The New York Times International - 04.11.2026 — 2026-11-05

The New York Times

INTERNATIONAL EDITION | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2026

Lula's victory and gauging a hemisphere

Michael Shifter

OPINION

In 1965, the political economist Albert Hirschman warned that the United States and Latin America were tangled in an “orgy of misinterpretation and misunderstanding” fueled by conflicting political moods and preferences. Over two decades later, looking out over a hemisphere that was just as geopolitically messy, he reflected, “I almost wonder whether I might have stumbled on some sort of law.”

Some sort of law, indeed. After a string of presidential victories by right-leaning candidates in Latin America, Washington had, up until recently, been basking in a sense of unparalleled political alignment throughout the region. Over the summer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the emergence of predominantly pro-American governments across the

The Trump administration has profoundly misread Latin America's political winds.

hemisphere as an "extraordinary achievement"; in September, President Trump boasted that he was "nine for nine" in backing winning candidates. The Donroe Doctrine — Mr. Trump's project of hemispheric hegemony — seemed to be paying off.

The triumph of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva de Brazil, an iconic octogenarian leftist, over Flávio Bolsonaro, heir to the Bolsonaro political dynasty and avatar of Latin America's new right, upsets the narrative of a historic ideological reconfiguration — and reveals how profoundly the Trump administration has misread the region's political winds. The swing to the right was never about Mr. Trump; it's the serendipitous result of a wave of discontent with the status quo and could prove evanescent. Indeed, the grievances and aspirations that brought so many far-right governments to power could just as easily undermine their political fortunes and weaken their ties to Washington in years to come.

The region's rightward shift reflects less of an ideological transformation than a widespread frustration with governments that have overpromised and underperformed for decades. Voters are angry about crime, economic stagnation, corruption and poor public services. Right-leaning candidates in places like Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Honduras and Bolivia have successfully capitalized on that discontent, promising to restore order, revive economic growth and challenge discredited political SHIFTER, PAGE 10

Hailie Uren, a clinical pharmacologist, measuring a patient's blood pressure in Dnipro, Ukraine. She treats soldiers as though they have been injured in a biological warfare attack.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times publishes opinion from a wide range of perspectives in hopes of promoting constructive debate about consequential questions.

Above, Ukrainian soldiers waiting in a pre-decontamination area shortly after arriving at a hospital in Dnipro in September. Above right, a culture plate containing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Lifesaving treatments for severe infections can be horrendous.

Washing the war away

DNIPRO, UKRAINE

Decontamination protocol treats infections among Ukraine's injured soldiers

BY GINA KOLATA AND MARC SANTORA

The injuries to soldiers arriving at Ukrainian hospitals are horrific. Instead of bullet wounds, blast injuries from drones dominate the scene: Calf muscles are blown away, chunks of tissue are missing from thighs. Soil and debris thrown up from the blast are lodged deep in lacerations.

By the time they arrive at a hospital, which can take days, weeks or even months of travel under cover of darkness, 30 to 40 percent of soldiers are not only injured but also have severe infections. And their infections often involve microbes that are untreatable — resistant to antibiotics. When the injured soldiers are admitted to civilian hospitals, they risk spreading the bacteria to other patients.

Now there is an effort to counter this scourge. It started with a realization by Hailie Uren, a clinical pharmacologist and disaster medicine specialist who works in Ukraine. The situation, she reasoned, resembled nothing so much as a biological warfare attack.

"If we don't have antibiotics to treat these patients," she said, "how different is that from when a patient is exposed to anthrax?"

Hospitals already have plans in place to treat victims of biological warfare, she noted. All the hospitals had to do was carry out those same urgent protocols on the battlefield.

Ms. Uren proposed the idea directly to

Ukraine's surgeon general, and she received support from the defense and health ministries.

The effort began in September, in a large tent outside a hospital in central Ukraine. The objective, which Ms. Uren had developed with colleagues, would be to disinfect injured soldiers before they entered a hospital; remove their dirty clothes and bandages, wash them with an antiseptic and give them a shower.

That alone would be a big change from the status quo, with soldiers going directly into the hospital, and possibly sitting in a crowded emergency room, or going straight into surgery, wearing soiled clothing and used dressings. Those items are often rife with potentially deadly microbes.

At that point, lifesaving treatments for these severe infections can be horrendous.

"If a guy has infection in his leg and it is resistant to antibiotics, you sometimes have to cut the leg off," said Dr. UKRAINE, PAGE 4

Breakdown in trust as Trump skirts court edicts

WASHINGTON

Interbranch tensions strain judiciary's role in checking the power of the executive

BY CHARLIE SAVAGE

Since President Trump returned to office nearly two years ago, courts have frequently ordered his administration to pause or halt aggressive actions after they drew legal challenges. But again and again, his executive branch has skirted judicial constraints through delayed, contested or incomplete compliance, all while Mr. Trump has attacked judges appointed by presidents of both parties.

An examination of confrontations across the United States shows a widening breakdown in trust between the executive branch and the federal judiciary. Judges increasingly greet Justice Department representations with skepticism. Administration officials, meanwhile, have treated courts with disdain — accusing judges of bias and seeking their removal. In an extraordinary step, the administration recently filed a misconduct complaint against nearly every active district judge in Minnesota.

The result has been a poisoning of the relations between the branches to such a degree that it is now straining the judiciary's ability to serve as a check on executive power, as Mr. Trump approaches the second half of his term.

Some conflicts have been relatively straightforward, involving findings by courts that the executive branch failed to comply with binding orders — though typically without clear evidence that officials understood themselves to be deliberately violating judicial commands.

Others have been more complex and less clear-cut. Judges and the administration have fought over interpretations of specific judicial commands and failures by officials to live up to assurances they made to courts without explicit written orders. Sometimes, the executive branch has gotten around the courts by coming up with a new legal rationale for a policy that a judge said was not authorized by the authority officials initially cited.

Taken as a whole, the constant friction has undercut the reach of judicial authority as a check and balance on executive power and undermined the interbranch comity and trust that has traditionally helped keep the American system of government functional.

"The word ‘contempt’ clearly applies to what Trump and some of his people have been saying about the courts," said Michael McConnell, professor of law at Stanford University in California and a retired Republican-appointed appeals court judge.

"The judges have become skeptical and certainly are no longer giving the TRUMP, PAGE 6

Crossing the world, on just his feet, in 28 years

TEMILADE ADELAJA/REUTERS

Karl Bushby's mother, Angela, welcoming him home in Hull, England, on Monday, after a trek that began in 1998 and took him through some of the world's harshest landscapes.

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Karl Bushby finishes walk from the bottom tip of South America to England

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Karl Bushby's plan to walk across the globe began with a note in a birthday card.

It was the mid-1990s and Mr. Bushby was a paratrooper in the British Army, obsessed with endurance tests. He was trying to find the longest distance he could travel by foot, but none of his options felt challenging enough, maxing out at a few thousand miles. Then his father suggested in the card that he look into traversing the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia when it froze in the winter — unlocking a path across four continents.

Never mind that crossing the perilous waterway on foot had little modern

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precedent. Mr. Bushby took a black marker, walked to a map on his wall and drew a line from England, where he lived, through Europe and Asia, across the strait into North America and down to the southernmost tip of South America.

“That was when I realized that that’s the kind of thing I’ve been looking for,” he recalled in an interview. “Now we had the ultimate journey.”

Mr. Bushby flew to South America and started walking home. Nearly 28 years later, he is done.

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Last month, he swam across the English Channel, arriving in his home country after spending half his life away. His trek began in southern Patagonia, Chile, in November 1998, when he was 29, and he reached his mother's house in Hull, England, on Monday. He is now 57.

Mr. Bushby was met by a crowd in the city center before he walked the final miles to see his mother, Angela Bushby, who had her backyard decorated with a banner welcoming him, along with Union Jack bunting.

BUSHBY, PAGE 2

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Issue Number No. 44,675

RICHARD MILLE

A 28-year journey to cross the world on foot

BUSHBY, FROM PAGE 1

LONDON 2026 Karl Bushby with the cart he named "The Beast," which he said was a companion akin to the volleyball "Wilson" for Tom Hanks's character in the film "Cast Away."

SAM BUSH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The journey, he said last month, had taken him through some of the world's harshest landscapes, from the jungle of the Darién Gap to the tundra of Siberia. He was arrested, deported, broke, lost and written off more times than he could count.

His expedition had also been interrupted — by wars, economic collapse and a pandemic. When forced to stop, he would typically decamp to Mexico until he could figure out a way to continue from wherever he had left off.

Through it all, Mr. Bushby was guided by wanderlust and two self-imposed rules: He would not use modes of transport to travel, and he would not set foot in Britain again until the end of his journey, even though this made seeing his son more difficult.

In October, at a pub in south London, Mr. Bushby was sipping coffee in athleisure and scuffed running shoes, reminiscing ahead of the final stretch of his quest. "It feels like it's one miracle after another," he said of his journey. Over the last three decades, adventure came at him "like a tsunami," he added, "and it really gives a good shellacking."

INTO RUSSIAN CUSTODY

While he faced many challenges, perhaps none was as grueling as the Bering Strait.

In March 2006, Mr. Bushby and Dimitri Kieffer, a French American adventurer, began to make their way to Russia from Alaska across the waterway's shifting expanse of ice.

For two weeks, the two looked for the biggest piece of ice each night to make camp.

"All night long, you're just listening to the grinding, and the ice is just like screaming," Mr. Bushby said. Once, he added, "we actually had to evacuate the tent during the night because the thing started to break apart beneath us."

The pair got lucky. The weather cooperated in their final days and they were able to reach Russia. But when they got there, the border guards who met them were not impressed.

"They just weren't buying the fact that we just walked across the Bering Strait," Mr. Bushby said.

The men were detained for failing to register with the Russian authorities and held for nearly two months.

WHAT HE LEFT BEHIND

Mr. Bushby's decision to stay away from Britain made it difficult for him to see his family, including his son, Adam, who was 8 when the journey began.

Mr. Bushby, who had separated from his son's mother years before he started walking, said he had wrestled with how to square his trip with fatherhood, thinking perhaps the journey would inspire his son or make him proud.

"Maybe that's going to have some value as his father," he recalled thinking when he left.

In an interview, the younger Mr. Bushby, now 36, said that when he was a child, he did not understand what his father was doing or why he was away. But a turning point came in 2004, when, at 14 years old, he met his father in Alaska for the first time since the trek began.

"At that point, I just sort of accepted, 'Look, this is what you're doing,' the younger Mr. Bushby said. "I will respect it and I will cheer you on the whole way."

He said he was looking forward to welcoming his father home and introducing him to Harley, a 12-year-old granddaughter he had yet to meet.

"I am very proud of what he's done," he added. "He is a role model for people who say, 'Oh, I can't do that.' And then you've got my dad going, 'No, you can. You just need to push for it.'"

AN APPROACHING END

The morning after Mr. Bushby swam across the English Channel, he said, he woke up with a tremendous sense of loss.

He said he had never really considered what the end of his trip would look like — it was always too distant. But now, with only a few hundred miles left, Mr. Bushby said, it felt “troubling.”

"I'm about to lose my purpose for living," he said. "It's about to abruptly end."

Mr. Bushby doesn't know what he might do next, but he said he is interested in becoming a science educator. He'd also like to share the thing that surprised him the most on his journey: the kindness of strangers.

Hundreds of people offered him shelter, food, assistance or just a hug. He said that he had found a welcoming spirit in “every culture, every country.”

He has already started spreading that message among young people as a public speaker on his way.

"I get the great pleasure of being able to stand in front of school kids now," he said, "and telling them that the world is just a much better place than you will imagine."

CHILE 1999

ECUADOR 2000

KARL BUSHBY

CANADA 2004

KARL BUSHBY

ALASKA 2006

KARL BUSHBY

KARL BUSHBY

Russia's plan to dismantle historic tower draws backlash

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

The Shukhov Radio Tower in Moscow was commissioned by Lenin and has been a symbol of Russian ambitions. Its owners say that the corroding structure is beyond repair.

MOSCOW

Historians urge Putin to reconsider taking down a 1922 structure

BY IVAN NECHEPURENKO AND MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Since the early days of the Soviet Union, the Shukhov Radio Tower in Moscow has been a symbol of Russia's soaring ambitions and capacity for dizzying feats of engineering and derring-do.

Last week, contractors were sent by the Kremlin to the quiet street south of the city center where the tower stands to start dismantling this landmark of 20th-century architecture, which is named after Vladimir Shukhov, its creator. Its owners say that the corroding steel-lattice structure is beyond repair and that proposals for alternatives to demolition are unaffordable.

But the plan to dismantle the tower, which was completed in 1922, has galvanized a movement to protect it. In a rare display of public pushback in wartime Russia, the country's architects, engineers and preservationists signed an open petition urging the government to reconsider. They have organized a festival dedicated to the tower and to Mr. Shukhov's other works, along with free walking tours to raise awareness of the value of his legacy.

Airat Bagautdinov, an architectural historian and a leader of the preservation campaign, said the state's decision had been driven primarily by cost.

“Nobody knows in advance which specific elements can be preserved and which cannot," Mr. Bagautdinov said in an interview. "A decision was made simply not to bother. If you get involved in restoring a tower that no one has ever restored, whose condition no one knows, risks arise that the estimate might be exceeded five or 10 times."

The planned demolition of one of the technological marvels of Modernist Russia, neglected by the authorities for years, showcases how, over the decades, the Kremlin's priorities have strayed far from the preservation of the country's architectural heritage. Next year, Russia plans to spend more than \$200 billion on defense, much of it going to the war effort in Ukraine, while allocations for culture and social projects will shrink.

The public uproar over the tower's fate echoes protests against some of President Trump's plans to remake the American capital. The president is pushing to redo the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including by finding a way to put his name on it. He is also trying to revamp Washington's historic public golf course and build a gilded ballroom after demolishing the East Wing of the White House.

The Russian tower, standing 148 meters (485 feet), was commissioned by Lenin. It was created to spread the word of Communism across the vast Soviet territory through what was then the new medium of radio technology. But the steel radio tower was always more than a utilitarian transmitter.

One of the first major works of construction after the Russian Revolution, it was designed to be an object of gossamer beauty and optimism, a beacon of progress, embodying the world-scale ambitions of the young Communist state. Some have compared it to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Then, decades of neglect and poor maintenance gradually corroded the steel. The last time it was repainted was in 1964. The tower was largely decommissioned in late 2001. By 2014, it was scheduled to be knocked down.

The wrecking balls were called off after protests and news stories in and out of Russia earned the tower a reprieve. In 2017, a new plan earmarked the use of a helicopter to dismantle the tower's top sections and restore them in a workshop. The four bottom sections were to be restored on site. That never happened.

Now, the Russian Ministry of Culture has cleared the path for a complete dismantling, downgrading the preservation status of the tower, whose hyperboloid shapes resemble a skyscraper-high telescope or Christmas tree. The original steel and rivets from which the tower was built are no longer considered protected. The tower's owner, the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network, has said it would try to salvage bits and pieces and reuse them to erect a new tower in the vein of the original.

But it is not clear what this means, and no renderings or details have been made public.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow last month, executives from the state Broadcasting Network said the only way forward was to demolish the tower and recreate a new version.

Preservationists' ideas to restore the tower are too expensive, officials have said. Aleksei Y. Popov, deputy head of the Broadcasting Network, said that "all those projects came out not to hundreds of millions," but "billions of rubles."

Vladimir I. Traush, a structural engineer who served as a scientific consultant on the project, argued that the priority should be honoring the design, rather than the physical metal.

Over the decades, the Kremlin's priorities have strayed far from the preservation of the country's architectural heritage.

“His brilliant idea was that he invented the structure,” Mr. Traush said of Mr. Shukhov. “Our task is to preserve his concept and pass this idea on to future generations. Nothing lasts forever. Even the sun will burn out someday, let alone any man-made structures.”

Regardless of the cost, preservationists argue, losing an authentic landmark carries a price far beyond money. And they counter that recreating the tower with modern materials would erase its historical integrity.

"Its irreplaceable value lies in the authentic structure itself," international signatories said in a last-minute appeal to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, who in 2009 promised to preserve the monument.

Those petitioners include prominent international architects, structural engineers and historians, who added: "A facsimile in modern materials, however careful, is a false replica, and the tower's validity and historical significance would be lost forever. Nor is replacement necessary: Recent surveys report that the original steel has a very good long-term life expectancy."

Richard Pare, a British architectural photographer and an expert on Soviet Modernism, said that building a replica would be “a catastrophic loss of one of the finest and supremely elegant masterworks of 20th-century engineering.”

Mr. Pare recalled the sensation of documenting the tower from inside its security perimeter while photographing it in the early 1990s for a book.

"At the time appointed and escorted by armed security guards," he said, "I was allowed to pass through the surrounding exclusionary walls. By chance it was an overcast day, and I was concerned about how to work in that flat, undifferentiated light. As it was, it turned out to be the perfect situation to demonstrate the sheer loveliness of the upward-rushing forms."

Those qualities, Mr. Pare emphasized, cannot be reproduced by a facsimile.

Barry Bergdoll, an architectural historian at Columbia University in New York, said, "It is hard to believe that Putin's Russia, capable of bombing Ukraine relentlessly, is not capable of restoring one of the key architecture and engineering accomplishments of 20th-century Russia."

The Shukhov Tower was Communism's response to capitalism's Eiffel Tower, Mr. Bergdoll added, noting that France's monument "has been restored on numerous occasions" without wholesale replacement of its original parts.

"Why would anyone prefer a reproduction?" Mr. Bergdoll asked. "And who believes they will actually rebuild it?"

Struggling to save a Paris street from rioters

PARIS

A bar was one of several businesses attacked on Rue Beaurepaire in Paris on Oct. 17. "This country is already falling apart," one shop owner said. "We're destroying ourselves."

KIRAN RIDLEY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Locals and shopkeepers tried to face down arson, looting and destruction

BY CATHERINE PORTER AND GIULIA IMBERT

The shattered glass, bits of metal and discarded groceries strewed across Rue Beaurepaire have been swept up. The smoke from fires and tear gas is a memory. Wooden boards have replaced smashed windows.

It took Anita Lollchand, 68, five days to muster the courage to leave her apartment in search of groceries after the street, where she has lived for 40 years, devolved into a lawless zone of break-ins, looting, burglary and arson. In her building, young masked men burst into the foyer, ripped out the intercom and hammered at the glass on a second door. The glass cracked but didn't give, and she trembles at the thought of what might have happened had they gotten through.

"We've seen so many protests here," she said, breaking into tears. "This wasn't a protest. It was a revolt."

Oct. 17 marked a dark day in France. Large, peaceful demonstrations across the country were overtaken by riots, attacks on government buildings and looting. While admitting failures of security and intelligence, the government blamed both far-left insurgents and opportunistic delinquents.

The French Chamber of Commerce and Industry released its grim accounting last week. About 2,500 businesses across France were affected, and 47 percent of them were severely damaged. Some 480 were in the Paris region.

A small, curving street that unfurls from Place de la République — the city's favored site for left-wing gatherings — Rue Beaurepaire sustained heavy damage. On its three short blocks, there were smashed windows, three building fires, and break-ins and looting in at least eight stores and two apartment buildings.

While some businesses have gone back to normal, serving cafés crèmes in the morning and Cambodian bowls to the lunch crowd, many locals say they are still trying to make sense of what happened on a street they had considered lively and friendly.

"This country is already falling apart," Rudy Zylbersztejn, 32, said from behind his chrome counter inside Deni's Bagels, which he opened with his brother six months ago. Thugs tried to break through their storefront window that day, but the reinforced glass only cracked.

"We're destroying ourselves," Mr. Zylbersztejn added.

EARLY WARNING SIGNS

A 19th-century street, Rue Beaurepaire was the site of barricades defended by young teenagers during the final bloody days of the Paris Commune, the shortlived revolutionary government that ruled Paris in the spring of 1871.

Because of its proximity to the Place de la République, Rue Beaurepaire's modern-day residents and store owners are used to protests. But nothing like this.

The day began with shop owners opening a few hours before the march planned by students and union groups, protesting poor conditions in high schools and the rising cost of living.

But the crowd differed from the usual protesters, said Didier Mondragon, the franchise owner of a small Franprix grocery store at the start of Beaurepaire. They were younger, dressed in black and wearing masks, he said. Acting on instinct, he closed the store around 1:30 p.m., pulling down metal shutters over the storefront while he and his workers had lunch and waited inside in hopes of reopening later.

Just over an hour later, the exterior security camera revealed a strange scene — people dressed mostly in black appeared like a flash mob and jumped up and down in unison. Inside, the store echoed with noise as the group kicked and hit the shutters. Mr. Mondragon and his staff had just enough time to take refuge in the basement before the mayhem erupted.

Over the next three hours, people poured into the store. They smashed fridge doors, threw over shelves, cracked into cash registers and left the floor covered with discarded jars and packages. They stole up to 200,000 euros (\$225,000) of merchandise, he estimated, along with about 45,000 euros in cash they took from the safe.

Because of its proximity to the Place de la République, Rue Beaurepaire's residents are used to protests. But nothing like this.

One of his customers, Sophia Costa, was in her second-floor apartment across the street watching with horror as people attacked the pharmacy next door to the grocery. They didn't seem to be looting for themselves. Instead, they grabbed items from the shelves and tossed them into the road, like carnival workers.

She saw people throwing bottles and breaking a second-story window across from her, the site of a physiotherapy clinic, where some walls were stained with iodine that appeared to have been looted from the pharmacy and tossed into the clinic.

Worried that they might attack her windows too, Ms. Costa closed her shutters. Soon, she smelled smoke. Beneath her, a legal assistance office had been broken into and set on fire. The pharmacy across the street was also burning, along with a bar down the block.

At one point, four fire trucks roared onto the street.

Around 5 p.m., Ms. Costa heard people running up her building's stairwell, shouting "get out" and "fire." They banged on her door.

She found herself face to face with some of the same people she believed had set the fires, now inside warning residents of the danger. It was just one confusing thing about that day.

"There were a lot of contradictions," said Ms. Costa, 22, a decorative painter who moved to France from Italy.

Two blocks down, Habib Saïdi stationed himself in front of the clothing store Agnès B., a French chain for which he has worked for more than two decades. Groups of young men dressed in black approached to push the windows and test the door locks, he said. One carried an iron bar, another pliers. "They were equipped," he said.

Unarmed, Mr. Saïdi repeated the same plea: "This is my store." It worked; the store was spared. He, like many other people on Rue Beaurepaire, said he had alerted the police. But no officers arrived.

"We were completely left to fend for ourselves and abandoned by the police," said Mr. Saïdi, who runs security for the company. The Paris police did not respond to a request for comment. At least two people were convicted of stealing from the Franprix.

There was not just rioting and looting. There was also organized robbery. When Ms. Lollchand, the longtime resident, ventured out with her son around 11 p.m., she saw men sawing into the metal shutters of the Boxing Shop up the street, and then hurrying packages into their waiting van. Ms. Costa, who also went outside later, encountered two girls who tried to sell her boxing gloves from the store.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The scene was enough to keep Ms. Lollchand inside for days.

A VIOLENT ENCORE

The chaos continued the next day.

Emmanuelle Leonardi, a brand manager for the clothing designer Petite Mendigote, learned from a live news broadcast that the company's storefront on Rue Beaurepaire had been smashed open and was being looted.

Dozens of black-clad thieves made off with thousands of euros' worth of clothes and bags, she said. The company would have fared worse had it not been for a local resident, Sofia Serna Ángel, who confronted the gang in front of the shop's broken window.

"I started stopping the people who were leaving with stuff, telling them, 'That's really cowardly, it's not right — you're ruining people's lives,' said Ms. Ángel, who is in her 30s. Most of the thieves, she said, appeared as young as 12. Many, she said, were polite. The riots had not only damaged stores, she noted, they polluted the protests' cause.

Other neighbors joined her to stand vigil before the broken window for hours, ensuring the looters stayed away.

"It shows that there is a collective conscience after all," Ms. Leonardi said. "That's why I still have hope."

The next morning, many neighbors arrived to help clean, Ms. Leonardi said. Others started fund-raisers to help the store owners rebuild. Ms. Costa said she met many of her neighbors for the first time as they fled their burning building. They have since met for drinks.

"There is a little light after the storm," said Mr. Mondragon, the Franprix owner, who hopes to rebuild and reopen his store within a few months, after insurance kicks in.

Many on the street have braced for more protests. "What are they going to look like?" Mr. Mondragon said. "In a month, in a year, we will always have this apprehension, wondering what is going to happen."

He added, "It was hell."

Koreas face off over border, but nobody knows where it is

North Korean soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone. The boundary between North and South Korea has never been clearly delineated.

JUNG YEON-JE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

SEOUL

Land mine blasts rekindle decades-old dispute over temporary dividing line

BY CHOE SANG-HUN

In September, three South Korean soldiers were injured in land mine explosions on the western edge of the boundary with North Korea. The blasts were followed by angry exchanges between the two governments, military warning shots and an elevated risk of armed clashes.

Fueling these tensions is a deceptively simple question: Where, exactly, does the line dividing the two countries lie?

South Korea says the mines were laid in its territory by North Korea, which rejects the claim and accuses the South of fabricating the episode. Last week, North Korea moved artillery pieces out of hiding along its western coastal border and pointed them south, a show of force it has often used during periods of heightened tensions.

"If a jackboot or a spark of fire from the Republic of Korea goes even a millimeter beyond the border to violate our territory, our border guard forces will take immediate and powerful counteraction," North Korea warned last month, using South Korea's official name.

Historians often describe the Korean border as the final flashpoint of the Cold War. Nearly two million troops stand ready to resume the Korean War, which was halted 73 years ago by a truce. Yet the boundary has never been clearly delineated, let alone with the precision implied by North Korea's warning about a millimeter.

When the American-led United Nations Command, North Korea and China signed the 1953 armistice, they established a 2.5-mile-wide buffer (four kilometers) known as the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. Through its center, they drew the 150-mile-long Military Demarcation Line, or MDL, a temporary divider to keep opposing forces apart as long as the truce lasted. The MDL was never intended to be an official international border and the war was never formally resolved with a peace treaty.

But the MDL was drawn by hand in pencil on a 1:50,000-scale map attached to the armistice agreement. On the ground, that pencil stroke translated into a fuzzy strip about 165 feet (50 meters) wide. To clarify the boundary, the warring parties installed 1,292 yellow temporary markers across hills, valleys and marshes to indicate the MDL's location. They maintained the markers regularly until 1973, when a bloody clash during a repair operation left dozens of soldiers dead on both sides.

YELLOW FLAGS

In the decades since, most of those markers have vanished, swallowed by winds, rains, floods and landslides. Today fewer than 200 rusting posts remain, leaving the MDL virtually indistinguishable. Both sides developed their own versions of the line without sharing them. Instead, they spent years accusing each other's troops of repeated border incursions.

The depth of this confusion became clear in 2018. During a brief thaw in inter-Korean relations, both militaries agreed to demolish several guard posts within the DMZ to lower tensions. When officers from both sides tried to meet on the boundary to inspect the work, they could not agree on where that boundary actually was. Nor could they share common geolocation coordinates because they used different satellite systems: South Korea used the American-operated GPS, while North Korea relied on the Russian-owned Glonass.

“So we had to raise yellow flags” at proposed meeting spots, recalled Cho Yong Kun, a former North Korea policy coordinator at South Korea’s Defense

Ministry. "There is no MDL inside the DMZ."

The stakes soared after North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, labeled South Korea as his country's “most hostile enemy state” in 2023, and the following year, ordered his military to fortify the southern border, meaning the version the North had drawn for itself.

North Korean troops moved into the DMZ, constructing new military roads, barbed-wire fences, concrete barriers, guard posts and minefields along the length of its version of the MDL. In several locations, the South Korean military

One analyst said North Korea's engineering inside the DMZ appears aimed at hardening a truce line into an official border.

saw North Korean soldiers planting anti-personnel mines well to the south of what it considered the correct MDL.

“According to our manuals, we broadcast warnings when they approached the MDL and fired warning shots when they crossed it,” said Brig. Gen. Kim Sung Yoon, a chief of intelligence analysis at the South Korean military. "When we did that, we saw them consulting their own map, but they did not appear to believe they had violated the MDL."

North Korea has also deployed increasingly powerful artillery and missile systems, some capable of carrying nuclear warheads, transforming the border into an even more formidable military divide.

"FIRING POSITIONS"

The MDL conundrum had devastating consequences on Sept. 21, when 18 South Korean troops ventured into a lush wilderness inside the DMZ where no South Korean soldier had set foot for decades. They were tasked with clearing a path and sweeping for mines so that United Nations officials could inspect an area where North Korea was suspected of planting mines in the South's territory. They had just reached the site when two mines exploded. Three soldiers were injured, including a battalion commander who lost his left foot.

South Korea accused the North of planting the mines on its side of the border and demanded an apology. Its military warned that the North must clear the explosives or the South would remove them itself and “take firm punitive action” if the North interfered.

Pyongyang dismissed the claims as a "farce" and warned the South that its "new firepower units have taken their firing positions."

North Korea's aggressive engineering inside the DMZ appears aimed at hardening a temporary truce line into a permanent, official border, according to Hong Min, an analyst at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification.

That analysis aligns with Mr. Kim's new doctrine of total isolation from South Korea. By no longer treating the South as a partner for eventual reunification, but as an enemy state to be shunned, contained and defeated — with nuclear weapons, if necessary — Mr. Kim can more easily justify expanding his nuclear arsenal and shielding his citizens from South Korea's influence.

North Korea has ignored an offer for dialogue. Instead, it has vowed to push forward with its border fortifications, threatening to resume psychological warfare with loudspeakers if South Korea continued to harass North Korean troops working along the border with warning broadcasts.

The North's goal is to make the border "eternally impregnable" against "the most despicable and disgusting enemy in the world," Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader's sister and regime spokeswoman, said last month.

After Israel's election, power struggle begins

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, left, and his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, on a billboard in Tel Aviv last month. Neither man's party won a majority in last week's election.

DAVID GOLDMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Party leaders will make their cases to secure the first opportunity to govern

BY AARON BOXERMAN

This week, Israeli party leaders will trickle into the residence of President Isaac Herzog to officially recommend their picks for Israel's next prime minister, following the inconclusive election last week.

In two days of livestreamed meetings set to begin on Wednesday, politicians from 11 parties, including those representing secular liberals, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arab voters, will make their case to Mr. Herzog. He will then bestow the mandate to build a coalition on whichever candidate he deems the most viable, who will have up to six weeks to form a government.

Most party leaders are expected to back either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longtime right-wing leader, or his main rival, the center-right politician Gadi Eisenkot. Neither man's party won a clear 61-seat majority in balloting for the 120-member Parliament, most likely meaning that weeks or months of negotiations among the parties and elected lawmakers lie ahead.

While the coalition talks lurch onward, the Israeli opposition could take over the Parliament by appointing a new speaker.

Behind the scenes, politicians are weighing the path forward and wrangling for the upper hand. With no one having emerged from the election with a decisive victory, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Eisenkot and the rest are left to cajole and squeeze opponents and would-be allies alike.

"It's a game of chicken," said Nevo Cohen, a political strategist who ran the 2022 election campaign for the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Mr. Netanyahu has long exercised a tight grip over his bloc of conservative and religious parties. But some could always bolt — potentially, ultra-Orthodox or more moderate right-wingers in his own Likud faction — in exchange for influence in an Eisenkot-led government, political analysts said.

Mr. Eisenkot could also look to form a government by relying on Arab parties that have long sat on the sidelines of Israeli politics, or by partnering with Mr. Netanyahu to form a unity government. Either option would be tricky, because some of his allies promised on the campaign trail never to work with Mr. Netanyahu or with Arab lawmakers to form a government.

On Monday, Avigdor Liberman, a key figure in the opposition bloc, said he would recommend Mr. Eisenkot for prime minister. But he reiterated his longstanding vow not to share power with Mr. Netanyahu or to serve in a minority government with Arab parties, further complicating matters for Mr. Eisenkot.

All the parties “are checking their internal situation to see how much room they have to maneuver,” said Lior Chorev, a political strategist who worked on former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s campaign, which picked up 12 seats in Parliament last week.

"They want to know how far they can go," he said.

After the last election in 2022, Mr. Netanyahu swept to power with a 64-seat majority, allowing him to establish the most far-right government in Israel's history. This time, the calculations are considerably more complex. Mr. Netanyahu and his allies' majority dropped to 53 seats in Parliament, while Mr. Eisenkot's opposition bloc garnered 48 seats.

Surging turnout among Israel's Arab citizens also helped to deliver a historic result for the two main Arab-led parties — now potential kingmakers, with 19 seats between them — even as many Jewish Israelis reject the idea of a coalition government that includes them.

An Israeli opposition official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations, said that party leaders were feeling out one another's red lines. These leaders were also drawing up legislative plans for when Israel's Parliament, the Knesset, is sworn in this week, the official said.

While the coalition talks lurch onward, the Israeli opposition could take over the Parliament by appointing a new speaker. Mr. Eisenkot and his allies could then threaten to begin passing laws antithetical to Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition, turning up the pressure in the talks.

The coalition talks will be extraordinarily sensitive, because if no one can make a government, Israel will head to yet another round of elections, said Izhar Shay, a former centrist lawmaker.

"The parties are negotiating — but in reality, they're still campaigning, because this might turn into an election campaign in just a few months," Mr. Shay said. "So they're being cautious about what they say, because it could hurt them in elections which might be in four months, rather than four years."

Mr. Netanyahu could have the most to gain from rolling the dice in a new election. As it stands, he remains prime minister until a new government can be formed, meaning he would stay in power for months if a new election were called. And political analysts say he could have better odds in a second round of voting.

That heaps pressure on Mr. Eisenkot to form a coalition.

Some of Mr. Eisenkot's voters say that despite their loathing for Israel's longest-serving prime minister, joining with Mr. Netanyahu might make the most sense, as it would keep the ultra-Orthodox and Arab parties out of power. Such an arrangement is not without risk: Mr. Netanyahu has walked away from political agreements before, when they no longer served him.

