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Why does it not generate more outrage that many Republican governors are continuing these policies even as infections spread and virus mutations accumulate?

Realistically, this is because the economic benefits of covid irresponsibility are immediate and obvious to everyone. And even twice a very small risk is still a very small risk.

But this reasoning requires us to abandon our social solidarity with the elderly and vulnerable, who bear a disproportionate cost in Noem’s vision of liberty. And I fear it indicates a wide streak of social Darwinian callousness in the American right.

“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.”

“I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared,” Ms. Bennett, 25, said. “And was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job.”

The governor’s attempts to control the narrative and the course of the investigations quickly ran aground, as he was forced to retreat from a plan to have Ms. Bennett’s claims investigated by Barbara S. Jones, a former federal judge who has close ties to Mr. Cuomo’s former top aide.

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, a frequent critic of the governor, called on him to resign. “You are a monster, and it is time for you to go,” she wrote on Twitter. “Now.”

A more likely scenario would involve lawmakers using this recent spate of scandals to reclaim the unilateral emergency powers they had granted the governor at the start of the pandemic. Those efforts had been seemingly slowed last week, as the State Assembly could not reach a consensus on a plan by the State Senate to strip Mr. Cuomo of those powers. Now, however, such a move could be more likely.

“It’s not two separate sets of allegations,” she said. “It is two examples of longstanding abuse, harassment, retaliation and the culture of a hostile work environment.”

As three women stepped forward with claims of sexual harassment and other unwanted advances by Mr. Cuomo, the most visible governor in America effectively went dark.

Now he is at the whims of often-fickle public opinion, fuming legislators and investigations.

As the allegations unfolded, Mr. Cuomo’s team denied wrongdoing and issued statements, but a number of leading lawmakers in Albany and Washington did not hear from the governor on the matter.

Indeed, the public outcry and the dearth of vocal defenders illustrate both the complexities of the problems Mr. Cuomo faces and how little he has invested in building mutually respectful relationships in politics. As with other New York politicians in times of extreme crisis, it is a dynamic that is haunting him now.

“When the investigation concludes, Democrats, I believe, will coalesce around doing the right thing,” Mr. Jacobs said. “We have to let the chips fall where they may, but I don’t see the value in a rush to judgment. I only see the potential cost.”

Lockdowns and school openings are suddenly a new measure for voters to hold governors and other elected officials accountable, a sign that the politics of the pandemic could open an uncertain chapter for many holding public office. He will be among the governors putting his record to the test when he runs for re-election next year.

He is not facing a potential recall like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, under investigation like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo or being second-guessed for lifting a statewide mask mandate like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

The unemployment rate in Florida is 4.8 %, according to the latest figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to 6.8% in Texas, 8.8% in New York and 9% in California.

Florida has recorded about 9,204 cases per 100,000 people and about 150 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Across the country overall, there have been about 8,969 cases per 100,000 people and 163 deaths per 100,000 people.

Still, comparing one state to another is complicated and often counterproductive, said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health who maintains his own Covid dashboard. For example, he said, the humidity of Florida and the density of New York City offer entirely different scenarios for fighting coronavirus

He added: "It's not always about doing well relative to your peers. It's how can we prevent as much morbidity and mortality from the virus while keeping an eye on what's happening with our economy."

Here in Florida, where beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and on Gulf of Mexico are crowded this week in ways not seen for more than a year, the complete story of the pandemic has yet to be written, as President Joe Biden inherits the challenge and has accelerated vaccines here and across the country. Yet health experts and local officials worry that a parade of spring break vacationers could contribute to a spike in Covid-19 cases.

After businesses were allowed to open after being shuttered for several weeks late last spring, Golden said he recalls having mixed feelings about the balancing act of keeping the economy alive and protecting the public's health.

Molly Minton, who works as a laboratory supervisor, said she recalls being dispirited as she drove home from work and saw crowded bars and restaurants. Looking back, she said, she is glad many small businesses were able to stay open and believes Florida was simply lucky in many respects.

"Right now," DeSantis wrote, "my state of Florida is one of the only states that said no to oppressive lockdowns and has become an oasis of freedom for Americans."

But a prolonged period of intraparty sparring over Mr. Cuomo’s future could be problematic for Mr. Biden. It threatens to distract from his early initiatives, including mass vaccination efforts and his party’s imperative to sell the public on the nearly $2 trillion stimulus package Mr. Biden signed into law last week.

On Tuesday, the White House will hold its weekly call on the coronavirus with the National Governors Association, which Mr. Cuomo typically leads as chairman of the group. Ms. Psaki said she expected Mr. Cuomo would join the call, adding, “We’ll leave that up to him.”

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden successfully avoided getting dragged into controversies that didn’t directly relate to him. But the bullying behavior Mr. Cuomo is accused of is contrary to the standard Mr. Biden has set for his own White House.

Still, the governor has flatly refused to contemplate resignation while questioning the motives of the women who have accused him of sexual harassment, invoking “cancel culture,”

When Mr. Biden in 2020 was accused of sexual assault by a woman who had worked in his Senate office decades earlier, he denied her allegation but did not impugn her motives. Mr. Cuomo has questioned the motivations of some of his accusers.

Still, support for Mr. Cuomo has eroded significantly from the highs of his coronavirus press briefings in the spring of 2020 — when he hit 71 percent approval — and even from February, when his approval among all voters was 56 percent in a Siena College poll.

“The state is about to be flush with Covid cash,” Mr. Sellers said. “Better days ahead for constituents. Hang on until you become everyone’s favorite bank.”

Some members of Congress and their aides were put off by a statement that the former senior member of the delegation, Representative Nita Lowey, of Westchester, had made in defense of Mr. Cuomo, according to a person familiar with the matter. The members had the sense that Ms. Lowey was inappropriately “instrumentalized” as a shield for Mr. Cuomo, the person said, adding that while it wasn’t the precipitating event for other members to speak out last Friday, it had left an impression.

Mr. Biden’s fondness for Mr. Cuomo does not necessarily extend to the staff level. The governor’s sharp-elbowed political operation has jabbed at many people in his path over the years.

Abrams lost the Georgia governor's race by 55,000 votes in an election marred by allegations of voter suppression

She formed an organization to register and empower voters, wrote a book about voter suppression and co-produced an Amazon Prime documentary, "All In: the Fight for Democracy."

No Democratic presidential candidate had won in Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, although Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came fairly close. But Biden got more than 2.4 million votes in Georgia, smashing Hillary Clinton's total by more than half a million.

