Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Elections

    John Prescott, Former UK Deputy Prime Minister, Dies at 86

    Mr. Prescott was a waiter on cruise ships before rising through the trade union movement and entering politics. He became one of the country’s best-known politicians under Tony Blair.John Prescott, who rose through Britain’s trade union movement to become one of the country’s best-known politicians and serve as deputy prime minister for a decade, has died. He was 86.In a statement on social media, his family said he died peacefully on Wednesday, “surrounded by the love of his family and the jazz music of Marian Montgomery.” The statement noted that he had suffered a stroke in 2019 and had latterly been living with Alzheimer’s disease.Plain-speaking and proudly working class, Mr. Prescott served as a visible link to Labour’s traditional origins when the party came to power in 1997 under the modernizing leadership of Tony Blair.In government, Mr. Prescott championed environmental causes — playing a key role in international climate negotiations — and worked hard to shift power from London to the English regions.More important for Labour, he helped defuse internal tensions between Mr. Blair and his chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, a rival who would eventually become Mr. Blair’s successor. At the time, Mr. Prescott was jokingly referred to as the political equivalent of a marriage guidance counselor.Gordon Brown, left, then the chancellor of the Exchequer; John Prescott, center, then deputy prime minister; and Tony Blair, prime minister at the time, at the Labour Party conference in 2006.John Stillwell/PA Images via ReutersWe 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

  • 150 Shares99 Views

    in Elections

    Ukraine Says Russia Struck It With New Missile; ICBM Claim Is Disputed

    Russia struck the city of Dnipro with a volley that Ukraine said included an intercontinental ballistic missile. Western officials said an ICBM was not used.Russia sent a volley of missiles at the eastern city of Dnipro on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, the latest assault in a week of rising hostilities between the two adversaries.Ukraine claimed Russia had used an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would have represented a significant escalation in its assaults. But several Western officials said that the weapon was not an ICBM and instead was likely an intermediate-range missile that flies shorter distances.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private Western intelligence assessment.The Ukrainians did not provide much detail on the strike, saying only that the missile had been launched from the Russian region of Astrakhan and was part of a volley aimed at Dnipro. The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had attacked Ukraine with a new class of missile. “All the parameters — speed, altitude — match those of an intercontinental ballistic missile,” he said. “All expert evaluations are underway.”A senior U.S. official said the weapon appeared to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile, adding, “But it is a new type we have been tracking.”In the last few days, the Ukrainian military has used longer-range American and British missiles to strike deeper into Russia, after the two countries granted permission to do so. In response, President Vladimir V. Putin lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. More

  • 50 Shares159 Views

    in Elections

    Dissecting the DOGE Playbook

    Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have unveiled their first plans to trim government spending, a blueprint that mirrors how the tech mogul cut costs at Twitter. Layoffs and spending cuts are on Elon Musk’s government agenda.Carlos Barria/ReutersThe Twitter approach to government efficiencyDonald Trump picked Elon Musk and the financier Vivek Ramaswamy to tackle one of his administration’s biggest priorities — reducing the size of the federal government.The two have now shed some light on what Trump has called the Department of Government Efficiency plans to do. They appear to be taking a page from Musk’s playbook for extreme cost-cutting.“We won’t just write reports or cut ribbons,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, addressing skepticism that their initiative, known as DOGE, can achieve. “We’ll cut costs.”How they plan to do it: Musk and Ramaswamy said they would focus on razing agency regulations, laying off government employees and cutting costs, including appropriations for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood. (That said, Congress created the public broadcasting organization and authorizes its budget.)They’ll lean heavily on two recent Supreme Court rulings, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which together sharply curtailed agencies’ ability to act. “These cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law,” Musk and Ramaswamy write.DOGE will present a lengthy list of regulations to gut to Trump, who they say would then be free to use executive action to halt their enforcement and then move to rescind them.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

  • 75 Shares159 Views

    in Elections

    ‘Witches’ Review: Redeeming the Wicked Witch

    The director Elizabeth Sankey’s experience with postpartum depression anchors this documentary about the pop-cultural representation of witches.The arrival of “Witches,” a documentary streaming on Mubi, seems strategically timed. The director Elizabeth Sankey’s contribution is part essay film, part personal testimony, though like Jon M. Chu’s musical blockbuster “Wicked” she, too, starts in the land of Oz.As a child, Sankey explains in a voice-over, she wanted to be Glinda the good witch. But her experiences dealing with mental illness made her see an unsettling correlation between the wicked witches of the world and the women who, like her, have had trouble performing traditional domestic roles.The first part of Sankey’s documentary plays like a cultural history of the witch onscreen, weaving together clips from TV shows and movies across the decades to illustrate a somewhat stale point: that stigmas around women’s health have informed the characterization of witches. When Sankey shares her personal story — weaving in interviews with other women and experts who also have firsthand experience of postpartum psychosis — the details of her illness take on an eerie new light next to pop-cultural images of madwomen, like Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby” and Isabelle Adjani in “Possession.” Based on the real women’s accounts, the fictional renderings don’t seem outlandish — the satanic underpinnings of witchcraft, clearly a superstitious, and deeply misogynistic, justification.“Witches” eventually explores other parallels — for instance, the demonization of midwives and natural healers with the advent of modern medicine — but the maternal madness framework dominates the bulk of the run time to diminishing effect. The clips also veer from the occult and take on a more generalized creepiness that feels bleary and arbitrary. If all women behaving badly can be summed up as witchy, then Sankey’s documentary too often works like a game of associations.WitchesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

