Aurelia Butler

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    Democrats Search for Answers

    Nina FeldmanCarlos PrietoSydney Harper and Marc Georges and Sophia Lanman and Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioDemocrats, devastated by their sweeping losses in the election, are starting to sift through the wreckage of their defeat.Political leaders from all corners of the Democratic coalition are pointing fingers, arguing over the party’s direction and wrestling with what it stands for.Reid J. Epstein, who covers politics for The Times, discusses the reckoning inside the Democratic Party, and where it goes from here.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.On today’s episodeReid J. Epstein, a reporter covering politics for The New York Times.Vice President Kamala Harris performed worse than President Biden did four years ago across the country, in cities, suburbs and rural towns.Kevin Lamarque/ReutersBackground readingIn interviews, lawmakers and strategists tried to explain Kamala Harris’s defeat, pointing to misinformation, the Gaza war, a toxic Democratic brand and the party’s approach to transgender issues.Nancy Pelosi, the influential former House speaker, lamented Biden’s late exit and the lack of an “open primary.”There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg, and Chris Haxel.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman. More

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    How Attacks on Israeli Soccer Fans in Amsterdam Unfolded

    Antisemitic assaults on visiting Israeli soccer fans, and incendiary chants and attacks by some Israelis: Here’s what we know so far about the violence in Amsterdam last week.Early Thursday morning, taxi drivers gathered en masse outside Amsterdam’s Holland Casino. Hours before, Israeli soccer fans had stolen and burned a Palestinian flag, while others attacked a cab — and the drivers, the police said, were heeding an online call to “mobilize.”Inside the casino, hundreds of Israeli fans waited for the local police to bring them back to their hotels. There had been confrontations nearby, the authorities said.An Israeli fan who would agree to be identified only by his first name, Barak, said he encountered a young man in the casino with cuts on his hand and face, who had described being ambushed by men on scooters. “All his face was blood,” Barak said in an interview on Friday. The casino said it had fired a security guard after learning of posts he sent later that evening to a chat group. In a screenshot of the exchange posted online, the guard promises to alert others on the thread if Israeli fans “show up again.”“Tomorrow after the game in the night,” someone replies, “part two of Jew hunt.”The attacks near the casino were among the first in a series of assaults on visiting Israeli fans surrounding the Europa League match last week between an Israeli team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, and an Amsterdam-based opponent, Ajax. The Amsterdam authorities are still sorting through what, exactly, happened across the city over that two-day period, including what they have called antisemitic attacks, as well as inflammatory actions by Israeli fans.The events rattled Amsterdam’s Jewish and Muslim communities and drew an international outcry, including from President Biden and the leaders of Israel and the Netherlands. The police are scheduled to present a more detailed account next week, ahead of a hastily called debate in the City Council over antisemitism.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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    Ella Jenkins, Musician Who Found an Audience in Children, Dies at 100

