A new $120 million pledge to lift President Biden and his allies will bring the total expected spending by outside groups pushing for Biden’s re-election to $1 billion this year.

The League of Conservation Voters, a leading climate organization that is among the biggest donors to progressive causes, announced its plans Tuesday to support Mr. Biden, at a time when his Republican challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, is struggling to to increase Biden’s support. funds. Mr. Biden’s campaign, independent of outside groups, expects to raise and spend $2 billion as part of his re-election bid.

Republican groups are also likely to make big spending moves into November, but it’s difficult to make direct comparisons between Democratic organizations and their Republican counterparts. Democratic and progressive organizations often announce their spending plans before they have raised the funds, which often come from small donors. Republican groups that rely more on big donors tend not to telegraph their plans.

The pro-Biden outside money comes from nearly a dozen organizations, including climate groups, labor unions and traditional super PACs. There are left-wing groups like MoveOn and moderate Republicans like Republican Voters Against Trump.

The biggest spenders so far are Future Forward, the super PAC blessed by the Biden campaign, which has earmarked more than $250 million in television advertising; the Service Employees International Union, which said last week it would spend $200 million to support Mr. Biden and fellow Democrats; and American Bridge, the Democratic research organization that said as much in January it planned to spend $140 million about an anti-Trump advertising campaign in battleground states.

“The enormity of what we’re talking about has never been seen before in the history of our country,” said Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, the government reform advocacy group that works to expand the possibilities of this kind of restrict external groups. spend unlimited money on elections.

On Wednesday, the League of Conservation Voters will host its annual dinner in Washington. Among those expected to attend include Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat who is the minority leader in the House of Representatives, and a handful of other Democratic members of Congress.

Pete Maysmith, the league’s senior vice president of campaigns, said the group’s funding would subsidize both an advertising campaign on television and digital platforms and an on-the-ground program that will encourage its members and supporters to tell their friends to vote for Biden.

“It’s hard to imagine a bigger stake in this election,” Mr. Maysmith said. “We will communicate with voters in the battleground states and in key races about the stakes, why President Biden has been such a champion on climate change and the obvious and extreme danger of getting Donald Trump and his MAGA back acolytes and big oil enthusiasts. another four years in office.”

Stephanie Schriock, the former president of Emily’s List, the group that supports and finances Democratic women running for office, said she expected the amount of outside money supporting Mr. Biden to be $2.5 billion to $3 billion amounts, where large sums will be spent on legal issues. issues and efforts to get out the vote this fall.

Major Democratic donors, Ms. Schriock said, were animated in recent weeks as Trump closed in on and then clinched the Republican presidential nomination.

“People just didn’t want to believe it was going to be Donald Trump again,” she said. “The whole concept of this happening again just froze them and since Super Tuesday that has changed. People say, ‘Oh, this is happening and this is real.’

It does not include $1 billion in Democratic money pledged on behalf of Mr. Biden another $239 million in advertising disclaimers created by Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC dedicated to electing Senate Democrats. The super PAC backing House Democrats, House Majority PAC, has not yet made any advertising reservations. A spokesperson declined to reveal the group’s plans on Monday.

The $1 billion also does not account for an expected influx of tens of millions — if not more — from organizations supporting Democrats, including Planned Parenthood, and the political groups backed by Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York . Neither Planned Parenthood nor Mr. Bloomberg’s groups have disclosed their spending plans for the 2024 election, but past spending has been significant.

One Republican group that has made its plans public is Faith & Freedom, the conservative organization led by Trump ally Ralph Reed, who said last week that it would spend $62 million to register and turn out evangelical voters for Mr. Trump.

Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC backing Republican Senate candidates, has also earmarked $130 million in ad time for the Senate races in Ohio and Montana.

Trump’s main super PAC has spent $380,000 on radio ads targeting black voters. On the day of Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address this month, another pro-Trump super PAC spent $500,000 on TV ads.

The disparity between the pro-Biden and pro-Trump outside groups reflects the cash advantage Mr. Biden’s campaign has over Mr. Trump’s.

Mr. Biden’s campaign announced Sunday that it, along with the Democratic National Committee and affiliated fundraising organizations, entered March with $155 million in cash on hand. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee had about $40 million at the end of January. The groups have not released a more recent total.

The Biden campaign is prohibited from coordinating with the outside groups but has publicly encouraged their help.

