James' World 2

Hmmmm … who flooded Harlem with drugs? Payback?

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Leading this expansion was Hannibal of the Barca family, whose brother Mago is credited with bringing elephants to the Iberian peninsula around 228 B.C. Hannibal then revolutionized warfare by deploying armored pachyderms against local tribes. This terrifying shock force broke battle lines and provided elevated, commanding positions for his archers.

“It is quite possible that the bone uncovered around Cordoba belonged to one of the elephants that Hannibal used to crush the Carpetani tribe in central Spain,” Dr. Quesada said.

The Second Punic War was ignited in 219 B.C. by Hannibal’s brutal, eight-month siege of Saguntum, a strategic Spanish stronghold allied with Rome. Believing the siege to be a rogue act, Rome demanded that Hannibal be handed over. When Carthage refused, the two powers declared war, setting the stage for a colossal 17-year conflict.

Before his invasion of Italy, Hannibal left 21 war elephants in Spain under the authority of his brother Hasdrubal. Those so-called tanks of antiquity were distributed among Mago and other generals. Dr. Quesada said the bones in his team’s archaeological find might be linked to those elephants.

The four-inch bone fragment was dug up six years ago, ahead of construction work at the Iron Age site Colina de los Quemados. The excavation revealed a violent past for the fortified village. Sealed beneath a collapsed adobe wall, the remnant was found with 12 large stone catapult projectiles, suggesting that a fierce clash had taken place on the grounds of the settlement.

The artifact was found in isolation, with the rest of the animal’s remains lost. This anomaly has led researchers to a curious possibility: The relic might have been intentionally spared, salvaged by someone who found its small size ideal for a souvenir.

Researchers identified the specimen as the third carpal bone from an elephant’s right foreleg by comparing it with anatomical collections at the University of Valladolid in Spain and the Leiden University in the Netherlands. The anatomical match for the bone was confirmed through measurements against Asian elephant and steppe mammoth samples.

Eve MacDonald, a historian at Cardiff University and the author of “Carthage: A New History,” who was not involved in the new study, said that while a single ankle bone limits interpretation, “the association alone adds to the understanding of the significance of the elephant in the Carthaginian war machine.”

The fate of the Córdoba elephant was undoubtedly grim, but it was probably a swifter mercy than the marathon of misery endured by Hannibal’s herd. Over five grueling months, the elephants caravaned from Catalonia across the Pyrenees and the Rhone, ultimately scaling the snow-slicked Alps. Their thousand-mile journey was less a military feat and more a slow-motion catastrophe.

While accounts vary, many historians believe a significant number of the elephants — perhaps nearly all 37 — initially survived the passage. But by the spring of 217 B.C., Hannibal’s grand trunk show had been reduced to a lone survivor: a tusk-shorn animal named Surus, meaning the Syrian. The others had died following the Battle of Trebia because of exhaustion, wounds, and a severe winter ice storm.

Hannibal is said to have ridden Surus across the treacherous Arno marshes after losing an eye to an infection. The chilling admission of the Roman playwright Plautus — that Surus “set my heart a-freezing” — endures as the ultimate testimonial to a creature that commanded absolute, frosty respect.

Uncovering the Past, One Discovery at a Time

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• War Elephants: Archaeologists say a 2,200-year-old specimen is the first direct evidence of how the Carthaginians used the giant mammals in the Punic Wars.

• The Lighthouse of Alexandria: An ancient skyscraper considered the seventh wonder of the world crumbled to ruin centuries ago. Now an ambitious archaeological project aims to reassemble it in 3-D.

• Rock Art: An ancient handprint in a cave on an Indonesian island may be the oldest known rock art, created at least 67,800 years ago.

• Roman Villa Under Deer Park: The unexpected discovery of a well-preserved and fortified villa in Margam Park in South Wales sheds new light on the Roman occupation there, an expert said.

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A Renaissance-era fresco attributed to Jacopo Ripanda depicting Hannibal on the back of an elephant during the Second Punic War, in the third century B.C. Credit…Adam Eastland/Alamy

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In the run-up to this year’s Winter Olympics, and even as the Games have got underway, a scandal has been brewing: allegedly, some competitive ski jumpers may have artificially enlarged their crotch area by injecting their genitals with engorging chemicals or stuffing their underwear to create bigger bulges. The apparent reason: to alter their suit measurements—ski jumpsuits are precisely tailored to jumpers’ bodies—and, reportedly, to gain a boost in jumps.

