Aurelia Butler

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    How Grace Potter Lost (and Found) a Solo Album, and a New Life

    In May 2009, Hollywood Records announced that T Bone Burnett — the producer of the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss LP “Raising Sand,” which dominated the Grammys earlier that year — had recently entered the studio with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals to produce the band’s new album. The LP, which would be the Vermont-based bluesy roots-rock group’s third, was slated to come out that fall.The label didn’t mention that the album was in fact a solo vehicle for Potter, then 25, that she recorded with a team of renowned session musicians: the drummer Jim Keltner, the guitarist Marc Ribot, the bassist Dennis Crouch and the keyboardist Keefus Ciancia. “She was like a ball of fire,” Keltner recalled of Potter in a phone call, “and she was really fun to follow.”During an interview in March at her eclectically decorated villa in Topanga, Calif., Potter — a multi-instrumentalist whose soulful voice has earned her comparisons to Bonnie Raitt, Janis Joplin and “a grittier Patty Griffin” — recounted her sense of anticipation over the release of the LP, “Medicine.”“It really felt like something exciting on the horizon,” Potter said, sitting on the couch in her living room dressed in a stylish forest-green jumpsuit. “It was like the secret that we got to keep until it all came out.” Sixteen years earlier, she had described the record as “more of a storyteller, kind of tribal, Motown, voodoo thing” than her earlier output.Then Hollywood shelved the album. The label wanted Potter and the Nocturnals to rerecord the songs with the producer Mark Batson, known for his work with Alicia Keys, the Dave Matthews Band and Dr. Dre. Potter blamed an A&R executive, whom she declined to name, for the decision.She also said that Bob Cavallo, then the chair of the Disney Music Group, which distributes the Hollywood label, was “concerned that the record would age me.” She added, “I’m a young, hot thing. He was like, ‘We don’t want her to seem like she’s 46.’” (In a phone interview, Cavallo, now 85 and retired, couldn’t recall the particulars of the label’s move, but expressed regret that he couldn’t help Potter “get a giant career, because I thought she deserved one.”)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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    Breuer Building Gets Landmark Status Before Sotheby’s Moves In

    The modernist former home of the Whitney Museum of American Art had its interior designated for protection by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.The modernist Breuer building, formerly home to the Whitney Museum of American Art and purchased by Sotheby’s auction house in 2023, on Tuesday had much of its interior designated as a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.The designation, which was voted on Tuesday morning, will protect much of the building on Madison Avenue from any changes that had concerned preservationists as the building undergoes a renovation by the Pritzker-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron. The museum’s galleries were not included as part of the designation. The designation protects parts of the lower level facing Madison Avenue, as well as the first-floor lobby, coat check, vestibules and the main stairwell from the lower level through the fifth floor.“We would have preferred the galleries were included in the designation,” said Liz Waytkus, the executive director of Docomomo US, an organization dedicated to preserving modern architecture which filed the request with the Preservation Commission seeking interior landmark status for the Breuer. “But we’ve spoken to Sotheby’s and they have assured us they are treating all gallery surfaces as if they are designated and using a light hand in their restoration.”The 1966 building by Marcel Breuer has become an important symbol of Brutalist architecture, with its concrete grid ceilings and its inverted stepped pyramid exterior.The structure most recently housed the Frick Collection and served as an exhibition space for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern and contemporary collection. The renovated building will contain Sotheby’s sales room, as well as exhibition and dining spaces. Work is expected to be completed by this fall.Herzog & de Meuron — known for projects such as Tate Modern in London, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Park Avenue Armory in New York — has made a specialty of adaptive reuse, or transforming existing structures. The firm, based in Basel, Switzerland, is working with PBDW Architects, a New York firm, on the design.“We fully endorse the landmark designation, as reflected in our initial plans for the building,” said Steve Wrightson, Sotheby’s global head of real estate, in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming the public back and honoring the Breuer’s enduring legacy as we usher in a new chapter.” More

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    Democrats Throw Money at a Problem: Countering G.O.P. Clout Online