"Stacey has tirelessly worked to get Joe Biden and the Democratic National Convention to pay attention to Georgia, spending years organizing and strategizing to make sure Georgians have their voices heard at the polls," said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, an effort launched by Abrams in 2013 to grow the electorate. "We wouldn't be in the position we are in today without her leadership."

Georgia had voted Republican in eight of the past nine presidential elections. But explosive growth and changing demographics are expanding Democrats' base and turning the state purple. Republicans may no longer be able to count on the Peach State.

Last year, Abrams and her former campaign manager wrote a 16-page document filled with data and trends on Democratic voters in the state. They described it as a blueprint for victory in 2020.

"With a diverse, growing population and rapidly changing electorate, Georgia is not a future opportunity for Democrats; it is a necessity right now," it said. "Georgia is every bit as competitive as perennial battleground states. With one of the youngest and the most African American electorate of any competitive state, Georgia has demographic advantages that don't exist in other states."

The New Georgia Project said last week it has registered about 500,000 new voters. And it plans to continue knocking on doors.

Seven years ago she founded The New Georgia Project, a voter registration group that has led a grassroots effort to reach and register potential new voters in churches, college campuses and neighborhoods.

After her narrow loss to Brian Kemp in the 2018 race -- which would have made her the first female African American governor -- Abrams launched Fair Fight, which funded and trained voter protection teams in 20 battleground states. It targeted young and minority voters, and educated them on the election and their voting rights.

Abrams' strong 2018 campaign and grassroots efforts have made her a rising star in the Democratic party. In 2019 she became the first Black woman to deliver the official Democratic response to a State of the Union speech.

This year she was among the top candidates considered as potential running mates for Biden. Trump's campaign mocked her, saying she was on a "desperate audition" to become Biden's vice president, but Abrams was not coy about her ambitions.

it's not about attention for being the running mate, it is about making sure that my qualifications aren't in question, because they're not just speaking to me, they're speaking to young black women, young women of color, young people of color, who wonder if they too can be seen."

"I had two messages. One, voter suppression is real and we have to have a plan to fight back. Two, Georgia is real. You've got to have a plan to fight here," she told CNN this week. "We were very privileged to know that by the time Joe Biden won the nomination, he had Georgia on his mind."

Many African Americans in Georgia say they were motivated to vote in person by what happened when Republican Brian Kemp ran against Abrams for governor while serving as the state's chief elections officer.

Abrams argued he used his position to sway the election, while Kemp countered that she had "manufactured a 'crisis' to fire up her supporters and raise funds from left wing radicals."

"Let's be clear -- this is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper," she said. "As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that. But ... the title of governor isn't nearly as important as our shared title -- voters. And that is why we fight on."

The disputed election outcome also inspired Abrams' organizations to push to register voters in underrepresented communities.

Thanks in part to Abrams, Georgia may now be a perennial battleground too.

Beaumont Health, which operates several hospitals in the Metro Detroit area, had recently announced plans to offer residents 65 and older vaccinations, and about 25,000 people tried to gain access to the online portal simultaneously

Both of the vaccines being used across the country require patients to receive two doses spaced weeks apart, so the process of administering second shots to Americans has only just begun.

Even in states where online registration seemed to go well, some people were stuck with long waits.

At least 151,000 people in the United States have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a New York Times survey of all 50 states.

County officials had said they would have a limited number of slots for people 65 and older. The available slots were filled in 20 minutes,

Some states, including Florida, Louisiana and Texas, have already expanded who is eligible for the vaccine, even though many in the first priority group recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — health care workers and residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities — have not yet received a shot.

about 6.7 million people had received a first dose of a vaccine. That falls far short of the goal federal officials set to give at least 20 million people their first shots before the end of 2020.

On Friday, the transition team for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced a plan to accelerate vaccinations that includes reversing course and releasing nearly all available doses. That would provide more people with first doses but raise the risk that second doses would not be administered on time; however, ramped up vaccine production is expected to keep enough in the pipeline for timely second doses

The tally of fully vaccinated people is an undercount because some states did not provide that information.

Some states’ expansions have led to frantic and often futile efforts by older people to get vaccinated. After Florida opened up vaccinations to anyone 65 and older last month, the demand was so great that new online registration portals quickly overloaded and crashed, people spent hours on the phone trying to secure appointments and others waited overnight at scattered pop-up sites offering shots on a first-come first-served basis.

Vaccines alone will not be enough to get ahead of the virus: It will take years to inoculate enough people to limit its evolution. In the meantime, social distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing — combined with aggressive testing, tracking and tracing — might buy some time and avert devastating spikes in hospitalizations and deaths along the way.

The rapid spread of the new variants is a reminder of the failings and missteps of major countries to contain the virus earlier.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told performing arts professionals at a virtual conference on Saturday that he believed that theaters and other venues could reopen “some time in the fall of 2021,” depending on the vaccination rollout, and suggested that audiences might still be required to wear masks for some time.

A week after the first case of a highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in Britain was found in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that the state had found three additional cases.

The other case appears to be unrelated to those to Saratoga Springs and was traced back to a man in his 60s living in Massapequa, in Nassau County, Mr. Cuomo added. The man first tested positive for the coronavirus on Dec. 27.The travel history of those who tested positive for the variant in New York was unclear.

Pope Francis said in a soon-to-be-televised interview that he would be vaccinated against the coronavirus as early as next week, calling it a lifesaving, ethical obligation and the refusal to do so suicidal.

On Saturday, 1,035 people died of the coronavirus in Britain, a day after health officials reported the highest daily death toll since the pandemic started, with 1,325 deaths. Britain has been the worst-hit country in Europe, with nearly 80,000 deaths.

In a separate decision put in effect Thursday, face masks, long deemed ineffective by Swedish health officials, are now being recommended for use during rush hour on public transport, although they will not be mandatory.

On Friday, Britain suffered its deadliest daily toll since the beginning of the pandemic, with 1,325 deaths. On Saturday, the toll was 1,035 lives.— Elian Peltier

Despite his election in November, Pierluisi claimed victory with less than one-third of the vote total, a smaller percentage than any elected governor in Puerto Rico's history. Pierluisi hails from the island's traditional pro-statehood party, which has long dominated electoral politics along with the other main party that favors Puerto Rico's existing territorial status.

His address also touched, in general terms, on other issues of deep concern on the island: public education, crime, mental health, the environment and corruption.

Pierluisi replaces Gov. Wanda Vázquez, who took office in August of 2019 after weeks of protests forced then-Gov. Rosselló to resign.

But days after Pierluisi took the governor's oath, the territory's Supreme Court ruled him ineligible for the office because his cabinet appointment had not been confirmed by the island's Senate. Vázquez, who was attorney general, ascended to the governorship instead.