The allegations, first reported by a German media outlet and since dubbed “Penisgate,” have caught not only the Internet’s attention but also the World Anti-Doping Agency’s eye, although no athletes have been implicated by name.

Still the affair raises an important science question: How does a slight increase in a ski jumper’s suit surface area actually change their jumping distance?

Let’s start with the crotch. According to rules issued by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the body that regulates ski jumping, “crotch height” measurements for an athlete’s suit are taken by laser. So, in theory, if an athlete’s crotch is temporarily a little larger, they would get a slightly roomier suit than they might otherwise.

The extra fabric might be enough to minimally lengthen their jumps by providing a little more lift in the air—much like the patagium of a flying squirrel—and, in turn, more distance. In a sport that’s often decided by a matter of centimeters, any additional hang time can be the difference between gold and silver.

“It has a huge impact,” says Lasse Ottesen, now race director for the Nordic Combined event at FIS and a former Olympic ski jumper. He said research conducted in the 2000s suggested jumpers with a single centimeter of extra material at the crotch could increase jump length by as much as four meters. And according to a more recent study accepted for publication by Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, scientists found that adding one centimeter to the overall circumference of ski jumpers’ suits could lengthen jumps by 3.2 meters.

Athletes, coaches, and regulators are aware of this. In January, before “Penisgate” went viral, several officials from Norway’s ski jumping team were temporarily banned from competition after they were found to have altered athletes’ suits with extra crotch stitching at last year’s Nordic World Ski Championships. That incident went “way beyond what we have ever seen before,” Ottesen says, adding that the FIS is working to refine ski jumping regulations—not least to make sure that “everyone is measured in the correct way.”

Suit size is far from the only factor to influence ski jump lengths, however.

Amy Pope, a principal lecturer in physics and astronomy at Clemson University, explains that how far a ski jumper flies is ultimately the result of physics.

To prepare for their jumps, ski jumpers race down ramps etched with ice grooves in the snow, Pope says. As they descend, the jumpers are aiming to minimize air resistance and the friction on their skis to juice their speed. By the time they reach the bottom, they’re hitting speeds of about 60 miles per hour and a “huge” wall of air resistance—imagine sticking your hand out the window of a car barreling down the highway. “That’s exactly what the athletes are feeling,” she says. And then they jump.

At this point, if the jumper was in a vacuum, their trajectory would be parabolic, with the ideal launch angle of 45 degrees, says Philip Langill, an associate professor in the department of physics at the University of Calgary. A degree more or less, and they wouldn’t travel as far as possible.

Of course, no one is jumping in a vacuum at the Winter Olympics. Instead, the athletes harness “the power of the air around them” to stay aloft longer, Pope says. They contort their bodies to maximize lift, reduce drag, and fight the pull of gravity.

That’s where the sport’s signature “V” style jump comes in—the “biggest revolution” in ski jumping in the last three decades, Ottesen says. In the early 1980s, long jumpers would often keep their skis parallel in the air, he says. But by the 1990s skiers started to fly with their skis in a “V,” increasing their surface area and lift. “All of a sudden, we were jumping a lot farther than we used to,” he says, “and we were crashing more.”

Do the athletes think about all this physics? Sometimes, according to Ottesen, at least—in training, he recalls being “more observant” of the forces acting on his body. But when it comes to competition time, muscle memory takes over. “You’re not thinking about any of this at all. The body and mind are just doing what it’s been practicing,” he says.

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Be Present in the Feeling

When the former First Lady was caring for her mom, Marian Robinson, near the end of her life, she said something that changed how Obama approached her sixth decade.

“She said, ‘Wow, that quick.’ And I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ and she said, ‘Life.’ What I got from that was that you’re never ready,” said Obama. “And I was like, let me hear that. Let me understand that. Even with a wonderful life, I want to be present. And I think that feeling of 60 is about me trying to be present in the feeling—trying to be present in this moment in my life so that this last chapter is exactly how I want it to be.”

