Kaine and Pence Forced to Play Defense NYT Now

In Vice-Presidential Debate, Focus Was on Top of the Tickets

By JONATHAN MARTIN and PATRICK HEALY 10:45 PM ET

Senator Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence clashed over the merits of their running mates, with both men scrambling to defend the policies of the two presidential candidates.
Mr. Pence was more formal and mild-mannered than his rival, while Mr. Kaine was more aggressive from the start.

Kaine Presses Pence on Russia, but Not Gay Rights

By ALEXANDER BURNS 2:29 AM ET

The pair engaged in a snippy, but conventional, tit-for-tat exchange, with Mr. Pence largely sidestepping Mr. Kaine’s attacks on Donald J. Trump.

Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia squared off at Longwood University in Farmville, Va.

Here’s What You Missed in the Pence-Kaine Showdown

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Mr. Pence’s tone and his calm delivery never wavered, even as Mr. Kaine challenged him to defend Mr. Trump’s statements.

701 Comments

Concern in China as Xi May Try to Delay Naming a Successor

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

The apparent plan by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has unsettled the party elite and created uncertainty over whether Mr. Xi will try to stay in power beyond the usual two terms.

‘Major Destruction’ as Hurricane Descends on Haiti

By AZAM AHMED

The storm’s 145-m.p.h. winds and torrential rain destroyed homes and crops, with the initial death toll of 2 to 6 expected to rise rapidly.

Christie Ex-Ally Ties Cuomo to Cover-Up of Bridge Scandal

By KATE ZERNIKE

David Wildstein said in court that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York agreed to issue a report falsely citing a traffic study as the reason for shutting lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge.

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Smarter Living: Tips for Daily Life

16 Dinners Ready in 20 Minutes or Less

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Smarter Living features stories about health, food, tech, travel and more. What do you want to see here? smarterliving@nytimes.com

A French Underground Railroad, Moving African Migrants

By ADAM NOSSITER 11:52 PM ET

Near the border with Italy, a farmer and his network of “citizen smugglers” have helped hundreds cross the border, in a personal response to his nation’s muddled handling of the crisis.

Putin ‘in a Hurry’ in Syria Before U.S. Holds Election

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, analysts say, is advancing goals in the Syrian conflict while President Obama is on the way out and his replacement is undetermined.

How Do You Say ‘Email’ or ‘Binge Watch’ in Yiddish?

By JOSEPH BERGER

The first full-fledged English-to-Yiddish dictionary in 50 years is designed to carry Yiddish into the 21st century.

THE INTERPRETER

Why Referendums Aren’t as Democratic as They Seem

By AMANDA TAUB and MAX FISHER

Though such votes are portrayed as popular governance in its purest form, studies have found that they often subvert democracy rather than serve it.

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EDITORIAL

Mike Pence’s Fantasy Running Mate

His Donald Trump bore little resemblance to reality.

41m

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT, GIO STAIANO/NOWFASHION; FIRSTVIEW; PATRICK KOVARIK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES; FIRSTVIEW; LANDON NORDEMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

It’s the last day of Paris Fashion Week, the end of an exhaustive tour. Louis Vuitton, Moncler Gamme Rouge and Miu Miu close out the spring 2017 shows.
3h

Joshua Wong, a pro-democracy leader in Hong Kong, has been detained in Bangkok on request from China, according to the political party Mr. Wong helped create.
5h

The Pixel, Google’s new smartphone, is the company’s own from hardware to software and puts it more directly in competition with Apple and many of its own Android partners.
7h

German prosecutors dropped the charges against Jan Böhmermann, a comedian who wrote a satirical poem about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
9h

Kate Shindle has quite the juggling act: While leading Actor’s Equity, the ex-Miss America will also be playing the lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the traveling production of the Tony-winning “Fun Home.”
October 04, 2016
11h

Illegal drugs. Guns. Sexual services. Baby hedgehogs. All were available Monday on Facebook Marketplace, because a review system failed to block inappropriate posts. The social media giant apologized.
12h

After protests over the fatal shooting of a black man this weekend, the Los Angeles police released video surveillance footage they say shows he had been carrying a gun.
12h

Paisley Park, Prince’s studio turned museum, will open on a limited basis Thursday, but the Chanhassen, Minn., City Council wants to iron out long-range logistics.
13h

Residents of Flint, Mich., already hit by a lead-contamination crisis, face a new scourge: shigellosis, a bacterial illness that is spread by poor hand-washing hygiene.
15h

A proposal to trim the maximum word count of appellate briefs by 1,500 words was met with resistance from lawyers. The compromise? A trim of 1,000 words, down to 13,000.
16h

It may look like a tribute, but the yellow ribbons on Tehran’s mulberry trees are actually flypaper, a low-tech but effective solution to an infestation of whiteflies.
17h

DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A handful of liberal comedians are riding the presidential campaign — and their own anxieties — to online fame, with parody scenes of Donald Trump’s inner circle.
19h

The top sports court in the world reduced Maria Sharapova’s two-year suspensionfor taking a heart medication that was banned this year. She can return to tennis in 2017.
19h

An investigative journalist who claimed to have identified the Italian author who writes as Elena Ferrante suffered a swift and unforgiving backlash from Ms. Ferrante’s fans.
19h

The Sacramento district attorney is investigating the fatal shooting of a black man in July by officers heard in a video talking about running him over with their car.
19h

Nine Australians were arrested in Malaysia after stripping to their briefs to celebrate an Australian driver’s victory in a motor race. The briefs featured the Malaysian flag.
21h

Purists in Rome argue that the frozen treat grattachecca must be grated by hand from a block of fresh ice. Others favor mechanical crushers, for hygiene.
1d

Jeff Koons’s “Coloring Book” sculpture, which cost $8 million, was unveiled outside the home of the Sacramento Kings, just the latestappearance of high art in the sports world.
1d

Kim Kardashian had come from a Fashion Week dinner in Paris, the police said, when two armed men broke into her apartment, tied her up and took $9 million in jewelry.
1d

As many as 24,000 Poles, dressed in black, took to the streets in Warsaw to protest a sweeping new anti-abortion bill. “Let them have their fun,” the foreign minister said.
1d

A New York City baseball fan has spent six years traveling the country with a faded ball to connect with all 312 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, living and dead.
1d

Four reporters who unearthed lurid stories about Donald J. Trump are defecting from BuzzFeed Politics to join CNN, just weeks before the presidential election.
1d

Maternity aisles are rapidly offering high-end boutique clothing, reflecting a shift in cultural attitudes toward flaunting, not hiding, a pregnant belly.
October 03, 2016
2d

Archaeologists now think that items found in the tomb of a Greek warrior, including gold rings and gemstones, were possessions of status and not the spoils of war.
2d

This is probably the least you’ll weigh all year. Sorry. People start putting on pounds in the coming weeks, according to a study of data from internet-connected scales in the United States, Japan and Germany.
2d

KEMAL JUFRI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jakarta is dredging its 17 rivers and canals for the first time since the 1970s. And it isn’t pretty, turning up refrigerators, televisions, furniture and even human corpses.
2d

For the first time in 45 years, the death penalty has lost the support of a majority of Americans. A recent Pew poll shows that 49 percent support capital punishment.
2d

Thirty years ago, a rabbi delivered a sermon called “Five Minutes to Live” after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Three years later, he lived his words.
2d

Residents of Montreal won’t be banned from adopting or buying pit bulls after a judge temporarily suspended a law requiring owners to register their dogs.
2d

When flares are running low in rural Australia, where emergency medical help comes only by plane, landing lights are made from about 30 flaming rolls of toilet paper.