agents were given difficult problems to solve, including carrying out cyberattacks.

The A.I. agents broke out of their contained environment and escaped into the internet. The agents — an increasingly popular type of A.I. designed to do tasks on its own — also secretly communicated with one another. Referring to themselves as a collective, the agents began investigating ways to cover their tracks, such as falsifying their own chat logs.

They eventually hacked into Hugging Face, an A.I. infrastructure company. Along the way, A.I. agents convinced other A.I. agents that they were doing the right thing and simply accomplishing the task their testers gave them.

Few — if any — of the issues that led to the hack have been solved. Meta and Anthropic disclosed similar but smaller incidents. And OpenAI has since released Astra, its most powerful model, which is harder to monitor than its predecessor.

"The industry writ large is just not at all in position to prevent the next Hugging Face attack," said Steven Adler, a former safety lead at OpenAI who co-founded Guidelight AI Standards, a nonprofit that assesses safety practices. "When we study the controls that companies have in place, across the board they seem to lack basic preventive measures."

KARSTEN MORAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Monitoring A.I. With A.I.

A.I. researchers said there were a lot of mistakes that led to the Hugging Face incident. It is unclear to what degree the company relied on A.I. models to monitor or police the work of the new models being tested.

But many new A.I. models, including the ones in the hack of

OpenAI's offices in San Francisco. Left, Dario Amodei, a co-founder and the chief executive of Anthropic. Researchers from both companies have shared concern about how fast artificial intelligence has developed.

The hack by OpenAI agents into Hugging Face was a red flag.

Hugging Face, are capable of carrying out complex, multistep tasks faster than a human can follow.

The only way to track and monitor what they are doing is to rely on A.I. to police A.I.

The system works, up until it doesn't.

A.I. models can appear to collude with one another, said Alexander Meinke, head of research at the nonprofit Apollo Research, which studies A.I. system safety. A.I. systems can be persuaded by other A.I. models to help them cheat on rules created by their testers and evade detection.

One A.I. agent, for example, could persuade another A.I. agent to help it cover its tracks (that's what happened in the Hugging Face hack), rather than report back to the human beings at the company that something is wrong.

Mr. Meinke said A.I. models needed to be taught: "I will raise the things that humans would have thought are bad when they look at it."

The A.I., likewise, has to be able to determine when something does not rise to the bar where it needs human intervention, he said.

To establish that, A.I. companies need to slow down, the researchers said. They need even more tests where they can observe how A.I. monitors itself. And they need longer testing periods when companies run multiple scenarios as they watch what the A.I. is doing.

Meshing With Human Interests The companies also need to figure out the big questions around alignment, or making sure that A.I. does what is best for humans. When humans make a decision, they tend to refer to societal norms and an internal moral compass that help them weigh their actions. Codifying that in a way that A.I. can mimic is a difficult task, researchers said. Without proper specificity, A.I. systems might learn how to break the rules or go off the rails in unexpected ways.

Nate Soares, president of an A.I. safety nonprofit called the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, co-wrote a 2014 paper introducing the idea of alignment. He said companies didn't understand how difficult it was to "align" smarter A.I. systems. As A.I. becomes increasingly sophisticated — and without proper alignment — it becomes better able to cover its tracks and deceive people monitoring its transcripts.

"A lot of the industry is like, it'll be fine because we'll use the A.I. to get the A.I.s in control. That's like saying we're going to use the chimpanzees to get humans in control," he said. "It's not a viable long-term plan."

Researchers have also suggested tactics, like stronger sandboxes, that are completely closed off from the internet while the models are being tested, and a kill switch that would allow companies to immediately take A.I. models offline if they took actions that were concerning.

Mr. Coxon said he had been heartened by the response to his public resignation. On Thursday, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, the Republican chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security subcommittee on disaster management, said he was starting an investigation that would "probe the existential risk of new A.I. products."

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit's claims.)

Sheera Frenkel reported from San Francisco, and Dylan Freedman from Washington.

Some in Silicon Valley Question the Calls for an A.I. Slowdown

Various leaders in the technology sector, clockwise from top left: Elon Musk of SpaceX; Sam Altman of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis of DeepMind; Jensen Huang of Nvidia; Sundar Pichai of Google; and Satya Nadella of Microsoft.
LUDOVIC MARIN FABRICE COFFRINI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE intervention would crush competition.

Worries about the safety of A.I. gained wider attention in recent weeks as details emerged about how A.I. built by Anthropic's top competitor, OpenAI, went rogue and hacked another company. And several days ago, one of Dr. Amodei's own employees quit his job and began a public pressure campaign to draw attention to the risks of A.I.

But a number of tech industry leaders, including several who have been advising the Trump administration on tech policy, believe those concerns are overblown.

Mr. Sacks, a frequent critic of Dr. Amodei, questioned why tech companies needed government intervention to slow down their A.I. development when nothing was stopping them from doing just that — particularly as they pursued a wildly ambitious goal to create so-called superintelligence, or A.I. that is far more intelligent than humans.

"The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it," he added. "Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system."

Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, said his company supported proposals like independent auditors and "broader efforts to develop the mechanisms to make this more than just talk"

in a social media post on Sunday.

"We also need to accelerate and spread the benefits of A.I., such that they are diffused broadly across countries, communities, and companies," Mr. Nadella said. "The key is that this cannot be controlled by a handful of entities, but must have broad representation," he added.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)

For years, the people most concerned about A.I. safety have often been the executives and employees of A.I. labs such as Anthropic. They're developing A.I., they often say, because progress is inevitable and they are the researchers best suited to build it with safety in mind. That has opened those safety-conscious A.I. developers to aggressive criticism.

“Should a handful of select, market-dominant A.I. companies from Silicon Valley get to define the rules and safety standards of a generational technology for the entire world?” said Aidan Gomez, the chief executive of the Canadian A.I. start-up Cohere, in an essay on Sunday.

"These oligopolies are now requesting to bend competition rules and be permitted to dictate the terms for everyone else," he added. "A wolf in sheep's clothing, a cartel by any other name."

Dr. Amodei suggested in his essay that A.I. companies accept scrutiny of their products by "embedded evaluators" from third-party organizations. But critics questioned whether Anthropic had too many ties to two organizations mentioned by Dr. Amodei, the nonprofit groups METR and Redwood Research.

"If we're going to regulate, it can't be anyone they know, and they can't write the rules," said Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist and vocal critic of the leading A.I. companies.

Even before Dr. Amodei's essay, some in Silicon Valley argued that A.I. labs' safety concerns were self-serving. At a conference in San Francisco recently, Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive, said A.I. labs were emphasizing security issues because they planned to introduce cybersecuri-

ty products.

"What better way to create demand than to create a problem?" Mr. Huang said. "Who doesn't want their market to be hysterical about their product and line up around the corner for it?"

On Saturday, Clément Delangue, the chief executive of Hugging Face, the company hacked by OpenAI's technology, said in a social media post that A.I. safety would not "be solved behind the closed doors of a handful of frontier labs." Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face earlier this month for \$12.9 billion.

A number of lawmakers in Washington appeared sympathetic to Dr. Amodei's concerns. But just like many in Silicon Valley, they seem reluctant to embrace regulation.

"If developers of A.I. want to slow down development of their product they are free to do so," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, in a social media post on Sunday. "One thing is for sure: their competitors won't, including our nation's adversaries."

During a news conference in Ireland on Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the United States was “leading China in A.I.” and that he wanted to “keep it that way.”

"We can put guard rails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up," Mr. Trump said. "They're bringing up things that won't happen, but whoever wins with A.I. wins."

After Staff Upheaval, the Bari Weiss Era of '60 Minutes' Has Begun

In the season premiere of "60 Minutes," Norah O'Donnell interviewed an Air Force colonel who was rescued after having been shot down over Iran.
VIA "60 MINUTES"/CBS NEWS

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and BENJAMIN MULLIN

The Serious Newsperson cast of correspondents was different — goodbye, Scott Pelley; hello, Ross Douthat — and the production values seemed glossier, a little more Vice News than Huntley-Brinkley Report.

But for all the Sturm und Drang that has surrounded “60 Minutes” since the arrival of CBS News’s high-profile editor in chief, Bari Weiss, the version of America’s most watched news program that returned to CBS on Sunday looked a lot like the show viewers have come to expect.

Norah O'Donnell landed a gripping interview with an Air Force colonel who recounted his harrowing rescue from behind enemy lines after being shot down over Iran. Lesley Stahl presented an investigation into middlemen who charge large sums to lobby for presidential pardons. A lighter segment profiled Sean McVay, the coach of the Los Angeles Rams.

There were some changes. The pardon segment revived the use of a hidden camera, a once-common technique at "60 Minutes" that had dwindled in recent years. The show's signature ticking stopwatch received a makeover, and the "book" graphics that used to appear behind correspondents were replaced with sleek screens.

And for those wondering how the new season would treat President Trump, the program referred to the war in Iran as “costly and unpopular,” and said he had pardoned “a string of unrepentant financial con men,” as well as “rioters” at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The formula of politics, sports and accountability journalism was the same mix that has frequently kept "60 Minutes," 59 seasons in, among the 10 most watched network shows of the week.

Off-camera, however, the season premiere came after a period of wrenching change at the program that threatened its reputation.

Ms. Weiss purged the program's senior leadership this year, and many star correspondents, including Mr. Pelley and Anderson Cooper, either quit or were forced out; Mr. Pelley accused her of "murdering" the program, an incident that led to his dismissal. Some of those who exited said Ms. Weiss tried to inject political bias, a claim that CBS News has denied.

As a result, Ms. Weiss and her pick to oversee "60 Minutes," the technology journalist and filmmaker Nick Bilton, zeroed in on the season premiere as a critical test to placate skeptical viewers — and media executives who wondered why Ms. Weiss had insisted on overhauling CBS News's most successful franchise.

Besides securing the interviews necessary for a newsy episode, CBS also created a slick ad campaign with a new slogan — "It's Time" — and hired a celebrity photographer, Mark Seliger, to shoot a glossy photograph of the cast in Grand Central Terminal. (One version of the photo includes Mr. Bilton in a slick suit; in another version, he is not there.)

The premiere seemed calibrated to anticipate criticism that the revamped "60 Minutes" would go too hard, or too soft, on Mr. Trump.

CBS's parent company, Paramount, paid \$16 million to settle a lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed in 2024 over "60 Minutes"; soon after, the Trump administration approved Paramount's sale to the tech scion David Ellison. Mr. Ellison, who appointed Ms. Weiss, has maintained ties with Mr. Trump, hosting him and his senior aides for a dinner in Washington in April. The result has been intense scrutiny on CBS News's political coverage.

On Sunday, the airman segment featured an interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who rarely speaks one on one with major news outlets outside his former employer, Fox News; Mr. Hegseth used an expletive in his interview that CBS bleeped out.

The program's quest to land an interview with the downed colonel, known as Dude 44 Bravo, involved executives from the new and old editions of "60 Minutes."

Keith Sharman, the segment's producer, began reaching out to sources to secure the interview on April 6, within hours of the rescue, according to a person connected to the show. He and Tanya Simon, the “60 Minutes” executive producer who was fired in May, attended a meeting arranged by Ms. Weiss with Tami Radabaugh, an adviser to Mr. Hegseth, to make their case, two people connected to the show said. The interview was ultimately booked this summer.

Ms. Stahl's segment on pardons was the result of a monthslong effort by "60 Minutes" and the investigative team at CBS News — a collaboration within the news division that has been comparatively rare in the past but is now actively encouraged by Mr. Bilton and Ms. Weiss.

Ms. Stahl concluded with a statement from the Trump administration, which said any suggestion the president had behaved unethically “is either ill-informed or malicious.”

Sunday's episode made no mention of the behind-the-scenes drama at the program. Instead, Mr. Douthat, a former columnist at The New York Times, offered a closing message about artificial intelligence fears. He said that for six decades "60 Minutes" had "meant the same thing: journalism you can trust. Where we're headed, we're going to need it."

One important verdict on the season premiere will have to wait. Last season, "60 Minutes" averaged 9.1 million Americans an episode, up 9 percent from the year before. Nielsen is expected to report Sunday's ratings on Tuesday.

Amazon Suspends Its Flights With Airline in Miami Crash

By NIRAJ CHOKSHI

Amazon said it would temporarily stop transporting packages on 21 Air, the cargo airline that suffered a plane crash at the airport serving Miami last week, killing five people.

"Safety has always been our top priority, whether in our own operations or when we're working with partners," Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. "We've spent time supporting the investigation and reviewing some of the surrounding circumstances, and we've decided to pause our operations with 21 Air."

Two 21 Air pilots were operating a Boeing 767 on behalf of Amazon when the plane overshot a runway at Miami International Airport on Sept. 6, colliding with two vehicles, including a van owned by a cleaning company that serves air-

Flight 7598 on behalf of Amazon Air, which uses several cargo airlines to operate planes on its behalf. Amazon said it expected its decision would have little if any effect on its customers. 21 Air also operates flights for DHL, the logistics company based in Bonn, Germany.

In a statement, DHL said it “continually assesses its network and relationships with service providers to ensure we meet the needs of our customers and our operational requirements.” The company declined to comment further, citing the “sensitive nature” of the ongoing investigation.

'We've decided to pause our operations with 21 Air.' Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman.

lines. Five people in the van died and five others were injured.

"We remain focused on supporting the families and loved ones who were impacted by this accident, as well as working closely with the N.T.S.B. and all our partners, like Amazon, as the investigation continues," 21 Air said in a statement, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board. "We are confident in our safety policies, procedures and training."

The company was operating

One of the pilots of Flight 7598 warned the other multiple times that they were traveling with “excessive speed” as the plane came in for a landing, according to the safety board, which is investigating the crash and has recovered and analyzed the cockpit voice recording. The plane was moving at 138 m.p.h. when the brakes released.

According to the safety board, about 16 seconds after the plane appeared to touch down, a pilot could be heard calling for a go around, a maneuver in which a pilot aborts a landing, flies up and tries again.

The agency won't publicly disclose a cause for the crash until it issues a final report, which could take a year or more. Several former 21 Air employees have raised safety concerns about the airline, according to legal documents in a whistle-blower case filed with the Labor Department.

21 Air, which is based in Greensboro, N.C., is owned by Jim Crane, a billionaire who built his fortune in logistics and who also owns the Houston Astros baseball team.

A cargo plane after it overran a runway in Miami last week. Amazon's Prime Air operations uses several cargo airlines to fly planes on its behalf.
MARCO BELLO/REUTERS

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Two Open Cosmos satellites getting ready to be deployed. On Monday, the company announced that it had raised 300 million euros, about \$346 million.
OPEN COSMOS

Money Flows to Start-Ups on the New Frontier

By BERNHARD WARNER Europe is desperate to catch up in the space race.

Even before SpaceX's gargantuan initial public offering in June, European leaders were worried that the continent's space sector was falling behind the United States in science and in funding. Another big worry: Europe had become too dependent on Elon Musk's rocket company to commercialize space.

But in recent days, a string of deals has begun to shift the narrative. On Monday, Open Cosmos, a satellite maker with a headquarters in Britain, announced that it had raised 300 million euros (about \$346 million) from mostly European backers.

The investment comes after the Exploration Company's \$450 million funding round — one of the European space industry's biggest ever. (The company, a European start-up, competes directly with Mr. Musk's SpaceX in the reusable rocket market.)

Investors have put more than \$16.5 billion globally into space tech start-ups so far this year, according to PitchBook, roughly on track to nearly double last year's haul. The pace of sector funding is growing even faster for European space-focused start-ups, PitchBook data shows.

Open Cosmos plans to use its new capital to expand its satellite manufacturing abilities and accelerate a push into satellite data services. The round was led by Lightrock, a London-based venture capital firm, and ETF Partners. Also participating were Institut Català de Finances, a public development bank in Spain; Entrepreneurs First, a so-called start-up accelerator; and two international pension funds.

Open Cosmos, an 11-year-old company, has now raised more than \$390 million to date, the company said. That gives it a valuation of about \$2 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the funding details who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the company's finances.

Open Cosmos operates in an increasingly competitive part of the space sector. The company relies on SpaceX and other rocket-launch companies to get satellites into space. It also sells Earth-observation data to governments and businesses.

In March, it announced that it would expand into orbital connectivity, or providing high-speed satellite broadband and internet-of-things connectivity to businesses and governments. That will put Open Cosmos more directly into competition with SpaceX.

The climate crisis has been a major business driver for Open Cosmos, Rafel Jorda Siquier, the company's founder and chief executive, said in an interview. Last year, the company booked approximately \$175 million worth of contracts from governments and businesses. Many were paying for early alerts, delivered from Open Cosmos's low Earth orbit satellites, about how floods, wildfires and other weather calamities were ravaging the planet.

"These are very acute situations where having information

DealBook/

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when it's needed and where it's needed becomes critical," he said. The company's satellite images of deadly floods in Valencia, Spain, in 2024 were quickly beamed to officials on the ground, as were data and images of wildfires in Greece last year, he added.

The company is aiming to speed delivery time of that earth-bound data flow to minutes from hours, Mr. Jorda Siquier said. The new funding will help accelerate the build-out of satellites that can quickly process that data in space via artificial intelligence.

As speeds and processing abilities improve, Mr. Jorda Siquier said he had fielded more calls from insurers, agricultural companies and other businesses interested in his company's data

services.

The big bottleneck, he con- cedes, is “launch scarcity.” Satel-lite makers are still highly reliant upon private companies like SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and government-funded agencies to get their payloads into space. Any launch delays can throw off their satellite deployment dead-lines by months. That said, Open Cosmos has been working with rocket-launch companies in India, Japan and the United States to secure enough slots on upcoming launches to get its satellites into space, he said.

Still, the buzz around space as the next frontier for high-speed data connectivity and data processing has grabbed investors' attention. "Space is becoming a critical layer of infrastructure" for companies and governments seeking high-speed data communications and, increasingly, data processing, Ashish Puri, a partner at Lightrock, said in an interview.

"SpaceX did open the doors to many new applications," Mr. Puri said. But, he added, a new wave of start-ups are now looking to capitalize.

Satellite images of deadly floods in Valencia, Spain, in 2024 were quickly beamed to officials on the ground.
EMMA BUBOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

1	Zverev	6	$7^{9}$	$7^{8}$
	Khachanov	3	$6^{7}$	$6^{6}$

THIRD ROUND
Sept. 5
1	Zverev	6 7 $^{7}$ 6
25	Tabilo	2 6 $^{2}$ 2

TENNIS | U.S. OPEN

TROPHY MADE OF METTLE

As Rivals Falter, Zverev Keeps Showing Up, Keeps Evolving and Keeps Meeting the Moment

SHURAN HUANG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Alexander Zverev, who captured his second major title this year with a victory on Sunday in the U.S. Open final, has seized a chance in the absence of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.

By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN The Athletic

For five years, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev were the standard-bearers for the meat of the sandwich that men's tennis had become for a generation of players born in the 1990s.

In the first years of their careers, they had risen toward the top of the sport. In some ways, their combination of searing serves and counterpunching defense was revolutionary. Zverev and Medvedev dismantled one-dimensional big servers and tested Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer; Medvedev beat Djokovic to win the 2021 U.S. Open and also reached the No. 1 ranking.

But mostly, they were shut out of winning Grand Slam titles, leaving them no choice but to wait for the Big Three

GEOFF BURKE/IMAGN IMAGES, VIA REUTERS

Ben Shelton, right, praised Zverev's serve, return and movement.

How Zverev Won the U.S. Open

to move on so they could take over the sport.

But the Big Three refused to budge until their late 30s.

That was long enough for Zverev, the best and most consistent player of his cohort, to experience a rear guard assault from Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who are seven and four years younger than him.

Zverev, the 29-year-old big-serving German, was born to Russian parents who raised him to play a style of tennis that could hang in rallies with the greats who had come before him. The result was a series of drubbings by Alcaraz and Sinner in the late stages of Grand Slam tournaments.

That had left Zverev reeling after his loss in the first round of Wimbledon 14 months ago.

"It's not a feeling on a tennis court, it's just a life feeling in general," he said early

Continued on Page B8

FIRST ROUND

Sept. 1

1 Zverev 6 3 $6^{7}7$ 6 Sonego 4 6 $7^{9}5$ 4

ROUND OF 16

Sept. 7

1 Zverev	6 6 $7^{7}$
21 Darderi	2 2 $6^{3}$

QUARTERFINAL
Wednesday
1 Zverev	6 7 6
Van de Zandschulp	2 5 1

SEMIFINAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES

For Shelton, a Defeat Could Pave the Way For Future Triumphs

By AVA WALLACE The Athletic

Ben Shelton never seemed as if he were having a bad time on Sunday in New York.

Part of that is the 23-year-old Shelton's personality. He is unself-consciously confident, believes in the power of body language and grew up playing team sports, which fostered his ability to use a rowdy crowd to his advantage as much as it fostered his athleticism and competitive nature.

But above all else, Shelton relishes the opportunity to play tennis on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — the business ends of tournaments, as they are often called. Even as he sat, subdued in defeat, hours after losing the U.S. Open final to Alexander Zverev, he marveled at the experience.

How could he not? A crowd of nearly 24,000 roared and yelled for him all afternoon as he fought. Shelton was aiming to end a 23-year Grand Slam title drought in American men's tennis, and doing so as the first Black man playing in the U.S. Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972.

"Walking out on that court today, there's nothing like it. I've never felt anything like that before," Shelton said in a news conference on Sunday.

"It's an addicting feeling."

Shelton may have lost, but the experience could turn out to be a

Ava Wallace is a senior tennis writer for The Athletic.

American Drought

The American Andy Roddick beat Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain in straight sets to win the U.S. Open in 2003. Roddick and three other American men have made it to the finals since. None have won.

YEAR RUNNER-UP WINNER
2005 Andre Agassi Roger Federer
2006 Andy Roddick Roger Federer
2024 Taylor Fritz Jannik Sinner

2026 Ben Shelton Alexander Zverev
Source: U.S. Open. THE NEW YORK TIMES blueprint for the next phase of his career.

This summer was a test, the first real turning point since he burst onto the scene in 2023, a raw talent with a big personality, a bigger serve and a knack for handling himself well in big matches. Shelton made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in his second major tournament appearance. He made the semifinals of the U.S. Open later that year.

But four seasons later, the rest of the tour had discovered how to neutralize some of Shelton's natural gifts. His return of serve was a vulnerability that needed addressing, and he had the sense it was time — maybe past time — to evolve. A second-round loss at the French Open and a first-round loss at Wimbledon frustrated him. But it did not rattle him.

"It sucked the last couple of Grand Slams sitting at home for 10, 11, 12 days while the tournament is still going on, watching everyone else run through the draw," Shelton said. "You know, it's motivating."

After an unexpectedly early return flight home from Wimbledon, Shelton trained in the smothering Florida heat all July with his strength and conditioning coach Gabe Echevarria. He realized he was so eager to get to the later rounds of tournaments that mentally, he was overlooking the early ones. He gained clarity about his identity on the court, and little by little, with help from his coach and father, the former ATP pro Bryan Shelton, his return game came along.

"I think tactically, he understands what returning is about now," Bryan Shelton said on Friday.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHELLE V. AGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ben Shelton, above and left, didn't have a favorable style matchup in the final on Sunday against Alexander Zverev. But Shelton said that he learned to focus on his own game more.

TENNIS | U.S. OPEN

Ben Shelton sees himself as an underdog of sorts. Unlike many pros, who pick up their rackets as toddlers, Shelton did not start taking tennis seriously until he was around 9. He did not give up football to focus solely on tennis until he was around 12, which means he has hit fewer forehands, backhands and serves than most other 23-year-olds on the tour.

That knowledge lends itself to a humble approach to working on his game, despite how he may appear on court.

"I've always, my whole life, had guys out in front of me, guys that I'm chasing, guys that I'm trying to get on the same level as," Shelton said. "I'm a late bloomer. That's just the way that it's always been. It's no different now."

He has no problem making adjustments. On Sunday against Zverev, he made many of the right decisions to try to offset what was a particularly bad matchup for him.

He has not beaten Zverev in six tries, partly because of the German's return positioning and height. Zverev stands extremely far back to neutralize the power of Shelton's serve, and at 6 foot 6, he has the wingspan and athleticism to return Shelton's high-kicking serve and recover in time to set up a good next shot.

Zverev also has one of the most lethal backhands in the game, if not the best, and the Grand Slam experience to know when to become a brick wall in a rally and let his opponent make a mistake.

Shelton did well to try to counter him with off-speed, precise serves and aggressive moves into net. But those tactics demand precision, and keeping that up over a five-set match can feel impossible, especially in a player's first Grand Slam final.

Shelton's lesson from the match is clear. In addressing the vulnerabilities and adjusting to his opponent's game, he has to remember to take care of the bread-and-butter components of his game, too. Shelton was not hitting his forehand as well as he would have like to on Sunday.

"I wasn't accurate with it when I attacked with it. I made too many errors when I had the ball there on my strings," he said, adding: "I wasn't great in transition. I made too many errors, and I think that's the big piece from me. I want to be more lethal with my forehand.

"It's not easy, you know, playing a guy like him where the chances are — there's very few chances. You've got to work hard for the points that you win, for sure."

On Friday, Shelton called his weekend ahead uncharted territory. He has a map now, and most important for all those who were cheering for an American to win on Sunday, he does not seem scarred by the loss. He said he was motivated, ready to resume his chase — only now, with a bit more direction.

"I haven't always been successful the very first time that I've been in finals, whether it was from when I was really young all the way up to the challenger level and now the ATP, Grand Slam level," Shelton said. "I think that it's an ongoing process for me. That's the way I see it.

"I don't think I'm anywhere near the player that I want to be."

A Trophy of Mettle for Zverev, Who Keeps Showing Up as His Rivals Falter

Alexander Zverev did not have to beat Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz for either of his major titles.
AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES

DITA ALANGAKRA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

HENRY NICHOLLS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Alcaraz outlasted Zverev in a 2026 Australian Open semifinal en route to the championship.
Sinner defeated Zverev in four sets in this year's Wimbledon final but then battled a knee injury.

From First Sports Page

last summer. "It's difficult to find joy outside the tennis court for me at the moment."