There’s Freedom in Being an Empty Nester

Everything Michelle Obama has done since becoming a mother has been to ensure her girls turn out whole. But with her daughters now out of the house, she’s embracing life rather than mourning the past like so many other empty nesters might do.

“This is the first time in my life where every single decision I make is mine,” she said. “It’s what I want to do. And there’s a burden in that, too. This is the first time I’ve been able to do that for me with no excuses, so that means the consequences are mine too. There’s freedom with that.”

Only Take Advice From Seasoned Moms

The conversation would not have been complete without her making us laugh. Several times. The most memorable? A playful PSA reminding attendees to stop listening to young mommy bloggers. All in jest, she reminded us that none of us has any idea what we’re doing during those first few years.

“Let me hear what you have to say when they’re 27. That’s when I’ll take your advice,” she said. “I don’t know you’re right until I see the final product. I want to talk to Mariane Robinson. I want to talk to the woman who raised the First Lady. All parent bloggers should be grown people.” 

Who are we to disagree?

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Former First Lady Michelle Obama & La La Anthony discuss her new book ‘The Look’ at People Inc. Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock for People, Inc.

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So far, bills have been introduced in at least nine states that would eliminate all or nearly all school requirements, including Democratic states like New York, where there is no chance of passage, to states such as New Hampshire, Georgia, Iowa, and Idaho, where the proposals have gained some traction.

Many vaccine proponents view the state-level push as a second stage in the dismantling of the nation’s vaccine infrastructure, building on Mr. Kennedy’s significant reduction of federally recommended vaccines.

While not entirely new, the strategy demonstrates a sophisticated grasp of how to try to unravel more than 100 years of progress in protecting children from deadly pathogens, said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law professor emerita at George Washington University and former Clinton administration health official.

“They’re drunk on their apparent power, because they have one of their own sitting in the secretarial office of H.H.S.,” Ms. Rosenbaum said, referring to Mr. Kennedy’s position at the Department of Health and Human Services. “They think this is the time for them to go for broke and just simply make the default no requirements at all.”

Groups in the new coalition include Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy co-founded, and two others created to support his MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, initiative. One of them, the MAHA Institute, works on state policy and said it is hiring people to support the agenda.

Mr. Kennedy’s retreat from longstanding federal vaccine advice has prompted a flurry of activity at the state level. As his policies take hold, some Democratic leaning states have created their own alliances to reject the new federal vaccine guidance, while some Republican-led states have moved to enshrine it.

At a Heritage Foundation event featuring Mr. Kennedy this month, Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, said a high priority would be undoing state requirements.

“Ultimately, the goal is to remove mandates,” Ms. Mack Rosenberg said.

“Particularly when you tie those mandates to school attendance, that creates an incredibly difficult situation for families,” she added.

Asked at an event in Tennessee earlier this month about the push to repeal school-entry requirements, Mr. Kennedy said he was not involved in the effort. But he added, “I believe in freedom of choice,” drawing applause from the audience. He said he supported allowing people to make vaccine decisions with their families and physicians.

Ms. Manookian said the coalition’s effort is meant to end what she considered coercion related to all medical interventions. “It’s about putting the power back in the hands of the individual,” she said in an interview.

Proposals to eliminate school-entry vaccine requirements have met mixed fates, with some efforts stalling, in Oklahoma and Indiana, and others pending, including in West Virginia. A bill in Arizona is also pending but is expected to face a veto from the governor, a Democrat, and one in New York is unlikely to clear the Democratic-controlled state legislature. Backers of the coalition say they expect a bill to be introduced in Louisiana next month.

In Florida, despite state officials’ declared intent to end childhood vaccine mandates, no bill has been introduced that would eliminate school-entry rules. One proposal, though, would allow a “conscience” or personal-belief exemption that would make it easier for parents to opt out of immunizations.

The moves to overturn state laws have alarmed pediatricians and other vaccine supporters, who maintain that there is widespread acceptance among parents and the public of immunizing young children.

Eliminating school requirements is viewed by public health experts as a sure way to reduce vaccine coverage, resulting in a surge of measles and whooping cough cases, followed later by potential outbreaks of rubella and polio. The consequences are on display in South Carolina, where a measles outbreak has affected more than 900 people, including at least 19 who were hospitalized with complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling.