“These are real and meaningful investments that we expect will reach the voters who will decide this election, while Donald Trump and a cash-strapped Republican Party show no interest or ability to build a winning coalition,” he said. Julie Chávez Rodríguez. , Mr. Biden’s campaign manager.

Mr. Maysmith of the League of Conservation Voters said his group would work with other pro-Biden super PACs to avoid duplication and strengthen their efforts. He said there are already plans to speak to voters who are inclined to support Biden’s climate agenda but are concerned about his age.

“If they raise concerns about the president’s age, we are absolutely prepared to hear that, acknowledge that and then articulate why the president may not be the youngest man, but he has done more on climate change than any other president in the world.” the history of this country,” Mr Maysmith said.

Other groups that support Mr. Biden and have announced their 2024 spending plans include VoteVets, the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, the pro-Biden super PAC Unite the countryand Climate Power, which announced an $80 million plan last year.

Ms Muller said the massive spending by outside groups, if Biden is re-elected with Democratic majorities in Congress, could lead to long-sought restrictions on the flow of such large sums into the US political ecosystem.

“It is possible that voter confidence will be further eroded,” she said. “There’s not much room left to fall.”

Ukraine launched a wave of cross-border ground and long-range drone strikes against Russia on Tuesday, attacks that appeared aimed at disrupting President Vladimir V. Putin’s re-election campaign, with the message that the war had turned in Moscow’s favor.

Three armed groups of Russian exiles operating in coordination with the Ukrainian army said they had crossed the border into southern Russia overnight and were fighting in border areas. Further from the border, drone strikes hit a Russian oil refinery and fuel depot.

Throughout the war, Ukraine has attacked targets in Russia to disrupt military logistics, hitting planes parked on runways and blowing up railway bridges. The cross-border attacks, Ukrainian officials have said, are also aimed at unnerving the Russians and undermining Putin’s efforts to isolate them from the war.

Mr Putin has been in power for the past two decades – and has seen several elections, the next of which will take place scheduled for next week – portrayed an image of bringing order to Russia. The Kremlin has done that too banned the only outspoken anti-war candidate from participating.

Reported fighting in the border area in two regions, Kursk and Belgorod in southern Russia, could not immediately be independently confirmed.

The groups say they have entered Russia – the Free Russian Legionthe Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion – operating in coordination with the Ukrainian army. Some members of the groups, including the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, hold far-right nationalist views.

Members of two of these organizations, the Volunteer Corps and the Legion, also crossed into Russia last spring to engage in skirmishes with Russian border police and the Russian army. But while last spring’s raid was believed to have a military objective — diverting Russian forces to the border before a planned Ukrainian offensive elsewhere — Tuesday’s attacks delivered a more overtly political message.

A deputy commander of the Free Russia Legion, Maksimillian Andronnikov, posted a video on social media describing the raid as timed ahead of presidential elections that will extend Putin’s term for a fifth term.

“We are the same Russians as you,” Mr Andronnikov said in the speech. “We also have the right to an advance directive.”

Reports of fighting in the border area coincided with Ukrainian drone strikes across central Russia, including an attack on an oil refinery near Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow. The refinery’s operator, Lukoil, said the facility had halted operations, but did not clarify why.

A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, confirmed that Ukraine had launched the wave of long-range strikes, but did not clarify their intent or confirm specific targets.

“Such incidents will happen to anything that is used for military purposes in one way or another,” Mr Yusov told Radio Liberty. “This work will continue.”

Oleksandr Chubko reporting contributed.

A day after President Biden announced plans to deliver maritime aid to the Gaza Strip, European leaders said on Friday they would deliver aid by ship as early as the weekend. But aid groups and Gaza officials criticized air and sea transport as too cumbersome, and urged much more food and medicine to be brought in by trucks.

The complications of delivering aid to Gaza’s hungry residents were underscored Friday when authorities in Gaza said at least five Palestinians were killed and several others injured after they were hit by parcels of humanitarian aid dropped from a plane.

The United Nations has warned that five months of war and an Israeli blockade have pushed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the brink of starvation, prompting a variety of proposals to speed the delivery of food and other essential needs. Israel insists on inspecting all goods entering Gaza, and aid trucks are allowed through only two border crossings – one from Egypt and one from Israel – in southern Gaza.

