Conciliatory messages on social media. Open invitations for coffee. Zoom calls invite participants to unload.

Even before she announced her campaign for Senate in Arizona, Kari Lake, a Republican and favorite of former President Donald J. Trump, was on a mission to make peace. Her failed bid for governor two years ago was marked by her fervent embrace of Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, and by her relentless attacks on party establishment figures who criticized her for that dishonesty. But as she looks to win a seat from Democrats in a key presidential battleground, Ms. Lake is courting former enemies and mending fences.

In addition to her public overtures, Ms. Lake has in recent months privately reached out to establishment Republicans in the state — including some she has personally offended — seeking their support. The list includes Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer, two former state governors; Karrin Taylor Robson and former Rep. Matt Salmon, two of her top rivals in 2022; and Meghan McCain, the daughter of longtime Arizona Sen. John McCain, according to six people with knowledge of the outreach, some of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss private interactions. In some cases, Ms. Lake has expressed remorse for her past behavior, one of the people said.

“There was some damage done by that primary that clearly spilled over into the general election,” said Daniel Scarpinato, a Republican consultant in Arizona who worked as Mr. Ducey’s top aide years ago. “I think you’re clearly seeing a genuine effort to get more Republicans into the fold.”

Ms. Lake, a former television host and 2022 political newcomer, waged a scorched-earth campaign to win the Republican primary for governor. She appealed to Trump’s supporters by defending his baseless theories of election fraud, while tearing apart her opponents. She accused Ms. Robson said she was “trying to buy the election with her 95-year-old husband’s millions,” and called Mr. Ducey “do nothing Ducey.”

Perhaps most critically, she angered the family of Mr. McCain, who died in 2018, by declaring that her political rise “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine” and by voters in the state who admired him to invite ‘to hell.” The division led some Republicans to refuse to support Ms. Lake even if it meant a Democrat would win.

She says now her insults to Mr. McCain were “in jest.”

“Things have gotten so much worse under Joe Biden that we are at a point where we no longer have time to let arguments from the past get in the way if we want to move forward as a country,” Ms. Lake said in an interview in Phoenix. last month. She described herself as someone “who enjoys talking to people and bringing people together.”

If Ms. Lake wins her primary, she can expect a close race against Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is essentially running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Ms. Lake has a primary opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, but she leads him by a wide margin in the polls ahead of the July 30 contest. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who left the party in 2022, is not running. for re-election.

Some early signs suggest her efforts are paying off, at least at the national level. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate, endorsed her, and Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-largest member of the Senate Republican leadership, campaigned with her in Phoenix last month. She met with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday before attending a fundraiser with about 20 senators in Washington.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said in an interview that he also supported Ms. Lake and that she had “matured” in her approach.

Yet her success seems mixed at home, where some of her overtures were rebuffed. Ms. Lake sent Ms. McCain, whom she once compared to a “rabid dog,” a public message on X last month inviting her to lunch. Mrs. McCain replied, “NO PEACE,” interrupted by a vulgarity.

“These are wounds that cannot heal for me and my family as people like Kari Lake and Trump continue to humiliate my family and my father,” Mrs. McCain said in an interview. “What she has asked of me is to give her cover for her horrible comments and her horrible statements about my family, and I would rather die than do that.”

Ducey is not expected to make an endorsement in the Republican primary, according to a person familiar with his plans. A recent conversation between Ms Lake and Ms Robson was productive, according to the two women’s advisers, but nothing was decided.

By her own account, Ms. Lake’s efforts to make peace included meeting with skeptical Republicans at their offices, taking them out for coffee or drinks and making phone calls. In an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington last month, Ms. Lake said some conversations had been difficult, sometimes describing intense phone and Zoom calls that started with outrage from the other side. She has also held Zoom meetings to court Republican donors and advisers, and attended a luncheon last month with members of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

“I am willing to continue extending the olive branches. If someone turns it down and says, ‘No, I’m not interested,’ that’s fine,” she said in the Phoenix interview. “The olive branch is not there yet. My door is still open.”

But new reservations about Ms. Lake have also emerged among some grassroots Republicans, many of whom are outspoken supporters of Mr. Trump. Many were stunned by the release in January of an audio recording that Ms. Lake secretly captured during a conversation she had last year with Jeff DeWit, the chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, in which Mr. DeWit appeared to offer her bribes to convince her not to run for Senate. In the recording, which Mr. DeWit said was “selectively edited,” Ms. Lake can be heard rejecting his request.