At several schools in the center of the outbreak, fewer than 80 percent of students had received all of the required childhood immunizations, well short of the 95 percent needed to stem the spread of measles, a highly contagious virus.

Yet one potent guardrail against weakening immunization mandates has emerged. A number of polls show that voters would penalize lawmakers who favor eliminating school requirements. In one recent poll, conducted by The Wall Street Journal, voters gave Democrats a 9 percent advantage over Republicans when asked which party is best suited to handle vaccine policy.

Two polls commissioned by vaccine backers and conducted by Republican-leaning firms found that voters in Florida and Tennessee would not support lawmakers who want to end school-vaccine mandates. One poll by Fabrizio Ward, a firm that President Trump relies on, found that swing voters in tight congressional races would strip about 20 percentage points from a Republican candidate who was critical of vaccines.

“Vaccine skepticism is bad politics,” the Fabrizio Ward memo said.

Vaccine backers are still concerned about proposals in New Hampshire, Iowa, Idaho, Georgia, and potentially other states that could end or sharply limit vaccine requirements for school entry.

“Prior to vaccines, one in five kids didn’t make it to their fifth birthday,” said Jennifer Herricks, advocacy director for American Families for Vaccines, a nonprofit that receives some of its funding from vaccine makers. “Having these policies in place has really served to protect kids at the time when they are the most vulnerable to these diseases.”

In New Hampshire, vaccine skeptics dominated a lengthy hearing on a bill that would eliminate required vaccines for school, but was amended to keep the polio vaccine. Health department officials said the proposal would put the state out of compliance with federal grant requirements and cost it several million dollars used to immunize low-income children each year.

If the bill passed, there could be “widespread uncontrolled illness,” said Megan Petty, chief of the New Hampshire Bureau of Infectious Disease Control.

Idaho passed a law in 2025 eliminating medical mandates for vaccines or other interventions, but it did not specifically address or change day care or school vaccine requirements, Ms. Manookian said.

She said she planned to support a new Idaho proposal that would. Some Idaho school districts have continued to stand firm on vaccine requirements despite the existing law’s general prohibition against medical mandates, she said.

“The more that the schools and the day cares actually play parent and intrude,” she said, “the more they’re actually harming themselves.”

Chris Anders, a Republican lawmaker in West Virginia, introduced a bill this month that would eliminate school vaccination mandates, including the requirement that county health departments offer free shots to low-income children. He said other lawmakers were unlikely to advance the measure.

“If people decide not to be vaccinated, that is their choice,” he said. “Just like if they decide not to wear a seatbelt or a motorcycle helmet or anything else. If they decide that, they suffer the consequences.”

Last year in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott quietly signed a bill that opened the door to lawsuits against vaccine makers that advertise in the state.

A 1986 federal law created a special court, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, that handles vaccine-injury claims. Mr. Kennedy, who worked on a large lawsuit against one vaccine maker, has long been a critic of the special court, saying vaccine lawsuits should be easier to pursue.

In Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general, announced last fall that the state would end vaccine requirements. With no proposal in the legislature to make that happen, a pared-down effort to change state rules is moving forward.

Florida officials are seeking to repeal the requirement that children be vaccinated against varicella, or chickenpox; hepatitis B, pneumococcal bacteria and Haemophilus influenzae type B, or Hib, a condition that can be deadly.

The state held a contentious hearing in December on the plan. Among those testifying was Jamie Schanbaum, whose fingers and lower legs were amputated after she became severely ill from meningitis, which is prevented by the pneumococcal vaccine. She has advocated the vaccine extensively and in December asked Florida leaders to keep their vaccination requirements in place.

“It’s very frustrating,” she said in an interview, “to see and experience the reality of today and that our most prominent, most respected medical guidances are being not taken seriously.”

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An empty classroom at the high school in Williston, N.D., during an outbreak of measles there last year. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

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The Trump administration’s decision to scrap the “endangerment finding” on Thursday will have wide-reaching consequences for greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, could hasten climate change, increase risk to human health, and raise fuel costs.

But what is the “endangerment finding,” and what does the revocation of the legal precedent of this 2009 conclusion mean for you? Let’s break down the facts.

What is the endangerment finding?