President Biden outlined a U.S. military plan Thursday evening to build a floating pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to provide civilians with food, water, medicine and other necessities. He said the operation would allow “a huge increase” in aid coming into the area.

But US officials said the project would take at least 30 to 60 days to complete, raising questions about how famine in Gaza will be averted in the critical days ahead.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said in a statement on Friday that the US maritime plans were a “glaring distraction” and that the delivery of aid was not a logistical problem but a “political” one.

“The food, water and medical supplies that Gazans desperately need are just across the border,” the group said in a statement. “Israel must facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies.”

Britain, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates said Friday they would join U.S. maritime efforts, but added in a joint statement that aid must be delivered “through all possible routes.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said the first ship carrying aid could soon leave EU country Cyprus for Gaza, with more to follow on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear where the ships would unload their cargo or how it would be distributed amid Israeli bombardments and attacks on aid trucks by hungry Palestinians. Gaza has no functioning port and the coastal waters are too shallow for most ships.

At a press conference in Cyprus, Ms von der Leyen gave some details. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that it supports a maritime corridor as long as the goods are checked “in accordance with Israeli standards” before leaving Cyprus.

David Cameron, Britain’s foreign secretary, told reporters on Friday that it is “crucial” that Israel fully opens the port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, to receive maritime aid.

“That is a working port – help may be needed now,” he said. “That would increase the amount of aid that can then be pushed into Gaza.”

Mr Cameron said that about 120 trucks of aid have been entering Israel every day lately, but the enclave needs more than four times as many aid trucks.

Israeli officials have not said whether they will open more land routes to Gaza.

Shortages of food and other supplies have been especially acute in northern Gaza, and humanitarian groups have called on Israel to reopen a major border crossing there. The few attempts to drive supply convoys from the south to the north had limited success, with aid groups reporting that in some cases they were turned back by gunfire or had their trucks overrun and picked off by desperate people before they could reach their destinations.

Plans for the sea route started taking shape months ago. In November, President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus announced an initiative to collect shipments in his country, inspect them at the port of Larnaca and send them via a secure maritime corridor to Gaza, about 400 kilometers away.

If the first shipments are successful this weekend, more deliveries will follow, said Konstantinos Letymbiotis, a spokesman for the Cypriot government. He said it would take about 15 hours to make the journey, although he declined to say where in Gaza the shipment would be delivered, citing security concerns.

The support is partly distributed by the renowned Spanish chef José Andrésthe founder of the World Central Kitchen, which has served more than 32 million meals in Gaza.

Mr. Andrés posted images on social media On Friday he showed how pallets are loaded onto a ship stamped with the names of his group and Open Arms, a Spanish aid group. He said plans for the shipment were “in the final stages” and that it would “land on the beaches of Gaza with 200 pallets.”

Aid is made difficult by the chaos and despair caused by the war. Last week, an aid convoy under Israeli military escort ended in disaster when dozens of Palestinians were killed as they gathered around the aid trucks. The Israeli military released a statement on Friday summarizing the results of an initial internal assessment, which said Israeli soldiers “fired precisely” at Gazans who approached them during a chaotic scene near the convoy.

The account differed sharply from that of witnesses and Palestinian officials, who described extensive shootings after thousands of desperate Gazans approached relief efforts.

The Israeli military said the investigation found that the soldiers had fired in an attempt to keep “suspects” away.

“As they approached, the troops fired to eliminate the threat,” the statement said.

The release of the report came as authorities in Gaza gave details of what they said was yet another disaster in the aid delivery: the deaths of Palestinians killed in an airstrike on Friday. The media office of the Hamas-led government in the area said in a statement that aid packages fell “on the heads” of some people “as a result of a wrong landing.”

The report could not immediately be verified by independent sources.

A video circulating on social media that appears to depict the incident shows a plane releasing parachutes carrying aid packages over northern Gaza. In the clip, whose date and location have been verified by The New York Times, it appears that one parachute failed to open, while several packages not attached to parachutes crashed to the ground. In the clip, filmed near Al-Shati campYou see people running in different directions.

Jamie McGoldrick, a senior U.N. aid official, said the incident is further evidence that Israel needs to open more land crossings for aid.

“Just let things flow, it’s a very simple solution,” he said in an interview. “You don’t need airdrops like the one that killed five people in the north this morning.”

It remained unclear which country had dropped the aid packages, but a US military spokesman said it was not the United States. Airdrops have been carried out in recent weeks by the United States, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France.

