Aurelia Butler

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    An Atmospheric River Brings Flooding Risks to the Mid-Atlantic

    Forecasters warned of flash flooding through midweek, including areas of North Carolina still battered by Hurricane Helene.A slow-moving storm system that’s been called an atmospheric river is poised to deliver bouts of heavy rain across the Mid-Atlantic over the next few days, increasing the risk of flash floods.Forecasters expressed concern for areas where the ground is especially vulnerable in North Carolina. David Roth, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said the state has been particularly at risk since Hurricane Helene.“Helene just made everything worse,” he said. “There were some landslides in western North Carolina from it. It takes a while to recover from a tropical cyclone. So their ground is more sensitive.”Mr. Roth said North Carolina’s complex terrain was another factor of concern.“They have a lot of up and down variation,” he said. “Even without Helene, almost every time it rains moderately, to have the mountains, basically you get these small waterfalls.”The Weather Prediction Center has issued a Level 2 out of 4 risk for excessive rainfall, potentially leading to flash flooding across eastern North Carolina, eastern Virginia, Maryland, eastern West Virginia and extending into central and southern Pennsylvania through Wednesday.Flood watches have been issued across these areas through late Tuesday.Rainfall totals were expected to range between one and three inches, and rain may fall at a rate of one to two inches an hour. Forecasters anticipated the intense rain to develop by late Tuesday morning, fueled by daytime warming.The Weather Prediction Center also noted that the hills and mountains stretching from southern Pennsylvania through Virginia could receive additional rainfall because of the way the air is being pushed up the slopes. Recent rainfall has saturated the ground in this region, further elevating the risk of flash flooding.The storm has brought repeated rounds of heavy rain to the Southeast since last week. Its slow-moving nature and a continuous feed of moisture from the Gulf and Atlantic are the main risk factors for flash floods.Forecasters have called this an atmospheric river, a term more commonly associated with the steady streams of moisture that soak the West Coast but that also describes patterns responsible for rain in the East.“You can call any warm conveyor belt circulation around a nontropical low an atmospheric river,” said Mr. Roth, adding that such systems are especially concerning when they stall.“This at least will show some progression,” he said. “It won’t be as bad as some of the multiday heavy rain events that the mountains of California can sometimes get.”The system is expected to reach the Great Lakes by Wednesday, when thunderstorms will most likely become more scattered and less intense. However, a lower-level risk for flash flooding, 1 out of 4, was expected across parts of the Carolinas and into southern Pennsylvania through Thursday. More

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    Girl, 16, Is Fatally Shot Near a Bronx School Building, Police Say

    Evette Jeffrey was the unintended victim of a fight among teenagers leaving a schoolyard, the police commissioner said. A 14-year-old boy was being sought in the killing.A 16-year-old girl was fatally shot near a South Bronx school building Monday afternoon, and a 14-year-old boy was being sought in her killing, officials said.The girl was an unintended victim of a shooting that occurred after a fight broke out among children who were leaving the building’s schoolyard around 5 p.m., Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said at a news conference Monday evening.“Our city has suffered another senseless tragedy tonight,” Commissioner Tisch said.Mayor Eric Adams, speaking at the news conference, said, “We feel the loss.”Officers responding to 9-1-1 calls and notifications from a gunfire-detection system arrived at Home Street and Tinton Avenue in the Morrisania neighborhood to find the girl, Evette Jeffrey, with a gunshot wound to the head, officials said. She was taken to Lincoln Hospital in critical condition and later pronounced dead, the police said.The shooting occurred near a building that houses three schools: the Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School, Bronx Latin and the Bronx Career and College Preparatory High School.Commissioner Tisch said that Evette attended a different high school nearby and, citing video captured by security cameras at the school building, gave the following account of the events leading up to the shooting:A group of children left the schoolyard and entered a walkway alongside the building when a fight broke out among some of them. Amid the fighting, one boy punched another in the face, knocking him to the ground, and then began to punch several other children.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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    With Guarantees Galore, Christie’s Has a Rocky Start to Auction Week