To understand the endangerment finding, we need to rewind the clock to the Clean Air Act, the landmark 1970 law that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air pollutants.

The act was originally used to target pollutants such as sulfur oxides and particulate matter, but it was intentionally written broadly so that Congress wouldn’t have to revisit it every time a new pollutant emerged, said Camille Pannu, associate clinical professor of law at Columbia Law School, to Scientific American last year.

In 1999, a group of environmental organizations and eventually states began petitioning the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Eventually, in 2007, the Supreme Court decided in the case Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, qualified as “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act. The EPA was required to determine whether or not emissions from cars and trucks would endanger public health or if the science was too uncertain.

Flash forward to 2009: Lisa P. Jackson, then administrator of the EPA, issued the “endangerment finding,” which identified six greenhouse gases and held that they did indeed “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” The rule became the bedrock on which all subsequent EPA regulations of greenhouse gases have been based. While it was in place, the EPA could not legally ignore climate change or completely cut greenhouse gas regulations.

What effect does repealing the endangerment finding have?

In the short term, EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks will be repealed and not replaced. The decision to repeal the rule, however, will face lengthy legal challenges.

The EPA has also proposed repealing regulations on industrial emissions and delaying rules designed to reduce methane emissions, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, from oil and gas facilities.

Rescinding the endangerment finding will also make it harder for future administrations to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without a new law or amendment passed by Congress.

How does climate change affect public health?

There is a robust body of evidence showing the harms of climate change on health. One of the most direct risks is through heat waves, which have become more intense, more frequent, and longer-lasting as global background temperatures have risen. Children, pregnant people, older people, and those who work outdoors are particularly susceptible to heat illness—causing issues from dehydration to death.

Climate change has also been linked to worsened seasonal allergies and higher risks of preterm birth. Additionally, it exacerbates smog and other air pollution that has been linked to asthma, cardiovascular disease, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. More extreme rains fueled by a warmer climate also raise the risks of drinking water being contaminated with toxic bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter. And as temperatures warm and precipitation patterns change, insects that spread diseases—such as mosquitoes that spread malaria and West Nile virus and ticks that spread Lyme disease—are expanding their ranges.

Climate change also exerts a toll on mental health, causing mental trauma—as well as physical injury—from climate-fueled weather extremes such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. And research has shown that the effects from events such as hurricanes can cause deaths long after the storms.

Has the endangerment finding been at risk before?

In President Donald Trump’s first term in office, then EPA administrator Scott Pruitt sought to replace Obama-era emissions regulations with weaker ones that were favored by fossil fuel companies, the industrial sector, and car companies. This strategy would have allowed the endangerment finding to stand, dodging potential legal challenges.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, his EPA replaced those weakened regulations with more stringent ones. At the end of his presidency in 2024, Biden announced his pledge to reduce U.S. emissions by up to 66 percent by 2035. Overturning Biden’s updated laws has become a focal point of Trump’s second term.

How does this fit in with the rest of Trump’s climate policy?

Trump has long referred to climate change as a “hoax” despite decades of rigorous research and evidence in support of global warming. He began his second presidency by once again removing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. In 2026, Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty under which the Paris Agreement was negotiated.

The current Trump administration has also sought to hobble the build-out of renewable energy in the U.S., particularly offshore wind turbines, which the president has falsely linked to the deaths of whales. And the administration has sought to bolster fossil fuels by opening more federal lands to drilling and ordering coal plants that were marked for retirement to stay open.

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The morning commute on northbound Interstate 405 at sunrise on 15 January in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Getty Images

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Senate Democrats and Republicans continue to clash over funding part of the government.Credit…Eric Lee for The New York Times

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Dozens of hair extensions—including artificial and natural braids—may contain synthetic chemicals that are a health and environmental hazard, a new study shows. At least 12 of the 169 chemicals detected in the new analysis have been associated with cancer, birth defects, and reproductive issues, and are included in California’s Proposition 65 hazardous chemicals list.

The study, published today in Environment & Health, tested 43 hair extensions, including those made with synthetic hair, as well as untreated “raw” human hair and other biobased hair, such as those made from banana-based fibers. All but two of the products contained a hazardous chemical, and nearly 10 percent of them had organotin compounds—synthetic chemicals linked to endocrine-disrupting effects. Some had concentrations above the European Union limits. More research is needed, however, for government agencies to determine whether the chemical levels found in these products requires greater regulation, the study authors say.