Mr. DeWit resigned shortly after the recording surfaced, and Ms. Lake called the episode an example of her independence. Some state party members reacted angrily, expressing concern about other private conversations Ms. Lake may have recorded. Ms Lake was greeted with boos at a meeting to elect a new chairman.

“Is this really the way we should all be behaving, even as Republicans? To take in someone you trust?’ asked Jeanne Kentch, chair of the Mohave County Republican Party. “I love Kari, don’t get me wrong. But I think that’s what people are concerned about.”

Ms Lake denies that she regularly records private conversations. Still, Mr. Lamb, who is far behind in fundraising, senses an opening. Mr. Lamb is the only candidate who can “appeal to all Republicans, conservative independents and disaffected Democrats,” said Ed Morabito, a senior adviser to his campaign.

Despite a renewed desire for party unity, Ms. Lake has not shied away from extreme positions. She continued to advance baseless theories about voter fraud in news media appearances, telling reporters in Washington last week that “we really had a rigged election in Arizona.” (After losing to Ms. Hobbs, Ms. Lake falsely claimed fraud and filed fruitless lawsuits in attempts to overturn the outcome.) She also sympathized with and appeared alongside people convicted of crimes related to their participation in the action of January 6, 2021. attack on the Capitol.

However, she has not made these positions the centerpiece of her Senate campaign — one of the few deviations from her campaign for governor. On abortion, which she once called the “ultimate sin,” she now opposes a federal ban.

“Kari Lake will say or do anything to gain power,” Gallego spokeswoman Hannah Goss said in a statement.

And for some Republicans, the scars left by Ms. Lake may be too deep. Sharon Harper, the CEO of real estate company Plaza Companies and close friends with Senator McCain, endorsed Ms. Hobbs in 2022 and has no plans to support Ms. Lake this campaign.

“I think people understand who Kari Lake is,” Ms. Harper said. “We’ve seen what she showed, and I don’t think it changes an opinion when someone says, ‘I didn’t really mean what I said.’”

Michael C. Bender And Kayla Guo reporting contributed.

Last week, winds in California’s Death Valley were strong enough over the course of three days to move a temporary lake, informally known as Lake Manly, two miles north. National Park Service said this week.

“The lake took a walk,” Abby Wines, a park ranger at Death Valley National Park, said in an interview Thursday.

The powerful winds were part of a Pacific Northwest storm system moving over parts of California and Nevada, Brian Planz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Las Vegas, said Thursday.

In Death Valley the wind began to pick up on the afternoon of February 29 and on March 1 and 2 it blew consistently between 32 and 53 miles per hour. weather data from the National Park Service. According to the Park Service, winds reached speeds of 25 to 50 mph at times on March 1 and 2, peaking at 55 mph at 10 a.m. on March 2.

Strong winds reached speeds of 80 mph (130 km/h) Saturday at Angel Peak, in the Spring Mountains northwest of Las Vegas, and up to 69 mph (109 km/h) at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, according to the National Weather Service. Mr. Planz said his office has received reports from around the area of ​​minor damage to trees, power lines, utility poles and buildings.

Ms Wines described the wind as “strong enough to throw you off balance.”

They were also strong enough, it turns out, to displace Lake Manly, an ephemeral and shallow body of water that forms when enough rain falls in the saltwater flats of Badwater Basin. When the lake appears, people flock there with canoes and kayaks.

When the winds started on Thursday afternoon, Ms Wines said she went to Lake Manly and saw “little waves” moving. She returned Saturday to find the lake had moved.

“I was absolutely blown away by the fact that an area where a few days before I could launch a kayak from 10 feet off the road was now just a salt flat as far as I could see,” she said.

Mr. Planz said it was not uncommon for strong winds to stir bodies of water, noting that similar episodes have occurred near Lake Erie and Galveston Bay in Texas over the years. He said he was not surprised when he heard Lake Manly had been moved because it is shallow and not a normal lake.

“It’s strange that the lake is there at all and then decides to just go up and go two miles,” Ms Wines said.

Lake Manly was last formed by rain from Tropical Storm Hilary in August. According to the Park Service, rain in Death Valley in early February made Lake Manly six miles long, two miles wide and a foot deep. The last time Lake Manly swelled to “significant depths” before reappearing last year was in 2005, said Jennette Jurado, spokeswoman for the National Park Service.