    At private gatherings, strategists and donors are swapping ideas to help the party capture the digital mojo that helped President Trump win. Yes, there’s a price tag.Six months after the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 defeat, the party’s megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers.At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, “find the next Joe Rogan.” The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump — if only they can throw enough money at the problem.Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media like sports or lifestyle podcasts. Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump’s victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.The quiet effort amounts to an audacious — skeptics might say desperate — bet that Democrats can buy more cultural relevance online, despite the fact that casually right-leaning touchstones like Mr. Rogan’s podcast were not built by political donors and did not rise overnight.Wealthy donors tend to move in packs, and some jaded liberals worry that the excitement could cause money to flow into projects that are not fully fleshed out. They argue that the latest pitches on the left are coming from operatives who are hungry to meet donors’ demand for a shiny new object. In a break from the past, some of the Democrats’ new ventures are for-profit companies.And so far, there are still more ideas than hard, committed money: One Democratic operative described compiling a spreadsheet of 26 active projects related to creators, over a dozen of which are new since November. But a few of the efforts have ties to major donors that could give them liftoff.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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    Are You a European in a Housing Crunch? We Want to Hear From You.

    To help us report on the housing crisis in Europe, we want to learn about the housing pressures you are dealing with, how they are affecting your community and how they are being solved.Nearly every European country is struggling with a housing crisis. A surge in home prices that started a decade ago has been accelerating as vacation rentals, real estate speculation and a shortage of home building have put the goal of affordable housing out of reach for many.Nearly 45 million people, or a tenth of European Union residents, spend more than 40 percent of their income on housing. Cities from Barcelona to Berlin are working to combat the problem, which has spread beyond urban areas. Throughout the year, I will be talking to residents, activists, developers and government officials in cities throughout Europe to explore why the crisis is so tough to beat, what solutions are being tested and what people want to see done.I’ll read every response to this questionnaire and reach out to you if I’m interested in learning more. I won’t publish any part of your response without contacting you first. And I won’t share your contact information outside The New York Times newsroom or use it for any reason other than to get in touch with you. More

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    Trump Squeezes His Party on Domestic Policy Bill

    The president visited the weekly meeting of House Republicans to make the case for the legislation and pressure members of his party to fall into line.President Trump on Tuesday huddled with House Republicans on Capitol Hill to urge them to unify around a wide-ranging bill to deliver his domestic agenda, ratcheting up the pressure for the party to overcome divisions that could sink the package.Joining Republicans at their weekly closed-door meeting, Mr. Trump praised Speaker Mike Johnson, who has been toiling to cobble together the votes to pass what the party has dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which they hope to bring to a vote by the end of the week.“I’m his biggest fan — I love this guy,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Johnson before the meeting. The speaker can afford to lose no more than three votes on the bill if all Democrats oppose it, as expected, and every lawmaker is present and voting.The president made it clear that he saw passage of the measure as a test of loyalty to him, saying he had been a “cheerleader” for the party, and warning that any holdouts “wouldn’t be a Republican much longer.”But he minimized the very real rifts within his party that could derail the measure, saying there were “one or two grandstanders” holding it up.That is not the case. Several Republican factions have expressed concern about the details of the sprawling bill, which would extend the 2017 tax cuts and eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay; raise spending on the military and immigration enforcement; and cut Medicaid, food stamps, education and subsidies for clean energy to pay for some of it.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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    Timothee Chalamet Was a Knicks Superfan Before He Was Famous

