Aurelia Butler

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    San Francisco Leader Faces Recall After Drivers Lost Their Great Highway

    Joel Engardio, an elected city supervisor, angered thousands of voters by helping to convert a major thoroughfare into a coastal park.An elected leader in San Francisco will face a recall for helping to turn a major thoroughfare into a beachside park, a move that some voters consider a grievous mistake.The city’s Department of Elections announced on Thursday that an attempt to oust Supervisor Joel Engardio from office had qualified for the ballot, and that a special election would be held on Sept. 16.Forget party politics. Mr. Engardio fell victim to park politics in a city that remains fiercely divided over the shutting down of the Great Highway and its conversion into a coastal playground known as Sunset Dunes this year.The park won rave reviews from visitors who run along the Pacific Ocean and lounge in hammocks there. But it angered residents who relied on the roadway to shave time, and others who said that neighborhood streets were now clogged with would-be Great Highway drivers.Those detractors now want to remove Mr. Engardio because he led the park conversion effort.It marks San Francisco’s third recall election in less than four years, the latest sign of a restless electorate that remains dissatisfied with its city leaders over quality-of-life issues. Mr. Engardio is one of 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which is akin to a city council.The park won rave reviews from visitors who run along the Pacific Ocean and lounge in hammocks there. But it angered residents who relied on the roadway to shave time.Loren Elliott 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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    NYT Crossword Answers for May 30, 2025

    Just kidding — Rafael Musa gives us the good words.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — This is Rafael Musa’s 19th crossword in The New York Times, and it’s a fun one. The stacks in the corners are strong, and the clues are lively yet gentle enough to give a fair experience to those who are just starting to solve themeless puzzles.One of the things I like about Mr. Musa is that he shares his time generously with aspiring constructors. He has collaborated with others on 13 of his Times crosswords.If you are considering making your own puzzle, he has provided his email address at the end of his notes. You couldn’t be in better hands.Tricky Clues7A. I love this clue. It’s the language version of a trick of the light. [Something that’s filled with bad words] sounds as if the bad words are actually filling something, but read the clue again (and again, if necessary — I had to). “With” is doing double duty here. The clue needs to be read as “Something that’s filled by using bad words.” The answer is SWEAR JAR.16A. If you had “BBQ sauce” as an answer to [Bottleful at a barbecue], remember that a word in the clue cannot also be in the entry. The answer is HOT SAUCE.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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    ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3 Premiere Recap: Outlook Good

    The new season opener found most of the women prioritizing their men’s needs over their own. That didn’t seem likely to last.My jaw is bruised from hitting the floor when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) tells her gal pals that her boyfriend, Aidan (John Corbett), asked for “no communication” while he deals with family issues — and that she is just fine with giving it to him. No communication. For five full years. And this is supposed to be love?Let’s review how we got here. At the end of Season 2 of “And Just Like That …,” the on-again lovers Carrie and Aidan found themselves at an impasse when Aidan’s son, Wyatt, hit hard times. Wyatt needed paternal supervision — so much so, apparently, that Aidan felt compelled to devote himself to it entirely back home in Virginia. The Gramercy palace Carrie had just purchased for the two of them became a reluctant bachelorette pad, and their love was relegated to a long-distance situationship.At that point, we knew Carrie and Aidan were going to hold onto their love connection but weren’t going to visit each other — as implausible as that seemed alone. What was less apparent until the first few moments of Season 3 was that they weren’t going to speak, period. No texting, no FaceTime, not even the occasional Instagram like. The only hellos they’re exchanging are blank postcards, which they’re each sending back and forth between Virginia and New York, and for Carrie, this is apparently enough. Right.This no-contact-but-stay-together setup was never realistic — even if we suspended every possible disbelief. It is even more absurd that Carrie plays along.It doesn’t take long for Aidan to break his own rule, though. All he needed were three beers and a good, old-fashioned “ache.” He buzz-dials Carrie out of nowhere and lures her into one-sided, rather frantic phone sex. (Carrie may have been more enthusiastic if not for the beady eyes of her kitty-cat, Shoe, who was watching from the edge of the bed. But between that, Aidan’s intoxicated grunts, and a disruptive horn-blare, she just couldn’t quite get there.)Not long after, Carrie calls up Aidan for Round 2, but the time is no good for Aidan. He is back on Wyatt patrol, lying in bed beside his sleeping son. Carrie hangs up in shame.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 Nominates a Former Far-Right Podcast Host to Head an Ethics Watchdog

