Aurelia Butler

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    ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 2 Recap: Who Was That Masked Man?

    There are no answers this week — or even hints — to the identity of the dead body in the season premiere, but we do see a robbery.Season 3, Episode 2: ‘Special Treatments’“The White Lotus” has always been a show that centers sensuality, and so far in Season 3, the creator, Mike White, has amplified that dreamy, loopy, intoxicated feeling. In this week’s episode, in a sequence set during the resort’s dinner service, the guests — and we, the viewers — are blitzed with distractions. There are musicians, dancers and acrobats serving as mealtime entertainment, and bursts of flame rising from the table-side food prep. The characters, meanwhile, are still jet-lagged and coping with culture shock — not to mention a little tipsy. (Hey, it’s vacation.)Everything is so overwhelming, surreal that even a sudden outburst of violence feels like a dream.There are no answers this week — or even hints — to the identity of the dead body we saw in the season premiere or the circumstances that will lead to gunshots at this White Lotus. But we do see a robbery. While Chelsea is browsing in the resort’s luxury goods shop, a gun-toting masked marauder executes a smash-and-grab, terrorizing the staff and guests. Who is this criminal? That is another mystery left unsolved for now. It’s just another tease from White that the vibes here in Thailand are off.We do however get more clarity on what’s going with our guests. The Ratliffs mostly spend their first full day at the White Lotus lounging around, getting massages — and, in Saxon’s case, complaining his massage didn’t include a “happy ending.” The only Ratliff who does not pamper himself is the patriarch, Tim. (When their health mentor, Pam, tells him that she didn’t book anything for him, he enthusiastically replies, “You’re killin’ it, Pam!”)After the ominous phone call Tim received from The Wall Street Journal on the night the family arrived in Thailand, he hears in the morning that The Washington Post also wants to talk to him. Whatever shady money laundering scheme he is involved in — which he claims netted him a paltry “10 million” — is about to become international news.The equally troubled Rick takes advantage of one of the spa’s amenities, letting his girlfriend Chelsea talk him into having a “stress-management” session with Dr. Amrita (Shalini Peiris), a meditation specialist. (We first met Amrita last week, in the opening flash-forward with Zion.) Rick shares with Amrita just a little about himself — but nothing about whatever dark mission has led him to Thailand. He tells her his mother was a drug addict and that his father was murdered before Rick was born. He says his stress level typically hovers around an 8 out of 10, unless he has weed. (He does not currently have weed.)It’s hard to know how on-the-level Rick is being with Amrita. He has no reason to lie, but also no reason to be honest. What’s fascinating about the dynamic between these two is that while Amrita is offering what she believes to be some helpful philosophical musings — mainly by suggesting to him that his identity is an “illusion” that “brings you suffering” — he counters by saying that the world is actually very real.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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    6 Takeaways From Alec and Hilaria Baldwin’s TLC Reality Show

    The series begins just before he was scheduled to stand trial in the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust.” The reviews have been somewhat uneasy.Reality television producers had been circling Alec and Hilaria Baldwin for years. His Hollywood fame and history of public combustibility, her social media following and their many children and pets were all classic ingredients for a slice-of-life series.Last year, the couple decided to let the cameras in.They did so at perhaps the most precarious time of Alec Baldwin’s life: the month before he was scheduled to stand trial in New Mexico on an involuntary manslaughter charge, in connection with the fatal shooting of a cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, on the set of the movie “Rust” in 2021. The result is a fly-on-the-wall series called “The Baldwins,” which premieres Sunday on TLC, a network whose marquee titles include “90 Day Fiancé” and “Sister Wives.”The first episode of the show has landed a bit uneasily with critics, who view the show as something of a crisis communications project. Here are six takeaways from the episode.The premiere begins just ahead of Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter trial.Alec and Hilaria Baldwin in court during in the “Rust” accidental shooting case. Alec Baldwin faced a charge of involuntary manslaughter.Pool photo by Ross D Franklin/EPA, via ShutterstockThe filming started in June last year, just before Baldwin was scheduled to stand trial in New Mexico. In the first episode, the couple drives their seven children (and six of their eight dogs and cats) from their home in New York City to their home in the Hamptons, where they often spend the summer.The decision to start filming was a risk. In the event that he had been convicted, Baldwin, who was handling a revolver on set when it discharged a live bullet, would have faced a potential maximum prison sentence of 18 months.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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    At Least 3 Dead After Boat Capsizes Near Staten Island, Officials Say