    Tim Chalamet, an unknown teenager, was with the Knicks in the hard times. Timothée Chalamet, the famous actor, is loving every second of the team’s deep playoff run.Timothée Chalamet, the Academy Award-nominated actor, has been impossible to miss during the New York Knicks’ feisty run through the N.B.A. playoffs. A courtside staple at Madison Square Garden, Mr. Chalamet seemed to get nearly as much screen time as Jalen Brunson, the team’s star guard.Mr. Chalamet, 29, was particularly animated as the Knicks eliminated the Boston Celtics in their second-round series. He embraced Bad Bunny. He dapped up Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks’ starting center. He posed for the cameras with Spike Lee, the self-appointed dean of Knicks fandom. He leaned out the window of a sport utility vehicle on Friday to celebrate with other fans in the shadow of the Garden after the Knicks’ series-clinching win.He even earned praise on X for getting Kylie and Kendall Jenner, both famous Angelenos, to cheer alongside him at the Garden, in a post that has been viewed more than 23 million times. (That he is dating Kylie undoubtedly helped win them over.)A focus on celebrities at N.B.A. games is nothing new. For years, the Knicks have pushed the concept of the Garden’s Celebrity Row — their answer to the star-studded floor seats at Los Angeles Lakers games. But while Jack Nicholson spent decades holding court at Lakers games, and Drake has been a sideline fixture for the Toronto Raptors, the Knicks of Mr. Chalamet’s childhood often filled out the floor seats with lower-rung celebrities and entertainers who just happened to be in town. And Mr. Lee, of course.These days, Celebrity Row at the Garden delivers on its name. And in that group of A-listers, Mr. Chalamet has the fan credentials to hang with any of them.Evidence of Mr. Chalamet’s longstanding loyalty is apparent in social media posts from November 2010, around the time that Mr. Chalamet, then 14, was attending LaGuardia High School in Manhattan. He was not yet a star. His breakout role in the Showtime series “Homeland” was a couple of years away.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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    EU Plans New Sanctions on Russia in Push for Ukraine Cease-fire

    The European Union has now targeted Moscow’s fleet of covert oil tankers and plans more restrictions, as the Trump administration’s approach to the war shifts.European Union defense and foreign ministers approved a new package of sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, targeting covert oil exports, days after the top E.U. official announced plans for a further set of even tougher restrictions.The point is to intensify Russia’s economic pain — and by doing so, to prod President Vladimir V. Putin toward peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. The push comes as questions mount about how the United States will approach future sanctions.After a call between President Trump and Mr. Putin on Monday, the White House backed off its demand that Russia declare an immediate cease-fire. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said at a news conference that it was unclear whether the United States would join with Europe in stepping up sanctions.E.U. nations have imposed extensive sanctions on Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The ones they approved on Tuesday are the 17th set. These take aim at Russia’s so-called shadow fleet — old tanker ships that Moscow uses to covertly transport and sell its oil around the world.Officials are already discussing an 18th package. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the E.U. executive arm, said last week that officials could go after gas pipelines, hit banks and push to further crimp Russia’s global energy sales.“It takes two to want peace, and it takes only one to want war,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on Tuesday. “In order to make Russia want peace, also, we need to put more pressure on Russia.”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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    Mexican Ship in Fatal Crash Accelerated Before Hitting Brooklyn Bridge

    As a federal investigation began, officials said the Cuauhtémoc backed into the bridge, killing two, less than five minutes after leaving a Manhattan pier.A Mexican naval ship in the East River accelerated suddenly in the wrong direction before slamming its masts into the Brooklyn Bridge in a crash that killed two crew members, federal transportation officials said on Monday.The ship, the Cuauhtémoc, was moving at a speed of about 2.3 knots after shoving off from a Lower Manhattan pier Saturday night with a tugboat’s help, Brian Young of the National Transportation Safety Board said at a news conference.The 300-foot-long ship, which had 277 people on board, maintained that pace for “a bit of time” before “the speed began to increase,” said Mr. Young, the investigator leading the safety board’s inquiry into the crash. The Cuauhtémoc’s speed had risen to six knots when it hit the bridge less than five minutes after leaving shore, he said.It was unclear what caused the sudden acceleration, Mr. Young said. But it will be among the issues investigators focus on in the course of an examination that is in its earliest stages and that could take up to two years to complete.“This is a start of a long process,” Michael Graham, an N.T.S.B. board member, said at the news conference, noting that the agency expected to issue a preliminary report of its findings within 30 days. “We will not be drawing any conclusions. We will not speculate.”Mr. Graham said agency officials were working with their Mexican counterparts to gain access to the ship so that investigators could inspect the engine, interview crew members still on board and recover any data recorders the vessel may have. The damaged vessel is now docked at Pier 36 in Manhattan.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