    The president picked Paul Ingrassia, the current White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which examines public corruption.President Trump on Thursday nominated Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host now serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to a new key role: head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent corruption-fighting agency that safeguards federal whistle-blowers and enforces some ethics laws.The office has had a bumpy ride in the second Trump presidency. In February, Mr. Trump fired the office’s head, Hampton Dellinger. Mr. Dellinger sued to keep his job, was temporarily reinstated by a court order, began investigating complaints arising from the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers and was removed again in March after an appeals court ruled in the administration’s favor. The Office of Special Counsel dropped its inquiry into the mass firings in April.The office had annoyed Mr. Trump during his first term by pursuing allegations of misconduct, resulting in a finding that 13 senior aides had campaigned for his re-election in violation of the law known as the Hatch Act.Before working for Mr. Trump, Mr. Ingrassia, 30, hosted a podcast, “Right on Point,” with his sister, Olivia Ingrassia. In December 2020, as Mr. Trump was contesting his election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the podcast posted on Twitter, “Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election.”Mr. Ingrassia has represented the “manosphere” influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently facing criminal charges in Romania and Britain, and pushed a false theory that Nikki Haley was ineligible to run for president. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.In a Truth Social post on Thursday night, Mr. Trump called Mr. Ingrassia “a highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.”Mr. Ingrassia posted on X that as head of the office, he would “make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workplace, and Revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.” More

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    Musk Leaves Washington Behind but With Powerful Friends in Place

    The world’s richest man created disruption and fear before giving up on revamping government. But his companies will now face less oversight.Just three months ago, Elon Musk stood before a crowd of roaring conservatives and held up a chain saw. He was at the height of his influence, swaggering in a self-designed role with immense power inside and outside the government.“We’re trying to get good things done,” he said, using the chain saw as a metaphor for the deep cuts he was making in government. “But also, like, you know, have a good time doing it.”Mr. Musk’s time in government is over now. His good time ended long before.Mr. Musk is leaving his government position after weeks of declining influence and increasing friction with both President Trump and shareholders of his own private companies. But Mr. Trump on Thursday suggested that he was still aligned with one of his chief political patrons, saying that he would appear with Mr. Musk at the White House on Friday afternoon for a news conference. “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will always be with us, helping all the way,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site. “Elon is terrific!”Mr. Musk’s time in Washington has brought significant benefits to his fastest-growing company, SpaceX, the rocket and satellite communications giant. Musk allies were chosen to run NASA and the Air Force — two of SpaceX’s key customers — and one of the company’s major regulators, the Federal Communications Commission.But Mr. Musk never came close to delivering on the core promise of his tenure: that he could cut $1 trillion from the federal budget.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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    JD Vance’s Campaign Plane Is Being Used for Migrant Deportation Flights

    The Boeing 737 has been chartered more than a dozen times this year by the federal government to deport migrants to several countries in Central America.In its former life, the charter plane with the tail No. N917XA went by the moniker Trump Force Two.The ubiquitous red, white and blue livery logged thousands of miles last year as the campaign plane of JD Vance, who was elected as President Trump’s vice president in November.But that plane — the same one the campaign offered rides on to entice donors to give money — is now carrying out a much different and clandestine kind of task for the Trump administration.The Boeing 737 has been chartered more than a dozen times this year by the federal government to deport migrants to several Central American countries, according to public aviation logs and a group that tracks the flights.The Trump-Vance campaign rode to victory in part on its vow to undertake the largest deportation push in American history. The Trump administration has since expanded the range of people who can be targeted for removal, sped up the deportation process for others and, in some cases, tightened the rules for legal immigrants.In 2018, during President Trump’s first term, the plane was used for at least three deportation flights that took about 360 migrants to El Salvador and Guatemala, according to the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. The center obtained the data through a public records request.A fourth flight, chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of what is known as its ICE Air program, was used to transfer about 144 migrants between detention centers in the United States.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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    Chinese Students Rattled by Trump Plan to ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas

    Students said the latest move had upended their plans and intensified their fears.It had been all figured out, Cici Wang said. Summer at home in China, then back to get her master’s degree in Chicago. After that, if she was lucky, a job in the United States.Now all of that is up in the air, she said, a potential casualty of a crackdown that has upended the future for more than 277,000 Chinese nationals studying in this country.“Hopefully, I’ll be fine,” said Ms. Wang, a 22-year-old aspiring computer scientist, sitting with her parents in the stately main quad of the University of Chicago on Thursday. “But I’m not sure.”Across the country, Chinese students reeled Thursday from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement that the Trump administration would begin “aggressively” revoking visas for Chinese students studying in the United States. More than two dozen students studying in the United States, most of whom did not want their names published for fear of retaliation, told The New York Times that they worried they could lose their academic opportunities in an instant, with little explanation.In a statement late Wednesday, the State Department announced it was focusing on those who were studying in “critical fields” or who had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and was revising visa criteria to “enhance scrutiny” of all future applications from China, including Hong Kong.The vague parameters had a chilling effect on Thursday as students wondered how broadly the Trump administration would apply its new criteria. Mr. Rubio did not define “critical fields,” but science students felt particularly vulnerable because American officials have expressed concerns about the recruiting of U.S.-trained scientists by China. Nor was it clear how American officials would determine which students had ties to the Communist Party.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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    S.E.C. Drops Lawsuit Against Binance, a Crypto Exchange

    The dismissal of charges against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, is the Trump administration’s latest pullback in cryptocurrency enforcement.The Trump administration’s retreat on crypto enforcement continued on Thursday as the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it was dismissing a lawsuit it filed two years ago against the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.The S.E.C. had accused Binance and Mr. Zhao of lying to regulators about its operations in the United States and mishandling customer money.The commission, the nation’s top securities regulator, has moved to dismiss more than a dozen lawsuits or investigations against crypto firms. In February, it asked a federal judge to stay the litigation against Binance as it reassessed its approach to regulating the fast-growing crypto industry.In the four-page dismissal notice, the regulator said it was dropping the litigation “in the exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter.”The dismissal is a signature moment for the S.E.C.’s regulatory rollback given the prominence of Mr. Zhao, a multibillionaire, in the crypto industry.Mr. Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian who is also known as C.Z., pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating federal money-laundering charges. But he spent just four months in federal prison and emerged with most of his financial empire untouched.This month, World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm started by President Trump’s family, announced that it was helping to facilitate a $2 billion business deal between Binance and MGX, an Abu Dubai-backed fund. Executives for World Liberty Financial also met with Mr. Zhao.Mr. Trump, once a critic of the crypto industry, reversed his stance during last year’s presidential campaign and vowed to let the industry flourish and roll back much of the S.E.C.’s regulatory enforcement agenda.Mr. Trump and his family also have become major financial boosters of the crypto industry. Besides World Liberty Financial, they are backing a so-called memecoin that was introduced just days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January.Last week, the president hosted a dinner at his Virginia golf club, and among the guests were the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, known as $TRUMP. The event helped promote sales of the memecoin, which has become a vehicle for investors, including many foreigners, to funnel money to his family.American Bitcoin, a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said this month that it planned to go public.And this week, Mr. Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, said it had raised $2.5 billion from investors to buy up Bitcoin, essentially as an investment strategy. Trump Media, a money-losing venture, is the parent company of Truth Social.Mr. Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, with a stake worth more than $2 billion. His shares are held in a trust managed by his eldest son, Donald Jr., who is a board member.Critics have said the Trump family’s involvement with crypto poses a potential conflict of interest given the S.E.C.’s moves easing the regulation of digital assets.David Yaffe-Bellany More