For years, Zverev has been a controversial figure in the sport. He was accused twice of domestic abuse and has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Once was by a former girlfriend in 2020, but she did not pursue charges. The ATP Tour found that there was “insufficient evidence” to support her allegations and did not punish him.

In the other case, brought by a former girlfriend who has a child with Zverev, he reached a settlement in Germany without admitting wrongdoing, instead paying of 200,000 euros, or \$218,000, to the state treasury and to nonprofit organizations.

In a news conference at the French Open two years ago, Zverev said: "They're not going to drop the case if you're guilty at the end of the day. Done. We move on. I never ever want to hear another question about the subject again."

A year later he said he felt lonely on the tennis court and did not have any answers. His results at major tournaments were going in the wrong direction. Before long, he would land at Nadal's training academy, searching for answers that he and his two main coaches, his father and brother, did not seem able to deliver.

Alcaraz and Sinner were just too good. They had won all the Grand Slam titles in 2024 and 2025, and they played each other for the title in three of them last year. They were young. They were better than Zverev, Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the main three characters who had appeared heirs to the sport but were now fading. And it didn't look like Alcaraz and Sinner were going anywhere for a long time. Zverev could not solve them.

As it turned out, he didn't have to.

After clinching the U.S. Open trophy on Sunday, with a 6-4, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-2 win over Ben Shelton, Zverev evaluated his status among the best players in the sport right now.

"Right now, at this moment, probably yes," he said. "Both of them healthy and both of them at the top of their game? Maybe not." He added: "If everyone's healthy, I think Jannik is ahead."

Shelton, though, had plenty of praise for Zverev after a frustrating afternoon against him, when he played for 2 hours 18 minutes before earning his first break point.

"He's got the best serve in tennis," Shelton, who usually has a lethal serve himself, said of Zverev in a news conference. "Combine that with as good as he is as a tennis player outside the serve, you know how complete he is, he's gotten so much better at the net. He's an elite mover. He's got a lot of length, so he returns really well. Solid from the baseline and one of the fittest guys on tour, too."

Winning the biggest tournaments in tennis is usually about coming up with some outrageous forehands and backhand and serves in the biggest moments. Zverev has long done a bit of that, especially with his serve, which is one of the most efficiently lethal in the game, and also with his back-hand, which simply never breaks down.

But winning is also about staying healthy and showing up and being able to deal with the elements of the crucible that best-off-five tennis in the Grand Slams can throw at the men's players. Zverev did that more and better than Alcaraz, Sinner and Djokovic this year.

Now, he has two Grand Slam trophies to show for it. And amazingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, Zverev has been able to collect those two trophies without beating either Alcaraz or Sinner all year.

First Alcaraz went down with a wrist injury in April. That kept him out of the French Open and Wimbledon. He didn't play again until this U.S. Open, where Shelton beat him at 3:33 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday in the match of the tournament.

As for Sinner, at the French Open he succumbed to a historic spring heat wave in Paris. A game from escaping the second round in straight sets, he became weak and unable to move and won just one more. Djokovic would lose the following day.

Zverev managed to survive. A nighttime match assignment on one of the hottest days helped some. When Zverev got to the final, Flavio Cobolli, a rising but fragile Italian and the world No. 14, was on the other side of the net. Zverev wobbled, but he survived and lifted his first Grand Slam trophy after a five-set win.

"If you call me the worst player to win a Grand Slam, I could not care less right now," he said after that final.

A month later at Wimbledon, Sinner beat him in the final in four sets. Zverev though, playing some of the best and most aggressive tennis of his life, pushed Sinner hard and made him work for it.

A month later, Sinner announced that he was rehabilitating an injured knee and would miss the Cincinnati Open. Two weeks after that, he pulled out of the U.S. Open. Zverev rose to become the top seed.

Alcaraz, now the No. 2 seed, was safely on the other side of the draw. Zverev would not have to face him until the final. But Alcaraz had been on the sidelines for nearly five months, and getting to the final seemed like a long shot, even for the 23-year-old seventime Grand Slam champion. Indeed, a nearly five-hour battle with Shelton in the middle of the night proved to be too much.

Djokovic had gotten out of the way in the first round, his body failing as he lost in five sets on the first night of the tournament.

Meanwhile, Zverev was once more working his way through a Grand Slam draw. It was not always pretty. He was two points from elimination in the first round, a match with Italy's Lorenzo Sonego that ended at 1:55 a.m. He needed another five sets in the second round, defeating France's Quentin Halys at 2:15 a.m.

He survived. Once more he had put himself in position to pick up the pieces of a draw where the most decorated players had fallen away before the final weekend.

To his credit, Zverev listened to the advice he received when he visited the Nadal Academy in Mallorca. Nadal and his uncle Toni explained to him how Nadal had beaten him seven times out of 11 while Zverev had mostly obliterated all other lefties.

It was the same thing he would have to do if he wanted to stay relevant at the top of the game and have any hope of challenging Alcaraz and Sinner. He could no longer play passively, rallying and waiting for the perfect shot to attack or for his opponent to miss.

The sport had entered an era of first-strike tennis and defense out of the corners that included flipping points. Late last season, Zverev promised himself that, win or lose, he was going to play that way, and he has rarely wavered from the plan.

The shift was aimed at trying to compete with Alcaraz and Sinner. It ended up making it more difficult for lesser players to knock him out of big tournaments, as they did last year.

It almost allowed him to topple Sinner at Wimbledon. Against Shelton on Sunday, no matter how far behind the baseline Zverev began during points, he repeatedly worked his way into the court. In some points, it would take several shots, with Zverev taking one giant step forward after each shot to gain the advantage and push his opponent further back. On so many of his serves, he stood firm right near the baseline and refused to give it up.

Zverev has seized an opportunity that his peers could not.

He acclimated to a new era. He got better. He stayed healthy. He kept showing up. This year, that was enough.

ANALYSIS

Quarterbacks Old and Young Cast a Spell

By MICHAEL SILVER The Athletic

HOUSTON — When quarterback Josh Allen heard the question, he could not help but go with the flow.

In an effort to describe his spellbinding effort, which carried the Buffalo Bills to victory in Sunday's season opener, tight end Dawson Knox had used a psychological term to sum up the focus, freedom and magic that cause even Allen's opponents to shake their heads in wonderment.

When I asked Allen a few minutes later if he was, in fact, in a flow state during the final stages of a 36-31 victory against the Houston Texans, he broke into a wide smile and started laughing.

“Yep,” he acknowledged, “that was a good flow state. I was just feeling the flow, riding the bull. And it all came together.”

The bull in question was the Texans' formidable defense, and the ride was resplendent, culminating in an audacious, 34-yard touchdown strike to the little-used receiver Joshua Palmer with 1 minute 36 seconds remaining.

The last time I had seen Allen after a game, he was crying, stung by yet another heartbreaking playoff defeat. Much has changed since that emotionally wrenching January night, including Allen's coach, and his marquee receiving target — D. J. Moore, acquired in a March trade with the Chicago Bears — but his mission remains the same: Bring the Bills and their rabid fan base the Lombardi Trophy they have ting up a Panthers touchdown drive) and despite a failed fourth-and-1 conversion from his own 21 (setting up another).

CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BENGALS Joe Burrow offered hopes of a playoff return.

Williams's dynamic effort was one of the more notable developments on a day when they came at a dizzying pace.

Beyond those top-shelf A.F.C. quarterbacks, there are rumblings of a new generation's push to reach that lofty level. Most glaringly, Caleb Williams, the Bears' third-year quarterback, seems poised to become the latest member of his stacked draft class (joining Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye) to make pulses quicken and hearts flutter.

In the early window, the New Orleans Saints waged a furious road comeback, took the Detroit Lions to overtime and — in what was practically a homage to the opposing coach, Dan Campbell — blew off a probable tie and laid it all on the line with a late 2-point conversion attempt. The Lions won, 31-30.

In two playoff games last January, Williams provided some of the 2025 postseason's most indelible moments. On Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., he nearly dropped 60 on a Panthers team also coming off a playoff appearance. Williams did it despite his first pass being fumbled away by receiver Luther Burden III (set-

Later, one LaFleur (Mike, the Arizona Cardinals' rookie coach) led his team to a stunning 26-14 upset of the Los Angeles Chargers while another (big brother Matt, the Green Bay Packers' eighth-year coach) watched a seemingly secure lead turn into a 39-22 Minnesota mauling.

And on Sunday night, we got our first piece of concrete evidence that the John Harbaugh effect is real, in the form of the vastly improved New York Giants' 28-20 victory against the Dallas Cowboys.

If you were looking for a single sequence that encapsulated the frenzy, it happened during the final two minutes of the Bills' victory, a game that had nine lead changes.

BILLS Quarterback Josh Allen said he was "feeling the flow, riding the bull" as he took apart a vaunted Texans defense on Sunday.
TIM WARNER/GETTY IMAGES

Trailing, 31-30, at the two-minute warning with the ball at his 32, Allen zipped a quick pass to tight end Dalton Kincaid, who shook off an attempted tackle by cornerback Kamari Lassiter and burst into the secondary for a 35-yard gain. Two plays later, Allen, after being flushed to his left, launched an errant pass for Palmer — playing in place of the temporarily hobbled Moore, who had scored earlier on a spectacular 43-yard sideline throw from Allen. The ball instead sailed toward Lassiter, who nearly intercepted it as he fell backward into the end zone.

ELSA/GETTY IMAGES
JARED C. TILTON/GETTY IMAGES
GIANTS Coach John Harbaugh had much to smile about, as his team looked revived in a victory against the Cowboys.
BEARS Caleb Williams gave credence to his coach's prediction of a record scoring offense, leading a 59-point effort in a win.

Sunday's triumph was a promising start, part of a scoring explosion across the N.F.L. that included a game (the Bears' 59-37 victory against the Carolina Panthers) with more combined points than any in the past eight years.

craved for decades.

Allen, the league's 2024 most valuable player, spent his Sunday torching a Texans defense that went into the season billed by many as the N.F.L.'s best. Lamar Jackson, a two-time most valuable player playing for a new coach (like Allen) and a new offensive coordinator (unlike Allen), was equally scintillating in leading the Baltimore Ravens to a 41-23 road rout of the Indianapolis Colts. And though Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow was not quite as hypnotic, his team's new-look defense fueled a 33-27 victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and provided hope his team could end a three-year streak of missing the postseason.

The upshot of a wild opening Sunday was that even in the wake of a Super Bowl triumph fueled by a dominant defense (the Seattle Seahawks'), this league still revolves around the star signal callers who give their teams a chance to dream, no matter how daunting the circumstances.

Given another chance, Allen, on third-and-11, dropped back and unleashed a throw which, based on the Texans' coverage, he absolutely, positively, had no business making. Allen zipped the ball to Palmer, who was running a deep post from the left side, into a tight window between the trailing Lassiter and the closing safety Calen Bullock.

Receiver Khalil Shakir, who had juked safety Jalen Pitre and sprung open near the first-down marker, fully expected to get the ball in stride. Shakir said of Allen, "If everybody could slow that down and see what he did out there, the way he manipulated them with his eyes and threw that pass, there's no question he's the best in the league."

Later, as Joe Brady, the Bills' rookie coach, headed to the team buses — having passed his first test after being promoted from offensive coordinator to replace the fired Sean McDermott — he confirmed that Palmer was not the intended target as the play was designed.

"That's just a love-of-the-game route," Brady said. "As a receiver, you usually run that to clear out space so someone else can catch it. But with Josh, you always have to be ready."

The Texans' defenders were stunned by Allen's scoring strike, even as the fourth-year quarterback C. J. Stroud proceeded to lead Houston 9 yards from a winning touchdown before Greg Rousseau's second strip sack

sealed the Bills' victory.

As linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair told me long after the game, shaking his head for emphasis, "Josh Palmer catching a deep post on Kamari Lassiter to win the game — I did not have that on my bingo card."

It was yet another indelible moment for Allen and the Bills, who will open their new stadium on Thursday night against the Lions.

If all goes well for Buffalo, he will let it flow the way he did on Sunday.

The Bears' coach wasn't kidding about having a high-scoring offense.

In early August, Bears Coach Ben Johnson was not bashful about his aspirations during an interview with The Athletic: "You've got 31 other teams coming to training camp saying, 'Our goal is to win the Super Bowl.' I want more than that. I want to have the highest-scoring offense ever, which happens to be the 2013 Denver Broncos. I know how many points per game they scored (37.9), and I want to surpass them."

Johnson said what he said, and on Sunday, his team did what they did: The Bears are now three touchdowns ahead of the Peyton Manning-led Broncos' scoring pace, after a game that featured more combined points (96) than any in the N.F.L. since the epic 2018 Monday night clash between the host Los Angeles

Rams and Kansas City.

After Sunday's victory, Johnson, via text, chose an epic understatement: "Found a way — now it's on to the next."

That's like Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, after his national anthem before Wednesday night's season-opening game between the Seahawks and New England Patriots in Seattle, saying, "Hit a few notes, now it's on to 'Yellow Ledbetter.'"

The Bears host the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field on Sunday, setting the stage for a schematic showdown between the creative Johnson and Brian Flores, the Vikings' very aggressive and highly acclaimed defensive coordinator, who also had a noteworthy season debut. Fasten your seatbelts for that one.

Going for it in Detroit is rubbing off on Lions opponents.

The underdog Saints erased a 21-point, third-quarter deficit in Detroit, had a chance to win on the final play of regulation (on Daniel Carlson's 62-yard field goal attempt) and rallied once more after the Lions' Jared Goff threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown on the first possession of overtime. When the second-year quarterback Tyler Shough cut Detroit's lead to 31-30 on an 8-yard scoring pass to Noah Fant with 1:34 left in overtime, New Orleans Coach Kellen Moore entered do-or-die

mode, going for a 2-point conversion to win the game.

In the house of Campbell, he had to.

"I think you've got to go for it," Goff told me later by phone. "We would have done the same thing."

Shough's pass to the right corner, intended for the rookie Bryce Lance, landed out of the end zone — but it does not mean Moore made the wrong decision. And for what it's worth, the 0-1 Saints, locked in a four-way tie in the uninspiring N.F.C. South, looked like division title contenders on Sunday.

The worst thing I saw on Sunday.

While I'm tempted to talk about Deshaun Watson's listless performance for the Cleveland Browns in their 34-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the honor of the worst thing I saw on Sunday goes to Packers Coach Matt LaFleur. His team had a 22-10, third-quarter lead against the Vikings, and with the new Minnesota starter, Kyler Murray, having been knocked from the game with a concussion, the Packers were playing against a backup quarterback, Carson Wentz.

Then it all imploded. Brian Flores's defense produced a pair of fourth-quarter takeaways, and Minnesota scored 29 consecutive points in 16 minutes to win, 39-22.

For LaFleur, it continued a disturbing trend. His team has now blown double-digit, second-half leads to division opponents three times in its past five games, including painful regular-season and playoff defeats to the Bears that doomed Green Bay's 2025 hopes. All of a sudden, Sunday's road game against the New York Jets (1-0 after a road victory against the Tennessee Titans and the former Jets coach Robert Saleh) feels far more pressure-packed for LaFleur than envisioned.

Can I get a do-over on that?

If I could have one play call back for one team on Sunday, it would be the Washington Commanders' potential game-tying 2-point conversion attempt with 1:01 remaining in a 24-22 defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles. With everything on the line, David Blough, a rookie offensive coordinator, tried to be slick, dialing up a shovel pass to tight end John

Bates.

It was a disaster: Center Nick Allegretti got blown up, and Eagles defensive end Moro Ojomo tackled Bates well short of the goal line as he caught Daniels's pass. I'm no play-calling genius, but it sure seemed like putting the game in the hands of the Commanders' accomplished pair of receivers, Stefon Diggs and Terry McLaurin, would have been a better idea.

Two things I can't comprehend.

■ Why the United States Tennis Association and ESPN would sign off on a system that allowed a marquee match — the five-set quarterfinal between Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz — to air at a time when most Americans were sleeping. Fault!

- How the Rams' sports scientists persuaded one of the N.F.L.'s smartest coaches, Sean McVay, to sign off on a plan that had the team complete its 16-hour flight to Australia 28 hours before Thursday night's game against the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners, who showed up eight days before kickoff, rolled to a 27-7 victory. Los Angeles, shockingly, seemed to lose energy as the game went on. Even before kickoff, one longtime N.F.L. assistant viewed the Rams' plan as a potential referendum on the overuse of analytics.

There goes the best prediction ever.

Los Angeles Chargers Coach Jim Harbaugh, who hypes his quarterbacks with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind, was on a heater during a recent podcast appearance.

"Allow me to call my shot, like Babe Ruth pointing his bat over to center field," Harbaugh said on "The White House With Michael Irvin." "Justin Herbert, when it's all said and done, will be known as the greatest, best ever to play the position of quarterback."

The N.F.L.'s equivalent of a Heisman campaign got off to an inglorious start on Sunday, with the 28-year-old Herbert, who has never won a playoff game, taking a 26-14 home defeat against Mike LaFleur's lightly regarded Cardinals and the journeyman quarterback Jacoby Brissett.

Or, as Harbaugh, now 6-1 in season openers, might put it: The most embarrassing opening day defeat of all time.

MIKE MULHOLLAND/GETTY IMAGES

SAINTS Bryce Lance couldn't pull down a 2-point pass in overtime, bringing a loss versus the Lions.

BASKETBALL

World May Be Catching Up, but U.S. Still Has That Winning Kick

By ANNIE COSTABILE The Athletic

FIBA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL WORLD CUP GERMANN 2026
ODD ANDERSEN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Breanna Stewart, with trophy, and her U.S. teammates on Sunday after a 97-79 victory for the World Cup title. Left, Stewart, who was named the tournament's M.V.P., with Chelsea Gray.

ANNEGRET HILSE/REUTERS

The United States continued its reign as the most dominant country in women's basketball, claiming its fifth consecutive FIBA World Cup gold medal with an assertive 97-79 win against France on Sunday in Berlin.

Despite a narrative that the Americans might finally be meeting their match in a motivated French team, which had dominated the tournament entering the championship game, the U.S. proved its dynasty was in good hands.

"There was a lot of noise out there," Chelsea Gray, the U.S. captain, said on TNT after the game. "I'm pretty sure we quieted it."

Questions started mounting around the United States' potential to be upset well before the tournament tipped off earlier this month — even though the national team had not lost a game in major international competition since 2006.

A transitional era for the basketball federation — with the World Cup debuts of young stars like Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese — and the seeming ascendance of the French were just enough to cast doubt on the U.S. team's rule.

Last-minute injury scratches to A'ja Wilson, the United States' leading scorer at the last three major tournaments, and Kelsey Plum muddied things even more.

But when it came time for the highly anticipated rematch of the 2024 Olympic gold medal game, the United States proved yet again that it is the standard.

"We were ready," said Breanna Stewart, who was named the World Cup's most valuable player for the second time in her career. "This was a game we obviously wanted to get to from the start of this tournament."

The gold medal game, and the tournament as a whole, was not as seamless as some in the past. As the global game has caught up with the U.S. team's talent, with 51 active W.N.B.A. players on World Cup rosters, the Americans were challenged consistently.

For the first 20 minutes of Sunday's game against France, Les Bleues made sure the U.S. team felt them everywhere on the court.

Annie Costabile is a senior women's basketball writer for The Athletic.

On defense, France's overwhelming ball pressure and passing-lane disruption prevented the U.S. team from establishing any offensive rhythm. Offensively, it unloaded an unrelenting downpour from 3-point range.

An 11-0 run put Les Bleues ahead by 14 to start the second quarter — the largest deficit the U.S. team has faced in World Cup play since its 2006 semifinals loss to Russia. But the Americans responded with a 10-2 run of their own, sparked by a short-range jumper from Stewart off a give-and-go with Jackie Young, and were 2 points behind at halftime.

"I wish I could tell you something amazing was said," Kara Lawson, the U.S. coach, said of her halftime speech. "What we talked about was some busted coverages. We showed some film on some actions that were giving us problems. So it was more strategic than motivational."

Stewart divulged more than Lawson was willing to, sharing that their coach told them, "France might stay with us for three quarters, but by the time we get to that fourth quarter, we're going to be able to bust this thing open."

It did not take nearly that long as the United States emerged from the break with a ferocity that had been absent through the first two quarters.

France came into Sunday's gold medal game beating opponents by an average of 35.6 points, but Les Bleues looked shellshocked when the United States flipped the script to start the third quarter.

Stewart used a screen from Gray and got a clean look at the rim, tying the score with a layup to start the second half. On the next play, Napheesa Collier put the United States ahead with a backdoor layup off an assist from Young. Before the quarter was over, the United States held a 16-point lead, which it extended to 19 in the fourth quarter.

Young was the U.S. team's leading scorer in the tournament going into the final, averaging 11.2 points. But Stewart was the team's steadying force throughout. She finished with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds on the way to her fourth World Cup gold medal, joining Sue Bird with the most of any player in tournament history.

Five U.S. players scored in double figures. Young added 18 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, while Kahleah Copper added 15 points, Gray 12 and Caitlin Clark 12 off the bench.

"I pride myself on being consistently great," Stewart said. "That's showing up when it's the big moments, the small moments and all the moments in between. It's a confidence, an unrealistic

A surge in the second half against France brings a fifth world title in a row.

confidence that I have in myself especially in those big moments."

While the United States found itself on offense in the second half, Copper, Young and Rhyne Howard wreaked havoc on defense to help the Americans claim their 12th overall World Cup title. Howard finished with four steals, and Copper had one.

The three players were tasked with slowing France's leading scorer, Gabby Williams, who was averaging 18.4 points a game entering Sunday. Williams was held scoreless in the third quarter and failed to score again until under the two-minute mark in the fourth. She finished with 20 points as the U.S. team held France to its lowest scoring output of the tournament. Dominique Malonga led France with 21 points and 6 rebounds.

Lawson tightened her rotation significantly, with Bueckers, Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen playing fewer than three minutes apiece. Clark, Reese and Howard were the three members of the team's younger cohort who had the most playing time.

Lawson said she believed the learning experience for the younger players would translate well to the Olympics.

"You learn every day you're here with U.S.A. Basketball," Lawson said. "You learn when you're playing. You learn when you're not playing. I just saw them picking things up quickly. They have high intelligence. They're highly skilled. They're very competitive, and they really wanted to contribute to this team and help us win."

France's silver medal was its best World Cup finish in federation history and its first medal since 1953 when Les Bleues won bronze. Spain, which had six W.N.B.A. players on its roster, took home bronze on Sunday by beating Germany, 81-58.

The next World Cup will be in Tokyo in 2030 with a changed window, running from Nov. 26 to Dec. 8. The schedule change means there will be no overlap with the W.N.B.A. schedule as the league's footprint continues to expand.

GOLF

COMMENTARY

Beer Flowed, 'Sweet Caroline' Blared, and Europe Got Even

Carlota Ciganda, front, and her European teammates on Sunday after regaining the Solheim Cup from the U.S. in the Netherlands.
MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

By CAOIMHE O'NEILL The Athletic

CROMVOIRT, the Netherlands — Carlota Ciganda stood on the 18th green, her European blue shirt a few shades darker now after it had been stained by champagne.

"I'm not going to bed, I'm just going crazy," she said.

The Spaniard is from Pamplona, the city best known for the running of the bulls, and she found herself at the heart of the drama all weekend, her fire antagonizing the Americans and leading the Europeans. It was only fitting, then, that Ciganda was the one who officially brought the Solheim Cup back to Europe, beating a newfound nemesis, 4 and 2, for the decisive point.

"Mrs. Solheim Cup," Nelly Korda said as she congratulated Ciganda after Europe's 15-13 win against the United States.

Ciganda, who hit the decisive shot in 2023 when Europe retained the Solheim Cup, is an eight-time veteran with a 5-2-1 record in singles. In her match against Jennifer Kupcho, she had already clinched at least a half-point, so it was the L.P.G.A.'s breakout star Lottie Woad who unknowingly holed the Cup winner in her match against Auston Kim.

Woad, who is ranked No. 7 in the world, had been paired with the No. 8-ranked Charley Hull in four matches over the first two days by Europe's captain, Anna Nordqvist. That turned out to be an concern all weekend as the all-English partnership lost three times and produced just half a point. But Hull earned the first point of Sunday singles, putting Europe in the lead. The European stars then delivered all day. Linn Grant (4-0-0 for the tournament), Nastasia Nadaud (3-1), Nanna Koerstz Madsen (3 and 2 over Andrea Lee) and Julia López Ramírez (3 and 2 over Yealimi Noh) also all earned full points.

Caoimhe O'Neill is a sportswriter for The Athletic.

“Europe’s on fire, U.S.A. is terrified,” shouted Woad, draped in an England flag with her compatriot and fellow rookie Mimi Rhodes. Swirling around them was cameras, celebrations and commiserations. The U.S. team had to cut through Europe’s excitement to offer congratulations to their rivals, who did pause their beer-swilling antics to accept what was a true graciousness in defeat.

As “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond blared from the speakers on the first tee, the Europeans headed back to where the fun began on Friday morning. They were reunited with their jubilant fans, who had made it an incredible and raucous occasion for both teams across all three days.

That Diamond song, a staple anthem at sports events, is what the vice captain Mel Reid said — or tried to say, with a lost voice

— helped find Europe a way out of their low mood on Saturday evening. Ciganda and Céline Boutier were 2 up with two holes to go in the final match on Saturday when Kupcho made a 92-foot putt on the 17th followed by a 29-foot putt on No. 18 to win the full point alongside Lindy Duncan and ensure that Day 2 ended in a tie, 8-8.

The putts were huge in distance and momentum. And when the final one went in, Kupcho cupped her ear in the direction of

Ciganda and screamed "vamos," a clear reference to what Ciganda had shouted a day before, when she won a half-point with a messy up-and-down on the 18th hole against Korda and Lauren Coughlin.

By chance, as opposing captains release their lineups without knowing the other's, Ciganda and Kupcho were paired against each other on Sunday. For Ciganda, that meant only one thing: revenge.

