Good morning. Summer returns, and with it all the feelings and fantasies and fears we associate with the season.
Summer romanceJune! Again! I know! Where has the time gone? It's boring to even raise the issue — your subjective experience of the months and years passing so quickly, how it seems just yesterday you were doing something (making plans to see Barbenheimer, maybe? That was last summer!) and now here we are, doing this again. If summer is a play, June is its opening act. If summer is a feeling, based on my recent conversations, it's either hope or dread. For me, it's all hope, all anticipation. Let the longer days spread out before us. Let us spread ourselves out in them, lie down in the grass or on the beach or in the air-conditioned splendor of the living room, early afternoon, for a climate-controlled snooze. Last weekend, in the country, I had a run-in with a bunch of winged creatures — wasps, I decided, based on the scientific description I found on an exterminator's website: "Generally speaking, wasps are much scarier looking than bees." No nest in sight, but a bunch of them, thronging the porch. Perhaps because I spend most of my time in the city, with its predictable insect population, I had almost forgotten about wasps, about yellowjackets and hornets and the menace I've always associated with their presence. Fear of wasps is rooted in childhood, deep and reflexive. Don't move, don't look them in the eye, don't even acknowledge their presence, or else. As a child, one wasp in the house was reason enough to flee until an adult could dispense with it. Now, ostensibly an adult myself, I observed myself observing the swarm, feeling that fear surge and then subside. Here were emissaries of the season, summer's welcoming committee. I could sip a lemonade beside them and, if not exactly relax, then at least contemplate remediation. Where had the time gone? When did the fear of being stung become manageable? I looked at the wasps and thought, "Yes, you too." If I am going to throw open my arms to welcome the sunlight and barbecues and lake swims and the air that's the exact same temperature as my skin, then the wasps are invited as well. "I think the extra sunlight makes me manic," my friend Leigh texted me this week in what sounded like despair. Leigh's one of my seasonal adversaries, the people who greet June's arrival with dread. We engage in this back-and-forth every year, whenever the season changes, me twirling around in a sundress, her grimacing under a comically large-brimmed hat. I've heard her arguments against: the heat, the sweat, the perils of midday sun and the ordeal of sunscreen, the pressure to be always doing things. I want to tell Leigh about the wasps, about how expansive and openhearted I have become this year, but I don't want to gloat too much, and I'm aware I may sound slightly deranged. "THE DAY NEVER ENDS," she texts, as if that's a bad thing. "The day doesn't end, you just give up and go to bed when it's still light out." Maybe we both sound deranged. It's June again, whether you're apt to rejoice or just surrender. It's June and "The green will never / again be so green, so purely and lushly / new," as the poet Marge Piercy put it. That alone, the brand-newness of the month and the season, the brand-newness of who you or I might be this time around, might not be enough to make you love this time of year, but perhaps it's enough to make you curious, to consider how you might be different, to consider whom or what you might, this year, admit into your summer plans. For more
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🎧 "brat" by Charli XCX (Friday): The latest project by the British singer Charli XCX is a sonic homecoming of sorts: a club album. "When I first started making music, I was playing at illegal warehouse raves in Hackney in London," she told Vogue Singapore. "That's home to me." Singles from the album, like "Club Classics," are almost overwhelmingly frenetic. Some of the songs also bear the hallmarks of hyperpop, a subgenre of which Charli is a star. She came to hyperpop through her collaborations with the producer SOPHIE, who died in 2021 and to whom she pays tribute on the album in the song "So I."
Raspberry-Almond ClafoutisThere's a lot to love about this new raspberry-almond clafoutis from David Tanis — those sweet-tart raspberries, of course, but also a plush, puddinglike batter that swaps in almond flour for the usual all-purpose variety. (This swap makes it a great dessert for gluten avoiders.)
The Hunt: A 66-year-old first-time buyer tested her $220,000 in Illinois. Which house did she choose? Play our game. What you get for $4 million: A 1766 Dutch farmhouse in Claverack, N.Y.; a two-bedroom condo in Boston; or a 1912 Colonial Revival house in Philadelphia. Most popular: The most clicked story in The Morning last month was a calculator to tell you if you should rent or buy. Check it out.
Mango and Walnut: Pets teach us about life, love and death. That last one is especially important, Sam Anderson writes in this animated feature. Rebuilding: A Brooklyn suit maker offers free formal wear to newly exonerated men and women. Financial signs: People who develop dementia often fall behind on paying bills long before they are diagnosed, new research shows. Italy: Visit a wind-whipped island that's close to Sicily, but without the crowds. Secret weapon: Whom do Kate Moss and Paris Hilton call for a major party look? Annie Doble. Girlhood: Children from marginalized groups tend to start their periods at younger ages. No one knows why.
