Aurelia Butler

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    Idaho Court Expands Abortion Ban Medical Exceptions

    In situations where a mother faces risk of death, the decision allows for abortions even when death isn’t imminent.A state judge in Idaho appeared to slightly broaden access to abortion there by ruling on Friday that an exception to the state’s ban does not require the woman to be facing impending death.Idaho’s ban, one of the strictest in the nation, prohibits abortion in almost all cases. One exception is when it is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. Judge Jason D. Scott ruled that abortions are allowed if a doctor deems that the woman is likely to die sooner without an abortion than she would otherwise — even if her death “is neither imminent nor assured.”The ruling, which kept the law in place, handed a partial victory to reproductive rights advocates and Idaho doctors who said the ban had forced them to wait for patients to reach the brink of death before they could act, or rush them out of state to get care elsewhere.“I feel very reassured” by the ruling, said Dr. Emily Corrigan, an Idaho obstetrician-gynecologist who is one of the plaintiffs. “I think there’s many, many more case scenarios where the patient’s condition would squarely fall within that exception.”Idaho’s attorney general, Raúl Labrador, who was one of the defendants, said in a statement that Idaho law has never required doctors to wait until a woman’s death is certain or imminent before providing an abortion. “While we still disagree with portions of the ruling, it confirms what my office has argued in courts from Boise to Washington, D.C. — that Idaho’s abortion laws are constitutional and protect both unborn children and their mothers,” he said.It was unclear on Saturday whether his office would appeal the decision.The Idaho judgment arose from a lawsuit filed in September 2023 by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of four women who said they had to leave the state to receive abortions after learning that they faced serious health risks or that their fetuses would not survive. The suit was joined by Dr. Corrigan, another physician and a family physicians’ organization.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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    Sudan Clinic Workers Killed in Zamzam Camp

    Relief International said nine employees were killed when gunmen stormed the Zamzam camp in El Fasher, in the western Darfur region.Sudanese paramilitaries killed the entire staff of the last medical clinic in a famine-stricken camp in the western region of Darfur, Sudan, as part of a broader assault that killed at least 100 people, aid groups and the United Nations said on Saturday.The assault on the Zamzam camp, which holds 500,000 people in the besieged city of El Fasher, was notable even by the standards of a civil war that has seen countless atrocities as well as accusations of genocide.Paramilitaries with the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., broke through the camp perimeter on Friday evening after hours of shelling. They then destroyed hundreds of homes and the camp’s main market before turning their attack on the camp’s last remaining medical clinic, according to Relief International, the aid group that runs the facility.Nine hospital employees were killed, including the head doctor, the aid group said in a statement on Saturday. “We have learned the unthinkable,” the statement said. “This is a profound tragedy for our organization.”Kashif Shafique, the group’s Sudan director, said in a phone interview that the aid workers — five medics and four drivers, his entire staff at the clinic — had been shot dead.Paramilitaries had warned the medics to leave the day before the attack, Mr. Shafique said. But they had to treat civilians wounded by shelling and, in any event, the main routes out of the camp were closed.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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    British Government Takes Control of Country’s Last Major Steel Mill

    London says it acted to prevent the plant’s Chinese owners from closing the plant, threatening jobs and national security.The British government moved swiftly on Saturday to take control of operations at the country’s last large crude steel producing facility, in what appeared to be a major step toward nationalizing the plant.In an unusual and dramatic move, the government had summoned lawmakers back from vacation on Saturday to approve the government’s emergency legislation.The government said it was acting to prevent the owners of the British Steel complex in Scunthorpe, a Chinese company called Jingye, from taking steps unilaterally to close the blast furnaces, potentially costing 2,700 jobs.“Steel is fundamental to Britain’s industrial strength, to our security and to our identity as a primary global power,” Jonathan Reynolds, the business and trade secretary, told Parliament on Saturday in introducing the legislation.Members of the Unite and Community unions marched in Scunthorpe on Saturday.Ryan Jenkinson/Getty ImagesDespite the interest in preserving steel making now, it has long been in decline in Britain. Crude steel output has fallen by about 50 percent over the last decade, according to UK Steel, a trade group.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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    Harvard Professors Sue Trump Administration Over Threat to Federal Funds

