Line breaks in R Markdown text (not code blocks)

Question

Using the tufte_template rmarkdown file, I am trying to make a new paragraph (like \\newthought{}, but no caps.) I use two spaces, denoted here by *:

Answer 1

The best way I have found to add blank lines is:

# First title





  

# Second title with 5 blank spaces above it

You can try this, hopefully it helps. I have tested in html_documents only, but presumably it would work in pdf as well.