Mr. Eisenkot's other route is to form a minority government with the Arab parties, particularly the pragmatic Raam party, which got eight seats. The Joint List, which netted 11 seats, is unlikely to join his governing coalition, but it could block a no-confidence vote against the coalition in the Knesset, allowing him to form a minority government with fewer than 61 seats.

Joining forces with Arab parties has become a more difficult proposition since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to a rightward shift in the country's politics. On Monday, Mr. Liberman — whose Yisrael Beiteinu party commands seven seats — declared that he would not join such a minority government, although he left the door open to other possibilities.

Further complicating matters, Mr. Netanyahu has accused Arab citizens of engaging in widespread electoral fraud and “stealing the election.” Israeli electoral officials have repeatedly said that there was no indication of systematic interference in the vote.

Analysts say Mr. Netanyahu's racially charged campaign aims to further discredit any attempt by Mr. Eisenkot to engage Arab parties as partners.

“That’s the only scenario that Netanyahu is afraid of, so he’s trying to do things that will make a minority government impossible,” said Michael Koplow, an expert at the Israel Policy Forum, a research group.

Heedo Abu Laban contributed reporting from Modiin, Israel.

Washing the war off injured Ukrainian soldiers

JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

MACIEK NABRDALIK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Above from left: Hailie Uren, a pharmacologist, during a training exercise at a military base in Poland in June; and medical workers decontaminating a Ukrainian soldier in Dnipro.

UKRAINE, FROM PAGE 1

John Holcomb, a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and worked with Ms. Uren.

The infection problem is not a challenge for Ukraine only, Ms. Uren said. One hospital she worked in is about only 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Poland, where some injured soldiers are being treated. The spread of antibiotic-resistant microbes is “a huge biosecurity risk for the rest of Europe,” she said.

The U.S. Army colonel serving as the command surgeon for Special Operations Command Europe, overseeing the training, explained that these bacteria are a threat to everyone.

"If they enter the general hospital system, they endanger a 70-year-old with pneumonia, or a 25-year-old with appendicitis, if we cannot control their spread," the colonel said. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in keeping with military protocol.

Infections have always been a problem in warfare, Dr. Holcomb said.

In war zones, Dr. Holcomb said, “infection control procedures are not always adhered to.” Basic handwashing, wearing gloves and wiping down beds between patients all can go out the door. So can standard practices around limiting the use of antibiotics.

"It's not one thing. It's all of them," he added. "They generate multidrug resistant organisms."

But the scale of what is happening in Ukraine has no precedent, in large part because of the way drones have transformed the battlefield.

The crisis begins at the point of injury. Blast munitions can tear away soft tissue, shatter bone and pack manure-rich soil deep into exposed cavities. The soil bacteria are “tough mothers” that can grow onto any surface they find, said Dr. Paul Pottinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Washington who was not part of the Ukraine project.

"Any breach of human skin," he said, "the germs like to crawl up."

Washing the wound with water immediately, cutting off injured tissue and applying an antiseptic could stymie infections, but that seldom happens during prolonged combat.

The "golden hour" of modern military trauma care — evacuating a wounded soldier to a site that provides surgery within 60 minutes — has been dismantled by the use of drones. Wounded fighters often spend days or weeks sheltering in tree lines or trenches.

Every delay compounds the risk of infection, especially because patients — who have often lost blood and are frequently malnourished — have a weakened ability to fight off infections. And within eight hours, bacteria can form slimy biofilms across the wounds, shielding the microbes from antibiotics and from being flushed away with water.

Doctors along the evacuation route do their best to prevent infections, but their tools are limited and sometimes misused. They often do not have enough water to irrigate wounds, face shortages of antiseptics and lack diagnostic tools. They often provide the most powerful antibiotics out of desperation, encouraging the rise of microbes that resist the drugs.

By the time a casualty moves through the chain — often traversing up to eight separate handoffs and regional facilities — bacteria on the surface of a wound have time to migrate into bone and tissue and cause an infection. Rather than treating a clean trauma wound, surgeons at that point are confronted with patients with complex, extensively drug-resistant infections.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Dr. P.J. Brennan, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Brennan is part of a group of specialists there that fields calls from Ukrainian doctors at 6 a.m. on Tuesdays.

"There are numerous instances in which we literally could find no drugs to treat the patient," Dr. Brennan said.

Making matters worse, it can be hard to find out what these patients are infected with. "Not every hospital has a lab, so cultures get sent to other labs," Dr. Brennan said. "It can take time before the results are sent back."

"Any breach of human skin, the germs like to crawl up."

"We might be looking at cultures obtained three weeks ago," during which time different microbes may have colonized the wound, Dr. Brennan said.

The experiment to stop the spread of infections ran a four-day dress rehearsal in Poland in June, led by U.S., Polish and Belgian special operations forces.

Inside what observers nicknamed "the carwash," Ukrainian doctors, nurses and medics practiced stripping blast victims of mud-caked uniforms, cutting away soiled dressings, throwing out pre-hospital IV lines and scrubbing exposed flesh and wounds, first with warm water and then with warm anti-septic solutions. Then they wheeled the injured soldiers into a separate, sterile area known as the clean zone.

Now, about a month after the official effort began, medical personnel in a decontamination tent in eastern Ukraine have treated about 150 injured soldiers, Ms. Uren said.

To see if the procedure is helping, the team swabs the soldiers when they arrive, and again on Days 2 and 5 when they are inside the hospital. The members also record heart rates and body temperatures before and after the soldiers are decontaminated. A high heart rate can indicate pain, and an inability to regulate body temperature can indicate infections. They also do blood tests every other day, looking for evidence of sepsis, the body's life-threatening reaction to an infection.

It can take time to get the results from the swabs, Ms. Uren said, but what they have seen is encouraging.

One soldier, for example, came in with Acinetobacter baumannii in one of his wounds. That is a dreaded strain of bacteria that can be resistant to antibiotics. But the bacteria had not yet established an infection — they were still lurking on the wound's surface. The disinfectant cleared them. On Days 2 and 5, the swabs showed no evidence of that microbe.

Ms. Uren said one surprise was the psychological effect of the decontamination on the soldiers.

"The casualties consistently are telling us they feel like they are a human again," she said. "It's like we are washing off the war from them."

Encouraged by their initial results, the investigators are now going to set up decontamination units outside two other hospitals. But they also have bigger plans.

They want to start controlling infections from the time a soldier is first injured, interrupting a chain of events that starts when a blast injury shoots debris and soil into a wound.

"I think it's very smart," said Dr. Pottinger, the infectious diseases researcher. "We will treat you right from the get-go as though you were contaminated. I admire them for doing it."

He hopes the lessons from the experiment in Ukraine will be broadly applied.

"It seems to me," he said, "that those in leadership positions at the Pentagon should pay very close attention to this threat — and to the countermeasures."

Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting.

Syria weighs joining pact with Saudis amid conflict

BEIRUT, LEBANON

BY EUAN WARD AND VIVIAN NEREIM

Syria is considering joining a regional defense alliance with Saudi Arabia, its foreign minister said over the weekend, raising the prospect that Damascus could become involved in the kingdom's widening conflict with the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen.

Asaad al-Shaibani, the Syrian foreign minister, told the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain that “discussions are currently underway to evaluate Syria’s entry into the Mecca alliance,” referring to a mutual-defense pact signed in August by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

Under the terms of the pact, known as the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, an armed attack on any of its three members would be considered an attack on all, mirroring NATO's collective-defense principle. The countries agreed last month to prepare for the rapid deployment of military forces to Saudi Arabia as the Houthis have intensified their attacks on the kingdom.

Mr. al-Shaibani said that Syria regarded the defense of Gulf Arab countries as essential to its own security. "Syria will stand beside all of the Gulf countries," he said, adding that they faced challenges from "militias that cross borders."

It was unclear, however, whether that potential support would extend to sending Syrian troops to Yemen.

Since sweeping to power almost two years ago, President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria has sought to stay out of regional conflicts, as his government has struggled to rebuild the country after nearly 14 years of civil war. The Syrian authorities denied reports last month that Saudi Arabia had requested that Syrian troops be deployed, saying Damascus was focused on reconstruction.

Entering the defense agreement could entangle Syria in Saudi Arabia's conflict with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

But Syria's growing ties with Saudi Arabia could complicate that position, analysts say. Saudi Arabia has become a major diplomatic and economic supporter of Syria since rebels led by Mr. al-Sharaa overthrew Bashar al-Assad, the country's longtime dictator. The Assad family, which ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than five decades, had been closely allied with Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

Last month, Mr. al-Sharaa met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, in Riyadh, where they discussed investment and regional security, according to a statement from the Syrian president's office.

Syria has raised the possibility of joining the defense pact as fighting in Yemen and attacks on Saudi Arabia have intensified after years of relative calm.

After the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in 2014, Saudi Arabia began a disastrous bombing campaign the following year in support of the country's internationally recognized government. The fighting largely subsided after a United Nations-brokered truce in 2022, but it has escalated this year amid the broader U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

The renewed fighting has killed at least 1,677 people and wounded more than 7,300 in Yemen since August, according to the World Health Organization. Nearly 300,000 Yemenis have been displaced, the United Nations has said, deepening a devastating humanitarian crisis in one of the world's poorest countries.

In Saudi Arabia, Houthi missile and drone attacks on airports and vital infrastructure have killed at least 19 people and wounded hundreds more, according to the Saudi-led military coalition. The escalating attacks, which have severely disrupted air travel, have increasingly threatened the kingdom's ambitions to become a global tourism and business hub.

As the attacks have intensified, Egypt — which is not part of the Mecca pact — last week authorized military aid to Saudi Arabia, another sign of the growing regional response to the conflict.

On Saturday, the Saudi-backed coalition said it intercepted three drones over the kingdom, including one near the capital, Riyadh. In Yemen, six people, including three children, were wounded in what the Houthi authorities said was a Saudi airstrike on a grocery store in Taiz Province.

In another development, the Houthis have come under renewed scrutiny for arresting a number of U.N. personnel and aid workers two years ago. On Saturday, the United Nations said that Mohammad el Shami, a Yemeni employee of its human rights office who had been detained since June 2024, had died in custody.

Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, called for an independent investigation into his death.

Euan Ward reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Vivian Nereim from Manama, Bahrain.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants democratic socialists to put up a bigger tent

BY MATT FLEGENHEIMER

A political firebrand chills

TAILYR IRVINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done a lot of growing up in the eight years since a stunning upset catapulted her from anonymous 20-something insurgent to establishment-busting avatar of American progressivism. She is pursuing alliances across the political spectrum, rather than flaming other Democrats, betting that bridge-building is a better way to expand her movement.

She would like to see the left grow up, too.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York joined Sam Forstag, a House candidate in Montana, at a rally in May. Montana is one of several states she has campaigned in.

In private discussions, she has urged fellow democratic socialists to foster a “culture of welcoming,” rather than of “intimidation,” mindful that even she has sometimes failed their purity-minded litmus tests on issues like the war in Gaza.

She has called for “really big carrots” to attract new allies, talking up donations to colleagues in competitive House districts who take risky progressive stances.

And as she zigzags the United States campaigning for some of the most liberal new voices in politics, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has taken pains to present herself as a kind of friendly neighborhood lefty: She will preach warmly to the unconverted, she suggests, whether they like it or not.

"I've had people say, 'Well, we don't want you at our luncheon' or 'We don't want you around here,'” she told voters in Portland, Maine, while sharing a stage with Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate candidate. "And I'll say, 'That's fine. I'm not going to stop trying to be your friend.'"

In public and private remarks, meetings with lawmakers and appearances with midterm candidates inside and outside the socialist ranks, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 37, has begun sketching her preferred vision for the left's next phase. She hopes to nudge the rambunctious coalition in a bigger-tent direction that mirrors her own path in Congress and stands to benefit both its collective agenda and her own potential ambitions.

She has repeatedly emphasized that she did not grow up in “a leftist household” (or, occasionally, a “militant leftist family”) that busied itself with high-minded political theory, positioning herself as an authentic champion of the working class who scrubbed toilets in her youth with her mother.

As she weighs runs for the presidency or the Senate in two years, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez hopes to establish herself as broadly palatable to Democrats — recently joking (but maybe also not entirely) that “Woke I was crazy” — without sounding too much like everyone else.

“There are more working people in this country than there are billionaires,” she told supporters of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, last month inside a high school auditorium in Detroit, where students, exuberant grandparents and a man in an “ACTIVISTS NEVER RETIRE” shirt creaked in wooden seats. “There are more single moms. There are more working dads.”

The flourish registered, almost, as the founding sensibility of a campaign in waiting, one that might evoke and expand upon the nation's two most electric political movements of the left in this century: the people-over-profits populism of Bernie Sanders and the more-unites-than-divides-us appeals of Barack Obama.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez appears to believe that her base is ready to hear both of those messages at once.

"A.O.C.'s possibility and challenge really exemplify that of the larger socialist movement," said Daniel Denvir, a D.S.A. member who hosts a popular podcast for Jacobin, the socialist magazine. "She both needs to fire up and consolidate her support on the socialist left while also appealing to a broader array of liberal voters. And from nearly the beginning, there were people on the left who were in a hurry to condemn her as a sellout for no real reason."

That posture has not always endeared the left to the rest of the political world. Despite breakthroughs in places like New York City and Providence, R.I., socialism is viewed negatively by roughly half of likely American voters, according to a recent poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena University, while 31 percent view it favorably.

Ahead of this week's midterm elections, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seemed determined to demonstrate that her reach can be wider.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants democratic socialists to put up a bigger tent

BY MATT FLEGENHEIMER

A political firebrand chills

TAILYR IRVINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done a lot of growing up in the eight years since a stunning upset catapulted her from anonymous 20-something insurgent to establishment-busting avatar of American progressivism. She is pursuing alliances across the political spectrum, rather than flaming other Democrats, betting that bridge-building is a better way to expand her movement.

She would like to see the left grow up, too.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York joined Sam Forstag, a House candidate in Montana, at a rally in May. Montana is one of several states she has campaigned in.

In private discussions, she has urged fellow democratic socialists to foster a “culture of welcoming,” rather than of “intimidation,” mindful that even she has sometimes failed their purity-minded litmus tests on issues like the war in Gaza.

She has called for “really big carrots” to attract new allies, talking up donations to colleagues in competitive House districts who take risky progressive stances.

And as she zigzags the United States campaigning for some of the most liberal new voices in politics, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has taken pains to present herself as a kind of friendly neighborhood lefty: She will preach warmly to the unconverted, she suggests, whether they like it or not.

"I've had people say, 'Well, we don't want you at our luncheon' or 'We don't want you around here,'” she told voters in Portland, Maine, while sharing a stage with Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate candidate. "And I'll say, 'That's fine. I'm not going to stop trying to be your friend.'"

In public and private remarks, meetings with lawmakers and appearances with midterm candidates inside and outside the socialist ranks, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 37, has begun sketching her preferred vision for the left's next phase. She hopes to nudge the rambunctious coalition in a bigger-tent direction that mirrors her own path in Congress and stands to benefit both its collective agenda and her own potential ambitions.

She has repeatedly emphasized that she did not grow up in “a leftist household” (or, occasionally, a “militant leftist family”) that busied itself with high-minded political theory, positioning herself as an authentic champion of the working class who scrubbed toilets in her youth with her mother.

As she weighs runs for the presidency or the Senate in two years, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez hopes to establish herself as broadly palatable to Democrats — recently joking (but maybe also not entirely) that “Woke I was crazy” — without sounding too much like everyone else.

“There are more working people in this country than there are billionaires,” she told supporters of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, last month inside a high school auditorium in Detroit, where students, exuberant grandparents and a man in an “ACTIVISTS NEVER RETIRE” shirt creaked in wooden seats. “There are more single moms. There are more working dads.”

The flourish registered, almost, as the founding sensibility of a campaign in waiting, one that might evoke and expand upon the nation's two most electric political movements of the left in this century: the people-over-profits populism of Bernie Sanders and the more-unites-than-divides-us appeals of Barack Obama.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez appears to believe that her base is ready to hear both of those messages at once.

"A.O.C.'s possibility and challenge really exemplify that of the larger socialist movement," said Daniel Denvir, a D.S.A. member who hosts a popular podcast for Jacobin, the socialist magazine. "She both needs to fire up and consolidate her support on the socialist left while also appealing to a broader array of liberal voters. And from nearly the beginning, there were people on the left who were in a hurry to condemn her as a sellout for no real reason."

That posture has not always endeared the left to the rest of the political world. Despite breakthroughs in places like New York City and Providence, R.I., socialism is viewed negatively by roughly half of likely American voters, according to a recent poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena University, while 31 percent view it favorably.

Ahead of this week's midterm elections, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez seemed determined to demonstrate that her reach can be wider.

"She's done something that a lot of D.S.A. people have not done, which is reach out into communities that may not necessarily be supportive."

She has conferred with Black civil rights leaders and “Make America Healthy Again” activists. She has boosted Democrats in conservative states and directed money to the political operations of non-firebrands like Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor.

And she has campaigned especially aggressively in Michigan, where the Senate race will stand as a meaningful test of how her politics might resonate in a presidential swing state.

“She has grown,” said Representative Nydia Velázquez of New York, an early Washington mentor with whom Ms. Ocasio-Cortez remains close. “D.S.A. needs to learn something from her.”

ENTRY ON THE LEFT

Eight and a half years ago, the D.S.A. remained a fringe actor in Democratic politics — with some 35,000 members, less than a third of the current tally — and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez betrayed little interest in becoming its public face.

SARAH SILBIGER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Top, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, right, with Florida's Democratic Senate candidate, State Representative Angie Nixon, at a rally in October. Above, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez at a demonstration with climate activists in Washington in 2018, weeks before she took office.

While the group endorsed her, it was seen as a junior partner in her 2018 primary success. In interviews back then, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was reluctant to box herself in. She called democratic socialism “part of what I am” but “not all of what I am,” noting (presciently) that “plenty of socialists would say I’m not a socialist.”

"I don't read a book and then decide what I am," she told Hot 97 that July, saying that she cared more about policies like "Medicare for all" and tuition-free college than political labels. "If that makes me a socialist, then all right, well, I guess I'm a socialist. I guess I'm a democratic socialist."

At the same time, two powerful forces with a keen interest in her rise — conservative media outlets hoping to elevate her as a far-left boogeywoman and socialist organizers eager to claim her as their own — were repeating the affiliation often enough for it to congeal into canon: A.O.C. and D.S.A., D.S.A. and A.O.C.

“I don’t think she realized that the democratic socialist label would become such an all-encompassing label that would be so attached to her,” said Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of The Nation magazine and a longtime D.S.A. member. “All the sudden she’s being asked to defend and be connected to a platform that I’m not sure she ever fully agreed with.”

Whatever the label, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez established herself quickly as one of the most left-wing members of Congress. She pushed the “Green New Deal.” She irritated Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker. She endorsed Mr. Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign just after his heart attack, which for a time helped revive his bid.

That election year, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez emphasized positions she has been less inclined to highlight lately.

“Defunding police means defunding police,” she said that June, amid the wide-scale backlash to George Floyd’s killing by a policeman on a Minneapolis street. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math.”

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has not clarified if this stance was part of the “Woke 1” craziness she cited, borrowing the phrase from a New York City councilman, Chi Ossé. When asked about the “Woke 1” comments in Nevada recently, she said she was referring not to policies but to her hope for a progressive movement “that is not rooted in judgment, castigation or being closed off.”

Supporters say she has begun modeling what a more accommodating left might look like, at no small cost to her credibility with some elements of the movement.

During Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s presidency, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez mostly determined, like Mr. Sanders, that working with the White House would be better for progressives than heckling from the sidelines.

After Mr. Biden's disastrous 2024 debate performance, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was one of the most prominent Democrats publicly arguing that he should remain on the ticket.

Perhaps her most striking turn came after Mr. Biden ended his campaign: She earned a prime convention slot, just before Hillary Clinton, to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris.

To many within the D.S.A., Ms. Ocasio-Cortez sounded far more like a Democrat than a socialist, giving Ms. Harris political cover on a major vulnerability, the war in Gaza, with a line that continues to echo grimly in D.S.A. circles.

“She is working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said of Ms. Harris, a remark that some pro-Palestinian activists continue to find offensively misleading.

By then, the national D.S.A., which is considered less pragmatic than its New

York City chapter, had already loudly unendorsed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, accusing her of “deep betrayal” and condemning her for not universally opposing funding for Israel, including its Iron Dome antimissile system, among other concerns. She has more recently sworn off sending any military aid to Israel.

To Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's defenders, maintaining credibility across the party was a requirement for an inside-outside strategy that was producing results. The Biden White House, no lefty radical's idea of lefty radicals, had listened to their movement on issues like climate change and health care. Left-wing candidates were claiming more offices up and down the ballot, often with her help.

"My motivation is winning," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said flatly on the left-leaning podcast "The Majority Report" recently.

"One thing that I don't like to be is alone."

TO BE "JUDGED AS A COMRADE"

To be judged as a remarkable

On a private D.S.A. video call this year,

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had a request.

"I want to be judged as a human being and as a comrade," she said, alluding to the prolific left-wing vitriol she had often read about herself as a doom-scrolling millennial. "I'm not asking for freedom from criticism. But I think what I am asking for is to be treated as a trusted person and friend."

While the chapter voted overwhelmingly to re-endorse her, some who know Ms. Ocasio-Cortez see a cruel irony in how pockets of the left perceive her. She has helped elevate a new class of leaders, including Dr. El-Sayed (who is not in the D.S.A.) and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York (who is) — and has occasionally suffered by comparison, in the eyes of some in the base.

Dr. El-Sayed, a student of the new attention economy whom Politico recently nicknamed “Hurricane Abdul,” has summoned a swaggering machismo that some supporters say is simply not an option for a woman in politics.

And Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is less instinctively tethered to the socialist project than Mr. Mamdani, who immersed himself in D.S.A. organizing well before his mayoral run. (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, it emerged in August, had not even paid her membership dues for years. She quickly rejoined.)

While Mr. Mamdani has not universally pleased the left, it has long grated on some Ocasio-Cortez allies that the new mayor seems to be given more deference from more of the base than she was ever afforded.

Her wider endorsement slate has spanned from Tom Perriello, a former Virginia congressman running in a right-leaning House district, to Angie Nixon, a Florida state representative who is seeking to become the state's first Black senator.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who introduced Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in August at an anniversary rally for the March on Washington, said he had found her much more accessible than some of her ideological peers.

“She’s done something that a lot of D.S.A. people have not done,” Mr. Sharpton said, “which is reach out into communities that may not necessarily be supportive.”

For years, the left could be an almost consciously lonely place, exemplified by Mr. Sanders's proudly iconoclastic monologues about millionaires and billionaires at the Capitol.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's appearances with Mr. Sanders last year on their "Fighting Oligarchy" tour were rich with generation-bridging symbolism. But in some ways, the final days of her midterm travel doubled as a next step: persuading audiences that there is nothing radical or doctrinaire about these beliefs.

“Good schools is not communism,” she said last week at a “Boricuas for Angie” event with Ms. Nixon in Kissimmee, Fla. “Funded hospitals is not communism.”

A responsive government, she concluded, was neither extreme, nor outlandish, nor "out far left."

And with that she introduced Ms. Nixon, who recently joined the D.S.A.

Benjamin Oreskes contributed reporting from New York City.

Paris Photo

Grand Palais

Zied Ben Romdhane, Youth playing on the beach, Bizerte, Cap Zebib, Tunisia, 2023 – Courtesy of the artist & Magnum Gallery Elle Perez, Untitled, 2025 – Courtesy of the artist & Public Relations

SMITH, Sans titre (Dami, Fulmen), 2023 – Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Christophe Gaillard

Trump skirts court edicts, intensifying distrust

TRUMP, FROM PAGE 1

Justice Department the benefit of the doubt," he added.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

DAVID GUTTENFELDER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

ANDREW LEYDEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

FRED RAMOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The interbranch tensions gained urgency as election-related cases reached the courts ahead of this week's midterm elections. The cases included a court order blocking Mr. Trump's plan to bar the Postal Service from delivering certain mail ballots and multiple pending requests for judicial orders barring the administration from sending armed federal agents to polling places.

In a statement, Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said the Trump administration “has always, and will continue to follow all court orders.”

“Lower courts have engaged in an unprecedented number of lawless injunctions seeking to obstruct President Trump's agenda that the American people elected him to enact,” she continued, “but with well over 25 Supreme Court victories, President Trump's policies have been consistently upheld as lawful.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a request by the Trump administration to require that California set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots that the administration claims have been provided to noncitizens. The ruling appeared to be an extraordinary rebuke of the Trump administration, sending a message that the court was not interested in interfering with how states administer elections.

All modern administrations have sometimes bristled at judicial setbacks. President George W. Bush said he disagreed with a 2008 ruling about Guantánamo detainee rights but would abide by it. President Barack Obama criticized a campaign-finance decision in his 2010 State of the Union, with justices seated before him. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2023 said he thought the court got the law wrong when it blocked his student-loan forgiveness program, and he vowed to try again under a different authority.

Part of what makes the second Trump administration different is the sheer volume of Mr. Trump's confrontations with the courts. They also come as the administration has destroyed the traditional principle that the White House should play no role in directing law enforcement investigative and charging decisions in specific cases.

In some cases, skeptical judges have dismissed high-profile indictments and quashed investigative subpoenas, including at times finding that the Justice Department had improper motivations. And judges have increasingly been concluding that the department has been misrepresenting facts in civil litigation hearings and filings.

In a recent Duke Law Journal article, two University of Michigan law professors, Daniel T. Deacon and Leah M. Litman, dubbed the administration's pattern of using evasive tactics to deflect limits imposed by the courts "legalistic noncompliance." And that behavior inside courtrooms has been coupled with venomous personal rhetoric about judges out of court.

Compounding the stakes, other legal checks on Mr. Trump have weakened since his first term. The Supreme Court in 2024 declared that presidents have broad immunity for crimes committed with official powers.

Mr. Trump has installed in key executive branch legal positions loyalists who were vetted as being less likely to raise objections to his ideas than even very conservative and political appointed lawyers sometimes were in his first term, and he has forbidden dissent by government lawyers. With Republicans controlling both chambers, and with the departure of some Republicans who occasionally challenged Mr. Trump in his first term, Congress has so far rarely constrained him.

That has left the courts as a principal obstacle to parts of his agenda — and a recurring target of his wrath.

FAILING TO OBEY ORDERS

Before becoming vice president, JD Vance repeatedly argued that presidents could and should ignore court orders they regarded as infringements on their rightful executive powers. Soon after taking office in early 2025, he declared on social media that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

To date, however, the second Trump administration has not declared that it has intentionally violated a binding order. Instead, it has disputed the meaning of orders, challenged judges' authority to issue them or attributed failures to comply to mistakes and overwhelmed systems.

In February, for example, a Justice Department lawyer filed a report in which she identified 52 court orders in New Jersey that the government had violated after reviewing 547 immigration actions. The violations included transferring detainees out of state despite a no-removal directive and missing deadlines to present detainees for a bond hearing. The department stressed there was no evidence that any of the failures were intentional.

Similarly, when the administration flooded Minneapolis with immigration agents for a major crackdown, Patrick J. Schiltz, a Bush appointee who was then the chief judge, found that the government had violated 210 orders in 143 immigration cases in the first two months of 2026. Low-level government lawyers told courts those failures, too, were unintentional, reflecting a system overwhelmed by the volume of arrests and litigation.

President Trump, top, and his administration have come into conflict with the courts over, from above: the surge of federal agents into Minneapolis this year; the removal of trees at a public golf course in Washington last month; and the deportation of migrants to a prison in El Salvador last year. The administration has disputed the meaning of orders, challenged judges' authority to issue them or attributed failures to comply to mistakes and overwhelmed systems.

For the judges, however, the repeated failures raised a more fundamental issue: The executive branch had dispatched more than 3,000 immigration agents to the city without ensuring there would be adequate lawyerly resources to deal with the predictable surge of habeas cases.

The Justice Department responded to the criticism by attacking the judges themselves. A month ago, it filed a misconduct complaint against nearly every active federal district judge in Minnesota for publicly warning, in New York Times interviews, that the administration's systematic failure to obey the orders during the surge had jeopardized the rule of law.

The complaint singled out Judge Schiltz, whom it accused of having “publicly taken sides on the political issue of immigration enforcement.” The department last month also moved to disqualify him and another district judge from immigration-related cases.

"I not only have the right to speak out when I find the rule of law threatened — whether that be by negligence, inattention, incompetence, poor planning, or by conscious violation — I have a duty to do so," Judge Schiltz said at a recent law school conference.

In July, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in the Central District of California, a Biden appointee, held an array of Trump administration officials in civil contempt for failing to comply with a discovery order to provide work messages exchanged by immigration agents on personal phones. The texts were sought by plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit concerning the immigration crackdown in Los Angeles last year.

She imposed a \$500-a-day fine, which the administration — which is contesting the contempt ruling — has been paying ever since. The payments do not come out of individual officials' pockets, limiting their coercive effect.

BREACHING ORAL UNDERSTANDINGS

Some of the sharpest disputes have concerned instances when judges have delivered oral directives instead of or before issuing formal written orders. Traditionally, the government routinely obeys oral commands and even expressions of judicial expectations — but the Trump administration has contested their status.

In March 2025, Mr. Trump invoked an 18th-century wartime deportation law to send planeloads of people accused of belonging to a Venezuelan gang to a notorious Salvadoran prison without an opportunity to contest their identities and removals in court.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued on their behalf, and Judge James E. Boasberg, an Obama appointee who is the chief Federal District Court judge in the District of Columbia, told the administration during a hearing that they should turn any planes around so mi-grants aboard could receive hearings.

He also said he would issue a formal written order so there would be no confusion and did so about an hour later. While it forbade removals from the United States, it did not mention planes already in the air.

In fact, two planes of migrants were mid-flight, and the administration did not return them, instead allowing them to fly on to El Salvador and complete the transfer. Administration lawyers later argued that “an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction” and that the narrower written order superseded the oral directive. Judge Boasberg rejected that argument.

A former Justice Department lawyer later told Congress that during planning for the deportations, Emil Bove III, a senior Trump appointee, had said that if a court enjoined the removals, the department “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such order.” Mr. Bove, whom Mr. Trump has since appointed as an appellate judge, denied it.

Judge Boasberg sought to hold contempt proceedings and establish who made the key decisions and what they knew at the time. But an appellate panel with two Trump appointees voted 2-1 to shut them down. The full appeals court is now weighing whether to let Judge Boasberg hold his inquiry, meaning the issue remains unresolved — some 20 months later.

"The word ‘contempt’ clearly applies to what Trump and some of his people have been saying about the courts."

During the dispute, Mr. Trump attacked Judge Boasberg as a “radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator,” calling for his impeachment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a Bush appointee, rebuked Mr. Trump, writing: “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

A recent confrontation over Mr. Trump's plans to remake a century-old public golf course in Washington followed a similar cycle of seeming understandings' being breached, followed by judicial anger and accusations of bias.

A preservation group and two local golfers sued in February, arguing that the government was bypassing required reviews. Justice Department lawyers told Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, that the redesign remained conceptual and promised adequate advance notice before major work began. Relying on those assurances, she held off on an injunction.

Then, at 4:55 p.m. on Oct. 9, the Friday before a holiday weekend, the administration filed notice that it intended to clear as many as 529 trees for what it styled as “maintenance activities.” Workers began cutting the next morning, removing hundreds of trees before Judge Reyes intervened.

During an emergency hearing, she excoriated the government, saying it had lost “all of its credibility.” The Justice Department sought her recusal, citing her remarks as intemperate. She refused to step aside, and Mr. Trump called her a “crazed lunatic” on social media while declaring that the renovation did not need approval and that work would begin “IMMEDIATELY!”

That still-ongoing dispute — Judge Reyes on Oct. 30 ordered a formal inquiry into whether Trump administration lawyers made material misrepresentations to the court — illustrated an escalating tension. Traditionally, courts routinely have depended on Justice Department lawyers' assurances, deferring to their factual representations, a practice known as the presumption of regularity.

But courts around the country are increasingly finding that the word of Justice Department lawyers in the second Trump administration is not reliable.

In February, for example, Judge Christine P. O'Hearn, a Biden appointee in New Jersey, required sworn affidavit from officials with firsthand knowledge about the transfer of an immigration detainee, writing that the presumption previously afforded to the executive branch “has been undeniably eroded.” She added that the court would “no longer blindly accept statements of fact” from the government.

And in May, when Judge Mary S. McElroy, a Trump appointee in Rhode Island, quashed an administration subpoena for transgender children's medical records, she approvingly cited a similar rebuke by another judge in Oregon, who had said the Justice Department could no longer be taken at its word, given how the department had withheld and misrepresented salient information in the case.

"D.O.J. has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case," Judge McElroy wrote.

But the frequency with which judges of both parties are finding the Trump Justice Department to be unworthy of trust is contributing to a downward cycle. It creates pressure on judges to issue more detailed restrictions and to demand more evidence — steps the administration may then portray as unwarranted interference.

The cycle has also been exacerbated by an administration tactic of sometimes narrowly interpreting its obligations under court orders.

That tactic was central to the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the government mistakenly repatriated to El Salvador last year despite an immigration judge's order barring his removal to his home country.

After the Supreme Court directed the government to “facilitate” his return, the administration argued that it needed only to let him back in if he showed up at the border, not to seek his release from El Salvador.

A federal appeals court rejected that interpretation as “not well taken.” Writing for the court, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee, warned that the branches were increasingly coming “too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both.”

"The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive's respect for the courts," he added. "Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate."

Under such pressure, the administration eventually retrieved Mr. Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

EXPLOITING LOOPHOLES

In other cases, the administration has found ways around court action blocking its policies by pursuing the same policies using alternative legal rationales.

