Aurelia Butler

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    NYT Crossword Answers for Feb. 28, 2025

    Michael LiebermanJump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — Having even one crossword published in The New York Times is a tough feat, much less having done so 27 times. That is what Michael Lieberman has done, and that accomplishment is something to be admired. That goes double for when the puzzles are lively and fun, as Mr. Lieberman’s are. Today’s grid is no different.Not to be picky, but there’s just one thing that’s bothering me — Mr. Lieberman has not hit for the cycle yet. He’s almost there: Of those 27 puzzles, he has had at least one crossword published on six of the seven days of the week, except for Saturday. Just one Saturday puzzle and Mr. Lieberman will be among the illustrious cycle hitters who can seemingly construct a crossword for all sorts of skill levels.I know you have this in you, Mr. Lieberman. No pressure. Just one Saturday puzzle, and then we can give you your cycle hitter smoking jacket.Tricky Clues1A. This [Splashy government expenditure?] is a PUBLIC POOL.16A. Annual leave is another term for vacation, but to [Accrue annual leaves?] in this puzzle means to RAKE them up after they’ve fallen from their trees.23A. In business, [overhead expenses?] include items such as rent, utilities and employee salaries. Other overhead expenses include things people wear over their heads, such as BEANIES.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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    Map: Where Medicaid Enrollment in the U.S. Is the Highest

    <!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>In eastern Louisiana, where Representative Julia Letlow, a Republican, was elected in 2024 by a wide margin, about one-third of the population is enrolled in the program.–><!–> –> <!–> [–> <!–> ]–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>And in California’s Central Valley, Republicans control a district where two-thirds of the population is on Medicaid, one […] More

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    Office Closures and Relocations Part of Trump’s Plan for Large-Scale Layoffs

    The newly released requirements for agencies to move forward with mass cuts to the federal work force have employees even more on edge.The Trump administration has moved into its next push and most aggressive yet to drastically overhaul the federal bureaucracy, demanding that agencies produce plans for large work force cuts that involve closing offices and relocating employees outside the Washington region.Agencies have been instructed to turn in a detailed list of divisions that should be consolidated or cut entirely by March 13, according to a recent memo from the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget, as part of a “reduction in force” process ordered by President Trump and orchestrated in large part by Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become a top adviser.By April 14, agencies must deliver new organizational charts and all proposals for relocating offices in the Washington region to areas of the country where the cost of living is lower, according to the memo. Agencies were instructed to be prepared to roll out this part of the plan by the end of September.For government agencies to fulfill these requirements would be an ambitious undertaking under any circumstances. But to accomplish this in accordance with the law in such a short time frame is most likely impossible, experts say.“No agency can do a genuine strategic plan in the next two weeks,” said Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. “They need to figure out what they want to do and how best to do it, before they take a chain saw to government and cut indiscriminately.”The government is expected to follow specific rules when conducting these reductions in force. For one, employees need 60 days’ notice, said Kevin Owen, an employment lawyer with Gilbert Employment Law. (The recent White House guidance said that agencies can request an exception to provide just 30 days’ notice.)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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    ‘Epstein Files’ Release, Hyped by Pam Bondi, Falls Short of Expectations

    The release of flight logs and Jeffrey Epstein’s contact list by the attorney general was met with criticism from those who had expected the documents to reveal new information.For days, Attorney General Pam Bondi had talked about releasing the “Epstein files,” supposedly secret documents the federal government has on some of the powerful men who were in the orbit of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.But the roughly 200 pages of documents that Ms. Bondi released on Thursday contained little new information pointing to wrongdoing by anyone other than Mr. Epstein, a registered sex offender who died in jail. The document dump largely consisted of flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s planes — long ago made public — and contact information for hundreds of associates, along with brief descriptions of items found at his residences.The release was billed as a gesture ushering in a new era of transparency at the Justice Department. But the hyped first release of documents (which Ms. Bondi teased as “breaking news” in a Fox News appearance on Wednesday night) appeared to be mostly political theater. Its confusing daylong rollout even spun off a few new conspiracy theories among some Trump supporters, who view the Epstein investigation as a fountainhead for other conspiracies.On Thursday afternoon, Ms. Bondi and Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., offered a sneak preview of the documents to several conservative influencers, some of whom emerged from the West Wing waving chunky white binders with the label “The Epstein Files: Phase I.” One of them later called it an “interesting souvenir.”But by midafternoon, the Justice Department had not posted the contents. And Ms. Bondi was drawing criticism on social media from those who had taken her at her word the night before. The conservative personality Glenn Beck posted on X: “The Epstein files are a total joke,” and asked, “Who is subverting POTUS?”Ms. Bondi responded by promising more documents to come. Later, she said that a “source” in the F.B.I. field office in New York City had told her the bureau withheld “thousands” of previously unknown pages of Epstein-related documents and that she was determined to get them, according to a letter her spokesman provided to reporters.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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    Number of Trans Troops Far Lower Than Estimated, Pentagon Figures Show