Not because it was going to help Trump win but because it was going to help Trump cope with a loss. The president was not accepting defeat. That meant no Republican with career ambitions could accept it, either.

At a low point in his party’s existence, with much of the GOP’s leadership class pre-writing their own political epitaphs by empowering Trump to lay waste to the country’s foundational democratic norms, an obscure lawyer from west Michigan stood on principle. It proved to be the nail in Trump’s coffin

Shortly after Michigan’s vote to certify, the General Services Administration finally commenced the official transition of power and Trump tweeted out a statement affirming the move “in the best interest of our Country.”

Still, the drama in Lansing raised deeper questions about the health of our political system and the sturdiness of American democracy

Why were Republicans who privately admitted Trump’s legitimate defeat publicly alleging massive fraud? Why did it fall to a little-known figure like Van Langevelde to buffer the country from an unprecedented layer of turmoil?

In conversations with more than two dozen Michigan insiders—elected officials, party elders, consultants, activists—it became apparent how the state’s conditions were ripe for this sort of slow-motion disaster

Michigan is home to Detroit, an overwhelmingly majority Black city, that has always been a favorite punching bag of white Republicans. The state had viral episodes of conflict and human error that were easily manipulated and deliberately misconstrued. It drew special attention from the highest levels of the party, and for the president, it had the potential to settle an important score with his adversary, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer

Perhaps most important, Trump’s allies in Michigan proved to be more career-obsessed, and therefore more servile to his whims, than GOP officials in any other state he has cultivated during his presidency, willing to indulge his conspiratorial fantasies in ways other Republicans weren’t.

“Anybody can sue anybody for any reason. But winning is a whole different matter. And Trump didn’t have a realistic pathway here,” Brian Calley, the former GOP lieutenant governor, told me prior to the certification vote

“We have to see this for what it is. It’s a PR strategy to erode public confidence in a very well-run election to achieve political ends,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in an interview last week. “This was not any type of valid legal strategy that had any chance at ultimately succeeding.”

Strangely liberated by his deficit of 154,000 votes, the president’s efforts here were aimed not at overturning the results, but rather at testing voters’ faith in the ballot box and Republicans’ loyalty to him.

where he can ultimately succeed—is in convincing unprecedented numbers of Americans that their votes didn’t count. Last month, Gallup reported that the public’s confidence in our elections being accurate dropped 11 points since the 2018 midterms, which included a 34-point decrease among Republicans.

That was before a daily deluge of dishonest allegations and out-of-context insinuations; before the conservative media’s wall-to-wall coverage of exotic conspiracy theories; before the GOP’s most influential figures winked and nodded at the president of the United States alleging the greatest fraud in U.S. history.

Trump failed to win Michigan. But he succeeded in convincing America that a loss, no matter how conclusive, may never again be conclusive enough.

The irony of Michigan’s electoral meltdown is that Election Day, in the eyes of veteran clerks and poll workers across the state, was the smoothest it had ever been

“You’re talking about election officials implementing new laws, running an election with a 60 percent mail vote, in the middle of a pandemic,”

“In terms of voters getting the ballots processed and counted in a reasonable time period, I thought they did a marvelous job. But it was a huge challenge.”

There’s always this rallying cry from Republicans—‘We win everywhere else, but lose Wayne County’—that creates paranoia. I still remember hearing, back on my first campaign in 2002, that Wayne County always releases its votes last so that Detroit can see how many votes Democrats need to win the state. That’s what a lot of Republicans here believe.”

The Republicans—House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey—were not interested. Spooked by Trump’s continued assault on mail voting, and aware that their own members in the Legislature were distrustful of the new “no-excuse-absentee” rules, Chatfield and Shirkey weren’t inclined to do the process any favors.

many Republicans didn’t believe the election would be terribly close to begin with

The common expectation was that the president would lose comfortably, by at least 4 or 5 points, a margin that would render any controversy about absentee voting meaningless.

Michigan Republicans were gripped by equal parts euphoria and panic. It was clear Trump was running far more competitively than they’d anticipated; he was on track to win Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, three states that tally their ballots quickly, meaning the spotlight would abruptly shift to the critical, slow-counting battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

it wasn’t until midnight that the urgency of the situation crashed over Republicans. Trump had built a lead of nearly 300,000 votes on the strength of same-day ballots that were disproportionately favorable to him. Now, with the eyes of the nation—and of the president—fixed on their state, Michigan Republicans scrambled to protect that lead.

Whitmer and Benson warned the GOP leaders that a protracted counting process, especially in the scenario of a competitive election, would invite chaos. Other states Trump carried in 2016, such as Ohio and Florida, allowed for pre-canvassing of absentee and other mail-in ballots so that voters would know which candidate carried the state on election night. Why couldn’t Michigan do the same?

Thomas had been “thrilled” with the professionalism he’d witnessed during Monday’s pre-processing session and Tuesday’s vote tabulating. Now, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, things were going sideways. Groups of Republican poll challengers were clustering around individual counting tables in violation of the rules.

“Reading these affidavits afterward from these Republican poll challengers, I was just amazed at how misunderstood the election process was to them,” Thomas chuckled. “The things they said were going on—it’s like ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what was going on. That’s what’s supposed to happen.’

His cushion over Biden had been whittled down to 70,000 votes. There remained hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots to be counted in the large, Democratic strongholds of Detroit, Lansing and Flint. The math was simply not workable for the president. Just before 9:30 a.m., Biden overtook Trump in the tally of Michigan’s votes—and suddenly, a switch flipped on the right.

After 24 hours of letting the democratic process work, Republicans around the country—watching Trump’s second term slipping through their fingers—began crying foul and screaming conspiracy. No state cornered the hysteria market quite like Michigan.

“The people outside that room were doing exactly what the law says you would eject people for doing—they were disrupting the election,” Thomas said. “Everyone else in the room—the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the ACLU, the nonpartisans—they all still had a full complement of challengers in the room. And the Republicans, by the way, had far more challengers in the room than they were entitled to.”

Truly egregious was Cox’s dishonesty. At the time of her tweet, several hundred of her party’s poll challengers, attorneys and representatives were already inside the TCF Center monitoring the count

By law, Republicans were allowed to have 134 challengers in the room, one for each tabulation table. In reality, the GOP had far more than that, according to sworn testimony from nonpartisan poll watchers inside the TCF Center. Because of the overflow, election officials ultimately decided to lock down the complex

In the days following Trump’s shameful address to the nation, two realities became inescapable to Michigan’s GOP elite. First, there was zero evidence to substantiate widespread voter fraud. Second, they could not afford to admit it publicly.

