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An unlikely pair
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, said yesterday that Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, would stay in that job when he takes office on Jan. 1.
It’s an unlikely partnership, my colleagues Maria Cramer and Emma G. Fitzsimmons wrote.
“He’s a democratic socialist who wanted to defund the police,” Emma told me. “She’s pretty conservative on policing.” Tisch wants to hire 5,000 new police officers. Mamdani does not. He supports the elimination of bail for most misdemeanors. She has been sharply critical of changes to the bail laws.
They come from very different backgrounds, too. Mamdani, 34,…
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An unlikely pair
Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, said yesterday that Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, would stay in that job when he takes office on Jan. 1.
It’s an unlikely partnership, my colleagues Maria Cramer and Emma G. Fitzsimmons wrote.
“He’s a democratic socialist who wanted to defund the police,” Emma told me. “She’s pretty conservative on policing.” Tisch wants to hire 5,000 new police officers. Mamdani does not. He supports the elimination of bail for most misdemeanors. She has been sharply critical of changes to the bail laws.
They come from very different backgrounds, too. Mamdani, 34, is the son of an academic and a filmmaker. Tisch, 44, is a billionaire heiress whose family gave a lot of money to Mamdani’s competition. (They both went to elite colleges, though: Bowdoin for him and Harvard for her.)
And they have different views of the outside world. Tisch has marched in the city’s annual Israel Day parade. Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Israel.
But they have pledged to work together even if there are genuine areas of disagreement, Emma said. Of course they have. Tisch wants to keep a powerful job that she loves. And Mamdani wants the police — and voters who support them — to see that he’s not the far-left caricature his critics have drawn.
They made nice yesterday.
“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” Mamdani said of Tisch.
Tisch was no less polite. “It’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime and the need to maintain stability and order across the department,” she wrote in an email sent to officers.
In an era of partisan rancor across the country, this was refreshing to see. If the partnership holds, it’s a reminder that people who disagree don’t have to be enemies, that the incoming mayor doesn’t have to throw out all the experienced hands, that focusing on consensus instead of division is an art — not fine art, but the art of the possible.
They gave and gave
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Leonard Lauder, left, and Agnes Gund.Credit...Erin Baiano for The New York Times, Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times
The deaths this year of Leonard Lauder and Agnes Gund have left a canyon-size hole in the cultural firmament of New York, Robin Pogrebin wrote yesterday. For half a century they were among the most important figures in the city’s arts philanthropy — giving institutions lots of money, giving them lots of art. They gave and they gave and they gave.
Robin offered examples. “When the economy tanked in 2008, just a year after the Whitney Museum of American Art announced plans for a new building in downtown Manhattan,” she wrote, Lauder “swooped in with a $131 million donation, the largest in the museum’s history.”
Gund, for her part, once battled her fellow board members at the Museum of Modern Art to bring living artists into the collection. She didn’t just speak up about it, Robin reported — she showed up with donations: among them, works by Nick Cave, Julie Mehretu and Kara Walker.
“There are very few all-in-one philanthropists,” said Adam Weinberg, the former longtime director of the Whitney Museum. “Leonard and Aggie were those all-in-one philanthropists.”
And then he told Robin something I think is important: “It takes three different board members to contribute what they could.”
In the future it might be five or six because help is getting harder to come by. The federal government has gutted arts funding. Audiences have not returned to prepandemic levels. And private donations to museums and other nonprofit cultural institutions have plunged. (That trend is unlikely to reverse any time soon. Changes to the tax law will soon cap a deduction for high-income donors.)
As a result, institutions have deferred construction projects. They’ve reduced or canceled programming. They’ve laid off employees.
And there are precious few giants behind Lauder and Gund to help fill the gaps, in New York or elsewhere. “It’s a very scary time for the arts,” said one former administrator.
Now, let’s look at what else is happening in the world.
THE LATEST NEWS
Epstein Files
President Trump signed a bill directing the Justice Department to release the files from its Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The bill has major loopholes, and his signature does not guarantee the release of all the files.
Comey Case
A Trump-appointed prosecutor pursuing charges against James Comey admitted to a judge that the full grand jury did not see the final indictment that it had approved.
Our reporters described the hearing, and the judge’s grilling, as “excruciatingly awkward.”
More on Politics
Dick Cheney’s funeral is today in Washington. Neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend.
Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, has been traveling the world to encourage foreign investment in U.S. data centers. His sons stand to profit.
War in Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky may face a no-confidence vote after an investigation into a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme has implicated his closest allies.
On social media, the country’s corruption investigators are releasing highlights of their findings with the drama of a Netflix series.
Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones on western Ukraine, killing at least 25 people.
A peace plan negotiated between the Trump administration and Russia to end the war in Ukraine would require Kyiv to significantly cut its army and cede territory.
