Aurelia Butler

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    Israel Bars Arab Foreign Ministers From High-Level West Bank Visit

    The trip had been planned for Sunday ahead of a June conference, backed by France and Saudi Arabia, to urge the creation of a Palestinian state.The Israeli government has barred foreign ministers from a number of Arab states, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, from visiting the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders, the Jordanian government said on Saturday.A Jordanian foreign ministry statement said the delegation had planned to meet in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the territory. A visit by such high-ranking Arab officials to the West Bank would have been very unusual.The Israeli government refused to comment.Among those slated to attend was Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister. He would have been the first Saudi foreign minister to visit the West Bank in recent memory, according to Palestinian officials. Officials from Bahrain and Egypt had also been expected.The visiting officials had planned to confer with Mr. Abbas ahead of a June conference led by France and Saudi Arabia, expected to take place in New York, to discuss the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is strongly opposed to the idea.But Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has already prompted a few European countries — including Spain, Norway and Ireland — to formally recognize a state of Palestine in the hopes of jump-starting the long-dormant Middle East peace process. Since the war began almost 20 months ago, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a second Palestinian territory, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.The war began after Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Diddy’s Defenders Ignore

    Earlier this month, when I searched on TikTok for Casandra (Cassie) Ventura’s testimony in the federal sex trafficking trial against Sean Combs, one of the first autocomplete suggestions was “cassie is a liar diddy.”Ventura is not on trial. She is considered to be the government’s star witness in the racketeering conspiracy case against Combs. There are many other high-profile witnesses who testified to Combs’s violence, including the rapper Kid Cudi, who briefly dated Ventura, and Dawn Richard, who is a former member of the group Danity Kane. The entire world saw hotel surveillance video depicting Combs physically assaulting Ventura that was obtained by CNN, and Combs paid Ventura an eight-figure settlement after she sued him for sex trafficking and sexual assault in 2023.Ventura would seem to be a trustworthy witness to her own experience. Yet social media commentators have been trying to undermine public support for her and, by extension, cast doubt on the question of Combs’s culpability. These influencers tend to present some of Ventura’s comments to Combs out of the larger context of his alleged abuse, preying on a public that is poorly informed about sexual assault and domestic violence.During cross-examination, Combs’s lawyers had Ventura read text messages where she seemed to be responding enthusiastically to some sexual encounters that Combs planned. But Ventura testified that she felt coerced into this behavior, and it would make sense that she was trying to placate him; for example, she said that Combs threatened to release videos he recorded of their sex acts if she refused his demands.Combs’s defenders do not seem to care about this context. For example, on X, Andrew Tate, the manosophere influencer who has over 10 million followers and whose tagline is “I think women are dumb,” called Ventura a gendered slur, went after her husband and claimed, “No victims. Only volunteers.” (British prosecutors authorized 10 charges, including rape and human trafficking, against Tate this week, adding to his international legal troubles.)The basic line from most of the anti-Cassie content is that maybe she was beaten up — they have to concede that because of the hotel video — but she’s lying about the rest of it, because she’s a vindictive, bitter, money-grubbing ex trying to bring a successful man down.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Gala Celebrates the Met’s Reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

    Round tables covered in white cloths surrounded the Temple of Dendur. Women wore fascinators, Nigerian geles and Hawaiian lei po’o, while men wore Yoruba agbadas, Hawaiian kāʻei and the occasional tuxedo, all in sartorial attempts to honor the lineage that brought them to the event.Curators, artists and archaeologists gathered for dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the culmination of four years of work — and the legacy of a historied American family — on Friday night. They were toasting the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing and its collection of work from Africa, the ancient Americas and Oceania.Attendees got a chance to explore the wing’s 1,726 objects from Africa, the ancient Americas and Oceania.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesOver lobster, foie gras, wine and champagne, friends of the Met and members of the Rockefeller family mingled among the 1,726 objects in the new gallery, which cost $70 million to complete and has 40,000 square feet dedicated to the arts of those regions.The wing went through four years of work before its reopening.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times“It is a coming together of a very global community,” said Max Hollein, the chief executive and director of the Met. “And in this time, it’s so much about respecting cultural heritage in many different ways but also making sure that there’s a deep understanding, a deeper appreciation.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Cucumbers Sickens 45 People

    The outbreak, which was traced to a grower in Florida, has spread to 18 states, according to the C.D.C. Several distributors and stores, including Target, have recalled products containing cucumbers.A salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers has sickened at least 45 people across 18 states, health officials said Friday and they warned that the number of people infected was likely higher.Companies including Target have issued recalls for products with cucumbers that may be contaminated.The cases have been reported across the Midwest and East Coast, with nearly a third of them in Georgia and Florida, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.It said 16 people had been hospitalized. Salmonella can cause diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps and dehydration.Health officials have linked the outbreak to Bedner Growers, a cucumber grower based in Boynton Beach, Fla., that sells to wholesale distributors and directly to consumers. Potentially contaminated cucumbers, distributed between April 29 and May 19, were sold widely to stores and restaurants, the C.D.C. said.Eight of the sick people had been on cruise ships in the week before they fell ill, all departing from ports in Florida, the C.D.C. said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Étienne-Émile Baulieu, Father of the Abortion Pill, Is Dead at 98

    Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the French biochemist and physician who was often called the father of the abortion pill — and who was also known for his pioneering studies on the role of steroid hormones in human reproduction and aging — died on Friday at his home in Paris. He was 98.His wife, Simone Harari Baulieu, confirmed the death on social media.Dr. Baulieu’s early research focused on hormones, notably DHEA, one of the key hormones in the adrenal gland, as well as groundbreaking work on estrogen and progesterone. But it was his development in the early 1980s of the synthetic steroid RU-486, or mifepristone, that thrust him onto the public stage.Unlike the morning-after pill, which is used after sex to delay ovulation, RU-486 works as a kind of “anti-hormone,” in Dr. Baulieu’s words, by blocking the uterus from receiving progesterone, thereby preventing a fertilized egg from implanting.Taking the drug with misoprostol, a drug that causes uterine contractions, essentially triggers a miscarriage, enabling women to terminate early pregnancies without surgery.The two-dose treatment has been proved safe and highly effective — with a success rate of about 95 percent — and is commonly used in many countries; in the United States, medication abortions accounted for more than 50 percent of all abortions in 2020. After the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, demand for the pills surged, and abortion opponents began seeking ways to ban the drug nationwide.Controversy over RU-486 began as soon as its release in the 1980s. Dr. Baulieu developed the drug in partnership with the French drug company Roussel-Uclaf, where he was an independent consultant.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    OPEC Plus Members Say They Will Fast-Track Oil Output

    Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates see a chance to ratchet up production in July, the third consecutive month of accelerated increases.Eight members of the OPEC Plus oil cartel said Saturday that they planned to continue their accelerated increases in production in July, the third consecutive month.The group, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, said in a news release that it was acting “in view of a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals.” They pegged the increase at 411,000 barrels a day, although analysts say the actual amount is likely to be less.The move, which was expected, indicates a marked shift in oil policy by Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the group.Until recently, the Saudis had kept output at what was for them an uncomfortably low level to bolster oil prices, even though other members of OPEC Plus had exceeded their cap. Saudi Arabia will gain the largest share of the combined increases — boosting its ceiling to about 9.5 million barrels a day.The Saudis and other OPEC Plus members like the United Arab Emirates had chafed because some members including Iraq and Kazakhstan had exceeded their ceilings. The Saudis are now sending a message that they will not restrain output if others don’t.A catalyst for the change, analysts say, is President Trump, who warmly courted Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, as a commercial and strategic partner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Does Ultra Wealth Look Like?

    In HBO’s “Mountainhead,” the “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong uses subtle status symbols — and a secluded $65 million ski chalet — to convey hierarchy among the 0.001 percent.When Paul Eskenazi, the location manager for “Mountainhead,” a new film from the “Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong, set out to find a house to serve as the primary setting for this satire about a group of ultrarich tech bros, he needed a very specific kind of extravagance. In the same way that “Succession,” which Eskenazi also worked on, reveled in “quiet luxury,” “Mountainhead” needed its moneyed protagonists to be living large but without flamboyance. Its characters are too wealthy for mere McMansions, and not any private residence would do.Portraying how the ultrawealthy really live — with all their subtle signals and status cues — has become something of a specialty for Armstrong and Eskenazi. It’s about not just private jets and sprawling homes, but the quiet hierarchies within the top 1 percent. There’s a pecking order between the 0.01 percent and the 0.001 percent, the kind of distinction that insiders equate to owning a Gulfstream G450 versus a Gulfstream G700.From left, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman and Ramy Youssef in “Mountainhead.”Courtesy of HBOWhen Eskenazi found a lavish, 21,000-square-foot ski chalet built into a hill of Deer Valley in Utah, he knew it was the right fit — not because it was so large and impressive, though it’s certainly both, but because its extravagance had a subtlety that made it almost understated.“There’s a kind of quiet wealthy embedded in that location that doesn’t necessarily scream at you. It reveals itself slowly,” Eskenazi said, pointing out that it has a private gondola with direct access to a nearby ski resort. “It’s not flashy, but it’s deeply exclusive — the kind of feature that signals a level of access and control money affords without ever needing to show off.”“Mountainhead” is a tightly wound satirical chamber drama about four rich friends in tech who gather for a weekend of carousing while the world is plunged into chaos. There’s Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the founder of a Twitter-like app whose new A.I. creator tools have triggered a tidal wave of online disinformation; Jeff (Ramy Youssef), whose content-moderation software holds the key to resolving global strife; Randall (Steve Carrell), an elder plutocrat with a philosophical bent; and Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), whose meager $500 million net worth has earned him the nickname “Soups,” for “soup kitchen.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Meaning of a Trump-Inspired Style

    The Times’s chief fashion critic unravels the Trump-inspired style that has spread quickly across Washington.President Trump has changed a lot about Washington over the past four months, including how it looks.I’m not talking about the city’s architecture, although he has made clear his disdain for the brutalism of many federal buildings (an aesthetic that I’m personally quite fond of).I’m talking about the city’s style.Trump and his inner circle of aides and family members cannonballed into Washington’s ocean of understated suits and blouses with a bold and strikingly consistent approach to clothing, cosmetics and, well, personal enhancements. (Nothing points up its consistency so well as the occasional departure, like the T-shirts and blazers Elon Musk has worn to the Oval Office, including today.) If style is a way to send a message, and politics is largely a matter of communication, the maturation of a “MAGA style” in Trump’s second term is a development worth understanding.So I reached out to our reigning expert: Vanessa Friedman, The Times’s chief fashion critic, who has covered political image-making for years (and who, as it happens, writes an excellent newsletter). We discussed the language of Trumpist fashion, the way it has evolved since Trump’s first term and what it means for men as well as for women.OK, let’s start with some visual aids. Who, to you, really embodies the aesthetic of the people around President Trump?Why don’t we take a look?Clockwise from top left: Maansi Srivastava for The New York Times, Sarah Blesener for The New York Times, Doug Mills/The New York Times, Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More