“Press reports that U.S. airborne landings resulted in civilian casualties on the ground are incorrect, as we have confirmed that all of our aid bundles landed safely,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

Saleh Eid, a 60-year-old translator, said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had previously seen packages dropped in northern Gaza fall “very quickly” when their parachutes failed to open, posing a risk to people’s lives.

Mr Eid, who lives in Jabaliya, just north of Gaza City, said many of these packages had fallen into the sea. Others have landed in open areas near the border with Israel, and people have risked being shot by Israeli forces to retrieve them, he said.

Mr Eid said much of the air-dropped food ends up being sold on the black market rather than being distributed to the hungriest.

On Sunday, he said, he bought three bags of food dropped by the United States at a market. He gave the food to his wife, who is breastfeeding their two-week-old baby, hoping she would be able to eat well enough to produce milk.

Each of the bags, he said, cost him 30 shekels, or about $8, and contained a small meal and some cookies, jelly, peanut butter, a chocolate bar, a juice box, instant coffee and gum.

Victoria Kim And Christina Morales reporting contributed.

Six trade groups sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday over a new rule that would cap most credit card payments at $8 a month.

The court case, filed in federal court in Fort Worth, asks the court to strike down the rule, which the consumer agency completed two days ago. The complaint alleges that the agency violated agency regulation laws and exceeded its statutory authority, and states that consumers will suffer financial harm if the rule goes into effect.

“Late fees encourage on-time payments, which in turn helps card issuers manage credit risk and reduce costs, allowing them to offer more competitive terms and features,” the trade groups wrote in their complaint.

A spokeswoman for the consumer agency said the rule “closes a long-standing loophole exploited by credit card giants to turn late fees into a major revenue stream.” The rule, which applies to issuers that have more than 1 million open credit card accounts, would cut most fees from their current average of $32, saving households $10 billion a year, according to consumer agency estimates.

The spokeswoman added that the agency would contest the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and three Texas business associations.

“Once again, we are reluctantly forced to sue a federal regulator because the CFPB has ignored comments from industry and other stakeholders demonstrating that this rule exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and will hurt rather than help consumers.” , said Rob Nichols, president of the American Bankers Association. general manager. (His group is part of active lawsuits against the consumer bureau over its attempt to investigate financial companies for signs of customer discrimination during routine surveys.)

The trade groups have asked the court for a preliminary injunction to block the rule, which would otherwise take effect within a few months.

The case was filed in a court within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which previously ruled that the consumer agency’s funding structure violated the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause. That ruling is before the Supreme Court, which heard arguments on it in October.

Consumer advocates said they expected both the process and the location. The trade groups “intentionally chose a conservative-leaning, industry-friendly court in hopes of derailing any kind of regulation that would hurt their bottom line,” said Liz Zelnick, program director at Accountable.US, a progressive research group.

President Biden, who has made combating “junk fees” a signature effort of his administration, is likely to promote the consumer agency’s rule in his State of the Union address Thursday evening.

Critics accused the consumer agency of rushing the rule — which has been in development for more than a year — to promote Mr. Biden’s political agenda. Lindsey Johnson, CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association, said Thursday that the agency was trying to “provide some short-term headlines for a White House looking for political victories.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday revised its guidelines to track the genetic signatures of viruses collected from people recently diagnosed with HIV, a controversial practice used by state and local health departments to curb infections.

The updated policy encouraged health officials to be more transparent with their communities about tracing, one of several changes sought by HIV advocacy groups concerned about how so-called molecular surveillance could violate patients' privacy and civil rights.

But the agency stopped short of making more significant changes that some advocates had pushed for, such as allowing health agencies to withdraw from states where people could be prosecuted for transmitting HIV.

“We are in a period where health data is increasingly being used in criminal prosecutions, as evidenced by the prosecution of people seeking abortion care or who may have had a miscarriage,” said Carmel Shachar, a professor at Harvard Law School who specializes in in healthcare. According to her, the revised policy did not go far enough to protect people with HIV

Dr. Alexandra Oster, who leads the CDC's molecular surveillance team, said the program's benefits far outweigh its risks. “We have to get it right,” she said. “But we have to keep doing it.”

HIV has a distinctive genetic signature in each person that helps doctors decide which drugs are likely to counteract it. But the information can also be used to track its spread within a population – including identifying clusters of people carrying closely related viruses.