In early 2025, the White House ordered a broad spending freeze, prompting agencies to withhold foreign aid and domestic grants. Recipients sued, and judges blocked the White House's directive. But Trump political appointees at agencies invoked other legal authorities to keep withholding the funds, saying they were making independent decisions rather than carrying out the blocked directives.

Such disputes are inherently ambiguous. Presidents of both parties have tried similar gambits when blocked by the courts. But the Trump administration has been particularly aggressive in pressing forward, rather than acquiescing to apparent court defeats.

When the Supreme Court struck down Mr. Trump's novel use of an emergency powers law to impose tariffs in February, he attacked the justices who voted against him as “a disgrace,” “incompetent” and an “embarrassment to their families.” Mr. Vance called the 6-3 ruling “lawlessness from the court, plain and simple.” Within hours, Mr. Trump imposed a 10 percent global tariff, citing a different legal authority, also novel. The move prompted renewed litigation over whether he could lawfully impose such import taxes.

While appeals of adverse rulings are a normal part of litigation, the second Trump administration has been unusually aggressive in appealing.

The administration has started making routine use of the Supreme Court's once-rare emergency docket, appealing district court orders before litigation has had a chance to play out at an unprecedented rate, according to data compiled by Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington.

Professor Vladeck, who is also the author of a forthcoming Harvard Law Review article documenting the confrontational dynamic between the judiciary and the executive branch under the second Trump administration, said the pattern was damaging both institutions — undermining the credibility of the Justice Department and the courts' neutral, above-the-fray image.

Professor Vladeck said that in the long term, the tensions risked “eroding trust in our institutions, when those institutions depend in lots of ways, big and small, on the very trust that is now in jeopardy.”

China's message: You need what we produce

NEWS ANALYSIS

HONG KONG

Assembling a tunnel-boring machine at a factory in Jiangsu Province, China. Beijing recently moved to control the exports of dozens of technologies, including such machines.

CHINATOPIX, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Other countries depend on its solar, drone and drugmaking technologies

BY DAVID PIERSON AND BERRY WANG

They are among the biggest machines in the world: steel cylinders, some as long as a football field, armed with rotating discs that can chew through rock to clear the way for roads and railways. Known as tunnel-boring machines, they are made by only a handful of companies, mostly in factories in China.

India uses them to dig tunnels, including in the Himalayas, to improve its ability to send troops to defend its contested border with China. But starting this month, Beijing is likely to be able to control whether India gets to buy them.

The machines are part of an effort by China to control what leaves its factories and laboratories for foreign lands. In the past month, Beijing has moved to control the exports of dozens of technologies, including drones, artificial intelligence models and agents and certain processes used to develop advanced medicines and to make solar panels.

The overall push could make it much harder for companies in the United States and elsewhere to set up solar energy equipment factories that would compete against Chinese manufacturers. And it could soon make it more difficult for anyone outside China to gain access to the latest and most powerful Chinese A.I. models.

The planned restrictions show that Beijing is doubling down on its strategy of making Chinese factories indispensable to the world, even as many governments are alarmed by their countries' dependence on China and are pushing to be less reliant.

In the United States, concern over China's grip on rare earths has spurred the government to revive the country's own mining and processing industry for the minerals. In Europe, Japan and elsewhere, governments are trying to reclaim their ability to make antibiotics and active ingredients of medicines, many of which now come from China. In India, the transport minister has urged companies to make tunnel-boring machines locally.

For Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, the controls are the realization of a plan he laid out years ago, when the pandemic exposed China's dependence on foreign countries for advanced medical equipment like ventilators and life-support systems, and for raw materials and specialized parts.

He declared that China would develop "trump card" technologies in industries such as high-speed trains, renewable energy and telecommunications. That would not only make China more self-sufficient — it would also deter countries from trying to cut China off.

"GREAT STRUGGLE" WITH THE WEST Mr. Xi has depicted China as being locked in a long struggle with the West, which he sees as trying to contain China's rise.

Beijing needs leverage to ensure that China can still get what it needs from other countries — namely their customers and advanced technologies like jet engines and high-end chips, said Kirsten Asdal, a founder of Asdal Advisory, a consultancy that focuses on Chinese political research.

“Xi and the party see themselves as naturally embattled” against the West, she said, and have been “angling for a confrontation sooner or later, whenever the opportunity and capability present itself.”

At home, the Communist Party has framed China's push for industrial and technological might as a fight for survival, echoing the struggles of the party's revolutionary past.

In recent days, the party has repeatedly invoked the Long March, the Red Army's epic 6,000-mile (9,600-kilometer) strategic retreat that cemented Mao Zedong's leadership and became its defining myth of triumph over impossible odds. By drawing on that history, the party may be trying to reassure ordinary Chinese that endurance under its leadership will carry China through a time of slower economic growth, a prolonged housing crisis and growing hostility abroad.

In a recent front-page editorial commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Long March, People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, called for the country to "focus on the 'chokehold' key core technologies" and "stiffen the Chinese backbone" of self-reliance.

In a clear reference to the United States, the editorial praised China for weathering tariffs and trade wars and urged readers to prepare for a “great struggle.”

The call to secure technological choke points was also likened to the way the Red Army took the “strategic initiative” on the battlefield to ultimately defeat the Nationalists.

China has said that the recent flurry of export controls and proposed rules is needed to protect Chinese business interests. The country has spent decades and billions of dollars developing its dominance of the manufacturing of solar equipment, for instance, and it argues that it must restrict the export of core equipment to prevent competitors from trying to replicate China's supply chain domestically.

China has also said that more controls are needed to guard against threats to national security.

“China is beginning to more systematically consider which technologies and equipment can be exported, to whom they should be sold and what their ultimate applications will be,” said Sun Chenghao, a foreign relations expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He said, for instance, that the risks that A.I. could be used for cyberattacks or that machines that bore tunnels and that dredge mud could be used by militaries against China are legitimate reasons for Beijing to vet where these technologies go.

LEARNING FROM THE UNITED STATES

The proposed controls may also be a part of tit-for-tat actions that China and the United States have traded in recent months, despite a broader trade truce. The Trump administration added BGI, a major Chinese genomics company to a trade blacklist aimed at barring products made with forced labor in China. Earlier, the U.S. Treasury Department proposed regulations prohibiting American companies and investors from taking investment stakes in Chinese biotechnology firms.

President Trump and Mr. Xi are expected to meet in China later this month and next month in Miami.

American restrictions and sanctions on China helped teach Beijing that great powers need economic weapons as much as they need aircraft carriers and long-range missiles, some analysts have said. Washington first cut two of China's largest technology companies, Huawei and ZTE, off from American chips and software, then restricted exports of advanced chips to China broadly, curbs that continue to hurt China's A.I. ambitions.

During its trade war with the second Trump administration, Beijing choked off exports to the United States of rare earths, the minerals needed to make fighter jets, cars and everyday technologies. That pressured Washington into a truce.

Some Chinese analysts worry that Beijing's rare earths strategy has been too successful. The United States and many of its allies and partners are now scrambling to develop alternative sources.

Part of last month's flood of Chinese controls was aimed at establishing new points of leverage.

“China is concerned that it might lose its ‘rare earths card,’” said Zhao Ming-hao, an international relations scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai. “So, what other cards does China still hold? How can China effectively counter U.S. sanctions or tariff measures? I believe Beijing is prioritizing this highly at the present.”

A COSTLY BET

China's single-minded focus on technological self-sufficiency carries risks for Beijing.

Economists have long urged Beijing to invest in pensions, health care and unemployment benefits so that residents feel secure enough to spend.

“That obsession with developing technology and protecting it is leading to a massive misallocation of resources in China that is generating slower growth and higher debt,” said Scott Kennedy, a researcher on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The planned restrictions show that Beijing is doubling down on its strategy of making Chinese factories indispensable.

The new controls could also alarm other trading partners like Europe, which is already uneasy about a flood of cheap Chinese exports.

“That kind of business by threat is not going to be something that is sustainable,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Even some Chinese analysts acknowledge the danger.

"If uncertainty becomes too high, customers may seek alternatives," Mr. Sun of Tsinghua said.

That is already happening in India. Experts say that China had been holding up exports of tunnel-boring machines as early as 2024, before it added them to its list of export controls. As a result, India has had to seek out other suppliers.

Yet New Delhi had few ways to retaliate because its economic ties with China were so thin, said Pranay Kotasthane, chair of the High Tech Geopolitics Program at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru, India.

“China is indiscriminately expanding the scope of their export controls to include basic equipment that aren't even strategic,” he added. “They are demonstrating that in any political conflict, they can counter with industrial leverage.”

She's offering busy women an A.I. assistant

Dazzle harnesses information in users' camera rolls to offer suggestions for their lives, like what to do on vacation.

KELSEY MCCLELLAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

PALO ALTO, CALIF.

Former Yahoo chief enters crowded marketplace with a specific group in mind

BY ALEXANDRA ALTER

Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task.

Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle's teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special. Mayer — the former chief executive of Yahoo and a pioneer at Google, where she was the first female engineer — likes cracking a hard problem. But she felt overwhelmed by the range and complexity of potential answers.

So Mayer asked her personal A.I. assistant, Dazzle. Within a few seconds, Dazzle delivered an answer.

"It came back and was like, your daughter is empathetic, creative and an animal lover," Mayer said. She thought it was perfect.

Dazzle is a new consumer tech product from Mayer's start-up, and her first push into the competitive marketplace for A.I. personal assistants. With Dazzle — which analyzes images in users' camera rolls to answer questions, perform tasks and make suggestions — Mayer is aiming to build an A.I. tool that can handle everyday hassles, like buying a pair of pants you took a photo of, or finding a birthday present for your picky spouse.

"A lot of what excites me is taking something that used to take you hours or minutes, and now getting it done in seconds," Mayer told me at her company's office in Palo Alto, Calif., in September.

Dazzle may seem smaller in scope than the monumental challenges Mayer tackled earlier in her career — leading search at Google or working to resurrect Yahoo when the company was flailing.

And other people are using artificial intelligence to cure diseases and solve impenetrable problems in physics and math. Yet to Mayer, harnessing A.I. to tackle mundane tasks feels big.

She thinks normal people who are not tech obsessives — and busy women in particular — will be drawn to an A.I. assistant that's trained on their visual aesthetic.

“Women, this is my own bias, tend to take more photos and are more visual, and so being able to work with A.I. in a visual medium is fun,” Mayer said. “It essentially understands your personality, your likes, your dislikes, because it knows what you think looks good.”

And maybe what overextended professional women need is an A.I. wife, an emotional labor bot that can plan a birthday party and knows when it's Crazy Socks Day or Crazy Hat Day at the kids' school, because it has photos of the fliers that came home crumpled in a backpack.

Mayer is rolling out her A.I. product at a moment when high-profile women in Silicon Valley are worried A.I. has a gender problem. Even Anthropic's own Daniela Amodei, the leading lab's president and co-founder, has raised alarms about A.I.'s becoming "a tool that's just for the guys." Women don't use it as much as men do. The models themselves have been forged by a male-dominated culture and, some studies have found, have ambient sexism baked in. And there are very few women leading frontier A.I. companies, which are shaping not only the future of tech, but the future of basically everything.

"I'm very disappointed in what's happening in tech and across the board," said Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Meta, whose organization, Lean In, has been tracking the gender gap in A.I. "There is deep cultural stagnation for growth of women in leadership roles. It's a very scary moment for women."

All of that could be fertile ground for launching an A.I. assistant that promises to shoulder some of the domestic load, a product that might bring more women into the world of constant A.I. users.

Building a life-hacking A.I. assistant is in some ways a fitting move for Mayer, 51 — who was once a widely recognized avatar for ambitious women trying to have it all.

In her nearly three decades as an engineer and tech titan, Mayer has shaped some of industry's biggest innovations. At Google, she led search for a decade and oversaw Google maps, news and Gmail — products that changed the way billions of people use technology.

She has also faced intense scrutiny as one of the most visible women in tech. As the chief executive at Yahoo, she drew withering criticism for failing to revive the struggling company and was often judged in sharply contradictory ways, as frivolous and attention-seeking when she threw lavish parties, or as too hard-driven when she worked during her abbreviated maternity leave.

Now Mayer has reinvented herself as a start-up founder, with a team of 10 engineers — a fraction of the armies of programmers she once commanded. And she is doing so during another technological revolution, as women in tech are once again feeling pushed to the sidelines.

Mayer said she is more excited than scared by the promises and perils of A.I., firm in her belief that artificial intelligence will help humanity and not destroy it and in her conviction that eventually, women will rise in the ranks.

"I think gender balance will come in time, because this is a field that's moving so quickly," she said. "I'm generally an optimist."

Dazzle's headquarters sit in a bland, brown shingled commercial office building in downtown Palo Alto. But through the glass doors, it's all rainbow hues and sparkles.

Small and cheerfully decorated, with whimsical touches like glittery rainbow sequin pillows, a foosball table and a giant teddy bear, the office looks like the set of a children's television show, except for a poster with Dazzle's mission statement: "To close the gap between what people want and what people can do with A.I."

It was a sunny day in late September, the week before Dazzle's launch. At an all-hands meeting, Mayer's two chief technology officers updated her on design tweaks and Dazzle's ability to search the web and make purchases.

"I know it's a busy time," Mayer said, glancing around the conference table. "But is there anyone who's like, Wait, I need more on my plate?" she asked, drawing silence.

Mayer has a startling staccato laugh. When she's excited about something, which she often is, she speaks in a frenetic rush, as if her words are racing to keep up with her thoughts. As we sat in her office, which is festooned with family photos, artwork by her three children, and knickknacks and souvenirs she's collected, Mayer's human assistant brought her a mug of tea, anticipating that she would need it during a long day of meetings.

"She never gives me tea, but obviously, I'll take advantage of it today," she said.

Mayer was eager to show me what Dazzle, which she called “one of my babies,” could do.

"The play dates are better, the travel is better," she said of her be-Dazzled life.

She's used it to find a family activity during a vacation in Venice (Dazzle proposed a Venetian mask-making workshop that the whole family loved); to plan a play date for one of her twin daughters (Dazzle knows Marielle is into magic, and suggested visiting a magic shop in San Francisco); and to choose a theme for her son Macallister's 14th birthday party (Dazzle recommended a glow-in-the-dark pool party, and found glowing pool toys and corn hole).

"He was like, 'Mom, I don't want to hit the theme that hard,' she said. "I just can't help myself."

Mayer has also turned to Dazzle for advice on what to wear and asked it for Halloween costume ideas. “Halloween is very big in our house, and I’m terrible at Halloween. I never know what to be,” she said.

She held out her phone to show me the image Dazzle had sent her of a woman in a gown shaped like a frosted layer cake, inspired by the famous cake paintings by the artist Wayne Thiebaud. (Dazzle knows she loves baking and art; she was going to wear the cake dress to take her kids trick or treating, she said.)

It's a tricky moment to launch an A.I. assistant, and not just because Mayer is competing with giants like Meta and OpenAI. Each week brings disturbing revelations about A.I. agents' escaping human control; many people, one imagines, might not want A.I. loose in their camera rolls.

Even setting aside doomsday predictions about the A.I. apocalypse, there's still widespread anxiety that A.I. is siphoning away what makes us human, shaping not only how we work, but also how we celebrate life's milestones and spend our leisure time.

To Mayer, outsourcing some of the mental load to the machines isn't a bad thing. (At one point, she mused enthusiastically about the potential efficiency gains of having her A.I. assistant talk directly to her husband's A.I. assistant).

Emotional labor, after all, is still labor.

"A lot of these things, like figuring out what you want to be for Halloween, figuring out the theme for your child's birthday party, they should be fun, but in many cases, they become such a chore MAYER, PAGE 8

Former Yahoo chief offers A.I. help to women

MAYER, FROM PAGE 7

KELSEY McCLELLAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Marissa Mayer has reinvented herself as a start-up founder, with 10 engineers — a fraction of the armies she once commanded.

and so time-consuming," she said.

When I asked Mayer if it's somewhat depressing to imagine a frictionless future when birthday celebrations, holiday gifts and family vacations are planned by A.I., she seemed caught off guard.

"I haven't really thought that through," she said.

THE RELUCTANT TRAILBLAZER

Long before the A.I. boom, Mayer was fascinated by the promise of artificial intelligence, which she studied as a computer science major at Stanford University in California.

At the time, there were few women in her field, and Silicon Valley had a “bro culture,” she said. Still, as an engineer who describes herself as “data driven, maybe to a fault,” Mayer thrived. In 1999, she became the 20th hire at Google, where she eventually oversaw a team of thousands of engineers.

"I don't remember her as someone who was constantly evangelizing for women at Google, but behind the scenes she was very conscious of hiring women and helping the women that worked for her," said Jonathan Rosenberg, an adviser at Alphabet who worked with Mayer at Google.

When Mayer was tapped to lead Yahoo in 2012, her appointment was hailed as a breakthrough for women in tech and for women in general. Then she announced that she and her husband, the venture capitalist Zachary Bogue, were expecting their first child. Once again, Mayer was an unwitting pioneer — as the first pregnant chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.

The media frenzy escalated when Mayer returned to the office two weeks after Macallister was born. Her choice was endlessly dissected in the media, stirring up a ferocious debate about whether a new mother could successfully lead a floundering company and whether a hard-charging chief executive could be a good mother.

A swarm of bloggers, columnists and even a German government official condemned her choice. Outlets ran articles with headlines like “Is Marissa Mayer a Role Model or a Feminist Failure?”

Mayer mostly tried to tune out the backlash.

She did read one snarky listicle.

"The article headline was something like, five things that Marissa could do on the maternity leave she so stubbornly won't take," she said.

"I was like, right, the company's in total turmoil, I'm telling everyone it's all hands on deck — but I'm going to go peace out for three to six months and watch soap operas and scrapbook at home. So that one was a good laugh."

In 2016, after Verizon agreed to buy a much diminished Yahoo, Mayer took a rare shot at her critics, noting how “gender-charged reporting” undermined women leaders, largely focusing on their personal lives and appearance.

Mayer led search at Google for a decade, above, and oversaw maps, news and Gmail — products that changed the way technology is used. Below, a meeting with her Dazzle team. She is rolling out the product at a moment of concern about an A.I. gender problem.

KELSEY MCCLELLAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A decade later, it's a source of bitter disappointment to many women in tech that the ascension of Mayer, Sandberg and a few other women to C-suite roles didn't lead to sweeping change. Now, some worry the push to recruit and promote women has not only stalled, it's been largely abandoned.

Bro culture is back: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg lamented to the podcaster Joe Rogan last year that corporate culture has become “neutered” and needs more “masculine energy.”

"Even women themselves have decided that they're not going to bring this up because the backlash is so strong," said Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist who has spoken out against gender bias in the tech world.

Given Mayer's history, it can be jarring when she says she doesn't see gender inequality in tech as a pressing issue. She acknowledges that women are underrepresented.

"There could always be more and there should be more, I'll leave it at that," she told me. But she also maintains that being a woman isn't a barrier to succeeding in Silicon Valley. It's a position that seems to require some cognitive dissonance.

"To me, gender fades into the background. I talk about passion as a gender neutralizing force," she said. "If you're excited about something, gender doesn't matter."

When I asked Mayer if she worries about the apparent gender bias that's built into A.I. models and whether it can be fixed with so few women leading frontier A.I. companies, she seemed conflicted.

At first, she name-checked women who have become A.I. titans, like Fei-Fei Li, who recently struck an \$8.2 billion deal to sell her A.I. lab to a chip maker. Then her optimism seemed to waver.

"A lot of interest, capital, technology, is all getting concentrated in a really small number of companies, so the management of those companies starts to matter disproportionately" she said. "Selfishly as a woman, you always want to see more people like you at the table, making those decisions."

IN THE CAMERA ROLL

Mayer has an estimated fortune of \$1.4 billion. After leaving Yahoo in 2017, she could have turned to a glamorous life of parties and philanthropy — or done any of the things on that hypothetical maternity leave listicle.

Instead, a year later, she started a tech incubator focused on artificial intelligence.

From the beginning, Mayer wanted to build an A.I. product that would catch on outside Silicon Valley. But the start-up's early efforts, like Sunshine Contacts, an address book manager, and Shine, a photo-sharing app, failed to take off and were scrapped.

The idea for Dazzle came from the defunct photo app, when Mayer realized how much information is buried in images. Dazzle functions like other A.I. agents, but it trains on images to build a detailed dossier of the user. With that information, it can answer questions and make proactive suggestions including by creating a to-do list called “Get it Done,” and an “Ideas” list of possible fun activities.

Mayer didn't set out to design an A.I. assistant specifically for busy women and working mothers, and she stressed that Dazzle “works as well for the guys” as it does for women. Still, she thinks Dazzle could help overburdened women who’ve been reluctant to use the technology, perhaps, in Mayer’s view, in part because of the technical expertise it requires.

“So much of what I see with these assistants, they’re quite technical,” she said. “There’s definitely a cohort of people, probably more women than men, that are too busy for that, and it’s also extremely jargon-loaded and intimidating. So we built Dazzle to be more approachable.”

After lunch with her employees at a restaurant near the office — Mayer had a kale salad and picked up the tab — Mayer and Dazzle's tech and design team gathered in the conference room.

A young mother who described herself as someone who took lots of photos and rarely used A.I. was there to test the app.

The session revealed some potential flaws. Dazzle asked the woman if she wanted help finding a replacement for a screen; in fact, she'd taken the photo because there was a bee. Dazzle suggested that the woman might like to go golfing. The woman is not a golfer.

Mayer noted that her own Dazzle had recently suggested she go golfing.

"I don't know what's happening with golf," Mayer told her team after the meeting. "We should figure out why it suddenly thinks everyone's a golfer."

Other early feedback has been promising. Mayer was encouraged to see power users spending hours a day with Dazzle; some reported that they were “interacting more with Dazzle than their spouse,” she said.

In the late afternoon, Mayer swapped her high heels for sneakers and we took a brisk walk around Palo Alto, past busy restaurants and multimillion-dollar homes. She was planning to head home to have dinner with her kids and then return to the office.

All the while, her Dazzle assistant had been at work in the background, occasionally texting her with ideas. It had found an indie folk-rock concert and an immersive theater experience it thought Mayer would enjoy and helped find a present — a pair of retro Nike sneakers — for her son's friend's birthday.

She wasn't sold on the concert. "I'm not sure I'm cool enough," she said. But the shoes were perfect.

Inside Anthropic's urgent hunt for computing power

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK HARRIS; PHOTOGRAPHS BY THEA TRAFF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, AJ MAST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, MANUEL ORBECOZO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, CETTY IMAGES

Left, Dario Amodei, Anthropic's chief executive, and top right, Tom Brown, the company's chief compute officer, who led deals with Amazon and Google for computing power.

SAN FRANCISCO

Company raced to strike deals to secure services and hardware vital for A.I.

BY SRI MUPPIDI AND KALLEY HUANG

Late last year, Anthropic's executives were in a bind. Their company, which was growing like a weed, was running out of computing power for artificial intelligence.

The amount of computing power that was needed became a “cone of uncertainty,” Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s chief executive, said at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit in December. “Because the cone is so wide,” he added, “it’s hard to avoid making a mistake.”

The realization sent Anthropic on an all-out effort to obtain more computing power. In the ensuing months, the San Francisco company embarked on a deal spree, according to 14 people with knowledge of the A.I. lab, investors and industry experts.

Anthropic has since signed dozens of contracts with former cryptocurrency miners, data center start-ups, chip-makers and tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and SpaceX to secure enough computing power. It hired experts in data centers, which are the enormous computing sites powering A.I., and bought data center equipment to speed up construction. It met with developers and explored converting old coal plants and factories into data centers. And it considered deals for tiny amounts of computing power that could add up to what it needs.

“Anthropic is gobbling up a lot of the capacity,” said Erik Bernhardsson, the chief executive of Modal, a New York company that sells computing power.

Anthropic's pursuit of computing power, some details of which have not been previously reported, is critical as it tries to lead in A.I. and conduct what could be the largest-ever initial public offering this month. The company needs computing power to develop cutting-edge A.I. models and to deliver products, like the Claude chatbot, to businesses and consumers. The resource is so vital that Anthropic spent more than 10 pages of its public offering prospectus detailing the stakes.

"Our ability to remain at the frontier of A.I. capabilities is substantially dependent on our ability to secure compute at the scale required to sustain all our workloads," the company wrote.

In total, Anthropic has committed a whopping \$895.4 billion through 2045 to computing power and chip deals that it largely cannot back out of, according to its prospectus. This year, it is expected to have more than 3.5 gigawatts of computing power, two people with knowledge of its plans said, or enough electricity to power all the homes in Chicago. Next year, it aims to double that amount, the people said.

But its voracious demands are expensive, intensifying Anthropic's need to go public in an offering that could raise \$100 billion. It is also raising debt financing, including \$63 billion last week, from Wall Street banks and private credit firms. Even so, Anthropic has warned that it may need to seek additional financing sooner than anticipated.

While other A.I. companies also need computing power, giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta have deep pockets and credit histories for buying chips and building data centers. Younger companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have to rely on others for computing power.

Anthropic declined to comment on the record before its I.P.O.

After Anthropic was founded in 2021, it turned to Amazon and Google, which agreed to invest a combined \$6 billion in the start-up in 2023, for computing power. The company then spent much of that money on Amazon's and Google's cloud computing services.

Tom Brown, Anthropic's chief compute officer, spearheaded both deals, two people with knowledge of the company said. He also led efforts to diversify beyond Nvidia's A.I. chips and use chips from Amazon, Google and Advanced Micro Devices, for more options.

Finding enough computing power is “very clearly the bottleneck for all of our progress,” Mr. Brown said at a Group of 20 event in September. “We’re in a huge shortage of the power and labor needed to support the demand for A.I.,” he said.

Last year, Anthropic's A.I. coding tool, Claude Code, became a hit. But as it became popular, the company lacked computing power to meet demand and had to limit free use of its products.

So Anthropic embarked on its deal spree. It has committed \$121.3 billion to computing power from Google, \$110 billion with Amazon, \$44.9 billion with Microsoft and \$120.5 billion with SpaceX through 2036, according to its prospectus.

Anthropic also started working with “neoclouds,” companies that provide computing power, including a \$50 billion deal with one called Fluidstack and a \$41.3 billion deal with another, Lambda. And it is working with former crypto miners like TeraWulf and Hut 8 to construct the data centers.

Unlike Amazon and Microsoft, which are backlogged with demand for their computing power, neoclouds and former crypto miners have access to land and power for data centers and can bring computing power online sooner.

For even more speed, Anthropic is helping to design the data centers that other companies will build and operate. It has added construction and supply chain experts, three people with knowledge of its plans said, and is buying chips directly from Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom for the computing sites. It is also buying cooling systems and other equipment for the chips so data center operators can install the components faster, two people said.

"We operate as one team," said Asher Genoot, Hut 8's chief executive.

Starting last year, Anthropic met with developers in Texas, Indiana and other states about building data centers, according to four people with knowledge of its plans. It has asked some developers about their permits and connection to the power grid, two of those people said.

The efforts have faced hurdles. In one instance, Fluidstack pushed back against some Anthropic data center designs over concerns about power fluctuations that could cut off electricity and damage equipment, before reaching a solution, two people familiar with the situation said.

In another instance, TeraWulf, which is building a data center for Anthropic in upstate New York, was competing for electricians with the owners of the Buffalo Bills' football stadium. Anthropic and TeraWulf ultimately asked the local electricians' union for names of traveling electricians from other areas, even though it would make the project more expensive, TeraWulf's chief executive, Paul Prager, said.

Anthropic has started considering sites with at least 200 megawatts, or enough electricity to power about 140,000 U.S. homes, according to three people familiar with the plans. That is less power than the company originally wanted but a faster way to get what it needs. It has since become open to data centers as small as 50 megawatts and would supplement the sites with power from batteries and natural gas, the three people said.

John Tough, a managing partner of Energize Capital, which invests in data center technology, said Anthropic did not control the pipelines of computing power, so it might have to settle for building “gigawatts, megawatts at a time.”

"The next best thing is to scavenge the world to figure out where there's power lines," he said.

ALBERTO MIRANDA

Trump's rotten character is on the ballot

Will Americans decide, at long last, that decency does matter?

Howell Raines

A classic work of political science, "The Presidential Character" by James David Barber, offers a crystalline summation of what the presidency requires. Presidents must be protectors of "the respectability — even religiosity — of the office," providing citizens a sense of "reassurance," "progress" and "idealism." To meet this test, a subhead of Mr. Barber's first chapter offers a maxim: "Personality shapes performance."

tide has swept that mechanism away, along with the Washington etiquette book.

PRESS RELATIONS is a good place to start with Jimmy Carter, whom I covered during his Georgia governorship for The Atlanta Constitution and during his presidential campaigns for The St. Petersburg Times and The New York Times. Contrary to his soft manners, Mr. Carter had a steely core shaped at Annapolis and was calculating about

Carter. There was clearly no political gain in his decisions to focus on cervical cancer screenings and day care for special needs children, both transformative in the poor counties of rural Georgia.

Highly empathetic, Mr. Carter could sometimes seem ill at ease in casual social settings. President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush were his opposites in that regard. The elder Bush talked a good game of "kinder and gentler," but he was myo-

Hunt, The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau chief, over Mr. Hunt's coverage of his father. When I was editing the editorial page, he asked me how I felt about moving from Washington to New York. "I can't stand that place," he said with startling candor.

My takeaway was that the elder Bush's homespun affectations — like his preference for pork rinds and country music — were politically calculated, while W.'s preference for the crude charms of Texas was unfeigned shirted network cameraman who was a California bodybuilder. Reagan was encircled by reporters who asked how he felt about the jokes about approaching his 70th birthday. Well, he said, I enjoy everything that a younger man enjoys. The winking response was an amusing parry of a question that Mr. Trump most likely would have greeted with vulgarity.

In his relaxed way, Reagan never let his ideology become a MAGA-like straitjacket. When he and Tip O'Neill

Mr. Barber's book, published in 1972, is a sweeping study of the importance of character, image, ethics, political dexterity and performative talent, from Woodrow Wilson through the collapse of Richard M. Nixon. His system of classifying presidential performance was vastly influential among my generation of national political correspondents. I am among the hundreds of journalists who had a ringside seat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That doesn't allow for personal intimacy, but regular exposure to a president's public acts, and interviews with his chosen courtiers, does allow one to take the measure of a chief executive. Presidents operate in plain sight, and they can't hide their core traits over time.

President Trump is dwarfed by his predecessors. I can attest that even in disgrace, the private Nixon had an aura of ravaged dignity that remained presidential in scale. When I watch the current president and his toadies wreck our patriotic landmarks and essential tools of governance, I recall the lament of Riddley Walker, the eponymous hero of the 1980 Russell Hoban novel. It was a best seller among intellectuals who thought a supposedly dimwitted and warlike Ronald Reagan would usher in a dystopian future. Riddley, deprived of education and speaking a degenerated dialect, is nonetheless an acute observer of the radioactive ruins of a once great technological society. He glimpses the majesty of what has been lost, saying, "O what we ben! And what we come to!"

By ending the Cold War, Reagan taught us the limits of prediction and the indispensable asset of a calm, balanced personality and, dare one say it in this environment, a kindly nature — something sorely lacking in Mr. Trump's offenses against good taste and common-sense management. Mr. Barber's work can seem demonstrably dated — he died in 2004 — since the MAGA faithful, in two watershed elections, chose vengeance over idealism, retribution over healing. Yet in one respect, Mr. Barber seems morbidly prescient in defining the playbook by which three presidents of benign intent — Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson — drove down their approval ratings by a "narrow insistence on a failing course of action despite abundant evidence of the failure." How better to describe Mr. Trump's decision to launch a so far winless conflict in Iran under the guidance of a madcap secretary of war?

THE HISTORICAL RECORD will show that Mr. Trump fails to measure up, even allowing for the grandiose private failings of a Nixon or a Bill Clinton. The videotaped highlights of Mr. Trump's cabinet meetings could be marketed for reality television as "Spoiled Trust Fund Brats of New York." What we are witnessing on the ravaged White House grounds is a kind of low-rent yard sale devoted to race cars, wrestling and housebroken rockers. Even his presumptive heirs have demeaned themselves: JD Vance by cheapening the word "hillbilly" in a book about his ersatz Appalachian upbringing, and Marco Rubio, the intellectual star of the cabinet, by defending nutty policies on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

Taken as a group, Mr. Trump's management team has defeated the political journalism rulebook. As Richard Reeves observed in New York magazine in 1974, political "journalism has its limits" in describing ineptitude. Recounting President Gerald Ford's bumbling speech to a Republican rally in Colorado, he reported, "President Ford had nothing to say and said it badly to a friendly and respectful but slightly stunned crowd of 5,000." He added, "It is not a question of saying the emperor has no clothes — there is a question of whether there is an emperor."

The midterm elections will test Mr. Barber's central maxim that character matters. The public expected commanders in chief "to personify our betterness in an inspiring way," he wrote, to exhibit "a moral idealism" that is "the very opposite of 'politics.'" Was this era of role model presidents ended by Mr. Trump's monetization of the White House, and the unregulated machinations of billionaires? Mr. Barber would have argued that Mr. Trump's excesses must surely trigger the self-correcting pendulum of the old democracy. The elections of 2026 and 2028 will tell us whether the digital

using the press. He first tried seduction, as when he volunteered a scathing assessment of the corruption of Georgia's highway director. Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, and I were in a state plane on a trip to the director's Georgia hometown, and he spoke with such vehemence that his wife tried to hush him. He reminded her, a little snappishly, that he and I had already agreed we were off the record. He was testing my honesty and also providing useful evidence to her role as a key political adviser. From his point of view, the worst that could happen was that a harshly true assessment of a political enemy would show up in the state's paper of record. He wanted to show that he had the steel spine required at Annapolis.

I kept my word about this off-the-record rant but soon got my own snapping-at for an article that angered him. Mr. Carter had spoken at a medical meeting outside the state, touching on health care reforms that were not popular in Georgia. I made that the news of my account, and the next day I encountered Mr. Carter at the western entrance to the Capitol. He angrily said I had ignored his main points. I responded that I was exercising my right to selectivity in what I chose to report. "Next time, be less selective," he snorted, marching away across the rotunda.