    The Defense Department said 4,240 service members, or about 0.2 percent of those in uniform, have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Previous estimates had put the number at triple that figure.The military released on Thursday the number of transgender troops currently serving in the armed forces, revealing a population much smaller than recent estimates. Currently, according to those figures, 4,240 people in the military — about 0.2 percent of the 2 million people in uniform — have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.That diagnosis is the best way the military has of tracking the number of trans troops in the force. Previous estimates usually put the number of trans troops at about 15,000.The Trump administration has implemented new policies that bar trans troops from serving, citing disruption in the ranks and the cost of medical care as primary reasons. President Trump has characterized the cost of providing care as “tremendous.” And in an executive order last month, the administration asserted that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle.”The military also released for the first time figures on the cost of providing gender-affirming medical care for trans troops. They show that since 2015, when trans troops were first allowed to serve openly, the military has spent $52 million on their care, including psychotherapy, hormone therapy and surgery, or about $9,000 per trans service member. The total is a fraction of the $17 billion annual budget for the Defense Department’s health agency.The Defense Department data shows that about half of the troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria required no medical care at all. About a quarter required surgery.For years, the military insisted that it had no way of tracking figures related to transgender troops. The Pentagon released the numbers after a federal judge ordered the Defense Department on Thursday to provide data on trans service members, ruling in a lawsuit filed by a group of trans service members who challenged the Trump policies barring them. More

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    ‘Dakar 2000’ Review: Which One Is the Liar?

    In Rajiv Joseph’s two-hander, a couple of Americans in Senegal twist, deflect, massage, stretch and maybe even tell the truth.We can’t say we weren’t warned. Boubs, the narrator of Rajiv Joseph’s new play, kicks off the show by informing the audience that “all of it is true. Or most of it, anyway.”That “most of it” does a lot of work in “Dakar 2000,” which just opened at Manhattan Theater Club. But while ambiguity and uncertainty have long been great fertilizers for storytelling, Joseph’s two-hander about a couple of Americans in Senegal remains strangely uninvolving.Some of the things Boubs (Abubakr Ali), a Peace Corps volunteer, tells the State Department employee Dina (Mia Barron, from “The Coast Starlight” and “Hurricane Diane”) may well be fabrications. Over the course of her friendly but insistent interrogation of Boubs, who was involved in a truck accident, we begin to suspect that Dina is no slouch, either, at fudging the facts.“You’re a good liar!” she tells Boubs at one point. “I don’t begrudge that skill set.”It’s a useful one for playwrights, too. Mining his own history, Joseph (“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” “King James”) did go on a Peace Corps mission in Senegal after college, an experience he credits as instrumental in his becoming a writer. It’s unclear whether, as happens to this play’s hero, Joseph was ever asked to possibly fingerprint an alleged terrorist who was passed out, or maybe dead, in his hotel room. Has Joseph been the Le Carré of the Rialto all these years?But while the possibility of exciting action always hovers on the periphery, May Adrales’s low-energy production is bereft of any tension. That is an achievement of some kind for a show dealing with covert operations, and one in which a character is traumatized (or claims to be) by the 1998 bombing of the United States embassy in Tanzania.“Dakar 2000” begins promisingly as Dina grills Boubs about his accident, then starts making demands. It’s fun to watch her run rings around him, and Joseph and the cast keep the action moving as we ponder what Dina really wants, and whether Boubs is a useful idiot, a cunning faux-naïf, an idealistic young man, or all of the above. That Dina appears to be haunted by apocalyptic feelings — the play takes place during the chaotic, unsettled final lead-up to Y2K, when the world felt as if it was built on shifting sands — should make the stakes even weightier.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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    Former L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley Appeals Her Dismissal