    There was little excited bidding on the art collection of the Riggio family, who built their fortune on the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain — a caution flag for the art market. Chandelier bidding. Quiet phone banks. Executives wiping their brows.One of the most anticipated auctions of the season proved to be anticlimactic on Monday evening at Christie’s in New York, where many objects were presold to guaranteed bids and there was little evidence of the enthusiastic buyers who defined the market’s peak in 2022. Experts said the sale was marred by the economic uncertainty surrounding President Trump’s tariffs and how they might hurt the global art market.Louise Riggio consigned nearly 40 works from the collection she built with her husband, the Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, who died last year. A second auction on Monday night, called the 20th Century Evening Sale, fared better, with more artworks selling above their estimates and livelier bidding on the phones and in the room.Christie’s had guaranteed the consignors an undisclosed minimum amount for the collection and then worked feverishly in recent days to offload the auction house’s risk, object by object, by finding outside buyers to leave their own pre-sale bids on works by modern masters like Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti.At first glance, the Riggio collection appeared to have done fine with a $272 million total, including buyer’s fees. But stripped of the fees, the sale fell short of the auction house’s pre-sale expectations that included a low estimate of $252 million.“Coming in? It should be now, ideally,” said the auctioneer, Adrien Meyer, at one point, struggling to find bidders on one of the lower-priced items in the sale, a terra-cotta vase by Picasso that ultimately sold within its estimate for $567,000, including fees.The top lot of the Riggio sale was a 1922 gridded painting by Mondrian that had once greeted visitors in the grand entryway of the bookstore tycoon’s Park Avenue apartment. It sold for $47.6 million, including fees. The canvas, “Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue,” fell short of the previous record for a Mondrian, $51 million, set just three years earlier at Sotheby’s.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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    D.N.C. Takes Step to Void Election of David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta as Vice Chairs

    David Hogg has faced sharp criticism for his plan to fund challenges to incumbent Democrats, but a D.N.C. vote on Monday began with an earlier complaint about the procedures used in an internal party election.The credentials committee of the Democratic National Committee voted on Monday to void the results of the internal party vote that made David Hogg a party vice chair, ruling that the election had not followed proper parliamentary procedures.The decision — which came after roughly three hours of internal debate and one tie vote — will put the issue before the full body of the Democratic National Committee. It must decide whether to force Mr. Hogg and a second vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta, to run again in another election later this year.Mr. Hogg, 25, an outspoken survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., has prompted a fierce backlash over his plans to spend up to $20 million through another organization he heads, Leaders We Deserve, on primary campaigns against incumbent Democrats. Ken Martin, the party chairman, has said it is inappropriate for Mr. Hogg to intervene in primaries while serving as a party official, and has recommended changing the party’s bylaws to force him to sign a neutrality pledge.The ruling by the credentials committee on Monday was not technically related to Mr. Hogg’s plans to engage in primaries. Instead, it was the result of a complaint from Kalyn Free, one of the losing candidates in the vice chair race. Ms. Free said the party had wrongly combined two separate questions into a single vote, putting at a disadvantage the female candidates because of the party’s gender-parity rules.In a statement, Mr. Hogg acknowledged the decision was made on procedural grounds but said that “it is also impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party, which loomed large over this vote.”“The D.N.C. has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort,” he added.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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    NYT Crossword Answers for May 13, 2025

    Joe Rodini’s puzzle hits the spot.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — The school cafeteria is a cultural fixture. Its symbols are instantly recognizable: the lunch lady ladling mysterious slop onto trays, a bully who teases the meek, girls and boys tittering about their crushes.Today’s crossword puzzle, constructed by Joe Rodini, plays on one such scene from the cafeteria canon — or “cannon,” alternatively, considering the theme. While I’ve never participated in this high-octane activity myself, I’d say solving the puzzle provides a comparable thrill.Today’s ThemeThere’s an obvious answer to [Cafeteria shout] at 38A — FOOD FIGHT! We’re also told that this shout might provoke certain “moves” at 17-, 26-, 54- and 64-Across. And because the revealer clue ends in a question mark, we can expect a wordplay-based twist on the answer.Indeed, these “moves” are punning interpretations of the cited themed entries, each of which features a food item and a synonym for a fighting gesture. It starts with a [Ladled party drink]: FRUIT PUNCH (17A). That escalates to a descriptor for [The Midwest states, agriculturally speaking], i.e., the CORN BELT (26A). A [Bone-in cut whose name became an endearment] comes in with a LAMB CHOP (54A), and the final thwack comes with a [Bright yellow creature that moves about 6.5 inches per minute]: a BANANA SLUG (64A).Tricky Clues1A. A mere 24 hours after citing “classic cars” as a challenging category for crossword clues in this week’s Gameplay newsletter, I got stumped by the very same. [Gremlins and Pacers of old autodom] are AMCS, as in cars of the American Motors Corporation (defunct since the ’80s).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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    In Trump Tax Package, Republicans Target SNAP Food Program