The experiences contrast with Mr. Trump in several ways. No previous Georgia governor held such frequent news conferences for the useful civic purpose of informing voters about a feckless legislature. Looking back, I realized Mr. Carter was rehearsing for his then-secret presidential aspirations. He was schooling himself in the rhetorical precision that seems to have eroded for Mr. Trump. In the Oval Office, stately address has yielded to the stream-of-consciousness rant, often with sexist targeting. And compassion, a quality glaringly missing in Mr. Trump, came naturally to Mr.

pic about the impact of his tightfisted social policies. I had breakfast with him and Barbara Bush in their private quarters one frigid winter morning. Bush had invited me to go fishing with him and a local anchorman on the Potomac. In clear view along Pennsylvania Avenue were homeless people, bundled against the cold. How, I wondered, could they observe this every morning at breakfast and not be moved to a programmatic response to the plight of the unhoused?

President Trump is dwarfed by his predecessors. I can attest that even in disgrace, the private Nixon had an aura of ravaged dignity that remained presidential in scale.

Yet a few hours later, when the fast Coast Guard cutter carrying us hit an underwater object and bent its shaft, Bush displayed a more sensitive side of his personality. As the wounded boat limped along, he went forward and reassured the enlisted helmsman that he was not to blame. Like other politicians raised in privilege, he had

a relaxed social manner. When he hosted his last White House Christmas party after losing the 1992 election, he told me in the receiving line that he had read about my recent promotion at The Times from chief of the Washington bureau to editorial page editor. "Your career is going like this," he said, raising his hand in an upward slant. "And mine is going like this," he added, reversing the gesture to indicate a steep decline.

SUCH GRACE NOTES did not surface frequently with his son, who invited a joking camaraderie with reporters, saddling them with nicknames like "Pancho" that had the effect of putting them in their lesser places. When reportedly drunk, he started an argument in a Dallas restaurant with Al

and real. His main advisers, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, were Lone Star enforcers who made clear to me that they detested the Northeast. They assured me their client had no interest in coming to The New York Times for the editorial board meeting that was traditional for nominees of both parties. I lobbied hard through G.O.P. intermediaries and succeeded in getting their decision reversed. Mr. Bush bounced into the meeting room full of good cheer and small talk as he shook every hand. As he grasped mine, he leaned over and said, "Thank you for setting this up," in a tone that was somewhere between sincerity and an inside joke. At the least, the younger Bush could banter without throwing bomb-like insults.

Mr. Trump would seem to share with Mr. Barber, the political scientist, a high regard for showmanship in presidential role-playing. But Mr. Trump seems not to have studied the timing and flourishes of the master of White House theatricality. Contrast Reagan's bravura moments with the endless filibuster of a Trumpian weave. Reagan was confident that his "Evil Empire" speech and his challenge to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev would scorch their way into the history books. His ease and language have nothing in common with Mr. Trump's mechanical dance steps and depth-charge insults about the stupidity and ugliness of his enemies. One difference is that Reagan had an agile sense of humor and an actor's feel for staging.

I THINK OF THE SUMMER OF 1980, when Ronald and Nancy Reagan leased Wexford, the Blue Ridge farm that John and Jackie Kennedy established as their weekend retreat. One evening, they hosted a garden party for the traveling press corps and the crew, including flight attendants, of their campaign plane. Mrs. Reagan, in a summary dress, moved through the crowd on the muscled arm of a T-

were at swords' points over Social Security in 1983, Reagan's chief of staff, James A. Baker, arranged for secret nighttime meetings at his home, where the two sides made a deal that allowed both men to save face. Reagan, for all his conservative fervor, never feared compromise or tried to humiliate his opponents.

For decades, Hugh Sidey, Time's veteran commentator, closely monitored the appearance of the Oval Office. He regarded its understated décor and buttery light as enduring emblems of presidential character. His book "Portraits of the President" was subtitled "Power and Personality in the Oval Office." The chapter "Home Sweet White House" tracks the subtle adjustments in paint color, drapes and rugs that took place when the elder Bush moved out for Bill Clinton. Historic art pieces were displayed on clean, uncluttered walls. Thanks to criticism on Fox News and the book "Regime Change," we have the image of Mr. Trump gluing clutter to those walls. He claims it is real gold, but the visual statement says Hobby Lobby.

When presidents I observed deployed humor, it was seldom a weapon of ridicule. Mr. Carter told of announcing in an Iowa barbershop that he was running for president. He recalled the barber saying, "Yeah, the boys and I were just laughing about that." I once heard Nixon jest to a small group of reporters about his failure to burn the Watergate tapes. He, like Clinton and the sometimes befuddled Reagan, was a figure of flawed majesty. For the next two years, thoughtful citizens will have no choice but to beat on against the current of a presidency that is all flaws and no majesty.

HOWELL RAINES is a former executive editor of The New York Times. His most recent book is "Silent Cavalry," a Civil War history.

The New York Times

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

A.G. SULZBERGER Publisher

JOSEPH KAHN Executive Editor

MARC LACEY Managing Editor

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MEREDITH KOPIT LEVIEN Chief Executive Officer

MICHAEL GREENSPON Senior V.P. and General Manager

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SUZANNE YVERNÉS International Chief Financial Officer

I still own a DVD player — and you should, too

Radhika Jones

In an era of entertainment abundance, I've been watching less and less. The streaming environment has become tedious. It feels that there is both everything on and nothing on.

That all changed for my family when we got an exciting new device in our home. It doesn't respond to voice commands, but we are totally in control of it. We can see deleted scenes and director's cuts. We can watch the end credits all the way through. You might have heard of this magical machine. It's called a DVD player.

For years, I've been a loyal, if not quite eager, participant in the streaming revolution. I've stayed subscribed through price hikes, bundling, studio mergers and the reintroduction of ads. I am willing to stick through all this, at least as long as Mike White keeps making new seasons of “The White Lotus.” I get that we now inhabit a golden age of, to borrow a

phrase, home box office.

I like that our DVD player is neither smart nor intelligent. You put in the disc, and the movie appears.

Fifteen years ago in The Times, I read an opinion essay about the shadow work created in the digital age. The argument went like this: Technological innovation was meant to empower the consumer through efficiency and convenience. You could pay bills online! You could book your own travel! In reality, it meant that tasks formerly performed by trained professionals were offloaded onto us, with minimal (and now mostly A.I.) customer support.

The shadow work we do online — paying bills, booking travel, making doctor appointments and so on — only grows in complexity, requiring outside authenticators, urgent text codes and verification emails, not to mention innumerable strong passwords instead of fun puns on the name of the family dog.

Watching TV used to be an activity so passive that a potato could perform it. Now, when we get booted from a platform — because of an update or an outage or just because it's Tuesday — I'll stand in front of the screen stabbing the QR code on my phone. I'll enter my Gmail address via remote control three times over. If I'm not around, my husband will dig up the password I wrote down six months ago, which is now almost certainly obsolete, because some data-hack alert caused me to change it on the fly, panicked that a bad actor — and not the kind you find on IMDb — might gain access to my Hulu watch list on the dark web.

And despite all the data they've mined from me, tech platforms don't really know what I want to watch next. I've missed real curation. I want fewer but better choices, and ease of access, especially for comfort viewing.

So last month, after several aborted attempts to make our streaming accounts acknowledge our marital bond, my husband retrieved a decade-old DVD player from a bin of dusty tech in our basement. He brought it upstairs and plugged it in. (Plugged it in!) It was simple to connect, or it must have been, because my husband didn't send me any expletive-filled texts.

I like that our DVD player is neither smart nor intelligent. You put in the disc, and the movie appears. Instead of searching for Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" — and finding it on Prime, only to learn that I have to pay to rent it, and even that would require reinstating my lapsed Prime account, which would require reckoning with my many feelings about Amazon — I can put on the Criterion Collection DVD of "Rushmore" I acquired two decades ago and spend my mental energy on Bill Murray rather than Jeff Bezos. (Speaking of the Criterion Collection, you know why all the celebrities who visit the Criterion Closet look so happy? It's because they're surrounded by DVDs!)

One of the perks of being a pack rat (and having a basement) is that I've saved all my mix tapes, CDs and

DVDs. We have three seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and a box set of "The Wire." We have the BBC's "Bleak House" and A&E's "The Jewel in the Crown." We have "The Dark Knight," "Up," "Monsoon Wedding," "Bend It Like Beckham," "Parasite" and a two-disc special edition of "A Room With a View." Now — or rather, again! — we can watch them with the press of a button.

To be clear: I am not a Luddite. I have no interest in giving up my smartphone. I use a running app. I listen to audiobooks made available to me by Libby and Spotify, via Bluetooth earbuds. I'm not an analog fetishist either. I mean, yes, we have started collecting vinyl again, but I don't want a VCR. I had one the first time around. The tapes take too long to rewind.

Last weekend I put on my DVD of Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman," a film I adore but hadn't seen in years because none of the services I pay for offer it. I'm not going to claim that the act of placing the disc in the tray and watching it slide into the machine counts as meditative, but it does create a certain sense of ceremony. Once the movie was underway (and we remembered how to turn on subtitles), I felt reluctant to pause it. I was catapulted back to a time when the DVD player was the height of technology, when owning movies in the home was a tangible joy and acquiring one was an investment in my future happiness.

My son, who is 12, has lately been asking what we thought the future would be like when we were his age. My cranky response is, "Well, I didn't think it would be so hard just to watch TV!" Instead, we tell him about the existential hopes and fears of our youth. And to balance out the heavy stuff, I cued up the first two "Back to the Future" DVDs, which he found both hilarious and informative.

The first one highlights all the cutting-edge gadgets we grew up with in the '80s ("Is that a Walkman?!"). The second one introduces a late-1980s vision of 2015. There are flying cars and hoverboards, self-fastening sneakers and voice-activated home screens. There's also a flashy holographic cinema house, from whose marquee a shark emerges to engulf Marty McFly in its jaws.

Those filmmakers didn't predict an entertainment era defined by consolidation, global scale and wireless rentals for \$3.99. But they did get one thing right: We still love being swept away by a movie.

Looking at my shelf of films and series, title by title, I feel connected to the self I was when I first encountered them. I saw “Eat Drink Man Woman” for the first time at a movie theater in Hong Kong in the fall of 1994. I was about to move to Taiwan for six

RUVANBOSHOFF/GETTY IMAGES

months, and the movie, set in bustling Taipei, gave me my first vivid glimpse of what life there would be like. Mr. Lee's film became as much a memory of that chapter of my 20s as my actual memories. I have watched it many times, and I plan to watch it many times more.

My DVDs are all time capsules now, even the recent ones. And I no longer need to remember a password to enter my own past.

RADHIKA JONES is a former editor in chief of Vanity Fair and a former editorial director of books at The Times. She is at work on a memoir about reading, and writes a newsletter on literature and culture.

The case for psychedelics in the I.C.U.

Daniela J. Lamas

Contributing Writer

DADU SHIN

My patient sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. She looked terrified. The cancer had eaten through her bones, and she was dying. It was difficult to witness her suffering. I cannot imagine what it was like to be inside her body.

We gave her meds to calm her, meds so she would sleep, anything to bring her — and perhaps us — relief. Slowly, they kicked in. Her eyes closed. She appeared more peaceful. But I wondered whether we could have done something more for her than to blunt her consciousness.

A growing body of research suggests that psychedelics — psilocybin in particular — can ease the existential terror and despair that so often accompany dying. Psilocybin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, acts on the brain’s serotonin receptors to produce a few hours of altered perception and, in some people, profound shifts in how they understand themselves and their lives. Researchers believe the drug briefly makes the brain more flexible, making patients more receptive to the therapy that comes along with it. This summer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized its guidance on how psychedelic drugs should be studied, and in September it held a public hearing on how they might one day be delivered: who should be trained to give them, how patients should be screened and monitored, how they will be paid for. The F.D.A. could decide whether to approve psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression as soon as early next year.

But this research has not made its way to my patients — not into the I.C.U., and barely into the hospital at all. I don't think that's only because our sickest patients are too sick or unstable to safely take part, nor is it because research on psychedelics requires a hefty infrastructure that many hospitals don't have. I think there is something else at play here. Medicine has developed many tools for suppressing suffering, but fewer for cultivating meaning or peace.

Since 2016, when researchers gave psilocybin to patients with life-threatening cancer as part of early landmark studies, a small but consistent body of trials has found that psilocybin gives patients something clinicians rarely get to offer: improvements in patients' reported sense of meaning, spiritual well-being and ability to face what's coming. The patients in these and other psychedelic studies receive therapy sessions before and after taking the drug and are accompanied by trained mental health facilitators who can provide support during a four- to six-hour "trip," when the patients are experiencing altered consciousness. Scientists are still working out exactly how psilocybin works. One hypothesis is that it temporarily disrupts some of the brain networks that tend to re-

inforce habitual patterns of thought,

potentially making those patterns less

rigid.

Some medical researchers have cautioned that the early enthusiasm for these drugs may be getting ahead of the science. The hardest problem for testing their efficacy is that psychedelic trials are almost impossible to blind: If you've taken psilocybin, you know it. Patients who know they've received

Medicine has developed many tools for suppressing suffering, but fewer for cultivating meaning or peace.

something they've read could change their lives may feel better partly for that reason, or because of the dedicated therapy that comes with it — regardless of the drug. There have also been accounts of harm, such as persistent anxiety following psychedelic experiences, especially when the drugs are used outside of research settings.

But for a dying patient, the outcome we're after — less terror, more meaning

— is subjective. If some of the benefit comes from the attention, the sense that someone is trying to help, those are important data. We owe these patients rigorous studies rather than hopeful anecdotes.

Psychedelic trials tend to enroll patients who are medically stable and can participate in hours of preparatory therapy, the supervised psychedelic trip and weeks of follow-up. But what about patients like mine, who spend weeks or months in the hospital, waiting for an improvement in their condition that may never come? As regulators and health officials begin to shape how these treatments will be delivered, they should consider whether and how they could be offered to hospitalized patients, too. A dying patient may be too ill to travel to a clinic — and too distressed to wait for a treatment model designed for someone else.

For now, what's available to us in the hospital is ketamine, which is pharmacologically different than classic psychedelics but has similar properties; we can already use it for sedation and pain control. Unlike psilocybin, ketamine doesn't require a guided, hours-long session to administer, and its effect is often fast. In one case report, a 78-year-old woman with advanced cancer who had lost her wish to keep living received a single ketamine infusion. Her desire to hasten death disappeared within days and stayed gone for nearly a week. One case doesn't prove this drug would be effective for everyone, and the more rigorous trials of ketamine have had mixed results. But if there are other patients in the I.C.U. who might have a similar benefit, even a few days of relief may be worth studying.

Dr. Zachary Sager, a palliative care doctor and psychiatrist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has used ketamine in the I.C.U. to try to provide this relief to patients, accompanied by therapy. For some patients — particularly those who were stuck in a cycle of fear and distress — he saw a benefit. “While this of course needs more research, some individuals experienced increased peace and comfort,” he told me.

Medicine is extraordinarily good at taking things away: pain, anxiety, appetite, consciousness. Those of us in the profession are less practiced at asking what we might give back, especially if the experience might be described as pleasurable or meaningful. I have long yearned for some way to offer my patients something more at the ends of their lives. I offer milkshakes, a favorite food, even alcohol — all the things we deprived them of when we were offering life-prolonging care. Most often, people say no. They are too sick. There is a part of me that is looking to the research on psychedelics in much the same fashion, as a way to offer something beyond what we have in these four walls. I cannot offer religion. I cannot offer a cure. I cannot make death not be death. But if there is some way that I can help people believe that there is more than this, that life is not just short and absurd, then maybe I can do that for myself, too.

DANIELA J. LAMAS is a pulmonary and critical care physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Lula's victory and gauging a hemisphere

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil at a rally in São Paulo in October.

NATACHA PISARENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

SHIFTER, FROM PAGE 1 establishments.

To some extent, Brazil's election complicates this picture. Mr. Lula is, after all, an incumbent who managed to overcome considerable dissatisfaction with his government to win October's election. But Brazilians had already lived through four years of Jair Bolsonaro's Trump-backed right-wing populism. In the presidential runoff, thanks to a campaign powered by digital grass-roots mobilization, they rejected a return to that political project under his son Flávio — who almost immediately absconded to the United States, apparently fleeing a web of criminal investigations at home.

Mr. Lula's victory should not be interpreted as an emerging leftward swing in Brazil, or in the region, where conservatives remain a formidable political force. What the final verdict does suggest is that Latin America's electoral volatility is driven less by ideology, or even the rejection of incumbents, than by voters' judgments about competing political alternatives and their records in office.

For the new crop of right-wing leaders, whose ascent began with the election of Argentina's Javier Milei in 2023, delivering on their promises has already proved a tall order. Crime and economic stagnation are complicated problems that defy quick solutions. Already, there are signs that some of the right's new guard are floundering and losing popular support. Not even a year after taking office, Bolivia's Rodrigo Paz, Chile's José Antonio Kast and Peru's Keiko Fujimori all face plummeting approval ratings. Mr. Milei, a close ally of Mr. Trump's, faces mounting political difficulties as he approaches his bid for re-election next year. The same impatient electorates that propelled him and other leaders into office could just as readily turn against them.

These right-leaning leaders hardly constitute a cohesive political movement. They differ in their convictions, governing styles and policy priorities.

Just as tensions have always divided Latin America's left-wing governments, today's right-wing bloc is quarrelsome and fragmented. Despite their ideological affinity, for example, Mr. Kast and Mr. Milei recently clashed over longstanding territorial disputes, stirring nationalist sentiments.

True, the region is largely aligned on tougher security policies in response to mounting public concern about crime. Over the past decade, driven by a booming global drug trade, criminal organizations have amassed power and territory throughout the region, expanding from illicit activities into informal economies and laying waste to vulnerable communities. Over a dozen governments in the region now

participate in the United States-led Shield of the Americas, a hemispheric initiative aimed at combating drug cartels and transnational organized crime.

Concerns about policy autonomy and national sovereignty extend across the political spectrum, including to right-leaning governments in Peru, Chile and Colombia.

But governments are being forced to think through how far to accommodate Washington's demands for a more militarized approach to law enforcement. Con-

cerns about policy autonomy and national sovereignty extend across the political spectrum, including to right-leaning governments in Peru, Chile and Colombia, whose political affinity with Washington does not necessarily mean subordinating their national interests to U.S. priorities. Those national interests include their relationships with China: While right-leaning governments may feel considerable political kinship with the Trump administration, most also have vital economic relationships with Beijing that transcend political orientation and that they cannot or will not sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Washington is losing the confidence of people who voted Mr. Trump's regional allies into power. The 2026 Latinobarómetro survey — conducted after Mr. Trump's launching of the Iran war — showed that 59 percent of Latin Americans disapprove of his handling of international affairs. The share of Latin Americans who express trust in the U.S. government has fallen to 40 percent from 62 percent in 2012, according to AmericasBarometer. (Trust in China has dipped more slightly, to 51 percent from 57 percent.)

That free fall in trust has played out as the Trump administration's policies have grown increasingly aggressive and interventionist. Tariffs, sanctions and political pressure, together with the brutal treatment of Latin American immigrants in the United States and ongoing extrajudicial boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific, have reinforced longstanding suspicions of American power — and of the advantages of being in America's spotlight. The 2026 Latinobarómetro survey revealed that while 69 percent of Latin Americans approved of the U.S. military operation in January that re-

moved Nicolás Maduro, only 35 per-

cent believed it had benefited Venezuela.

Those figures, and Mr. Lula's upset in Latin America's most populous country — as well as the enduring popularity of Mexico's leftist leader, Claudia Sheinbaum — belie the Trump administration's exuberant claims about the roaring success of its Latin America policy and its reassertion of an American sphere of influence in the hemisphere. Washington has been celebrating what it sees as a historic foreign policy achievement in a region where, among voters, its reputation has suffered damage that will take years to repair. What looked on the surface like a new era of hemispheric convergence could turn out to be another chapter in a long history of missed connections.

MICHAEL SHIFTER is a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank focused on the Western Hemisphere, and teaches Latin American politics at Georgetown University and George Washington University.

How did we begin? Three turning points.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY WILL WARASILA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The pace of evolution sped up inexplicably at these critical junctures

BY WILLIAM J. BROAD,

KENNETH CHANG

AND CARL ZIMMER

Life on planet Earth is a riot of diversity: ants and elephants, frogs and blue whales, tulips and redwoods, even a branch of the great apes known as humans. Uniting it all is biochemistry, in particular the shared biochemistry of genetic inheritance — DNA and RNA, the universal instruction kits of life.

Tracing these biochemical threads back through time has convinced many scientists that all life descends from a so-called Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA, that emerged between 4 billion and 4.5 billion years ago, after Earth itself congealed from the gas and detritus of a nascent solar system. How this LUCA rose from the primordial stew may be impossible to ever say definitively. No fossils exist to provide a window onto that moment in time, and scientists have no point of comparison: So far, Earth is the only place in the universe known to harbor life.

After that initial “how,” the questions become marginally easier for scientists to address. Here’s what’s known about three of the biggest inflection points in the evolution of life on Earth.

4 BILLION YEARS AGO:

WHERE DID LIFE FIRST EMERGE?

WHERE DIED ELLY FIRST EMERGE!

Scientists agree on little regarding the origins of life, including where it might have arisen — at Earth's surface, or in its watery depths.

"It's hard to answer these questions," said Joanna Masel, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. "The evidence is sketchy. So people argue."

On one side is the primordial soup hypothesis: Life originated from natural chemical reactions in Earth's primal waters, which formed a broth of organic compounds.

Charles Darwin floated the idea in 1871, when he proposed that “some warm little pond” was responsible for life’s origin. A few simple chemicals and sources of energy, he suggested, such as natural heat and electricity, might have joined together to form molecules “ready to undergo still more complex changes.” These in turn would have led to the first life form: a tiny sack of chemicals able to divide and make copies of itself.

The hypothesis got its first serious test in 1953. Stanley L. Miller, then a graduate student at the University of Chicago, filled a flask with water as well as ammonia, methane and hydrogen, gases that were considered to be abundant in the early atmosphere.

Then, to mimic a lightning strike, he introduced sparks. Days later, the simple molecules had given rise to amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and virtually all planetary life.

But the amino acids never advanced in complexity, and excitement ebbed as scientists rethought the composition of the primordial air. Some years later, researchers detected amino acids in meteorites, which suggested that the building blocks of life may have rained down from the heavens, putting another potential dent in the primordial soup theory.

On the other side of the argument is the watery-depths camp. In 1977, American scientists exploring the Pacific seabed stumbled upon an alien world of volcanic vents and otherworldly ecosystems, including eerie fields of albino tube worms. They drew their energy not from sunlight, which powers surface ecosystems, starting with plants, but instead from chemicals emitted by the hot springs.

As other deep-sea ecosystems came to light, scientists proposed that all life on Earth had perhaps arisen in the depths, nurtured by a warm, steady diet of chemicals and sheltered from the killer rocks and cosmic radiation that bombarded the planet's surface early on.

The growing wealth of evidence suggests that ultimately, both camps of theorists might be right, Dr. Masel said.

"It doesn't have to be one thing," she said. "It's possible that life arose at the hydrothermal vents and also a warm little pond."

Perhaps, she added, life arose independently in disparate ecological niches that remained isolated from one another for ages.

"It looks like the early events happened really, really fast, which points to 'first life' not being the hardest part," she said. "Maybe the origin of life was easier than we thought." WILLIAM J. BROAD

2 BILLION YEARS AGO:

HOW DID LIFE GET COMPLEX?

About two billion years ago, a new kind of cell emerged on Earth, one much bigger and more complex than the microbes that had come before. Today, these so-called eukaryotic cells inhabit our own bodies, as well as those of other animals, plants and fungi. How this new brand of cell emerged remains one of biology's great mysteries.

“Eukaryotic” comes from a Greek term meaning “true nut,” a reference to the nucleus, the compartment in which eukaryotic cells coil their DNA. Eukaryotic cells have many other vital compartments, including thousands of mitochondria, which generate energy. The huge volume of a eukaryotic cell is supported by a scaffolding that can be quickly dismantled and reassembled; it also serves as an internal shipping network, whizzing packages of molecules from one compartment to another.

In contrast, a single-celled microbe such as Escherichia coli is far simpler. No mitochondria, no scaffolding, no nucleus; a nut-free "prokaryote."

Eukaryotes — organisms composed of eukaryotic cells — all descend from a common ancestor, which in turn descended from ancient prokaryotes. The earliest eukaryotes were single-celled protozoans; their oldest known fossils date back 1.8 billion years. How long before that the first eukaryotes evolved, scientists can't say.

Living organisms have offered important clues to this transition. In the past decade, scientists have discovered a lineage of microbes known as Asgards that bear many, but not all, of the hallmarks of eukaryotes. For instance, they have a cellular skeleton that helps them crawl, but have no nucleus or mitochondria.

The current thinking is that Asgards descend from the forerunners of eukaryotes. Early Asgard-like organisms acquired some eukaryote features through ordinary natural selection: Mutations altered their cells, conferring advantages they passed down to their descendants today.

The broad outlines of eukaryote origins are now coming into focus, but many pages of the story are still blank. Scientists don't yet know how all the parts that make up the nucleus came together, for instance.

And they don't know why the merging of microbes apparently gave rise to big, complex cells just once in the history of life. Was there some exquisitely rare set of circumstances that allowed it to happen? Or did evolution conduct other experiments in complexity that ended in extinction long ago?

One thing is clear: Once the eukaryote cell evolved, Earth was never the same. From coral reefs and giant squid to Amazonian rainforests and vast herds of wildebeest on the African savanna, eukaryotes gave rise to all the life we can see, including the one in the mirror. CARL ZIMMER

580 MILLION YEARS AGO: WHY DID LIFE GET BIG?

The advent of eukaryotes set up the evolutionary foundations for coral reefs and herds of wildebeest, but it took life a long time to have a growth spurt.

Indeed, the billion years that followed are often called “the boring billion.” Evolution appeared to stagnate; life stayed almost entirely microscopic. Even the tectonic plates pressed pause, leaving the continents mountainless. Then, about 720 million years ago, the world went haywire.

First, Earth froze over, sealing the planet in an icy shell that blocked sunlight from the oceans and shut off photosynthesis.

Except for a 10-million-year thaw in the middle of it, Earth remained a shiny white snowball, not a blue marble, for 85 million years.

Scientists marvel that life did not die out. Instead, after that long era of darkness, it underwent a mysterious jump in size and complexity.

"That is the absolute wackiest interval of Earth history that anyone's aware of," said Nick Butterfield, a paleobiologist at Cambridge University in England. "You go in the one end, and it's this old, dreary, boring microbial world, and you come out the other end after these two massive glaciations, and all of a sudden, there's animals on the scene, and all the microbes have changed."

The changes were so striking that in 2006, scientists named a new geological period to encompass them: the Ediacaran. It began around 635 million years ago, with the thawing of “Snowball Earth,” and ended roughly 540 million years ago with the start of the Cambrian Era.

Guy Narbonne, a geological scientist at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, has studied fossils of large, soft-bodied animals that lived during the Ediacaran at a site known as Mistaken Point, at the southeastern tip of Newfoundland. The creatures include rangeomorphs, marine animals that looked like palm fronds and could reach the height of a modern basketball player. Others were round and the size of coins. Some, perhaps early sponges, were cone-shaped.

Scientists don't know why the merging of microbes apparently gave rise to big, complex cells just once in the history of life.

For Dr. Narbonne, the story is straightforward: The omnipresent glaciers crushed rocks as they moved across the landscape. When they receded, the sediment washed into the ocean, spurring algal blooms that raised oxygen levels and made possible the greater metabolism required by larger creatures.

"I can't think of a better way of fertilizing the oceans than to have glaciers melt after the end of a glaciation," Dr. Narbonne said.

But some scientists doubt the oxygen story, including Donald Canfield, a geochemist at the University of Southern Denmark, who performed the analysis that is often cited as evidence of an oxygen increase during the early Ediacaran.

"I've had somewhat of a change of mind," Dr. Canfield said. He now thinks that oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere then were low, but significant and steady — about 4 to 10 percent of current levels.

Dr. Butterfield, for his part, thinks that scientists have been looking at the question backward. He proposes that complex animals began to appear before Snowball Earth, not afterward, simply as the culmination of random genetic mutations.

This revolution in evolution, he says, upended the food chain, altered the chemistry of the oceans, pulled carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere — and tipped the world into a frozen state. Big life caused Snowball Earth, not the other way around. "To my eye, the single most insulting, ecologically insulting, thing that has ever been imposed on this planet," Dr. Butterfield said, "is animals." KENNETH CHANG

Clues in Viking graves fill out a simplistic picture

with personhood and distinct societal status.

PRISMA ARCHIVO/ALAMY

Not monomaniacal thugs, the raiders formed diverse communities on the move

BY FRANZ LIDZ

Vikings have long occupied a secure if bloody niche in our collective imagination: pagan maritime marauders, perpetually furious and forever silhouetted against a burning monastery.

If there is a scholar who has emphatically pushed against this cinematic cliché, it is Neil Price.

A London-born archaeology professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, Dr. Price has worked to dismantle the image of the horn-helmeted brute through years of painstaking research. His 2020 book “Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings” used that research to build a broad historical scaffolding of how the Viking world worked.

It suggested that “Viking” was never an ethnicity at all. It was a job description that included overseas raiding and seafaring expeditions.

Dr. Price's latest book, "The Sea-King and the Sorceress: Life and Death in the Viking Age," humanizes that world even further by diving into the distinct histories of 21 people from ancient Norse burial sites.

According to Dr. Price, the terrifying armies that descended upon Europe from A.D. 750 to 1050 were not a monolith. They were essentially migrating communities, driven from their homelands by profound social, political and economic upheavals. These communities traveled with women, children and the domestic clutter of a displaced diaspora.

Viking society thus was a fluid melting pot that absorbed Arctic hunters, Persian nobility and Indigenous Sami nomads into its cultural fabric. The Norse also treated certain animals, specifically bears, not as property or prey, but as individual beings endowed

To meet a bear in the woods was to meet another citizen of the cosmos.

Vikings, the book shows, were far more complex — and far more diverse — than the popular narrative makes them out to be.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Most Viking histories fixate on Scandinavian raiders rampaging in England. Your work reveals instead a mobile society stretching from Greenland to Greece. Why does the rest of the world keep getting the Viking map so wrong? The lingering effects of the Cold War dropped an absolute barrier across European scholarship. Russian and the languages of Asia — the diaspora extended way beyond Greece — also tend not to feature in the skill set of Anglophone medieval historians. The other stories were not being told internationally, quite simply.

Was there a specific moment during your research when a long-held academic consensus cracked right in front of you?

It was a sort of epiphany, shared by many colleagues, I should add, realizing that the diaspora was truly vast. The Rosetta Stone there is a ninth-century report by an intelligence officer from the Caliphate, which relates how the Rus' — that is, with some caveats, the Norse in the east — journeyed all the way to China. Wait, what? The archaeology is starting to back that up.

You populated this book with diplomats, shape-shifters and nomads. If you threw a dinner party with three of your historical subjects, who gets an invite?

I'd love to talk with al-Ghazal, the Andalusi ambassador to the Vikings, but you'd need to be careful of his charm. It would also be fun to speak to the Varangian, the warrior who carved on the Piraeus lion. Lastly, I'd invite Astrior Sigfastsdottir, the high-status matriarch, who'd make entertainingly short work of the other two.

A definite Maggie Smith vibe there, though like most of the wealthy Norse she was a slave owner.

We should not be disingenuous about any of them.

How does the Norse concept of the natural world differ from our rigid division between human and animal?

The Norse saw sentience all around them in an ensouled world — in animals certainly, but also in trees, plants, rocks and more. When the goddess Frigg tries to ensure that nothing will ever harm her son Baldr, she even extracts promises from metals and diseases.

LINDA QVISTROM

Viking graves have yielded artifacts like the chieftain's helmet, left. A new book by Neil Price, above, shows how Vikings were essentially migrating communities.

For that matter, the Norse also believed that their weapons were alive, with names, personalities and biographies.

Which Viking trait mirrors our own modern anxieties, and which behaviors remain utterly alien? Beyond the drama of the sagas, it's clear that a refusal to give up was something they really valued, and I like that. The violence of their funerals

— the killing of both people and animals to accompany the dead — alongside the performative drama that could last for days, still sends a chill through me.

When looking at the sorceresses and the spiritual practices detailed in "Sea-King," what did the archaeology reveal that the written sagas entirely left out?

That the saga sorceresses were actually real, not medieval fiction. That's not to say I believe in their magic, but they certainly did. The most important new information, though, was the detail of their equipment and clothes, what they really looked like. One of them was buried with white lead makeup and silver toe rings. Who knew?

What was the core visual aesthetic of the rest of the Viking world? Definitely "dress to impress." They blinged out their clothes and themselves to the limit of what they could afford: silver jewelry, bright colors, shimmering silks, body art, makeup, even mirrors sewn into their clothes. Shiny people, and hard to ignore.

What was the most shocking discrepancy between how the Vikings viewed their own lives versus how their victims wrote about them?

I think it has to do with moral value. Norse moral codes were not only utterly different from our own, but also from those of most of their neighbors. Above all, there was little concept that what you did in life affected your fate after death, the complete opposite to Christian belief. One of the biggest shifts we see happening during the Scandinavian conversion to Christianity can be found on runic memorials, where the Norse start claiming that their dead relatives were “good” people. They needed to believe that, thinking of Heaven and salvation, when they’d never had to before. It kind of messed with their minds.

What did you find most disquieting about the way life and death unfolded within the Viking world? One thing that surprised me was to learn that the average life span really was about 42, even assuming you were one of the lucky people who made it past the age of 10, or infancy. The Vikings lived fast and had to make it count; someone in their 60s or 70s was very old indeed.

If someone on the subway spots your book and asks, "So, is this 'Vikings' the TV show or actual history?" what is your response?