    Officials said one person was missing and two people were hospitalized after the boat, with six aboard, overturned on Sunday in the Ambrose Channel.At least three people died and one person was still missing after a boat they were in capsized in the frigid waters of the Ambrose Channel near Staten Island on Sunday, officials said.One passenger was in critical condition, the police said, and another passenger was in stable condition. One person was still missing in the water, according to a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Second Class Sydney Phoenix.Emergency operators received a call about a boat taking on water a little after noon on Sunday, according to a Coast Guard news release. It wasn’t immediately known how it overturned or what kind of boat it was.The Coast Guard believes the missing person is in the water about five miles southeast of Breezy Point, N.Y. The search for the person was continuing as of 8:30 p.m.Two of the five people who were in the boat were airlifted to Staten Island University Hospital and three others were taken to the Coast Guard station in Sandy Hook, N.J.Four of the five people pulled from the water were unresponsive, according to the Coast Guard. A police spokesman said three of those on board had died.New York City’s fire and police departments are investigating with the U.S. Coast Guard.The water temperature near the Battery in Manhattan was 36 degrees on Sunday afternoon, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The Ambrose Channel runs between Brooklyn and Staten Island and extends into the Atlantic Ocean. It is the main shipping channel in and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. More

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    Lynne Marie Stewart, Miss Yvonne on ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse,’ Dies at 78

    She was the “most beautiful woman in Puppetland” in the 1980s children’s show starring Paul Reubens, and more recently had a recurring role in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”Lynne Marie Stewart, who played Pee-wee Herman’s perky, bouffant-wigged neighbor, Miss Yvonne, in the 1980s children’s television series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” and the sweet, timorous mother of one of the main characters in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” died on Friday in Los Angeles. She was 78.The cause of her death, at her sister’s home, was cancer, said her manager, Bette Smith. Her doctors found a tumor shortly after Ms. Stewart finished filming a movie called “The Dink,” a comedy starring Jake Johnson and Ben Stiller, in December, Ms. Smith said.Ms. Stewart played a variety of characters in a career that spanned six decades, and had nearly 150 credits as a screen, stage and voice actress starting in 1971, according to IMDb, the entertainment database.But she was perhaps best known for her role as Miss Yvonne, or the “most beautiful woman in Puppetland,” in “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” which ran for five seasons on Saturday mornings on CBS.She was a fixture on the show as Pee-wee Herman’s extravagant neighbor with creative hairdos and a chipper personality.With its whimsical and slyly subversive sense of humor, the show swiftly attracted an audience beyond its core demographic of preadolescent children, and Ms. Stewart and other members of its cast embraced its anarchic and surreal spirit of make-believe.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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    Ten Things I Don’t Want To Hate About You

    On This Week’s Episode:Zach Mack and his dad try to mend a rift between them in a very unusual way.Illustration by Owen FreemanNew 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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    Trump Administration Moves More Migrants to Guantánamo Bay

    The military transported about 15 immigration detainees from Texas to the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Sunday, bringing in new migrants who have been designated for deportation days after it cleared the base of its first group of deportees.No new migrants had been sent to the base since the Homeland Security Department cleared it of 178 Venezuelans on Thursday.A brief announcement did not identify the nationalities of the newest arrivals. Nor did it give exact figures. But a government official said they were in the category of “high-threat illegal aliens,” and therefore were being held in Camp 6, a prison that until last month housed detainees in the war on terrorism.Last week, the Trump administration delivered 177 Venezuelan men who had been designated for deportation from Guantánamo to the Venezuelan government on an airstrip in Honduras.It is unclear why those men had to be taken to Guantánamo on 13 military flights from El Paso from Feb. 4 to Feb. 17, and then shuttled to an air base in Honduras on two chartered U.S. aircraft. On Feb. 10, Venezuela sent one of its commercial airliners to El Paso for 190 other Venezuelan citizens the United States wanted to deport.Juan E. Agudelo, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who is based in Miami, said in a court filing on Thursday that the administration was using Guantánamo to “temporarily house aliens before they are removed to their home country or a safe third country.” Mr. Agudelo was unable to predict the length of the average stay for a migrant before deportation beyond “the time necessary to effect the removal orders.”Sunday’s transfer happened without advanced notice. The U.S. government declined a request last week from a consortium of U.S. civil liberties lawyers that asked for 72 hours’ notice before more people in homeland security custody were sent there.The government said in a filing that it had made arrangements for would-be deportees being held there to speak by phone with lawyers. Three of the men who were sent home on Thursday had one-hour calls with lawyers who had sued for access to the migrants and specifically named those three. More