  • 125 Shares129 Views

    in Elections

    Who’s Laughing Now? Banana-as-Art Sells for $6.2 Million at Sotheby’s

    A conceptual artwork by Maurizio Cattelan, “Comedian,” is just a fruit-stand banana taped on the wall. But 7 bidders were biting. It went to a crypto entrepreneur. A banana that for years has stirred controversy in the art world sold for $6.2 million with fees at Sotheby’s contemporary art auction on Wednesday night. It became what is arguably the most expensive fruit in the world — though it will likely be tossed in a couple days.The banana is the star of a 2019 conceptual artwork, “Comedian,” by the noted prankster Maurizio Cattelan, which is intended to be duct-taped onto the wall. It comes with a certificate of authenticity and installation instructions for owners to replace the banana — if they wish — whenever it rots. Five minutes of rapid bidding ended when the Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun placed the winning bid, besting six other rivals, which experts said was a sign that even a struggling market would spend big on spectacle.Justin Sun, a crypto entrepreneur and art collector, shown in New York City in 2019. He is now the owner of a $6.2 million banana.Steven Ferdman/Getty Images “Returns in the market have been flat or decreasing over the last decade,” said Michael Moses, who tracks the investment potential of artworks for clients. “It’s a fascinating asset because you can get so much joy from it that people are willing to accept lower returns. Joy is not something to be messed with.”Indeed, Sun said in a statement that the Cattelan work “represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.” Sun, who watched the auction from Hong Kong, added that “in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”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

  • 88 Shares99 Views

    in Elections

    NYT Crossword Column for Nov. 21, 2024

    Katie Hoody’s theme just goes on and on. …Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — Katie Hoody made her New York Times Crossword debut just last month with a stunningly good and difficult Saturday puzzle that contained two sparkling triple stacks.Today, she eases up on us with a grid that is not necessarily tricky for a Thursday — in fact, it’s fairly simple, as themes go — but that is approachable and fun. If you are just dipping a toe into Thursday puzzles, this may be a good one to begin with.Today’s ThemeLet’s face it: Attention spans aren’t what they used to be. With life moving insanely fast, and with short, snappy social media sound bites taking the place of longform communication, it’s no wonder that our ability to focus for extended periods of time is shot.Since we are all so short on time, there is, of course, a quick way to indicate that you are not about to invest what little time you have in reading a long novel, for example. Declaring that something is “TOO LONG, DIDN’T READ” can be shortened even further by using the initialism TL;DR, saving us a precious three or four seconds that could be used to doomscroll on our smartphones.Ms. Hoody’s theme includes three classic novels that some people may consider too long to read. Each clue provides us with the book’s year of publication and its approximate word count. “DAVID COPPERFIELD” at 18A, for example, was published in 1850 and contains more than 350,000 words. I didn’t know that offhand, so I solved using the crossings until I could take an educated guess at the title.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

  • 150 Shares169 Views

    in Elections

    Democrats Split as Senate Rejects Bills to Block Weapons Transfers to Israel

    The legislation failed resoundingly but highlighted the Democratic divide over whether the United States should withhold some weapons to register its disapproval of Israel’s war tactics.The Senate on Wednesday resoundingly rejected a series of three resolutions to block weapons transfers to Israel, shutting down an effort by progressive Democrats to curtail American support for the war in Gaza.The lopsided votes were mostly symbolic given the strong support for Israel on Capitol Hill. But they highlighted deep divisions among Democrats over President Biden’s continued military support for Israel despite ample evidence that its military has committed human rights violations during its offensive against Hamas, including killing civilians and blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid.The measures were offered by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s tactics in the war. In the days since the election, he has also argued that the administration’s Israel policy, and Vice President Kamala Harris’s defense of it on the campaign trail, were partially to blame for the Democrats’ election losses.“You cannot condemn human rights around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States is now funding in Israel — people will laugh in your face,” Mr. Sanders said on the Senate floor on Wednesday.He argued that the United States was breaking its own laws by continuing to send Israel weapons when it was using them to target civilians. The laws say that recipients of weapons made in the United States must use them in accordance with U.S. and international law and not impede the flow of humanitarian aid into war zones.“If we do not demand that the countries we provide military assistance to obey international law, we will lose our credibility on the world stage,” Mr. Sanders 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