"I was really happy to see that I was playing against Kupcho," Ciganda said. "She's a fighter, I'm a fighter, and I told her, 'Look, great playing.' I mean, even yesterday what she did was amazing on 17 and 18. But today I knew she had no chance. I was like, I want to kill you."

What had also lifted Ciganda and Europe when they got back to the team hotel on Saturday was a message sent to Ciganda from the Ryder Cup legend José María Olazábal. And there was "Sweet Caroline" put on over the speakers in the team room.

"I just felt like it just changed the mood and united us," Reid said. "It was weird, we just forgot what happened, the disappointment, and we just got back on it."

Olazábal may have captained the Miracle at Medinah, the European men's comeback win in the 2012 Ryder Cup, but the European women needed no such rally on Sunday. They did need heart and passion, the kind served up and best exemplified by Ciganda.

"I love this week," she said. "As I said, I love playing for the team, for my teammates, for everyone here."

She added: "I love beating the Americans. And then, yeah, just winning for Team Europe, it's the best feeling."

As Europe's giddy and gallant team danced on the first tee while waiting for the trophy to be presented by John Solheim, whose family founded the competition in 1990, the U.S. captain Angela Stanford pulled her team together for a photograph on the 18th green.

"The good news is they can show back up in Kentucky in a couple of years and make it right," Stanford said.

The next Solheim Cup is in 2028 at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. Europe will come in having held the Cup after four of the past five editions.

As a cloud of blue and yellow smoke exploded into the air behind them, Nordqvist lifted the trophy in front of her family, who had traveled from Sweden to witness the crowning moment of a career that lasted almost two decades and included three major wins. And that is when the rain, which had been off but mostly on all day, began to fall on Europe's stage.

On Saturday, Stanford ran onto the Americans' team bus with a crate of beers for her team in hand. Some wondered if they celebrated too soon. But Stanford defended her actions after Kupcho's heroics. "You don't want to take away from those moments," Stanford said. "We're never going to see anything like that again."

Perhaps not, but on Sunday night as the European players loaded the bus for the trip back to their lodgings, the team helper Dame Laura Davies, who won four Solheim Cups as a player and three as a vice captain, appeared with a case of Heinekens.

"Is anyone thirsty?" she shouted.

Bob Mackie, Who Adorned Stars in Clouds of Glitter, Dies at 87

By PENELOPE GREEN

Bob Mackie in 2001. "He dressed every spangly woman in show business," the author of "Unmistakably Mackie" (1999) said.
RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cher and Mr. Mackie in 1974. During their long collaboration he won two Emmys for her outfits.
RON GALELLA/WIREIMAGE

Bob Mackie, the exuberant costume and fashion designer whose glittering, beaded, sequined, rhinestoned, feathered and often winged creations bedecked, bedazzled and elevated performers like Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Mitzi Gaynor, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, RuPaul and, most memorably and enduringly, Cher — as well as an 11½-inch model named Barbie — died on Monday in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 87.

The death, at a hospital, was confirmed by Joe McFate, Mr. Mackie's longtime design director.

"He dressed every spangly woman in show business," Frank DeCaro, the author of "Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie" (1999), said in an interview. "You can mention some of the greatest names in fashion, and the average person won't be able to conjure up, for example, a Giorgio Armani suit. But if you say to an American of a certain age, 'What is a Bob Mackie?', they know exactly what you're talking about."

Mr. Mackie got his start in Hollywood, dropping out of college to sketch for the costume designers Jean Louis and Edith Head, but it was television that made his name. When Carol Burnett put together her variety show in 1967, she picked Mr. Mackie to design the costumes. At the time, he was in his late 20s — though he looked about 12, Ms. Burnett often said. Over the show's 11 seasons, he created an average of 60 costumes a week for Ms. Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway and Lyle Waggoner, as well as the show's guest stars and supporting performers.

The skits, of course, were comedic gold, and Ms. Burnett said that she frequently found her characters through Mr. Mackie's designs. For Mrs. Wiggins — the dim and indifferent secretary whom "the I.Q. fairy never visited," in Ms. Burnett's words — he assembled a frosty blonde wig, a push-up bra and a tight black skirt that wasn't quite tight enough for Ms. Burnett's lanky frame. "Stick your behind back into it," he instructed her, and the character's mincing walk was born.

The show was known for its zany movie parodies, and when it took on a scene from “Gone With the Wind” (renamed “Went With the Wind”) in which the heroine, fallen on hard times, has a dress made out of her curtains, Mr. Mackie asked the prop department for a curtain rod so he could fashion his own version for Ms. Burnett as “Starlet O’Hara.” (It was such an instant, irresistible sight gag that Ms. Burnett made sure to warn Mr. Korman, playing “Ratt Butler,” beforehand so he wouldn’t lose his composure onstage.)

"That gown is gorgeous," Ratt exclaimed in the skit.

"Thank you," Starlet replied. "I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist it."

Mr. Mackie's curtain dress is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington.

Television variety shows were the closest thing to movie musicals, as Mr. Mackie liked to say, particularly in the 1970s; they were nightly extravaganzas that delivered high-wattage stars and over-the-top, glamorous fashion to America's living rooms.

Sonny Bono and Cher had veered from their folk roots and were playing Las Vegas when CBS hired them to do a weekly show. Mr. Mackie had seen photos of them, and as he told Vogue, which put together an oral history of the designer in 2019, "They were kind of like New Age cave people. There they were in their fur vests and funny pants and belts and just a whole look that nobody had had up until that time."

The producers, he added, didn't know what to do with Cher, but Mr. Mackie did. (He noted that she was built just like Ms. Burnett, a perfect size 6 with no cleavage: a human clothes hanger.) Their collaboration, first on "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which ran from 1971 to 1974, delighted television audiences and confounded the network's censors, as Mr. Mackie bared more and more of Cher's extraordinary physique in ever more outlandish getups.

Mr. Mackie recalled a censor complaining of one outfit that revealed the undersides of Cher's breasts (the industry term was "underboob").

“Well, if we stand her on her head,” he retorted, “it will just be cleavage.”

Later, Cher became the first person allowed to show her belly button on television.

"People can watch a show and see people stealing hubcaps and then they can go out and steal hubcaps," she told TV Guide, "but I don't think my show will provoke anybody into stealing a belly button."

Reviewing “Cher,” her post-divorce variety show that ran for 11 months in 1975-76, Newsweek declared that the performer “played second banana to the show’s real star — a cool, hip, certifiably freaky costume designer named Bob Mackie. Television hasn’t shown so much glitter and flash since NBC did a special on Libe-

race's closet."

naturally boyish, always soberly dressed in his uniform of button-down shirts and khaki pants, like he had stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad — looked as if he would be allergic to sequins.

As Mr. DeCaro observed, "He brought glamour to a sequin-starved America."

Robert Gordon Mackie was born in Monterey Park, Calif., a bit east of downtown Los Angeles, on March 24, 1939. That was the year, he liked to say, that “Gone With the Wind,” “The Women” and “The Wizard of Oz” came out.

In the process, Mr. Mackie's name became a gay touchstone. "For gay kids sitting at home like me or RuPaul, looking for a way out of our drab surroundings, Bob Mackie was the portal," Mr. De-Caro said. "He made women look like drag queens, but in the best possible sense. He was a window into a glamorous, funny, inclusive glitter world. For me, the ultimate Mackie moment was when the first Cher special ended in a sea of white balloons, and it's Bette Midler, Elton John, Flip Wilson and Cher, all dripping with mirror tiles and looking like glamorous disco balls come to life."

His father, Charles Robert Mackie, who worked at Bank of America, and his mother, Mildred Agnes (Smith) Mackie, a homemaker, divorced when he was young, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother, Bessie Ida Mackie, in Alhambra, Calif. Her house, he recalled, was on a busy highway with not much neighborhood, and he was often alone, and lonely. He drew to entertain himself.

Among the stars whom Mr. Mackie dressed, from left: Dolly Parton, Madonna and Miley Cyrus. In 2019, the Council of Fashion Designers of America gave him the lifetime achievement award.

"I was a weird kid," he told Vogue in 1990. "But I was always pretty good with crayons."

And yet Mr. Mackie — preter-

PHOTOGRAPHS BY, FROM LEFT: MEDIA PUNCH/ALAMY; RON GALELLA/RON GALELLA COLLECTION, VIA GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN WINTER/GE

Farewell Tour."

His mother and his older sister would visit on weekends and take Bob to the movies — Technicolor musicals, mostly, that entranced him. “It didn’t look like that at my house, and I wanted to be part of that,” he said. He remembered being dazzled by the dance numbers in “An American in Paris.” When the credits rolled at the end, he discovered that costume design was a job.

A brief marriage to Marianne Nicholson, an actress whose stage name is Lulu Porter, ended in divorce in the early 1960s. Their son, Robert Gordon Mackie Jr., who was known as Robin and worked as a makeup artist, died of AIDS in 1993. Mr. Aghayan died in 2011. Mr. Mackie's survivors include a granddaughter and two great-granddaughters.

Mr. Mackie attended Pasadena City College and then the Chouinard Art Institute, now part of the California Institute of the Arts, before dropping out to work on movies, first with Fred Thompson, then Mr. Louis and Ms. Head. (Mr. Mackie sketched the skintight gown that Mr. Louis made for Marilyn Monroe when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.)

In the early 1980s, Mr. Mackie began designing ready-to-wear. A decade later, he created a line of clothing and home furnishings for QVC, the shopping channel. While critics enjoyed the high camp factor of his cinema-siren clothes and the theatricality of his fashion shows, he was often derided for being not an authentic fashion designer, although his clothes were meticulously made, like couture garments.

"Subjecting Mr. Mackie to serious fashion criticism is a little like asking Ada Louise Huxtable to meditate on Malibu Barbie's dream house," Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times wrote, re-

In 1963, he was hired by Ray Aghayan, an Iraqi-born designer who was working on Judy Garland's television variety show. The two became business and romantic partners, sharing the first Emmy ever awarded for costume design, in 1967, for their work on "Alice Through the Looking Glass," an eye-popping confection of a television movie.

The pair received Oscar nominations for “Lady Sings the Blues,” the 1972 biopic of Billie Holiday starring Ms. Ross, and for “Funny Lady,” the 1975 sequel to “Funny Girl.” Mr. Mackie was nominated on his own for “Pennies From Heaven,” the 1981 film musical starring Steve Martin and Ms. Peters.

He won an Emmy in 1999 for Cher's costumes in "Cher: Live in Concert From Los Angeles," and again in 2003, for "Cher: The

Whether for Cher or Barbie, he bedazzled American fashion for over half a century.

viewing his 2002 fashion show.

Yet Mr. Mackie was proud to design for that diminutive doll, which he began doing in 1982, creating outfits as exotic and outrageous as those he made for his human muse, Cher. Goddess of the Sun Barbie, out in 1995, has 11,000 sequins on her hand-sewn gown.

"They called him Barnum Bob, the Raja of Rhinestones and the Sequined Sheik," Mr. McFate said. "They thought of him as a Hollywood guy. It was hard for him to get a footing on Seventh Avenue."

In 2001, the Council of Fashion Designers of America gave Mr. Mackie an award for "fashion exuberance." In 2019, he earned the organization's lifetime achievement award. That same year, he won a Tony for the costumes in the Broadway musical "The Cher Show," a dizzying, giddy paean to the performer and her style.

As he told Vogue, "For a long time everyone just thought all I knew how to do were Cher's dresses, you know, with her tummy out and showing half her whatever."

He added, "I always just sort of pray in my life somebody will give me a nice 19th-century movie or a good 1930s Depression film."

ELLIS—David James. March 6, 1943 - September 10, 2026. Service: Friday, September 18, 2026, 9am, Redden's Funeral Home, 325 W. 14th St. Donations: AMNH.

FEINSAND—Howard Leon, age 78, attorney, business executive, civic leader and philanthropist, died September 12, 2026. A native New Yorker, Howard graduated from Temple University and St. John's University School of Law. After practicing law in New York, he held senior positions with Ciicorp North America and GE Capital Aviation Services before joining Duke Realty, where he served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. After moving to Atlanta in 1999, Howard became a devoted leader of the city's civic, arts and Jewish communities. He served as Chairman of the Alliance Theatre, Vice Chairman of the Woodruff Arts Center, Chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, and President of The Standard Club. Howard was extraordinarily intelligent, generous and dignified, with an unmistakably dry sense of humor. Above all, he was the most honorable of men. Predeceased by his parents, Abe and Annette Feinsand, Howard is survived by his beloved wife, Ellen; son Mark Feinsand and his wife, Dena; grandsons Zack and Ryan; stepdaughter Wendi Cohen;

GREILSHEIMER- William H.,

of New York, NY, passed away at the age of 84 on September 11, 2026. He is survived by his wife, Carol, his children, Deborah and Jeffrey and daughter-in-law Elizabeth, his grandchildren, Daniel and Allison and brother, James and sister-in-law, Louise. Donations to Dartmouth College or Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Deaths

Deaths

RAYNOR—Sylvia,

of Roslyn, NY and Boca Raton, FL, on September 9, 2026, at the age of 97. Born in Brooklyn in 1929 to Ruth and Abraham Schwartz, immigrants from Russia, she earned her bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College. Predeceased by her adored husband, Howard, and her brother Phil Schwartz. Beloved mother of daughters Julie Raynor, Cindy Schoenfeld, and Laurie Weiss; and loving mother-in-law of Mark Henderson and Steve Weiss. Cherished a grandmother of Jessica and Matt Hunter, Andrew Gross and Emily Ball, Amy and Jonathan Levin, Elyse and Alex Moyer, Jill Schoenfeld, Zachary and Samantha Weiss, Howard and Ellen Weiss, and Rachel Weiss. Devoted great-grandmother of Orli, Leo, Erika, Ben, Lucy, Callie, Blake, JJ, Luke, Ellie, Emmett, and Cassin. Sylvia inspired us all with her loving care, her enduring optimism, and her genuine interest in each of our lives. She was an accomplished teacher of James Howard in running their beauty supply business, Cameo Beauty Supply Co. She never missed a hair appointment. Sylvia was engaged in the world and read The New York Times every night, cover to cover. Donations can be sent to Dana Farber Jimmy Fund (Team JJ) or ADL.

Deaths

RICAMONTE—Adoracion, age 93, died in New York City on September 10, 2026. Born in the Philippines; M.D., Far Eastern University Medical School. Predeceased by husband Bienvenido. Survived by son Richard, daughter-in-law Yelena, and grandsons Cale and Jadon. Viewing September 17, 2026, 5pm-9pm, Aievoli Funeral Home, Brooklyn. Private burial.

TAUB—Abner Farrer.

ROSS—Mimi.

(Mimi Rosenblatt). October 14, 1935 - September 6, 2026. Devoted daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, sister-in-law, friend, publishing executive. Grew up in the Bronx near "The Yankee Stadium" as she used to say. Lived in Brooklyn for most of her life with her cherished husband, Ben. Beloved mother of Jocelyn Maskow. Always elegant, she was the first to laugh at any gathering and still thought Nixon should have done him. Burial was September 8, 2026 at Riverside Cemetery, NJ. She was a friend to many and will be missed. Donations: Congregation Ansche Chesed or Friends of Carroll Park (Brooklyn).

SALITAN—Adele, nee Wechsler.

passed away, September 12, 2026, age 12. Droted mother of Michael (David), Laurie (Marc). James, Diane (Michael). Cherished grandmother of Emily, Gabe, Ana, Nora, Molly, Nate. Adoring great-grandmother of Oscar and Alice. Beloved aunt of Neil. Predeceased by Mark, husband of 60 years, parents Eva and Nathan, and brother Peter. Senured in the Church. After successful careers as a teacher, relator and in Jewish nonprofits, Adele returned to teaching at 75. Retired at 90.

Deaths

Abner Farrer Taub of Nashua, NH passed away on September 12, 2026 at the age of 78. He was born on November 16, 1947 in New Brunswick, NJ to Jerome Taub and Rita (Farrer) Rogin. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Israel working on a kibbutz. He studied art history at Rutgers University. During this time, he also drove a taxi in New York City and helped to sail a boat through the Great Lakes. He then went to Belgium where he became fluent in French while obtaining a medical degree from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. He met his wife Liliane, who was his medical school classmate, and they had two wedding ceremonies in Brussels and New York in 1977. He and Liliane completed their pediatrics residency at the University of Rochester where they were the first married couple to job share as residents. They moved to Fort Kent, ME in 1981 as they began their career as the first pediatricians in the small town. They later moved to Nashua, NH in 1988 where

Deaths

In Memoriam

SCHILDHAUSE—Sol. (9/5/1917 - 9/15/2006) Son of the Bronx, communications industry pioneer, champion handball player and loved and greatly missed father.

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The New York Times

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Air pressure	Humidity
High ...... 30.10 noon	High ...... 90% 1 a.m.
Low ...... 29.88 1 a.m.	Low ...... 45% noon

Weather Report

Highlight: Heat Expands Across U.S. Into Late Week

A large heat dome across the southern United States is expected to expand into portions of the Midwest and Northeast later this week. Hot and humid conditions will continue across the South, with high temperatures several degrees above average. Warm overnight lows will increase the risk of heat-related illnesses. The heat will move farther north and east by Wednesday, reaching the Interstate 80 corridor across much of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

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.

C....Clouds	S....Sun
F....Fog	Sn....Snow
H....Haze	SS....Snow showers
I....Ice	T....Thunderstorms
PC....Partly cloudy	Tr....Trace
R....Rain	W....Windy
Sh....Showers	-....Not available

N.Y.C. region	Yesterday	Today	Tomorrow
New York City	75/ 68 0	72/ 62 S	79/ 67 S
Bridgeport	72/ 67 0	70/ 58 S	76/ 66 S
Caldwell	72/ 67 0	73/ 55 S	81/ 64 S
Danbury	69/ 62 0	69/ 51 PC	78/ 61 S
Islip	73/ 68 0	71/ 58 S	76/ 65 S
Newark	75/ 70 0	75/ 60 S	83/ 67 S
Trenton	74/ 68 0	74/ 54 S	81/ 62 S
White Plains	72/ 66 0	69/ 56 S	78/ 65 S

United States	Yesterday	Today	Tomorrow
Albany	71/ 44 0	70/ 55 PC	75/ 62 C
Albuquerque	88/ 65 0.28	86/ 64 T	83/ 65 T
Anchorage	59/ 51 0	57/ 51 R	62/ 47 PC
Atlanta	96/ 74 0	90/ 71 PC	89/ 68 S
Atlantic City	80/ 60 0	73/ 59 PC	77/ 67 S
Austin	100/ 78 0	101/ 76 PC	99/ 75 T
Baltimore	81/ 55 0	77/ 58 PC	82/ 64 S
Baton Rouge	94/ 75 0.05	95/ 75 T	92/ 72 T
Birmingham	97/ 72 0	97/ 74 PC	93/ 69 S
Boise	70/ 47 0	78/ 48 PC	81/ 56 S
Boston	75/ 54 0	67/ 56 PC	77/ 64 S
Buffalo	68/ 50 0	78/ 65 PC	75/ 64 C
Burlington	66/ 45 0	69/ 60 PC	76/ 59 C
Casper	78/ 39 0	73/ 53 PC	81/ 46 PC
Charlotte	94/ 70 0	85/ 65 PC	88/ 62 S
Chattanooga	96/ 70 0	95/ 71 S	92/ 71 S
Chicago	75/ 66 0	82/ 66 T	72/ 68 T
Cincinnati	78/ 58 0	91/ 71 S	91/ 71 PC
Cleveland	68/ 54 0	83/ 68 PC	81/ 69 T
Colorado Springs	86/ 58 0.05	73/ 51 T	80/ 57 T
Columbus	75/ 55 0	86/ 69 PC	87/ 70 T
Concord, N.H.	72/ 41 0	71/ 48 PC	80/ 57 PC
Dallas-Ft. Worth	100/ 79 0	101/ 80 S	98/ 78 S
Denver	88/ 53 0.05	74/ 56 T	83/ 61 T
Des Moines	80/ 68 0.32	72/ 60 T	68/ 64 T
Detroit	71/ 57 0	82/ 68 T	74/ 62 PC
El Paso	95/ 71 0.04	94/ 71 T	92/ 69 T
Fargo	65/ 52 1.15	72/ 47 PC	70/ 52 Sh
Hartford	74/ 46 0	72/ 53 PC	79/ 61 S
Honolulu	88/ 75 0.01	90/ 78 Sh	89/ 78 Sh
Houston	94/ 76 0.28	96/ 75 T	93/ 76 T
Indianapolis	77/ 61 0	93/ 71 T	89/ 72 T
Jackson	96/ 73 0	98/ 73 T	95/ 70 S
Jacksonville	91/ 73 0.20	88/ 73 T	88/ 72 W
Kansas City	91/ 75 0	87/ 67 T	88/ 72 T
Key West	88/ 82 1.02	90/ 83 T	90/ 81 T
Las Vegas	101/ 76 0	100/ 77 S	97/ 73 S
Lexington	81/ 59 0	93/ 72 S	95/ 71 PC

Little Rock	98/75 0
Los Angeles	85/68 0
Louisville	83/64 0
Memphis	97/78 0
Miami	88/80 0.26
Milwaukee	70/63 0.02
Mpls.-St. Paul	64/59 0.73
Nashville	93/71 0
New Orleans	93/76 0.23
Norfolk	82/68 0
Oklahoma City	100/75 0
Omaha	86/64 0.57
Orlando	93/76 0.50
Philadelphia	79/58 0
Phoenix	102/80 0.04
Pittsburgh	71/50 0
Portland, Me.	71/46 0
Portland, Ore.	69/54 0
Providence	77/51 0
Raleigh	91/62 0
Reno	78/47 0
Richmond	85/57 0
Rochester	67/46 0
Sacramento	90/56 0
Salt Lake City	73/54 0
San Antonio	99/78 0
San Diego	78/68 0
San Francisco	74/58 0
San Jose	84/57 0
San Juan	88/79 0.15
Seattle	67/54 0.01
Sioux Falls	74/54 0.28
Spokane	64/48 Tr
St. Louis	88/74 0
St. Thomas	90/82 0.12
Syracuse	69/47 0
Tampa	92/77 0.23
Toledo	72/53 0
Tucson	91/75 0.10
Tulsa	98/80 0
Virginia Beach	84/67 0
Washington	83/60 0
Wichita	98/75 0
Wilmington, Del.	80/52 0

98/77 S	99/76 T
83/67 PC	81/68 PC
96/76 S	97/75 PC
98/79 S	99/77 S
91/79 Sn	89/77 T
77/63 T	68/65 T
72/54 C	72/60 Sh
98/76 S	97/73 S
94/80 T	88/79 T
79/67 PC	80/67 S
101/75 S	98/74 S
73/60 T	70/65 T
89/76 T	89/74 PC
78/60 PC	83/66 S
99/80 T	96/80 T
81/62 S	85/67 T
68/52 PC	74/57 PC
66/53 PC	82/55 S
71/52 S	77/61 S
83/59 S	86/61 S
85/49 S	83/52 S
80/58 PC	84/60 S
76/64 PC	75/65 C
89/56 S	81/56 S
82/69 S	89/66 PC
101/79 PC	97/78 T
78/69 PC	78/68 PC
72/59 PC	70/58 PC
81/58 PC	77/56 PC
89/79 Sn	91/78 Sh
64/51 PC	75/52 S
73/51 C	66/58 Sh
65/47 PC	73/49 S
99/75 T	96/77 T
91/82 T	90/82 T
75/60 PC	76/64 C
93/77 T	91/75 PC
86/68 T	79/68 T
93/76 T	91/73 T
100/79 S	99/76 S
79/68 PC	78/66 S
79/62 PC	84/65 S
99/71 T	96/71 PC
77/56 PC	82/63 S

Africa	Yesterday
Algiers	87/ 62 0
Cairo	99/ 73 0
Cape Town	64/ 57 0.41
Dakar	88/ 79 0.03
Johannesburg	74/ 54 0.04
Nairobi	80/ 59 0
Tunis	90/ 71 0

Asia/Pacific	Yesterday
Baghdad	112/ 82 0
Bangkok	90/ 77 0.14
Beijing	82/ 57 0
Damascus	99/ 62 0
Hong Kong	89/ 79 0.29
Jakarta	96/ 77 0
Jerusalem	88/ 67 0
Karachi	102/ 82 0
Manila	90/ 79 0.02
Mumbai	86/ 77 0.04

Today	Tomorrow
85/ 61 PC	84/ 62 PC
97/ 74 PC	97/ 78 PC
64/ 54 R	66/ 51 PC
90/ 81 T	91/ 81 C
73/ 49 PC	79/ 55 PC
77/ 60 C	74/ 59 Sh
87/ 69 S	88/ 71 S

Today	Tomorrow
109/ 78 S	108/ 77 S
90/ 78 R	93/ 79 R
85/ 61 S	89/ 63 S
98/ 64 S	99/ 62 S
90/ 80 R	90/ 80 PC
93/ 75 PC	92/ 76 PC
88/ 67 S	90/ 67 S
94/ 81 C	93/ 80 C
92/ 78 T	92/ 78 T
90/ 80 R	89/ 80 Sh

National Forecast

Thunderstorms will extend from Michigan and Ohio to Arizona and New Mexico today. Some thunderstorms will be heavy and capable of producing gusty winds, small hail and flash flooding. The risk of flash flooding will be greatest across parts of Iowa where downpours repeat.

Outside of afternoon thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast, the rest of the United States may be free of rain.

Heat will remain suppressed to the southern and central portions of the country. Temperatures 5-15 degrees above average will stretch from Texas to Kentucky. It will be cool with low humidity over much of the East Coast. Temperatures will be near to just below average from California to Montana and Wyoming.

The sky will be mostly sunny over the Southwest and Rockies.