“It’s very shallow,” Mr. Planz said. “So it’s easy for the wind to move it.”

After Lake Manly was moved, the Park Service announced that boating would not be allowed on the lake until it was full again.

“It was amazing to see an entire lake migrating,” Mike Reynolds, superintendent of Death Valley National Park, said in a statement Monday. “But now the water is drying up, leaving wide mudflats behind. People walked a long way and sometimes towed their boats. This leaves footprints and drag marks that will likely be visible for years. This left us with no choice at this time but to restrict boating on historic Lake Manly.”

By Thursday, water from Lake Manly had drifted back to its original location, Ms Wines said, adding that the water was brown “because it was moving.”

“That is slowly settling down,” Ms Wines said. “It should return to its blue color at some point with good reflections.”

A major snowstorm swept across the Sierra Nevada, including the Lake Tahoe area, on Friday, with as much as 10 feet of snow expected at higher elevations. Forecasters issued dire warnings about attempting to drive through gale-force winds and whiteout conditions, and Yosemite National Park was closed.

“Your safe travel period in the Sierra is over,” the National Weather Service in Reno, Nev., posted on social media. “It’s best to settle where you are.”

This is reported by the National Park Service that visitors who were already in Yosemite on Friday morning must leave before noon. Many ski resorts in the region announced they were closed that day.

One resort, Palisades Tahoe, posted on social media that it had seen “intense” snowfall and winds of 100 miles per hour. In videos posted by the resort, the ski lifts were faintly visible through a blanket of white, and the sky and ground were indistinguishable.

The resort, which was packed last weekend for a major ski race, had become “an absolute ghost town” by Friday, said Veronica Berkholtz, manager of the coffee shop at Palisades Tahoe.

Meteorologists began issuing rare alerts earlier this week about “life-threatening blizzard conditions” expected in the Sierra Nevada mountains, saying the approaching storm could drop more than a meter of snow through Sunday.

On Friday, forecasters said backcountry avalanche danger was likely to be “high to extreme” for the Central Sierra, the heart of the vast and diverse mountain range that runs along California’s spine.

Forecasters reserve snow warnings like Friday’s only for the heaviest snowstorms. The National Weather Service in Reno has issued just eight snowstorm warnings in the past 12 years.

Almost exactly a year ago, a powerful snowstorm dumped more than two feet of snow on the Lake Tahoe area in less than a day. The snow piled up so thickly on the roofs that when another storm threatened more snow and rain, residents had to rush to shovel off enough weight to keep their roofs from collapsing.

The same storm system took officials and residents of Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains by surprise, leaving people trapped for days in homes buried up to the eaves in snow.

In the communities around Lake Tahoe, residents and business owners say they know how to prepare for a lot of snow.

“It becomes part of the winter experience,” said Heather Svahn, president of Mountain Hardware & Sports, a store in Truckee, California, that sells fishing tackle, shovels and power tools, among other things.

Ms Svahn said the store has arranged for extra supplies to be delivered earlier in the week to avoid the most treacherous travel periods. Residents have gone into the store, she said, to buy shovels and shear pins, special bolts for snow blowers that are prone to breaking if the machines are used in heavy, wet snow conditions.

Not much snow had fallen in Truckee yet, she said Friday morning, but she knew it was coming.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ms. Svahn said, before the snowstorm swept over the mountain peaks to the west and reached the city.

Shannon Parrish, the owner of Grocery Outlet, which has stores in Truckee and Incline Village, Nev., said both stores were open Friday morning, but the situation could change quickly. Deliveries for Friday and Saturday were canceled, she said, and workers commuting from Reno were told to stay home.

Mrs. Parrish, who lives in Truckee, said eight to nine inches of snow fell at her home Thursday evening.

“It’s really quiet,” she said. “I think people are willing to wait for it.”

Kari Lake, the former TV host who ran for U.S. Senate in Arizona, will campaign in Phoenix on Thursday with a top Senate Republican, the latest sign of the party’s embrace of a candidate whose extreme views only make her turned it into a lightning rod two years earlier.

Ms. Lake and Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-largest member of the Republican leadership, are expected to condemn President Biden for his handling of the migrant crisis, an adviser to Ms. Lake’s campaign said, on the same day that both the president and Donald J Trump, his predecessor and likely 2024 opponent, are in Texas to visit the southern border.

