Aurelia Butler

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    America Wants a God

    Today, we’re introducing “Believing,” a yearlong exploration from The Times on how we experience religion and spirituality now.Americans believe.Most people are wary of the government, the future and even each other, but they still believe in astonishing possibilities. Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults — say they have a spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something “beyond the natural world,” as we reported earlier this year.The country seems to be acknowledging this widespread spiritual hunger. America’s secularization is on pause, people have stopped leaving churches, and religion is taking a more prominent role in public life — in the White House, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and even at Harvard. It’s a major, generational shift. But what does this actually look like in people’s lives?I have spent the past year reporting “Believing,” a new project for The Times. This project is personal to me. I was raised a devout Mormon in Arkansas. I’ve left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I understand how wrestling with belief can define a life. I hoped to capture what that journey looked like for others, too — both inside and outside of religion. I interviewed hundreds of people, visited dozens of houses of worship and asked Times readers for their stories. More than 4,000 responded.In my reporting, I found that there are many reasons for this shift in American life. Researchers say the pandemic and the country’s limited social safety nets have inclined people to stick with (or even turn to) religion for support. But there is another reason, too: Many Americans are dissatisfied with the alternatives to religion. They feel an existential malaise, and they’re looking for help. People want stronger communities, more meaningful rituals and spaces to express their spirituality. They’re also longing to have richer, more nuanced conversations about belief.Unsatisfying alternativesIris LegendreOver the past few decades, around 40 million Americans left churches, and the number of people who say they have no religion grew to about 30 percent of the country.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’s America, There Are No Rules, Only Access

    Daniel JurmanOne of the most dramatic policy reversals in U.S. economic history happened this month. In the span of just a few days, President Trump announced sweeping tariff increases, panicking global markets, and then partially backed down — all without meaningful consultation with Congress or much evidence his administration used a rational process to arrive at the numbers.Economists, who don’t often agree on much, greeted the plan with near unanimous criticism and a fair degree of derision. Few if any political analysts could articulate a coherent rationale for why threatening to launch a trade war on most nations on earth would make strategic sense.Yet in a way it does, because the real story may not be about trade. Looked at in a different way, it’s about power.In principle, it is not up to the president to decide unilaterally whether to impose tariffs, or on which countries to impose them. The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution clearly vests this authority in Congress. However, Mr. Trump made use of his powers to restrict trade under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to regulate trade during economic emergencies. The president effectively declared that the executive branch could bypass Congress’s constitutional authority.Financial markets seemed to grasp this. Unlike past global crises, this episode did not send investors fleeing into the dollar’s safety. Quite the opposite: The dollar dropped sharply when the tariffs were announced and continued to fall even after the administration reversed course. This suggests that investors are anxious about much more than just the economic damage from protectionist policies. They’re worried about the United States no longer being a safe place to hold their assets. They have good reason to be concerned.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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    Pope Francis Blesses Faithful at Easter Mass

    The pontiff, appearing frail from a balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, blessed a crowd gathered on the square outside. But a Vatican aide delivered a papal address that focused on global conflicts.Pope Francis on Sunday blessed tens of thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Easter Mass, his weak, raspy voice a reminder of his frailty less than a month after being discharged from a lengthy hospital stay for life-threatening pneumonia.A roar erupted from the crowd in the square when the pope appeared in a wheelchair on a balcony at Saint Peter’s Basilica and raised a hand in greeting.“Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter,” the pope said. Then he waited as Archbishop Diego Ravelli, a Vatican aide delivered the “Urbi et Orbi,” a papal address delivered at Easter and Christmas.After the address, Francis blessed those present, then waved. The crowds gathered in the square cheered, and called out “Viva il Papa,” or “Long Live the Pope.”Before his appearance, the pope met “for a few minutes” with Vice President JD Vance, who was spending the Easter weekend in Rome, according to the Vatican.When Francis was discharged from the hospital on March 23, his doctors advised him to take it easy for at least two months as he convalesced — and to steer clear of crowds and situations where he could be exposed to germs. His doctor said Francis had almost died in the hospital, where he spent five weeks being treated for pneumonia and other complications.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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    Why Saudi Arabia Supports Trump’s Nuclear Talks With Its Rival, Iran

    The agreements are shaping up to be very similar. But Gulf support for a nuclear deal shows how much the region has changed.Ten years ago, when former President Barack Obama and other leaders reached a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, Saudi Arabia was dismayed.Saudi officials called it a “weak deal” that had only emboldened the kingdom’s regional rival, Iran. They cheered when President Trump withdrew from the agreement a few years later.Now, as a second Trump administration negotiates with Iran on a deal that might have very similar contours to the previous one, the view from Saudi Arabia looks quite different.The kingdom’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement recently saying that it hoped the talks, mediated by neighboring Oman, would enhance “peace in the region and the world.”Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even dispatched his brother, the defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, to Tehran, where he was received warmly by Iranian officials dressed in military regalia. He then hand-delivered a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man whom Prince Mohammed once derided as making “Hitler look good.”What changed? Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have warmed over the past decade. As important, Saudi Arabia is in the middle of an economic diversification program intended to transform the kingdom from being overly dependent on oil into a business, technology and tourism hub. The prospect of Iranian drones and missiles flying over Saudi Arabia because of regional tensions poses a serious threat to that plan.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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    A Resurrection Faith Needs a Resurrection Church