What made this behavior all the more confounding, Thomas said, is that the election was conducted more transparently than any he’d ever participated in. Each of the 134 tables had monitors placed at the end, “showing every keystroke that was made,” so that challengers could see exactly what was happening

But he came to realize that none of this mattered. Having dealt with Republican poll challengers for decades, Thomas said, it was clear the people who infiltrated TCF on Wednesday were not adequately trained or there for the right reasons.

“Unlike the people who were there Monday and Tuesday, these people Wednesday were totally unprepared. They had no idea how the system worked. They had no idea what they were there for,” Thomas said. “Many of them—not all of them, but many of them—they were on a mission. They clearly came in believing there was mass cheating going on in Detroit and they were on a mission to catch it.”

When Trump addressed the nation from the White House on Thursday night, insisting the election had been “stolen” from him, he returned time and again to alleged misconduct in Michigan’s biggest city. Detroit, he smirked, “I wouldn’t say has the best reputation for election integrity.” He said the city “had hours of unexplained delay” in counting ballots, and when the late batches arrived, “nobody knew where they came from.” He alleged that Republicans had been “denied access to observe any counting in Detroit” and that the windows had been covered because “they didn’t want anybody seeing the counting.”

All of this was a lie. Republicans here—from Ronna Romney McDaniel to Laura Cox to federal and local lawmakers—knew it was a lie. But they didn’t lift a finger in protest as the president disparaged Michigan and subverted America’s democratic norms. Why?

The true insanity was saved for Detroit. By early afternoon on Wednesday, hundreds and hundreds of Republicans had descended on the TCF Center, responding to an all-hands-on-deck missive that went out from the state party and was disseminated by local officials. Cox, the party chair, tweeted out a video of her comrades standing outside the locked-up downtown building. “Republican poll challengers blocked from entering the TCF Center in Detroit! This is egregious!” she wrote.

Tapped by the president-elect to take over the Republican National Committee—on the not-so-subtle condition that she remove “Romney” from her professional name—McDaniel morphed into an archetype of the Trump-era GOP sycophant. There was no lie too outlandish to parrot, no behavior too unbecoming to justify, no abuse of power too flagrant to enable

Longtime friends worried that McDaniel wasn’t merely humiliating herself publicly; she seemed to be changing in private. She was no longer coolly detached from the passions of politics. If anything, she was turning into a true MAGA believer.

There was some relief, then, when in recent weeks McDaniel told multiple confidants that she doubted there was any scalable voter fraud in Michigan. Nevertheless, McDaniel told friends and fellow Republicans that she needed to stay the course with Trump and his legal team. This wasn’t about indulging him, she said, but rather about demonstrating a willingness to fight—even when the fight couldn’t be won.

McDaniel’s thinking is actually quite linear. The RNC will vote in January on the position of chair. She is anxious to keep her job.

No matter how obvious the outcome—to McDaniel, to the 168 members of the RNC, maybe even to Trump himself—any indication of surrender would be unforgivable.

This is why McDaniel has sanctioned her employees, beginning with top spokesperson Liz Harrington, to spread countless demonstrable falsehoods in the weeks since Election Day. It’s why the RNC, on McDaniel’s watch, tweeted out a video clip of disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell claiming Trump “won in a landslide” (when he lost by more than 6 million votes nationally) and alleging a global conspiracy to rig the election against him.

With Trump entering the anguished twilight of his presidency, all that appears to matter for someone like McDaniel—or Cox, the state party chair, who faces an upcoming election of her own—is unconditional fidelity to the president.

Both Chatfield and Shirkey are talented and ambitious, self-grooming for future runs at higher office. Both could see the obvious problems of meeting with the president at such a precarious moment—and both could also see how spurning Trump could torpedo their careers in the GOP.

“Frankly, continuing to humor him merely excuses his role in this. The election wasn’t stolen, he blew it. Up until the final two weeks, he seemingly did everything possible to lose. Given how close it was, there is no one to blame but Trump.”

“But if they want a future within the party, it is required of them to demonstrate continued fealty. Principled conservatives who respect the rule of law and speak out suddenly find themselves outcasts in a party that is no longer about conservativism but Trumpism. Just ask once-conservative heroes like Jeff Flake, Justin Amash and Mark Sanford.”

Monica Palmer, one of the GOP canvassers, caused an uproar when she offered to certify the rest of Wayne County—precincts like Livonia—without certifying Detroit. (Livonia, which is 95 percent white, had more poll-book irregularities than Detroit, which is 80 percent Black.)

Tweeting out siren emojis, Jenna Ellis, the attorney for Trump’s campaign, announced: “BREAKING: This evening, the county board of canvassers in Wayne County, MI refused to certify the election results. If the state board follows suit, the Republican state legislator will select the electors. Huge win for @realDonaldTrump.”

the notion that legislators would under any circumstance be free to send their own partisans to the Electoral College had no basis in fact. Under Michigan statute, the only electors eligible to represent Michigan are those who will vote for the winner of the popular vote. There is no discretion for anyone—the governor, leaders of the legislature, canvassers at the county or state level—to do anything but follow the law.

“The unfortunate reality within the party today is that Trump retains a hold that is forcing party leaders to continue down the path of executing his fantasy of overturning the outcome—at their own expense,”

precautions were taken. In a savvy move, Chatfield and Shirkey prepared a letter addressing concerns over funding to deal with Covid-19 in Michigan. They also brought along their general counsels. These two maneuvers—one to soothe the outcry over Michigan lawmakers meeting with a president whose legal team was calling for them to overturn the state’s election results; the other to insulate them from improper discussions about doing exactly that—were sufficient to sidestep any major crisis.

Trump, perhaps sensing the nervous reticence of his guests, did not make the ask they feared. As the meeting went on, it became apparent to some people in the room that more than anything, Trump had called his Michigan allies to Washington to get an honest assessment of what had happened there. He wanted to know if there was any pathway to victory. They told him there was not.

“I don’t get it,” the president said, venting confusion and frustration. “All these other Republicans, all over the country, they all win their races. And I’m the only guy that loses?”

With all 83 counties boasting certified results, the only thing that stood between Joe Biden and his rightful claim to Michigan’s 16 electoral votes was certification from the state board of canvassers. In a rational political climate, this would not have been the subject of suspense. But the swirling innuendo and disinformation had long ago swept away any semblance of normalcy.

Already, one of the board’s two Republicans, Norm Shinkle, a career party fixture, had hinted he would not vote to certify the state’s result. Because the two Democrats would obviously vote in favor of certification, a manic gush of attention turned to the other Republican member, Aaron Van Langevelde.

