Aurelia Butler

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    The Supreme Court Case on Trans Care Ruled Against My Daughter

    There is something incredibly surreal about finding your family at the center of a landmark Supreme Court decision, from the robes and the formality to the long, red velvet curtains behind the justices. No mother imagines that her everyday fight to do right by her child would land her there.My daughter, L.W., came out as transgender late in 2020. She was just shy of 13. Four and a half years later, she is thriving, healthy and happy after pursuing evidence-based gender-affirming care. But the very care that is improving her life became a primary political target of the Republican supermajority in our home state, Tennessee. When the legislature banned my daughter’s care in 2023, we fought back by suing the state. Today, we found out that we lost that case when the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, to uphold Tennessee’s ban on such care.I am beside myself. Our heartfelt plea was not enough. The compelling, expert legal arguments by our lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal were not enough. I had to face my daughter and tell her that our last hope is gone. She’s angry, scared and hurt that the American system of democracy that we so put on a pedestal didn’t work to protect her.My family did not start this journey to land in Washington in front of that white marble hall of justice. We ended up there through parental and civic duty. My and my husband’s demands in our lawsuit against the ban felt quite basic: Let us do our job as parents. Let us love and care for our daughter in the best way we and our doctors know how. Don’t let our child’s very existence be a political wedge issue. Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a parent of a teenager is hard enough.Raising a transgender kid in Tennessee, we know that not everyone understands people like her or her health care — and that’s OK. We don’t need to agree on everything. But we do need our fundamental rights respected.I have devoted myself to finding our daughter consistent care in one state after another. The nightmare of our disrupted life pales in comparison to the nightmare of losing access to the health care that has allowed our daughter to thrive. After Tennessee passed its ban, we traveled to another provider in a different state. After that state passed a ban, we moved on to another one. We are now on our fourth state. The five-hour drive each way, taking time off work and school, is hard, but thankfully, we found a clinic and pharmacy that take our insurance.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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    Ex-Yankee Is Awarded About $500,000 in Damages for Moldy Greenwich Mansion

    Josh Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with Toronto, sued his former landlord over the conditions at his $55,000-a-month rental property.A Connecticut jury on Wednesday awarded the former New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson damages that are expected to top $500,000 from the ex-landlord of his $55,000-a-month Greenwich, Conn., rental mansion, which he complained was plagued by mold and squirrels.Mr. Donaldson, 39, terminated the lease about six weeks after moving into the five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot home in April 2022 with his now-wife, Briana, who was pregnant at the time, and their 17-month-old daughter.In a federal lawsuit filed in Connecticut in June 2022, the now-retired baseball player accused the home’s owner, Bill Grous, of breach of contract and said that the rental in Greenwich’s backcountry section was a money pit.The neighborhood, sought after for its sprawling estates and privacy, is a magnet for professional athletes, other celebrities and financiers.Mr. Donaldson, a former American League Most Valuable Player with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, moved into the mansion a few weeks after being traded to the Yankees from the Minnesota Twins.His two seasons in New York were rocky. Mr. Donaldson struggled to replicate his success and was suspended by Major League Baseball in May 2022 for one game for repeatedly calling Tim Anderson, who is Black and was a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox at the time, “Jackie,” a reference to Jackie Robinson. In August 2023, Mr. Donaldson was released by the Yankees.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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    As Trump Debates Iran Action, the Meaning of ‘America First’ Is on the Line

    As President Trump ponders involving the United States in Israel’s attacks on Iran, the G.O.P. faces a thorny question: What does “America first” really mean?A decade ago, President Trump electrified conservatives with his promises to get the United States out of foreign entanglements and to always put — say it with me — “America first.”As he weighs involving American planes and weaponry in Israel’s attacks on Iran, a brawl has broken out in the Republican Party over what “America first” really means.I wrote today about how a swath of Trump’s base is in an uproar over the president’s increasing openness to deploying U.S. warplanes — and perhaps even 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs — against Iran in an effort to help Israel finish off its nuclear program.“Everyone is finding out who are real America First/MAGA and who were fake and just said it bc it was popular,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted on X over the weekend. She added, “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.”The anger extends well beyond Greene’s social-media account, to cable television and the podcast feeds of the likes of Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Candace Owens. They are passionately arguing that intervening in Iran would contravene Trump’s long-held promise to steer the nation out of, not into, foreign entanglements, and threaten to fracture his whole coalition.It’s a remarkable fight, and one that raises a bigger question about who is really the keeper of Trump’s political flame. Is it the non-interventionists who have been there from the start, or the Republican hawks — the Senator Lindsey Grahams of the world — who are now sticking by the president?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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    What Is a ‘Fridge Cigarette’? A New Term for Diet Coke Gains Traction.

    The click of the can, the sound of the bubbles: The internet is reframing the humble soda as an indulgent escape.Two Sundays ago, Rachel Reno relaxed in a park in New York with a sandwich, a bag of chips and a fridge cigarette.While lounging, she posted a video of herself, with the caption: “overheard someone call Diet Coke a ‘fridge cigarette’ and nothing’s been more true to me since.”She cracked open the can and took a sip.“I feel like it’s one of those things that doesn’t need a lot of explanation,” Ms. Reno, a freelance creator in New York, said in an interview. She first heard the alternative name for a can of diet soda from a co-worker at her previous job at an advertising agency. Those who get it know that “the crack of the can is like the spark of a lighter,” she said. Then comes the sparkly sound of fizzing bubbles and the mouthfeel of that first hit, and suddenly “all the worries and cares in the world go away.”Crucially, having a soda is the equivalent of stepping outside for a few minutes for a smoke break. It’s an excuse to “take a moment,” Ms. Reno said.