The best kind of Father's Day giftIf you're anything like me and know a dad who insists he doesn't need anything, here's my advice: Try something unexpected that connects your family. Last Father's Day, my sisters and I splurged on one of Wirecutter's favorite smart bird feeders — a cheery, yellow house with a built-in camera that captures high-res footage of its visitors. A year later, our family group chat is still popping off with snapshots of first-time feeders and old regulars alike. If you'd prefer a less avian route, why not encourage summer hangs with a portable hammock or family dinners with a pizza stone? Whatever shape your new tradition takes on, start looking with our expert's Father's Day gift ideas. — Brittney Ho
Women's College World Series: The Red River Rivalry is alive and well in N.C.A.A. softball. Texas and Oklahoma are top-seeded teams in this year's World Series, and for the first time in four years, it's not Oklahoma in the No. 1 spot. That went to Texas, which led the country in batting average this year. Oklahoma, winner of the past three national championships, had the second-best team average. The teams met four times this season and split those games, with each winning twice. Six teams remain in the World Series; they'll play a double-elimination tournament this weekend on ESPN networks. The championship series begins Wednesday. More on sports
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were vibrato and vibrator. Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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Saturday, June 1, 2024
The Morning: It’s June again
Canada Letter: Intelligence Roadblocks
Warnings of Election Meddling by China Never Reached the Prime Minister
It can be a bit difficult to keep tabs on the various inquiries and examinations into foreign interference in Canadian elections, particularly by China.
Ottawa's latest growth industry was largely created by a series of leaks of highly classified intelligence that first appeared in The Globe and Mail, and then Global News, that described attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in the last two elections with the goal of returning the Liberals to power, if again with a minority government. First was a report from a group of senior civil servants that found that while China, Russia and Iran had tried to subvert the 2019 and 2021 federal votes, their efforts had failed. Next, David Johnston, the former governor general, looked at the body of evidence that produced the leak. Mr. Johnston stepped down before finishing his inquiry after the opposition argued that his close ties to the Trudeau family meant that his assessment would not be independent. But, in a preliminary report, he concluded that foreign powers were "undoubtedly attempting to influence candidates and voters in Canada." But Mr. Johnston added that, after looking at everything, he found that "several leaked materials that raised legitimate questions turn out to have been misconstrued in some media reports, presumably because of the lack of this context." At the end of March, a committee of Parliamentarians who had been cleared to review classified intelligence turned over its election interference report to the government. The censored, public version of its findings has yet to be released. And a month ago, the public inquiry into interference reluctantly set up by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after repeated calls from the opposition said in its initial report that there was no evidence that the last two elections had been subverted. But it also noted that "some Canadians have now reduced trust in Canada's democratic process," adding that "this is perhaps the greatest harm Canada has suffered as a result of foreign interference." The redacted report released this week by an independent watchdog agency looked at the issue from a different perspective. The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency examined what Canada's spy services and the government did with intelligence about election meddling by China. One of its perhaps startling findings is that most of the material never reached Mr. Trudeau or members of his cabinet. The panel discovered several roadblocks. Within the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, or CSIS, it found that the spy agency faced a dilemma. "On one hand, information about foreign interference in elections was a priority for the government and CSIS had geared its collection apparatus toward investigating political foreign interference," the report said. "On the other, CSIS was sensitive to the possibility that the collection and dissemination of intelligence about elections could itself be construed as a form of election interference."
But when it did try to bring material to the government's attention, its reports were not always welcome. The review body found that when CSIS produced two overviews on Chinese election interference in 2021, the national security and intelligence adviser — a public service rather than political post that changed hands several times that year — considered them to to contain little more than a "recounting standard diplomatic activity." The reports were not passed along to the prime minister or the cabinet. "What's really astounding is that the kinds of reports that were not getting to the prime minister were exactly the sort of reports we should have been getting to him," Wesley Wark, who studies Canada's intelligence systems at The Centre for International Governance Innovation, told me. "I think it demonstrates a huge problem in the Canadian system." Mr. Wark said that situation had developed in part because the spy agency has traditionally attempted to pass along nearly every piece of intelligence it picks up rather than emphasizing analytical reports. He said that those small "tidbits" probably should not be passed along to politicians, but that their proliferation appears to have also blocked analytical, or strategic, reports. "These kinds of strategic assessments are precisely what the British and Australians and Americans do with intelligence," he said. "But we don't seem to be good at that. And that's a problem that has to be fixed." The responsibility for that fix, he added, rests with the senior levels of the public service, not the intelligence agencies. The report issued this week offers nothing about exactly what China did, or tried to do, during the last two elections, though it did caution that intelligence "does not constitute proof that the described activities took place, or took place in the manner suggested by the source(s) of the information." Mr. Wark noted that Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who is heading the public inquiry, has carefully avoided weighing in on the veracity of the leaked information. He said he did not anticipate that that would change in the coming months. "So we don't know more and probably never will," he said. Trans Canada
A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for over two decades. Follow him on Bluesky at @ianausten.bsky.social How are we doing? Like this email?
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USAO - Oklahoma, Eastern News Update
USAO - Kansas News Update
 Offices of the United States Attorneys
05/31/2024 08:00 AM EDT A Kansas man made his initial appearance after a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, indicted him on multiple charges related to sex trafficking multiple victims, including children. |
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