By Sunday morning, speculation was rampant that Van Langevelde would resign from the board on Monday. This made perfect sense to Republicans and Democrats alike: Based on their fact-finding mission into the mysterious fourth board member, Van Langevelde was a bookish type, a rule follower, an obsessive student of world history (particularly the Roman Empire) who believes to his core in a conservative application of the law

He would be inclined, Lansing insiders figured, to vote in favor of certifying the results. But he would be disinclined to throw away his future in the Republican Party. A resignation from the board was his only way out.

Working off this expectation, a late lobbying blitz turned on Shinkle. In the 36 hours preceding Monday’s vote, he was inundated with calls and emails and text messages from high-ranking Republican luminaries around the state. Some, such as former congressman and House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers, urged him to certify the results in accordance with Michigan law. Others, including McDaniel and Cox and other state party figures, pleaded with Shinkle to stand his ground and insist on a two-week delay.

The response they got was universal: He would promise to “do my best,” then he would offer a litany of unsubstantiated allegations of fraud. (Not everyone bothered contacting Shinkle: That his wife served as a plaintiff’s witness in Trump’s ill-fated lawsuit against Detroit struck many people not just as a conflict of interest, but as a clear indication he would never vote to certify.)

Some Republicans didn’t want to believe it. But for others, reality began to set in. They had grown so accustomed to Republicans falling in line, bending a knee to Trumpism, that the notion of someone acting on his own personal ethic had become foreign.

But the more they learned about Van Langevelde, the more he sounded like just that type of independent thinker. Some viewed his relative youth as an asset, believing he wouldn’t risk throwing away his future in the party. What they had failed to appreciate was that young conservatives were oftentimes the most disillusioned with the party’s drift from any intellectual or philosophical mooring.

Like a good attorney, Van Langevelde meticulously questioned a number of expert guest speakers to ascertain if they had dissenting views of the board’s authority under state law. Time and again, they affirmed his position. The body did not have power to audit or investigate or recount; that could be done only by distinct bodies after certification was complete. The job of the board of state canvassers was narrowly to examine the certified results from all 83 counties and then, based on the relevant vote totals, certify a winner of Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. The one time he was challenged—by Spies, the political superlawyer representing John James’ U.S. Senate campaign—Van Langevelde calmly brushed his recommendations aside, telling Spies, “I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that.”

Within minutes of Van Langevelde’s vote for certification—and of Shinkle’s abstention, which guaranteed his colleague would bear the brunt of the party’s fury alone—the fires of retaliation raged. In GOP circles, there were immediate calls for Van Langevelde to lose his seat on the board; to lose his job in the House of Representatives; to be censured on the floor of the Legislature and exiled from the party forever. Actionable threats against him and his family began to be reported. The Michigan State Police worked with local law enforcement to arrange a security detail.

ll for doing his job. All for upholding the rule of law. All for following his conscience and defying the wishes of Donald Trump.

“It took a lot of courage for him to do what he thought was right and appropriate, given the amount of pressure he was under,” said Brian Calley, the GOP former lieutenant governor, who told me days earlier that he had never heard the name Aaron Van Langevelde. “He carried himself as well as anybody I’ve seen in that type of setting, including people with decades and decades of experience. He showed an awful lot of poise.”

The name Van Langevelde is already so infamous in Michigan Republican lore that those associated with him are at risk of being branded turncoats, too.

because of the sweeping transformation of the party—not just ideologically or stylistically, but mechanically, with MAGA loyalists now installed in state and local leadership posts across the country—the question of loyalty will continue to define the Republican identity for years to come.

That contours of that identity—what it means to be a Trump Republican—have gained clarity over time. The default embrace of nationalism. The indifference to ideas as a vision for governing. The disregard for institutional norms. The aversion to etiquette and the bottomless appetite for cultural conflict. Now there is another cornerstone of that identity: The subversion of our basic democratic process.

More than any policy enacted or court vacancy filled, Trump’s legacy will be his unprecedented assault on the legitimacy of the ballot box

Future iterations of the GOP will make casual insinuations of voter fraud central to the party’s brand. The next generation of Republicans will have learned how to sow doubts about election integrity in one breath and in the next breath bemoan the nation’s lack of faith in our elections, creating a self-perpetuating justification to cast suspicion on a process that by raw numbers does not appear conducive to keeping them in power.

“This is not some whacked-out fringe,” James said in one taping. “When half the votes in our state believe we just had the most secure election in U.S. history, and the other half believe they were cheated, we have a problem.”

James is right. We do have a problem. Our elections continue to be underfunded. Our election bureaus are chronically understaffed. Our election workers are badly undertrained. Our elections are prone to a significant amount of human error—and any municipal or county clerk will tell you that concerns over not catching those errors keep them up at night.

But errors are not fraud. And when James says he’s troubled that half of Michigan’s voters feel they were cheated, he would do well to remember that he was the one telling them they got cheated in the first place.

there is no denying the advent of a pattern. Republicans in Michigan and across America have spent the past three weeks promoting baseless allegations of corruption at the ballot box, the rabid responses to which they use as justification to continue to question the fundamental integrity of our elections. It’s a vicious new playbook—one designed to stroke egos and rationalize defeats, but with unintended consequences that could spell the unraveling of America’s democratic experiment.

“By capriciously throwing around these false claims, you can’t get to the heart of a really important issue. In fact, you lose any credibility to get to the heart of that issue,”

“And by the way, if you’re going to do an audit, you’d better do it statewide. This is not just a Detroit thing. There are sloppy Republican precincts all over the state.

There is no immediate way to make Americans appreciate this distinction, no instant cure for the flagging confidence in our elections.

there are obvious incremental steps to take in the name of transparency and efficiency. First among them, acknowledged Chatfield, the Michigan House speaker, is getting rid of the rules that led to the TCF Center circus in the first place.

one of the items where we should look at other states and see how they’ve done it well, is regarding the early processing of absentee ballots. We mishandled that this year. We should have allowed for early processing. We didn’t, and it became a spectacle.

For those Republicans left to pick up the pieces in the coming legislative session, there may be little incentive for bipartisan cooperation on a subject that now divides the two party bases as starkly as gun rights or tax rates. The backlash against absentee voting from Republican constituents was already fierce; in the wake of Trump’s defeat and the TCF Center conspiracies, Republicans might find it beneficial to avoid raising the issue at all.

There is little cause for optimism. If the majority of GOP politicians couldn’t be bothered to do the easy work of debunking crackpot conspiracy theories, how likely are they to do the hard work of hardening our democracy?

“A lot of our leaders in this country ought to be ashamed of themselves,” said Thomas, the nonpartisan elections guru who kept Michigan’s governing class guessing his political affiliation for the past several decades. “They have propagated this narrative of massive fraud, and it’s simply not true. They’ve leapt from some human error to massive fraud. It’s like a leap to Never Neverland. And people are believing them.

