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Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.

It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.

When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging — their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.

As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity — and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for — and to our capacity to serve the world.

Sincerely,
Claudine Gay

New plagiarism allegations have surfaced against Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, signaling that the attacks on her qualifications to lead the Ivy League university are continuing, and miring the university deeper in debate over what constitutes plagiarism and whether Harvard holds its president and its students to the same standard.

The accusations were circulated through an unsigned complaint published Monday in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online journal that has led a campaign against Dr. Gay over the past few weeks. The new complaint added additional accusations of plagiarism to about 40 that had already been circulated in the same way, apparently by the same accuser.

Harvard declined to comment Tuesday on the latest allegations.

The Free Beacon article ratchets up pressure that began after a disastrous congressional hearing on Dec. 5, in which Dr. Gay and two other university presidents — of M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania — appeared to equivocate when asked whether students would be punished if they called for the genocide of Jews.

Dr. Gay won a statement of confidence from Harvard’s governing board, known as the Corporation, on Dec. 12. But the Corporation’s statement also revealed that it had conducted a review of her published work after receiving accusations in October about three of her articles.

Dr. Gay now faces an investigation into the plagiarism charges by the same congressional committee that conducted the hearing on antisemitism.

Harvard said that in its reviews of the plagiarism charges, which included an independent review by three outside panelists whose identities have not been made public, the university found that Dr. Gay’s academic work used some “duplicative language,” but that it did not rise to the level of research misconduct.

Dr. Gay has strongly defended her work. “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship,” she said in a statement on Dec. 11, when the initial plagiarism charges were being circulated by conservative activists online and the Harvard Corporation was considering whether she should remain as president. “Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards,” Dr. Gay said.

The documents by the unnamed accuser that The Free Beacon links to on its website show 39 examples in the first complaint, rising to 47 in total in the second complaint. Separately, Harvard’s investigations have found instances of inadequate citation in her dissertation and at least two of her articles.

Reactions from Harvard faculty members and students have ranged from condemnation and consternation to questioning whether the cited examples actually constitute plagiarism.

In interviews and in opinion articles, some Harvard students have said Dr. Gay’s case raises questions about whether Harvard uses a double standard in its plagiarism investigations, giving faculty members a pass for actions that would lead to suspension or worse for students.

Some academics have said that Dr. Gay’s alleged offenses may reflect practices that were widespread in academia at the time of publication but have been tightened up since the advent of online plagiarism-detecting software.

She has not been accused of stealing big ideas, but rather of copying language in the papers of other scholars, with small changes to substitute words or phrases or to arrange them differently. Often the language in question is technical boilerplate.

In a typical example, the new complaint accurately quotes Dr. Gay’s 1997 dissertation, “Taking Charge: Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Politics”: “The posterior distribution of each of the precinct parameters for precinct i is derived by the slice it’s tomography line cuts out of this bivariate distribution.”

The complaint quotes a similar line from Gary King, a Harvard political scientist, who was her thesis adviser and whom she credits in her acknowledgments: “The posterior distribution of each of the precinct parameters within the bounds indicated by its tomography line is derived by the slice it cuts out of the bivariate distribution of all lines.”

Her defenders note that the campaign against her is being promoted by conservative activists like Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and board member of New College of Florida, who opposes diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many of Dr. Gay’s detractors on social media note that she is the first Black president of Harvard and suggest that she was hired because of her race.

The new complaint against Dr. Gay is preceded by a five-page chronology, written in a tone ranging from somber to sarcastic — under the jaunty salutation, “Happy New Year!” The chronology notes that the unnamed accuser submitted the first batch of allegations to Harvard on Dec. 19.

In one paragraph, the accuser, who seems to be familiar with Harvard’s policies on plagiarism, explains why he or she was unwilling to be identified by name: “I feared that Gay and Harvard would violate their policies, behave more like a cartel with a hedge fund attached than a university, and try to seek ‘immense’ damages from me and who knows what else.”

The New York Post has reported that it approached Harvard with plagiarism accusations against Dr. Gay in October, and said that Harvard responded through a defamation lawyer.

The accuser goes on to wonder why Harvard was so intent on exposing him or her: “Did Gay wish to personally thank me for helping her to improve her work even if I drove her harder than she wanted to be driven?”

The sentence is an allusion to a phrase in the acknowledgments of Dr. Gay’s 1997 dissertation, where she says that her family “drove me harder than I sometimes wanted to be driven.”

It is one of the phrases she is accused of copying, from the acknowledgments of a 1996 book, “Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation,” by the Harvard political scientist Jennifer L. Hochschild, who was thanking another academic.

A man was arrested early Tuesday after breaching the Colorado Supreme Court building, holding a guard at gunpoint and opening fire inside, the local authorities said. No injuries were reported, although the judicial center suffered extensive damage.

The incident, coming two weeks after the court voted to bar former President Donald J. Trump from Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, occurred at a time of rising tension across the country over legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s eligibility to run for president.

Justices on the court have reportedly received death threats since the decision concerning Mr. Trump was handed down, but the authorities in Colorado said they did not believe the shooting on Tuesday was associated with those threats, which remain under investigation.