    Two groups representing Harvard professors sued the Trump administration on Friday, saying that its threat to cut billions in federal funding for the university violates free speech and other First Amendment rights.The lawsuit by the American Association of University Professors and the Harvard faculty chapter of the group follows the Trump administration’s announcement earlier this month that it was reviewing about $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives. The administration also sent the school a list of demands that it must meet if it wants to keep the funds.The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, seeks a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from cutting the funds.“This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus,” the lawsuit said.The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.The Trump administration has been on a campaign against elite universities that it views as being too lax on antisemitism. In a recent letter to Harvard, the administration said the school had “fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence.” Other top schools like Columbia and Cornell have also been targeted.Harvard did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. In recent weeks, Alan Garber, the university president, has said that Harvard had spent “considerable effort” during the past 15 months addressing antisemitism, adding that there was still more work to be done.In a statement, Andrew Manuel Crespo, a law professor at Harvard and general counsel of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter, said the administration’s policies are a pretext to chill universities and their faculties from engaging in speech, teaching and research that don’t align with President Trump’s views.“Harvard faculty have the constitutional right to speak, teach and conduct research without fearing that the government will retaliate against their viewpoints by canceling grants,” Mr. Crespo said.On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of protesters, including students, professors and even the mayor of Cambridge, braved the cold to protest against the Trump administration’s threat to cut Harvard’s funding. At a packed park in Cambridge, Mass., home to Harvard’s campus, they called on the university to lead the charge against the government’s crackdown on higher education.“Harvard possesses not just the resources to withstand the pressure,” said Mayor Denise Simmons of Cambridge, “but the moral obligation to do so.”Miles J. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass. More

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    Max Kozloff, Art Critic Who Became an Artist Himself, Dies at 91

    He wrote extensively about the New York art scene in the 1960s and ’70s, then shifted to become a prominent street photographer.Max Kozloff, a leading art critic who helped readers of The Nation and Artforum navigate the array of movements that followed Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s and ’70s, and who later became a well-regarded photographer in his own right, died on April 6 at his home in Manhattan. He was 91.His wife, Joyce Kozloff, said the cause was Parkinson’s disease.As a writer, Mr. Kozloff established himself early on. He became the art critic for The Nation in 1961, when he was a 28-year-old doctoral student at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. He became an associate editor at Artforum three years later and eventually became the editor.He wrote extensively about painting, especially those New York artists who were pushing beyond the waning dominance of Abstract Expressionism, like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. And he tussled with older critics, especially Clement Greenberg, whose ideas he found too doctrinaire to be useful in a time of proliferating artistic movements.Though Mr. Kozloff was far from ideological, he was interested in the ways ideology and political context shaped artistic production.In perhaps his most famous essay, “American Painting During the Cold War,” published in Artforum in 1973, he argued that Abstract Expressionism, precisely because it claimed to exist outside of politics, served as a handmaiden of postwar American dominance, showing the world that a techno-liberal powerhouse could foster great art.As a student of photography, Mr. Kozloff was especially interested in what he considered street photography — seemingly random, spontaneous images of anonymous people engaged in mundane activities.University of New Mexico PressWe 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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    What Spring? Snow Blankets the Northeast.

    Two to five inches of snow fell over an area stretching from Albany, N.Y., to Maine overnight Friday into Saturday morning, forecasters said.Residents across a broad stretch of the Northeast woke up on Saturday to snow blanketing backyards and frosting trees, just as the pastel colors of Easter promised that spring was near.An area stretching from around Albany, N.Y., to Maine experienced moderate snowfall, mostly from two to five inches, overnight Friday into Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service. And while spring technically started on March 20, snowfall at this time of year is far from rare.“In upstate New York, you know, a couple inches here and there is certainly not unheard-of, even in the early spring,” said Abbey Gant, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Albany.In Maine, where two to five inches of snow had fallen by Saturday morning, Michael Clair, a Weather Service meteorologist, said that the snow was “nothing we haven’t seen before.”It’s also something the state might see again before warmer weather moves in.“It’s still too early to say we’re done for sure,” Mr. Clair said. “This is sort of what our spring looks like. It’s a mix of things.”Snow was expected to continue through Saturday, tapering off as the day progressed, before the region dries out next week, forecasters said.For Jill Woodworth, 58, who grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Orange, Mass., for the past 25 years, waking up to snow in April can be routine, but it’s still shocking.In Orange, Mass., snow in April is not necessarily unusual but can still come as a bit of a shock, one resident said.Jill Woodworth“I’ve lived in this area for most of my life, and it’s not unusual, but it’s just like, ‘Oh my God,’” Ms. Woodworth said. “It feels like it’s been a long ramp up to spring with the flowers and the trees.”Ms. Woodworth said she remembered past Aprils when up to two feet of snow had fallen. This time around, she estimated that only about two inches had dusted her backyard, with no need to shovel any snow.“I’ll brush off the car, though,” she said, “before I go get Dunkin’.” More