New Delhi	96/79	0.20	88/77 T	90/77 T
Riyadh	111/83	0	109/81 PC	106/77 PC
Seoul	81/61	0	81/56 S	85/62 S
Shanghai	86/73	0	84/70 PC	84/71 PC
Singapore	91/81	0	92/80 Sh	92/79 PC
Sydney	83/56	0	75/54 S	61/50 W
Taipei City	85/76	0.24	83/75 T	84/75 Sh
Tehran	91/73	0	93/72 PC	95/74 PC
Tokyo	86/75	0.03	81/71 T	73/68 R
Europe	Yesterday		Today	Tomorrow
Amsterdam	72/55	0.12	74/55 C	65/53 Sh
Athens	86/70	0	81/68 PC	77/70 W
Berlin	66/59	0	76/61 PC	67/52 T
Brussels	73/64	0.38	82/56 PC	65/52 S
Budapest	70/61	0.09	77/50 PC	81/52 S
Copenhagen	63/48	0	66/58 C	66/52 C
Dublin	75/57 Tr		64/51 Sh	61/51 C
Edinburgh	70/55	0	64/48 Sh	63/50 PC
Frankfurt	77/59	0.25	82/61 C	71/50 PC
Geneva	81/55	0	84/58 S	72/49 Sh
Helsinki	63/43	0	61/51 C	61/54 Sh
Istanbul	77/64	0	78/65 C	74/63 C
Kyiv	68/47	0	69/53 PC	72/54 S
Lisbon	93/68	0	82/64 S	78/63 PC
London	77/64	0	72/52 Sh	68/55 PC
Madrid	95/59	0	98/64 S	86/55 S
Moscow	66/47	0	64/44 PC	63/48 PC
Nice	81/70	0	82/69 S	81/68 S
Oslo	59/41	0	63/52 R	68/50 PC
Paris	84/63	0	90/56 S	71/52 PC
Prague	68/57	0.08	74/54 S	74/52 Sh
Rome	84/61	0	86/61 S	84/64 S
St. Petersburg	61/54	0.06	61/49 PC	65/56 C
Stockholm	63/36	0	59/54 C	64/48 Sh
Vienna	68/61	0.46	74/53 S	80/60 Sh
Warsaw	66/57	0.07	69/49 PC	77/57 Sh

North America	Yesterday			Today			Tomorrow
Acapulco	86/77	0		92/78	PC		93/78	PC
Bermuda	86/80	0.01		86/78	Sh		86/78	T
Edmonton	52/43	0.11		61/33	PC		70/40	S
Guadalajara	75/61	0		81/60	T		83/58	T
Havana	88/71	0		92/73	Sh		90/72	R
Kingston	94/81	0		93/80	PC		91/82	T
Martinique	90/79	0.02		92/79	C		88/78	R
Mexico City	69/56	0		76/55	R		79/56	C
Monterrey	87/71	0		96/69	S		94/69	PC
Montreal	68/55	0.01		67/59	C		75/56	PC
Nassau	90/77	0.01		90/80	T		89/79	T
Panama City	88/77	0.08		88/76	T		91/76	R
Quebec City	64/54	0.15		63/54	C		74/52	C
Santo Domingo	88/79	0.03		91/75	T		90/75	Sh
Toronto	65/54	0		73/65	T		77/60	PC
Vancouver	61/57	0.01		66/53	S		68/55	S
Winnipeg	55/45	0.16		59/39	Sh		59/41	PC

South America	Yesterday	Today	Tomorrow
Buenos Aires	54/ 46 0	66/ 46 PC	57/ 52 S
Caracas	91/ 77 0.03	92/ 78 R	92/ 77 T
Lima	73/ 68 0	77/ 69 PC	78/ 69 S
Quito	67/ 48 0	70/ 49 R	70/ 50 R
Recife	84/ 72 0	86/ 79 PC	87/ 80 Sh
Rio de Janeiro	70/ 66 0.98	73/ 67 R	71/ 66 Sh
Santiago	72/ 45 0	82/ 48 S	79/ 48 PC

Metropolitan Forecast

TODAY

TODAY....Mostly sunny High 72. Dry weather will continue as high pressure sets up over the Northeast. The sky will be mostly sunny with winds out of the east at 3-6 miles per hour. Temperatures will be around 5 degrees below average.

TONIGHT

TONIGHT ....Partly cloudy Low 62. There will be a partly cloudy sky, and it will remain dry with high pressure in place. Winds will be light and variable. The temperature will be near average for the middle of September.

TOMORROW

High 79. High pressure will remain in place over the Northeast as it stays dry. The sky will be mostly sunny with winds out of the southwest at 4-8 m.p.h. Temperatures will be slightly above average.

THURSDAY

High 81. There will be a mix of clouds and sunshine as it remains dry. Winds will be out of the south-southeast at 6-12 m.p.h.

FRIDAY SATURD

SATURDAY ....Clouds and sun Friday It will continue to be dry with a sky featuring a mix of sunshine and clouds on Friday. High 81. There will be a mix of clouds and sunshine again on Saturday. High 74.

Metropolitan Almanac

In Central Park, for the 13 hours ended at 1 p.m. yesterday.

Temperature

Avg. daily departure from normal this month......+0.8°

Avg. daily departure from normal this year......-0.2°

Reservoir levels (New York City water supply)

Yesterday	87%
Est. normal	81%

Recreational Forecast

Sun, Moon and Planets

First Quarter	Full	Last Quarter	New
Sep. 18	Sep. 26	Oct. 3	Oct. 10

Sun	RISE	6:37 a.m.	Moon	R	11:31 a.m.
	SET	7:05 p.m.		S	9:01 p.m.
	NEXT R	6:38 a.m.		R	12:36 p.m.
Jupiter	R	3:33 a.m.	Mars	R	1:29 a.m.
	S	5:37 p.m.		S	4:22 p.m.
Saturn	S	8:21 a.m.	Venus	R	10:14 a.m.
	R	7:58 p.m.		S	8:13 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 northeast at 5 to 15 knots with gusts up to 20 knots on the open ocean. Waves will be 1 foot or less on New York Harbor and Long Island Sound and 2 to 3 feet on the open ocean.

High Hides
Atlantic City	10:59 a.m.	11:16 p.m.
Barnegat Inlet	11:21 a.m.	11:41 p.m.
The Battery	11:55 a.m.	---
Beach Haven	12:16 a.m.	12:43 p.m.
Bridgeport	2:35 a.m.	2:51 p.m.
City Island	2:53 a.m.	2:54 p.m.
Fire Island Lt.	12:11 p.m.	---
Montauk Point	12:15 a.m.	12:37 p.m.
Northport	2:37 a.m.	2:52 p.m.
Port Washington	2:41 a.m.	2:46 p.m.
Sandy Hook	11:25 a.m.	11:45 p.m.
Shinnecock Inlet	11:03 a.m.	11:24 p.m.
Stamford	2:40 a.m.	2:53 p.m.
Tarrytown	1:17 a.m.	1:44 p.m.
Willets Point	2:49 a.m.	2:51 p.m.

Meteorology by AccuWeather

Precipitation (in inches)

Cooling Degree Days

An index of fuel consumption that tracks how far the day's mean temperature rose above 65
Yesterday	7
So far this month	114
So far this season (since January 1)	1216
Normal to date for the season	1149

Trends		Temperature		Precipitation
		Average		Average
		Below	Above	Below	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

High pressure moving into the Northeast will bring dry weather to beaches from Maine through Virginia. It will be less humid at beaches in Delaware through Virginia. Temperatures will range from the mid-60s north to near 80 south. The sky will be mostly sunny across the area with high clouds in the afternoon.

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2 POP MUSIC

Celine Dion's heart goes out to France during a comeback. 3 POP MUSIC

The rapper Lil Durk is found not guilty in a murder plot.

NEWS | CRITICISM

4 MUSEUMS

Trump wants the Smithsonian to erect a ‘Colossus statue’ of George Washington.

The New York Times

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 C1

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Dancing Resolutely As Sirens and Fear Torment Ukraine

The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky and his wife, Tatiana, staged a ballet in Kyiv, a city under attack.

By MARINA HARSS

The eminent ballet choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has been a vocal supporter of the Ukrainian cause since the Russian invasion in 2022. He has made two dances that deal directly with the horrors of war, "Wartime Elegies" and "Solitude."

Both he and his wife, Tatiana, spent the early years of their careers in Ukraine, dancing for the national ballet company at the Kyiv Opera House. But until this August, neither had been back to Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, for an appreciable time since the start of the war, over four years ago. And both have close family members in and around the city.

Ratmansky, who is artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and who was the director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow for five years, has often wanted to return to Kyiv, he said in a recent video interview from their hotel there. It never felt like the right time. But their desire to work with the dancers of the national ballet company won out over fear.

The Ratmanskys' arrival coincided with one of the worst periods of the war, a time of constant attacks on Kyiv that sent them and others scurrying to bomb shelters several times a day. "It is difficult in every sense," Tatiana said, "mental, physical."

"People say it has never been this bad," Alexei said.

The immediate reason for their return was to stage a work by the great 20th-century choreographer George Balanchine, CONTINUED ON PAGE C7

Clockwise from top left: dancers with the National Ballet of Ukraine rehearsing George Balanchine's "Donizetti Variations" in Kyiv, Ukraine; Alexei and Tatiana Ratmansky, who helped stage the production; dancers backstage; and Alexei Ratmansky at work.

SETH COLTER WALLS | CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

He's Optimistic About America

Wynton Marsalis blends a jazz ensemble and a traditional orchestra for his symphony 'Liberty.'

VIENNA, VA. — Wynton Marsalis thinks we're going to get through this.

You can sense that in the conclusion of the wild and wildly affecting next-to-last movement of his hourlong Symphony No. 5, nicknamed “Liberty” and written for the 250th anniversary of the United States. After a feverish section that includes music for a bass-baritone, the programmatic music begins to tilt toward a sense of survival, even renewal.

At this work's world premiere here on Saturday — in a concert at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, conducted by James Gaffigan — a lot of people clapped after the movement's conclusion. Some also stood, and some raised their hands in the air, as if following Marsalis's score directions for a "sanctified" performance feel.

Not to suggest that Marsalis, the famed jazz trumpeter and composer, takes a uniformly blessed view of the American past and present in this symphony. Earlier in CONTINUED ON PAGE C5

CAROLINE GUTMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, including Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, performing at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, in Vienna, Va., last week.

In France, the Louvre Isn't the Only Target

By MARK LANDLER

PARIS — When thieves broke into a museum on the French Riviera last Tuesday and made off with two paintings by the Impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir, President Emmanuel Macron had just been a few miles away presiding over a conference about how to save the art of filmmaking.

The burglary, the latest in a string of thefts since the sensational heist of crown jewels at the Louvre in October, suggested that France has a bigger challenge protecting its artistic treasures.

Chinese porcelain, Huguenot crosses, gold and silver coins, Art Nouveau jewelry, a jersey worn by the soccer star Zinedine Zidane in the World Cup — all have been purloined from museums, large and small, across the country.

The spate of thievery even extends to churches: People have stolen chalices, communion plates and other holy relics. Museum workers, the police and government officials are rattled. They worry about how to protect France's cultural patrimony in an CONTINUED ON PAGE C6

Recent thefts have raised concerns about how to secure the nation's treasures.

Celine Dion's Paris Return Feels Fitting

Her comeback show highlighted a side of the French-speaking superstar rarely seen in the United States.

'It's a little lower, deeper in the back of the throat, less up front.' SCOTT PRICE CELINE DION'S MUSIC DIRECTOR, ON SINGING IN FRENCH

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

PARIS — Which Celine Dion would turn up at her Paris comeback show? The powerhouse belter? The sensitive balladeer? The unpredictable ad-libber?

But the real question in the back of many people's minds at Plenitude Arena near here on Saturday was whether she would turn up at all.

As the minutes ticked by past the scheduled start time of 8 p.m., it was hard not to think about the wrenching vulnerability the singer exposed in the documentary "I Am: Celine Dion," in which she detailed the impact of her battle with a rare neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome. Sure, she had performed at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony two years ago, but that was just one song. Saturday's would be her first full concert in six years, kicking off a string of 26 shows in an arena holding 35,000 people.

Then the lights went down at 8:48 p.m. Dion slowly walked onto the gigantic stage in a black gown and opened with "On Ne Change Pas" ("We Do Not Change").

While fans in France and Quebec tend to know Dion's repertoire in both French and English, most American listeners are unaware of her French songs. She is bilingual and bicultural, as if she were two stars in one, with distinct careers that complement each other.

On Saturday night, it was obvious from which side the emotion was flowing. Dion did most of her stage banter in French, which she grew up speaking in Charlemagne, a small town near Montreal, and she sang in French for roughly two thirds of the set list.

Dion, 58, looked defiant yet fragile. Her familiar voice had a burnished patina that seemed to reveal a touch of nerves and a whole lot of roiling feelings. She lost her composure during that first number and had to briefly stop singing. "I had promised myself not to cry," she told the audience at the end of the song. "I don't keep my promises."

That Dion was making her return to evening-length live performance in Paris instead of Las Vegas, where she lives and has held two successful, lucrative yearslong residencies, may have partly been a logistical choice — Paris, after all, is a transportation hub.

And France is a huge deal to Dion because it was the first country to embrace her outside Canada. Conversely, she is a huge deal to France: A weekend front page of the Libération newspaper asked whether she would “save the 2027 budget” and an article inside cited a study estimating that her concert run could generate up to “1 billion euros in economic benefits for France.”

The show did include some of Dion's biggest English-language hits, like "My Heart Will Go On," "Beauty and the Beast" and "I'm Alive" — the last one inserted into a medley that also included Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" and Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)."

"I was pleasantly surprised when she did 'All by Myself,' said Pauline Martin, an audience member from the Paris area who confessed she had spent half of the show crying. "It proved she hasn't lost her voice. It was a symbol, as if she was telling us 'I'm back.'"

But the biggest responses were reserved for the French-language material, including the wildly popular “Pour Que Tu m'Aimes Encore” (which audience members reprised in unison later on as they walked to the subway) and the rollicking duet “J'Irai Où Tu Iras,” a classic at French weddings that Dion performed with Jordan Lévesque, a new backup singer.

In contrast to her English-language style, which is more extroverted and flamboyant, the French tunes draw from styles like chanson and the soft-pop genre known as variété, with an emphasis on storytelling that pulls listeners close rather than stunning them into awe with vocal pyrotechnics.

Scott Price, Dion's musical director, said in an interview this month that it was when they started poking around the singer's French repertoire that Dion got back in the saddle last year.

“That really lit a spark in her, and a lot of the song selection came from that,” Price said, explaining that singing in French and in English required different techniques. “To me, it’s more where the voice emanates from in French. It’s a little lower, deeper in the back of the throat, less up front. That seemed to be something that helped her out

Celine Dion on Saturday at Plenitude Arena outside Paris during her first full concert in six years.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CLEMENTINE SCHNEIDERMANN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Center photos: The Canadian singer's fandom came in many forms outside the arena, including Maryline Delezene's tattoo, above lower right. Below, fans arriving at the show, the first of 26 Dion concerts scheduled for the arena.

along her path."

After front-loading the set with slower warm-up numbers, Dion seemed to gain in confidence on Saturday, building up to one of her live staples (even if it was decidedly less over-the-top than usual, marking a return of sorts to her early-career, more conservative singing style).

A gospel choir came onstage for a segment, adding sonic majesty and oomph to tracks like “Love Can Move Mountains.” The set incorporated enormous concrete-looking slabs and stout columns that moved around to alternately expose and hide the band, and looked like something an avant-garde sculptor might have cooked up for a Brutalist version of “Dune.” Interstitial videos of Dion traipsing across a sandy desert furthered that impression.

"There is kind of like this opera diva art to her, this kind of grande dame," said the show's creative director, Willo Perron, who has worked on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour and Rihanna's halftime extravaganza at Super Bowl LVII. "And I wanted her to go all the way to that, go completely into that role." The opera reference was driven home in one of the evening's most jaw-dropping moments: a performance of "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani's "La Wally," an aria forever associated with Maria Callas.

That latter side is a huge part of Dion's appeal, making her closer to Dolly Parton

But the singer's trick is how she can balance outsize emotions with simplicity. "At the same time," Perron also said of Dion, "there is this endearing — and this is very much a French Canadian attribute — very down-home thing."

than to, say, Beyoncé or Mariah Carey in terms of her relationship with her audience. Notably, both she and Parton grew up in families of modest means and despite their wealth (and, in Dion's case, love for experimental high-end couture), an earthy spontaneity that feels genuine rather than hatched by social media teams comes through.

Fans could experience that relatability in the couple of weeks leading up to the first Paris show, when Dion would hang out with them waiting outside her hotel late at night. She would turn up well past midnight and chat for a while, looking overcome as her admirers serenaded her with her own songs, or dancing like everybody's favorite kooky relative. You got the feeling that though she is light years away from her hardscrabble upbringing, she has retained a fundamental structural integrity.

"She has a relationship with the stage and her audience that is authentic," said Thomas Jolly, who directed the Olympics opening ceremony. "You might assume that artists are always performing, creating characters. But with Celine, it's as if there's only herself. And she herself is enough."

That self is capacious enough to juxtapose "La Wally" and rambunctious boogie, "Titanic" and classic disco. And it is strong enough to give a message of endurance and hope to the singer's fans.

"I had lost faith we'd ever see her again," said Sophie Lesaffre, who had come to the show from Toulouse in southern France. Julien Grand, her friend from Compiègne, knew better. "I always knew she'd be back," he said. "I always knew that no matter what, Celine will be there."

Rapper Acquitted In Murder For Hire

Lil Durk had been accused of arranging a plot to kill a rival that led to another man's death.

By EMMANUEL MORGAN

The rapper Lil Durk, born Durk Banks, was acquitted Friday on federal charges that he plotted to kill a rival in an ambush shooting that instead resulted in the death of another man. The decision ended a closely watched case that had at its center a Grammy-winning rapper with two No. 1 albums.

Jurors deliberated for three days before finding Mr. Banks not guilty on five total counts, including stalking and orchestrating a murder for hire in the 2022 death of Saviay'a Robinson in Los Angeles. Mr. Banks, who could have faced a life sentence, remains in custody while awaiting a related racketeering trial.

Two other defendants accused of aiding in the shooting — Deandre Dontrell Wilson and David Brian Lindsey — were also acquitted of murder for hire but were convicted on stalking charges.

Drew Findling, a lawyer for Mr. Banks, said after the verdict that he was "elated" at the outcome and praised the jury.

"When you have the opportunity to say to the United States of America, 'You were wrong for indicting this young man,' that's an incredible power and responsibility," he said outside the courthouse.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Banks, 33, ordered a hit on the rapper Tyquian Bowman, known as Quando Rondo, and facilitated the attack by paying for flights, cars, cellphones and ski masks. Mr. Bowman had been involved in a 2020 fight that ended with the shooting death of Mr. Banks's close friend Dayvon Bennett, the rapper known as King Von, in Atlanta.

Prosecutors said Mr. Banks had been “consumed with revenge” in the years after, and felt pressured by social media posts that urged him to retaliate, or “slide for Von.” In their account, he organized associates from his Only the Family rap label to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles in pursuit of their target in 2022.

The prosecution's argument hinged on the testimony of three associates of Mr. Banks, including two who were initially charged as co-defendants. Those men, Kavon Grant and Keith Jones, each said that Mr. Banks had offered cash — Mr. Jones said the amount was \$1 million — for the murder of Mr. Bowman.

A third associate, Kacey Hester, who was arrested on a separate gun charge and struck a plea deal to cooperate in the case, testified that he had been a shooter in the attack and was lured by Mr. Banks's monetary offer. The bounty motivated the men to

Matt Stevens contributed reporting.

Lil Durk, whose legal name is Durk Banks, onstage in 2023. He will face another trial in October.
ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

coordinate an attack, they testified, with some trailing him by car for hours before opening fire at a Los Angeles gas station. All three men testified that Mr. Banks did not participate in the shooting and never paid them for it.

“No one is saying that he was on the ground with a gun in his hand in Los Angeles,” Ian Yanniello, a prosecutor, said of Mr. Banks in closing arguments, “but this story doesn’t happen without him, and it doesn’t make sense without his leadership.”

The defense, led by Mr. Findling and the high-powered lawyers Brian Steel, Christy O'Connor and Marissa Goldberg, who have represented the rappers NBA YoungBoy, Lil Nas X and Young Thug, pointed to Mr. Grant, a cousin of Mr. Bennett's, as the mastermind in the shooting. A close friend of Mr. Banks's, he knew Mr. Banks's Social Security number and had access to his bank accounts and credit cards that were used to buy flights for Only the Family associates.

Ryan Green, another close friend of Mr. Banks's, testified about a conversation he had with Mr. Grant after the death of Mr. Bennett, in which Mr. Grant said he wanted revenge.

"I'm going to pop him," Mr. Green recalled Mr. Grant saying. "Or, 'I'm going to be there when it happens."

Mr. Findling, in the defense's closing statement, said there was "a tsunami of reasonable doubt." Defense lawyers claimed Mr. Banks was targeted by the prosecution because of his fame and underscored that no one had actually been paid after the shooting.

In the trial, which lasted three weeks, lawyers for both sides sought to use rap lyrics, videos and interviews as evidence. Over objections from the defense, Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald allowed the admittance of some lyrics that prosecutors said gave insight into Mr. Banks's state of mind after Mr. Bennett's death.

They included audio and video of the song "Pissed Me Off," in which he rapped:

"Grab a gun / If you ain't with it, put up money for a gun / Put up money for a hot car / Put up money for a bond." In the video, Mr. Banks wears a T-shirt that reads "Long Live Von."

The judge also allowed a small portion from Mr. Banks's 2024 podcast interview with DJ Akademiks, in which the podcaster raised criticism from the rapper 6ix9ine, who said Mr. Banks had not done enough to avenge King Von's death. Mr. Banks responded that online comments suggesting the same had stopped "for some reason."

The judge did not allow into evidence the portion of the interview that immediately followed, in which Mr. Banks said he did not take the criticism seriously, saying, "I try to turn all of the hate into love."

In October, Mr. Banks will face a trial in Chicago for operating Only the Family as a criminal gang, in violation of the federal Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity statute. Prosecutors claim that Mr. Banks helped orchestrate other violent, gang-related acts, including a 2021 shooting directed at Mr. Bowman and the 2022 murder of Stephon Mack, by ordering the attacks and offering bounties, which the defendants deny.

In a statement on Friday, Bill Essayli, an assistant U.S. attorney, said, “while we are disappointed with the jury’s decision regarding Durk Banks, a.k.a. ‘Lil Durk,’ we look forward to presenting our evidence at his second trial.”

The murder-for-hire trial drew considerable attention, turning the downtown Los Angeles courthouse into a frenzied scene where content creators, celebrities and fans arrived daily.

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, attended a day of testimony and posed for a photo with a T-shirt that read, "Free Durk." The rapper Machine Gun Kelly watched court proceedings from an overflow room and was among the celebrities, including Young Thug and Meek Mill, who voiced support for Mr. Banks on social media.

The Kennedy Center Warns of Bankruptcy

A naming dispute continues in Washington.

By JULIA JACOBS

Officials at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts have warned in documents that the institution faces “certain fiscal collapse within weeks” unless President Trump’s name is added back to the building in some fashion.

The warning, contained in a draft resolution ahead of a board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, appears to be part of an effort by Trump-allied officials to convince a judge that the institution's financial health hinges on placing a tribute to the president on the building's facade.

The judge, Christopher R. Cooper, ruled months ago that the president's name should be removed from the building because Congress needed to have approved its renaming as the "Trump-Kennedy Center."

The draft resolution shared with trustees says the center is at risk of bankruptcy and of missing payroll — but that Trump has “offered to step in and raise the necessary funds” to save the center. The draft resolution presents 10 options for how to add Trump’s name below the main signage on the front of the center.

"The board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the center," the draft resolution says.

Trump took over the Kennedy Center at the start of his second term, and the board voted last December to add his name to the building. Weeks later, Mr. Trump announced a plan to close the center for two years for a renovation project to transform what he called a “dilapidated” structure.

In May, Judge Cooper temporarily blocked the closure and ordered Trump's name removed from the building.

The center complied while pursuing an appeal. But in recent weeks, board members have moved aggressively to restore his name in an inscription beneath the building's title.

One option included in the draft resolution, which was first reported by The Washington Post, reads, “renovated, restored, and sustained through the generosity of President Donald J. Trump.” Another says, “renovation, oversight, and support provided by President Donald J. Trump.”

The documents were shared days before a court hearing before Judge Cooper. Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from

Ohio and an ex officio board member whose lawsuit prompted the court's scrutiny of the center, has objected to the plans for the inscription. Her lawyers called the effort a "childish refusal" to accept the judge's order.

In a statement on Sunday, lawyers for Beatty, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, described the documents as “the third attempt to deface this sacred memorial and turn it into a vanity project for one man’s ego.”

Roma Daravi, a spokeswoman for the center, declined to comment on the documents.

Paolo Zampolli, a board member and Trump ally, said in a brief phone interview on Sunday that the addition of the president's name to the building was critical to the center's financial health because "Trump attracts money."

"So when Trump says donate to this place, everyone will donate," he said.

Some donors, though, took exception to the fact that Trump's name was added, and were part of an exodus that included artists and audience members unwilling to associate with an increasingly politicized institution. Beatty's suit contends that decision is part of the reason the center now finds itself in a financial quandary.

Kennedy Center officials have repeatedly blamed previous leadership for the institution's financial problems.

The documents shared with the board included another draft resolution that suggests the center's main building should be closed immediately, citing an incident in which a section of plaster fell from the ceiling of the building's Grand Foyer during a storm. Daravi has framed that event as evidence of a need for the building's closure.

"This structural failure stems from decades of neglect and deferred maintenance by the previous leadership," she said in a statement this month, "and there's no justification for further delays in restoring America's cultural center."

Judge Cooper temporarily blocked the center from fully closing, but he did not prevent the staff from pursuing renovations, which have been funded by \$257 million from Congress.

Although the building has been open to the public as a memorial to President Kennedy, its programming calendar has been largely bare for weeks. The National Symphony Orchestra, the center's resident ensemble, has booked its season at other local venues. And the center's staff has been diminished to a small fraction of what it was before Trump's takeover.

Two Not Touch

ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES

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

Cryptogram

VGKG'P BTIQVGK BN MIK "GPPGTQDBJ IDJP." VIU GPPGTQDBJ BKG QVGE DM D'WG TGWGK TGGNGN BTE?