“The hazardous chemicals we identified each carry their own risks,” says Elissia T. Franklin, lead author of the new paper and a research scientist at the nonprofit research organization Silent Spring Institute. “Our findings showed that these products can expose [people] to multiple chemicals over time, and through repeated use, these combined exposures add up.”

More than 70 percent of Black women in the U.S. use hair extensions at least once per year, including in hairstyles such as braiding—a staple of many Black cultures that’s been shaped by the slave trade, colonialism, and Western beauty standards. Chemical relaxers—another product commonly used to style Black hair—that permanently straighten curly or kinky hair have previously been linked to higher risk of uterine cancer.

“On one hand, I’m excited to get the work out and share this new knowledge with the world,” Franklin says. “On the other hand, I’m learning this new information leans towards the idea that my community is deeply polluted with harmful chemicals, even down to practices that are so embedded in the culture, like getting braids.”

Using a chemical library, Franklin’s team winnowed more than 900 chemical signatures picked up from the hair extensions down to dozens of potentially harmful compounds. In samples of synthetic hair, they found levels of chlorine as high as 277,000 micrograms per gram. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reports that exposure to chlorine, a flame retardant, at 60 micrograms per gram for 60 minutes or more through inhalation can lead to lung irritation and impaired function. The researchers also flagged some samples with small traces of fluorine, a chemical that can lead to lower birth rates in high doses, as well as organohalogens and nitroaromatics—both known to have carcinogenic effects.

The study didn’t determine whether any particular amount of chemical exposure from the hair extensions was above legal standards or would necessarily cause health issues in people, however. This limitation makes it difficult to create safety guidance, Franklin says. But the work aligns with a growing trend: A 2022 study found traces of potentially harmful heavy metals in synthetic hair, and a 2025 analysis in Consumer Reports found that hair extensions used when braiding contained volatile organic chemicals—which can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat as well as cause potential long-term kidney and liver damage.

In the new study, the “detection of more different classes of potentially harmful chemical contaminants is evidence that these products contain more chemical types than our findings,” showed, says James Rogers, director of product and food safety research and testing at Consumer Reports, who led the 2025 analysis. He was not involved in the new paper.

Biobased hair products, such as those made from silk or banana-based fibers, are generally better options than other extensions. But the study found that some biobased extensions labeled as nontoxic contained unclassified complex chemicals. Although those chemicals might not be dangerous, Franklin advises caution: “Biobased doesn’t automatically mean safer.”

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The progressive Democrat razzed the president and Republicans amid fury over the Puerto Rican superstar’s Spanish-language set.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) ridiculed Republicans having a fit over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance this past weekend while strolling through the halls of Congress on Tuesday night.

Asked about President Donald Trump’s complaint “nobody” could understand the Puerto Rican superstar’s Spanish-language set, she told journalist Nicholas A. Ballasy, “I barely know what Trump’s saying half the time, so I feel him.”

Ocasio-Cortez continued to rib the right when asked about Florida Rep. Randy Fine’s plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to look into supposedly “pornographic filth” which was part of the performance, as he announced in a Monday X post.

“I thought they didn’t understand what he was saying!” she quipped.

A bulk of the GOP outrage over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance seems to be centered on sexually explicit lyrics in the song “Safarea,” a Puerto Rican expression for debauchery.

But the X-rated verse at the center of their criticism was not included in Sunday’s medley of songs, nor are the most lurid lyrics even performed by Bad Bunny on the recorded version of the track, according to translation on Genius.com.

In addition, less raunchy but still sexually suggestive lines delivered by Bad Bunny during his performance were bleeped during the Super Bowl broadcast, as Axios reported on Tuesday.

During Ocasio-Cortez’s catch-up with Ballasy, she also talked about what the Super Bowl set personally meant to her as a Puerto Rican American.

“It just gives me so much pride to see what he did on the national stage,” she said. “Not only that, but really telling the story of America and all the Americas.”

The progressive went on, “I think it was incredibly inspiring and fun and joyful in a time that people find very challenging.”