The CDC has used molecular surveillance for decades to track flu, salmonella and, more recently, Covid.

In 2018, the CDC started demanding health departments that have received federal funding for HIV programs to share such data from people with the virus. Patients do not need to be informed that their viral samples are monitored.

Molecular surveillance has identified more than 500 HIV clusters in the country since 2016, the CDC said. Health officials can then interview people in the clusters to identify their sexual or drug-using partners and connect them to testing, needle exchanges and drugs that block transmission.

Dr. Carlos Saldana, an infectious disease expert at Emory University, reported by March, molecular surveillance in Atlanta had identified infected people who might otherwise have been afraid to seek help because of their immigration status or lack of insurance.

Still, many HIV activists have long argued that such tracking could violate people's rights and discourage testing and treatment.

Before reporting the data to the CDC, health departments strip it of information that could easily identify the patient. But personal information is kept by state and local health departments.

In some statespeople have been prosecuted for transmitting HIV or not telling their partners that they are carriers. There are no known criminal charges in the United States involving molecular surveillance data activists remain on guard of the possibility. They also fear that technological advances could ultimately determine who infected a specific person.

In October, 110 HIV and human rights organizations participated sent a letter to the CDC, expressing “serious concerns” that molecular surveillance was being conducted without the informed consent of people with HIV

The CDC said it met with representatives of the activist coalition last fall and incorporated their input into the revised policy.

A similar conflict with HIV activists arose in the late 1990s, when the CDC urged states to do so collect names of diagnosed people in state-run databases, which the agency said would help fight a disease that was by then fatal hundreds of thousands of Americans. But many activists protested the policy, delaying its implementation for a decade. Since 2008, all states have collected the names of people diagnosed with HIV

The CDC said the information is secure and that there was only one known data breach involving names Florida in 1996. It said it was not aware of any such privacy violations involving molecular surveillance data.

Changes to the agency's molecular surveillance policy include explicit recommendations to health departments to promote trust in their local communities. They should “communicate proactively” about the surveillance, the updated policy says, including by publishing regular reports on its use and how it protects patient privacy.

The new policy did not allow for waivers to opt out of molecular surveillance in places where such data could be used in criminal proceedings, a change that had already been made. recommended by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, a nonprofit organization that represents public health officials.

Representatives from more than 40 state or provincial health departments that are part of the federal government prioritises HIV prevention told The New York Times that molecular surveillance policies had generally been helpful in their efforts to prevent transmission. Nobody knew about data breaches.

Dr. Matthew Golden, director of the HIV program at the Seattle-area health department, said molecular surveillance helped his team respond to an outbreak of HIV among homeless people who inject drugs.

Many people with HIV were too achieved thanks to molecular surveillance told his team they supported its use. “We haven't really seen any major opposition,” he said.

In the 2000 film “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe's comedy-drama about rock musicians in the 1970s, the character played by Zooey Deschanel at one point gives her younger brother some advice. “Listen to 'Tommy' with a candle burning, and you'll see your whole future,” she says.

I'm going to adopt that thought for today's newsletter: Stare at this annotated map with – or without – a lit candle, and you will see your entire future.

The graph, created by my colleague Lauren Leatherby, a Times visual journalist who has covered the world's demographic shifts, shows how the number of working-age people around the world is expected to change by 2050.

The European working population will shrink. This also applies to Brazil, China, Chile, Japan and Russia, among others. And that change, without mitigation, could have extremely negative consequences for those societies.

“Working age population” can sound technical and abstract. But these are the people who staff our offices and factories, work on farms, treat the sick, care for the very old and the very young. They are the ones who have and raise children; who build new things and repair old ones.

When that population shrinks, those activities become more difficult, expensive and less frequent. The economy is slowing down. Fewer workers getting paid generate less tax revenue. As the population ages, more and more people rely on government welfare programs to fund their pensions and health care, putting further pressure on these vital programs.

The baby riddle

This is primarily a story about birth rates. As countries get richer, people have fewer children; and it turns out that once birth rates drop, it's very difficult to get them back up. Although a number of countries have tried to increase fertility through tax breaks, cash bonuses, and even heroism rewards given to women who have many children, none of these programs have made more than a marginal difference.

But if you look at the map a little longer, you'll see the phenomenon that has allowed a few wealthy countries to cushion the blow of demographic change: immigration.