It's definitely history. But I'd also say that if you like the TV show, then read the book for the realities behind the story. History is even more entertaining than the drama, and weirder, too.

Invasion of the sexy joke thieves

ON COMEDY

Two examples of heists occurring online with increasing frequency. The victims are primarily young female comics making jokes about dating or sex.

Bodacious A.I. bots are stealing material from young female comedians

BY JASON ZINOMAN

Where were you when the A.I. revolution came for stand-up comedy?

I was looking at my phone not long ago when all of a sudden my social media scrolls filled with teasingly seductive female comedians in front of brick walls, drawing hundreds of thousands of followers through flirty on-stage punchlines.

If the jokes of these Stepford stand-ups, packed into crop tops and body suits, seemed familiar, that's because they were stolen.

One taut, deftly crafted joke by Olivia Carter was copied word for word, with a less expressive delivery.

In another clip, Olga Namer, a real stand-up, exuberantly acted out a date she had with a nice guy with timing and language that was aped by a realistic-looking bot whose more deadpan version ended on a slightly darker note.

I had been a skeptic about the threat that artificial intelligence poses to stand-up comedy. Sure, ChatGPT may spell doom for the screenwriter of “Toy Story 12.” But I’ve spent enough time experimenting with large language models to conclude that they would figure out how to destroy a city before an audience.

That's because laughter is inherently social. So much of the appeal of stand-up is in its connection with another human face, sensibility, consciousness. Or at least, that's what I believed until the invasion of virtual comedians shook my confidence. Now I am here with a warning: Saucy synthetics are coming for our jokes and they might end up taking much more.

Strikingly, this industrial-scale heist swiped from one demographic almost exclusively: young, non-famous female comics making jokes about dating or sex. No bots were aping Jim Gaffigan or Dave Chappelle. But the New York club comic Natalie Cuomo, whose crowd-work videos often go viral, told Deadline.com that seven to 10 of her jokes were taken.

It now seems obvious that A.I. comedy would find success with a bot less like the Terminator than the one in "Ex Machina," the film in which a tech billionaire designs a sexy android to appeal to the male gaze.

After all, Mark Zuckerberg's empire began with male students rating their female classmates. Instagram sex-robot comedy builds on a similar impulse.

What might have been more disturbing than the theft was the response to it. For one thing, I thought the uncanny valley would protect human comedy, because the closer A.I. came to imitating real people, the creepier it would

seem. But the comments on the accounts of these fake comics suggested viewers either couldn't tell the difference between real stand-ups and bots or didn't mind. Being creepy might not matter on a site that can appeal to the creep in everyone.

In early October, many comics whose jokes were stolen posted videos sounding the alarm.

Would it shock you that the response from the platforms was tepid? Adam

JULIA JASUNAS

Mosseri, head of Instagram, commented on the account of one comic, saying that he wanted to drive more traffic to original artists but that it wasn't practical to ban A.I.

Joke stealing has long been considered a reputation-ruining offense. But unlike humans, A.I. comics can't be shamed.

You might say that A.I. is just using the same old Hollywood playbook: selling a version of reality with more sex appeal. The difference is that the tech companies have already manipulated the market to give themselves a better chance of success. As traditional networks decline, young comics rely on social media to make a living. It's where they market their work and make money by going viral — and everyone knows the way to gain followers is through outrage or sex appeal.

Comedians feel pressure to post bikini pics to promote shows. And comment sections filled with men assessing female comics' looks have become normalized. It wasn't that long ago that being attractive was slightly taboo in comedy. Now there's a premium on it.

MANDY MARTINO

In early October, real comics took to social media to call out the A.I. invasion. From left: Julia Jasunas, Mandy Martino, Olivia Carter and Sarah Purdum.

The message received by female comedians is grim. Olga Namer saw a joke of hers get more engagement for an A.I. version of a comic. She posted a video concluding: "I know my writing is good. It's my boobs that are the problem."

OLIVIA CARTER

SARAH PURDUM

We don't know who is behind the fake comedian accounts, but the strategy of stealing from young female comics has a dystopian business logic. Because social media incentives led the real stand-ups to post sexual material, A.I. conveniently has a large supply of jokes to steal. If comedy is a bellwether, this represents a dark future in which tech players exploit human labor until the quality of the imitation is good enough that it can cut us out of the equation.

They started with comics without much fame and clout. But stars shouldn't get too comfortable. Recently, the virtual comedians have moved from standing in clubs to sitting near the desk of fake versions of late night talk-show hosts:

One video combines Conan O'Brien's hair with Jimmy Fallon's face, creating a creature out of a talk-show version of David Cronenberg's "The Fly."

A field day for fans of reading

BRIDEY LEE

BOOK REVIEW

The Brightness

By Chad Harbach. Little, Brown. 672 pp.

\$32.

BY DWIGHT GARNER

A few decades ago, the British book-seller WH Smith began handing out an annual prize called the Thumping Good Read Award. It's mostly gone to thrillers and crime novels. If such a prize existed for ambitious and bold-hearted realist literary fiction, Chad Harbach's new novel, "The Brightness," would be near — and possibly at — the top of this year's pile.

"The Brightness" is a sequel, 15 long years in the making, to Harbach's 2011 novel, "The Art of Fielding." The previous book was a Midwestern campus novel, set at the fictional Westish College in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It was about an infield throw gone wrong and an intergenerational, cross-racial gay love affair. It also detailed the coming-of-age of the college president's daughter, a self-destructive young woman named Pella, who resembled Hester Prynne's daughter, Pearl, in ways that go beyond their names.

The novel was a critical and commercial success and it deserved to be. In baseball terms, it was a mighty line drive into deep center field that became a stand-up triple. It was that rarity: a serious novel, one that drew complicated sustenance from Melville, Hawthorne, Thoreau and Wharton, that was seriously entertaining.

Fifteen years is a long time. Fifteen years ago, Taylor Swift was a country singer and Prince William still had hair. Yet “The Brightness” is so full of life, surprises, close observation, spiraling and interlocking plots, sharp

new characters wheeling into view, striking set pieces, overlapping literary allusions and neo-Updikean craftsmanship that one can feel, on nearly every page, where every month of that time went.

The book has its flaws, including a slightly overdetermined quality (the neo-Updikean craftsmanship can get up your nose), an art-world subplot that feels extraneous and a slackening near the end. But it's a worthy sequel. Though he juggles heavy intellectual and emotional themes, Harbach mostly manages to bear them lightly, as if he were a seal balancing a very large, very dark beach ball on his snout.

Set four years after “The Art of Fielding,” “The Brightness” is largely a campus novel too, albeit a more gothic and moonstruck one. It has some affinities with Donna Tartt’s 1992 book, “The Secret History.” The male characters from “The Art of Fielding” fall away here to make way for a brace of furiously literate and curiously ravishing (everyone in this cupidinous novel is ravishing) women.

In part “The Brightness” is about three female students, Dahlia, Irma and Pammy, who might have dropped sideways out of “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s fond and excruciating comedy-drama series. They semi-ironically call themselves (with shades of Updike) the Witches of Westish.

Together they plan and execute a culture-war provocation that lobs a grenade into the campus's self-satisfied jock culture. I won't give that provocation away, but it has echoes of the Shitty Media Men list that in 2017 drove several prominent editors and writers largely out of public life. As with that list, there is collateral damage.

The girls become media heroes, and media martyrs. The novel's title has several meanings, but it refers at first to a feminist website called The Brightness that signal-boosts the girls' ex-

ploits. (It will put some readers in mind of Jezebel, once part of the Gawker media empire, which had its heyday in the late 2000s to mid-2010s.)

Harbach is a founding editor of the literary magazine n+1, that impeccably footnoted lefty rumpus room, and he knows as much about the undersides of the Manhattan cultural world as he does about baseball and so much else. When he writes a hangover or a dance-off scene, it's a hangover or dance-off scene for the ages.

In part, too, “The Brightness” is about an exclusive and sprawling gay wedding on Block Island (this newspaper’s Weddings section is all over it), where many of the central characters, from this novel and its predecessor, come to wreck themselves. High on the groom's supply of aphrodisiacal weed, as if it were Puck's flower juice in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," some attendees make life-changing mistakes.

The groom is Owen, a young Black gay man, the winner of a Fulbright-like scholarship while at Westish. Now he's a precocious 24-year-old writer with a hit novel called — this is one of the book's metafictional winks — “The Art of Fielding.”

But "The Brightness" ultimately belongs to Pella, the college president's wastrel daughter. She has finally graduated, in her late 20s, after rushing

into and out of an ill-advised marriage. She is in need of solace, a strong post to lean against, and she wishes to put her wild-child days behind her.

She has fallen in love and moved in with Mike, the baseball team captain in the last novel, now a beloved young coach at Westish. She feels safe but smothered, especially when she compares herself to her young friend Irma. This novel finally debouches into New York City, where Pella has decisions to make.

Everyone in this novel seems to be reading Wharton, especially “The House of Mirth.” In an age of lapsing literacy, it’s gratifying to read a novel that treats America’s literary history as a usable past. Pella sees herself in Lily Bart, that novel’s protagonist. She compares being a woman to being an athlete. Pella is outraged to feel that her time, by certain estimations, is already running out. She says to a friend:

When you read the first page, how do you know Lily Bart is screwed? Because she's 29 and single. She's still a total babe, but that doesn't matter. She's on the wrong side of "11 years of late hours and indefatigable dancing."

Like Lily, Pella has no career — no container to fit the riot in her soul. It's a bold move for a male novelist in 2026 to put a woman at the center of a novel, as if he were Flaubert creating Emma Bovary or Tolstoy Anna Karenina. Pella is never quite as vivid as those heroines, but she is a strong and sympathetic controlling presence, one with a roomy humanity, and the reader feels lucky to be able to tag along beside her.

More vibrant are Dahlia and Irma, two of the campus “witches” — Irma especially. She was home-schooled by religious parents and spends her summers waiting tables at Cracker Barrel, but she has an impish demeanor and a startling intellect. She has a “home-spun fervor” and masses of hair piled atop her head: “Prairie hair, premodern hair — it was the girl equivalent of a waist-length beard.”

Perhaps only a bald man could write so vividly, as he does throughout this novel, about hair. A big beehive is always about to come undone somewhere. Like Dolly Parton's Jolene, some women have flaming locks of auburn hair. More saliently, Harbach writes about the blood that flows beneath that hair. This novel is not a soft-focus progressive love-in. Bad witches compete with the good ones for elbow room.

Harbach, on the back flap, resembles both a former shortstop and a younger version of the pitchfork-wielding farmer in Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic." This doesn't matter, except that it reminds you how important Harbach's Midwestern sensibility (he was born in Wisconsin) is to his work.

His stuff has a candor, simplicity and seriousness that puts you in mind of the work of Sherwood Anderson (born in Ohio), Willa Cather (raised in Nebraska) and Jonathan Franzen (born in Illinois). There's a grounded sense of observing from a level field. Like those Midwestern writers, Harbach is, for all his knowingness, a little bit square. This helps. It's as if he's seeing the world for the first time.

Some of the light here is filtered through old stained-glass windows, more literary then ecumenical, and it's a light that touches the oldest things in our makeup.

If this series becomes a trilogy, there's little doubt that Irma, with her bedraggled radiance, will own the final installment. (In one important way, she owns this one, too.) Irma could also be talking about Pella as well when she declares, with equal parts terror and optimism: "My truck's packed. But I don't know where I'm going."

A whole lot of clues, but little mystery

ART REVIEW

Left, Taryn Simon's exhibition “Father Country I Do Love You” is the largest debut of new artwork ever staged at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Above left, survivors of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, perpetrated by Al Qaeda in 1998, and right, a video showing the hand of Simon's father, embedded in a giant marble run that visitors are invited to operate. Lower left, photographs of the former C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame, top, and the reporter Matthew Cooper, bottom.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL TERNA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Taryn Simon documents a career in the F.B.I. Is it good art? Does it matter?

BY JASON FARAGO

Quality takes time to surface; quantity is easier to see. For the New York-based artist Taryn Simon, the challenge of making a photography exhibition has regularly been expressed in metrics: this many years of research, this many miles traveled, this many images, this many texts. The numbers always spiral upward, as does her current show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum — which, true to form, arrived in September with quantitative honors. The first photographer given a solo show in the museum's spiraling galleries. The largest debut of new artwork ever staged at the Guggenheim.

Count how many photos: over 1,700, as well as the videos and sculptures. Clock how many years: almost 10. When this show opened, Vogue praised Simon's bespoke outfits in equally numerical terms: She has "dozens, maybe hundreds" of the same practical skirt with suspenders. The Wall Street Journal, a statistics-loving newspaper, counted how much she walks: "Sometimes I'll hit 30,000 steps before 11 or 12."

What is the function of this quantitative shock and awe? Do numbers have powers that a picture does not? (And most pictures, these days, are made of numbers: ones and zeros, computed billions of times into cyan, magenta, yellow and black.) Since her earliest days, when she photographed exonerated convicts for her series “The Innocents” (2000-3), Simon has tried to visualize murky currents of power with an unrelenting work ethic, not to mention hefty budgets. The force of her pictures lay not just in what they depicted but in the diligence and effort required to capture them. She is the hardest-working woman in the darkroom, and she wants you to know it.

I'm not convinced all this hard work pays off, certainly not in the case of "Father Country I Do Love You," now filling the Guggenheim. It is the second most solipistic exhibition I have ever seen at this museum (last year's Rashid Johnson exhibition is still the vainest), and tragic besides, because Simon really can be an impressive photographer when she uses her powers of persuasion and technical skill more precisely. This show has pictures of real strength and surprise, but they're submerged in a mock-paranoid mapping of recent American history riddled with banalities, affectations, off-key jokes and literal toys. She cannot get out of her own way, and no one at the Guggenheim — which commissioned the work and has now acquired it for its permanent collection — seems to have helped her.

Here's the conceit of "Father Country I Do Love You": In 2017, Simon had lunch with an agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She does not tell us his name, offering instead the James Ellroy-esque detail that they met "at Los Portales, a Mexican restaurant off an airport service road in Maryland." Artist and agent hit it off, and over the coming decade he tells her about his career. At least as he narrates it, it intersected with almost every major episode of political upheaval from the end of the Cold War to the first election of President Trump, when the agent retired. (A frame narrative at the show's start and end invokes Simon's father, who also worked for the U.S. government in a shadowy role — more on that in a spoiler-laden post-script.)

From these conversations, Simon produced 42 sequences of artworks, mostly color-coded photographs: count them, forty-two. The agent describes wiretapping a small-time cocaine dealer in Washington in the early 1990s; here now is the drug dealer, photographed from the back. The agent let Jodie Foster shadow him in preparation for “The Silence of the Lambs,” and here now is Jodie Foster, 35 years older, her fingers inked with proper F.B.I. technique.

Simon travels to Kenya to photograph 36 blinded survivors of the 1998 bombings at the American Embassy in Nairobi, where the agent was stationed; each picture has excessive headroom and plain lighting, and hangs in a uniform tiled display. She heaps McDonald's French fries against a backdrop of Communist Party red: not just any McDonald's fries, but fries purchased at the specific Pennsylvania McDonald's where Mr. Trump staged an election photo op at the drive-through.

We know the artist schlepped to that particular McDonald's because the French fry photos come, as do most images here, with extended captions. These not only specify that the F.B.I. agent enjoyed eating McDonald's at the Beijing Olympics, but offer extra- neous details about earlier McDonald's sponsorships, about limited-edition hamburgers only available in Beijing, and about Mr. Trump's stated desires to serve McDonald's to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.

Taryn Simon documents a career in the F.B.I. Is it good art? Does it matter?

BY JASON FARAGO

Quality takes time to surface; quantity is easier to see. For the New York-based artist Taryn Simon, the challenge of making a photography exhibition has regularly been expressed in metrics: this many years of research, this many miles traveled, this many images, this many texts. The numbers always spiral upward, as does her current show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum — which, true to form, arrived in September with quantitative honors. The first photographer given a solo show in the museum's spiraling galleries. The largest debut of new artwork ever staged at the Guggenheim.

Count how many photos: over 1,700, as well as the videos and sculptures. Clock how many years: almost 10. When this show opened, Vogue praised Simon's bespoke outfits in equally numerical terms: She has "dozens, maybe hundreds" of the same practical skirt with suspenders. The Wall Street Journal, a statistics-loving newspaper, counted how much she walks: "Sometimes I'll hit 30,000 steps before 11 or 12."

What is the function of this quantitative shock and awe? Do numbers have powers that a picture does not? (And most pictures, these days, are made of numbers: ones and zeros, computed billions of times into cyan, magenta, yellow and black.) Since her earliest days, when she photographed exonerated convicts for her series “The Innocents” (2000-3), Simon has tried to visualize murky currents of power with an unrelenting work ethic, not to mention hefty budgets. The force of her pictures lay not just in what they depicted but in the diligence and effort required to capture them. She is the hardest-working woman in the darkroom, and she wants you to know it.

I'm not convinced all this hard work pays off, certainly not in the case of "Father Country I Do Love You," now filling the Guggenheim. It is the second most solipistic exhibition I have ever seen at this museum (last year's Rashid Johnson exhibition is still the vainest), and tragic besides, because Simon really can be an impressive photographer when she uses her powers of persuasion and technical skill more precisely. This show has pictures of real strength and surprise, but they're submerged in a mock-paranoid mapping of recent American history riddled with banalities, affectations, off-key jokes and literal toys. She cannot get out of her own way, and no one at the Guggenheim — which commissioned the work and has now acquired it for its permanent collection — seems to have helped her.

Here's the conceit of "Father Country I Do Love You": In 2017, Simon had lunch with an agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She does not tell us his name, offering instead the James Ellroy-esque detail that they met "at Los Portales, a Mexican restaurant off an airport service road in Maryland." Artist and agent hit it off, and over the coming decade he tells her about his career. At least as he narrates it, it intersected with almost every major episode of political upheaval from the end of the Cold War to the first election of President Trump, when the agent retired. (A frame narrative at the show's start and end invokes Simon's father, who also worked for the U.S. government in a shadowy role — more on that in a spoiler-laden post-script.)

From these conversations, Simon produced 42 sequences of artworks, mostly color-coded photographs: count them, forty-two. The agent describes wiretapping a small-time cocaine dealer in Washington in the early 1990s; here now is the drug dealer, photographed from the back. The agent let Jodie Foster shadow him in preparation for “The Silence of the Lambs,” and here now is Jodie Foster, 35 years older, her fingers inked with proper F.B.I. technique.

Simon travels to Kenya to photograph 36 blinded survivors of the 1998 bombings at the American Embassy in Nairobi, where the agent was stationed; each picture has excessive headroom and plain lighting, and hangs in a uniform tiled display. She heaps McDonald's French fries against a backdrop of Communist Party red: not just any McDonald's fries, but fries purchased at the specific Pennsylvania McDonald's where Mr. Trump staged an election photo op at the drive-through.

We know the artist schlepped to that particular McDonald's because the French fry photos come, as do most images here, with extended captions. These not only specify that the F.B.I. agent enjoyed eating McDonald's at the Beijing Olympics, but offer extra- neous details about earlier McDonald's sponsorships, about limited-edition hamburgers only available in Beijing, and about Mr. Trump's stated desires to serve McDonald's to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.

There are pictures of real strength and surprise, but they're submerged in a mock-paranoid mapping of recent U.S. history.

You will have noticed the tone: connecting the dots, unmasking the truth. These photographs, the show wants us to believe, are not just images, but evidence — shot in the cool style of courtroom exhibits or stock photography. These extended wall labels are not just texts but disclosures, and at the Guggenheim I saw visitors training their camera phones on the labels, rather than the photographs, as if that were where the real work lay. (It takes hours on your feet here to read them all.)

Hanging over this exhibition-as-evidence-locker is Simon's deep-state Zelig, popping up at terrorist attacks, political conventions, at a Capitol shooting. Yet behind the patina of disclosure, Simon behaves like someone who wants her own cover blown. Numerous biographical details in the interviews Simon conducted appear to match the life of Jeffrey Bedford, who served in the F.B.I. from 1989 to 2016, rising to the rank of unit chief. My repeated efforts to contact him at work and through relatives were unsuccessful ful, but Bedford was born in Exeter, N.H., as was Simon's agent. He attended Phillips Exeter, Amherst College and Golden Gate University School of Law before joining the police force in Manchester, N.H.; Simon's agent, she lets him tell us, did all that too.

She does not redact the names of her agent's parents — also the names of Bedford's parents — when she interviews them in a nursing home. Nor does she redact the name of her agent's partner, killed in the line of duty, when she photographs the chaplain who led her funeral; Bedford has publicly discussed his partner's killing on a podcast.

By the show's end she even lets her retired agent disclose that he left the bureau to work in campus security at a "pretty hoity-toity, all girls" school, whose alumnae include Jackie Kennedy. No secret, then, what school that was: the Holton-Arms School, in Bethesda, Md. In 2020, one Jeffrey Bedford published an article on his campus safety work at Holton-Arms, complete with smiling headshot.

These are not secret details; I found them with two minutes on my phone at the Guggenheim's coffee bar. They are so unclassified that Bedford's LinkedIn profile mentions “overseas assignments” in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, which Simon's agent also undertook, “as well as 9/11 at the Pentagon.”

In other words, Simon's cloak of privacy over her agent is a MacGuffin of the most classic Hitchcockian vintage — a performance of protective anonymity, to invest each photograph with the frisson of a political thriller. She even winks at this in the show's one truly great gag: five portraits of Valerie Plame, outed as a covert C.I.A. agent in 2003, posing for Simon in the disguises of a cowgirl, a Hollywood star, a Starbucks-sipping corporate lackey.

So the question becomes: Why has Simon propped up this giant show with a secret that is not a secret? Asked for comment, the Guggenheim would not confirm his identity either: "It was an artistic decision not to reveal the identity of the agent. Simon kept him un-

named because she wanted him to represent the ‘everyman.’”

Yet this is exactly the trouble: The distraction of an undisclosed narrator suggests she doesn't trust her photographs alone. The agent's pseudo-anonymity is functioning just like the large grids, the long captions and the neutral backgrounds. It sheathes her pictures with a veneer of objectivity. The supposed disclosures assign to the pictures an assumption of credibility that has been draining away from photography for well over a century and that is now, with the arrival of computational imagery from artificial intelligence, very close to death. But if all the pictures here are true — corroborated through the extended texts — then we don't have to ask if any one picture is good.

That isn't how truth in photography works, and someone as smart as Simon already knows this. Whether the agent really did meet Jodie Foster is totally irrelevant for whether Simon has made a good photograph of Jodie Foster (and she really has). Whether he ate McDonald's in Beijing cannot make a still life of Pennsylvania-terroir French fries any less heavy-handed (which it really is).

Any truth in photography inheres in the image, not in the caption. The sensation I felt at the Guggenheim was uncannily similar to what I feel reading the A.I. summaries that now appear above web search results, which declare (with total confidence and putative neutrality) that such-and-such really happened, but are as likely to be wrong as right.

"Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions," Nietzsche insisted, and his skepticism of a rigid truth-fiction binary would animate so much art and philosophy of the 20th century: Truth is only a social convention, the malleable product of institutions and discourses, and no "outside" reality exists to evaluate a claim. The truth has had a rough ride in America lately. Nietzsche had an answer, though: In art, at least, we still have one last place where the true dimensions of the world can be grasped. Art happens through allusions, metaphors, stylizations. Art admits its constructedness, and it is honest about what it cannot know. And through that craft, it keeps our larger will to know alive.

But Simon plays hide-and-seek in one other way at the end of this show: a video of her father, whose memories of his own government activities have been lost to Alzheimer's. This should be the moment of metaphor — the agent merges with the parent, America into Lethe. And yet she can't help herself: Dad, yet another text recounts, manufactured arcade games after his government service, and so Simon has embedded the video of her father into a giant marble run, with a chute spanning half the museum. As Guggenheim attendants encouraged families to send the balls sliding down the ramp, like the seabirds in "Mr. Popper's Penguins," I watched in disbelief. After all this work, the truth was only a game.

"I'm lovin' it when China wins" (2026), equating the red and yellow of McDonald's French fries with the colors of the Chinese flag.

Dior

FINE JEWELLERY

My Dior

C.T.E. in football may be much broader than feared

child) and by the cumulative force of the hits over a lifetime.

Junior Seau (55) in 2002. His family donated his brain to research after his 2012 suicide, and he was later diagnosed with C.T.E. A diagnosis of C.T.E. can be made only after an autopsy.

OWEN C. SHAW/GETTY IMAGES

New research has linked the brain disease to 3 in 4 former N.F.L. players

BY CAROLYN Y. JOHNSON AND JOHN BRANCH

This summer, a scientific study sent reverberations through the football world, making headlines and deeply worrying players and families.

At least 25 percent of retired National Football League players who died over a recent six-year period, the study found, had C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the neurodegenerative brain disease associated with repeated hits to the head.

But most of the other 75 percent of deceased players were never tested. That left a complex, high-stakes question — the actual prevalence of C.T.E. among deceased ex-players — open for analysis.

Now, the same research team has deployed statistical techniques to home in on a more precise number. In a new study published last week, members estimate that three out of four former N.F.L. players who died between 2008 and 2023 most likely had C.T.E. in their brains at death.

By contrast, the same researchers studied brain banks that reflect the general population and estimate that only 0.6 percent of people have C.T.E.

This remarkable disparity sharpens the question faced by current players, N.F.L. retirees, football fans and parents: Just how dangerous is football?

Because C.T.E. can be diagnosed only by autopsy, the quest for an answer has revolved around brain banks that include donations from former N.F.L. players. Brains are sliced, stained and studied under the microscope for signs of C.T.E., which causes brown tangles of protein to build up around the deep grooves of the brain.

These donations have taught doctors and scientists about the biology and stages of C.T.E., which is progressive and linked to dementia and behavioral changes — but does not always cause symptoms, particularly in the early stages of the disease.

Across nearly 400 brains of former N.F.L. players that were donated and studied, the statistics look impossibly grim: More than 90 percent showed signs of C.T.E.

But researchers have long cautioned that this is most likely an overestimate. Brains are usually donated because former players or their families saw symptoms that aligned with C.T.E., including headaches, memory loss and unrecognizable shifts in personality.

Since families that have not seen those symptoms are far less likely to donate a player's brain, banks provide a distorted snapshot of the overall population. Extrapolating broader lessons, policy recommendations and prevention strategies from this sample has turned into an urgent, and fraught, statistical puzzle.

“Symptoms really drive donations,” said Yorghos Tripodis, a professor of biostatistics at Boston University School of Public Health who was a leader of the new study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

In the new study, the researchers tried to quantify the selection bias and analyze the likelihood that untested brains had C.T.E.

They estimated that among deceased players, those with obvious cognitive symptoms were about five times as likely to have their brains donated to a bank as someone without.

They reviewed death records for the 2,362 former N.F.L. players who retired between 1951 and 2021 and died from 2008 to 2023, studying causes of death and mentions of dementia or other neurodegenerative diseases that might have been misdiagnosed.

They studied the ages at death, the years of N.F.L. experience, even the positions played.

They arrived at the estimate that three out of four N.F.L. players who died between 2008 and 2023 would have had some level of C.T.E. if autopsies had been performed.

Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University in Atlanta, whose previous study, published in Neurology, found a minimum of one in 10 deceased players had C.T.E. pathology, said in an email that the work was “pretty rigorous, and the methods seem reasonable and valid.”

"It is higher than I would have guessed previously," he said. "But this paper has a larger data set and applies stronger methods than previous work."

In a statement, the N.F.L. said it "strives to make the game of football safer, including by implementing strategies to reduce concussions and head impacts."

In the decade since the N.F.L. first acknowledged the risk of C.T.E., it has altered rules and safety protocols — at the same time that it has increased the number of regular season and postseason games.

The overall impact is unclear, and until C.T.E. can be tested with certainty in the living, no one can be sure whether today's players are more or less susceptible to C.T.E. than those who played in previous eras.

C.T.E. symptoms can include memory loss, headaches, mood swings and a loss of impulse control. Addiction issues and a reduction in executive function are not unusual.

In the new study, researchers estimated that nearly three in 10 of the players had dementia, but underscored that this was a minimum and that the true number could be higher.

For years, studies have been showing that dementia is about four times as common in N.F.L. retirees as in the general male population, Dr. Binney said.

Several outside researchers cautioned against the temptation to extrapolate this frightening statistic to all former N.F.L. players. And there are even more caveats when trying to understand the implications for people at lower levels of the sport.

"This is specifically people who have died, and doesn't say anything about people who are still alive," said Sebastien Haneuse, a biostatistician at University of California, Irvine.

In its statement, the N.F.L. said the league was committed to ensuring access to resources to support players' physical and mental well-being: "We encourage former players to utilize these resources to identify and seek treatment when they are concerned about their health."

Researchers do not know why some people get C.T.E. and others do not, despite similar histories of head trauma. They believe that the likelihood of C.T.E. grows with each year of exposure (how many seasons of tackle football someone plays, for example, including as a

The biological signs of C.T.E. can appear in the brain without symptoms, especially when the damage to the brain is more minimal.

In the earlier study, 93 percent of donated brains showed C.T.E. pathology, but only 60 percent of the people had a diagnosis of dementia.

In a published response to the August study that made headlines, a group of researchers led by Marc Weisskopf at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston pointed out that most former N.F.L. players were still alive. If the known cases of C.T.E. cited in the study were compared with the full population of N.F.L. players (not just those who died in that six-year span), he and colleagues argued, the lower bound of risk among all N.F.L. players could be one in 83.

Past studies have shown dementia is about four times as common in N.F.L. retirees as in the general male population.

Weisskopf added in an interview that the people who have died may have been in worse health and more likely to have C.T.E. than those who are still alive.

His group's research receives funding from the N.F.L. Players Association, but the association does not have a say in what researchers publish.

Some researchers argue that attention to C.T.E. itself has become a negative influence on player health. A study in the Journal of Neurotrauma examined suicide rates in professional athletes in the N.B.A., Major League Baseball and the N.F.L. and found that football players' suicide rates alone rose sharply after 2010, once the C.T.E. risk began to be widely recognized.

"People care about players — they care about N.F.L. players' health, future players and current players and former players," said Rachel Grashow, a senior research scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan. Grashow said she hoped that the conversation could shift toward interventions that focus on treating and preventing symptoms in living players.

Christopher Nowinski, co-founder and executive director of the Concussion & CTE Foundation, and one of the study authors, played football at Harvard University in Massachusetts and recalled that the captain of his team had Stage 2 C.T.E. and pronounced changes in his behavior.

"As a former college football player, none of us wants to think a lot of us may have this," Nowinski said. "It's important to get it right."

If you are having thoughts of suicide, you can find a list of resources at SpeakingOf-Suicide.com/resources.

The Mini Crossword | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | | 11/4/2026

BY CHRISTINA IVERSON

EDITED BY JOEL FAGLIANO

ACROSS

1 One of 21 around the island of Manhattan – most famously, the Brooklyn one

7 Tony-winning play that reimagines Abraham Lincoln's wife as an aspiring cabaret star

8 Hot dog, informally

9 Put into law

10 Not a single one

DOWN

1 Yang who once played the iceberg that sank the Titanic on "S.N.L."

2 Big zoo animal

3 "Sorry, let me rephrase ..."

4 Class where you might wear a leotard

5 Courage and perseverance

nytimes.com/subscribeinternational

Two Not Touch

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

Brain Tickler

Think of an example in each of these categories that starts with the same two letters as the category. 1. Weekdays 2. Cocktails 3. Shellfish 4. Cheeses 5. Languages

PUZZLE BY WILL SHORTZ YESTERDAY'S ANSWER Slugger Ted Williams and astronaut John Glenn flew fighter jet missions together in Korea.

Crossword | Edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS

1 Power bank units

6 Rick's line "Here's looking at you, kid," in "Casablanca"

11 Lines at a supermarket checkout, for short

14 Alaskan native

15 "Please, go first!"

16 She "dances on the sand" in a 1983 Duran Duran hit.

17 56-Across on a store

20 Kind of ball that's played with indoors

21 Major rds.

22 Angry look

23 Feared fly

25 Rock band founded by three sisters

26 56-Across on an elevator

32 Marvel mutants

34 Crop boosters

35 Org. for lawyers

36 Magical ally in "Argonautica"

37 Middle-earth monster

38 Not short-term

41 British noble

43 56-Across on an interstate

45 With 51-Down, college football rival of the B.Y.U. Cougars

46 Nice kind of smell that tends to disappear quickly

50 Sensationally detailed

52 \_\_ Crunch

55 Magazine with "Decor" and "à Table" offshoots

56 "That spells trouble!"

59 Charge

60 Features of giraffe necks

61 Charged

62 Sourdough starter?

63 Apply, as pressure

64 Comedian Wanda

DOWN

1 "Rome \_\_\_\_ built in a day"

2 Low-maintenance succulents

3 Earth, in French

4 Foot joint sprain, familiarly

5 Pigs' place

6 With a fresh start

7 Film friend of Nemo

PUZZLE BY PEGGY SUE MARLIN

8 Soapmaking substances

9 Org. whose logo represents five continents

10 Luxury brand known for its Rome-inspired designs

11 Constellation that includes the North Star

12 Chicago's Navy

13 A secret message might be in this

14 Stimulate, as an appetite

15 \_\_ Garden

24 Back burner?

25 Divine protector in "Argonautica"

27 How raised hackles stand

28 Block in a candy shop

29 What the corporation Nucor produces

30 Lower-left PC key

31 Upper-left PC key

32 Microsoft game console

33 Some messenger bags and satchels, jocularly

35 Ginger \_\_\_\_

36 "Four out of three people struggle with" this subject

39 "Let's go for a ride!"

40 Former Indianapolis stadium

41 A cyclops has one

42 In a manner of speaking

44 Year in Italy

47 [Cheers!]