Not long ago, Republican leaders in Washington shunned Ms. Lake, a bombastic ally of Mr. Trump who made repeating his false claims about fraud in the 2020 election a centerpiece of her 2022 campaign for governor, and then spent more than a year battling her own loss to her Democratic rival, Katie Hobbs, in court. She alienated establishment Republicans both in Arizona – with her attacks on former Senator John McCain, who died in 2018 – and in Washington.

But just as Trump has emerged from a post-presidency low to take a dominant position in the Republican presidential primaries, Ms. Lake is being embraced by some members of the Republican establishment as she makes a bid for the Senate. She has adopted a more conciliatory tone and has worked to get back into their good graces, courting the kind of Republicans who backed away from her in 2022.

Chuck Coughlin, the CEO of the political consulting firm HighGround in Phoenix, suggested that Mr. Barrasso’s presence could help boost Ms. Lake’s support. “He would be effective in speaking to an audience of Republicans and unaffiliated voters to convince them to take another look at Lake,” he said.

Ahead of Arizona’s Republican Senate primary on July 30, Ms. Lake has led her main challenger Mark Lamb, a sheriff, in the polls by wide margins, and she received a key endorsement this month from the National Republican Senate Committee, led by Sen. Steve Daines. of Montana. She has also won the support of Republican senators such as JD Vance of Ohio and Rand Paul of Kentucky as the party looks to take control of the House through elections this fall.

Democrats are playing a defensive role on the Senate map this cycle, with Arizona joining Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia as potential Republican candidates.

Republican leaders hope their support for Ms. Lake can strengthen her in what is expected to be a close race against her Democratic opponent in the general election, Representative Ruben Gallego, who is in Washington on Thursday while the House is in session. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became an independent, has not yet said whether she will run again for the seat but faces an April 1 deadline to collect tens of thousands of signatures to qualify for the race .

In addition to the border-focused Phoenix event, the pair will also attend a luncheon devoted to a discussion of economic issues and inflation and make several stops at local restaurants and businesses to speak with voters. Mr. Barrasso will then headline a fundraiser for Ms. Lake’s campaign in Paradise Valley, a Phoenix suburb.

The party has made the border crisis a key issue in 2024, even as Republicans in Congress this month struck a bipartisan immigration deal that would have achieved many of their goals, such as making it harder to seek asylum and expanding detention capacity. After Mr. Trump spoke out against the deal, other Republicans — including Ms. Lake and Mr. Barrasso — followed suit, saying it was not tough enough.

Senate Republicans' campaign arm endorsed Kari Lake in Arizona on Tuesday, signaling the party's embrace of an incendiary candidate in a state central to their efforts to regain a majority.

The approval of the National Republican Senate Committee, first reported by Politicoreflects Ms. Lake's efforts to play nice with a Republican establishment that she destroyed in her 2022 campaign for governor and that has long had concerns about her electability.

“Kari Lake is one of the most talented candidates in the country,” committee chairman Senator Steve Daines of Montana said in a statement. “Kari is building an effective campaign operation that has what it takes to flip Arizona's Senate seat in November.”

Ms. Lake is seeking the Republican nomination in what could be a three-way race for the seat currently held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Representative Ruben Gallego is the frontrunner on the Democratic side, and Ms. Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent, has not confirmed whether she will run for re-election.

Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff, is also running for the Republican nomination.

Ms. Lake, a protege of former President Donald J. Trump, followed Mr. Trump's lead in refusing to concede her loss in the midterm election race for governor. For months, she unsuccessfully challenged the outcome in court, advancing conspiracy theories about voter fraud and disenfranchisement that were similar to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election, which she also embraced. Mr. Trump endorsed her campaign for Senate when she entered the race in October.

On Monday, she also received messages of support from Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Democrats took issue with the National Republican Senatorial Committee's endorsement even before Daines publicly confirmed it.

“Kari Lake is the textbook example of Senate Republicans' quality problem and terrible recruitment strategy,” Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “Lake is an election loser despised by Arizona Republicans and brings enormous baggage and disqualifying flaws to the campaign. We are happy with the NRSC's choice.”

The chairman of Arizona's Republican Party resigned last month after releasing a recording of a conversation in which he pressured Ms. Lake to accept money or a job in exchange for her not running for office. When he resigned, he said he was concerned about “her limited appeal among moderates and independents, and that she would be a drag on the entire ticket.”