PUZZLE BY BEN BASS

YESTERDAY'S ANSWER 1. Budapest 2. Belgrade 3. Copenhagen 4. Bucharest

KenKen

Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box. A 4x4 grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.

For more games: www.nytimes.com/games KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Copyright © 2024 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.

4	2	3	1
3	1	4	2
2	3	1	4
1	4	2	3

Crossword | Edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS 1 Laffy ____, candy with a rhyming name 6 Poker buy-in 10 "The windows to the soul," metaphorically 14 Frighten 15 Villain's hideout 16 American Girl toy 17 Cringey ad campaign going viral, for example 19 Madonna's "La __ Bonita" 20 Goes out with 21 Piglet and Pooh's marsupial friend 22 "Well, in that case ...". 24 Clic Stic and Wite-Out brand 26 Character at the heart of the "Who shot ...?" cliffhanger of 1980s TV 27 Colombian cornmeal cake 29 San José, __ Rica 30 Oculus Rift or Meta Quest 3 32 Opposite of chaos 36 Texter's "I think ...". 37 Started a game of blackjack, say 38 18-wheeler

39 Agrees nonverbally
41 Red root vegetables
44 Kind of rally at high school
45 Put up, as a building
47 Many characters on "The Pitt"
49 "Quick!"
51 Group holding a nominating convention
52 Scannable squares often used in place of paper menus
55 _Wan Kenobi
56 Rang, as a bell
57 Pooch's bark
59 Paddington Bear's country of origin
63 What a light bulb represents, in comics
64 Puppet dragon of 1960s kids' TV
67 Bottom-heavy fruit
68 Britney Spears's "____! ... I Did It Again"
69 Perform better than
70 Daughters' brothers
71 Exam
72 French fries-to-be

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

9/15/26

DOWN 1 Cough syrup amts. 2 Farmland measure 3 Haircut that transitions from shorter sides to longer top 4 Ultimate ____(team sport) 5 Word of consent 6 Too 7 Grp. with a phonetic alphabet 8 Cause for overtime 9 Screw-ups 10 Conflicts over Wikipedia content 11 Mario's dinosaur sidekick 12 Actress Pompeo of "Grey's Anatomy" 13 Vernacular found in Urban Dictionary

PUZZLE BY NATE CARDIN

18 Place for coin-op game machines
23 Kind of high-fat diet
25 Tablet with Pro, Air and mini versions
26 Scribbled (down)
27 Knight's wear
28 The "R" in R.I.
29 The "log" in "ants on a log"
30 Trellis-climbing plant
31 "Light" Jedi weapons
33 Railroad station
34 Manicurist's filing board
35 Laces (into)
40 Well-educated sorts
42 Fill back to capacity, as a glass
43 Healing cover

46 "Lose the __, dude!" 48 Causes to make a mistake 50 Bit of fiery cinnamon candy 52 Cotton swabs not recommended for ear canal use 53 Cowboy contest 54 Fresh from the dishwasher 57 Grindr and Tinder, for two 58 Sign of decay 60 "____, Brute?" 61 "Ant-Man" star Paul 62 Sights that make you go "What the ...?!" 65 ____ v. Wade (1973 Supreme Court decision) 66 Rejections

Play all of our games plus over 10,000 past puzzles for Wordle, Spelling Bee, The Crossword and more online at http://nytimes.com/games. For puzzle talk, visit http://nytimes.com/wordplay.

San Francisco Opera's Orchestra Goes on Strike

The orchestra for the San Francisco Opera, which performs in the War Memorial Opera House, is on strike as it negotiates for higher wages. The opera company says it has a \$15 million recurrent shortfall driven by rising costs.
KELSEY McCLELLAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The tumult puts the season of one of the nation's premier companies in limbo.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

The San Francisco Opera was set to inaugurate its 104th season on Saturday with a performance of Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra," one of six productions the company has planned for its new season.

But the curtain never rose.

The union representing the opera's orchestra announced shortly before the performance was to begin, at the War Memorial Opera House, that it was going on strike, fulfilling a pledge it made during months of deadlocked negotiations: It would not perform without a contract.

At 7:25 p.m., leaders of the opera walked onstage and told the patrons settling into their seats for an 8 p.m. performance that the opera had been canceled. An outdoor performance set for Sunday at Golden Gate Park, part of the opening festivities, was also called off.

Outside, a picket line of musicians hoisted placards with slogans including “World Class Orchestra/World Class Contract” and “Austerity is off-key.”

The events left the performance schedule of one of the nation's premier opera companies in limbo, and underlined the financial forces buffeting classical music organizations across the country. It also cast a shadow over the company at a high-profile moment: the start of a new season.

The San Francisco Opera has said it is struggling with a \$15 million recurrent shortfall driven by rising costs, which has forced it to draw down its \$300 million endowment, in defiance of customary ac-

counting procedures.

The contract with the orchestra expired on July 31. The company initially said it wanted to cut the musicians' salaries, though its latest proposal is an effective wage freeze for five years. The musicians, represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 6, have firmly rejected that proposal.

"The orchestra is asking for a fair contract that gives the musicians stability and pay that keeps pace with the cost of living in San Francisco," the musicians said in a statement announcing the strike. "This latest proposal does not take into account inflation and cost of living in the area, and is essentially a pay cut over the course of five years for the orchestra musicians."

Matthew Shilvock, general director of the San Francisco Opera, said in a statement that this was a “difficult time for the arts,” adding, “As with many organizations, we must adjust to the changing realities.”

On one hand, the San Francisco Opera, almost alone among opera companies, is enjoying robust philanthropic support — \$49.5 million last year, which covered 89 percent of its revenue.

But the opera is a much different company than it once was, at least as measured by the ambition of its programming. The half-dozen productions the company mounted last season were less than half of the 16 it put on in 1981, part of an effort to constrain costs. Last season, the opera staged 42 performances, down from 98 in 1981.

Members of the company's orchestra are now paid a base annual salary of \$118,000 for 24 weeks of work, including performances and rehearsals. (Actual compensation can be twice that much, depending on seniority.) But Shilvock said the company no longer had enough work to fill even that many hours. He said the company wanted to freeze pay while working through a restructuring to reflect the different demands on players.

"We cannot sustain a compensation structure that originated 45 years ago without bringing it into alignment with current reality," he said in his statement.

Shilvock noted that ticket sales and donor engagement were strong. But, he added, "the fundamental economics underlying the organization have been straining for over 60 years as expense growth has, over decades, outpaced revenue growth."

For their part, the musicians said they had staged the last-minute walkout "with heavy hearts."

"A strike is not something we take lightly, and we are deeply sorry to everyone who planned to spend this evening at the opera," the union said in a statement. "We have been clear throughout these negotiations that management's offers were insufficient, and that without a fair contract we would have no choice but to stop work. Management's insistence on cuts has left us no other option."

As it stands, the company's next performance — once more, "Simon Boccanegra" — is scheduled for Wednesday.

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVÁIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A giant George Washington statue would replace “Infinity,” dedicated in 1967 at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Trump Wants a Washington 'Colossus'

The president called for the Smithsonian to erect a 30-foot statue of the founding father.

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

In his latest salvo against the Smithsonian Institution, President Trump called on the organization to honor George Washington with a 30-foot “Colossus statue” outside its National Museum of American History, along with a five-year exhibition about Washington’s legacy “beginning now.”

"During our Nation's 250th Anniversary Year, the Museum has failed to give George Washington and our other Founding Fa-

LANDMARKS

thers the celebration they deserve," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday night.

Yesterday's Response: WHAT IS THE VESPA SCOOTER?

The proposed statue would replace "Infinity," an abstract sculpture by José de Rivera that was dedicated in 1967. The Smithsonian describes that work as the first piece of modern art commissioned by the federal government under the Art in Architecture Program for the National Mall in Washington.

“That strange modernist sculpture tells visitors nothing about America, inspires no one, and honors none of our Great American Heroes,” Trump wrote. “George Washington does. He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist.”

pendence. (The Smithsonian, which includes 21 museums and the National Zoo, has long operated independently of the executive branch, though it receives about two-thirds of its roughly \$1 billion annual budget from the federal government.)

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The treatment of the nation's founders has been a particular flashpoint for Trump, who has made extolling them a centerpiece of his administration's historical projects for the 250th anniversary.

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In a scathing report issued on July 4, the White House accused the National Museum of American History of promoting “extreme political activism,” while also neglecting the heroism of the founding fathers, who the re-

In an additional post on Friday, Trump said he was also asking the Smithsonian to install an 11-foot statue of Washington in the museum's Flag Hall in time for Constitution Day on Thursday. That statue was created for the recent Freedom 250 IndyCar race.

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's posts reflect his longstanding call for a return to what he calls "patriotic" history, as well as his push to promote classical architecture across Washington, including through monumental works like his proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch and National Garden of American Heroes.

It also extends his persistent criticisms of the Smithsonian, which he has accused of promoting an overly negative view of American history. In a March 2025 executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump accused the Smithsonian of having come under the influence of “a divisive, race-centered ideology” and called on it to return to “its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”

Last week, in what many saw as a turning point in Trump's pressure campaign against the Smithsonian, the institution's leader, Lonnie G. Bunch III, 73, announced that he would step down by the end of the year.

Since the March 2025 executive order, Bunch, the first Black scholar and the first historian to lead the Smithsonian, has been involved in a tense standoff with the White House, handing over extensive information about several of its museums while also defending the institution's work and inde-

A push for 'patriotic' history and classical architecture.

port claims are presented chiefly through their connections with slavery.

Trump's social media posts on Friday reiterated some specific criticisms from that report, including the assertion that the museum contains no reference to Washington crossing the Delaware River in December 1776, which Trump called “one of the greatest moments and turning points of the Revolution.”

The famous depiction of Washington's crossing is emblazoned across the exterior of the Freedom Trucks, the Trump-backed mobile history museum that is touring the country. That exhibition includes a video greeting from an A.I.-generated Washington, along with one from Trump.

The Trump administration has also moved to revise depictions of Washington at some sites controlled by the executive branch. In February, the National Park Service abruptly removed interpretive panels at the President's House, a federal site in Philadelphia that focused heavily on enslaved people Washington brought there during his presidency, when it served as the Executive Mansion.

The new panels, installed in July, discuss slavery as a general matter, but soften or eliminate references to Washington's sometimes harsh treatment of the enslaved people he owned and his dogged efforts to recapture those who escaped.

How Smithsonian May Pick New Chief

President Trump now will have his best chance to exert control over the institution.

By ROBIN POGREBIN

When Lonnie G. Bunch III announced that he would step down as chief of the Smithsonian Institution, many saw the decision as a culmination of President Trump's pressure campaign against the organization, which oversees nearly two dozen museums.

The White House has called Bunch, who has led the Smithsonian since 2019, a “rabid partisan.” But after his announcement, scholars came to his defense, with the Organization of American Historians praising Bunch’s “intellectual rigor” and “political courage.”

The process to select a successor to Bunch, who the Smithsonian said would stay through the end of the year, will offer Trump his best chance to exert control over the Smithsonian. Here is what to know about how the institution might choose its next leader.

Who controls the Smithsonian?

Congress created the Smithsonian — the world's largest museum, education and research complex — in 1846 after James Smithson, a British chemist and mineralogist, died and left his fortune to the establishment of an institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge” in the U.S. capital.

Today, it includes 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the National Zoo, many of them on the National Mall in Washington. They range from behemoths like the National Air and Space Museum to small organizations like the Anacostia Community Museum.

The Smithsonian has historically operated independently of the executive branch. It is run by a Board of Regents that oversees strategy, policy, finances, mission and governance.

The board selects a new secretary to lead the Smithsonian.

How does its board operate?

There are 17 members of the Board of Regents — a mixture of Republicans and Democrats, drawn from government, business, medicine and academia.

The board includes the vice president, the chief justice of the United States and six members of Congress: three from the House of Representatives and three from the Senate, as required by statute. The chief justice serves as the board's chancellor.

The board nominates another nine private citizens, who, after congressional confirmation and presidential sign-off, serve no more than two consecutive six-year terms.

What's the state of the board?

Ever since the Smithsonian was established, board members have cycled off the board after their staggered terms end. Since April,

Graham Bowley and Jennifer Schuessler contributed reporting.

there have been three openings on the board, and by October, the terms of three more members will have expired.

Board members are typically nominated by the regents, confirmed by Congress and signed off on by the president without partisan rancor. But the names of several recent board nominees, which have not been publicly disclosed, have not even made it to Congress — without clear explanation.

Two people with knowledge of the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private decision-making, told The New York Times in July that Vice President JD Vance had delayed action on the names because Trump hoped to substitute more like-minded candidates.

In an executive order issued in March 2025, Trump described the Smithsonian as consumed by a “divisive, race-centered ideology” and demanded that the institution be restored to “its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”

The order called for Vance to work with the House speaker and the Senate majority leader, both Republicans, "to seek the appointment of citizen members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents committed to advancing the policy of this order."

How has hiring gone before?

When seeking a new leader in the past, the Smithsonian board has created a search committee and enlisted outside consulting firms.

When Bunch was appointed in 2019, it was the first time in 74 years that a director of a Smithsonian museum had been selected to lead the entire institution. Bunch was the founding director of the institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture, and had worked at its National Museum of American History.

He was appointed as secretary after a search by an 11-person committee led by David Rubenstein, who was the chairman of the Smithsonian's board at the time, and Steve Case, who was then its vice chairman.

Bunch replaced David J. Skorton, a cardiologist and former president of Cornell, who after leaving the Smithsonian returned to health care as the president of a nonprofit.

Dr. Skorton succeeded G. Wayne Clough, another former university president.

Who are the top candidates?

The Smithsonian has not revealed any potential candidates to replace Bunch, and no names have publicly surfaced so far.

In a statement at the time of Bunch's announcement, the Smithsonian said, "In due course, the board will announce an acting secretary and begin a national search for his successor."

SETH COLTER WALLS | CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAROLINE GUTMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

He's Optimistic About America. Just Listen.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE CI that same movement, he has a bass-baritone (sung on Saturday by the baritone Eric Greene) steadily repeat the movement's title, "America My Home," while observing widely varied instructions for how to express those words: "with warmth," "flamboyantly," "tenderly," "with blues feeling," "questioning" and so on.

Top right, Wynton Marsalis at the premiere of his Symphony No. 5, or "Liberty." Top left, James Gaffigan conducting. Above left, the baritone Eric Greene. Above right, concert attendees. Above far right, a scene from the stage.

Then Marsalis indulges his taste for Charles Ives-style chaos. In a section titled "Cacophony of Confederates," biting attacks in the winds seem to prepare the brasses to play in an independent tempo; the jazz orchestra's plunger-muted trumpets reach for grave "wa wa" exhalations. The singer is meant to "shout in terror" and to feel "anguished," before "pleading" and, eventually, reaching a state of feeling "exasperated." The orchestration tips into pandemonium for a couple of seconds before a blast of quiet, which is interrupted by a solitary, exposed moment for the percussion section.

After that, it's back to the gospel- and blues-drenched motives and steady swinging feel that have anchored much of Marsalis's music. The final score pages of "America My Home" contain subsections with titles including "Glory, glory," "With grace" and "And peace remain."

It's one hell of a ride, and this year hasn't yet produced any new art about the United States that hits harder than "Liberty."

Two days earlier, Marsalis was rehearsing the symphony with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in New York. This ensemble's season begins on Thursday — with a concert of Marsalis's big band arrangements of classic pieces by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and others — and it will be his last as the artistic director of the institution, which he has steered since 1987. (The question of who will take Marsalis's place, after nearly four decades, is a topic of great speculation, and concern, in the jazz world.)

As the group locked into the 12/8 groove that follows the “Cacophony of Confederates” chaos, Marsalis shouted, “And we come up — returning from the dead!” During a pause in the playing, he talked to the musicians about the end of the movement, and the role they would need to play to bring out its meaning.

"It's gotta have a belief in it, like old people in church," he said. "They're just sitting there, looking at you, like, 'Yeah!' We gotta have that effect when we start to play. Ultimate belief. With no cynicism at all."

In an interview at his dressing room later, he further discussed this pivotal moment in the symphony. "It's a part of why people say American music is optimistic," he said, and added: "That's what I am. With no evidence for it."

The next day, the 15-member Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra folded itself into the substantially larger National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Gaffigan was tasked with blending the sound of the groups, and during a dinner break interview, he talked about his history with Marsalis's music.

Gaffigan recalled leading the live premiere of Marsalis's Violin Concerto; in August in Edinburgh, he conducted the First Symphony, "All Rise," from 1999, and days later premiered Marsalis's Concerto for Orchestra at the BBC Proms festival. Gaffigan said that although he initially had some doubts about the Violin Concerto, he now regards it as "a masterpiece."

"I wish he wrote more, actually," Gaffigan said of Marsalis. "And I think that's his plan, now."

Some fine details of this symphony were still being worked out in rehearsal. At the Kennedy Center, substantial time was given to the exposed percussion that follows the orchestral pandemonium and leads into the "Glory, glory" slow groove that Marsalis says holds "no cynicism at all."

It's not just any percussive thwack. In the score, Marsalis suggests the use of a ratchet and a desk bell to "simulate a cash register." It's a moment of sardonic humor about that old Marsalis enemy "Supercapitalism" (the name of a piece he recorded in 2006), situated between the "Cacophony of Confederates" and the old-people-in-church "absolute belief" that comes "back from the dead" in the movement's ending.

At the Kennedy Center, the percussionists got the ratchet-and-bell, cash-register timing just right, and the musical staff members who were present in the Concert Hall burst out laughing. But at the Wolf Trap premiere, the ring didn't come off at all — it sounded as if the desk bell had gone missing

— so there was no laughter in the crowd, or any sense that people should have been laughing.

As with other granular details in this teeming symphony, there are sure to be future performances in which the moment shines. Perhaps it will work better in a traditional auditorium compared with the amplified, quasi-outdoor venue at Wolf Trap. ("Liberty" will travel to Cincinnati in October, before continuing to the other commissioning partners, including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic next year.)

Yet there is a lot of delight and intrigue in Marsalis's Fifth, thanks to some sterling playing from both ensembles. Of particular note was a sweetly singing, solo-then-duo passage for violin and cello, handled elegantly by the NSO associate concertmaster Ying Fu and the acting principal cello Raymond Tsai. Likewise dependable was the composite-Americana style Marsalis has honed across his orchestral catalog. (Think of Stravinsky in his American-inflected "Ebony Concerto" period, mixed with Ives and Bernstein — along with a lot of Ellington and Strayhorn, then the music of Marsalis's native New Orleans.)

Asked, during the New York interview, about how he writes for a traditional orchestra and his own jazz ensemble, Marsalis said: “Complaint documents are interesting, right? The Declaration of Independence is a complaint document. ‘The Communist Manifesto’ is a complaint document. And they’re necessary.”

But, he added, it doesn't make sense to bring together two ensembles to complain. "It's better to come with solutions," he said. "I have to find a solution for how our two trumpet sections are gonna play together. How is the oboe gonna be heard? How does this groove work, or what does this mean, and what does it mean to all of us? And if not, if we're not searching for a common meaning, then we don't need — all of us — to come together."

StarCraft Is Returning as an Open-World Shooter

BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT
The new game in the StarCraft universe is to be released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2030.

The influential franchise is moving away from the real-time strategy genre.

By BRIAN X. CHEN

Amid a barrage of remakes and remasters of classic 1990s games — The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII and Tomb Raider, to name a few — Blizzard Entertainment is bringing back a beloved franchise, but with a twist.

On Saturday, Blizzard announced a third installment of the StarCraft franchise that will move away from the real-time strategy genre that helped the studio become a household name. The new game, set to be released in 2030, will instead be an open-world, story-driven shooter, with similarities to titles like Destiny and Borderlands.

“Previous versions were about being a commander up above, almost like a god looking down and controlling things,” Dan Hay, the upcoming game’s creative director, said in an interview. “What we simply want to do is take that world and just shift the perspective. Rather than being about making units, you are the unit.”

Blizzard executives gave scarce information about the new game, simply titled STARCRAFT, but a cinematic trailer portrays a soldier, Holt, training in the Terran military. As players progress through the story, they may be able to upgrade the character — improving equipment and honing skills — as in the role-playing space shooter Mass Effect.

"I want to be able to have my own armor," Hay said. "I want to be able to have that armor grow and I want to be able to see that that armor is something that I can invest in."

Details may change during development, but Hay entertained the possibility of letting players select the main character's role, whether as a Firebat, which specializes in close-range combat with a flamethrower, or as a Ghost, the stealthy assassin who attacks with a sniper rifle.

The first StarCraft game and its sequel, released in 1998 and 2010, had stories that were largely overshadowed by online gameplay, in which players directed space units to destroy an opponent's troops. Each player could choose from among three races: Terran, the human military; Zerg, biologically advanced insectlike creatures; and the technologically adept Protoss aliens.

Blizzard has long considered evolving StarCraft into a story-driven shooter. In 2002, it announced StarCraft: Ghost, in which players would take on the role of a stealthy assassin; the game was canceled in part because of resource constraints.

Investment in real-time strategy games has shrunk industrywide since the genre was eclipsed by multiplayer online battle arena games such as League of Legends and Dota, where each player controls an individual unit instead of micromanaging entire armies.

Johanna Faries, the president of Blizzard Entertainment, said in an interview that she viewed a fresh approach to StarCraft as an opportunity to “meet players where they are and where they will be.”

"There's so much passion around the StarCraft universe," she said. "I think that was, first and foremost, what has guided us to say, What more can we do to bring this universe forward?"

Hay said it had been his dream for at least 25 years to work on a StarCraft story. He said a scene from the original game — where a soldier was attacked by Zerg aliens — inspired him to go to animation school and eventually apply for a job at Blizzard, which rejected him because of his lack of experience. He built up his résumé by animating TV commercials and developing smaller games before leading the popular Far Cry franchise and finally landing at Blizzard.

Game development has become so costly — often hundreds of millions of dollars for major studios — that trying something new is a risk. And turning StarCraft into a narrative with a beginning and an end is a significant change for Blizzard, an early leader in “forever games” like Diablo and World of Warcraft, addictive experiences that seemingly never run out of quests to complete or gear to collect. That type of gameplay allows the studio to charge for online subscriptions.

"We're talking about something that is contained and focused and very high fidelity," Hay said of the upcoming StarCraft game.

For fans of StarCraft, waiting several years for the new game could feel like a long time. But Hay said that announcing it now would help motivate his team.

"When we put the date, we write it on the wall and we go, 'Let us hit that,' he said. "Let us make sure we do not kick these ideas around too long."

In France, the Louvre Isn't the Only Ripe Target

CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1 era of increasingly violent criminal gangs, some of whom have broken into museums in broad daylight.

Left, the Louvre's Apollo Gallery, site of a daylight heist. Above, Father Johan Michel at home in Laon, France, holding an object he is keeping there because art thieves have been making off with holy relics from churches. Below, a fence didn't keep thieves out of the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France.
MAEVA DESTOMBES AND HANS LUCAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
VALERY HACHE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

"There is a kind of collective psychosis that is being created," said Théo Caviezel, the mayor of Langres, a town in eastern France. A day after the heist at the Louvre, thieves broke into a museum there dedicated to the French philosopher Denis Diderot, and stole a collection of gold and silver coins.

Experts attribute the crimes to a confluence of factors including the ubiquity of social media, which makes it easier to recruit criminals for jobs and to identify the treasures held by even obscure museums. There is also the rising price of gold and silver, which makes coins and other precious objects tempting because they can be melted down and sold. And then there is what might be called the Louvre factor.

"Thieves all around the world are watching the news, too," said Arthur Brand, a private art detective in Amsterdam, who has helped retrieve museum goods. "So they see the Louvre and they think, 'Hey, don't we have a local museum?' What we see now is a plague of copycats."

There is no sign that Macron's conference in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a hilltop town west of Nice, had any connection to last week's robbery. The police arrived at the scene, in the neighboring Riviera town of Cagnessur-Mer, within five minutes of an alarm ringing at 5:48 a.m. They narrowly missed the thieves. But in their haste to escape, the intruders left two of four Renoir paintings in the garden of the museum, which is in a stone villa where the artist once lived.

Because the stolen works are so well known — one, a portrait of the French actress Colonna Romano, painted around 1910, and the other, “Young Woman at the Well,” an oil painting from around 1886 — art experts said they would be easily traced and impossible to sell in the open market. Works such as these, they said, usually end up being traded on the black market.

Pierre Noual, a French lawyer who specializes in recovering art, said robberies like this were often ordered by “sponsors, probably foreign, who want to have great works, such great masters, in their private collections.”

Noual noted that the Louvre heist had been preceded by several other robberies. Two happened in the same week at the Museum of President Jacques Chirac in Sarran, in central France, which houses 5,000 diplomatic gifts given to Chirac during his presidency, from 1995 to 2007. The museum was hit a third time last month, when the jersey belonging to Zidane, the soccer star, was stolen.

Giulia Imbert contributed reporting from Paris.

The vulnerability of museums, Noual said, has also been laid bare by a series of episodes in which vandals, some of them political activists, have defaced artworks by spraying or slashing them. France's weak legal response to these crimes, he said, has emboldened would-be thieves.

For all the publicity about museum thefts, though, the number of them may not actually be higher than normal. A report by the French National Assembly noted that since 2011, the number of thefts of museums has fluctuated, but within a range of 15 to 25 a year (the report does not cover 2026).

Some experts say that robberies may appear to be on the rise because museums are more open to talking about them. In the past, mentioning thefts had been taboo because they exposed weaknesses in security.

The director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, resigned in February in part because of the swirl of questions about the brazen daylight robbery of the museum's Apollo Gallery.
ANDREA MANTOVANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

But Charlotte Chambers Farah, a manager at the Art Loss Register in London, a service that maintains a database of lost or stolen art, said, "Museums are more transparent about disclosing items that have been stolen or missing, and appealing to people like us or the public for help returning things."

The Louvre heist has thrown a harsh spotlight on security at museums across France. In July, the culture ministry published a plan with 33 proposed measures, including mapping out the most vulnerable sites, recruiting specialized police officers and adding extra security for particularly at-risk pieces.