    Limiting funding for SNAP could help defray the costs of President Trump’s tax plans, but could result in millions of low-income families losing access to aid. House Republicans on Monday proposed a series of sharp restrictions on the federal anti-hunger program known as food stamps, seeking to limit its funding and benefits as part of a sprawling package to advance President Trump’s tax cuts.The proposal, included in a draft measure to be considered by the House Agriculture Committee this week, would require states to supply some of the funding for food stamps while forcing more of its beneficiaries to obtain employment in exchange for federal aid. The moves could result in potentially millions of low-income families losing access to the safety net program. But G.O.P. leaders insist that their approach would improve the provision of food stamp benefits while helping to defray the cost of Mr. Trump’s expensive legislative ambitions.House Republicans said in a statement on Monday that their proposal emphasized “reinforcing work, rooting out waste, and instituting long-overdue accountability incentives to control costs and end executive and state overreach.”The Republican overhaul specifically targets the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP With a roughly $110 billion annual budget, it is the federal government’s largest nutrition assistance initiative, providing monthly allotments to an average of 42 million people in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages the program.Proponents of the food stamp program say that it has long served as a critical lifeline for low-income families by ensuring that they do not experience hunger in a nation where about one in seven reported food insecurity at some point during 2023, according to federal data released in September.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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    Biden Is Being Evaluated for a ‘Small Nodule’ in His Prostate

    It is common for a man of Mr. Biden’s age to experience prostate issues. His spokesman declined to elaborate on any details about his care.Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spent last Friday at a hospital in Philadelphia after a “small nodule” was discovered on his prostate that required “further evaluation,” according to a spokesman.It is common for a man of Mr. Biden’s age — he is 82 — to experience prostate issues, and his spokesman declined to elaborate on any additional details about his care.Mr. Biden left office as the oldest serving president in American history. He was dogged throughout his presidency by concerns about his age and his health, which ultimately led him to abandon his re-election campaign.In February 2024, when Mr. Biden was still president, his longtime doctor declared him “fit to serve” after he underwent a routine physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.Mr. Biden has kept a relatively low profile since leaving office in January, but he sat for two interviews last week after Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in office. The day before Mr. Biden was at the hospital in Philadelphia, he and the former first lady, Jill Biden, were in Manhattan for a joint interview on “The View.” Mr. Biden defended his record as president and his mental acuity.“They are wrong,” Mr. Biden said of reports that he had declined in his final year in office. “There’s nothing to sustain that.” More

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    Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Venezuelan Deportations to Resume

    The solicitor general contended that a group of migrants had barricaded themselves inside a Texas detention center and threatened to take hostages.The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday evening for permission to deport a group of nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members and detained in Texas.In a filing to the court, the administration contended that “serious difficulties have arisen” from the detention of the group of 176 migrants, who were shielded from deportation in an emergency overnight ruling by the court in mid-April.According to a declaration by a Homeland Security Department official included in the court filing, a group of 23 migrants had barricaded themselves inside a housing unit for several hours on April 26. The group threatened to take hostages and harm immigration officers, and tried to flood the unit by clogging the toilets, according to the filing.“The government has a strong interest in promptly removing from the country” gang members “who pose a danger to ICE officers, facility staff and other detainees while in detention,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the court filing.The details of the episode, which had not been previously reported, occurred at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Texas, where migrants “barricaded the entrance doors of their housing unit using bed cots, blocked the windows and covered surveillance cameras,” according to a declaration by Joshua D. Johnson, a Homeland Security official and the acting director of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s Dallas Field Office.The group then “threatened to take hostages” and to “injure” ICE officers and facility staff members, and “remained barricaded in the housing unit for several hours,” Mr. Johnson said in the declaration.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