    Performing and recording, she transformed what was seen as a marginal genre in the music industry into a celebration of shared humanity. Ella Jenkins, a self-taught musician who defied her industry’s norms by recording and performing solely for children, and in doing so transformed a marginal and moralistic genre into a celebration of a diverse yet common humanity with songs like “You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song,” died on Saturday in Chicago. She was 100. Her death was confirmed by John Smith, associate director at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.Ms. Jenkins had no formal musical training, but she had an innate sense of rhythm. “I was always humming or singing and la-la, lu-lu or something,” she once said.She absorbed the everyday melodies of her childhood — the playground clapping games, the high school sports chants, the calls of a sidewalk watermelon vendor hawking his produce. As an adult, she paired such singsong rhythms with original compositions and sought not simply to amuse or distract children but to teach them to respect themselves and others.Against the sound of a kazoo, a harmonica, a variety of hand drums or, later, a baritone ukulele, Ms. Jenkins sang subtly instructive lyrics, as in “A Neighborhood Is a Friendly Place,” a song she wrote in 1976:You can say hiTo friends passing byA neighborhood is a friendly place.You can say helloTo people that you knowA neighborhood is a friendly place.Neighbors to learn to shareNeighbors learn to careA neighborhood is a friendly place.Over children’s steady clapping, she recorded the age-old “A Sailor Went to Sea”:A sailor went to sea, sea, seaTo see what he could see, see, seeAnd all that he could see, see, seeWas down in the bottom of the sea, sea, sea.For many parents and classroom teachers, Ms. Jenkins’s renditions of traditional nursery rhymes like “Miss Mary Mack” and “The Muffin Man” are authoritative.Still, from the beginning of her career in the 1950s, Ms. Jenkins pronounced her signature to be call-and-response, in which she asked her charges to participate directly in the music-making, granting them an equal responsibility in a song’s success. She had seen Cab Calloway employ the technique in “Hi-De-Ho,” and for her, the animating idea, veiled in a playful to-and-fro, was that everything good in the world was born of collaboration.In one of her most popular recordings, Ms. Jenkins sings out, “Did you feed my cow?” “Yes, ma’am!” a group of children trumpet back. The song continues:Could you tell me how?Yes, ma’am!What did you feed her?Corn and hay!What did you feed her?Corn and hay!As Ms. Jenkins repopularized time-honored children’s songs, she also gave the genre global scope. Before Ms. Jenkins, children’s music in the United States consisted primarily of simplified, often cartoonish renditions of classical music.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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    Military Judge Postpones Guilty Plea Proceedings in Sept. 11 Case

    The judge asked defense and prosecution lawyers to settle on a date for the accused mastermind of the terrorist attacks to plead guilty.A military judge on Sunday postponed a hearing to receive the guilty plea of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, so that prosecutors can seek again to nullify the plea deal.Col. Matthew N. McCall, the judge, did not freeze preparations for the hearing, as prosecutors had requested. Instead, he told defense and prosecution lawyers to agree on a week or more next month or in early January to hold plea hearings at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for Mr. Mohammed and his co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.The judge said it was “not reasonable to indefinitely delay” the entry of pleas in the case. He also told the sides to continue to collaborate on providing answers to questions related to clauses in the plea agreements. All three plea deals were reached July 31 and ostensibly withdrawn by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III two days later. On Wednesday, however, the judge ruled that Mr. Austin had acted too late and that the pleas were still valid, lawful contracts.Colonel McCall made no mention of the fact that his next scheduled hearing, from Jan. 20 to Jan. 31, straddled the inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump — and most likely Mr. Austin’s departure from the Pentagon.But a defense lawyer noted that the official who had approved the deal — an Austin appointee — was likely to leave the Pentagon at the end of the Biden administration and could potentially become unavailable for questions related to aspects of the plea deals.In a rare Sunday hearing, Clayton G. Trivett Jr., the lead prosecutor, told the judge that the chief prosecutor for military commissions, Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, had instructed his staff on Friday night to prepare an appeal of the judge’s decision reinstating the guilty pleas. Mr. Trivett asked the judge to halt all plea-related proceedings.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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    This Is the Cake We Baked

    On This Week’s Episode:With Donald Trump’s victory this week, many people looked at the election results and thought, “Yeah, this is the country I thought it was.” For some people, that was a hopeful thing. For others, kind of the opposite. This week, “This American Life” talks with people who helped make that victory happen. and some who are looking to what’s next.Gerald Herbert/Associated PressNew York Times Audio is home to the “This American Life” archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. More

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    Man Arrested in Shooting That Killed One at Tuskegee University