48 Fish tank buildup

49 Doesn't own, say

50 Albert Einstein once compared it to riding a bicycle: "To keep your balance, you must keep moving"

51 See 45-Across

52 Prop for the Riddler

53 Antiquing substance

54 Company that makes Grape-Nuts

57 Line on many a receipt

58 Rx writers

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.

NORMAN BARRETT/ALAMY

From above left: COWS Creamery on Prince Edward Island, Canada, has a large following; at the American Cheese Society competition in 2024, Canadian cheeses won more than 20 medals; and animal welfare is taken seriously at Fromagerie La Station in Quebec.

LA HALTE STUDIO

Canadian cheese is caught in a trade war

AMERICAN CHEESE SOCIETY

LA HALTE STUDIO

As they were finding traction in the American market, Canadian artisanal producers found themselves in a trade war. Above, organic cheese aging at Fromagerie La Station in Quebec, where cows rest on water beds. Below, Raclette de Compton au poivre, which won Fromagerie La Station best-in-show honors from the American Cheese Society in 2024.

Trump's tariffs have slowed American market's access to innovative producers

BY PETE WELLS

Cheese nerds are an excitable bunch. These days, if you want to see them get superexcited, just mention Canada.

Their eyes will light up as they tell you about the haul of gold, silver and bronze medals Canadian cheesemakers took home from the American Cheese Society awards in 2024 and 2025, including best-in-show honors two years in a row.

They may swoon over the organic operation at Fromagerie La Station in Compton, Quebec, where animal welfare is taken so seriously that the 150 milking cows rest on water beds after grazing in rolling Appalachian foothills 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Montreal. They may chuckle as they talk about idiosyncratic characters like Jean Morin, the cheesemaker at Fromagerie du Presbytère, who converted a historic church into an aging cave where the wheels are turned by robots and who helped set a Guinness World Record for the largest serving of poutine. (It weighed more than three tons.)

Most exciting of all, they'll tell you, is that these products and others are now for sale in the United States, many of them for the first time. "Some of these cheeses are as good as any in the world," said Brad Dubé, who imports and distributes several through his Brooklyn-based firm, Food Matters Again, in New York.

Then, if you want to see how quickly excitement can change to a different emotion, ask about tariffs.

The 50 percent tariffs that President Trump has slapped on Canadian cheese have caused havoc up and down the supply chain. Mongers and customers have had to cool their budding romance with Canadian cheese just as it was starting to get interesting. Makers who had been eyeing the new enthusiasm for their products from south of the border have put their plans on hold.

Some who were exporting already are not shipping anything right now. Like their American trading partners and retailers, they are hoping the tariffs are scaled back. While they wait, all of them are taking a hard look at how far they are willing to trim their margins.

"It's immediately had an impact," Mr. Dubé said. The momentum had been "quite real," he said, but fizzled out on the news of the tariffs. "I have seen the downturn in my sales."

The United States imports far less cheese from Canada than it does from Italy and France. Before crossing the border, Canadian cheese must pass through a thicket of quotas and regulatory paperwork. Until recently, most small-scale producers found the work too much to handle.

Simply sending a Canadian cheese to the American Cheese Society awards is an ordeal. Aspiring contestants have been turned back at the border. Since 2023, staff and volunteers at the University of Guelph in Ontario have smoothed the way by taking in every sample from about a dozen cheesemakers, checking the paperwork, retaining a customs broker, loading all the cheeses on pallets and sending them off in a refrigerated truck.

Mary Ann Ferrer, a professor of food science at the university, who leads the effort, said that when the cheeses arrive at the competition, “everybody there gets excited and even applauds.”

Fromagerie La Station entered the awards for the first time in 2024, the year it began exporting cheese to the United States.

“We thought, let’s just apply and see what happens,” said Catherine Durand, the head of sales and marketing. La Station’s cheeses won eight medals, including best-in-show honors for its Raclette de Compton au poivre, which has a spicy seam of pink peppercorns in the middle. “That was really, really amazing, and everybody was like, ‘Who are they?’”

Fewer people asked that question when La Station won best in show again the following year, this time with Alfred Le Fermier, an Alpine-style raw cow's milk wheel.

Trade barriers help explain why the mere existence of great Canadian cheese comes as a surprise to many Americans. It's also true, though, that artisanal cheesemaking in the country really took off only in the last 15 years or so, alongside an already thriving industry of larger producers turning out Cheddar and other cheeses. Once the craft movement coalesced, though, it moved rapidly.

"The Canadian artisan cheese scene has not been around as long as California's or Vermont's, but they've gotten to that same level of quality in a much shorter time," said James Hanly, the sales director at Provisions International, a food importer and distributor based in White River Junction, Vt.

Craft cheesemakers had a head start because Canadian milk is of high quality, governed by strict safety regulations and an agricultural policy of price setting, production quotas and high tariffs on imports. Known as the supply management system, the policy was de-

VALERIE TOBIAS

signed to provide basic economic stability for dairies, protecting them from the steep dives in milk prices often seen on open commodity markets. Supporters say that farmers who don't lie awake worrying about foreclosure can invest in equipment, facilities and animal care.

"If farmers are able to make a reasonable living with what they've got, there's less drive to cut every last cent of cost," said Shep Ysselstein, the founder of Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese in Woodstock, Ontario. "That's when things start to get compromised. You might not spend as much money on bedding, for example, which can impact the cows."

One person who does not care for the supply management system is Mr. Trump. Calling it “discrimination” against U.S. commerce, he cited it as the rationale for his 50 percent tariffs in a proclamation in September.

After a short time of seeming to wait for the new levies to go away, as some of Mr. Trump's earlier ones did, industry opposition has started to form. On Oct. 20, a lawsuit challenging the tariffs was filed on behalf of Gellert Global Group, a food importer and distributor based in Elizabeth, N.J., which estimated that it could have to pay \$40 million a year on the Canadian cheese it brings into the United States.

Thomas Gellert, the company's chief executive, said in an interview in September that his firm imports Brie from Canada made with New York State milk, which is less expensive than Canadian milk. Tariffs on that cheese, he said, will hurt American dairy farmers and consumers.

A trade group representing cheese importers has asked for an exemption from the new tariffs for cheeses made with milk from the states as well as those made with Canadian goat and sheep milk.

The United States does not have enough dairy goats to produce all the soft goat cheese Americans eat.

"The U.S. relies heavily on Canada and Europe for its supply of that soft goat cheese, and has for a long time," said Mark Anderson, chief executive of Mariposa Dairy, a goat- and sheep-cheese maker based in Lindsay, Ontario. Goat milk is traded outside Canada's supply management system, he said, so if that system is the reason for the tariffs, "it kind of misses the mark."

For smaller cheesemakers that have only begun to test the American market, the tariffs may not put a huge dent in their finances. COWS Creamery, an ice cream and cheese company on Prince Edward Island, exports only a small amount of its distinctly creamy and grassy Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar to the United States, said Chad Heron, the chief executive.

"The most recent tariffs or bans or whatever nonsense Trump is up to won't have a material impact on us, but it will cause a bunch of people a bunch of pain, and that is too bad," Mr. Heron wrote in an email.

Several other creameries had been planning to catch the wave of American interest in Canada. Whether they will move ahead or wait for the trade war to end is an open question.

“We actually already have a distributor ready to sell our cheeses in the U.S.,” said Bérangère Boivin-Côté, a manager at Fromagerie Médard in St.-Gédéon, Quebec. Médard’s soft, European-style washed rind cheese Le Cousin was the first runner-up for American Cheese Society’s best-in-show title in 2024, and everybody there believed momentum for Canadian cheese was growing in the states. “However, we know that entering a new market can be challenging especially with the tariffs that are currently in place.”

The math on a 50 percent tax is punishing for artisanal products. Even if everybody in the supply chain agrees to swallow some of the tax, most of it will be passed on to consumers, said Eric Frechette, an owner of Provisions International. And the new prices could stop shoppers in their tracks.

"On a cheese counter in New York, things that went for \$40 a pound are going to be \$60 a pound or more," said Alex Brown, the wholesale cheesemonger for Gourmet Imports in Alhambra, Calif. "Which bumps them from higher value quality cheeses to precious luxury goods."

For shops, unsold cheese very quickly becomes money wasted.

"We'll be forced to either drop a product or accept astronomical prices," said Marc Hernandez, the cheese buyer for Formaggio Kitchen, based in Cambridge, Mass. "That will be a risk, particularly when dealing with a perishable product that could go bad before we can sell it."

A French bistro in Chicago sidesteps the big clichés

LUCY HEWETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In Chicago, a recent crowd at Creepies, which is a lush fever dream of French food.

CHICAGO

BY TEJAL RAO

It's not what I'd expected, not in 2026. But all year long, all over the United States, I've been seeing a particular kind of French bistro, almost regressive in its commitment to the bit: devoted to the hits, but with a series of small, almost imperceptible twists. Is this a complaint? Not exactly.

The American dream of the French bistro has long been its own genre, and it can certainly be delicious, even as it's replicated over and over again through a handful of clichés. But that formula is rarely thrilling. Creepies, the newest restaurant from David and Anna Posey in Chicago, approaches it in a way that feels fresh and the kitchen seems to be having way more fun messing around with it than anyone else. The chef is Tayler Ploshehanski, who cooked previously at the Poseys' nearby fine-dining restaurant Elske, and who met the chefs while working at Blackbird, which closed during the pandemic.

Yes, there are gougères filled with Brie that's been melted into cream, and

a steak au poivre that comes with the cutest little tournéed mushrooms, each one lightly grooved with the tip of a knife. Obviously, there's half a roast chicken, the skin golden and deeply seasoned, this one swimming in a structured, wine-dazed sauce that is rich and muscular with liver.

The restaurant doesn't present as fancy, and though it was totally renovated before it opened last year it has a warm, lived-in feeling with wood-paneled walls and oversize black-and-white checkered floors. The space seems uncluttered, unprocessed, not overdesigned in the way of a Disneyfied bistro. But there's an almost delirious maximalism to the cooking itself: plates overflowing with sauces, sauces piled onto other sauces, so many layers of flavor and texture colliding gregariously into each other.

Ms. Ploshehanski's version of oeufs mayo is a psychedelic whorl of eggs on the cooked side of jammy under a blanket of neon orange and green. The orange is smoky piment d'espelette, the green is all chives, but the whole thing is far more fine-tuned and mellow than it might appear. Her leeks vinaigrette, probably the most delicious version of the dish I've had in years, involves tender chilled leeks marinated in preserved lemon vinegar with an unexpectedly creamy topping of whipped almond butter, fried lentils and leeks, almost hidden under dill.

We should talk about the fries because the truth is very few kitchens are making their own French fries and those that do sometimes get it so wrong, it can make you wish they didn't. Creepies cuts and rinses Kennebec potatoes, brines these overnight, then steams and cools them down. The potatoes are then fried at a low temperature in a mixture of clarified butter and oil and kept in the freezer, to be cooked one last time to order. The fries are fantastic with a crisp, rich shell, craggy in places, tender inside.

In a way, the menu at Creepies feels very capital F French. There are escargots in the side of greens, frogs' legs come and go, and offal is everywhere — thin slices of beef tongue, crisply fried sweetbreads, a bouncy fromage de tête. But Ms. Ploshehanski is from Hampshire, a village in Illinois, and when mussels were on the menu, they were served under a creamy froth of their own Pernod-scented cooking liquid and garnished with fennel giardiniera.

In making her version of blue moon soft serve, Ms. Posey, the restaurant's pastry chef, leaned on a lot of good vanilla along with raspberry, orange, lemon and almond extracts, dyeing the ice cream an off-planet blue with spirulina and serving it with a dark caramel sauce. The most delightful and reliable dessert on the menu is the fantastic ice cream and meringue cake made with strawberry, or fermented sour cherries, or whatever fruit from the farmers' market that excites Ms. Posey.

There is a dish on the menu called “frog legs Loiseau” named after the French chef who made headlines after his apparent death by suicide in 2003, when he believed he was on the verge of losing a Michelin star.

Bernard Loiseau's version of frogs' legs was a platter of tiny thighs on cleaned bones, the lollipops fried and served in a dish of parsley coulis and garlic purée. And I imagined that Mr. Loiseau, who aimed to strip as much fat from the dish as he could, to make it lighter and leaner, and to tone the garlic flavor all the way down through several rounds of blanching, might have been a little bit horrified by the one served at Creepies.

The frogs' legs were splayed and fried still juicy at the slender bones. They sat in a big pool of crème fraîche and over parsley puréed with garlic confit. A moat of brown butter, full of the golden flecks of milk solids, surrounded the whole thing. Fat on fat on fat! It wasn't a replica and it wasn't aiming to be. It was, like every good bistro, an original.

Elegance is an attitude

LONGINES

A rush away from gold?

With the metal's price hovering around \$4,200 an ounce, designers are seeking creative ways to offer options to buyers

PARIS

Buyer's choice

Far right, a green onyx Bosfor strand and Acu pendant from the brand Itä. Near right, Lion-heart Jewelry's Seasons Golden Sky charm necklace; Aliita's tennis racket pendant necklace; Joanna Dahdah's acorn pendant necklace; Lionheart's Evil Eye Protection pendant; Whitebird's Tom Wood Wanderlust silver ring; Lauren Harwell Godfrey's Tiny Star earrings; and her namesake brand's Mini Pocket Locket pendant.

BY VICTORIA GOMELSKY

At a fine jewelry showcase last month in this city's First Arrondissement, Joy Haugaard couldn't fight the urge to check her phone.

"It's \$4,182 today," said Ms. Haugaard, the co-founder and designer of Lionheart Jewelry in New York City, as she gazed at a widget displaying the cost of an ounce of gold.

The precious metal's historically high price and recent volatility — it traded at about \$1,250 per ounce a decade ago, peaked at \$5,586 in late January and now hovers around \$4,200 — has not only sown confusion in the industry, it has radically shifted the kind of jewelry people can afford to buy as a gift.

So as the holiday season approaches, designers like Ms. Haugaard are grappling with what that means for their customers.

"I've been in the jewelry industry over 20 years," she said. "Back in the day, people would come in — 'It's a Communion, it's my godson's birthday' — and a \$500 gift was generous. You could get an 18-karat gold cross and a chain.

"Now you can't even buy a connector for \$500," Ms. Haugaard added, referring to the small 18-karat gold ring used to connect pendants and charms to necklaces and bracelets.

The only saving grace, she said, is that customers have adjusted their expectations. "It sounds crazy to say, but six, seven thousand is the normal average gift spend now," she said.

Even crazier is what jewelry buyers can now get for that amount. Joanna Dahdah, a designer from Beirut, Lebanon, who showed at the same jewelry event as Ms. Haugaard, pointed to a small diamond-set acorn charm in her collection that retails for \$6,500.

"People just got used to it," Ms. Dah-dah said.

"SMALL WONDERS"

Gift shoppers looking at fine jewelry for the holidays are facing a stark reality: Either set a larger budget for smaller items, such as charms in 14-karat or 18-karat gold, or opt for styles in lower kar-at gold, silver or alternate materials such as ceramic, wood or stainless steel.

Darren Hildrow, the founder and director of NouvelleBox, a virtual and physical jewelry marketplace that hosted the wholesale buying event where Ms. Dahdah and Ms. Haugaard showed their lines, lamented the difficulty that jewelers now have in meeting what once was considered an opening price point.

"Every store that comes through, one of their first questions is, 'What's your entry price?' Mr. Hildrow said. "It used to always be below \$1,000. But I think people are finding it really hard to hit that price point now if it's gold and precious stones."

Lauren Harwell Godfrey, a designer from the San Francisco Bay Area who was showing at NouvelleBox, said that having her own retail store at the Marin Country Mart in Larkspur, Calif., gave her a reason to create a collection of rings and pendants expressly for gift givers.

"A lot of people walk into my store and they don't necessarily even know the brand," Ms. Godfrey said. "They're just looking for gifts, \$2,000 and under. I do this thing called Small Wonders — they're little motifs like a star, a crescent moon, an arrow and a heart, and they've got my signature knife-edge design. There are some little diamonds in there, so it's 18-karat gold and diamonds."

For customers interested in slightly bigger pieces — such as Ms. Harwell Godfrey's 18-karat gold Mini Pocket Locket, part of the brand's new Western-theme Gold Rush collection — the retail price jumps to \$9,750. The reaction has been mixed.

"I have some people that are like, 'Oh, my gosh, that's a lot,' she said. "And then some people are like, 'Wow, that's so affordable.' It's funny — I don't think everyone can wrap their heads around the price of gold."

ALTERNATIVES TO GOLD

Stéphanie Roger, the founder and chief executive of Whitebird, a fine jewelry retailer that operates three stores in Paris, said gold's wild ride had forced her to reconsider her buying approach. Gift budgets, which generally range from about 300 to 3,000 euros (about \$335 to \$3,350), haven't changed much over the past five years, so she has had to find designers who work with materials other than gold.

ALFREDO CASTELLANOS-HAMBLETON

“Since the rise of gold, the offer in that range, particularly below €1,000, has become much less,” Ms. Roger wrote in an email. “So we have been rethinking our product mix strategy and have looked to introduce new brands in that price range (or reinforce the assortment of a few we had already).”

Ms. Roger said she has gravitated to designers — including Sophie Buhai, Grainne Morton and Bea Bongiasca — who are working in silver and vermeil, GOLD, PAGE S8

FOR THE HOME

Where traditional pottery endures

From spongeware-decorated mugs to casserole dishes, Nicholas Mosse Pottery offers gift-giving ideas

BENNETTSBRIDGE, IRELAND

BY SANDRA JORDAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY THERESE AHERNE

Nicholas Mosse threw a large log of gray clay onto his potter's wheel and set to work, molding it nimbly with his hands as he spun the wheel with a foot pedal. (He made his first piece when he was just 7 years old).

Within four minutes, he had formed a large bowl. "A casserole dish," he said.

The main component of the gray clay was fire clay sediment, a resilient material more than 300 million years old that, in this case, had been left behind after all the coal had been extracted from a Staffordshire mine. “I bought 5,000 tonnes of it around 25 years ago,” he said, using the metric measurement for about 5,500 tons of the material.

While that sounds like a lot, he goes through about 200 tonnes of clay each year.

Mr. Mosse, 76, has developed a clay recipe that best suits his earthenware products, mixing the Staffordshire clay with several others in his own processing plant nearby. "It's a funny sticky clay," he said, "and it has a certain shrinkage."

When fired, he noted, it creates robust crockery that is oven and dishwasher safe and intended for everyday use.

Each piece is decorated by hand with bright, rustic flower and landscape patterns designed by his wife, Susan

Mosse, an American botanical artist and gardener. A particular shape, say a flower or a leaf, is cut into a sponge that is then dipped in ceramic ink and stamped on the pottery.

Spongeware, as the variation is called, was popular in Ireland from the 18th century (think flower-pattern crockery on kitchen dressers in thatched cottages). But it had fallen out of fashion by the mid-20th century. "When we started, sponge decoration had just gone," Mr. Mosse said. "But you could find it in antique shops. We decided to renovate that — not necessarily copy it, but rejuvenate it."

Fifty years ago the couple started Nicholas Mosse Pottery in a converted cowshed beside their house near Bennettsbridge, a small village about four miles south of Kilkenny in southeastern Ireland.

Rescuing, repurposing and rejuvenating are all part of Mr. Mosse's ethos. His pottery wheel, which he bought from a retired potter, has been used for about 90 years now. His two 400-cubic-foot kilns were bought secondhand.

“That’s what we do, we bring old things back to life. We’re terrible scavengers!” said Mr. Mosse, who grew up in a Quaker family with a strong work ethic and respect for sustainability. His father owned a flour mill on the banks of the Nore, a river that runs through Kilkenny county, using water wheels to power the milling.

In 1982, Mr. Mosse bought the family mill and relocated his business to the six-level building, which totals more than 3,370 square meters (about 36,275 square feet) of space.

As for employees, “first we were six, then eight, then 10,” he said. The business now employs more than 65 people (all the clay workers were trained by Mr. Mosse) and most of the electricity that is used has been generated by a turbine, an updated version of the old hydropower wheel.

In September, Nicholas Mosse Pottery was the Overall winner and the Gift category winner at Irish Country Magazine's annual Irish Made Awards. The judges described the company as "one of Ireland's most recognizable brands."

The pottery is on sale in his studio and his online store, in other online storefronts and in high-end craft and department stores in Ireland and abroad. Despite the brand's growth, every piece of pottery is still handmade and hand decorated. And each piece undergoes at least a 20-step process — “Some take 30!” he said — including throwing (forming on the potter's wheel), drying, dipping in slip (a liquid clay), the “biscuit” (first firing), decorating, glazing and firing again.

Mrs. Moss has developed all the patterns — “at least in the low hundreds, I can’t remember how many at this stage,” she said.

"The oldest was a cow," she recalled. "Then Old Rose came on pretty quickly," she said of their best-selling pattern. "It's based on a real rose, called a Canary Bird. It's a yellow rose, it's very old and it's the first rose that blooms. We had one and I took it in and did the design — and, bingo! I have no idea what it is about the rose, but it never stopped selling."

The first iteration of the rose was yellow, but Mrs. Mosse changed it to red. "You're allowed to use your imagination!" she said.

The mill has become a tourist destination as its large windows allow visitors to watch the potters at work. At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday in October, the cafe was full and customers were browsing in the shop. It has been decorated like an Irish farmhouse, with the pottery displayed on rustic dressers and tables.

There are plates and bowls of every size, mugs, teapots, plates, bowls any type of functional tableware you need available in different patterns — including Old Rose — with names such as Apple, Wild Flower Meadow, Forget Me Not and Fuchsia. There are also landscapes featuring animals, including dogs, cats, sheep, hens and rabbits. Though the variety is large, Mrs. Mosse said she always designs with a “mix and match family of colors” in mind, so patterns could be used together, blending rather than clashing.

Prices start at about 30 euros (\$34), with mugs the clear best sellers, Mr. Moss said, accounting for more than 40 percent of the business's sales of about €4 million a year.

There are also decorative items such as vases (from €39.75), picture frames (from €73.15) and lamp bases (from €122.95).

In the decorating room, a decorator sat at her workbench, dabbing sponges into colored inks to print the multicolored Wild Flower Meadow pattern onto a plate. (There are 15 decorators in all. Many wear headphones and listen to music or podcasts as they work).

"It's mediative work, and I love it," said Jenny O'Brien, 46, who has worked

as a decorator since she was 17. She was stamping a pigeon design onto a mug: one sponge dipped in gray for the body, another daubed black for the beak and markings.

“That’s a new design for JW Anderson,” Mrs. Mosse said, referring to the personal brand of Jonathan Anderson, the Northern Irish designer who is also creative director for Dior.

Last year, Mr. Anderson — who has said he remembered Nicholas Mosse's pottery from his childhood — added tableware by the Mosses to his home line in his shops and online. His range is decorated with a pig motif (an exclusive) and there are a couple of mugs with abstract patterns. (On his website, a small mug is €75; a teapot, €240.)

In October, the Christmas patterns were still in production. Mrs. Mosse said she was planning to release a new design, perhaps in January, and Mr. Mosse was trying to think up a new ceramic product to develop.

Do they plan to slow down anytime soon? "I used to be here seven days a week now; it's down to five," Mr. Mosse said.

"It's called retirement," said Mrs. Mosse, and she smiled.

Hands-on

Nicholas Mosse and his wife, Susan Mosse, above, on the bank of the Nore river where Nicholas Mosse Pottery is based in the family's old flour mill. The company's pottery includes a line, above left, for Jonathan Anderson, the Northern Irish designer who is also Dior's creative director. Mr. Mosse's clay, far left, is a mix of Staffordshire clay with several others. Mrs. Mosse, left, designs the patterns for the pottery.

BR-03 41MM

TIME INSTRUMENT

Details

Each piece of pottery undergoes at least a 20-step process that includes dipping in slip (a liquid clay), left, and decorating with sponges, below.

PENDELTON

TTM

RECOMMENDATIONS

Where traditional pottery endures

From spongeware-decorated mugs to casserole dishes, Nicholas Mosse Pottery offers gift-giving ideas

BENNETTSBRIDGE, IRELAND

BY SANDRA JORDAN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY THERESE AHERNE

Nicholas Mosse threw a large log of gray clay onto his potter's wheel and set to work, molding it nimbly with his hands as he spun the wheel with a foot pedal. (He made his first piece when he was just 7 years old).

Within four minutes, he had formed a large bowl. "A casserole dish," he said.

The main component of the gray clay was fire clay sediment, a resilient material more than 300 million years old that, in this case, had been left behind after all the coal had been extracted from a Staffordshire mine. “I bought 5,000 tonnes of it around 25 years ago,” he said, using the metric measurement for about 5,500 tons of the material.

While that sounds like a lot, he goes through about 200 tonnes of clay each year.

Mr. Mosse, 76, has developed a clay recipe that best suits his earthenware products, mixing the Staffordshire clay with several others in his own processing plant nearby. "It's a funny sticky clay," he said, "and it has a certain shrinkage."

When fired, he noted, it creates robust crockery that is oven and dishwasher safe and intended for everyday use.

Each piece is decorated by hand with bright, rustic flower and landscape patterns designed by his wife, Susan

Mosse, an American botanical artist and gardener. A particular shape, say a flower or a leaf, is cut into a sponge that is then dipped in ceramic ink and stamped on the pottery.

Spongeware, as the variation is called, was popular in Ireland from the 18th century (think flower-pattern crockery on kitchen dressers in thatched cottages). But it had fallen out of fashion by the mid-20th century. "When we started, sponge decoration had just gone," Mr. Mosse said. "But you could find it in antique shops. We decided to renovate that — not necessarily copy it, but rejuvenate it."

Fifty years ago the couple started Nicholas Mosse Pottery in a converted cowshed beside their house near Bennettsbridge, a small village about four miles south of Kilkenny in southeastern Ireland.

Rescuing, repurposing and rejuvenating are all part of Mr. Mosse's ethos. His pottery wheel, which he bought from a retired potter, has been used for about 90 years now. His two 400-cubic-foot kilns were bought secondhand.

“That’s what we do, we bring old things back to life. We’re terrible scavengers!” said Mr. Mosse, who grew up in a Quaker family with a strong work ethic and respect for sustainability. His father owned a flour mill on the banks of the Nore, a river that runs through Kilkenny county, using water wheels to power the milling.

In 1982, Mr. Mosse bought the family mill and relocated his business to the six-level building, which totals more than 3,370 square meters (about 36,275 square feet) of space.

As for employees, “first we were six, then eight, then 10,” he said. The business now employs more than 65 people (all the clay workers were trained by Mr. Mosse) and most of the electricity that is used has been generated by a turbine, an updated version of the old hydropower wheel.

In September, Nicholas Mosse Pottery was the Overall winner and the Gift category winner at Irish Country Magazine's annual Irish Made Awards. The judges described the company as "one of Ireland's most recognizable brands."

The pottery is on sale in his studio and his online store, in other online storefronts and in high-end craft and department stores in Ireland and abroad. Despite the brand's growth, every piece of pottery is still handmade and hand decorated. And each piece undergoes at least a 20-step process — “Some take 30!” he said — including throwing (forming on the potter's wheel), drying, dipping in slip (a liquid clay), the “biscuit” (first firing), decorating, glazing and firing again.

Mrs. Moss has developed all the patterns — “at least in the low hundreds, I can’t remember how many at this stage,” she said.

"The oldest was a cow," she recalled. "Then Old Rose came on pretty quickly," she said of their best-selling pattern. "It's based on a real rose, called a Canary Bird. It's a yellow rose, it's very old and it's the first rose that blooms. We had one and I took it in and did the design — and, bingo! I have no idea what it is about the rose, but it never stopped selling."

The first iteration of the rose was yellow, but Mrs. Mosse changed it to red. "You're allowed to use your imagination!" she said.

The mill has become a tourist destination as its large windows allow visitors to watch the potters at work. At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday in October, the cafe was full and customers were browsing in the shop. It has been decorated like an Irish farmhouse, with the pottery displayed on rustic dressers and tables.

There are plates and bowls of every size, mugs, teapots, plates, bowls any type of functional tableware you need available in different patterns — including Old Rose — with names such as Apple, Wild Flower Meadow, Forget Me Not and Fuchsia. There are also landscapes featuring animals, including dogs, cats, sheep, hens and rabbits. Though the variety is large, Mrs. Mosse said she always designs with a “mix and match family of colors” in mind, so patterns could be used together, blending rather than clashing.

Prices start at about 30 euros (\$34), with mugs the clear best sellers, Mr. Moss said, accounting for more than 40 percent of the business's sales of about €4 million a year.

There are also decorative items such as vases (from €39.75), picture frames (from €73.15) and lamp bases (from €122.95).

In the decorating room, a decorator sat at her workbench, dabbing sponges into colored inks to print the multicolored Wild Flower Meadow pattern onto a plate. (There are 15 decorators in all. Many wear headphones and listen to music or podcasts as they work).

"It's mediative work, and I love it," said Jenny O'Brien, 46, who has worked

as a decorator since she was 17. She was stamping a pigeon design onto a mug: one sponge dipped in gray for the body, another daubed black for the beak and markings.

“That’s a new design for JW Anderson,” Mrs. Mosse said, referring to the personal brand of Jonathan Anderson, the Northern Irish designer who is also creative director for Dior.

Last year, Mr. Anderson — who has said he remembered Nicholas Mosse's pottery from his childhood — added tableware by the Mosses to his home line in his shops and online. His range is decorated with a pig motif (an exclusive) and there are a couple of mugs with abstract patterns. (On his website, a small mug is €75; a teapot, €240.)

In October, the Christmas patterns were still in production. Mrs. Mosse said she was planning to release a new design, perhaps in January, and Mr. Mosse was trying to think up a new ceramic product to develop.

Do they plan to slow down anytime soon? "I used to be here seven days a week now; it's down to five," Mr. Mosse said.

"It's called retirement," said Mrs. Mosse, and she smiled.

Hands-on

Nicholas Mosse and his wife, Susan Mosse, above, on the bank of the Nore river where Nicholas Mosse Pottery is based in the family's old flour mill. The company's pottery includes a line, above left, for Jonathan Anderson, the Northern Irish designer who is also Dior's creative director. Mr. Mosse's clay, far left, is a mix of Staffordshire clay with several others. Mrs. Mosse, left, designs the patterns for the pottery.

BR-03 41MM

TIME INSTRUMENT

Details

Each piece of pottery undergoes at least a 20-step process that includes dipping in slip (a liquid clay), left, and decorating with sponges, below.

PENDELTON

TTM

RECOMMENDATIONS

A skilled gift-giver has ideas

Kyle Smith, the National Football League's fashion editor, suggests everything from a super-long phone cord to a cozy winter blanket

BY CHANTEL TATTOLI

"I'm a really, really good gift-giver — and I pride myself on it," Kyle Smith said during a phone interview last month. The fashion editor for the National Football League since late 2024, a job that uses fashion to help players reach broader audiences, he believes that his proficiency at selecting presents is a corollary of his other career as a men's stylist.

"You have to figure out the things they love," he said. "You listen about what makes them insecure. You spot what sparks joy in them. Basically, you read the room and practice empathy."

One of Mr. Smith's private clients is the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who, he said, "loves space." So for Mr. Burrow's birthday in 2024, the stylist obtained Eau de Space, a fragrance that NASA developed. "It smells disgusting, like a sugar cookie mixed with copper," Mr. Smith said. "The agency used it to train the astronauts" to prepare to encounter harsh odors, he explained. "It isn't meant to be worn.

"It's an experience," he said with a laugh.

But what he described as “expert, advance-level gifts” go even further. They should be items that recipients would love, he said, but also things that you would give: “There’s an added layer of being seen and personally responded to.”

For example, he described a Secret Santa episode from his own school years. After picking the name of a classmate who adored the '90s anime series "Dragon Ball Z," Mr. Smith said: "I was like, 'I'm not getting him that. It's so tacky.' So I got him a chess set. I'd known this kid for five years. He was really smart.

"I was like, 'You're not thinking bigger, dude. You're really smart. You're going to love math and chess.'"

Mr. Smith admitted that he was a difficult person when it comes to gifts. "My best friend solemnly confessed this to me yesterday," he said.

So what does Mr. Smith recommend for the coming holiday season? What are the items on his own wish list? The annotated list that he offered is also what he called “cozy season-coded” — perfect for chilly days or evenings wrapped in a blanket.

Mr. Smith's suggestions have been edited and condensed for clarity.

ALO WOOL-CASHMERE SET

You can cocoon in this soft hoodie (\$348) and pants (\$338, aloyoga.com). If you must wear sweats outside the house, these are great ones. If you are traveling on a long-haul flight, an ultracomfortable set like this can help you get comfy (N.F.L. players love a set when they travel for away games), and the pants' pockets have zippers, which was not something I realized I wanted in cashmere pants. But the zips ensure that nothing falls out into the dreaded airplane nooks and crannies, especially if you're horizontal.

The set in black is the default. The brand's winter-frost blue is nice; so is white, but I would not give it in white to the rowdiest boy I know.

MONOGRAMMED WAX SEAL

A wax seal is something most people would not think to get for themselves. It probably goes to the ideal, in which the receiver had not realized X thing is a thing that they actually wanted, unbeknownst to themselves, or needed, unbeknownst to themselves.

I have one of these with “KS” and a kind of heraldic crest design (from \$32, olivepaperieco.com). What you do is put on music and candles and write out a thank-you note for that dinner or meeting.

I had a meeting with Anna Wintour recently, and I used the seal on my thank you. There is a sense that you really took the time to put pen to paper, to melt the wax (this is not like s'mores in that some people like to burn the marshmallows — don't burn the wax, please) and post the note.

JAMES HILL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Also, you wouldn't give people a coloring book without the crayons. I would give the seal with stationery, sticks of wax (wine red is the classic color), and maybe an Yves Saint Laurent lighter.

A PENDLETON BLANKET

A great blanket is among the sweetest gifts, and these woolen blankets are from an American mill that works with

OLIVE PAPERIE CO

Native artists. They last generations (from \$148, pendleton-usa.com).