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Bad Bunny

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What We’re Covering Today

• Bondi Hearing: Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to apologize to survivors of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who attended her testimony at a lengthy House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Ms. Bondi faced anger from Democrats and at least one Republican, Thomas Massie, who criticized her handling of the release of files related to Mr. Epstein, including redaction errors that revealed the identities of victims.

• Netanyahu Meeting: President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel met for two and a half hours at the White House. Mr. Trump wrote on social media that “nothing definitive” was decided beyond a commitment to continue negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat.

• Trump’s Tariffs: For a year, Republican leaders in the House have blocked challenges to Mr. Trump’s major trade strategy, tariffs, but dissent within the party has set up a vote to rescind the levies on Canada.

Bondi clashes with Judiciary Committee members over her handling of the Epstein files.

Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to apologize to survivors of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who were seated in the House Judiciary Committee room on Wednesday, and instead demanded that Democrats apologize to President Trump.

Ms. Bondi, imitating Mr. Trump’s tactic of going on the attack when facing tough questions, offered few answers, no admissions of fault, and many expressions of fealty and admiration for a president who has exercised direct control over her department’s actions.

Bondi is facing a barrage of questions about the relationship between three senior Trump officials and Jeffrey Epstein. Representative Becca Balint, a Democrat from Vermont, asked Bondi if she planned to investigate Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about his relationship with the sex offender. Bondi replied that he “had addressed this himself.”

When Balint mistakenly referred to Bondi as “secretary” at one point, Bondi cut in and said, “I am attorney general.” Balint shot back, “Excuse me, I couldn’t tell.”

At the House Judiciary Committee hearing, there was an intense exchange between Attorney General Pam Bondi and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, over the Justice Department’s inadvertent release of victims’ identities and the redactions of a purported co-conspirator’s identity. “Who is responsible?” asked Massie, who co-wrote the law requiring the department to release the Epstein files. “Who in your organization made this massive failure?” Bondi responded by calling Massie “a failed politician.”Bondi has accused the Democrats of “theatrics” in her appearance at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. But the attorney general has been, by far, the loudest voice in the room. She has insulted several Democrats and has been repeatedly, if gently, blocked by Jim Jordan, a Republican and the chairman of the committee, from shouting over her questioners.

An uncomfortable and dramatic moment. Under pressure from Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, Bondi refuses to apologize over her actions in the case to victims of Jeffrey Epstein who are in the hearing room. Bondi, who appeared caught off guard, pivoted to attack Jayapal for trying to drag her “into the gutter.”The Epstein case, once an obsessive focus of the right, has become a political weapon wielded by Democrats in attacking President Trump and his appointees in the Justice Department and F.B.I.

The meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House ended at about 1:30 p.m. The leaders met for about two and a half hours.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that his meeting with Netanyahu produced no definitive agreement about how to approach Iran. “There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” he wrote. “If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be.”

Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel have been meeting in private for nearly an hour at the White House as they discuss Iran.

Trump meeting with Netanyahu yields “nothing definitive” on Iran.

President Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday that he “insisted that negotiations with Iran continue” over a possible deal over the country’s nuclear program, as the Middle East remained on edge over American threats to attack.

Mr. Trump said in a post on social media that “nothing definitive” came out of his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu at the White House. He said he told the Israeli leader that he preferred a deal with Iran, but warned that without one, “we will just have to see what the outcome will be.”

The six lawmakers who participated in the November video have repeatedly said they were simply restating a fundamental principle of military law, a point Senator Mark Kelly reiterated once again on Wednesday.

“It’s pretty black and white. I mean, it’s on a plaque, you know, at West Point,” the senator said, referring to the Loyalty to the Constitution plaque at the military academy. “When the law and orders are in conflict, you follow the law. It’s something we’re all taught.”

Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who also participated in the illegal orders video in November, accused President Trump of weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies.

“This is an authoritarian playbook that many of us have watched play out abroad over and over and over again, except now we’re seeing it in the United States,” Slotkin said. She said the Trump administration was seeking to intimidate members of Congress to “get other people beyond us to think twice about speaking out.”

“This is straight from the authoritarian playbook,” said Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, in response to a failed attempt by the Trump administration to secure an indictment against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who posted a video warning active-duty service members that they are not obligated to follow illegal orders. He said members of the U.S. Congress have a “responsibility and obligation” to oversee the executive branch, and “criticize when necessary.”