In Gaza
During a cease-fire, Israel launched a series of strikes on Gaza, killing at least 25 people, according to the local health ministry.
Israel said it struck because several militants had opened fire on its forces in southern Gaza without causing injuries.
More International News
Mount Semeru, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, erupted and spewed hot clouds of volcanic ash and debris that blanketed nearby villages.
The number of sexual assaults reported on cruises is going up. But victims of crimes that take place on foreign ships in international waters face an uphill battle to get justice.
Business
Nvidia, which makes the computer chips that have powered the A.I. boom, reported another quarter of soaring profits.
Imports to the U.S. fell by about 5 percent in August, in part because of Trump’s tariffs. The government shutdown delayed the release of the data.
Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary, is stepping down from the board of OpenAI after documents released by Congress showed him corresponding with Jeffrey Epstein.
MEET THE ‘ORTHOBROS’
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In Raleigh, N.C.Credit...Cornell Watson for The New York Times
Orthodoxy is a demanding form of Christianity. Services are long. Churches often don’t have pews. There is a strict and complex fasting schedule. It’s no wonder Orthodoxy is the smallest branch of Christianity in the United States.
But recently many parishes have seen a surge in attendance — especially among conservative young men, my colleague Ruth Graham reports. Priests are swapping stories about it. The converts say they are drawn to the faith because its requirements aren’t easy and because meeting the challenge gives them a sense of purpose.
The newcomers were often introduced to Orthodoxy by influencers who promote traditional ideas of masculinity. Josh Elkins, a student at North Carolina State University, told The Times, “The Orthodox Church is the only church that really coaches men hard and says, ‘This is what you need to do.’”
**Related: **Our religion reporters talk about how they cover Christianity in the United States.
THE MORNING QUIZ
This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)
Sailors from the Marshall Islands have for millenniums navigated by what technique?
They identify the odors of palm-tree species unique to certain atolls.
They listen for bird calls, which change pitch according to direction.
They follow pods of sperm whales, whose migratory patterns they pass down through generations.
They feel the waves that bounce off the region’s atolls.
OPINIONS
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Credit...The New York Times
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A bear-safety workshop in the mountainous town of Chizu in Japan.Credit...Kentaro Takahashi for The New York Times
**Identical twins: **Alice and Ellen Kessler were sisters from Germany whose tightly choreographed song-and-dance routines wowed audiences around the world. They decided to end their lives together at the age of 89.
TODAY’S NUMBER
62,000
— That’s how many deaths regular lung cancer screenings could prevent over a five-year period, or four times as many lives as are being saved today.
SPORTS
**Soccer: **Haiti qualified this week to compete in the men’s World Cup for the first time since 1974, but travel bans imposed by the United States government mean many fans will not be able to travel from home to attend their nation’s games in the U.S. next summer.
M.L.B.: The league landed new media deals with NBC, Netflix and ESPN as it restructures its TV future.
N.F.L.: The Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders will make his first N.F.L. start on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders.
RECIPE OF THE DAY
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Credit...Ryan Liebe for The New York Times
There are days, and this is already shaping up to be one of them, when all I want to have for dinner is a wide, bubbling cast-iron skillet filled with spinach and corn dip. I like the sweet pop of the corn (of course I use frozen — it’s November) against the creamy cheeses and silken spinach, especially if I counter it with extra jalapeños and a healthy spray of lime juice. Melt everything into submission, broil the top and serve with a fresh baguette or a bag of scooper-size corn chips. Dip for dinner!
THE GRAND FINALE
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Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in “Wicked: For Good.”Credit...Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
“Wicked: For Good,” the second half of the screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, opens in theaters tonight. Our critic Manohla Dargis liked it well enough. “From its director to its cast,” she wrote, “the movie is a testament to diversity (species included) as a common good as well as to love, friendship and solidarity.” Which might be just the thing to take you into the weekend.
More on culture
The Grand Ole Opry turns 100 this year. (I was there when it was a spry 75, to see Ricky Skaggs.) The Times took a close look and listen at how the show defined the culture — and was reshaped by it — decade by decade.
The internet and its algorithms haven’t killed college radio. If anything, my colleagues on the Styles desk report, they’ve made it more interesting and more vital — a place to explore the tastes of others and to hear the new (or new to you). A record executive summed up the appeal, putting readers into a metaphorical car, turning a metaphorical knob on the radio in search of a late-night station. “If you don’t have your ear glued to the left of the dial,” he told us, “you’re probably missing out.”
Late night hosts are preparing for the release of the Epstein files.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
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Credit...Lisa Knight for The New York Times
Book a flight to Tokyo. The dollar is still strong against the yen, and we have a timely new guide to the city.
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Sam Sifton, the host of The Morning, was previously an assistant managing editor responsible for culture and lifestyle coverage and is the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.
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