    The shooting, which wounded 12 people, happened early on Sunday as crowds gathered at the historically Black school to celebrate the final day of its 100th homecoming week.A 25-year-old man was charged in connection with a shooting on the campus of Tuskegee University in Alabama early Sunday morning that left one person dead and a dozen others wounded as crowds gathered for the school’s homecoming celebration, the authorities said.The man, Jaquez Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, was arrested on Sunday and charged under federal law with possessing a machine gun, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said on Facebook.Officers found Mr. Myrick leaving the scene of the shooting with a handgun equipped with a machine gun conversion device, the agency said. It was not immediately clear what led to the shooting, which took place about 1:40 a.m. on the campus.The identity of the person who was killed, 18, was not released. The victim was not a student at the university, the university said in a statement.“The parents of this individual have been notified,” the university said. “Several others, including Tuskegee University students, were injured.”Twelve people were wounded in the shooting and taken to hospitals, the authorities said. Their conditions were not immediately clear on Sunday. Four other people were also hurt.The shooting took place as crowds gathered at the historically Black liberal arts university, which has 3,000 students, to celebrate the last day of its 100th homecoming week, which began on Nov. 3.In a video posted on social media, a young woman could be heard shouting “Get down! Get down!” as she and others ducked behind a car during the gunfire.The university is in the city of Tuskegee, which has a population of about 8,700 residents and is about 40 miles east of the state capital of Montgomery, Ala.The homecoming celebration included a parade, concerts and a football game between Tuskegee and Miles College on Saturday.“We extend our deepest condolences to those impacted and pray for healing and justice,” Miles College said in a statement on Sunday. “Miles College stands with you in this difficult time.”Tuskegee University said that it had canceled Monday’s classes. More

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    Bruce Degen, Who Drew ‘The Magic School Bus,’ Dies at 79

    He memorably portrayed a frizzy-haired science teacher roping her elementary school class into adventures aboard a shape-shifting yellow bus.Bruce Degen, the illustrator of “The Magic School Bus” series of children’s books, died on Thursday at his home in Newtown, Conn. He was 79.The cause was pancreatic cancer, his family said.The main character of the books, a science teacher named Ms. Frizzle, shows her elementary school students that adventure awaits in understanding the biology, chemistry and physics of everyday life.Ms. Frizzle drives her yellow school bus up into the clouds, so that her students can hop inside raindrops and travel through their local water treatment system. On other occasions, she drives through the small intestine and across the surface of the sun.Joanna Cole, a children’s book author, was responsible for making those lessons educational, writing the text of Ms. Frizzle’s lessons and inventing plots that put her students inside a hurricane or a classmate’s nose. Ms. Cole gave Ms. Frizzle catchphrases like “take chances, make mistakes and get messy!”Mr. Degen (pronounced like the Major Deegan Expressway) made the visual world of the books by using the clear lines of pen and ink and also the childlike softness of watercolor. He rendered Ms. Frizzle’s hair red and wildly frizzy — but contained it all in a mostly tidy bun.Mr. Degen with Joanna Cole, who wrote the text for the “Magic School Bus” books.ScholasticWe 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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    Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille Is Fired

    As killings and hunger soar in Haiti, a political power struggle has cost the prime minister his job, another setback for a country plagued by gang violence. The former United Nations official tapped to lead Haiti through a gang-fueled crisis has been fired by the country’s ruling council, following a political power struggle that unfolded amid a wave of kidnappings and killings.The official, Garry Conille, 58, a medical doctor who previously ran UNICEF’s Latin America regional office, was hired in late May to serve as interim prime minister of Haiti. He and the country’s ruling council are supposed to pave the way for elections next year to choose a new president.Haiti’s transitional council named Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, the owner of a chain of dry cleaners and a former candidate for the Haitian Senate, as his replacement, according to an executive order published Sunday afternoon in the country’s official gazette, Le Moniteur. The former president of the Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce, he studied at Boston University and describes himself on LinkedIn as “an entrepreneur” and “engaged citizen.” Haiti’s last president was murdered in July 2021 and no elections have been held since. The prior prime minister was forced from office earlier this year by a coalition of gangs that had taken over the capital, Port-au-Prince, waging attacks on a range of targets, from police stations to prisons to hospitals.Unable to even return home from an overseas trip, the previous prime minister, Ariel Henry, stepped down in April as killings soared and thousands of people were forced from their homes because of gang violence.Mr. Conille, who speaks fluent English and was seen as someone removed from traditional party politics because he hadn’t lived in Haiti for more than a decade, was considered a favorite of the international community, who are key financial donors and have considerable weight in Haitian affairs. 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