“This is the master alarm flashing for our democracy,” Kelly said Wednesday at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “It is threatening the very foundation of our system, that we have a right to free speech, to lawfully speak out and protest our government without fear of retaliation.”

Senator Kelly said Republican leaders in Congress needed to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempt to criminally charge the six Democratic lawmakers who posted the illegal orders video, adding that Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, “seems to be fully on board with us being thrown into jail.”

Democrats push for transparency on Venezuelan oil money under U.S. control.

Congressional Democrats are escalating their efforts to ensure more oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars in Venezuelan oil proceeds being controlled by the Trump administration in what they say is an unregulated and opaque arrangement susceptible to corruption.

Top Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday calling on the White House to submit to independent accounting of the funds and their uses after lawmakers unsuccessfully pressed Cabinet officials for justification for the administration’s approach. Democrats said their goal was to force the administration to close offshore accounts holding the money and instead use domestic financial institutions that would be subject to congressional oversight.

The House is set to vote on canceling Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

The House is set on Wednesday to consider a Democratic-written measure that would rescind tariffs President Trump imposed on Canada last year, taking a largely symbolic but politically consequential vote that Republicans have fought for a year to prevent.

The measure, sponsored by Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, offers the House its first opportunity to formally register support or opposition to Mr. Trump’s trade policy since he began deploying tariffs as an economic strategy upon his return to the White House.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House to meet with President Trump, according to a senior administration official. The two men plan to discuss how their nations should approach Iran.

Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, came to the defense of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is under scrutiny for having closer ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein than initially disclosed.

“Secretary Lutnick is one of my best friends in the whole wide world, so I am very comfortable working with him,” Hassett told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

A day earlier, the commerce secretary acknowledged at a Senate hearing that he had traveled to Epstein’s island and had another encounter with him, years after claiming to have cut ties. The White House has stood by Lutnick.

Federal debt is projected to hit record levels, the Congressional Budget Office warns.

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has tried to radically reshape America’s economy. He has slashed taxes, raised tariffs to their highest levels in almost a century, unilaterally canceled federal spending, pushed down immigration and pressured the Federal Reserve to sharply lower interest rates.

When it comes to the overall federal budget, though, the effect of these dramatic changes has nearly been a wash. The country is still on track to borrow what economists consider an alarming amount of money in the coming years. But the situation, on paper at least, has gotten only somewhat worse, but not significantly, under Mr. Trump’s unorthodox policy mix.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said in a social media post that his party would not support a stopgap bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, raising the threat of a shutdown of the agency when funding lapses this weekend.

Bipartisan talks have appeared deadlocked as Democrats push for new guardrails on federal immigration enforcement operations. Republicans have outright rejected many of the proposed restrictions.

A Border Patrol commander congratulated the agent who shot a Chicago woman.

Shortly after a Border Patrol agent shot a 30-year-old Chicago woman five times, Gregory Bovino, who was leading the federal government’s immigration raids across the city, reached out to offer his congratulations.

“In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” he wrote to the agent.

The Latest on the Trump Administration

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• Department of Homeland Security: The agency hired a social media manager from the Department of Labor for a key communications job, despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging.

• Deleted Post: Vice President JD Vance’s office deleted a social media post that broke with administration policy in acknowledging the Armenian genocide after he visited a memorial to the estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed over a century ago.

• U.S. Troops in Nigeria: The Pentagon will send about 200 troops to help train Nigerians to fight militants, but they will not be involved in combat. U.S. forces have been assisting local soldiers with identifying potential terrorist targets.

• Gordie Howe International Bridge: A Detroit billionaire lobbied the Trump administration hours before President Trump said he would block the opening of a bridge connecting Detroit to Canada, officials said. Here’s what to know about the project.

• Georgia Ballot Inquiry: An unsealed search warrant affidavit shows that a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Ga., was set off by a leading election denier in the Trump administration and relied heavily on claims about ballots that have been widely debunked.

Justice Department: Prosecutors failed to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video in the fall that reminded members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders, four people familiar with the matter said.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi testifying at the Capitol on Wednesday. Credit…Eric Lee for The New York Times

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