    The appeal came less than a week after Mayor Karen Bass removed the chief from her job. She blamed her for a lack of preparation as a blaze destroyed the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.The former chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department appealed her dismissal on Thursday, less than a week after Mayor Karen Bass removed her from the post and blamed her for not being prepared as a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.Kristin Crowley, the former chief, sent a letter to the Los Angeles City Council informing its members of her decision to appeal. “I look forward to hearing from you about next steps, if any,” she wrote on Thursday.Zach Seidl, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Ms. Crowley had a right to appeal her removal.But it is unlikely to succeed. Two-thirds of the City Council, or 10 of its 15 members, would need to approve the appeal for Ms. Crowley to be reinstated, according to the City Charter. At least four council members, including the council president, stood behind Mayor Bass at the news conference last week as she announced Ms. Crowley’s replacement.Ms. Bass has said publicly that she made a mistake leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the wildfires erupted across the region in early January. For weeks, she privately told friends that she would never have left had she been fully briefed on the scope of the threat.The mayor blamed Ms. Crowley for that lack of warning, an assertion that the chief has disputed. Ms. Crowley said that before Ms. Bass left the country, there had been numerous alerts from weather forecasters about the dangerous conditions.The dismissal came after weeks of tension. Veteran fire officials in the region had claimed that the response helmed by Ms. Crowley was significantly less aggressive and experienced than the department had mounted in past situations of high fire risk. Ms. Crowley maintained that the department had been underfunded, which the mayor and city budget officials denied.When Ms. Crowley was removed, the mayor said that she would remain with the Fire Department in an assignment to be determined by the new interim chief. At the time, Ms. Crowley seemed prepared to accept the agreement.But leaders of the city firefighters’ union have since pushed back on her removal, charging that Ms. Crowley was scapegoated for a ferocious fire driven by hurricane-force winds that would have been devastating regardless, and for ongoing budget constraints that were the fault of City Hall.Ms. Bass’s predecessor, Eric Garcetti, had appointed Ms. Crowley. The City Council has typically deferred to the mayor’s right to appoint new general managers. More

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    S.E.C. Declares Memecoins Are Not Subject to Oversight

    The agency said the novelty digital assets were not securities, a month after President Trump issued his own memecoin.The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that so-called memecoins — novelty digital assets — are not subject to regulatory oversight because they are not considered securities.The determination could have big ramifications for the crypto industry and President Trump, who issued his own memecoin days before his inauguration.The S.E.C.’s policy on memecoins is consistent with the light regulatory approach that Mr. Trump promised to take toward the crypto industry during his campaign.Mr. Trump and his family firmly embraced digital currencies last year by teaming up with a new digital assets company, World Liberty Financial. The memecoin the president introduced during pre-inaugural festivities in January, called $Trump, spurred controversy because it swung wildly in value and generated hefty trading fees for Mr. Trump.The S.E.C.’s policy statement did not refer to Mr. Trump’s memecoin or any other specific digital novelty item. But the commission clearly acknowledged the risk to investors who put money into such products, even as it said it would not regulate them.“Although the offer and sale of memecoins may not be subject to the federal securities laws, fraudulent conduct related to the offer and sale of memecoins may be subject to enforcement action or prosecution by other federal or state agencies,” said the statement, from the S.E.C.’s division of corporation finance.In reaching its conclusion, the S.E.C. employed a nearly century-old Supreme Court decision to determine that a memecoin should not be considered an investment contract and therefore subject to regulatory oversight.Under Gary Gensler, who served as S.E.C. chair under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the regulator had used that same Supreme Court case to argue that most digital assets are securities and subject to regulation.The S.E.C., apparently worried that traders and speculators could use its rationale to evade regulation, said it would look closely at any new product that tried to label itself a “memecoin.”The agency has moved quickly to dismantle the aggressive approach taken by Mr. Gensler in regulating cryptocurrencies. His enforcement actions angered the crypto industry and led many of its investors to contribute mightily to the campaign of Mr. Trump, who at one time was a crypto critic.Also on Thursday, the S.E.C. officially moved to dismiss its enforcement lawsuit against Coinbase, one of the nation’s largest crypto firms. The S.E.C. also has told a number of crypto companies that it was ending investigations into their activities.The S.E.C. also said in a court filing this week that it was trying to reach a settlement in a civil fraud case it filed against Justin Sun, a crypto investor. Mr. Sun also is an adviser to World Liberty and a significant investor in its digital token. The charges against him do not involve his investment with World Liberty. More