I keep one at the foot of my bed all year around. The Yosemite National Park is classic, iconic, whereas the Hoyt throw is beautifully modern — it reminds me of a James Turrell “Skyspace,” where an oculus frames the sky.

Pendleton also does great collaborations that aren't just logo slaps. I loved their pieces with the Japanese streetwear brand Hysteric Glamour when I saw them in Tokyo a couple of years ago.

METER-LONG PHONE CHARGER CABLE

It is helpful to have an emergency-exit,

big-red-button gift, and mine is an extra-

long iPhone cable (\$19, apple.com).

(Choose your brand name.)

Because we all do it: You want to roll over in bed or on the couch, and the leash just isn't long enough and uncomfortably constrains you.

Everybody can use this, especially

A PENDLETON BLANKET

A great blanket is among the sweetest gifts, and these woolen blankets are from an American mill that works with

OLIVE PAPERIE CO

Native artists. They last generations (from \$148, pendleton-usa.com).

I keep one at the foot of my bed all year around. The Yosemite National Park is classic, iconic, whereas the Hoyt throw is beautifully modern — it reminds me of a James Turrell “Skyspace,” where an oculus frames the sky.

Pendleton also does great collaborations that aren't just logo slaps. I loved their pieces with the Japanese streetwear brand Hysteric Glamour when I saw them in Tokyo a couple of years ago.

METER-LONG PHONE CHARGER CABLE

It is helpful to have an emergency-exit,

big-red-button gift, and mine is an extra-

long iPhone cable (\$19, apple.com).

(Choose your brand name.)

Because we all do it: You want to roll over in bed or on the couch, and the leash just isn't long enough and uncomfortably constrains you.

Everybody can use this, especially

FILTERWORLD HOW ALGORITHMS FLATTENED CULTURE → KYLE CHAYKA

VINTAGE BOOKS

during cozy season. These charging cables break all the time, too. Best to have a backup.

Again, give it with the power charger, the whole kit and caboodle.

DEDCOOL DEDTERGENT MILK

People wash their clothes too much, which is bad for the environment and bad for your clothes. I am obsessed with hand washing my clothes.

Gifted

Clockwise, from far left: Pendleton's Hoyt Throw blanket; DedCool Dedtergent Milk; Alo Wool-Cashmere hoodie and pants; Apple's meter-long phone charger cable; "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture"; Olive Paperie's monogrammed wax seal; and Kyle Smith, the N.F.L.'s fashion editor.

This environmentally conscious detergent smells great (bergamot, musk, amber) and is super gentle, enough for hand washing delicates — I even wash my Alo cashmere with it (\$35, 32 ounces, dedcool.com). It can be used in a washing machine as well.

"FILTERWORLD: HOW ALGORITHMS FLATTENED CULTURE"

I'm an example of a very particular person — not an easy man to buy for, OK. But it's because I've taken the time to develop taste, which is also the whole point of this book (\$19, drawdown.com), by the New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka.

Read it this fall in a cashmere track suit and under a Pendleton blanket. It opened my third eye. It is a lot about developing taste, and it is an ideal book for people working in social media or cultural marketing, and people with an interest in anthropology.

This is a good book for anyone who has asked me, "What do you think of my outfit?"

ENTERTAINING

Cooking at the table

The fun, interactive tools to help you prepare food right in front of your guests at your next gathering

BY PENELOPE COLSTON

GLOBALKITCHEN JAPAN

The gift of a tabletop cooking device can turn an ordinary meal into a fun, interactive experience or a dinner party into an evening to remember.

And some are designed for small, intimate meals, too. In its line of products for raclette, the Alpine tradition of melting and scraping cheese over food, the Swiss culinary equipment manufacturer TTM has miniature models that use small tealights to melt cheese for two in just a few minutes.

The raclette machines of today are typically briefcase-size electric appliances in which diners melt cheese in six to eight small trays fitted into individual heating slots. They then use small spatulas to scrape the resulting molten goodness onto potatoes or cured meats, accenting the meal with cornichons and pearl onions. (Some units have small built-in grills to cook bacon or vegetables, too.)

But TTM's Twiny Cheese Valais is only about the size of a large brick and weighs 850 grams, or roughly two pounds. Made in Switzerland from sheet steel and a heat-resistant powder coating, the model includes spatulas and pans for two and sells on the company's website for 56 euros (\$52 in the United States).

A traditional raclette meal usually focuses on a semihard cheese made of cow's milk — also called raclette — from the Alpine regions of Europe that melts easily and is often sliced to fit the pans of modern raclette ovens. Other easily melted cheeses, such as Gouda, can be substituted, Pascal Burkard, TTM's chief executive, said in an email.

For raclette purists, the TTM Ambiance (€289) uses a heating element to melt the exposed surface of a half-wheel of raclette secured in a tabletop stand. When the cheese begins to bubble, it is moved from the heat and scraped by hand onto a plate.

The process recalls how the centuries-old tradition of raclette, a name derived from the French verb “to scrape,” began many centuries ago with Alpine herdsmen melting cheese over campfires, said Christine Imhof, who lives in the Swiss canton of Thurgau.

"You get bigger portions of cheese and each one tastes a little different," she said about the classic raclette experience. "It's the server's decision how long to keep the cheese on the fire and when to scrape it."

FROM ASIA

For outdoor tabletop cooking, the Japanese konro is a rectangular charcoal grill that is prized for its intense heat, compact design and insulating properties.

Traditional models are handmade in Japan from diatomite, a natural material made from the fossilized remains of microscopic algae. It is an ideal material for grill construction because of its powerful heat distribution properties.

"The grill can be accessed from all four sides, so friends and family can gather around and cook their preferred ingredients together," Ryosuke Motohashi, the chief executive at the online retailer Globalkitchen Japan, wrote in an email. (Yakitori, a dish of grilled chicken skewers, is a konro favorite.)

The grills range in size, many with roughly the dimensions of a computer keyboard, and include adjustable vents to control airflow and heat. A traditional charcoal is binchotan, an ultradense hardwood variety prized for its intense

ZAMOURI SPICES

heat and long, steady burn.

Juices from meats and vegetables that drip onto the hot coals beneath a grate of steel mesh are vaporized, infusing the ingredients with a distinct, smoky flavor.

The Kitchen Lab, a Swedish retailer of culinary equipment, offers several Japanese-made konro models on its website, including a medium-size version for two to six people (\$392) and an extra-large grill (\$934).

Cooking at the table

The fun, interactive tools to help you prepare food right in front of your guests at your next gathering

BY PENELOPE COLSTON

GLOBALKITCHEN JAPAN

The gift of a tabletop cooking device can turn an ordinary meal into a fun, interactive experience or a dinner party into an evening to remember.

And some are designed for small, intimate meals, too. In its line of products for raclette, the Alpine tradition of melting and scraping cheese over food, the Swiss culinary equipment manufacturer TTM has miniature models that use small tealights to melt cheese for two in just a few minutes.

The raclette machines of today are typically briefcase-size electric appliances in which diners melt cheese in six to eight small trays fitted into individual heating slots. They then use small spatulas to scrape the resulting molten goodness onto potatoes or cured meats, accenting the meal with cornichons and pearl onions. (Some units have small built-in grills to cook bacon or vegetables, too.)

But TTM's Twiny Cheese Valais is only about the size of a large brick and weighs 850 grams, or roughly two pounds. Made in Switzerland from sheet steel and a heat-resistant powder coating, the model includes spatulas and pans for two and sells on the company's website for 56 euros (\$52 in the United States).

A traditional raclette meal usually focuses on a semihard cheese made of cow's milk — also called raclette — from the Alpine regions of Europe that melts easily and is often sliced to fit the pans of modern raclette ovens. Other easily melted cheeses, such as Gouda, can be substituted, Pascal Burkard, TTM's chief executive, said in an email.

For raclette purists, the TTM Ambiance (€289) uses a heating element to melt the exposed surface of a half-wheel of raclette secured in a tabletop stand. When the cheese begins to bubble, it is moved from the heat and scraped by hand onto a plate.

The process recalls how the centuries-old tradition of raclette, a name derived from the French verb “to scrape,” began many centuries ago with Alpine herdsmen melting cheese over campfires, said Christine Imhof, who lives in the Swiss canton of Thurgau.

"You get bigger portions of cheese and each one tastes a little different," she said about the classic raclette experience. "It's the server's decision how long to keep the cheese on the fire and when to scrape it."

FROM ASIA

For outdoor tabletop cooking, the Japanese konro is a rectangular charcoal grill that is prized for its intense heat, compact design and insulating properties.

Traditional models are handmade in Japan from diatomite, a natural material made from the fossilized remains of microscopic algae. It is an ideal material for grill construction because of its powerful heat distribution properties.

"The grill can be accessed from all four sides, so friends and family can gather around and cook their preferred ingredients together," Ryosuke Motohashi, the chief executive at the online retailer Globalkitchen Japan, wrote in an email. (Yakitori, a dish of grilled chicken skewers, is a konro favorite.)

The grills range in size, many with roughly the dimensions of a computer keyboard, and include adjustable vents to control airflow and heat. A traditional charcoal is binchotan, an ultradense hardwood variety prized for its intense

ZAMOURI SPICES

heat and long, steady burn.

Juices from meats and vegetables that drip onto the hot coals beneath a grate of steel mesh are vaporized, infusing the ingredients with a distinct, smoky flavor.

The Kitchen Lab, a Swedish retailer of culinary equipment, offers several Japanese-made konro models on its website, including a medium-size version for two to six people (\$392) and an extra-large grill (\$934).

FROM NORTH AFRICA

With its distinctive cone-shape lid and circular base, the tagine is instantly recognizable as the traditional cooking vessel used to prepare the Moroccan stew of the same name. Typically made with meat, fish or vegetables, the dish is also common in neighboring Algeria and Tunisia.

Perhaps less familiar to some is the majmar, a bowl-shape charcoal brazier of weighty, unglazed earthenware or metal that, when paired with a tagine, can take the culinary tradition outdoors, transforming a slow-cooked stew into a communal, live-fire cooking experience.

"The dish can be prepared with vegetables and meat; with chicken or with fish and sometimes chicken with olives," said Fatima Zahra Chargaoui, a native of Ouarzazate, Morocco, who lives in Finland. "The method of preparation varies from one household to another, and even from one city to another."

The grill can be filled with a scattering of charcoal for slow braising or larger amounts for grilling. During cooking, the tagine rests above the coals on raised supports along the brazier's rim.

The rim can also support skewers of meat and vegetables laid directly over the coals.

Many believe the brazier imparts a flavor richer and more authentic than that of other modern cooking methods. According to Ms. Chargaoui, the majmar gives a tagine “a distinct flavor and a delicious aroma, making the experience of eating it completely different.”

The tagine and majmar can be purchased together from Zamouri Spices, a Kansas spice importer that ships internationally. Its Moroccan Tagine Cooking Experience sets include a cooking tagine, a charcoal brazier and a spice blend (with prices starting at €140.95 or, in the United States, \$154.90). The site also includes an instructional video on how to assemble and light the brazier.

Customers can choose among spice blends, but Mary Elbertai, co-founder of Zamouri, said in an email that she recommends the Ras el Hanout blend, which she said appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, and later in the magazine's cookbook.

But regardless of its ingredients or how it is prepared, tagine is more than a meal. "It's a moment that brings the family together and reinforces mutual respect and a sense of belonging," Ms. Chargaoui said.

Heritage

Clockwise, from far left: A device for raclette, which is a nod to the centuries-old version of the dish, where Alpine herdsmen would melt cheese over a campfire; the Japanese Kaginushi konro charcoal grill, which encourages groups to cook together because it's accessible from all sides; and a charcoal brazier paired with a tagine, which creates a live-fire cooking experience with the flavors of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

ENGAGEMENT

Britain loves a celebrity holiday ad

As the year winds down, advertisements featuring story-driven plots and recognizable names vie for the most popular of the season

BY RACHEL FELDER

Around this time last year Keira Knight-ley starred in a charming film about her relationship with an unlikely boyfriend, played by Joe Wilkinson.

"The Perfect Gift" was a four-minute holiday commercial for the British supermarket chain Waitrose. Its aim, beyond entertainment, was to encourage shoppers to buy Sussex Charmer mature Cheddar cheese and all the ingredients needed to bake a savory turkey pie.

The brisk rom-com typified a winter-time treat that has become as much a part of the British holiday season as Christmas crackers and mince pies: a deluge of holiday ads with story-driven plots, a mix of charm and humor and, frequently, a recognizable actor or actress.

"Christmas is our Super Bowl," said Aidan McClure, the co-founder and chief creative officer of Wonderhood Studios, the agency in London that produced the Waitrose ad.

Indeed, as happens in the United States during the annual championship game, the British festive season comes with the same zeitgeist-fueled interest in the commercials — or adverts, as they are called in Britain.

“Every year, now there is a real sense of who's going to do the best ad?” said Stephen Woodford, chief executive of the Advertising Association, a British trade organization. “Who's going to be the ad that people talk about most? What's going to get the most social traction?”

PAELLA BITES AND TARTAN

Contenders last year included a campaign for M&S Food, the supermarket arm of the British retailer Marks & Spencer, starring the comedian Dawn French: She escapes a traffic jam by climbing into the back of an M&S truck staged for a holiday party and ends up serving black tiger prawn paella bites to other stranded motorists. (Ms. French also appeared, sometimes as the voice of an animated fairy, in the retailer's holiday ads from 2021 though 2024.)

And Jennifer Saunders — Ms. French's counterpart in the BBC comedy series "French and Saunders" from 1987 to 2007 — starred in a holiday festivities ad for Burberry. She and the other guests, including Naomi Campbell, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Ncuti

Gatwa, were bedecked in the brand's designs.

Already this year, Helena Bonham Carter starred in "Head of the Extraordinary," a 3.5-minute ad released in September to promote the beauty-focused Advent calendar sold by the London department store Liberty. Ms. Bonham Carter played the title role, a didactic version of herself in suitably eccentric attire, with cameos from such beauty names as Bobbi Brown and Lisa Eldridge.

As for the rest of the season, “there are already articles in the tabloids here leaking who’s starring in certain ads or rumors that started in September that are starting to get people excited,” said Katie Mackay-Sinclair, a partner at Mother, a London production company that worked on several holiday ads.

She wouldn't disclose any specifics, but said that her company worked on the Marks & Spencer's ad this year, which the retailer confirmed was one advertisement combining food and fashion with home items, a departure from previous years.

The sometimes-gossipy tabloid newspaper the Sun had reported in September that the actress Lucy Punch from the BBC comedy series “Amandaland” would star in the M&S 2026 seasonal ads.

SIGNING TALENT

The stigma of appearing in a commercial certainly seems like a Ghost of Christmas Past.

"It's all changed for actors and there's much more openness," said Jo Shoesmith, Amazon's chief brand officer, who worked on "Five Star Theater," a series of holiday ads that featured Adam Driver in 2024 and Benedict Cumberbatch in 2025, each reading customer reviews with the gravitas usually reserved for Shakespearean soliloquies. The spots ran in the United States, Britain, Ireland and Australia, in short clips that aired mostly on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat.

Deliberate casting, she added, is a key element of signing talent.

"You're not just putting a list of names on a piece of paper and then assigning them to any generic actors," Ms. ShoSmith said. "We were looking for dramatic actors, so you're starting at a place where they're like, 'I can see why you came to me.'"

Inevitably that agenda also includes increasing viewer engagement. "The celebrity involvement in commercials like that does do a good job of breaking through all the clutter," said Steve Pacheco, the president and chief executive of the American Advertising Federation, a nonprofit trade organization.

Famous faces

Left, Helena Bon-

ham Carter starred

in an ad promoting

a beauty-focused

Advent calendar

sold by the London

department store

Liberty. Below, an

ad from last year

featuring Benedict

Cumberbatch, who

read Amazon

customer reviews

reminiscent of a

Shakespearean

soliloquy.

While many seasonal ads aim to entertain, “underlying that are very, very hard-nosed business drivers,” said Mr. Woodford of the Advertising Association. “Winning the holiday season advertising battle and winning a big share of the public’s spend is critical to whether you have a good year or not, and that’s why it has become so important.”

VIRAL SHARING

The stakes are unquestionably high, especially in a year when inflation and financial worries are clouding retail expectations in many markets.

In Britain, retail sales were 55.7 billion pounds (about \$73.6 billion) between Nov. 30, 2025, and Jan. 3, 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics. And in the United States, nearly a third of all discretionary spending and of all clothing spending took place during the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Circana, a research firm.

And Bain & Company, the American consulting firm, has predicted that retail sales from Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving) through Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) will amount to more than \$85 billion, even in the current financial climate.

As with shopping, online content and social media posts have become essential ways advertisers reach consumers year-round. (The Keira Knightley Waitrose ad aired just once on television, for example.) With that in mind, multiple edits of holiday ads are typically created, including 15- and 30-second versions that lend themselves to smartphone screens and viral sharing.

"The traditional display ad approach — going on TV, radio, newspapers and other things — that's only part of a changing picture," said Joseph Turow, a professor emeritus at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania who is the author of more than a dozen books on advertising.

"There is a sense out there of change and having to be on top of it," he added.

The Bird on a Rock Brooch

"Beautiful design makes a beautiful life." — Charles Lewis Tiffany

TIFFANY&CO.

ON PAPER

Making distinctive gift wrap

In London, Lucy McGrath uses a traditional marbling process to make stationery, ornaments and other items for her Marmor Paperie brand

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMIE SOUTEYRAT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON

BY KATE YOUDE

The centuries-old craft of paper marbling keeps Lucy McGrath focused.

"You are not in full control, and the artist is really the water," she said. "You're just collaborating with it to create your marbled papers, and I just love that side of it because it opens up this world of surprise."

Marbling is the process of floating paint on a liquid to create a pattern, which is transferred onto paper by laying the sheet on the surface to pick up the paint.

Art form

Lucy McGrath,

right, is one of a

small number of

professionals in the

United Kingdom

who earn their

main income from

marbling. Her

company, Marmor

Paperie, makes

stationery products

and decorations,

including, far right,

paper stars and

Christmas balls.

Even when repeating a pattern, each of her hand-marbled papers is unique because she creates them one by one. She said this, and the beauty of what she called these “little paintings,” made them popular at this time of year, as people were looking for “lovely gift wrap for their Christmas presents.” (14 pounds, or \$18.65, per sheet).

Through her company, Marmor Paperie — which she established in 2015 and named after the Latin word for marble — she makes stationery products and decorations, including her newly in-

troduced festive paper stars (£45).

Ms. McGrath is one of a small number of professionals in the United Kingdom — 11 to 20, according to a report from the British charity Heritage Crafts — who earn their main income from marbling. The craft has appeared on the charity's Red List of Endangered Crafts since the publication of the first of these reports in 2017.

Mary Lewis, the head of craft sustainability at Heritage Crafts and the lead researcher for the Red List, said marbling was used in bookbinding in Britain from the 17th century and became a popular handicraft from the 19th century. She said a drop in its use in bookbinding, mass production of books and the rise of digital printing, competition from cheaper products overseas and a lack of training routes had contributed to its decline.

"TRIAL AND ERROR"

Ms. McGrath's interest in marbling was piqued while she was studying illustration at the University of Brighton. She took a short course in bookbinding, which led her to collect what she described as “beautiful old books” with marbled covers or endpapers. After graduating in 2011, she pursued marbling as a hobby and completed a weekend course with a professional in 2015.

“And after that,” she said, “it was pretty much just trial and error.”

Her intuitive designs are typically inspired by nature. She starts by sponging alum (aluminum potassium sulfate), which has been dissolved in boiling water, onto a blank sheet of paper. This process, called mordanting, is what "works to grab the paints" to the paper, she said. Without it, the paint "slides off" when the sheet is later rinsed, she explained.

Ms. McGrath then pours size — carrageenan powder, a thickening agent derived from seaweed, blended with water — into a tray. She said the size had the surface tension needed to make the paint float. (She can reuse the size for as long as five days, cleaning it by dragging strips of newspaper across the surface to remove any thickness or excess paint from a previous design.)

Chaos marbling is what Ms. McGrath calls her particular technique. She taps a paintbrush to scatter droplets of acrylic paint across the surface of the size, starting with a dark, accent or metallic hue, which she said “will be compressed by the subsequent colors.”

"It'll often be the brightest color, but also the least present, in the design," she said. She layers colors, balancing their spreads "so that they all play nicely together."

While she might leave blobs of paint, Ms. McGrath sometimes uses a skewer to create swirls or a long comb to make a pattern of arches called nonpareil.

She rolls the paper onto the surface of the size to pick up the paint, enjoying what she called “that adrenaline moment” when she discovers whether the design has materialized as she imagined. After rinsing the paper under the faucet, which she said “removes the layer of seaweed gloop” and any excess paint, she hangs it to dry.

Her ceramic Christmas balls (£14-£16) require what she described as a "dunking process," twisting the plain ceramic balls she has purchased in the paint-laden size to create swirl patterns. "I like them to look like planets," she said.

BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS

Ms. McGrath sells her work through her website, retailers in Britain and the United States, and at fairs such as the Cockpit Open Studios in the Deptford area of Southeast London, on Dec. 4-6. Her best sellers online, she said, are photo albums (£65-£75), followed by notebooks (£25-£36). For both of these items, she hand-marbles the covers and then adds them to sets of bound pages imported from Italy.

She said she believed that people "want more beautiful objects that have been handmade," in a reaction to mass production. "They want the story of the object," she said.

And even though marbling is considered endangered, Ms. Lewis of Heritage Crafts said she believed interest in the craft had been rising in Britain.

"I think people are increasingly interested in alternative careers so they're actively looking for things that are more hands-on, more authentic, more connected, I guess," she explained.

She added that the craft's appearance on the Red List, along with training opportunities, including those offered by Ms. McGrath, who runs marbling workshops, had helped raise awareness.

Another driver is that marbling is “a perfect craft for social media,” said Ms. McGrath, whose business account has more than 16,000 followers on Instagram. “It’s quick, it’s colorful, it’s theatrical, and it looks easy,” she said.

There are unseen decisions and knowledge behind the results shown in a reel, however. Ms. McGrath, who has a part-time assistant, said it was the “control aspect” and the skill to produce a hundred versions of the same paper that separated the professionals from the hobbyists.

Process

Left to right, Ms. McGrath marbles paper. Marbling is the process of floating paint on a liquid to create a pattern, which is transferred onto paper by laying the sheet on the surface to pick up the paint.

Ms. Lewis said she did not know whether marbling would be considered as no longer endangered when the next Red List was published in May 2027. "But it's definitely heading in that direction," she said.

FROM THE COVER

A rush away from gold?

GOLD, FROM PAGE SI as well as those using 9-karat gold, such as Aliita, Pascale Monvoisin and Tamara Taichman.

ALFREDO CASTELLANOS-HAMBLETON

Even though some fine jewelers have been reluctant to embrace silver, the precious white metal's affordability factor — it now trades at about \$60 an ounce — cannot be easily ignored. Kat Kim, the founder and designer of Katkim in Manhattan Beach, Calif., was motivated to introduce her first silver collection last month, with prices starting at \$420, to offer clients a lower-cost entry point for the brand.

“Silver gave us a way to translate our design language into something more approachable while still feeling very considered and distinctly us,” Ms. Kim wrote in an email.

Other affordable fine jewelry gift possibilities include designs that go light on gold but heavy on pearls and colored stones, especially in beaded form.

Itä, a fine jewelry brand founded by two best friends — Inés Capó of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Afet Burcu Salargil of Istanbul — introduced its Bosfor collection of beaded strands in 2023 and significantly expanded the line this year. The strands come in 16 gem varieties, including ruby, aquamarine, black spinel, moonstone, emerald and kunzite, and feature 14-karat gold clasps, with prices from \$1,950 to \$4,500.

"The gold hardware is there, but the faceted semiprecious raw gemstones really drive the design," Ms. Capó wrote in an email. "Clients still feel like they're getting the full fine jewelry experience through the craftsmanship, the color, the vibrancy and brilliance of gemstones, while the gold acts more as an accent."

Ms. Salargil said she and Ms. Capó had noticed a decisive shift toward colored gemstones in general. "Tough times call for color," Ms. Salargil wrote in an email. "Lately, we're seeing clients gravitate toward color in a way we haven't seen in years, both because it offers alternatives at different price points and because they are genuinely drawn to the emotion and energy that gemstones bring."

Sarah Rabie, a jeweler in Los Angeles, said she has done especially well with styles featuring Ethiopian opal. The gem, best known for its rainbow flashes of color, offers a big look in pieces that generally retail for less than \$3,000.

"I'm doing Ethiopian opal cocktail rings in 14 karat just to bring down the prices," Ms. Rabie said during a recent jewelry showing in Beverly Hills, Calif. "Now, with everything so dramatically up, you need to be able to give people something that feels like it's got value. Opals are great — each one has a personality."

You could say the same thing about the designs inspired by helium balloons in Tacit Fine Jewelry's Bodega Pool

Party collection. Crafted in ceramic color-coated silver and 14-karat gold, the two-year-old collection, which has a core retail price range of \$1,000 to \$3,000, was created for gift-givers and self-purchasers, said Michelle Fantaci, Tacit's founder and designer.

The line, which includes pendants, stud earrings and rings fashioned into festive forms — think Popsicles, balloons, beach balls, cherries, lips and pill capsules — takes its inspiration from what Ms. Fantaci described on a recent call as the “gritty glamour” and spontaneity of life in pre-2001 New York City.

"It's fun visually but the relative accessibility also makes it fun," she said.

SEARCH FOR MEANING

Jill Wolf, the owner and founder of Jill Wolf Jewels, a boutique in Geneva's Old Town, was attending a showing by the Swedish jeweler Jemima Hargreaves in

Paris last month when she paused to consider the options for buyers who cannot afford the luxe 18-karat gold designs crafted by Ms. Hargreaves and similar jewelers.

"We start at 60 Swiss francs," or about \$72, Ms. Wolf said of her store's selection. "We work with an Italian designer who does the most beautiful costume jewelry. She's third generation and everything is made in resin, but it's handmade resin. It takes her 22 hours to make one earring. And then we can go up to 60,000, 80,000 francs.

"You can still find things that are special," she added. "They can be resin, brass, they can be whatever. But it's finding something that's got soul in it, and that's difficult."

Paul Schneider, the co-owner of Twist, a jewelry retailer in Portland, Ore., who was perusing the goods on display at the NouvelleBox showroom in Paris, echoed Ms. Wolf. He said that Twist stocks plenty of designers who offer well-made jewels in nonprecious materials, but that he and his team have to be judicious when evaluating which ones they buy for the store.

“Because everything we’ve got, we have it for a reason,” Mr. Schneider said. “It’s not just to fill a position in our selection, but something we think is a good value, whether it’s \$76 or \$76,000. Sometimes the \$76 piece we think is just too much and the \$76,000 piece we’re like, ‘We’re so lucky to have that.’”

He stepped away to examine some pearl designs and then returned to make a point: Yes, gold jewelry is, for many people, a prohibitively expensive gift. But don't make the mistake of thinking you've "been priced out of pieces with meaning," Mr. Schneider said, "because you haven't been.

"Write them a poem," he added.

Branching out

Above, Katkim's silver chain necklace; a lips pendant necklace and a Popsicle pendant from Tacit Fine Jewelry's Bodega Pool Party collection; Twist's Short Black Resin Beaded necklace; Annette Ferdinand's feather earrings; Sarah Rabie's Ethiopian opal ring; and Katkim's Éternal Diamond bracelet. Left, beaded strands from Ita's Bosfor collection.

MAHU & CO.

COMPETITION

Playing the gift-giving game

Board and card games, including reimagined classics like mahjong, Scrabble and Monopoly, provide myriad options for your holiday lists

BY ALIX STRAUSS

This holiday season, people seem to be craving nostalgia as well as a digital detox — both of which can be found in parlor games and classic tabletop entertainment.

“We are in a golden age of board games,” said Ryan Scoats, a senior lecturer in sociology at Birmingham City University in England, whose focuses include board game culture. “We’re burned out from smartphones and social media. An appreciated re-emergence for nostalgia is happening along with an element of ‘geek-chic.’

"Board games enable people to engage face-to-face, with or without alcohol, while creating a slowness that's lacking in our lives."

Cognitive stimulation is another attribute such activities offer.

As Drew Altschul, a psychologist and lecturer at Newcastle University in England, said: "The brain is like a muscle that benefits from exercise. When you play games, you're enhancing processing speed, reaction time and functionality, all of which keep your mind sharp.

“You're also strengthening and maintaining social bonds, which is important for protecting against things like loneliness,” added Dr. Altschul, whose academic focus is cognitive evolution and mental health. “Our brains become more synchronized with the people we are doing these activities with, and that creates connection.”

For some tactile touch points and surprisingly elegant and modern upgrades, here are six suggestions of old game friends with some new looks.

BACKGAMMON

For those who like “race” games — games with a first-to-the-finish aspect that mix tactical piece movement with mental and mathematical skills — try backgammon. Its lineage stretches back thousands of years to ancient games played in Mesopotamia and Egypt. But boards today have come a long way from playing in the dirt, leaning instead toward art and purposeful design.

Such games are produced by Annette Gardo and Patrik Westerdahl, who left advertising after realizing they wanted a simpler life and created Printworks in 2017 in Stockholm. The brand's Lacquered Backgammon boards are made of wood, with bold geometric patterns and complementary acrylic chips. (Available in three colors, \$195.)

RUMMIKUB

Invented by Ephraim Hertzano in the 1940s in Romania, a period when playing cards were outlawed under the Communist regime, Rummikub is a tile game that challenges players to clear their tile-filled racks first by building numerical combinations and runs. The game is essentially mahjong's approachable sibling and gin rummy's fun cousin.

The Mahjong Line, created by Annie O'Grady and Kate LaGere in Dallas, brings an opulent, design-forward sensibility to the category. The company began developing its colorful mahjong sets in 2020 and quickly expanded into other tabletop games, including rummy.

“Rummy has become an extremely good seller. It’s easy to teach and easy to learn. Most people pick it up in 10 minutes,” Ms. LaGere said. “It’s the perfect game to play during a party as you don’t need the same level of quiet and focus you might need for other games.”

The Rummy sets include 112 tiles, four maple racks and a custom vegan leather tile bag (\$350).

MARK & GRAHAM

THE MAHJONG LINE

MAHJONG

Speaking of mahjong, the traditional tile game that originated in China in the mid-19th century has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

That popularity has generated several specialty suppliers, such as Mahj & Co. in Alexandria, Va. Its founders, Kari Bruhn and Lori Morris, say their family brought learning and laughter into their childhoods during the evenings they spent playing games.

The business offers 10 mahjong sets, including its C'est La Vie set, inspired by France and featuring the Eiffel Tower, flowers, easels and canvases, and friendly Parisians. The 160 tiles are made of five-layer acrylic, and include dice and a theme-inspired matching fabric bag (\$295).

Or go for a holiday theme with Holly Jolly, a festive set that includes images of twinkling lights, decorated trees, stockings, mistletoe and the obligatory Christmas sweaters. Let it Snow is just as playful, showcasing tiles with snowflakes, skies, trees and a polar bear. (Both \$295.)

MONOPOLY

Few family board games have been reinvented and collected as obsessively as Monopoly, introduced as a mass market game in 1935 by Parker Brothers. Over the decades, the game has taught players about money, real estate and “going directly to jail.” Hasbro, which acquired Parker Brothers in 1991, said the game has been adapted into more than 300 licensed versions with themes including celebrities, cities, sports teams, movies and television shows.

Winning Moves, a Hasbro licensee in London, offers many sets with British themes, such as Liverpool, Scotland, the 2003 film “Love Actually” and Queen Elizabeth II. Other international editions by various licensees have featured Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo, as well as cities within the United States. There are luxury and anniversary editions, too, with boards and components made from wood, glass, metal and plastic.

WS Game Company, another licensee in the United States, offers its own collection of distinctive Monopoly editions. Prices vary as much as the versions.

SCRABBLE

Fun for all

Clockwise, from top: The Onyx Scrabble Set from Brouk & Co.; Mark & Graham's Aura Scrabble Game; the card game Question Everything; the Rummy Tile Set by the Mahjong Line; Mahj & Co.'s C'est La Vie set; and the Lacquered Backgammon board from Printworks.

Word worshipers can find sanctuary in Scrabble. Alfred Mosher Butts, an architect in New York, created the game in the 1930s, by combining elements of crossword puzzles and anagrams. James Brunot acquired the rights in the late 1940s, made some changes and renamed the game Scrabble.

For those looking for pops of color — think glitzy silver or optimistic pink — Brouk & Co., a lifestyle brand in California, offers an Onyx Scrabble Set. The carrying case, offered in four colors, contains a classic game board, 100 letter tiles in a velvet pouch and four wood stands (\$150).

For a more permanent element, Mark & Graham offers the Aura Scrabble Game, featuring a translucent glass-and-acrylic board with iridescent foil letter slots (\$129). Laser-engraved monogramming is available for an additional \$17.

CARD GAMES

If you want something potent and portable for the car, the dining room table or around a roaring fire, conversation card games — which start exchanges with thought-provoking questions — are a good grab-and-go option.

In 2022, Danielle Robay, a journalist, producer and podcaster in Los Angeles, created Question Everything (\$35). The goals are simple, Ms. Robay said: "To question, connect, listen and be seen."

"A card game gives you permission to ask questions and an opportunity to get to know someone more deeply, or better," she added.

According to Ms. Robay, there is real science behind the questions. “When we feel heard, our brains light up in the same reward regions as food, money and sex,” she said.

Some of the 52 questions include: "When have you felt the closest to magic in your life?" "What are you still trying to prove to yourself and to others?" and "What do you know for sure?"

Other companies, including We're Not Really Strangers, BestSelf and Table-Topics, offer a multitude of game options, too.

HIGHLIGHT

Art that is the cat's meow

Portrait artists around the world are rendering cats, dogs and other beloved pets in thread, paint and ink

PHOTOGRAPHS BY RENA EFFENDI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BY RACHEL GARRAHAN

The emotional attachment between people and their pets is deeply ingrained in the human experience. During the first century A.D., the Roman poet Martial wrote in an epigram that a man he called Publius had commissioned a portrait of his beloved dog, Issa, which Martial joked was so true to life that animal and painting could not be distinguished.