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    How Lauren Sanchez Helped Design Blue Origin’s Flight Suits

    What do you wear for your first trip to space?If you are like most people, probably whatever spacesuit or astronaut outfit the company (or government agency) you are flying with provides. However, if you are Lauren Sánchez — journalist, pilot, children’s book author, philanthropist and fiancée of Jeff Bezos — the second-richest man on the planet, you have another idea. You think, “Let’s reimagine the flight suit.”“Usually, you know, these suits are made for a man,” Ms. Sánchez said recently on a video call from the West Coast. “Then they get tailored to fit a woman.” Or not tailored: an all-female spacewalk, planned in 2019, had to be canceled because NASA did not have two spacesuits that fit two women. (Instead they sent out one woman and one man.)But Ms. Sánchez is part of the first all-female flight since Russia sent Valentina Tereshkova on a solo flight in 1963. She will be going up on a Blue Origin flight with a pop star (Katy Perry), a journalist (Gayle King), two scientist/activists (Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe) and a film producer (Kerianne Flynn). Feeling like yourself is what makes you feel powerful, she said, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice that because space has been — well, a mostly male space. Even if you are a space tourist, rather than a full-fledged astronaut.So five months ago, Ms. Sánchez got in touch with Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the co-founders of the brand Monse, who are also creative directors of Oscar de la Renta (Mr. Garcia and Ms. Kim made Ms Sánchez’s 2024 Met Gala outfit). She wanted to know if they would work with Blue Origin, Mr. Bezos’ space company.“I was like: right away!” Mr. Garcia said over Zoom.The result of their collaboration will be unveiled on Monday, when Ms. Sánchez and crew climb into the Blue Origin rocket in West Texas, and take off for their approximately 11-minute trip past the Kármán line and into zero gravity.Details of the new Blue Origin/Monse flight suits, including the passengers’s name, mission patch, dual zippers, Blue Origin insignia, and customizable flared leg.Photographs by Justin Hamel for The New York TimesWe 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 2025 Masters In Photographs

    The Masters Tournament is a symbolic start of spring in North America, and the hundreds of acres of magnificent flora at Augusta National Golf Club — azaleas, pink dogwood, yellow jasmine, magnolia and oak trees, and hundreds more varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees for which the course’s 18 holes are famously named — are a breathtaking backdrop for the first major tournament of the men’s golf season.Justin Rose began Saturday’s third round at eight under par, followed closely by the two-time U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau at seven under and the 2022 Masters runner-up Rory McIlroy tied with Corey Connors at six under. Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 and 2024 Masters champion, was in a four-way tie for fifth at five under par.Rose, a 44-year-old Englishman, has led or shared the lead after a round at the Masters 10 times, including on both Thursday and Friday, but has never won a green jacket. He finished as a runner-up in 2015 and again in 2017, when he lost in a playoff to Sergio Garcia.Jack Nicklaus, a six-time Masters champion, hit an honorary tee shot on Thursday ahead of the tournament getting underway.Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson were honorary starters during a ceremony at the beginning of the first round.Billy Horschel, right, high-fives his daughter Colbie after she made a putt during the par-3 contest on Wednesday.Justin Rose hits from the sand trap on the second hole during the second round on Friday.Collin Morikawa skips a shot across Redbud pond on the 16th hole on Tuesday, a practice round tradition at the Masters.Byeong Hun An during a practice round in the rain on Monday before the tournament began.Bryson DeChambeau, right, on the third hole during the second round on Friday.Rory McIlroy missing a birdie putt on the 18th green on Friday.Fred Couples fist-bumps his caddie after making a birdie on the ninth hole in the second round.Patrons crossing the 15th fairway. More