    Have you ever seen a person come back to life?I don’t mean literally. The Easter miracle of nearly 2,000 years ago is not so easily replicated. We don’t have the power to physically raise the dead. Instead, we Christians have faith that death is nothing more than a temporary separation from the people we love. The pain we feel at a funeral is a pain of absence, not the pain of permanent loss.No, I’m talking about something else — the resurrection and redemption when we see a person who is lost to darkness return to the light. It’s the dazzling smile when a young woman gets her one-year coin at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or it’s in the tears of joy when an estranged husband and wife finally embrace again after repentance and forgiveness.Or it’s in a moment like I experienced in a small church in Kentucky. One Sunday evening, our pastor was preaching about the prodigal son, Jesus’ parable about a young, ungrateful man who left his home, squandered his fortune and returned home completely broken, expecting to face anger and retribution — only to be greeted by a father who ran to him, embraced him and declared, “My son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”The pastor concluded his sermon with an altar call. “Some of you here are dead — you’re lost in a life you don’t want — but you can live again.”It was a simple call, one that pastors have made countless times in countless churches. Often they’re ignored. The congregation sings its final song and files out. But this time someone answered.From the back of the church, a young man choked out a single word: “Pastor?”It sounded like a question, as if he was asking for permission to come forward. When we looked back to see who’d spoken, I heard a gasp. The young man was a deacon’s son who had abandoned his faith long ago. He’d become angry and violent. He bullied kids in the church’s youth group. It was shocking that he’d even shown up at church.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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    The Sunday Read: ‘How Analytics Marginalized Baseball’s Superstar Pitchers’

    Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioOne day at Wrigley Field in Chicago last May, Paul Skenes was pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, carving out a small piece of baseball history in his second big-league game. He struck out the first seven batters he faced. By the end of the fifth inning, he had increased his strikeout total to 10. More impressive, he hadn’t allowed a hit.Over the past two decades, analysts have identified a treasure trove of competitive advantages for teams willing to question baseball’s established practices.Perhaps the most significant of competitive advantages was hidden in plain sight, at the center of the diamond. Starting pitchers were traditionally taught to conserve strength so they could last deep into games. Throwing 300 innings in a season was once commonplace; in 1969 alone, nine pitchers did it. But at some definable point in each game, the data came to reveal, a relief pitcher becomes a more effective option than the starter, even if that starter is Sandy Koufax or Tom Seaver — or Paul Skenes.There are a lot of ways to listen to “The Daily.” Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Frannie Carr Toth, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, and Krish Seenivasan. More

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    Inside the Urgent Fight Over the Trump Administration’s New Deportation Effort

    The push to deport a group of Venezuelans raises questions about whether the government is following a Supreme Court order requiring that migrants receive due process.On Thursday evening, lawyers helping Venezuelan immigrants most at risk of being removed under an 18th-century wartime powers act received an ominous alert: U.S. immigration officials were handing out notices at a detention facility in Texas, informing migrants that they were considered enemies under the law and would be removed from the country.“I am a law enforcement officer authorized to apprehend, restrain and remove alien enemies,” read the notice, a copy of which was filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Accordingly, under the Alien Enemies Act, you have been determined to be an alien enemy subject to apprehension, restraint and removal from the United States.”The notice said the migrant could make a phone call but did not specify to whom. The single-page notice also did not mention any way to appeal the order.The Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants must receive advance notice that they are subject to removal under the rarely invoked wartime powers law — and that they must have an opportunity to challenge their removal in court.News of the notices being handed out at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, warning of impending deportations prompted a flurry of legal actions by the A.C.L.U. on Friday in several courts. Early Saturday, the Supreme Court stepped in with unusual speed, ruling that no flights could depart.“The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the court said. It is unclear when the justices will make a ruling on whether deportation flights can continue.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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    Trump Administration Asks Justices to Reject A.C.L.U. Request to Pause Deportations

    Trump administration lawyers urged the Supreme Court in a court filing Saturday afternoon to reject an emergency request to temporarily block deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law.Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to “dissolve” the administrative stay they had issued early Saturday that blocked the deportations while they considered the application, and to allow lower courts to weigh in before intervening further in the case.The deportations remain paused while the justices consider the matter. In emergency applications, the Supreme Court can act at any time.In his filing, Mr. Sauer called the request by lawyers for the migrants that the justices step in “fatally premature” and argued that they had “improperly skipped over the lower courts.”He said that the government had provided advance notice to detainees subject to imminent deportation and that they “have had adequate time to file” claims challenging their removal. Mr. Sauer added that the government had agreed it would not deport any detainees with pending claims.The 17-page court filing came hours after a rare overnight ruling by the justices, who in a one-page, unsigned order had blocked the Trump administration from deporting the migrants.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