Australia, Canada and the United States have small green dots, indicating modest growth in the labor force. This is largely because those countries absorb relatively large numbers of immigrants, who not only immediately increase population numbers when they arrive, but also tend to have more children than the native population. In the United States, for example, the increase in births since the 1970s has been modest fully driven by births to immigrant mothers. According to Canada, immigration is the only driver of population growth government statistics.

To be clear, immigration can only be a partial solution to this demographic shift. To put the figures in perspective, to remain at the same level in 2050, Europe would have to absorb about half of the entire labor force growth in India, the most populous country in the world. China, which faces an even bigger deficit, could absorb all of Pakistan's growth And that of Nigeria – Africa's most populous country – and is still two million less than where it stands today.

At the same time, this map strongly suggests that the ability to attract and integrate large numbers of immigrants will be a key competitive advantage for countries in the coming decades.

However, to achieve this, political barriers will have to be overcome that partly arise from the same demographic shifts.

The political doom loop

Rafaela Dancygier, a political scientist at Princeton University, studies the politics of immigration and integration, including what fuels the rise of anti-immigrant far-right parties. She has found that many of the areas in Europe where anti-immigration policies are on the rise share certain characteristics: they have an aging population, fewer workers and fewer children.

“When people talk about population aging in general, they call this a national phenomenon,” she said in an interview. “And that is of course true. But there are also areas in countries, often outside cities, where this is already extremely pronounced. Because the young people are leaving, the working-age people are also leaving.”

Young people are moving to cities and wealthier regions to find work, while older generations are left behind in depopulating cities and regions, making such areas a microcosm of what the aging future could look like. (My colleague Jason Horowitz recently wrote about such a city in Italy.)

This shift is not necessarily inevitable. In Canada, the government is pursuing policies to achieve this increase immigration levels now to cope with some of the demographic decline.

But Europe's aging towns and cities and declining former industrial regions offer insight into why many countries have been slow to follow the lead of countries like Canada. Dancygier and others have found that areas undergoing depopulation are particularly receptive to far-right politics, putting policies to increase immigration further out of reach politically, even as they become more economically necessary.

The process, she said, goes something like this: As areas depopulate, the state tends to withdraw its services from the region. Schools close because there are fewer children. Train and bus lines are canceled or run less frequently. Hospitals closed. It's a local version of the kind of tension that aging countries will face at the national level when there are fewer workers to support more retirees.

That makes life more difficult in practice, she said, but there is also a psychological effect: people feel neglected and undervalued by the political elite.

Far-right parties “are very good at identifying the problem and addressing the grievances of voters living in these areas,” she said. But these parties do not offer realistic solutions to the problems of demographic decline. Instead, they scapegoat immigrants and blame asylum seekers and other foreigners for the region's problems.

That creates a vicious cycle in which the problems of depopulation ultimately fuel political parties whose policies actually make it harder to combat depopulation—a loop of doom from which it can be difficult to escape.

There are changes that can help. Large-scale immigration without investment in housing and public services is a problem; policy aimed at it help integration of immigrants can build connections between locals and newcomers, reducing prejudice and fear. Publicizing these successes and the benefits immigrants bring to their communities and the broader economy can counter political narratives about uncontrolled borders.

In the future, as the economic opportunity gap between continents narrows, recruiting immigrants may become more difficult. Countries that are currently relatively poor but whose populations will grow rapidly, including much of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, may be able to take advantage of their 'demographic dividend' to grow their economies rapidly. Because workers have better options at home, they will be less interested in emigrating elsewhere.

Take the example of Mexico. Although it was once the largest source of immigrants to the United States, net immigration remains so essentially zero since about 2009. (Many immigrants from other countries have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during that time, but that's another issue.) The decline in the net rate from Mexico is partly due to the fact that the United States has less have become hospitable to Mexicans, especially Mexicans. those who were undocumented. But it is also because the Mexican economy has improved. Workers who once came to the United States seeking opportunities can now find them at home.

Currently, political disputes over the extent to which borders should be closed and migrants kept out dominate public debate in many countries. But another conversation is too late. The reality of regions that are already depopulating, represented by the ever-expanding orange circles on the map, offers a glimpse into the future of the rich countries: an aging population and fewer workers and children, a trend that creates political divisions that make it difficult makes to change course. It is a challenge that policymakers will have to face sooner or later.