The man who opened fire inside the Colorado judicial center, which houses the state’s Supreme Court and other judicial agencies, had been involved in a car crash nearby and had reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver, the State Patrol said in a news release.

He then shot out a window of the Judicial Center, entered the building and held one of the security guards at gunpoint, demanding the guard’s keys. The guard was not armed.

The suspect then went to the 7th floor and fired additional shots, the authorities said.

Denver police officers and Colorado state troopers surrounded the building. At 3 a.m., officials said, the suspect, who the police have not publicly identified, called 911 and surrendered.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Wages just went up for thousands of Californians.

As of yesterday, the state’s overall minimum wage is now $16 an hour, up from $15.50. That is the second-highest statewide minimum in the nation, trailing only Washington at $16.28 (the District of Columbia’s is higher still, at $17 an hour).

The latest increase in California is an inflation adjustment, and it builds off a 2016 state law that incrementally raised the minimum wage to $15 from $10.

The 50-cent bump affects approximately one million workers, or about 6 percent of the state’s work force, according to Michael Reich, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The impact is relatively limited, he told me, because falling unemployment over the past year has already led to significant wage growth in low-paying jobs, reducing the number of people making the statewide minimum wage.

Another factor: Roughly a third of California’s workers live in cities and counties with wage ordinances that set higher minimums than the state’s, including Los Angeles ($16.78 an hour), San Jose ($17.55) and Oakland ($16.50).

Indeed, 40 California cities and counties require employers to pay wages above the $16 an hour required by the state. Twenty-eight of those municipalities raised their minimums on Jan. 1.

West Hollywood currently has the nation’s highest minimum wage, at $19.08 an hour. (My colleague Kurtis Lee recently wrote about how this has caused some angst for local businesses.) Mountain View, Emeryville, Sunnyvale, Berkeley and San Francisco all require between $18 and $19 an hour, rounding out the top six in California.

Even so, these rates fall short of providing a living wage, experts say. In Los Angeles County, for example, two working adults with one child would each have to make $23.98 an hour to afford their basic needs, according to M.I.T.’s Living Wage Calculator.

“Our minimum-wage laws are still lower than what workers need to really get by,” Ken Jacobs, co-chair of the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center, told me. “These higher minimum wages have made a real difference in workers’ lives, but I think one of the reasons you’re now seeing a push for taking those wage levels higher is to address the increased cost of living in California.”

To tackle that problem, Gov. Gavin Newsom approved laws in the fall that require major pay bumps, above the statewide minimum, in two industries that employ large chunks of the state’s work force. One will raise the minimum wage for all health care workers in California to $25 an hour by 2028; the other increases minimum hourly pay for fast-food workers to $20 an hour.

Where we’re traveling

Why one writer is still in love with Waikiki.

Tell us

What are you looking forward to in 2024? Milestone birthdays, travel to new places, picking up a new hobby?

Tell us your hopes for the new year at CAtoday@nytimes.com. Please include your full name and the city in which you live.

And before you go, some good news

Though Sacramento has sometimes played second fiddle to the buzzy Bay Area cities of Northern California, the capital is flourishing, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The city, once the heart of gold rush migration, has been reanimated in recent years by a growing and internationally recognized music scene, Michelin-star-studded restaurants and an array of galleries, bars and late-night doughnut shops beloved by visitors and residents.

Four “in the know” Sacramento residents, including Ruthie Bolton, a former player for the Sacramento Monarchs of the W.N.B.A., spoke to the newspaper about their favorite places in the city. The result is a collage of the city’s greatest gems, including parks, cafes and a farm that doubles as a brewery.

For visitors seeking a slightly different Northern California flavor, this list is your guide.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.

Maia Coleman, Briana Scalia and Bernard Mokam contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.

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A Colorado mother accused of murdering two of her children and injuring a third was arrested in London over the holiday weekend after being on the run for days, the authorities said.

Kimberlee Singler, 35, was taken into custody on Saturday in the Kensington area of London, a spokeswoman for Britain’s National Crime Agency said on Tuesday.

Ms. Singler appeared before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday for an extradition hearing and will remain in custody until her next scheduled court appearance on Jan. 29, officials said.

The Colorado Springs Police Department had been searching for Ms. Singler for days after issuing a warrant for her arrest on Dec. 26. It was unclear why she had fled to Britain and what events led to her capture.

It was also unclear if Ms. Singler had obtained a lawyer.

The Colorado Springs Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

Ms. Singler was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of child abuse and one count of assault following a string of events last month.

On Dec. 19, Ms. Singler was found injured alongside her three children after the authorities received a report of a burglary at an apartment in Colorado Springs.

Ms. Singler and her 11-year-old daughter were treated for injuries at the scene by emergency medical workers before being taken to a hospital for further treatment, the police said. The authorities did not provide further information about the nature of their injuries or the causes of death for the 9-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy.

However, as their investigation progressed, the police “determined that the information of a reported burglary was unfounded,” a spokesman for the police department said.