“The people of this country really need to wake up and start thinking for themselves and looking for facts—not conspiracy theories being peddled by people who are supposed to be responsible leaders, but facts,” Thomas said. “If they’re not going to be responsible leaders, people need to seek out the truth for themselves. If people don’t do that—if they no longer trust how we elect the president of the United States—we’re going to be in real trouble.”

Ms. Maddock helped fill 19 buses to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally and defended the April armed intrusion into the Michigan Capitol. When Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, suggested at the time that Black demonstrators would never be allowed to threaten legislators like that, Ms. Maddock wrote on Twitter, “Please show us the ‘threat’?”“Oh that’s right you think anyone armed is threatening,” she continued. “It’s a right for a reason and the reason is YOU.”

The lead organizer of the April 30 armed protest, Ryan Kelley, a local Republican official, last week announced a bid for governor. “Becoming too closely aligned with militias — is that a bad thing?” he said in an interview.

In the first major protest in the country against stay-at-home orders, thousands of cars, trucks and even a few cement mixers jammed the streets around the Statehouse in Lansing, in what Ms. Maddock called Operation Gridlock. About 150 demonstrators left their vehicles to chant “lock her up” from the Capitol lawn — redirecting the 2016 battle cry about Hillary Clinton against Ms. Whitmer. A few waved Confederate flags. About a dozen heavily armed members of the Michigan Liberty Militia turned up as well

woven through Michigan’s militia timeline is a persistent strand of menace. In the early 20th century, the Black Legion, a paramilitary group that included public officials in Detroit and elsewhere, began as an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan and was linked to numerous acts of murder and terrorism.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing, were reported to have associated with militia members in Michigan, though Mr. Olson said they had been turned away because of their violent rhetoric. In the aftermath, militias were largely exiled to the fringes of conspiracy politics, preparing for imagined threats from the New World Order.

in recent years, as the Republican Party has drifted further to the right, these groups have gradually found a home there, said JoEllen Vinyard, an emeritus professor of history at Eastern Michigan University who has studied political extremism. Much of their cooperation is centered on defending gun ownership, she said

epublicans have controlled both houses of the Michigan Legislature for a decade and held the governor’s mansion for the eight years before Ms. Whitmer took office in 2019. Mr. Trump’s brash nationalism had alienated moderate Republicans and independents while pushing the party to the right.

Surrounded by militiamen about two weeks later in Grand Rapids, at an event also organized by Mr. Howland and Mr. Kelley, the senator said in a speech that they had taken him to task for his “jackasses” comment and he effectively retracted it.

Ms. Maddock declared Michigan a “tyranny” that night on the Fox News Channel, though she later distanced herself from the armed men. “Of course the militia is disappointing to me, the Confederate flag — look, they’re just idiots,

When local armed groups in Michigan began discussing more demonstrations, most Republicans shunned them at first. “They were scared of the word ‘militia,’” recalled Phil Robinson, a member of the Liberty Militia.

As the Legislature met on April 30 to vote on extending the governor’s restrictions, Mr. Kelley and his militia allies convened hundreds of protesters, including scores of armed men, some with assault weapons. One demonstrator hung a noose from the back of his pickup. Another held a sign warning that “tyrants get the rope.” Dozens entered the Capitol, some angrily demanding entrance to the lower chamber.

“We were harassed and intimidated so that we would not do our jobs,” said Representative Donna Lasinski, leader of the Democratic minority. Lawmakers were terrified, she added.

Mr. Maddock, the Republican legislator and Ms. Maddock’s husband, recognized some of the intruders and left the House floor to confer with them. “I like being around people with guns,” he later told The Detroit News.

Mr. Trump sided with them, too. “The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” he tweeted. “These are very good people.”

Roughly a dozen to 18 armed groups are scattered across Michigan in mostly rural counties, their membership fluctuating with political and economic currents. Estimates of active members statewide are generally in the hundreds.

“I was able to see that they are patriots that love their country like the rest of us,” she said, adding that they are “all Republicans.”

Other Republicans also came to accept the presence of armed activists. Ms. Gatt, who took part in protests organized by Mr. Kelley and Ms. Maddock, said she felt “intimidated by the militia when I first started getting involved,” but soon changed her mind.

The state G.O.P. quickly jumped into the fight. In June, a nonprofit group linked to the Republican Party began providing more than $600,000 to a new advocacy group run in part by Ms. Maddock that was dedicated to fighting coronavirus restrictions. A charity tied to Mr. Shirkey kicked in $500,000.

Critics argued that race was an unstated factor in the battle over the stay-at-home order. The Republicans who rallied against the rules were mostly white residents of rural areas and outer suburbs. But more than 40 percent of the deaths in Michigan early on were among African-Americans, concentrated in Detroit, who made up less than 15 percent of the state’s population

The Black Lives Matter protests in Michigan were rarely violent or destructive, and the largest took place in Detroit. But Republicans in the rest of the state reacted with alarm to the flashes of violence elsewhere around the country, and President Trump reinforced their fears with his warnings about “antifa.”

“Liberals look for trouble and civil unrest and conservatives PREPARE for it,” Gary Eisen, a Republican state legislator and owner of a concealed-weapon training business, wrote on his Facebook page. “I thought maybe I would load up a few more mags,” he added, later saying he had been joking

He accused Democrats of encouraging violence. “The Democrats have got antifa; they have got BLM,” he said. “The Democrats championed all of this stuff from a leadership level.”

More prominent Michigan Republicans portrayed the Black Lives Matter movement as a looming threat, too. Ms. Maddock told the news site MLive.com that the “destruction” caused by the protests was “absolutely devastating” and “inexcusable.”

At the peak of the protests against police violence, though, Mr. Kelley’s American Patriot Council still aimed its sharpest attacks at Governor Whitmer and her stay-at-home order. It released public letters urging the federal authorities to arrest her for violating the Constitution by issuing a stay-at-home order. “Whitmer needs to go to prison,” Mr. Kelley declared in a video he posted on Facebook in early October that was later taken down. “She is a threat to our Republic.”

A few days later, federal agents arrested more than a dozen Michigan militiamen, charging them in a plot to kidnap the governor, put her on trial and possibly execute her.

It was the culmination of months of mobilization by armed groups, accompanied by increasingly threatening language, and Mr. Trump declined to condemn the plotters. “People are entitled to say, ‘Maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn’t,’” he declared at a rally in Michigan.