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    Inmate Dies at N.Y. Prison as Corrections Officers’ Strike Continues

    The 61-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell at Auburn Correctional Facility, one of dozens of state prisons where corrections officers have walked off the job over working conditions.An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said.The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, just west of Syracuse, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.Security and medical workers at the prison and a member of the National Guard tried to revive him but were unsuccessful, said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department.The cause of Mr. Grant’s death is under investigation. He had been unwell, according to two prisoners at Auburn and another person who reviewed information about Mr. Grant’s health. That person said Mr. Grant had had several strokes: At least five were documented, including at least one in the past few weeks. The two prisoners said Mr. Grant had asked for medical help days earlier but had been brushed off. The corrections department did not respond to questions about Mr. Grant’s health before his death.Mr. Grant entered custody in 2011 and was serving a sentence of 34 to 40 years for first-degree rape and burglary, Mr. Mailey said.His death comes amid mounting tension and public scrutiny of the state’s prison system. Corrections officers at dozens of facilities, including Auburn, have continued wildcat strikes for days — without their union’s authorization and in defiance of a judge’s order — to protest what they say are dangerous working conditions, severe staffing shortages and forced overtime. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard soldiers to act as replacement workers.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, Again, Chooses Loyalty Over Leadership

    In an era that demands stable, experienced leadership, President Trump’s decision Friday to remove Gen. Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — alongside other military firings and a series of contentious cabinet appointments — underscored once again an alarming preference for loyalty over expertise. This shift doesn’t just undermine the future of policy and governance; it destabilizes the very foundation of the institutions that have long safeguarded America’s democracy and substitutes politics for professionalism.The ousting of General Brown, a leader celebrated for his strategic acumen, deep experience and steady guidance, in favor of a less-tested and seemingly more compliant figure raises urgent questions: Will the new Joint Chiefs chairman dare to give Mr. Trump honest advice that he doesn’t want to hear? How will the president try to exert power over the Joint Chiefs, who have historically been essential sources of expertise and seasoned counsel? How would a politicized change in Joint Chiefs leadership affect complex discussions about geopolitical priorities, from tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East to the South China Sea?Friday’s purge at the Pentagon isn’t an isolated maneuver — it’s indicative of an administration intent on reshaping itself around the president’s personal network. Consider what we now know of who will serve as Mr. Trump’s cabinet. These selections follow a perilous trend where qualifications take a back seat to fealty, and where the echo of agreement becomes more valuable than evidence-based expertise.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s most notable qualification for his job was his tenure as a Fox News political commentator, a credential that has frequently eclipsed any engagement with the complex realities of defense strategy for the president. Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing raised serious concerns about excessive drinking and how he treats women. To date, his leadership suggests a Pentagon more attuned to the president’s political playbook than the sobering calculus of global military engagement. His recent remarks on retreating from Ukraine, for instance, sent allies in Europe reeling, and the administration scrambling to walk them back.Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., named to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Kennedy has been a vocal skeptic of vaccines, promoting misinformation that undermines public health. His appointment to H.H.S. doesn’t just defy logic; it represents an affront to the foundational principles of the department he now oversees, which is already shelving some campaigns for flu shots and other vaccines. In this context, science is sidelined in favor of fringe theories, jeopardizing the nation’s ability to effectively manage current and future health challenges.Similarly, Tulsi Gabbard’s appointment as the country’s top intelligence officer raises multiple red flags. Beyond her military background and support of Mr. Trump’s agenda, what are Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications to oversee the president’s intel briefings and to coordinate the various branches of the intelligence community? Her foreign policy views frequently conflict with established U.S. approaches, and she has demonstrated sympathy for and defended authoritarian figures such as Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.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