For local officials like Caviezel, of Langres, however, there is no quick fix. He said the museum's staff had been traumatized by the robbery even though it occurred when the museum was closed. They are now being trained to deal with security threats, which he said could make it harder to hire people. Two people have been arrested in connection with that case.

The town has installed additional surveillance cameras outside the museum, which is in a restored 16th-century mansion known as the House of Enlightenment. It plans to put bars on the windows and install a machine that, if triggered by an alarm, generates smoke, obscuring escape paths for intruders.

But, as Caviezel noted: "A building has front doors, it has windows, there is a roof. So it is vulnerable."

The theft of art, experts like to say, is as old as art itself.

Caviezel pointed out that the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, more than a century ago.

"Even the Louvre, with a budget of millions and millions, the most visited museum in the world, is vulnerable," he said.

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One easy way to make hiking a walk in the park

Judge Judy To Leave The Bench

Judith B. Sheindlin has had a 30-year TV career.

By ISHANI DESAI

Judith B. Sheindlin, who delivered sharp yet amusing one-liners while issuing no-nonsense rulings on her "Judge Judy" show, will step down from the bench after dominating daytime television for decades.

The program that made her a household name, "Judge Judy," ended on CBS in 2021 after more than 20 years. New episodes were replaced by reruns.

The show's Amazon Prime spinoff series, "Judy Justice," will stop releasing new episodes, Sheindlin's representative, Gary Rosen, said. The last episode is set to run on Oct. 22, according to the streaming service.

Sheindlin, 83, will end a television career that featured her signature plain-spoken and acerbic comments as she disabused landlords, boyfriends and others who appeared in her court.

She is not stepping away from television entirely, though. She will be an executive producer for a show starring her son, Adam Levy, a lawyer and a former district attorney in Putnam County, N.Y. The show, "Adam's Law," premiered Monday on CBS Media Ventures, Rosen said.

Sheindlin also has another program in development: "Judyverse," an adult animated series starring a baby as Judge Judy, Rosen said.

"Judge Sheindlin is not retiring," he said. "She is rewiring."

People magazine reported the news of Sheindlin's departure on Wednesday.

"Judge Judy" began on Sept. 16, 1996. In half-hour episodes, Sheindlin presided over small claims cases, adjudicating disputes between roommates over rent, overdue car payments and even dognapping.

Sheindlin's popularity grew when she dug for answers and skewered litigants with "Judy-isms" such as: "Either you are playing dumb or it's not an act," and "Are you trying to justify to me the fact that you're an idiot?"

The show, which won multiple Emmy Awards, drew nine million to 10 million viewers each day for years.

"They don't keep me here because I'm gorgeous," Sheindlin once said in an accent that reflected her native Brooklyn. "They keep me here because I'm smart."

Amazon hired her to create and star

The acerbic TV star Judith B. Sheindlin is winding down a career known for barbed one-liners. Her son is now beginning a law show.

in "Judy Justice" on its free streaming service, Freevee.

“Judy Justice,” which debuted in 2021, led to spinoffs, such as “Tribunal Justice” and “Justice on Trial,” which also ran on Freevee. (Amazon announced in 2024 that it was folding Freevee, an ad-supported streaming service, into Amazon Prime Video.)

Before her television career, Sheindlin practiced corporate law for a cosmetics company. She left when the work became unfulfilling and joined the New York Family Court system as a prosecutor, trying juvenile-delinquency and child-support cases.

The former New York City Mayor Ed Koch appointed her to the bench in 1982, and she later became the supervising judge of Manhattan Family Court.

"My gift, if you can call it a gift," she said in a 2019 interview with The New York Times, "is that I understand what motivates people."

In 1993, Sheindlin was featured in a "60 Minutes" segment in which the correspondent Morley Safer described her a "five-foot-two package of attitude with a capital 'A.'"

"To those who confront her, she is an evil queen in a lace collar," Safer added, referring to the collar Sheindlin regularly wore with her robes.

Also in 1993, she was profiled in The Los Angeles Times in an article headlined “Law and Disorder: Tart, Tough-Talking Judge Judith Sheindlin Presides Over the Grim Pageant of Dysfunction Known as Manhattan’s Family Court.”

"I can't stand stupid, and I can't stand slow," Sheindlin told The Los Angeles Times.

When she retired from family court in the late 1990s, television came calling.

"The People's Court" with Judge Joseph Wapner had been canceled, and the production company behind it was seeking a replacement. Within three years, "Judge Judy" had jumped to the No. 1 slot in daytime television, beating even "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

In 2018, Forbes named Sheindlin the country's highest-paid television host, reporting that she earned \$47 million a year for hosting "Judge Judy" and producing "Hot Bench."

In 2006, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2019 she received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Dancing Amid Sirens and Fear

CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1

whose ballets are in the repertory of top companies around the world. Now the National Ballet of Ukraine, too, will have a Balanchine ballet, "Donizetti Variations," a lighthearted work packed with witty steps danced at high velocity.

"It's exhausting and really difficult," the dancer Mykyta Sukhorukov said in an interview, "but he understands that the theater needs this kind of repertory."

Conditions at the company, as in the rest of the city, are hard. The troupe is down to 95 dancers from 176 before the war. Many have left to dance abroad. Twice a year the male dancers must sign papers exempting them from military service. These days performances are often interrupted by alarms warning of incoming fire.

On those occasions the performers, crew and audience — kept to no more than 600 in a theater with capacity for 1,300 — head to a shelter underground. But during the day dancers often stay put during alarms. “Otherwise,” Sukhorukov said, “we’d have to live in the shelter.”

A few days before the premiere of “Donizetti” last week, the Ratmanskys sat down for a WhatsApp interview from their hotel room, near the theater. The interview was interrupted twice by sirens. Distant explosions were audible. What follows are edited excerpts from that conversation.

How did you get to Kyiv?

ALEXEI There is a train from Vienna to Kyiv. Actually, it's just two cars attached to another train. But in Vienna, the train never arrived, so we took a different train to Budapest and then got on the car going to Kyiv. There was this big group of Ukrainians running from one track to the other, up and down the stairs with their suitcases.

What did it feel like to realize you were finally in Ukraine again?

ALEXEI You feel at home — there's an ease to it, you understand it. But then you realize: This is not a fairy tale. It's real. People are dying every day. We hear explosions around us.

How often do the alerts come?

TATIANA One night we tried to go to the shelter each time we received an alert. You get up, dress, go to the shelter, come back, undress, go to bed, and then do it all over again, many times a night. So we stopped doing it.

But when it's quiet for too long, it's also scary, because you feel like the Russians must be preparing something. It's like the myth of the Minotaur. Every night, it has to take someone. Except it's real. In the morning you hear the news: two people killed, 17 people killed, 38. It's like that every night and every day.

What is the feeling like in the city? How does it look?

ALEXEI Beautiful, I have to say. There are people in the streets. The cafes, restaurants and stores are open. The arts are flourishing. Everyone is so caring, so alive, so warm. People are taking care of each other.

What is the atmosphere at the theater?

ALEXEI Everyone does their job. There is a feeling of normalcy. For example: In addition to setting Balanchine's "Donizetti Variations," I've been teaching morning ballet class every day. After that first sleepless night, when we kept going back and forth to the shelter — I don't think anyone in Kyiv slept that night — I had a class to teach at 10 a.m. I came in, not sure what I would find. Would anyone be there? But when I got there the whole class was there, waiting. They greeted us, smiling. That made me cry.

Some of them live across the river; the metro doesn't run, or they close the bridges. One of the pianists told me she has to travel two hours to get to the theater on time. And there she is, every day, on time. No matter what happened the night before, the next morning people go and do their job, quietly.

[A phone alert sounded, followed by an air raid siren and an announcement on the hotel's P.A. system. The conversation resumed after a few minutes.]

What sorts of conversations have you had with people at the theater?

Top, the dancer Kirill Nebelytsia warming up for a rehearsal with the National Ballet of Ukraine. Above, from left: the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, far right, with visitors at a rehearsal in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, that was interrupted by an air raid siren; and inside the National Opera, where rehearsals for the ballet "Donizetti Variations" were held. Below, dancers in costume backstage.

TATIANA Mostly we talk about the war how they hide, how they survive, how they feel about it. Not so much about art. And about how many dancers have left.

What have the rehearsals been like?

ALEXEI We had some very intense days of rehearsal and then everyone was exhausted. Tatiana said: "Why should we make them work this hard? They don't need that right now." I mentioned that to a couple of people at the theater, and they pushed back, saying: "You can't imagine how much we need this. To have a project, a production, a premiere to look forward to." That was very inspiring to hear. They all come and do their jobs, not just at the theater but everywhere.

How is the company functioning? Is it still touring?

ALEXEI They tour quite a lot. They just got back from Japan, and soon they'll be going to Dubai. And they still have regular performances. They've been performing "Wartime Elegies."

In the last week, one of the performances was interrupted for 15 minutes while everyone went to the shelter. A performance of "Giselle" had to be canceled.

[Another siren, then the distant sound of an explosion.]

Why did you decide on "Donizetti Variations"?

ALEXEI I felt that they should have a Balanchine ballet in their repertory. When I went to the Balanchine Trust, I asked for a ballet that didn't have a huge cast, not too long. And it had to be uplifting. And of course, no Russian music.

The company is trained in a more classical style. How have they adapted to the speed and spikiness of Balanchine?

ALEXEI I teach class every day, so I can explain things. I want to use every second while I'm here. It's such a different way of dancing — it takes time. This intensity within each choreographic phrase is new to them. But their stamina is improving.

How do people in the theater react when there are sirens?

TATIANA Most of them don't run to the shelter. One ballet mistress, a former star of the company, said during an alarm: "I'll stay. I don't have much left to live anyway." And a coach told us that at home, when he hears an alarm, he turns the music up louder so he doesn't hear it.

I went to have my hair dyed, and right in the middle of it the siren went off, and I said, "What should I do?" And the hairdresser said, "Nothing, it's nothing special." I kept falling asleep in the chair, and I could see he was exhausted too. He said he had spent the night cleaning his apartment because the alarm kept going off. And then he washed the staircase of his building, just to keep busy.

Do you think you'll return?

ALEXEI I would. The city, the country, keeps functioning, because of this amazing strength people have. They pull themselves together and just do things. It's the people, the national character. I think it's a miracle.

3 PHARMACOLOGY

For those with narcolepsy, a drug that can mimic a chemical they lack.

6 WELL

Medical associations offer advice on vaccinations for respiratory viruses.

SCIENCE | MEDICINE | TECHNOLOGY | HEALTH

8 A CONVERSATION WITH An archaeologist searching the harbor of an old pirate haven for sunken treasures.

ScienceTimes

The New York Times

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 D1 N

At 92, She Did The Math And Became A Mentor

Joan Birman, now 99, thought that major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a teenage girl eager to learn.

BY GREGORY BARBER PAGE 4

OLIVER FARSHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIME

FINDINGS, EVENTS AND MORE

E.T., TAKE OUT THE TRASH

Is There Alien Debris on the Moon? Scientists Plan to Find Out.

Imagine an alien civilization that runs on dazzling technologies far more advanced than our own. Picture city-size starships, planet-wide mines or swarms of solar panels that harvest energy directly from a star.

As these aliens go about their otherworldly business, the erosive forces of space wear down their infrastructure, loosening bits of debris that detach and drift into the cosmos. If the civilization collapses, its remains degrade even faster. Clouds of particles might be unleashed into the galaxy, akin to microplastics in Earth's oceans, sprinkling worlds with the detritus of an extraterrestrial society.

Some of these particles, if they exist, may have even wafted through our solar system, perhaps settling on the surface of the moon, proposes a team of scientists focused on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. In their study, in peer review for the International Journal of Astrobiology, they suggest that searching for these microscopic remnants in lunar soil could resolve one of humanity's great questions: Are we alone in the universe?

"If any other technological civilization has ever existed in our galaxy, it's not an unreasonable hypothesis to think that particles of them are on the moon in some quantity," said Lewis Pinault, an affiliate scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and a researcher at Birkbeck College, University of London, who led the research.

In the study, the team showed how alien infrastructure might weather and erode into tiny particles and modeled how they would be dispersed through the galaxy. This process is already well observed here on Earth: Satellites, for example, shed microscopic material into space.

Sofia Sheikh, a scientist at the SETI Institute, described the team's idea as "a creative and worthwhile avenue." She said that was especially true in the context of renewed interest in the moon from Artemis, a NASA program that aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface. (Above, Harrison H. Schmitt, an Apollo 17 astronaut, on his way to take samples on the lunar surface in 1972.)

Dr. Pinault and his colleagues modeled the possible trajectories of the particles through the galaxy, showing how they might intersect with our solar system over time. They speculate that some particles might survive impacts with the moon, leaving traces of alien societies that may have already gone extinct. BECKY FERREIRA

'The ability to divide space evenly, reflected in these floral motifs, likely had practical roots in daily life.' Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist in Jerusalem, on how a Mesopotamian culture's decorated ceramics show some early roots of math.

ANDREW SYRED/SCIENCE SOURCE

PERSONALITY SECRETS

Behind Your Every Quirk, 1,260 Possibilities

Are you naturally anxious? Highly adventurous? More argumentative than you'd like to admit? Those tendencies are often measured through what psychologists call the "Big Five" dimensions of personality: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. Each trait exists on a continuum and tends to remain fairly stable throughout adult life.

BETEL JUICE

But what determines where you land on those spectra? Scientists have known that personality is influenced by a host of factors, including DNA, but have not understood the pathways through which a genetic blueprint nudges the direction of a person's life.

To map this architecture, a group of experts analyzed more than one million genomes, searching for variants associated with personality. They found 1,260 genetic markers tied to personality, nearly two-thirds of them identified for the first time.

The findings reaffirmed that temperament and disposition are shaped not by a few genes, but by many variants expressed in different circumstances. Common genetic differences identified still account for only about 5 to 10 percent of personality variation. But personality drivers aren't divided into neat percentages of genes versus environment. DNA and context actually constantly interact; experiences are the tool genetic predispositions use to mold who a person becomes. EMILY BAUMGAERTNER NUNN

In the Molars of an Old Mouth, Evidence of the Earliest Addict

Humans have dabbled with mind-altering substances for thousands of years. Our ancestors imbibed fermented alcoholic drinks like beer and mead, and experimented with psychedelic ayahuasca and the opiates found in poppies. Now, archaeologists have pushed the timeline of human drug use back further than ever before by studying teeth that belonged to a hunter-gatherer who lived in Indonesia sometime from 16,000 to 25,000 years ago.

The individual's molars, found in a cave on the island of Sulawesi, are marked with deep grooves that were most likely left by incessant sucking on betel nuts, which release psychoactive stimulants. Betel nut is still chewed by some 600 million people today.

The new discovery pushes the timeline of pharmacological experimentation back by 3,000 to 12,000 years, marking “a significant shift in our understanding of human drug history,” according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

“Human use of psychoactive plants, in particular, was a lot more common in the ancient past than we can appreciate at the moment,” said Adam Brumm, a professor of archaeology in Australia who led the study. Dr. Brumm’s team unearthed the jawbone and teeth of the ancient forager in 2017 at a cave called Leang Bulu Bettue. The team was perplexed by the strange dental grooves on the molars. The mystery deepened when the remains of another forager, who lived about 7,000 years ago, were found in a different cave. This person shared similar dental-wear patterns.

The matching markings on the teeth suggest they could have been created by a behavior that was passed down over many millennium in the region. Betel nuts are an obvious culprit. Modern users chew the nut with slaked lime, an ingredient introduced thousands of years ago that facilitates the release of the plant's psychoactive ingredient, called arecoline.

The prehistoric foragers instead sucked on the nut for its therapeutic effects. The team demonstrated that sucking on the nut could release enough arecoline into the brain to create a psychoactive effect. And they identified traces of arecoline on the teeth of both individuals. Dr. Brumm said, "It's strong evidence that this was an early form of drug use, essentially, and it appears to be what then gave rise to this modern, very widespread tradition

FAKHRI

throughout the Asia-Pacific region."

Dr. Brumm's team figured the prehistoric humans used betel nuts as painkillers. This remedy wore their teeth down to the pulp, which would have been excruciating. In this way, the teeth might also expose an early glimpse of the cycle of addiction. "They were caught in a negative feedback loop whereby they started this nut sucking to treat toothache," Dr. Brumm said. "But over time it made their dental problems much worse, and so they became more and more dependent on sucking that nut."

He said it was fascinating to see the effects that “drug addiction, if you want to call it that, had on ancient people before the development of alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.” BECKY FERREIRA

Finally, a Real Treatment for Narcolepsy

BSIP/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP, VIA GETTY IMAGES

A transformative new drug addresses the disorder's cause rather than its symptoms.

By CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON

Many people have a cartoonish idea of narcolepsy, perhaps picturing someone falling asleep standing up.

What people don't understand is that sleepiness can infiltrate every aspect of daily life, said Julie Flygare, 42, who was diagnosed with the sleep disorder in 2007, during her second year of law school. It interferes with memory, attention and weighs down everyday existence like a “heaviness on the skull,” she said.

While taking her current medications, Ms. Flygare has four to six precious hours of wakefulness a day, and still needs a nap. Positive feelings, like, say, the joy of hitting a volley in tennis, trigger episodes of cataplexy; her muscles go slack and her grip on the racket loosens. She, like many other patients, struggled for years to be correctly diagnosed and to find the right combination of stimulants or other drugs to ease her symptoms.

Since then, Ms. Flygare has been waiting, and pushing for, a drug aimed not just at alleviating sleepiness, but at replacing a crucial missing brain chemical. Last month, she saw it happen. A first-of-its-kind drug for the sleep disorder narcolepsy was approved by the F.D.A.

The new drug developed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., called Orzeyful, marks a long-sought success in the quest to mimic an essential brain peptide called orexin, which is missing in people with type 1 narcolepsy. About 120,000 people in the United States suffer from this type of narcolepsy, which causes pervasive sleepiness and episodes of cataplexy. Other companies, including Alkermes and Eli Lilly, are chasing close behind.

To test narcolepsy treatments, doctors use a "maintenance of wakefulness test" in which a person sits in a dim room for 40 minutes.

"You have to stay awake. You cannot read, you cannot watch TV, you cannot talk," said Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, a sleep researcher at Stanford and one of the leaders of the trial testing Orzeyful. "For a normal person, it's already tough; for a person with narcolepsy, it's impossible."

Before treatment, patients fell asleep within four to five minutes, according to a study published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. In two late-stage trials, nearly 300 patients between the ages of 16 and 70 received either Orzeyful or a placebo for 12 weeks. On Orzeyful, they could stay awake for more than 20 minutes — about twice as long as currently available medications, according to Dr. Thomas Scammell, a sleep researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Dr. Scammell, who was not involved in the study, said he thought that the drug could be “transformative.” Patients taking the drug have reported developing hobbies for the first time; dancing, playing ice hockey or spontaneously socializing.

Ms. Flygare participated in one of the trials testing Orzeyful and recalled that when she was dropped off at the site for her first visit, she had been unable to think clearly and could barely walk because she was off her medications. (It is necessary to have a “blank slate” to test the effects of a new drug.)

Later, when the same driver picked her up after she'd started Orzeyful, she remembers making a joke. It's the kind of casual, offhand human interaction that would typically have triggered her cataplexy and made her knees buckle.

"The wakefulness had a different tone to it; it felt sunnier" compared to her experience with stimulants, said Ms. Flygare, who

About 120,000 people in the U.S. suffer from type 1 narcolepsy. As well as constant sleepiness, the disease causes episodes of cataplexy, a sudden loss of muscle control often triggered by positive emotions. Now for the first time there is a drug that mimics an essential brain chemical that patients lack. People involved in the clinical trials found it life-changing.

Being awake 'felt sunnier,' said one patient in the Orzeyful trial.

founded a nonprofit called Project Sleep that raises awareness of sleep disorders. The nonprofit receives funding from drug companies, including Takeda, and last year Ms. Flygare served as a consultant to the company on patient perspectives in clinical trials.

Orzeyful is a pill taken twice a day. It will not be available until the Drug Enforcement Administration determines its classification as a controlled substance, which is expected to occur by November. Physicians are thrilled to have a new tool, but there remain many unknowns: How well will it work long-term? Will a drug that activates orexin receptors alter people's risk for other neurological diseases?

The long road to the new drug began more than two decades ago, when scientists first discovered that people with narcolepsy lacked orexin.

Orexins are produced by brain cells and work like a key fitting into a lock, by binding to two different receptors on the surface of cells in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus. Blocking the lock, like sticking a piece of tape over it, was a straightforward drug development problem and several insomnia treatments based on this idea have been approved. But designing a key that opened the lock required more finesse.

"It's hard," said Andrew Plump, president of research and development at Takeda. The drug is an "agonist" that must activate the receptor by binding to it, imitating what naturally occurring orexin does.

The second problem was that narcolepsy is rare.

"They said our science is very interesting and exciting, but narcolepsy, after all, is one in several thousands — not very rare, but not very common," said Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, a molecular biologist at the University of Tsukuba in Japan who led one of the teams that discovered orexin in 1998.

A Takeda scientist who had a friend with narcolepsy initiated the project by screening a vast library of molecules for promising hits.

The scientist was so passionate that the work began, but it wasn't a slam dunk. An early version needed to be administered by IV. Another candidate caused liver injury.

Other companies are close behind. Beyond sleep, the approval sets off a race to develop a new class of medicines that show promise in a host of ailments, from A.D.H.D. to neurodegenerative diseases.

Alkermes has a similar drug in late-stage testing. Blair Jackson, chief executive of the Dublin-based company, said it has identified 19 areas where such drugs could have potential. Eli Lilly recently agreed to pay up to \$7.8 billion for Centessa Pharmaceuticals, which has similar drugs in the pipeline.

"Sleep is the low-hanging fruit," said Luis de Lecea, a molecular biologist at Stanford and part of the team that also discovered orexin — though they called it hypocretin — in 1998. Narcolepsy patients lack orexin, but it also declines with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, P.T.S.D. and even normal aging.

Wall Street analysts have drawn hopeful comparisons to the GLP-1 drugs, which started out as diabetes treatments, then expanded into weight loss and are now being tested against a slew of other diseases.

Ms. Flygare is hopeful too. "This has been feeling like such a full circle moment for me," she said.

In a First, a Pig Kidney Served as a 'Bridge'

CHERYLE ST. ONGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A genetically modified pig kidney gave Tim Andrews a nine-month reprieve from dialysis.

A genetically modified animal organ kept a patient alive until he could get a human one.

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Two years ago, Tim Andrews was so worn out that all he wanted to do was sleep. Diabetes and high blood pressure had destroyed his kidneys, and the frequent dialysis treatments that kept him alive by filtering his blood were grueling. Though only 66, he had no energy or appetite, was too weak to walk and had experienced two heart attacks.

"I was dying," Mr. Andrews said. A kidney transplant could have saved his life, but the organs are in short supply. Roughly 90,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, and on average, 11 people die every day while waiting for one, according to United Network for Organ Sharing. And his rare blood type meant that Mr. Andrews's odds of getting a matching human kidney were especially slim.

So when he heard that doctors at Mass General Brigham were transplanting patients with kidneys from genetically modified pigs, he reached out.

"I figured, if I'm going to die, I might as well do something for humanity and be part of this experiment," he said.

Mr. Andrews received a genetically modified pig kidney on Jan. 25, 2025, and lived with it for nine months. This year, he became the first known patient to receive a human donor kidney after a pig kidney transplant, a milestone described in a paper published in The Lancet.

His case provides early proof of an intriguing concept: that pig kidneys, while not yet a permanent solution, could offer "bridges" to transplants with human organs. The kidneys come from pigs that have undergone numerous genetic edits, including some designed to prevent a severe organ rejection response and others to inactivate viruses in the pig genome.

"Dialysis causes so much wear and tear on our patients that they become too sick to get a transplant, or die while waiting," said Dr. Leonardo V. Riella, the paper's lead author and associate director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance at Mass General Brigham.

When researchers first considered using a pig kidney in this way, there was a concern that patients who had received the organ might become more prone to rejecting a human kidney later.

But Mr. Andrews's experience, along with that of one other patient, suggests that "it doesn't seem to change how you react to human tissue at all," said Mike Curtis, president and chief executive at eGenesis, the biotechnology company that produces the genetically modified pigs used at Mass General Brigham and helped fund the study.

"Right now, we don't think there's any downside of having a pig kidney followed by a human kidney, but when we started this, we had no idea that that would be true," Dr. Curtis said.

Altogether, five patients at Mass General Brigham have received pig kidneys produced by eGenesis under a Food and Drug Administration program allowing expanded access for patients who have no other treatment options. Three, including Mr. Andrews, lived with the organs for more than eight months, the company said. (One patient died of an unexpected cardiac event shortly after transplantation, and one patient was transplanted only in June.)

The time Mr. Andrews spent with the animal organ was critical to getting his health back on track, his doctors said. The pig's kidney made urine and cleared waste from his body 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing what dialysis does only every other day, during hourslong sessions. His diet improved, and he regained muscle mass.

"It gave me life," Mr. Andrews said.

More work is ongoing. EGenesis is starting a formal clinical trial next year with 33 patients. Another biotechnology company that produces genetically modified pigs, United Therapeutics Corporation, began a clinical trial of its kidneys in November 2025 and will soon start a second trial, it said in a statement this week. It is also starting a very small clinical trial of pig heart transplants to humans, the statement said.

Dr. Curtis said that while "bridge" kidneys would prove valuable, the ultimate goal was to develop pig kidneys that could last as long as human transplants.

"Maybe 10 or 15 years from now, we may be talking about an alternative as good as human kidneys," Dr. Riella said. "We're at the beginning of the journey."

Mr. Andrews had to be hospitalized several times while he had the pig kidney, and ultimately it had to be removed after blood clots formed in the organ's vessels and dam-'I figured, if I'm going to die, I might as well do something for humanity.' aged it. He resumed dialysis briefly, and in January he received a human kidney.

Although he has had some health problems since, he said he was fitter than he had been in years and was back to living much of the year in a cabin by a pond. He swims and kayaks in the pond and takes short bike rides, and his appetite — dampened during dialysis — is back.

