Aurelia Butler

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    3 Climbers Die After Falling in North Cascades in Washington State

    A fourth climber was seriously injured in what the authorities called a hiking accident in the mountain range.Three rock climbers were killed over the weekend and another was seriously injured when they fell nearly 200 feet while descending a steep gully in the North Cascades mountains in Washington State, the authorities said.The four men, whose names have not been released, were rappelling down a sheer rock face near the North Early Winters Spire when they fell. It was unclear what caused the accident, though the authorities believe it may have been the result of an equipment failure, said Undersheriff David Yarnell of the Okanogan County Sheriff Office.The climbers who were killed, ages 36, 47 and 63, were declared dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. The fourth climber, whose age was unavailable, was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Undersheriff Yarnell said. His condition was not immediately available on Monday.It was not clear how the men knew one another. The Okanogan County Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.About 11:30 a.m. Sunday, emergency workers with the sheriff’s office and volunteers with the Okanogan County Search and Rescue Association responded to a report of a climbing accident near North Early Winters Spire off State Route 20, approximately 16 miles west of Mazama, Wash., the sheriff’s office said in a statement.It was unclear when the men had started their climb and when they fell. The weather began to turn during their ascent, and the group decided to head back, Undersheriff Yarnell said. As the climbers descended, the “anchor point” — a secure spot where climbers can attach their gear — that they were tied to “broke loose,” he said. The men then fell nearly 200 vertical feet and then skidded at least another 200 feet across a rocky, snow-covered chute before coming to a stop, Mr. Yarnell said.The climber who survived the fall hiked back to a car and drove about 60 miles west toward Newhalem, where he used a pay phone to call for help.“There was a long time delay before he got to Newhalem,” Mr. Yarnell said.A helicopter helped recover the remains of the three climbers, Mr. Yarnell said.The gear found at the scene included ropes, carabiners and harnesses.The North and South Early Winters Spires are rock formations in the Liberty Bell Group in the North Cascades. The area is home to various hiking trails and rock climbing sites. More

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    RFK Jr. Swims in D.C.’s Rock Creek, Which Flows With Sewage and Bacteria

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, shared photos of himself and his grandchildren swimming in waters that handle sewer overflow.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, posted photos on Sunday of himself and his grandchildren swimming in a contaminated Washington creek where swimming is not allowed because it is used for sewer runoff.Rock Creek, which flows through much of Northwest Washington, is used to drain excess sewage and storm water during rainfall. The creek has widespread “fecal” contamination and high levels of bacteria, including E. coli, and the city has banned swimming in all of its waterways for more than 50 years because of the widespread contamination of Rock Creek and other nearby rivers.“Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading, and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health,” the National Park Service wrote in an advisory on its website, adding “All District waterways are subject to a swim ban — this means wading, too!”But Mr. Kennedy over the weekend shared photos of himself swimming in Rock Creek, with one image showing him completely submerged in the water. Mr. Kennedy said in the social media post that he had gone for the swim in Rock Creek during a Mother’s Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with his family — including his grandchildren, who are also seen in the photos swimming in the contaminated water.Dumbarton Oaks Park is downstream from Piney Branch, a tributary of Rock Creek that receives about 40 million gallons of untreated sewage and storm water overflow each year, according to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. City authorities are planning to build a tunnel that will reduce the amount of sewage that flows into Piney Branch and Rock Creek.A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.It was the latest in a series of peculiar incidents related to Mr. Kennedy’s outdoorsman persona.As a teen in the 1970s, Mr. Kennedy earned a reputation as a reckless adventurer, eating bushmeat and enduring disease on trips to South America and on African safaris. He later earned notoriety for his handling of the carcasses of dead animals — including a whale and a baby bear.Mr. Kennedy has also said that a parasitic worm had “got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” More

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    Some Bidders in Trump’s Contest Sold All Their Digital Coins but Still Won

    Because of a quirk in the rules, some participants vying to dine with the president benefited from dumping the Trump family’s memecoins rather than accumulating them.President Trump and his business partners promoted it as the world’s most “EXCLUSIVE INVITATION” — a dinner with the president of the United States for the cryptocurrency investors who bought the most of his family’s memecoin, called $TRUMP.But as the unusual contest came to a close on Monday, at least 17 of the 220 winning bidders had figured out a way to effectively outsmart the sponsors of the contest.These crypto investors had secured an invitation to the dinner even though their online wallets showed that they held zero of the memecoins, a type of novelty digital currency often based on a joke or mascot.That is because of a quirk in the rules: The winners were selected based on the average number of coins they held during the three weeks the contest was underway rather than their total at the end of bidding.Participants expected the price of the coin to crash as soon as the contest ended. And it did just that on Monday afternoon, plunging by 6.5 percent once the winners were announced. By that point, nearly 20 of the contestants had sold off or transferred all their $TRUMP holdings, according to an analysis by The New York Times.These traders had managed to benefit from the surge in price driven by the contest’s promotion and still secure a seat at the dinner, set for May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.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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    Face to Face With an Alligator? Here’s What to Do

    On May 6, an alligator thrashed and tipped over a couple’s canoe in Central Florida where it attacked a woman and killed her.The death on May 6 of a Florida woman who was attacked by an 11-foot alligator that tipped over her canoe served as a reminder that, while alligator attacks on humans are “extremely rare,” as a state wildlife official said, they do happen, sometimes with fatal results.“This serves as a somber reminder of the powerful wildlife that share our natural spaces,” said Roger Young, the executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.Florida had an average of eight unprovoked alligator bites a year over the 10-year period that ended in 2022, according to the commission. Many of them were serious enough to require medical attention.The commission has been urging people to exercise caution in or near the water during alligator mating season, which runs from early April to June. The risk of an attack is higher, it said, because alligators tend to be more aggressive, active and visible during this time.The agency and other wildlife commissions offered these tips for avoiding or staying safe around the reptiles, which can grow up to 15 feet long.Where are they?Alligators can be found from central Texas eastward to North Carolina, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.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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    Robert Shapiro, Who Made NutraSweet a Household Name, Dies at 86