Hours after the Nov. 3 election, Ms. Maddock wrote on Facebook: “35k ballots showed up out of nowhere at 3 AM. Need help.” She urged Trump supporters to rush to “monitor the vote” at a ballot-counting center in Detroit. “Report to room 260 STAT.”

Mr. Kelley, with Mr. Howland and their armed militia allies, showed up for a rowdy protest outside the ballot counting. Later that month Mr. Kelley told a rally outside the Statehouse that the coronavirus was a ruse to persuade the public to “believe Joe Biden won the election,” The Lansing State Journal reported. One woman held a sign saying “ARREST THE VOTE COUNTERS.”

When attempts to stop the counting failed, Ms. Maddock in December led 16 Republican electors trying to push into the Michigan Capitol to disrupt the casting of Democratic votes in the Electoral College. During a “Stop the Steal” news conference in Washington the next day, she vowed to “keep fighting.”

Mr. Kelley and Mr. Howland were filmed outside the U.S. Capitol during the riot. Both men said they did not break any laws, and argued that the event was not “an insurrection” because the participants were patriots. “I was there to support the sitting president,” Mr. Kelley said.

Mr. Shirkey, the Michigan Senate leader who came around to work with the militias, declined to follow the movement behind Mr. Trump all the way to the end. Summoned to the White House in November, Mr. Shirkey refused the president’s entreaties to try to annul his Michigan defeat.

But in an interview last week, the lawmaker said he nonetheless empathized with the mob that attacked Congress.“It was people feeling oppressed, and depressed, responding to what they thought was government just stealing their lives from them,” he said. “And I’m not endorsing and supporting their actions, but I understand where they come from.”

Cooper wants the GOP to continue discussing a scaled-back convention, while Republicans are seeking assurances that more than 10 people will be allowed in a room.

Dory MacMillan, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said in a statement that the governor "has been clear that the convention could be held with more than 10 people but that plans need to be in place for a scaled down convention with safety precautions

Republican governors in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee have called on Trump to move the convention to their states, and the RNC is scheduled to visit Nashville on Thursday.

Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, noted former President Barack Obama held his 2012 convention in Charlotte but lost the state to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2012.

"Conventions don't really have as great of an impact as people think," Bitzer said. "The Democrats had a convention in Charlotte, and the state went for Romney by two points in 2012."

New York City, which is set to enter phase one of reopening on Monday, and is not among the regions where outdoor dining can resume this week.

“You can’t use the military as a political weapon,” Cuomo said.

“The president held up the Bible the other day in Washington, D.C. Here in New York we actually read the Bible,” Cuomo told a briefing before reading some passages.

He noted that Trump did not read any passages from the Bible at his photo session at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Cuomo said protesters in New York City were mainly peaceful on Tuesday and praised the police department’s handling of the events. A day earlier the governor had criticized the NYPD and the mayor.

“New York City last night was much better,” Cuomo told the briefing. “The protesters were mainly peaceful, the police officers had the resources and the capacity to do their job.”

The Catholic diocese, along with Agudath Israel of America and affiliated entities, sued, arguing the restrictions amounted to religious discrimination. The crux of the matter was that businesses in orange and red zones, ranging from liquor stores to bike shops to acupuncturists, were subject to no such restrictions because the governor had deemed them “essential.”

as Gorsuch noted, one also has to be modest about judicial modesty: “We may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.”

Imagine slightly different circumstances, in which, say, a conservative governor of a red state had used pandemic concerns last summer to impose draconian limits on public protests, and that he had done so using color-coded maps that focused on denser urban areas and that seemed to apply most restrictively to predominantly Black neighborhoods.

Now imagine this governor had, at the same time, loosened restrictions on large gatherings such as motorcycle rallies, business conventions and football games — on the grounds that these were essential to the economic well-being of the state. Any objections?

The point here isn’t that the interests of public safety and respect for executive authority must always and fully give way to the assertion of constitutional rights. They shouldn’t and don’t. Nor is the point that the behavior of religious communities during the pandemic has been beyond reproach, or beyond the reach of justifiable legal sanction. It hasn’t

The point is there are no second-class rights — and the right to the free exercise of religion is every bit as important to the Constitution as the right to assemble peaceably, petition government for redress and speak and publish freely. That goes in circumstances both ordinary and extraordinary.

“All sorts of things can be called an emergency or disaster of major proportions. Simply slapping on that label cannot provide the ground for abrogating our most fundamental rights.”

he repeatedly claims we have "turned the corner" on the pandemic and that it is "disappearing." Trump responded, "That's right, we have turned the corner."

Stahl said, "You called Dr. Fauci and other health officials idiots." Trump responded, "Where did I call him an idiot?"

Stahl told Trump that she couldn't believe that, after so many people who attended his White House event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in September got sick with the coronavirus, Trump still doesn't strongly encourage his rally attendees to wear masks.

Trump repeatedly denied that he had endorsed the idea of locking up Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

"When did I say lock her up? When did I say lock up the governor? I never said lock up the governor." After some back-and-forth with Stahl, which aired in the televised version, he said, "Lesley, that's such a vicious thing you just said. I didn't say lock up the governor of Michigan. I would never say that. Why would I say that?"

Trump promised, as he has in the past, that he will introduce a great health care plan to replace Obamacare, which he is trying to get the courts to invalidate. When Stahl asked why we haven't seen this plan, Trump said in the extended footage, "You have seen it. I've been putting out pieces all over the place."

In the extended footage, Trump also accused the Democratic governors of Pennsylvania and North Carolina of imposing a lockdown on their residents.

Trump boasted about what he described as record job creation of 11.4 million jobs in the last five months.

Defending his handling of the pandemic, Trump, in the extended footage, repeated his false claim that "2.2 million people were supposed to die."

In the extended footage, Trump again said of his travel restrictions on China and Europe: "I closed it very early from China, heavily infected, and even from Europe, heavily infected."

Trump claimed in the extended footage that, under a Biden administration, "180 million people will lose their health care" from private insurers.

Trump boasted in the extended footage about how he "terminated" Obamacare's individual mandate, saying that this "actually makes Obamacare not Obamacare."

We counted at least 16 false or misleading claims in the extended footage Trump posted, 10 of them pandemic-related.

Trump claimed in the extended footage, "I'm saving suburbia. He's gonna destroy suburbia. He's got a regulation, which I terminated, that he would put back, and even worse, that will destroy -- that will bring low-income housing projects into suburbia."

Stahl told Trump, "You said the other day to suburban women, 'Will you please like me? Please?" She used a pleading tone of voice in repeating Trump's comment.Trump responded, "Oh, I didn't say that. You know, that's so misleading the way -- I say jokingly, 'Suburban women, you should love me because I'm giving you security. And I got rid of the worst regulation.'" He repeated that he had made the comment "kiddingly," not as if he was "begging."