"I went from thinking I had months, maybe a year," he said of his time on dialysis. But his transplants have changed the way he looks at life, he said. "When you say 'stop and smell the roses,' that's my life now. I look at everything and go 'wow.'"

How Did A Promising Drug Fail?

Cardiologists were surprised at the results of an Lp(a) treatment.

By GINA KOLATA

Until this month, cardiologists thought they were on the verge of a new frontier in treating heart disease.

Three companies were conducting large clinical trials on experimental drugs that slash levels of a blood protein, Lp(a), thought to cause heart attacks and stroke. Doctors were eagerly awaiting the results, hoping the drug could be as important as a statin.

When Novartis, the first company to complete its trial, announced its results, on Sept. 4, cardiologists were shocked. The drug could lower Lp(a) levels by 80 percent, but it did not prevent heart attacks and strokes. It had failed.

"There's something we don't understand here," said Dr. John Alexander, a cardiologist at Duke.

Cardiologists regularly see patients who have had heart attacks even though their cholesterol and blood pressure levels are low. They do not have diabetes or obesity, and they do not smoke, either. All too often, though, they have high levels of Lp(a).

About 20 percent of Americans have elevated levels; people with the highest levels of the protein can have double or triple the risk of a heart attack.

So there was no question that Lp(a) was important. A drug to lower the level of the protein, cardiologists hoped, could provide a way for these patients to protect themselves.

But the failure of the Novartis study raised an uncomfortable possibility: Maybe Lp(a) is not a cause of heart disease, but instead is a marker of heart disease risk, as white hair is a mark of aging.

If Lp(a) is a marker, though, what is it marking? Is there another cause of heart disease that no one has thought of?

That is “the nagging question we are all pondering,” said Dr. David Maron, president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology.

There may not be an easy answer, either. "Maybe we were fooled into thinking this would be simple," Dr. Alexander said.

Still, many researchers are not ready to throw out the Lp(a) hypothesis, saying that there might be other explanations for the failure and that they need to take a close look at the study data. The company will not provide the full data set until it is presented at the American Heart Association meeting in November.

"We still have a lot to learn," said Dr. Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Cardiologists say they have good reasons to think high levels of Lp (a) cause heart disease. The blood protein inserts itself into artery walls and can cause inflammation and blood clotting.

One possible explanation for the study's failure, said Dr. Daniel Rader, a lipid specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, might be that it involved the wrong type of patients. The participants were people with very high Lp(a) levels who had already had heart attacks or strokes. The hope was that lowering Lp(a) would prevent them from future events.

Studies are done in a patient population that is more prone to heart attacks because it is easier to see if those patients are protected. But, Dr. Rader said, it might be too late to help them. The right group to test might be people at high risk of heart disease who have not yet had a heart attack. Or maybe, he said, lowering Lp(a) by 80 percent is not enough.

But if Lp(a) is not playing a major role in causing recurrent heart attacks and strokes in people who already have heart disease, what, then, is the driver?

Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale, has a different thought. Cholesterol levels and blood pressure levels, he notes, can be low for decades and then soar later in life. But high Lp(a) levels are set by genetics and do not vary.

"You are stuck with your Lp(a) level," Dr. Krumholz said. Whatever the level is, it is not going to change on its own. So lowering it in adulthood might be ineffective because it is too late to make a difference. Maybe, he said, a person would have to take a drug to lower Lp(a) for 20 years or even from birth.

Other studies of drugs that target Lp(a) by the pharmaceutical companies Lilly and Amgen are still underway, and those studies will be crucial in determining if lowering those levels are helpful, cardiologists said.

If those other studies are negative, Dr. Rader said, "I am not sure we will see a whole lot of enthusiasm for Lp(a)."

A Mathematician and Her Apprentice

By GREGORY BARBER

It was a kind of note that Joan Birman had received many times: a plea from a high school student, asking for help learning mathematics.

After enjoying freshman geometry class, the student wrote, she had recently read her first real mathematical proof. It made her think there might be something more to math than what she was learning in school. Perhaps Dr. Birman could show her what she was missing.

Messages like this had arrived with such regularity during Dr. Birman's career that she had come to suspect they were assigned by high school teachers. They kept arriving via email, though perhaps not as frequently, even after she retired from Columbia University in 2004. Now, in the summer of 2019, she was 92 years old, and she had no interest in being a babysitter.

Still, she messaged the student back and said that she'd think about it.

The truth was, she wanted to keep doing math. Her husband, Joseph Birman, had died two years earlier, leaving her alone in the house in New Rochelle, N.Y., where they had raised their three children. She had decided to move back to the city, choosing an apartment on Riverside Drive in Manhattan because it was not far from the office she still kept at Columbia. She wanted to be a cab ride away at all times from a mathematical conversation.

And here was this email — which, when she thought about it more, seemed unusually sincere, not coerced, as if the girl actually did want to do math. After a few days, Dr. Birman replied and said she was willing to meet. She told the teenager to find a textbook, I.N. Herstein's "Topics in Algebra," a standard torture device for aspiring graduate students.

The girl arrived that July in the lobby of Dr. Birman's Upper West Side apartment building, a postwar co-op on Riverside Drive. Her name was Vasudha Bharathram, and she had just turned 15 that month. She was a rising sophomore at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, but it so happened that she and her family also lived on Riverside Drive, just 10 blocks away. Seeing her for the first time, Dr. Birman was struck by how small and childish she looked: "She hadn't gone through her growth spurt yet," she recalled. Her father had escorted her on the walk through the neighborhood.

They sat in the lobby armchairs, and Dr. Birman asked Ms. Bharathram about her move from India two years earlier, and what she liked about high school geometry.

There were pages and pages of solutions, written in a messy teenage scrawl that the elder mathematician could barely decipher, though she was still intrigued.

Her own subfield of mathematics was called topology, Dr. Birman explained; it, too, involved shapes, but ones that were fluid and stretchy, not pinned down by rigid coordinates. Dr. Birman took out a pencil and drew an example, called a braid, which twirls around just like the hairstyle. She sent the student off with an assignment to read a chapter of the textbook.

She was surprised when, a few days later, Ms. Bharathram sent her another email, this time with photographs of her notebook. There were pages and pages of solutions, written in a messy teenage scrawl that the elder mathematician could barely decipher. Dr. Birman was startled, first and foremost, by the girl's intrepidness; problems from Herstein were no one's idea of a good time. Then she looked more closely at the notes and realized that Vasudha had solved the problems, mostly proofs about basic concepts in abstract algebra, by sketching out unusual paths to the right answer. At their next meeting in the lobby, she asked her to explain her thinking.

There was something original here, Dr. Birman realized.

She decided right then on their path forward. She had a problem in mind, one that had escaped her own grasp for decades. In fact, as they moved through the textbook, they were already working to solve it — though her new student had no idea yet.

THE LESSONS SOON MOVED to Dr. Birman's apartment. She had dispensed with most of her things in the move, but a few artifacts remained of her old life in the big house in New Rochelle. Shelves of scientific biographies, mostly collected by Joe, a prominent physicist. A pair of hooded gargoyles, purchased on a whim in France in the late 1960s, unwanted by Sotheby's. (She and Joe had driven by the antique store, met eyes, and knew exactly what the other was thinking.) The stone figures watched over an oak dining table where she and Vasudha would talk about the problems. The girl now typed her answers, after Dr. Birman complained about her "godawful handwriting."

Dr. Birman's first move to New York had been 80 years earlier, at age 12. Her parents thought their four daughters would stand a better chance of finding husbands there than out on Long Island. At her all-girls public high school, she discovered a love of geometry, math that she could actually see. With a clique called the "math girls," she lobbied for harder problems — a demand beyond what their teacher, Ms. Mahoney, could satisfy. Her parents were supportive. Their idea was that their four girls would all get an education, which they did, and then marry off in birth order, which they almost did. (The youngest sister declined to marry off at all.)

Joan worked part time as an engineer while raising three children, but the work eventually lost meaning. Still, she fully expected to return to it when, at 34, she started taking evening math courses at New York University to “polish my mind,” as she put it. She passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam without realizing what the test was for. “I thought, ‘Either I’ll make a mess of graduate school or make a mess of my life,’” she said.

Granted a scholarship, she used it to pay for a babysitter; now, she could sit all day and look out the window, thinking about topology. Decades later, her children would joke with one another about being “in the doghouse” for failing to understand exactly what their mother did, and why it took up so much of her attention.

One interest was knots, which in topology are defined as single strands that loop and twist upon themselves in ways that cannot be undone. Their flexibility makes them deceptive. A major question in knot theory is telling whether two different-looking knots are actually the same. As anyone who has untangled a necklace knows, even the worst snarl will eventually unfurl into a circle — an “unknot.” To decipher their true nature, mathematicians translate shapes into algebra. Expressions called polynomials help identify knots as unique, making the wriggling forms solid.

Braids, meanwhile, are defined as multiple overlapping strands that don't form loops, instead running off the page like the tracks flowing in and out of a train station. What makes them special is that you can do calculations with them directly — algebra with pictures. The study of braids was considered a “backwater” when Dr. Birman completed her Ph.D. in 1968. But this suited her fine as a 41-year-old looking for her first academic job, at a time when rejection for being "the wrong sex" was not occasion for a scandal. It gave her an opening.

She joined the faculty of Barnard College and quickly became known for connecting the powerful algebra of braids to other topics in the world of mathematics, from knots to chaos. Her office on the Columbia campus became a way station. In 1984, when the mathematician Vaughan Jones uncovered a new polynomial in the course of studying braids, he came to Dr. Birman to sort out whether it might be useful. She quickly helped him see how it could distinguish one knot from another — a holy grail for the field. When Jones was later presented with the Fields Medal, awarded only to mathematicians younger than 40, Dr. Birman introduced him.

Photographs from Joan Birman's archive, above, produced for Barnard College's catalog, circa 1990. She quickly became known for connecting the powerful algebra of braids to other topics in the world of mathematics, from knots to chaos.

Women in math sometimes would se-quester themselves, she noticed. She didn't approve — it bothered her, in fact, when Barnard and Columbia failed to merge as expected. The women found her anyway. What she wanted was to see her “mathematical daughters” actually do mathematics, uncovering a world of hidden structure that was available to everyone. When one of those daughters, an undergraduate sick with a set of bad kidneys (just how sick Dr. Birman hadn't known), died soon after they started working together, what gnawed at her decades later was that she had failed to push harder to make progress. “I let her down,” she said.

Joan in actin (photos for the Barnard catalogue)

After that, she had sworn off taking on younger students — until Vasudha, who now would email her to set up a meeting each time she finished a Herstein chapter. They were moving quickly. By early autumn, they were done with that book, and soon moved on to Dr. Birman's own book on braids, considered the seminal work of the field. Their conversations, Dr. Birman realized, were as stimulating as any she'd get from a \$17 cab ride to Columbia.

Eventually, Dr. Birman directed Vasudha to a chapter in which she described a special way to represent braids with large sets of polynomials. Known as the Burau representation, it came with a question: whether or not information was lost in this translation from shapes to algebra. This is known as “faithfulness.” Burau was known to be faithful for braids with three or fewer strands, and unfaithful for braids with five or more; at that point, the braids become too complicated to wrangle.

That left four strands. For about as long as Dr. Birman had been alive, no one had been able to come to any conclusions about whether Burau would be faithful in that case or not. Mathematicians couldn't even decide which path was more likely. To embark on a proof in either direction would be to leap from a plane, unaware of whether or not you were wearing a parachute.

Dr. Birman had decided many months before that they would jump. Soon after the pandemic began, she suggested that Vasudha start by taking another look at the well-established three-strand case. Perhaps if she could find a new way to prove it, they would see a path others had missed.

VASUDHA WAS BORN not far from Riverside Drive, at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital. But her family had moved to India when she was 3, returning to New York when she was in eighth grade. Delhi was where her lifelong friends were, where she would play soccer for hours and cheer for the Bengaluru cricket team; a poster for the team now hung on the wall in her bedroom in Manhattan.

Her decision to send the email was almost happenstance: She had looked at the Columbia faculty page, seen Dr. Birman's

Perhaps by teaming up with a young student, together they could find a new way to prove a theory that others had missed.

name near the top, read an article about her work and then figured she'd reach out. Her parents were surprised to hear she had done it, and even more bewildered when the mathematician responded. Vasudha's favorite subject in school, the family joked, had always been recess. But as far as a choice of teenage obsession went, it was hardly the worst they could imagine. She didn't speak much of math to her parents, though, as the details became more complicated. Only to "Professor Birman."

With the arrival of the pandemic, she could now sit for hours in bed blasting Pink Floyd while she thought about mathematics. She did not understand many of the papers Dr. Birman had given her. But she was fine with not knowing. If she encountered an unfamiliar formula or concept, she could try to look it up, or stow away the idea for later. At Dr. Birman's direction, she began taking college courses, which were newly online. So was high school. When she needed to focus on a math problem, her teachers now came with a mute button.

The meetings with her mentor continued over Zoom, through a sudden collapse on the street and surgery for a pacemaker. By the time they could meet in person, initially on a bench in Riverside Park, they had made progress. Vasudha was formulating a new way to prove the faithfulness for three-strand braids using a special type of polynomial. It was an unusual choice, because the polynomial had played a role in proving why Burau was unfaithful for braids of five or more strands. She now believed it would help her prove why the four-strand case was faithful. Dr. Birman thought that sounded like a good idea.

It was just an intuition, though, formed after months of visualizing braids in her mind. Not a proof. "They had an argument, but it was not possible yet for someone else to understand it," said Dan Margalit, a topologist at Vanderbilt University who reviewed their early work. He was skeptical they would succeed, but he encouraged Dr. Birman over their many conversations, seeing no harm in the mathematician and her apprentice's obsession with this interesting, if perhaps impossible, problem.

It was clear, however, that they could use some backup. One day during Vasudha's

Vasudha Bharathram, right, on her first day of graduate school at Princeton. She was just 15 when she first contacted Dr. Birman about learning more about math.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY OLIVER FARSHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Left, they worked together on a study involving braids, which was considered a "backwater" when Dr. Birman completed her Ph.D. in 1968. Bottom, a page from Dr. Birman's 1974 book, "Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups."

senior year, Dr. Birman invited Tara Brendle, one of her final graduate students at Columbia, to join them in the apartment and take a look at their work. She quickly spotted an error in one of their diagrams — at that moment, Dr. Birman knew they had found a collaborator.

Dr. Brendle, who was then in her late 40s and a professor at the University of Glasgow, was hesitant to take on Burau, a notorious rabbit hole that she advised her own Ph.D. students to avoid. But Ms. Bharathram's approach was so interesting, she recalled later, that "I went home and told my children about it."

She was surprised, too, by how well the pair got along, with a shared intensity that could easily read as bluntness. Topics that others deem personal, about family or hobbies or music, seemed to live at the polite periphery of their conversations. But they shared a taste in mathematics — and that, Dr. Brendle said, is as personal as anything.

WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR Ms. Bharathram to think about college, Dr. Birman took control. She wrote a letter to Princeton, "where all the math wizards go." And that was that. It was the only school Vasudha applied to.

Her eventual adviser, David Gabai, warned Dr. Birman that most precocious students don't work out. Accustomed to zipping through calculations and winning trophies at math competitions, they find that the yearslong wilderness of an unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) problem is not for them, that it is better to code A.I. software or join a hedge fund.

Dr. Gabai quickly saw, however, that Vasudha's work with Dr. Birman had molded her differently. "She's mature enough to recognize if you throw in an idea, the chance of it working is not so great," Dr. Gabai said. "But so what? Just throw in another idea."

Their origin story had astounded him. Dr. Birman's decision to reply to Ms. Bharathram's cold email recalled, he said, G.H. Hardy's response to a letter from the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in 1913, an act that plucked Ramanujan from obscurity and led to a near-mythical partnership.

From Day 1 at school, Ms. Bharathram was leading a parallel life with her collaborators in New York and Scotland. She felt that she had finally learned enough basic math to make true progress. The music had consequently gotten louder; more than once, the campus police were called to her dorm room to find a young woman doing math problems to a prog-rock playlist.

Occasionally, the three met in person for "math camp" in Dr. Birman's apartment, where Dr. Brendle would take the spare bedroom. They were satisfied with the new three-strand proof and had moved on to four, using the same polynomial to describe the overlapping twists and turns of the strands. The problem was that certain terms in the polynomial would sometimes cancel out one another, implying that information was potentially lost, i.e., unfaithfulness.

Their task was to show that enough of these cancellations never piled up to cause a problem. But showing that this was always the case would involve thousands of hand-drawn diagrams of various braids and intensive calculations. During hours-long Zoom meetings, as her two students scribbled diagrams and formulas on their iPads, Dr. Birman, now well into her late 90s, privately worried that she was falling behind. (The others claimed they didn't notice.) She also wondered, more outspokenly, if it was clear enough that they had found a solution and should get on with making it public. Their time was hardly infinite.

This winter, a realization altered their course. Rather than laboring case by case, they could instead change their approach to imagine their four-stranded braids as having five strands — a move that Radmila Sazdanovic, a knot theorist at North Carolina State University, would later call “super, super elegant.” In this world of five-stranded possibilities, they could perform a fix that would make all the cancellations disappear from the polynomial. Watching them vanish was, Dr. Brendle said, “the most satisfying moment of my mathematical career.”

Soon after, they considered the problem solved. But they were still hesitant to go public, spending months tinkering with the language to describe their private logic. Even if colleagues like Dr. Margalit now understood the result, many of the ideas were counterintuitive and had yet to undergo rigorous peer review. But such is the nature of the process. This July, they posted the paper.

ON A RECENT SUMMER MORNING, Dr. Birman sat at the big oak table with a copy of "A Beautiful Mind" — "totally butchered" by the Russell Crowe movie, she declared — which she was rereading for her building's book club. She gesticulated with her iPhone as she spoke. A prolific texter, she lets A.I. clean up after her arthritic pointer finger.

One thing she had given up on keeping up with was her email inbox, which had been overflowing since the paper. It will take months for experts to fully digest the result, a process that could still turn up errors. But for knot theorists, any new result from Joan Birman was exciting. That it was this result, one that so many had chased for decades, was thrilling.

The paper was “remarkable in many ways,” said Emmanuel Breuillard, a mathematician at the University of Oxford, with a method that built on old theories (some dating to Dr. Birman’s Ph.D.) but with new ideas. Dr. Breuillard had been leading an effort to solve the question with the help of an A.I. chatbot. That humans appear to have sorted it out first — and these three particular humans — “almost feels like a blessing,” he said.

It was a big result, sure — most likely one of her best ever, Dr. Birman said. She was feeling her age, though, in a way that she didn't seven years ago. Her hearing, a problem ever since contracting mumps from her children, has been acting up again. A valve in her heart is deteriorating. There is a surgery to fix it, but after one of her sons discovered the operation came with a high risk of stroke, “we decided no stroke,” Dr. Birman said. The previous week, she had acquiesced to a wheelchair.

At 99, doing math “is what keeps her going,” Dr. Margalit thinks. It’s no different from when she was 92 and replied to Vasudha. “Most of mathematics is in our minds, not in textbooks,” he said. “It’s an art, and it gets passed down. It’s altruistic in a sense, but it’s also selfish in a sense, because we have these ideas and this tradition that we really want to pass down.”

There was a knock on the door, and Ms. Bharathram walked in. The child who first visited this apartment seven years ago was gone, replaced by (as Dr. Birman had proudly put it, out of her earshot) "a tall, elegant woman" starting her first year of graduate school. She was headed to Philadelphia for the International Congress of Mathematicians, and she had only a few hours to spare before her train. Dr. Birman would be going, too, she said, if she weren't still figuring out the wheelchair.

Ms. Bharathram sat down, tapping her silver rings on the oak table. Looking back, she's not sure if the girl who sent that email could have articulated why she did it. She just did it. It is easy to imagine a version of herself, she said, who had never found math. Perhaps if Dr. Birman had not responded, or even if they had not turned out to be neighbors. She hadn't felt any nerves that first day in the lobby, because there were no stakes that she was aware of.

Not that it mattered now. "From the moment I started reading that book and talking to Joan, I just loved it," she said.

She had set aside finishing other proofs to focus on Burau, her first and most personal problem. But now she was eager to talk with Dr. Birman about that other work, which was tied to questions raised in her mentor's old papers.

Dr. Birman smiled. She knew exactly which papers, and which questions. "The way that came about was this," she began. She recalled a snowy night in Buffalo in the 1980s, when a younger colleague had asked her to tell him her "mathematical dream." Her dream all along, she had realized, after her work on the Jones polynomial, was to "connect knots and braids," and there was so much more for her to say about it, so much more math to be done. She and that colleague spent the next few years writing papers that would help others see exactly what she envisioned.

Many of the questions in Joan Birman's dream had been answered. But Vasudha Bharathram was now carrying that work from our three-dimensional world into Dimension 4, a space where knots become almost impossible to visualize and virtually "nothing is known," she said.

Dr. Birman urged her to go on. She was eager to hear where the dream would take them next.

Well

Experts Wary as Stars Praise Full-Body M.R.I.s

VIA PRENUVO

The scan can do more harm than benefit, doctors say, and healthy people don't need one.

By DANI BLUM

A long line of celebrities and influencers have gushed about their experiences with scans that scour the entire body for early traces of conditions like cancer, aneurysms, autoimmune disorders and liver disease.

Now Busy Philipps, an actress known for her roles on shows like “Dawson’s Creek” and “Cougar Town,” has joined them, telling People magazine that she had a rare, malignant brain tumor removed after it was detected by a Prenuvo scan — a session of magnetic resonance imaging, or M.R.I.

"I'm grateful that I'm alive," she told the magazine.

Prenuvo offers the full-body M.R.I.s for around \$2,500, but the company has provided influencers with free scans and in some cases has given them discount codes to share with their followers. (Dr. Daniel Durand, the president and chief medical officer of Prenuvo, said Ms. Philipps did not receive a free scan.)

Kim Kardashian, the television host Maria Menounos and the “Selling Sunset” star Mary Bonnet are among the celebrities who have extolled the Prenuvo scans. Other companies that offer similar full-body scans are proliferating.

The scans are presented as tools to give consumers a sense of control over their health. But researchers and medical organizations have cautioned that there is not enough evidence to suggest healthy people should undergo the full-body scans, and that doing so sometimes leads to more harm than benefit.

"You can't test yourself to health," said Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a researcher at the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Mass General Brigham.

He said full-body M.R.I.s were a quick way to end up “having a whole bunch more done to you, and worrying about stuff and then maybe being hurt in the process. Certainly being made poorer in the process.”

Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, director of the Radiology Outcomes Research Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, said that “some people, a small amount of people, might benefit from finding a tumor early. That is absolutely a theoretical possibility.”

But, she added, it's also true that the tumor might never have caused harm, "and finding it early just leads to unnecessary treatment."

Dr. Durand, the Prenuvo chief medical officer, said that this was an evolving area of medicine and that more research was needed “to understand its long-term impact on outcomes in asymptomatic populations.”

But, he added, he did not view false positives as a reason to avoid looking altogether. He also noted that there were significant costs associated with missed or delayed diagnoses.

Ms. Philipps did not respond to a request for comment.

Doctors say there are two main types of

Prenuvo offers a full-body magnetic resonance imaging session for around \$2,500, but the company has provided influencers with free scans.

risk from these kinds of full-body scans.

Healthy bodies commonly contain lumps, scars and masses that are not harmful. A scan might detect something that prompts a patient to undergo more testing or procedures, only to find out that it was benign — a noncancerous cyst or lump, for example. Doctors sometimes call such findings “incidentalomas.”

False positives can lead to biopsies, extensive monitoring and, possibly, unnecessary surgeries, said Dr. Sameer Ansari, a diagnostic and interventional neuroradiologist at Northwestern Medicine.

Dr. Sarah Stock, a neuroradiologist at the

Cleveland Clinic, added, "It's only a very, very small fraction of these kinds of exams that are going to lead to the early diagnosis of cancer or something very serious."

A second risk of full-body scans is of overdiagnosis, instances in which a scan accurately detects a cancer but one that, if left alone, would not have gone on to cause illness or death. Patients can wind up undergoing chemotherapy and surgery to address tumors that would not have progressed.

The American College of Radiology issued a statement in 2023 saying no evidence showed that total body screens were "cost-efficient or effective in prolonging life."

A 2019 meta-analysis looked at studies of people who did not have the symptoms of diseases like cancer but who had received total body M.R.I. scans. It found that in about a third of the people, the tests had detected abnormalities that could potentially be clinically significant. But the researchers were not clear whether those abnormalities would have gone on to harm the patients.

The online discourse about these tests rarely reflects that nuance. A 2025 paper examined nearly 1,000 TikTok and Instagram posts and found that an overwhelming majority were misleading, with just 15 percent mentioning possible risks.

"The real question is, is there any benefit? And of course, we don't know that," Dr. Welch said. "We're assuming, everybody assumes, that the survivor stories are evidence of benefit. But the survivor stories may be totally misleading."

Pushing for Earlier Bone Scans

ELENI KALORKOTI

Some doctors think women shouldn't wait for age 65 to screen for osteoporosis.

By DANIELLE FRIEDMAN

In the last few years, there's been a cultural push for women in midlife to build strong bones.

Menopause influencers and medical organizations alike have focused on the message that women's risk for fractures increases dramatically after menopause, and that they should think about their bone density much earlier than their mothers might have.

The American Medical Association recommends that women get their first DEXA scan — a low-dose X-ray that is the gold standard test for determining bone density — at 65 or older, unless they have a risk factor for osteoporosis.

But a growing number of doctors and bone health experts now recommend earlier scans. They argue that if women wait until 65, they may miss a critical window to prevent osteoporosis.

"For years, osteoporosis has been thought of as something that we identify and treat, not something we prevent," said Dr. Jocelyn Wittstein, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Duke University School of Medicine. As researchers have learned more about prevention, that mind-set has begun to shift, she said.

And yet the scans have not been studied as a screening tool for younger women without known risk factors for fractures, and no major medical organization supports this approach.

Here's what to know about when to get a DEXA scan and how to take care of your bone health.