A Manhattan jury on Thursday found an Upper East Side woman guilty of financing terrorism after she used cryptocurrency to send financial support to several groups operating in Syria.

The woman, Victoria Jacobs, 44, was accused last year by the Manhattan district attorney's office of providing more than $5,000 to Malhama Tactical, a military contractor who was called “the black water of jihad.” The group fought alongside Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group designated as a terrorist organization by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The sentencing comes amid a debate between cryptocurrency advocates, who see the technology as an alternative to regulated finance, and skeptics who have pointed to its frequent use in fraud and other crimes. Federal judges are considering lawsuits by the nation's top securities regulator against some of the largest companies in the cryptocurrency industry that could limit the technology's use in this country.

The trial of Ms. Jacobs began on January 16 and lasted approximately two weeks. The jury found her guilty of three offenses of providing support for an act of terrorism, as well as conspiracy, money laundering and criminal possession of weapons. She faces a prison sentence of up to 25 years. Her sentencing is scheduled for April 3.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg has said this case marks the first time terrorist financing has been prosecuted by the New York State Supreme Court. The conviction is a remarkable victory for Mr. Bragg, coming a month before he is set to begin the biggest trial of his career, that of former President Donald J. Trump.

“We will not allow Manhattan to serve as a base for terrorism at home or abroad,” Bragg said in a statement, praising his prosecutors for winning the first case of its kind.

Lawyers for Ms. Jacobs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Ms. Jacobs laundered more than $10,600 for Malhama Tactical, receiving money from supporters around the world and sending it to Bitcoin wallets controlled by the group. Prosecutors said she identified herself in online forums in 2021 as “behind enemy lines.”

On the day before the verdict was handed down, Ms. Jacobs was an enigmatic presence in the courtroom, which seemed to annoy the judge, Althea Drysdale. When Ms. Jacobs refused to answer questions directly — including giving a yes-or-no answer to whether she wanted to testify on her own behalf — Judge Drysdale slapped the bench in frustration.

“Ms. Jacobs, I am not going down this road with you,” the judge said.

Shortly afterwards, Ms. Jacobs said she did not want to testify.

Closing arguments followed, with the head of the district attorney's counter-terrorism unit, David Stuart, saying Ms. Jacobs had acted as a “double agent.” He noted that she had purchased throwing stars, combat knives and other weaponry and that she had requested guidance from abroad as she carried out the jihadist mission on her own.

“From here in New York City, the defendant used HTS and Malhama Tactical to carry out her dreams of jihad and shared their terrorist intentions,” Mr. Stuart said, referring to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham. “And they, in turn, used the defendant to gain access to New York's financial markets, allowing them to carry out their terrorist acts in Syria.”

A lawyer for Ms. Jacobs, Michael Fineman, begged the jury to acquit, arguing that “one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter — it's all a matter of perspective.” He noted that the British probably considered George Washington a terrorist in 1776.

He also claimed that the groups to which Ms Jacobs allegedly sent money were not known to the jury, unlike ISIS or Al Qaeda.

But those arguments do not appear to have reached a jury, which was only about a mile from the scene of the September 11 attacks. In the lobby of the courthouse itself, a wall-length mural begs visitors to remember that date. When jurors were dismissed to deliberate Thursday, it took just over three hours to reach convictions on all counts.

The NCAA is investigating the University of Tennessee football program for possible recruiting violations involving a booster group, in a significant escalation of efforts to rein in the rapidly growing role of outside money in college sports, according to people familiar with the matter .

The investigation focuses in part on the use of a private jet by a so-called donor collective to fly a high-profile recruit — now the school's starting quarterback — to campus while the university was courting him.

If the booster group made the quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, pay for the trip, it would be a violation of NCAA rules. The investigation comes after the NCAA sanctioned Tennessee for several recruiting violations and signals the NCAA's growing concerns about the size and influence of money injected into college sports by donor collectives.

The case could have profound implications for the direction of high-profile programs across the country, especially in football, where outside money raised by collectives and paid out to players has reshaped the economics of college athletics. News of the investigation into Tennessee's athletics program was first reported by Sports Illustrated.

Tennessee officials are deeply concerned that the investigation could result in a devastating blow to the school's football program, according to a person briefed on the matter. The program is already on probation for its past recruiting violations, and school officials are concerned the NCAA could take drastic action, such as banning the team from postseason play and disqualifying players.