After Stahl asked Trump if he wants to lock up former President Barack Obama, Trump said in the extended footage, "No, I don't wanna lock him up, but he spied on my campaign. Obama and Biden spied on my campaign."

“But it’s also much worse than the spring because this virus is now much more widespread,” she said. “It’s not just one region of the country experiencing the surge. It’s every state.”

Dr. Watson said she worried that hospitals in many cities would soon become overwhelmed, as they were in New York City and other places on the East Coast during the spring peak.

The country is now recording more than 150,000 new cases each day on average, more than ever before.

The governors of Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington who have announced new restrictions in the last few days are all Democrats.

During that time, all roads in the

Navajo Nation are closed to visitors, residents must stay at home except for urgent trips, and most government offices will be closed. Essential businesses like gas stations and groceries are allowed to open, but only from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The virus killed about 1,700 people in Philadelphia in the early months of the pandemic, overwhelming the city’s funeral homes. With Covid-19 hospitalizations soaring again in the city, Dr. Farley warned that the virus could kill a similar number of Philadelphians this fall and winter if left unchecked.

“The bottom line is this: If we don’t do something to change the trajectory of this epidemic, the hospitals will become full,” Dr. Farley said. “They’ll have difficulty treating people, and we’ll have between several hundred and a thousand deaths by just the end of this year.”

Refugee vetting has an excellent record. Of 785,000 refugees admitted to the United States since 9/11, just three have been arrested for terrorism-related charges, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

If Republican governors are concerned about security risks, maybe they should vet who can buy guns. People on terrorism watch lists are legally allowed to buy guns in the United States, and more than 2,000 have done so since 2004. The National Rifle Association has opposed legislation to rectify this.

Abbott said that canceling Medicaid participation for Planned Parenthood in Texas moves the state closer to “providing greater access to safe healthcare for women while protecting our most vulnerable – the unborn.”

Planned Parenthood has long said that its fetal tissue donations are legal, since the organization did not accept payment for the donations beyond the reimbursement of costs. On Oct. 13, Planned Parenthood announced that it will no longer accept reimbursements for expenses related to donated fetal tissue. “Planned Parenthood’s policies on fetal tissue donation already exceed the legal requirements,” Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards wrote in a letter to the National Institutes of Health. “Now we’re going even further in order to take away any basis for attacking Planned Parenthood to advance an anti-abortion political agenda.”

The New Jersey governor has clawed his way back into the race by winning over New Hampshire primary voters one town hall and diner at a time

that made him the early favorite to be the GOP nominee as far back as 2011

: The Ohio governor has been an after-thought for much of the Republican race, and yet, he is just as well-positioned for a strong finish in New Hampshire as Messrs. Bush, Christie and Rubio

The retired pediatric neurosurgeon is a case study in the physics of presidential politics: Candidates that surge quickly tend to fall to earth just as fast. He has lost so much altitude since his shaky performance

 Solid. That is how the pundit class has rendered each of Mr. Rubio’s five previous debates. Of all the candidates on stage, the Florida senator seems to have passed the credibility test

The Texas senator likes to tell supporters you only take flak because you’re over the target, attributing his rivals’ recent attacks to his surge in the polls, both nationally and in Iowa. It’s one thing to expect incoming

The celebrity businessman has defied just about every rule in American politics

The prince revolted against his father but was defeated after four years. Aurangzeb and a brother were sent to their grandfather's court as hostages.

The 15-year-old Aurangzeb proved his courage in 1633. All of Shah Jahan's court was arrayed in a pavilion, watching an elephant fight when one of the elephants ran out of control. As it thundered towards the royal family, everyone scattered - except Aurangzeb, who ran forward and headed off the furious pachyderm.

This act of near-suicidal bravery raised Aurangzeb's status in the family.

When Aurangzeb's sister died in a fire in 1644, he took three weeks to return home to Agra rather than rushing back immediately. Shah Jahan was so angry about his tardiness that he stripped Aurangzeb of the Viceroyalty of Deccan.

Relations between the two deteriorated the following year, and Aurangzeb was banished from court.

Shah Jahan needed all of his sons in order to run his huge empire, however, so in 1646, he appointed Aurangzeb Governor of Gujarat.

Although Aurangzeb had a lot of success in extending Mughal rule north and westward, in 1652, he failed to take the city of Kandahar (Afghanistan) from the Safavids.

As his condition worsened, his four sons by Mumtaz began to fight for the Peacock Throne.

Shah Jahan favored Dara, the eldest son, but many Muslims considered him too worldly and irreligious. Shuja, the second son, was a complete hedonist, who used his position as Governor of Bengal as a platform for acquiring beautiful women and wine. Aurangzeb, a much more committed Muslim than either of the elder brothers, saw his chance to rally the faithful behind his own banner.

Aurangzeb craftily recruited his younger brother, Murad, convincing him that together they could remove Dara and Shuja, and place Murad on the throne. Aurangzeb disavowed any plans to rule himself, claiming that his only ambition was to make the hajj to Mecca.

Aurangzeb had his former ally Murad executed on trumped-up murder charges in 1661

Aurangzeb's 48-year reign is often cited as a "Golden Age" of the Mughal Empire, but it was rife with trouble and rebellions. Although Mughal rulers from Akbar the Great through Shah Jahan practiced a remarkable degree of religious tolerance and were great patrons of the arts, Aurangzeb reversed both of these policies. He practiced a much more orthodox, even fundamentalist version of Islam, going so far as to outlaw music and other performances in 1668.

Both Muslims and Hindus were forbidden to sing, play musical instruments or to dance - a serious damper on the traditions of both faiths in India.

Aurangzeb also ordered the destruction of Hindu temples, although the exact number is not known. Estimates range from under 100 to tens of thousands. In addition, he ordered the enslavement of Christian missionaries.

Aurangzeb expanded Mughal rule both north and south, but his constant military campaigns and religious intolerance rankled many of his subjects. He did not hesitate to torture and kill prisoners of war, political prisoners, and anyone he considered un-Islamic. To make matters worse, the empire became over-extended, and Aurangzeb imposed ever higher taxes in order to pay for his wars.

Perhaps the most disastrous revolt of all was the Pashtun Rebellion of 1672-74. The founder of the Mughal Dynasty, Babur, came from Afghanistan to conquer India, and the family had always relied upon the fierce Pashtun tribesmen of Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan to secure the northern borderlands. Charges that a Mughal governor was molesting tribal women sparked a revolt among the Pashtuns, which led to a complete breakdown of control over the northern tier of the empire and its critical trade routes.