How Bones Change Over Time

Your bones are constantly rebuilding themselves, said Dr. Angela Cheung, the director of osteoporosis care for the University Health Network in Toronto.

Women reach their peak bone mass by their 20s to 30s. Generally, the more weight-bearing exercise you have done throughout your life — or activity that requires your body to resist gravity, such as jumping or resistance training — the stronger your bones will be, as long as you have maintained good nutrition.

Women see a significant drop in bone density in the years around menopause, which typically happens between 45 and 55. This is because estrogen, which plummets during menopause, helps bones stay strong.

Without taking steps to preserve their bone density, women lose an average of 10 percent of it in the five to seven years after menopause.

For women who start out with high bone density, this drop in estrogen may not lead to weak bones, Dr. Cheung said. But for many other women, the transition can lead to osteoporosis.

Many risk factors also predispose women to the disease, including a history of eating disorders, smoking, heavy drinking, a family history of osteoporosis or simply being thin.

What a DEXA Scan Can Tell You

You're never too young to think about your bones, experts say: The sooner you prioritize weight-bearing exercise and good nutrition, the better off you will be.

But osteoporosis is often referred to as a silent disease, because many women only learn they have it after a fracture, the experts said.

A DEXA scan measures the density of your hip and spine bones. It can tell you whether you have osteopenia, a condition that can be a precursor to osteoporosis. It can also identify osteoporosis and help you determine whether to start medication to reduce your risk of fractures. After the scan, your provider will share a score that indicates whether your density is normal or low.

DEXA scans for body composition, offered by some gyms and wellness centers, can provide insights into muscle and fat tissue but they are not especially revealing about fracture risk, Dr. Cheung said.

The current medical recommendations for DEXA scans focus on screening older women for osteoporosis to prevent fractures, because research on the disease has focused on this population, said Dr. Joel Tsevat, a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an expert panel that decides which screenings insurance companies must cover.

(To date, no major studies have been published on the preventive health benefits of performing DEXA scans on women who are under 65 and at average risk for fractures.)

Still, Dr. Tsevat said that women younger than 65 who have gone through menopause and have at least one additional risk factor should discuss earlier screening with their provider.

The Argument for Earlier Tests

Most women's health advocates who push for earlier DEXA scans agree that the ideal time for women to learn their bone density is at menopause, when they face the choice of whether to start hormone therapy.

Research has shown that estrogen therapy can help to preserve a woman's bone density, so knowing your score can be a valuable tool in deciding whether to take the hormone, said Mary Bouxsein, a bone health researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School. (The efficacy can vary based on dose and formula.)

But the therapy is most effective and safest if you start it within 10 years of menopause — which, for most women, means before 65, Dr. Bouxsein said.

On social media, a small but vocal contingent of doctors and physician influencers has argued that all women should receive a base-line DEXA scan in their 30s or early 40s. (Last year, an orthopedic surgeon in Kansas City started a campaign for women to get an initial scan at 40, the same age women are advised to get their first mammogram.) Some of these proponents offer DEXA scans at private clinics and sell products marketed to support bone density.

They argue that by getting an initial DEXA before menopause, you can learn your starting point, which could be useful when estrogen starts to drop. If you get a second DEXA at menopause and learn that your bone density has rapidly decreased, this could influence your decision to start hormone therapy.

But while most experts agree that getting a DEXA scan before menopause isn't harmful, some argue it could create a false sense of security or anxiety, depending on a woman's results.

And for most women, knowing their score that early on doesn't change what they can do to prevent disease. (Though some premenopausal women at high risk for fractures, including some athletes and cancer patients, can benefit from earlier DEXA scans, the experts said.)

How to Protect Your Bones

Whether your DEXA score is normal or low, similar steps can help lower your risk of falls and fractures.

Regular resistance training and exercise that involves impact can help keep your bones strong, said Lora Giangregorio, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

While some fitness influencers claim you have to lift heavy weights to strengthen bone, it's more important to start at a level that's challenging for you and progressively push yourself over time by increasing the weight you're lifting or choosing a harder exercise, Dr. Giangregorio said.

Beyond strengthening your bones, working on your balance, mobility and stability can help to prevent falls, she said.

It's also important to eat enough calories to fuel your workouts and daily activities, to eat a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D, and to avoid smoking and excessive alcohol use.

Ultimately, many of the same habits that support your overall health and well-being throughout your life benefit your bones, too, Dr. Wittstein said.

“Luckily, the same things are often good for your heart and your muscles and your bones,” she added. “There’s so much overlap.”

Ask Well

I want to get a tattoo, but is it really safe?

Once a form of rebellion hidden under your sleeve, tattoos are now so commonplace that almost half of U.S. adults ages 30 to 49 have at least one. But despite their growing popularity, there's a lot scientists don't know about how tattoos interact with the body.

When you get a tattoo, an artist uses needles to deposit ink 1 to 3 millimeters into your skin. This process — and the ink itself — can cause reactions that include immune responses and bacterial infections. Some researchers are also studying whether tattoos can cause longer-term complications, like cancer.

"We're not at a point as a scientific community to be able to say tattoos are definitively safe" or unsafe, said John Swierk, a chemist at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York. The research now being conducted, he said, is a step toward those answers.

Though it's difficult to know how many people develop problems with their tattoos — studies estimate up to 67 percent — some complications are more common. A study at a tattoo clinic in Denmark of a few hundred people found that 11 percent of the complications were bacterial infections and 37 percent were allergic reactions.

Infections can occur within days of getting a tattoo. They can cause redness, drainage and fever, and they often need treatment with antibiotics, said Dr. Marie Leger, a dermatologist in New York City. The cause can be contaminated equipment, skin bacteria entering the wound or the ink itself. In 2012, scientists detected bacteria underlying an outbreak in an unopened ink container, suggesting contamination during manufacturing. Last month, researchers at the Food and Drug Administration reported finding bacteria in 35 percent of more than 200 inks they tested, even those labeled sterile.

Allergies can occur in reaction to the use of aftercare products in the days or weeks after getting a tattoo, when skin is especially sensitive, Dr. Leger said. They can cause redness or itchiness, and topical creams may control the symptoms.

Longer-term allergies to ink can set in months or years later. They occur more frequently with red inks, Dr. Leger said, and the itchy or raised area can be confined to a certain color: You might notice it within a red rose, for example, but not in its green leaves. In severe cases, a doctor may recommend tattoo removal, for example through shaving off the outer layer of the skin containing the pigment.

Dr. Christopher Bunick, a dermatologist at Yale, said other immune reactions can also appear as bumps in a tattoo years after getting it. The reactions can last for months or years and are typically treated with topical corticosteroids, he said.

Experts aren't sure what sets off these responses, in part because labels on tattoo ink bottles don't always fully describe the contents. In 2024, Dr. Swierk and his colleagues found that 83 percent of inks they tested contained unlisted pigments or additives. Europe has regulations limiting certain ingredients in tattoo ink, but the United States does not, although the F.D.A. has issued manufacturing guidance.

Some ink ingredients, like heavy metals, can cause health problems. Research suggests that some ink in a tattoo ends up in the lymph nodes. Scientists are beginning to study if the chemistry of the ink or your immune reaction to it can lead to cancer.

In 2024, researchers, including Christel Nielsen, an epidemiologist at Lund University in Sweden, found in a large study that people with tattoos may have a higher risk of lymphoma. But Dr. Nielsen said the risk of lymphoma is very low and the increase doesn't prove that tattoos cause cancer. Still, she said, the question warrants further investigation. Other studies of lymphoma risk have been inconclusive, as has research on tattoos and skin cancer. "I think we have to take this seriously for sure, but we still don't really know yet" if there's a connection, Dr. Leger said.

If you're getting a tattoo, Dr. Bunick said, it's important to make sure beforehand that there are no open sores in the area and to keep the tattoo clean and protected from the sun afterward. Dr. Leger recommended avoiding red pigments if you're worried about allergies. You should see a doctor if you notice signs of infection or changes in your skin's texture after getting a tattoo, she said.

ERIC HELGAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Working with an experienced tattooist can also help. "Tattoo artists are serious professionals, and many of the known definite risks around infections and even allergies can be mitigated by working with a good artist," Dr. Swierk said.

Ultimately, the decision to get a tattoo comes down to personal choice. "There are plenty of good reasons to get a tattoo, and people have to weigh that there is a degree of uncertainty there," Dr. Swierk said. "But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't get a tattoo."

ALLESSANDRA DICORATO

Well

A.D.H.D. Symptoms Vary as You Get Older

CRISTINA SPANO

Researchers are learning more about ways the condition can emerge, disappear and evolve.

By DANA G. SMITH

Elizabeth's two sons, ages 8 and 10, have both been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So have Elizabeth, 37, and her husband, 41.

To manage it all, Elizabeth and her husband have implemented an elaborate system of medications and to-do lists. There are white boards all over their Southern California home to help with task management and communication.

"I joke that our house is half house, half classroom, half occupational therapist office," Elizabeth said. (She asked to use only her middle name when discussing her family's medical conditions.)

Elizabeth was diagnosed with A.D.H.D. two years ago, after recognizing some of her sons' symptoms in her current — and younger — self. "I didn't know that the reason that it took me five hours to do my homework every night wasn't because I wasn't smart or because I didn't try hard enough," she said. "It's because my brain was working against me."

Now, with help from her systems and from medication, Elizabeth has learned to manage her symptoms and has advanced in her career as an environmental health and safety manager. “I went from bouncing around between random jobs,” she said, to being able to “focus well enough to have some direction.”

But despite her own success, Elizabeth still worries about how her sons' A.D.H.D. will affect them as they get older. "As a parent, my job is to teach them how to be a human, how to function in today's world," she said. "And they have a harder time than most because their brains don't work the way most people's brains work."

Back-to-school season, with its executive functioning demands and deadlines, can make these types of parental worries even more stark.

A.D.H.D. is a tricky condition to diagnose, study and track over a person's life. It can present very differently in different people, and there are a wide range of symptoms, which exist on a spectrum from mild to severe. A.D.H.D. also often overlaps with other mental health, developmental and behavioral disorders, including anxiety, autism and oppositional defiant disorder. (With rising rates in children and adults, some psychiatrists worry the condition is now being overdiagnosed.)

It's also not clear what percentage of children continue to have A.D.H.D. as adults. One frequently cited number is about 50 percent, with symptoms more likely to persist in adults who had more severe A.D.H.D. in childhood and more overlapping conditions.

But according to a 2021 longitudinal study that followed children with A.D.H.D. for 16 years, only about 10 percent experienced “sustained remission” into young adulthood. Another 10 percent had A.D.H.D. for the entire time, and for the vast majority, symptoms waxed and waned. Notably, the study found that at any given time, roughly half the participants met the diagnosis for A.D.H.D., but which people fell into which camp kept changing.

While much about A.D.H.D. is still up in the air, what has become clear is that it is not a static condition, and the types of symptoms people have, and how they affect their day-to-day lives, can evolve over time.

How Symptoms Change

There are two main categories of A.D.H.D. symptoms: inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. To be diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a child must meet six or more symptoms from one category or the other; people 17 and older need five or more. If someone meets the symptom requirements in both categories,

Many people eventually find ways to manage the disruptions caused by inattentiveness and hyperactivity.

they are diagnosed as having combined A.D.H.D.

Inattentive symptoms include things like poor attention to detail, not finishing tasks, messiness and forgetfulness. Hyperactive and impulsive symptoms can look like frequent fidgeting, difficulty waiting one's turn and excessive talking.

In general, when children are very young, hyperactive-impulsive symptoms tend to be more common. Michelle Martel, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, said it is obvious when you're working with a preschooler with these symptoms because "they're getting into everything and running around the room."

As children age and start to have more responsibilities and expectations at school, inattentive symptoms become more prevalent, and ultimately more persistent. And in some children, hyperactive-impulsive symptoms start to decline. According to one large 2023 review, in children under 12 there is a roughly even breakdown between primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive-impulsive and combined presentations. Between the ages of 12 and 18, the numbers start to shift, with more adolescents qualifying as inattentive and less than a quarter as hyperactive-impulsive.

Very few adults have predominantly hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. One small study put the number at just 7 percent, while roughly one-third of adults had the inattentive subtype and the majority had a combination of symptoms.

Hyperactive-impulsive symptoms also present differently in adults than in children, manifesting more as an inner, mental restlessness rather than an outward, physical restlessness, said Dr. Deepti Anbarasan, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine. For example, adults “may always feel a need to be busy, like they might need to exercise daily or otherwise they don’t feel so good,” she said.

Adults with inattentive symptoms may have trouble with life logistics and with completing chores that don't have a deadline, or they might lose track of conversations during meetings or with their spouse, Dr. Anbarasan said.

Why Symptoms Change

There is mounting evidence that people's environments can influence their symptoms. Having problems at home, like parents going through a divorce, may contribute to symptom severity in children and adolescents, said James Swanson, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine.

Children may also struggle more with in-attention in a “structured school setting where they’re having to do things they don’t like,” Dr. Martel said. A person’s symptoms may improve in adulthood when they find a job that better suits their temperament and personality, she added.

Another reason A.D.H.D. can change with age is that many people eventually find ways to manage their condition so it's less disruptive. In general, the experts said, people with predominantly hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are more likely to be treated with behavioral interventions, while those with inattentive symptoms tend to respond better to medication. But for many people, especially those with combined A.D.H.D., a hybrid approach works best.

Finally, neuroimaging research suggests that some of the changes people experience with age may be partially attributed to brain development. One recent study found that children whose symptoms improved over the course of two years showed a different pattern of brain development than those whose symptoms persisted or got worse.

"Some children just grow out of it," Dr. Swanson said. "You start with a group and you follow them over time, the symptoms decrease with age. That's just an age-related effect. I call it maturation."

A Guide to Covid, Flu and R.S.V. Vaccines This Fall

An evidence review shows a reduced risk of severe illness.
CLAIRE MERCHLINSKY/THE NEW YORK TIMES; PHOTOGRAPHS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Citing a lack of strong federal guidance, medical groups issue their own recommendations.

By MAGGIE ASTOR and DANI BLUM

With the respiratory virus season approaching, pharmacies and doctors' offices are starting to offer annual vaccines to protect against Covid, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus.

This month, major medical organizations issued recommendations for all three vaccines, based on reviews of the latest evidence published in the medical journal JAMA. They said they were filling a gap left by the Trump administration in “evidence-based vaccine guidance.”

“Unfortunately, today the federal government is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has, but the need for that work has not disappeared,” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, chair of the board of the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota, one of the groups in the consortium that released the recommendations. Other participants included the American Medical Association and professional organizations in pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics and infectious diseases.

Normally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would release recommendations on the new Covid shots. But it hasn't done so and it's not clear whether it will, because its vaccine advisory panel is in legal limbo. (A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said only that more information would come "soon.")

The government also typically releases new flu shot recommendations each year. But this year, citing “legal uncertainties and inquiries,” the C.D.C. reaffirmed last year’s recommendations.

Covid-19

Members of the consortium recommended an updated Covid shot for all adults, including those who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

A second dose is recommended six months later for people 65 and older and might benefit immunocompromised people, too.

Members also recommended that all children 6 to 23 months old, and children 2 years and older with underlying medical conditions, receive a vaccine. While they did not specifically recommend updated vaccination for all children over 2, Dr. James Campbell, the chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' infectious diseases committee, said it was appropriate for any child whose parents wanted it.

The Food and Drug Administration approved new Covid shots only for people who have a high-risk condition or are at least 65. However, doctors can administer the shots to anyone.

In most states, the updated vaccines will also be available in at least some pharmacies to people who say that they meet the criteria. In some states, children may be unable to get a shot at a pharmacy but can get it from a pediatrician.

The new evidence review in JAMA concluded that receiving an updated Covid vaccine still has benefits. The C.D.C. estimates that, from October 2025 through August 2026, Covid caused up to 250,000 hospitalizations and up to 44,000 deaths in the United States.

The shots are associated with fewer hospitalizations for adults, fewer emergency-room visits for pregnant women and young children, and fewer I.C.U. admissions and deaths for immunocompromised adults.

Serious side effects are very rare, and the review found no new safety concerns.

Influenza

The consortium urged flu vaccinations for everyone 6 months and older, ideally by the end of October.

A number of options are available, including traditional shots, a new mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna for people over 50 and a nasal spray for people ages 2 to 49 that can be administered at home. (The spray isn't recommended for those who are pregnant or immunocompromised.)

People over 65 should ideally receive a high-dose traditional flu shot, or the mRNA vaccine, which can trigger more antibodies in older adults for greater protection. If one of these vaccines isn't available, don't wait — get the vaccine you can find early in the season, said Dr. Sarah Nosal, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The evidence review on influenza affirmed that vaccination reduced the risk of severe disease.

The vaccines' effectiveness varies depending on how well they match the strains that are circulating. But "even in a year where there's not a great match, we see tremendous decreases in hospitalization and death," Dr. Nosal said.

The flu is particularly dangerous for people over 65 or under 2, but can be serious for anyone. Every year, it leads to more than 36,000 deaths nationwide and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Members of the consortium recommended one-time vaccination against R.S.V. for all adults 75 and older, and adults 50 to 74 at increased risk. Immunocompromised adults and adolescents should also be vaccinated, with the number and frequency of doses decided case by case.

They also recommend that, between September and March 1, women who are 32 to 36 weeks pregnant should receive the vaccine to pass protection to their babies during the R.S.V. season.

Infants under 8 months should receive monoclonal antibodies — shots that mimic the immune system's response to an infection — for their first R.S.V. season if their mother wasn't vaccinated during pregnancy, or if there is any question that she was. Children 8 to 19 months old who are at higher risk should be immunized for their second season, too, regardless of prior vaccination.

R.S.V. was the leading cause of hospitalization for babies in the United States before immunizations were introduced; roughly 2 to 3 percent of all infants under 3 months are hospitalized with it each year. Other high-risk groups include children who were born prematurely or have certain medical conditions like lung disease, adults over 75 or who have certain chronic diseases and people in nursing homes.

The new review found that immunization reduced the risk of severe illness and hospitalization.

Plumbing the Wrecks of an Infamous Pirate Cove

A marine archaeologist found six shipwrecks, including three from the golden age of piracy.

By FRANZ LIDZ

History might be written by the winners, but the seafloor keeps a more faithful record. For Sean Kingsley, a British marine archaeologist who built his career studying submerged ruins in the Mediterranean and trade routes along the Levantine coast, shipwrecks offer an unvarnished honesty that paper records often distort.

Over the past three decades, Dr. Kingsley has poked around some 350 sunken sites from the shallow, sun-bleached waters off Israel to the bruising deep-sea trenches off the Irish coast. With a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, he is an independent scholar and the founder and editor of Wreckwatch, both a quarterly and a popular YouTube channel. He funds his fieldwork in part by consulting for high-profile clients like Allen Exploration, an outfit known for its recovery and documentation of historical wrecks, for which he founded and manages a scientific journal, Ocean Dispatches. He publishes some research in peer-reviewed journals; most is directed toward media outlets and the public.

Recently, Dr. Kingsley secured the ultimate golden ticket: exclusive access to the forbidden, heavily guarded harbor of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. Nassau has long traded on its reputation as the world's premier pirate sanctuary, but its waters never yielded an authenticated brigantine

— a two-masted sailing ship — until now. During an undersea expedition off the island of New Providence last fall, a research team led by Dr. Kingsley and Michael Pate-man, the director of the Bahamas Maritime Museum, discovered — but did not touch or disrupt — six shipwrecks, three of which date back to the golden age of piracy, from 1690 to 1725.

The debris field was a textbook spread of booty: iron cannons, musket balls, swivel cannons, ballast stones, glass wine bottles and 143 clay tobacco pipes stamped with the royal crest of England. But the real prize was a wooden hull burned down to the waterline, a classic pirate trick for torching evidence. Dr. Kingsley suspects that this charred skeleton is none other than the Fancy, the 46-gun flagship of Henry Avery.

In 1695, Avery, known as the King of Pirates, pulled off history's most outrageous high-seas heist, ambushing a Mughal Empire fleet and vanishing with a haul worth roughly \$150 million today. To secure Nas-

Dr. Kinglsey and his colleagues combined local lore with cutting-edge tech to map Nassau's sunken history. They interviewed fishermen and sailors to trace where colonial ships went down. They then overlaid old maps with satellite imagery to pinpoint the wrecks. Finally, they used administrative logs to build a three-dimensional digital model of the infamous pirate hub.

sau as a haven, Avery apparently took his cut of the plunder and gave the vessel to the local proprietary governor as a bribe.

To Mallory R. Haas, an archaeologist who runs the SHIPS Project, a community initiative in England that tracks local wrecks, Dr. Kingsley's Nassau expedition "has the potential to pull together the historic background research, getting the stories from early divers who know these sites well, looking at it with an archaeological perspective and inspiring a new generation."

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

"Treasure Island," the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, depicted the pirate base in Nassau as a web of untrustworthy murderers and alcoholics. But you have written that it was more a mix of cowboy frontier town and 18th-century holiday camp.

You can read all the history you like, but only when you sail around New Providence do you appreciate the true way of the pirates. Anchored above the cannon wreck's ruins in the middle of nowhere was when reality hit me. Avery, Blackbeard and the Fly-'Only when you sail around New Providence do you appreciate the true way of the pirates.' ing Gang could pillage an ocean of bottomless loot. But they knew the odds of getting out of piracy with their heads attached to their necks were small. Piracy was escapism from the system, living in a small shantytown, sticking it to the man and the ultimate freedom of the high seas. The pirates lived for today, and damn tomorrow — a merry life and a short one.

DAVID SHAW FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
SEAN KINGSLEY/WRECKWATCHTV

WRECKWATCHTV

Top, the marine archaeologist Sean Kingsley. Above, from left, Chris Atkins, a filmmaker, Michael Pateman, the director of the Bahamas Maritime Museum, and Dr. Kingsley. Far left, a wreck in Nassau; left, the burned wooden hull. Bottom, Dr. Pateman holding musket balls.
WRECKWATCHTV

WRECKWATCHTV•

Nassau Harbor has been heavily gouged and modified by modern dredging. Were you surprised to find intact pirate-era wooden hulls surviving beneath such heavy industrial disturbance?

I wouldn't have been surprised if nothing survived and our team left empty-handed. Underwater trophy-hunting found important relics in the years before laws came into effect in the 1990s. On-the-spot accounts leave no doubt that eye-watering underwater heritage was chewed up and lost since 1969.

So, you're underwater beneath Nassau's old bridge, battling strong currents and dodging an aggressively moody bull shark. How exactly do you still manage to get the mapping done?

In the end, the bark was worse than the bite. The twice-daily riptides were managed by precision dives in slack water. When visibility was poor, the team relocated to quieter parts of the harbor. Much to my delight, the grumpy bull sharks decided we were small fry and left us to it.

Your team uncovered iron cannons and rail-mounted swivel guns — devastating anti-personnel weapons. What does the positioning of the swivel gun mounts on the wreck site reveal about how the crew structured its deck defenses?

Not much. Swivel guns were the anti-personnel artillery of choice for pirates to fire on boarding parties and enemy cannon crews. But the shallow cannon site is poorly preserved on an exposed coral reef, ripped by hurricanes. Nassau was also the Caribbean epicenter of the wrecking industry, and salvors undoubtedly "fished" the wreck in the 18th or 19th century. Archaeologists are left with cultural bread crumbs and the miracle that anything survives.

Is it true that the pirates in Nassau rarely attacked ships flying their native flags?

Many English pirates were deeply patriotic. Both Avery and Benjamin Hornigold, the godfather of Nassau's pirates, refused to attack English traders. French, and especially Spanish sailors, constantly ignored the peace at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714 and continued to attack shipping and Nassau itself. Foreign belligerence gave Blackbeard and many pirate lords what they felt was a rightful license to unleash hell on the high seas. Other pirates, such as the psychopath Charles Vane, supported Catholic pretenders to the throne and had no reservations blitzing the Protestant king's trade.

In 1718, surrounded by British warships in the harbor, Vane set a captured French vessel ablaze and sent it straight at the royal flotilla as a floating bomb, using the chaos to escape. When you return to the site next year, any chance you will encounter what's left of the fire ship?

I imagine that if the French ship sank mid-channel at the harbor entrance, it would likely have been dredged away. But never say never.

One of your premier finds is a large hull burned down to the waterline. Are there specific structural anomalies or patterns of charred wood that differentiate an accidental ship fire from a pirate's effort to destroy evidence?

The archaeological magic relies on overlapping evidence, firming up proof with each layer. The wooden hull was burned, seemingly stripped of shipboard items, and was built with wooden treenails, a shipbuilding philosophy largely tied to the 1690s through the first half of the 18th century. Of the 504 ships that historical accounts show were lost inside the harbor, 89 percent date to after 1750. The combination tentatively suggest that the burned hull went down before then, in the golden age of piracy.

If Avery's ship, Fancy, truly met its end in the harbor, what evidence would turn a compelling match into an absolute certainty?

An elephant tusk from Avery's pretend slaving venture to the African coast. A merchant's seal stamped "H.A." A loose Indian ruby lost in the bilges. But the tree species of the ship's timber needs to be of a British or European genus. A dendrochronological tree-ring reading from around 1690 would also be compelling.

You have expressed a desire to map the entire port using underwater drones. How does autonomous technology stack up against old-school divers when you are dealing with dangerous tides and zero visibility?

Nassau's colonial-era harbor was huge; it was said that 500 ships could fit inside, including the British Royal Navy's whole fleet. Our project worked low-tech. But what lies below will never be discovered if you don't go high-tech. Autonomous underwater vehicles deploying side-scan sonar, sub-bottom profilers and cameras can map in days what it would take marine archaeologists years. A.U.V.s can work at night and in harsh environments, taking human failure out of the equation.

Films like "Pirates of the Caribbean" have turned historical privateers into cartoon cutouts. Did the rogues of the open waters really swagger through history in crushed velvet and rakish eye patches?

The pirates of the Hollywood imagination were devilishly handsome, well-to-do swashbucklers who overcame moral challenges to return to their rightful place in society. The wrecks we explored are real, gritty touchstones of how life almost always ended brutally for these sea dogs. Almost all were hanged or died in sea storms. There was no Hollywood happy ending.