    His promotion of the sugar substitute was a success. But later, as head of Monsanto, he faced blowback after the company rushed into genetically altered products.Robert B. Shapiro, a brash former law professor turned corporate executive who performed a marketing miracle by branding aspartame as the sugar substitute NutraSweet and making it a household name that consumers demanded in thousands of products, died on May 2 at his home in Chicago. He was 86.The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son James Shapiro said.Aspartame was invented by chemists at the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle in Illinois in 1965 and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in soft drinks in 1983, a year after Mr. Shapiro became chief executive and chairman of what the company was already calling its NutraSweet subsidiary.Unlike its chief rival, saccharin, which had dominated the market in the 25 years since it was approved, aspartame leaves no bitter aftertaste and wasn’t suspected of being linked to cancer. (In 2023, however, the World Health Organization identified aspartame, on the basis of “limited evidence,” as “possibly carcinogenic.”) It has virtually no calories and, despite its brand name, virtually no essential nutritional value.In 1985, Searle sold $700 million worth of aspartame, identified as NutraSweet by the tiny but distinctive red-and-white swirl logo that appeared on the packaging of food and drink products that appealed to dieters and other consumers who wanted to avoid sugar.As the chief executive of the division of G.D. Searle that made the sugar substitute NutraSweet, one commentator wrote, Mr. Shapiro “built a marketing campaign around that trademark, convincing consumers that NutraSweet (and no other company’s version of the very same sweetener) was the key to losing weight.”The NutraSweet Company“Shapiro built a marketing campaign around that trademark, convincing consumers that NutraSweet (and no other company’s version of the very same sweetener) was the key to losing weight,” Daniel Charles wrote in “Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food” (2001).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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    Stardom in the Ring, but an Early Death for Wrestlers Like Sabu

    The causes are varied, but many well-known wrestlers have died young.Professional wrestling fans are familiar with the feeling: opening the newspaper or clicking a link to discover a favorite has died.And so many times it seems as if the star died at a young age.There have been many well-known wrestlers, and many of them have lived long lives. But it is impossible not to notice the many who have died early, some startlingly early. The causes have been many, but the results the same: an early obituary for a titan of the ring.Most recently, Sabu, who pioneered the so-called “hardcore” style of wrestling in the 1990s, died at 60 or 61. His cause of death was not released.A study by FiveThirtyEight in 2014 comparing the lives of well-known wrestlers with actuarial data showed that male wrestlers were significantly more likely to die young than the average man, although it drew no conclusion about why.Though there have been many others — Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, several members of the Von Erich family — here are nine who made a big impression in their scripted doings on the mat and then by their early deaths.Roddy Piper (1954-2015)Rowdy Roddy Piper was known for taunting opponents.John Barrett/PHOTOlink.netWe 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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    Test Yourself on Memorable Lines From Popular Novels

    Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that challenges you to match a book’s memorable lines with its title. This week’s installment is focused on popular 20th-century novels. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books themselves if you want to get a copy and see that quotation in context. More

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    La Scala Taps South Korean Maestro Myung-whun Chung as Music Director

    Myung-whun Chung will be the first Asian, and one of the first conductors born outside Italy, to serve as music director in the opera house’s 247-year history.The Teatro alla Scala in Milan, one of the world’s most revered opera houses, announced on Monday that its next music director would be the South Korean conductor Myung-whun Chung.Chung, 72, a veteran who has led renowned ensembles in Europe and Asia, will succeed the Italian maestro Riccardo Chailly, who started in 2015. Chung will be the first Asian — and one of the first conductors born outside Italy — to serve as music director in La Scala’s 247-year history. He will take the podium in late 2026 for an initial term of about three years.The selection of Chung is one of the most important decisions so far under Fortunato Ortombina, the Italian impresario who took over as superintendent and artistic director of La Scala in February. Ortombina nominated Chung for music director, and La Scala’s board unanimously approved the choice on Monday, the opera house said in a statement.The statement called Chung, who has been a regular at La Scala since 1989, “one of the most beloved artists among the Milanese public.” Chung has conducted 84 performances of nine operas at La Scala, in addition to 141 concerts. Chung holds the record for the most appearances at the opera house, aside from music directors, according to La Scala. In 2023, he was named honorary conductor of the Filarmonica della Scala in Milano, an ensemble of La Scala musicians, the first maestro to receive that designation.The statement called Chung, who has appeared with La Scala singers and musicians on global tours, “the conductor who has most contributed to the international prestige of the Teatro alla Scala, excluding its music directors.”Representatives for La Scala and Chung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Chung, who lives in France and South Korea, was born in Seoul and moved at age 8 to the United States, where he studied music. He has led many prestigious ensembles, including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He has visited North Korea to push for closer cultural ties between the North and South.At La Scala, Chung will serve under Ortombina, whose tenure is still taking shape. Ortombina was chosen to lead La Scala during a nationalistic time for the arts in Italy, with government leaders making clear they favor homegrown talent over foreigners for major cultural posts.But the cultural and political establishment did not stand in the way of La Scala’s selection of Chung.“La Scala has the total right and autonomy of choice; I do not intervene on this,” Alessandro Giuli, the Italian minister of culture, told reporters, according to a report in La Repubblica, one of the country’s major newspapers. More