Author: Lance Garrison
As a purely legal matter, Donald Trump’s hush-money/election interference trial is not about the sex, but a single sexual encounter is at the heart of it. The prosecution made an important decision on Tuesday to highlight that in the most graphic way for the jury.The D.A.’s team called Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of this whole imbroglio, to the witness stand to describe her meeting and the tryst she said occurred with Trump in 2006. He denies that, but the case is about whether he falsified records to pay her $130,000 to deny it as well.Daniels has…
To the Editor:Re “In an Age of Doxxing, Some Protesters Choose Anonymity” (news article, May 3):As a former activist with a proud résumé of progressive civil disobedience and protest from the 1970s through the 1990s, I sympathize with the energy and idealistic enthusiasm of the student protesters this year.However, I find it inconceivable that so many have chosen to be masked. The anonymity of their anti-Israel expression seems to me far too close to the behavior of a mob. It is also anathema to the concept of a free exchange of ideas that the modern postsecondary educational experience is supposed…
new video loaded: Will You Look at MeRecent episodes in Op-DocsOp-Docs is the New York Times’ award-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. From emerging directors to Oscar winners, Op-Docs brings you the very best nonfiction filmmaking from around the world.Op-Docs is the New York Times’ award-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. From emerging directors to Oscar winners, Op-Docs brings you the very best nonfiction filmmaking from around the world.Show more videos from Op-Docs
When the filmmaker Shuli Huang made the diarylike documentary above, he was struggling to find his place in the world. As his life and study in New York City were put on pause during the pandemic, Shuli returned to his hometown Wenzhou, China. He bought a Super 8 mm camera and started filming his loved ones without a precise intention.Back home with his parents, Shuli found himself confronted by the past and lingering tensions with his mother. As his need to discuss his truth became overwhelming, Shuli turned the camera on himself and his family.The distanced gaze of the lens…
Here is the way I remember it: The year is 1985, and a few medical students are gathered around an operating table where an anesthetized woman has been prepared for surgery. The attending physician, a gynecologist, asks the group: “Has everyone felt a cervix? Here’s your chance.” One after another, we take turns inserting two gloved fingers into the unconscious woman’s vagina.Had the woman consented to a pelvic exam? Did she understand that when the lights went dim she would be treated like a clinical practice dummy, her genitalia palpated by a succession of untrained hands? I don’t know. Like…
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’Ultimately, the Gaza war protests sweeping campuses are about influencing Israeli politics. The protesters want to use economic divestment, American pressure and policy, and a broad sense of international outrage to change the decisions being made by Israeli leaders.So I wanted to know what it’s like to watch these protests from Israel. What are Israelis seeing? What do they make of them?[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.]Ari Shavit is an Israeli journalist and the…
The primary reason we have gained weight at a pace unprecedented in human history is that our diets have radically changed in ways that have deeply undermined our ability to feel sated. My father grew up in a village in the Swiss mountains, where he ate fresh, whole foods that had been cooked from scratch and prepared on the day they were eaten. But in the 30 years between his childhood and mine, in the suburbs of London, the nature of food transformed across the Western world. He was horrified to see that almost everything I ate was reheated and…
The Israeli government’s decision to kick Al Jazeera out of Israel says more about the government than the TV network. The Arabic programming on Al Jazeera may often be tendentious and anti-Israeli, but shutting it down further erodes Israel’s proud image as a democracy in a neighborhood populated largely by authoritarian or hereditary rulers. And it may well be counterproductive.Silencing a news outlet, however divisive or hostile it may be, is the trademark of strongman rule. It is a way of declaring that information is the monopoly of the ruler, and it’s a favored populist tactic for channeling public anger…
Donald Trump has yet to choose a running mate for his third attempt to win the White House. But he does seem to have at least one litmus test for anyone who hopes to play the part of Mike Pence in a second Trump administration: You cannot say that you’ll accept the results of the 2024 election.Trump has not laid this out explicitly, although he has already said that he will not commit to honoring the outcome in November. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that,” the former president said in a recent interview…
When Machiavelli reflected on the crises of his time — among them conflicts between major European powers, discontent with public officials and the collapsing legitimacy of the Catholic Church — he turned to the Roman Republic for inspiration. When there is skepticism about values, he wrote, history is our only remaining guide. The secret to Roman freedom, he explained in the “Discourses on Livy,” was neither its good fortune nor its military might. Instead, it lay in the Romans’ ability to mediate the conflict between wealthy elites and the vast majority of people — or as he put it, “i…