Build First, Ask Later

Good morning. The cost of diesel fuel in the United States just hit a new high because of the war in Iran. Rescuers in Nepal found two people alive in a tunnel, more than a week after a flooding disaster. They also heard other voices in the tunnel and are trying to reach them. Read the amazing story here.

There’s more news below. But first, let’s rush through something.

The just-do-it president

“The courts cannot keep up with President Trump,” Adam Liptak wrote this week. The administration faces legal cases on, among other matters: immigration, spending, the restructuring of agencies, mass firings and the building of the new White House ballroom. Will he win or lose? It may be irrelevant, Adam notes. Trump’s already doing the work. And even if someone down the line tells him it’s illegal, it may be completed by then, and irreversibly so.

Take the big ballroom project. Trump sought no approvals before knocking down the East Wing of the White House to make room for a gigantic new luxury building. He submitted no plans to Congress. Three judges and four Supreme Court justices have said that he probably violated federal law in doing so. But while litigation continues, construction is underway 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

Adam calls it “the latest example of a mismatch between a judicial system characterized by unhurried deliberation and a presidency built for speed.”

It’s not just construction projects. As Adam notes, look at Trump’s executive order on election integrity. A case related to that order got a decision from the Supreme Court last week. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent that she detected a “Catch-Me-If-You-Can approach to pursuing the president’s policy agenda.”

The White House shrugged it off. “President Trump is moving at lightning speed,” a spokesman said, “because we don’t have time to waste in our mission to make America greater than ever before.”

Look at the “garden of heroes,” too. Trump wants to install 250 statues of notable Americans in West Potomac Park in Washington, a project that faces a lawsuit and still needs approval from Congress. On Wednesday morning, though, The Times observed a freshly poured concrete pedestal and a gazebo donated by the government of Uzbekistan that is meant, the Uzbek ambassador said on social media, to “become part of” the garden. Around a dozen workers were on site.

That’s what the Uzbeks say, anyway. “At this point,” the administration said in a recent court filing, “the garden is only an idea by the executive branch.”

Which is the strategy, an executive with the National Parks Conservation Association told my colleague Emily Badger. The government is “building or doing work in plain sight while claiming that they’re not doing the work at the same time.”

Pushing the envelope

Trump’s executive order to restrict voting by mail brings increased federal oversight over mail-in ballots. He wants citizenship verification measures that would require states to upload voter information to the Postal Service. There’ll be special envelopes, a lot of bar codes, a lot of scanning. The goal: Ineligible voters won’t get ballots.

Critics and election officials alike say it’s the job of states to handle elections. They warn that the proposed changes would cause confusion and could ultimately disenfranchise voters. It’s easy for a scanner to make an error, they say. And it’s easy to get frustrated and not vote.

A federal judge last week temporarily prohibited the Postal Service from carrying out the plan. But as go ballrooms and gardens of heroes, so go online portals? Eileen Sullivan of The Times reported this week that the Postal Service “has been swiftly developing a complex screening system.”

That might come in handy, if the court allows it. (No one told the rank and file, though. The president of the American Postal Workers Union told Eileen that no postal worker’s been trained on any of this stuff yet.)

The imbroglio made me think of something a law professor told Adam about Trump’s view of governance. “He really has decided that he can just go ahead and do what he wants,” she said, “daring courts to stop him across a huge range of subject matters.”

Related: Trump plans to break ground on his 250-foot-tall memorial arch even though it does not yet have final approval.

WHAT STEINEM MEANT

Gloria Steinem grew up poor in Toledo, Ohio, where debt collectors came to her family’s door. She moved to New York to be a writer, taking magazine assignments to cover her monthly $62.50 rent payment.

She profiled Dorothy Parker and Paul Newman for Ladies’ Home Journal, John Lennon for Cosmopolitan, Barbara Walters for The New York Times, Lee Radziwill for McCall’s. She helped revive New York magazine — and eventually co-founded Ms. magazine in 1971, catapulting her to national celebrity. Read our appraisal of her writing career.

She then went on to personify the women’s movement, dedicating her life to activism on behalf of women around the world.

Immigration

Federal prosecutors charged an ICE officer with lying about a shooting that took place during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
Times Exclusive: An ICE official said the agency skipped basic fingerprint, identity and credit checks in its rush to recruit more agents, amounting to an “unprecedented lowering of standards.”

Around the World

$1.3 million

— That is how much (imaginary) money we are giving you to buy one of these lovely old houses in Denver, Detroit or Charleston, S.C. Which home would you pick?

SPORTS

W.N.B.A.: Enes Kanter Freedom, a former N.B.A. player who has recently gained notoriety for his opposition to transgender athletes in women’s sports, filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Sky for ejecting and banning him after a dispute at a game.

We’re heading into the long holiday weekend, and one thing you should absolutely consider making before it’s over is Tajín grilled chicken, a Mexican-inflected take on classic American BBQ chicken that’s run through with chile and lime. The recipe calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs. That makes it easy to shred or chop the meat into tacos, or to mound it onto potato rolls for sandwiches. Do not neglect the grilled scallions. They add a beautiful grace note to the meal.

“LA BOLA-SSEY”?

The auteurs Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, a.k.a. Los Javis, are household names in Spain. Their latest film, “La Bola Negra,” an emotional, century-spanning epic interweaving the lives of three gay men in Spain, is coming to a global audience. The movie went off like a rocket at the Cannes Film Festival recently and has been seen as a possible awards season spoiler to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the presumed best picture front-runner. Kyle Buchanan, who covers Hollywood, profiled the directors. It’s a lovely read about ambitions realized.

More on culture: What’s the most enduring piece of 9/11 art? The musical “Come From Away,” which has already had more than 1,000 productions worldwide, including one now running in Gander, Newfoundland, where it is set. Michael Paulson, our theater reporter, brings us one of those stories that has it all: history, musical theater, a trade war and cod!

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS

Calm your mind before bed with this simple technique. (I didn’t think it’d work. It works.)

Grill something this Labor Day weekend, but make sure your grill’s up to the task. The outdoor kitchen technicians at Wirecutter have seven expert tips for how to do that.

Take our news quiz.

GAMES

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times and me. See you tomorrow. — Sam

Correction: In an item yesterday on the landslide that set off the devastating floods in Nepal, we said the collapse released enough debris to fill about 70 football stadiums. It was actually about 100 football stadiums’ worth.

Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Ekjhalak Hindi