The urge to celebrate our pets during their relatively short lives, and to commemorate them when they are gone, is one that endures today. And it is big business.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the global pet industry will grow to almost \$500 billion by 2030, in part because of what the authors of the report called the “continued humanization” of animal companions as pet owners are willing to pay higher and higher prices for top-shelf pet food, veterinary treatment and more.

The lockdown period of the Covid pandemic saw a spike in pet ownership, with many seeking company during long periods of isolation. In Britain alone, 3.2 million households acquired a pet during the first year of the pandemic, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association. Lucy Bowes lived in one of them, adopting her rescue dachshund, Lola, in 2021.

Unable to find quality custom products depicting her new obsession, she financed the purchase of an embroidery machine and created a custom portrait of Lola on a sweatshirt. She then continued making sweatshirts embroidered with pets. Eight months later, she traded her job as an accountant for her side hustle. Now, her company, Lucy and Lola, boasts that it has handled more than 100,000 orders, starting at \$115 for a pet-embroidered sweatshirt.

She recently appeared on the BBC reality show "Dragon's Den" and, after receiving gifts depicting their own pets, each of the show's five investors offered her deals. She ended up selecting two — from the beauty entrepreneur Jenna Meek and the investor Steven Bartlett

— and said she had been surprised by viewers' response.

"We've been selling out our custom embroidery slots every single day since it aired," she said, "and it's opened doors to partnerships and conversations we'd never have had otherwise."

While her path may be unusual, Ms. Bowes is far from the only artist producing creative gifts for pet owners.

FANTASY LAND

Irem Yazici, a self-taught artist based in Eskisehir, Turkey, tries to maintain a level of creative control over the hand-embroidered portraits she creates, which place intricate, realistic depictions of a pet's face on a humanlike body within a fantastical world. Using the Instagram handle Baobap, Ms. Yazici has attracted more than 320,000 followers and clients from as far as the United States, Canada and Australia.

Ms. Yazici collaborates with owners, asking them about their pets' unique traits and specific expressions. Though she makes sure owners are happy with her sketches of their pets, she stressed that the final composition, in which a sequined, tutu-wearing cat might be playing bass guitar while standing on a shooting star, is always her own.

Experience, she noted, has taught her the importance of establishing limits with potentially micromanaging pet fanatics: "I need to protect the boundaries of my art."

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Rozemarijn van Tilt's pet portraits are helping to fund her illustration degree studies at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

She said she began by sharing paintings of her own cats on Instagram and now attracts orders from all over the world, starting at 75 euros (\$84) for a small illustration done in gouache, watercolor and, in some cases, colored pencil. "I think it's because pets offer us unconditional love that we become so attached to them," she said.

In South Korea, Sung-Hee Park was grieving the loss of one of her own cats when she took up embroidery to cope with her grief. Now, nine years later, through her business, My Furry Friends, Ms. Park sells three-dimensional portraits that depict a pet's features down to the tiniest whisker, which she crafts using only embroidery thread and a needle. Starting at \$400, a single portrait might incorporate more than 50 thread colors and take a month to complete, she wrote in an email.

She said the growing pet economy in South Korea has intensified people's feelings toward their pets. "Pets are increasingly being recognized not simply as animals, but as members of the family," she said.

Her greatest challenge, she said, was depicting a Havanese named Wynston. The grieving owner had only poor-quality photos to inform two portraits, but was happy with the results. "I believe that if my work can bring comfort to someone, and give them a warm smile even in the midst of missing a beloved pet," Ms. Park wrote, "then that alone makes what I do deeply meaningful."

A FINE LINE

Personalized pet merchandise can walk a fine line between emotion and absurdity, said Matthew Inman, the American cartoonist who created the website The Oatmeal, and whose animated short, "My Dog: The Paradox," about the comical behavior of his pet Rambo (who is now deceased), has been touring film festivals this year.

"It's heartfelt because we love our pets," he wrote in an email, "but hilarious because at the end of the day there's this little voice in your head that says, 'It's JUST A CAT. What am I doing? Do I really need a travel mug with his face on it?'

Ms. Yazici said that her most unusual commission was in memory of a client's beloved praying mantis, which she depicted in Renaissance costume playing a harp. She said it had attracted a far greater response than any other commission. For Ms. Bowes, it was a sour-dough starter called Moris so beloved by its owner that the family treated it like a pet. "We embroidered Moris," she wrote. "It went viral."

Mr. Inman said an ex-girlfriend gifted him custom socks featuring his dog Beatrix. “The company that printed them made some kind of mistake, and kept sending her socks for weeks on end,” he wrote. “She ended up giving the socks to anyone who would take them, so my dog’s face spread like a plague across people’s ankles. It was the greatest birthday gift ever.”

Thread by thread

Clockwise from above left, a pet portrait made by Irem Yazici, an artist based in Eskisehir, Turkey; Ms. Yazici at work on a project with her cat Guppy alongside her; and a portrait in progress.

SHOPPING

Adieu, greige. Hello, whimsy!

Seven experts suggest holiday gifts that bring joy and wonder through silliness, fun and serious sparkles

YTL HOTELS

BY KATHLEEN BECKETT

Whimsymaxing seems to be a solution for people trying to lift their spirits in the face of the world's chaos.

"As its name suggests, whimsymaxing encourages us to find and indulge in radical joy through incorporating play, decoration and imagination into the routine of daily life," Jessica Richards, a trend forecaster and the founder of 12th House, a New York City brand consultancy, said in an email of the term, which started appearing online early last year, amid other kinds of "-maxxing."

"It's a refusal of conformity or monotony, adding self-expression or even a bit of silliness or fun to the ordinary."

Sequins and gemstones are often involved, as whimsymaxxers have been known to bedazzle everything from a plastic coffee cup to a car. “Embracing whimsy in our lives comes through adding a bit of sparkle — literal or metaphorical — to our routine,” Ms. Richards continued.

There are many ways to whimsymaxx, and to share the joy through a gift. Here, experts in a variety of fields suggest what they think is the perfect, most whimsical present.

EMBROIDERED SWEATER

Elodie Abrial, the director of commerce for Groupe le Bon Marché, recommended a "Comfy sweater embroidered with a landscape" by the French knitwear brand Molli.

"With its mountain scenery and delicate embroidered drawings, this Molli Comfy sweater perfectly embodies whimsymaxing with uninhibited childlike joy, a rejection of somber minimalism and the pleasure of fantasy simply because it makes you smile," Ms. Abrial wrote in an email. "But behind this fashion-singular piece also lies true exceptional craftsmanship that tells the story of the house's artisanal expertise, proving that even the most playful piece can also be the most carefully crafted."

BREKKE FLETCHER

The Molli Comfy is more than 65 percent alpaca, but also includes small amounts of recycled polyamide, polyamide, extra-fine virgin wool and elastane (\$885).

FANCIFUL RING

The London jeweler Cece Fein-Hughes described a ring she designed as an “instant mood lifter,” explaining “our Fairy-tale Horse Ring captures a little story-book world in miniature: a white horse amongst pink roses, hand-painted in champlevé enamel on 18-karat gold, with tiny swords and engraved details waiting to be discovered," she said in an email about the \$13,700 ring.

"It feels like a perfect example of whimsymaxing because it brings fantasy, romance and a sense of play to something you can wear every day."

A SPA CERTIFICATE

Mary Bemis, the founder and editorial director of the digital publication Insider's Guide to Spas, wrote in an email that a gift certificate for a spa treatment is the answer for gift givers. "So many options spring to mind," she continued, "after all, spa is about embracing one's senses, which often leads to an overriding feeling of joy.

“With that said, I find whimsy most often on the water, and spas around the globe have upped the ante with some exquisitely fun aquatic experiences. Of special note is the Floating Spa at Monkey Island Estate on the Thames: a spa literally afloat on the river, where guests can experience a Floating Massage aboard the boat, atop an aqua-cushion treatment bed. Pure whimsy.”

Gift vouchers for one of the 60-minute spa treatments at that spa start at 110 pounds (\$147).

HOME DÉCOR

The interior designer Martin Brudnizki, the founder and owner of Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, said in an email that "there should always be room for a little whimsy at home. I like objects that have a sense of personality and make you smile, particularly when they are unexpected.

"Sometimes it is the smallest things that can change the way you feel about a room. You should surround yourself with things that you enjoy looking at and that make everyday life feel a little more special. I love these daffodil candle holders by Cabana Magazine because they have such a strong sense of personality. They are decorative without being too serious, and I think a table should always have a few things that make you smile." (Set of two, in various sizes and colors, start at \$420).

OUT AND ABOUT

Brekke Fletcher, the senior director of content at the guidebook publisher Lonely Planet, recommends whimsymaxing through a travel experience.

"I just got back from Estonia, spending time in Lahemaa National Park in particular, wandering through a forest, foraging, learning about bog life," she said in an email. "The greatest joy came from feeling completely immersed in nature and free from my usual routines. Whimsymaxing is about giving yourself permission to be playful, surprised and a little less in control. Estonia's unfamiliar landscapes and close relationship with nature made it easy to wander without an agenda, step away from the day-to-day and see myself in a lighter, more cinematic way."

One option for giving someone a travel experience would be to give the person an annual pass to U.S. national parks (\$80 for an adult U.S. citizen or resident, \$250 for an adult, non-U.S. resident, available at Recreation.gov or park entrances).

ON THE LIPS

Linda Wells, the founding editor of Allure magazine who now edits the beauty and wellness section Look for the digital publication Air Mail, suggested an alternative to sparkly whimsymaxing makeup. "Tower 28 recently introduced a collaboration with Jell-O on flavored lip jellies," she said in an email.

“They rely on the Jell-O flavors as well as its transparency,” she continued. “The company says they’re food-grade flavors, but there’s no actual Jell-O in the formula. There’s a childlike joy to these products which is what makes them so popular, they have an irresistible sense of whimsy.” (Set of two, in Strawberry and Lemon Lime, \$24).

Pure imagination

Clockwise from top left, the Floating Spa at Monkey Island Estate on the Thames River; La D de Dior Abeille in pink gold, with pink spinels, yellow diamonds, spessarites, pink sapphires, orange spinels and opal; the Fairytale Horse Ring from Cece Jewelry; Brekke Fletcher, in Lahemaa National Park in Estonia; daffodil candle holders by Cabana Magazine; a set of Jell-O lip jellies from Tower 28; the Comfy sweater by Molli.

SKIN CARE

Thai influencers with some advice

A good sunscreen and moisturizer are core recommendations from Chayadhorn Kitiyadisai and Vuthithorn Milintachinda

VIA WOODY MILINTACHINDA

INGU SKIN

BY DAVID BELCHER

For two Thai celebrities, daily skin care products and a few related items are perfect gifts any time of year. In fact, they can be a whole way of life.

"I like my skin care routine to be from all over the place, so I use products from Thailand, South Korea, Europe and the U.S.," said Chayadhorn Kitiyadisai, a Thai skin care influencer nicknamed Ing who has about 450,000 followers on Instagram and about 840,000 on TikTok. "As a manufacturer and also as a brand owner, I'm constantly on the lookout for new technology."

For Mr. Kitiyadisai, 30, finding the right product — and he has given many packages of skin care products as gifts over the years — is based on a lifetime of experience.

"My family has been manufacturing beauty for about 70 years in Thailand, and they were behind the scenes creating products for very well-known brands," he said, adding that they would not disclose names. "When it came to my generation, we really wanted to create this movement of T-beauty, because I had been looking at K-beauty, and I wanted the world to know that Thai people can also innovate."

He helped create a YouTube channel called Phlik Lang Kong, which translates to "flipping behind the box."

"On the back of boxes of skin care there's a long list of ingredients and it's all written in scientific language, and the average consumer has no skills to understand it or decipher it," he said. "I make it easy to understand and make science fun and approachable for people."

He started his own brand, Ingu, in late 2022.

"One of our best-sellers during the holiday season is a gentle hydrating cleanser because it's so easy to buy and to gift people," Mr. Kitiyadisai said. "It's perfect for every skin type, every gender, every age. It's like the perfect starter skin care for men. It's a good gateway to get people interested in skin care because you can easily see tangible results."

One of the products he recently discovered, he said, was Daily Sun Water (\$29) by the South Korean brand iUnik.

"It's a new texture for sunscreen that's more like a toner water, and it just launched a couple months ago," he said. "Centella, or tiger grass, is a popular plant that a lot of Korean brands use for skin calming benefits."

One ideal holiday gift idea is packaging a few items together, such as cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen, Mr. Kitiyadisai said. He suggests packaging that with a toiletry bag, especially for a traveler, and noted that his favorite is

The Paper Bunny (\$59), a Singapore brand.

"It's a toiletry bag, but the whole concept is making it as easy to use as possible by having lots of compartments with zippers to keep things separate," he explained. "For men you don't want it to be too complicated."

The ultimate gift you can give a loved one is, Mr. Kitiyadisai said, the gift of health and self-preservation. In beauty products that means sunscreen, and Ingu has a moisturizer that protects the skin against air pollution (\$10) that he said is ideal for Bangkok. He also recommends iUnik sunscreen products (\$21 to \$24) in addition to the Daily Sun Water.

"There's an argument for skin care being considered a health product, par-"

"particularly with sunscreens," he said. "That's why I always recommend people to just start with a basic cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen first."

For Vuthithorn Milintachinda, a content creator and TV host known as Woody, it's about looking good — and feeling good — all the time.

"Caring for my skin and looking young is the objective of my life, so I'm always trying new products," Mr. Milintachinda, 49, said in a recent video interview. "Some people need five to 10 minutes a day, but for me it's half an hour a day. It's like a gym routine."

One of his favorite products is a new capsule cream from the South Korean maker Medicube, made with salmon DNA (\$16.90).

“Medicube is investing tons in marketing globally, and you have Thai celebrities endorsing Thai brands on huge billboards in Bangkok, but also this one South Korean brand,” he said. “It’s user friendly because you don’t have to mix it with other creams. It’s translucent, not creamy, because it’s a gel mixed with collagen beads.”

"I think what men should be doing now if they don't want to put on cream is just start with your face mask routine because that's the fastest way to keep you moisturized at night," he said. "You just put it in your face for 10 to 15 minutes and your face becomes tighter."

For both Mr. Kitiyadisai and Mr. Milintachinda, the ideal gift is a combination of looking good and simply relaxing in the hectic world of business, travel and, well, looking one's best.

"A face mask every now and then is a way to end the day as part of a self-care routine," Mr. Kitiyadisai said. "I think all men love this. They might not see it as, well, as less masculine as applying skin care products. And we all love that feeling of a cool face mask lying back on our bed."

Among his favorite masks is the South Korean brand Dr. G (\$50 for a pack of five), which for years has been popular with young South Korean men during their two years of compulsory military service to protect themselves from the sun, wind and snow in South Korea's extreme seasons.

For Mr. Milintachinda, packaging some skin care products with several face masks (Mediheal is his favorite, with several varieties starting at \$8.80), is as crucial to beauty as it is to physical and mental health.

"Every time I pick up my moisturizer, a serum or my face mask, I know that this is time for me to connect with my body," he said. "Our mind is always wandering. But once you get into your facial routine, it will seriously calm your nerves. You're just focusing on taking care of yourself."

On brand

Chayadhorn Ki-

tiyadisai, far left,

has about 450,000

followers on Instagram and about

840,000 on TikTok.

Vuthithorn Milin-

tachinda, left, is a

content creator and

television host.

HANDMADE

A new era of needlework

As the craft grows in popularity, modern brands are catering to a range of tastes and producing major collaborations

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHELLE LITVIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Fiber arts

Above, Sarah Blessing, who founded the needle-point brand Loop Canvas with her sister, Amy Blessing. Top right, the Loop Canvas studio in Chicago, and bottom right, a canvas that the brand created with Castle and Things.

BY GINANNE BROWNELL

The needlepoint brand Loop Canvas came to life on a bar napkin after a visit to the haberdashery department at Liberty London.

After walking around and looking at the department's elaborate needlepoint kits, Amy and Sarah Blessing, sisters who once owned upscale men's clothing boutiques in Chicago and Los Angeles and have done retail consulting, stopped for a glass of Champagne at the store's oyster bar (which has since closed). Lifelong fans of needlepoint, but not of carrying the unwieldy canvases around on flights and to the beach and their children's sporting events, they talked about wanting to create canvases that were aesthetically fun and modern yet easily transportable.

Grabbing a napkin, they plotted out their business idea, deciding that everything would be included in a kit — the canvas, yarn, needles and even a project bag — all at an accessible price point. "The idea for Loop was very ‘take on the go’, more simple, graphic and not hand painted," Amy said during a video interview from their design studio in Chicago. "We started thinking, There is a market for something that is just a little bit easier."

That idea of accessibility — in terms of pricing and designs that appeal to a range of ages — seems to be just one reason needlepoint has taken off in the past few years.

“Needlepoint stores are popping up like mushrooms overnight — it is insane,” said Kate Latham, the owner of Modern Hoopla, a business in Virginia that sells needlepoint accessories such as round frames (from \$20) and thread winders (\$10) online and to wholesalers.

But she noted that there was an appeal to the craft's simplicity: "The canvas already has the paint color on it so, unlike with cross-stitch where you have to be following a pattern and counting your stitches, and that takes brain power, with the needlepoint canvases, you're just putting blue thread where the canvas is already blue. So it's almost like a coloring book."

A SENSE OF COMMUNITY

This repetitive craft has appealed to celebrities such as Taylor Swift, Cher and Parker Posey, and TikTok influencers have also helped make the craft more mainstream.

Annie Bouquet, who has run her needlepoint boutique in Paris since 1978 and sells items like hand-painted canvases for leopard-print pouches (\$126)

and Christmas stockings (starting at \$189), said social media had helped create a sense of approachability for a craft that many had considered obscure. "It's less intimidating and the sense of community through social media has been really strong and helped democratize it," Ms. Bouquet said in a video call through a translator. "Influencers explain from A to Z how to start through how to finish, so it's not as scary as it used to be."

Needlepoint, sometimes also referred to as petit point and which falls under the broad umbrella category of needlework or embroidery, has seen its popularity as a craft wax and wane over centuries.

According to Isabella Rosner, the curator of textiles and contextual studies lecturer at the Royal School of Needlework in Britain, needlepoint started “hitting its stride” in the 16th century. At that time, pieces that were done entirely in tent stitch — the foundation stitch for needlepoint — tended to be cushion covers and wall hangings depicting things such as flowers, stories from the Bible and classical narratives.

During the 19th century, with the growth of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States and Britain, she said, needlepoint became a popular pastime again.

Throughout the 20th century, needlepoint continued to flourish, peaking in the 1970s. The cover of Carole King's album "Tapestry," from 1971, showed the singer working on a needlepoint, while Erica Wilson, called the "Julia Child of needlework," had a popular program on PBS that helped the needlework community flourish across the United States.

“She’s really at the forefront of this world where people are getting excited about reviving historical embroidery techniques,” said Dr. Rosner, the author of a forthcoming book called “Fierce is the Needle,” which charts the history of needlework. “That is tied to this larger interest in needlepoint specifically because it is the easiest, most accessible and most kit-friendly type of embroi-

dery you can find."

What made the craft popular then, as now, is that needlepoint is both innately social as well as solitary, meaning stitchers can choose to do their work on their own or out and about with friends or at social events. “There is a history of women together gathering and stitching, it was communal, it was a thing that you did that was social,” said Sarah Blessing, adding that Loop Canvas has done kit collaborations with brands such as Heather Taylor Home and Clare V. “I would bring needlepoint to a family thing, and my husband would say ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t bring that, isn’t it kind of antisocial?’ And then he quickly realized no, in fact, I’m much calmer and more engaged.”

ACT OF SELF-CARE

The meditative effect of needlepoint also seems to be an antidote to a frenetic age filled with social media, artificial intelligence and screen addiction. “People want to get off their phones and out of the endless doom scroll,” Rachel Barri, the owner of Rachel Barri Designs in Toronto, wrote in an email. “Taking a moment out of your day to put a few stitches into a canvas is an act of self-care.”

Her business offers things like in-person needlepoint courses and kits of Tim Horton takeaway cups (\$58), and it has a “Sense and Sensibility” needlepoint collaboration with Focus Features, the production company behind the new Jane Austen film.

There is also a sense of accomplishment that can be acutely measured with each stitch. “You can give yourself goals so that when you are watching television at night, you are just going to do the green section,” said Emmie Hope, an owner of Hunt and Hope, a British bespoke needlepoint design company that is scheduled to release its kits in early 2027. “It’s bite-size chunks of addiction.”

With so many kits, classes and accessories to choose from, needlepoint is a gift not only for the person creating the craft but also for those lucky enough to receive the completed work.

"There is something so nice about how you can gift the kit to somebody as a kit to do or you can create that piece of magic for them," said Katie Hall, head of merchandising at Liberty, who added that the store recently introduced a number of in-house craft classes, including needlepoint. "It's a lot more special when you've taken time and energy into something to create, and then it tells a bit more of a story when you get gifted something that someone's made."

FOR THE DESK

Give the gift of a gorilla

The watch brand MB&F has created a pencil sharpener that is mounted on gorilla limbs and ready to pounce

BY ROBIN SWITHINBANK

It has been 15 years since the disruptive independent Swiss watchmaker Maximilian Büsser opened his first M.A.D. Gallery in Geneva. Part exhibition space and part laboratory for experimental kinetic art, his galleries have become destinations for collectors of odd-ball “mechanical art devices” — hence M.A.D.

A Murano glass desk clock mounted on T. rex legs, for example. Or a music box hidden inside a folding Japanese lantern. The galleries — there is a second in Dubai — are also outlets for Mr. Büsser's equally madcap MB&F luxury mechanical watches, some of which have bulbous forms inspired by jet engines, frogs, space pirates or jellyfish.

And now there is the Caran d'Ache x MB&F GorillaSharpener, an \$1,165 tabletop pencil sharpener in an Arctic shade of blue by Caran d'Ache, the Swiss writing instruments brand. The sharpener is mounted on gorilla limbs sculpted from polished stainless steel and cast iron. Leaning forward onto the gorilla's knuckles, the six-inch-tall object looks as if it could lope from one side of a desk to another.

The creator of the piece confirmed that was exactly his intention. “It’s like one of those ‘Toy Story’ ideas,” said Maximilian Maertens, a German product designer who this year was named Mr. Büsser’s eventual successor as MB&F’s creative director. “I always imagine it coming to life when I leave the room.”

Mr. Büsser founded his company in 2005 on the principle that “a creative adult is a child who survived.” Mr. Maertens said his designs demonstrated that he had bought into the idea, too.

"They're for the little Peter Pan who grew up and is trying to be Peter Pan again," he said, speaking from his Berlin studio. "I always try to bring a smile to the face with these objects."

Before he and Mr. Büsser consider a product like the GorillaSharpener, Mr. Maertens, 37, said, they have to be sure it is “something nobody has thought about before.” There is a deeper message, too. “Today, children and young people don’t use their hands in the way I used to," he said. "Everything is flat and smooth. This object is inviting you to use a pencil."

MB&F has said that it will make only 300 GorillaSharpeners — a figure Mr. Maertens said was based on no more than “collective gut feelings” — and that it would donate an unspecified amount from sale proceeds to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, one of the world’s leading gorilla conservation organizations.

“Creating objects like this is a creative relief system,” Mr. Maertens said, adding that he believed such unusual products would never be offered by other watchmakers. “Watches are a perfect medium, but not the only medium,” he continued. “There’s no other industry or company in the entire world where we could think about the GorillaSharpener.”

Mr. Maertens said he had a catalog of further ideas for left-field kinetic art objects. "I hope no one hacks my computer," he said with a broad smile.

IN HAND

Playful design

Above, the GorillaSharpener by Caran d'Ache and MB&F. "It's like one of those 'Toy Story' ideas," said Maximilian Maertens, the creator of the object. "I always imagine it coming to life when I leave the room."

Straight out of James Bond

Yard-O-Led's sterling silver clock-in-a-pen was inspired by the author Ian Fleming

Tools to use

The pen, which has a clock incorporated into its cap, is the first in a planned series of limited edition tributes to Ian Fleming's work. It is being offered in a gift set.

LONDON

BY CHRIS HALL

Ian Fleming is known as the man who brought James Bond to literary life, but is less well known for his strict schedule. In 1962 he told some Oxford University students that devoting four hours a day to writing was the only way he could guarantee to produce a first draft of a novel in six weeks.

And it was in that spirit that the British company Yard-O-Led incorporated a small watch into the cap of its new limited edition pen. “When we came to work with Ian Fleming’s estate, we thought this was a great opportunity for doing something a bit different,” said Giles English, the company’s co-director. “James Bond should be a little bit gadgety. That’s what James Bond’s about.”

The 11-millimeter dial on the pen's cap displays just hours and minutes. Its timekeeping operation is powered by what the brand says is one of the smallest quartz watch movements on the market, made by the Swiss manufacturer ETA, and the crown has been replaced by a discreet electronic button.

The sterling silver pen is the first in a planned series of limited edition tributes to Fleming's work. It is being offered in a gift set that includes a deck of playing cards; a copy of "Casino Royale," Fleming's first novel; and a bottle of red ink that Yard-O-Led said has the aroma of gunsmoke. (The fountain pen set is 4,740 pounds [\$5,882.83]; the rollerball set, £4,450 [\$5,511.29]. Just 253 of each will be made.)

According to Diggory Laycock, a member of the Fleming family who sits on the executive committee of the author's estate, most suggestions for Fleming-related products are rejected, including previous suggestions for pens. But this time, he said, the combination of tasteful craftsmanship, the whimsical addition of a clock and the connection to writing helped get the committee's approval.

"We want to pick things that are suitable and well-made," Mr. Laycock said, “and this is a perfect example. I think he would’ve been delighted by the idea of a clock in the cap. The pen was his weapon of choice, and I think he would have loved this.”

For Mr. English, who owns and operates Yard-O-Led with his brother Nick, the project was something of a return to familiar territory: They founded the British watch company Bremont in 2002 and ran it together until they left in 2023.

That same year they purchased Yard-O-Led, a historic pen and pencil manufacturer founded in 1822, for an undisclosed amount.

This project is their first at Yard-O-Led to incorporate a watch. And while the movement and hands were purchased from Swiss suppliers, Mr. English said he was adamant that Yard-O-Led would make its own dials.

“Clearly we knew how to get this stuff made, but we didn’t want to just go to Switzerland and get them to do the dials,” he said during an interview at the company’s only store, in the Piccadilly Arcade in London. “It’s 11 millimeters across and made from silver, so it has its challenges, but these guys, you chuck them a challenge and they get going.”

The guys in question are the 15 crafts-people who produce about 3,000 pens and pencils a year at Yard-O-Led's factory in the historic Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England.

"You walk around the Jewellery Quarter and the skills on show are immense," Mr. English said. "And I am loving the fact that we are doing so much of this in the U.K."

FRAGRANCES

Giving the scent of Japan

Experts say the country's subtle, minimalist fragrances are good choices for a gift list

BY VIVIAN MORELLI

Hinoki, yuzu, matcha, rice.

Japanese notes have moved from a niche curiosity to a fixture of the fragrance world, used by luxury houses such as Le Labo and independent scent brands from London to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

And for anyone shopping for a gift, that is good news: Fragrance is a risky present, but these notes tend to be more discreet.

"They're not as loud and strong and in your face," said Laura Bass, the sales and marketing coordinator at Lore Perfumery in the Fitzroy section of Melbourne. As gifts, "they're safer."

The interest in Japanese-inspired fragrances isn't entirely new. Ms. Bass said customers had been drawn to notes such as yuzu and the cypress scent hi-noki for years. "But lately, matcha and rice have been super popular."

Part of the appeal, she said, is the continuing popularity of gourmand fragrances. "It's a response to people wanting to smell edible, but I think matcha and rice offer a less sweet, nonvanilla or sugar alternative," she said. The matcha craze hasn't hurt either.

“Niche perfumery has grown enormously in the last five years,” she said, “and as a result, what we’re dealing with is a more educated consumer who wants something that is different to traditional

French perfumery styling. And I think that Japanese ingredients such as hinoki, rice, shiso, cherry blossom offer a scent profile that is a little bit different to French perfumery in that it's a little bit more subtle, more minimalist and therefore more wearable."

AN UNEXPECTED CANVAS

Le Labo, the New York house best known for Santal 33, introduced its ode to green tea in 2021 with Thé Matcha 26 (15 milliliters, \$113; other sizes available) long before people started queuing for matcha lattes.

"The Japanese principles of wabi-sabi

— the impermanence of all things, material integrity and raw, imperfect beauty — are foundational to Le Labo," Deborah Royer, the brand's global creative and olfactive director, wrote in an email. "I'd spent years exploring green tea variations before matcha opened up a completely unexpected olfactive canvas. It speaks to a long dialogue with Japanese ingredients that run through many of our scents, with elements like hinoki, cypress, florals and incense remaining cherished sources of sensorial, tactile and visual possibility that we continually return to."

Japanese notes have also been turning up in home fragrance. Daniel Patrick Giles, the founder of the Los Angeles fragrance brand Perfumehead, pointed to Separate Rooms (\$95, 100 milliliters), his first room spray built around Japanese quince. "It's bright, tart and almost citruslike, but also beautifully refined."

Mr. Giles said that he believed there was a growing fascination with Japanese ingredients in fragrance because they were so different from traditional European scents.

"They don't have to be loud to be effective," he said. "They have the ability to feel both familiar and unexpected."

MEMORIES, BOTTLED

The idea for d'Annam, fragrances that celebrate Asian cultures, came to Nick Hoang in a Diptyque store in Tokyo.

A former tech worker who grew up in Vietnam, he was looking at the brand's Do Son and Tam Dao scents, named for places in Vietnam — Do Son, a coastal town near Ha Long Bay, was near his childhood home. "I was just very moved by the power of storytelling of fragrance," he said.

When he realized that the fragrance world was dominated by Western brands, “I thought, why don’t we tell these stories ourselves?” His first collection, nine scents capturing Vietnam, was created with the Vietnamese perfumer Anh Ngo and introduced in 2023.

Another nine scents in the Chapter 2: Memories of Japan collection followed in late 2024. Mr. Ngo and a Japanese culture consultant, Keita Hirose, collaborated on them. Most of the scents come in 50 milliliter sizes, for \$160.

Some of the collection's scents are playful, such as Strawberry Mochi, which pairs the fragrances of rice with orange flower. "The rice note in Strawberry Mochi is quite fluffy," he said, "and when you spray it, you'll get a sense of the bouncy mochi texture."

KAROLINA LASKOWSKA\*

Others are unexpected, such as Moonlight Samurai, which opens with sake. "Sake is very hard to capture because the top note flies away very fast," he said. "The overall population don't love scents that are too boozy, you have to do it in a finesse way, so the dry down is wildflowers and soft leather."

As for the brand's matcha note in Matcha Soft Serve, “The opening is quite bitter,” said Mr. Hoang. Many Western matcha perfumes, he said, soften the note with vanilla and sweet notes, but he said that his did not. “It’s a really fine line between appropriation and appreciation, and we try our best to do the latter, in a way that is really respectful to the culture,” he said.

Mr. Hoang recommended the Discovery Set: Memories of Japan (\$59) as a gift option: "People with different tastes can really find something in there," he said, from Sakura Snow for floral lovers to Tokyo Nights, built on the fragrances of the plum liquor umeshu and tobacco.

"We're kind of paving the way for these ingredients to take a place," he said. "In the past, they were in the background only."

FLEETING BEAUTY

At Ormonde Jayne, the London perfume house founded by Linda Pilkington, Japan has been an influence for decades.

Her Sakura fragrance (88 milliliters, \$245) begins with an unusual problem: Cherry blossoms are beautiful, but have virtually no scent. “It’s an eternal quest for perfumers and perfume houses to fill in the olfactory gap with their imagination of what that sight and moment could smell like, so all sakura scents are based on pure artistic fantasy,” Ms. Pilkington said.

For Sakura, she tracked down cherry blossom leaf oil from a scent supplier, noting that its green note balances the fragrance's floral blend of rose, freesia, cyclamen and violet.

Bouquets

Clockwise from far left: Le Labo's Thé Matcha 26 is the perfume house's ode to green tea; d'Annam's Strawberry Mochi pairs the fragrances of rice with orange flower; and Ormonde Jayne's Champaca perfume pairs bamboo and green tea with rice.

Then, “the perfumer Geza Schön turned up one day with a gift, a top accord created especially for me, which he called Sweet Linda,” she said. “At first, it stayed part of my library until the ideal of a sakura-inspired perfume took shape and then it just felt right. Its concept immediately diffused serene joy and calm, channeling hanami, Japan’s tradition of stopping to gaze at the cherry blossom and to appreciate the fleeting nature of beauty, and life’s ebb and flow.”

Another scent, Champaca (88 milliliters, \$290), which turns 25 this month, pairs bamboo and green tea with rice, notes that came from her travels in East Asia. "The smell of brewing tea and cooking rice is omnipresent and it's such a welcoming, comforting and simple aroma when you step into someone's home," she said.

Rice in a perfume drew many questions at the time: "I'm not sure it had ever been used before." In that scent, "bamboo brings a green, airy freshness and sparkle, alongside the warmth from the tea and rice, it gives the composition space to breathe." Now, she said, it is among the house's most popular scents with customers younger than 30.

It also comes as a candle (\$95). "It's the olfactory equivalent of a big welcome banner the minute you step across the threshold," she said. (Gift purchases include a 2.5-milliliter sample, she noted, so if the recipient is not happy with the scent, the unopened full-size bottle can be exchanged.)

Over the years people have responded to Champaca, Ms. Pilkington said, prompting her to think of an appropriate Japanese word.

"Natsukashii describes warm feelings of nostalgia," she said, "and perfume can create that sensation when you encounter something for the first time, but feel you already know it."

BVLGARI

ROMA 1884