Considering this possibility, the school has hired several law firms and is considering a range of legal options to avoid any potential consequences.

At the heart of the research are donor collectives, which are organized groups of alumni and other drivers who donate money to support teams. They have become a major and growing force in college sports in recent years by utilizing a new system created to allow players to take advantage of endorsements, known as “name-image-likeness deals” or NIL .

Collectives are increasingly ensuring that athletes are paid amounts comparable to what professionals earn. Iamaleava, the Tennessee quarterback, has a deal with the school collective that could be worth $8 million. After playing a limited role for most of last season, he became the team's starter in the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day, leading Tennessee to a 35-0 victory over Iowa.

At many Division I schools, collectives, while not technically affiliated with the universities they support, have become closely integrated into high school recruiting and, in an era when athletes can easily transfer from one school to another in search of better opportunities, in offering lucrative deals to retain star players.

The NCAA has set rules for these groups, including a ban on explicitly offering cash to lure recruits, and says deals can only be made after an athlete commits to a school. But the NCAA is also hampered by jurisdictional losses, eroding its power to regulate collectives. Until recently, there was little evidence that they were being monitored at all.

As a result, elite college sports programs, especially in football and basketball, have become a virtually unfettered market, with coaches openly encouraging alumni and other donors to keep them competitive by donating money.

Some schools have become increasingly emboldened and have turned to their state lawmakers to fight back against the NCAA as it tries to set rules.

The latest example came in December, when attorneys general in seven states — including Tennessee — filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, citing any restrictions on transfers as a restraint of trade. This month, the lawsuit was joined by the Justice Department.

NCAA President Charlie Baker has asked Congress for an antitrust exemption. He testified on Capitol Hill that these lawsuits — along with recently enacted state laws targeting NIL regulations — make it virtually impossible for the organization to govern its members.

The New York Times counts at least 140 collectives operating at schools with major football and basketball programs. Collectives now account for about 80 percent of all name, image and likeness payments to athletes, far more than all the commercial brands for which the system was created.

In investigating Tennessee's football program, the NCAA is investigating a team backed by one of the nation's wealthiest and most outspoken collectives, a booster-funded group called the Volunteer Club. That group is closely tied to a marketing agency called Spyre Sports Group: the two entities share the same top executives and the same address in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Last year, the website On3.com, which tracks collectives, called the Volunteer Club the “leading collective in the countryafter the group said it had raised $13.5 million for Tennessee athletes.

The biggest prize went to Mr. Iamaleava, a 6-foot-4 quarterback from Long Beach, California, who was ranked fourth in his class.

“The nice word that is used is 'collective'. But make no mistake, this is a war chest,” said Hunter Baddour, a top official of both Spyre Sports and the Volunteer Club, said on a podcast in 2022. “We are fundraising and creating a NIL war chest where Tennessee will be as competitive as anyone in the country.”

As the collective grew, Tennessee improved on the field. After a long, dismal stretch, the Volunteers posted a 9-4 record this past year and finished the season in the top 20.

Mr Baddour also organized a lobby group for this new industry, the Collective Association, which is said to have done just that called on the NCAA to share part of his extensive television income with collectives.

Mr Baddour and James Clawson, the Volunteer Club's other top official, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The NIL rules that came into effect in 2021 allowed players to be paid for endorsements but continued to prevent students from being paid to play. But collectives have effectively found a way around that limitation.

They signed athletes to huge contracts for small amounts of work – sometimes just one social media post per month – to keep them happy and playing at their chosen school.

Last July, the NCAA fined Tennessee $8 million and placed its athletics program on five years' probation after finding that “repeated and serious violations'of the ban on coaches using cash to recruit players. These violations happened before the name, image and likeness system: instead, coaches paid football players the old-fashioned way, in cash.

Since collectives emerged in late 2021, the NCAA has announced two cases in which schools were punished for name, image and likeness payments from boosters. This was imposed last year mild punishments at the University of Miami after a booster posted photos of him courting potential transfer students for the women's basketball team.

This month, however, the NCAA imposed harsher penalties — including a fine and two years' probation — on Florida State after a football coach there brought a potential transfer student to a meeting with a collective. The collective then offered the player $15,000 a month to sign with Florida State, the NCAA said. The player declined the offer and stayed at his original school.