    @reallyrachelreno time for a crispy ciggy in the summer @Diet Coke #fyp #dietcoke ♬ Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift Ms. Reno’s video in the park has been viewed more than three million times and received almost 300,000 likes, with many people commenting on how accurate that term is. It has inspired others to use the expression, capturing not just a shift in perception of soda and cigarettes but also a collective search for a breather, as Casey Lewis, founder and writer of the internet-culture newsletter After School, described it.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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    Justice Dept. to Cut Gun-Sale Inspectors by Two-Thirds as It Moves to Downsize A.T.F.

    The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals, according to budget documents.The move, part of the Trump administration’s effort to defang and downsize the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, comes as the department considers merging the A.T.F. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It follows a rollback of Biden-era regulations aimed at stemming the spread of deadly homemade firearms, along with other gun control measures.The department plans to eliminate 541 of the estimated 800 investigators responsible for determining whether federal dealers are following federal law and regulations intended to keep guns away from traffickers, straw purchasers, criminals and those found to have severe mental illness, according to a budget summary quietly circulated last week.Department officials estimated the reductions would reduce “A.T.F.’s capacity to regulate the firearms and explosives industries by approximately 40 percent” in the fiscal year starting in November — even though the staff cuts represent two-thirds of the inspection work force. The cuts are needed to meet the White House demand that A.T.F. cut nearly a third from its budget of $1.6 billion.News of the plan came as a shock to a work force already reeling from months of disruption. Several frontline agency staff members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the cuts would lead to hundreds of layoffs and effectively end the A.T.F.’s role as a serious regulator of gun sales, if they are not reversed by the White House or Congress.“These are devastating cuts to law enforcement funding and would undermine A.T.F.’s ability to keep communities safe from gun violence,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by the former mayor of New York Michael R. Bloomberg. “This budget would be a win for unscrupulous gun dealers and a terrible setback for A.T.F.’s state and local law enforcement partners.”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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    Katie Miller’s Washington Rise Takes a Musk Detour

    She is one half of a Trump-world power couple. But she’s on Team Elon. It’s gotten complicated.It was the three-word gavel-bang heard across Washington — the conversation-ender meant to cow colleagues and cabinet secretaries, deployed daily by a slight woman with a big job:“Elon wants this.”For months, Katie Miller, the all-purpose operative for the world’s richest man, had been entrusted to help execute Elon Musk’s merry rampage through the federal government, conveying his priorities, his vision, his likes and dislikes with the tacit force of an executive order.When she spoke, Ms. Miller implied to Trump acolytes high and low, they should proceed as if it were Mr. Musk’s mouth moving.Where he walked, Ms. Miller invariably followed, sometimes trailing him straight into Oval Office meetings — and occasionally finding herself gently redirected back out of the room by White House staff, an administration official recalled.Mr. Musk even held court regularly off the clock at the home Ms. Miller shares with Stephen Miller, President Trump’s most powerful policy aide, and their three young children, according to people familiar with the matter.Now, Mr. Musk is gone — or out of Washington, anyway — in a spectacular, market-moving, mutually vicious fireball of a breakup with Mr. Trump.And life in the home of Katie and Stephen Miller has gotten complicated.Mr. Miller is the millennial avatar of all that MAGA loves and liberals loathe about the Trump agenda. His loyalty to the president is unquestioned. Ms. Miller, a 33-year-old veteran of the first Trump administration, is a top lieutenant for Mr. Trump’s friend-turned-enemy-turned-who-knows-what-now. How and whether the present arrangement can be sustained is uncertain — and widely buzzed about in Washington, especially among the many Trump allies who do not entirely miss her.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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    Real Risk to Youth Mental Health Is ‘Addictive Use,’ Not Screen Time Alone, Study Finds

    Researchers found children with highly addictive use of phones, video games or social media were two to three times as likely to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves.As Americans scramble to respond to rising rates of suicidal behavior among youth, many policymakers have locked in on an alarming metric: the number of hours a day that American children spend glued to a glowing screen.But a study published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA, which followed more than 4,000 children across the country, arrived at a surprising conclusion: Longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later.Instead, the authors found, the children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become “addictive” — that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more. Some children exhibited addictive behavior even if their screen time was relatively low, they said.The researchers found addictive behavior to be very common among children — especially in their use of mobile phones, where nearly half had high addictive use. By age 14, children with high or increasing addictive behavior were two to three times as likely as other children to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves, the study found.“This is the first study to identify that addictive use is important, and is actually the root cause, instead of time,” said Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College and the study’s lead author.Addictive behavior may be more difficult to control during childhood, before the prefrontal cortex, which acts as a brake on impulsivity, is fully developed.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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    See where Israeli strikes have damaged Iranian nuclear and military facilities so far.

    The nuclear watchdog of the United Nations has confirmed Israeli strikes on multiple facilities in Iran.The International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday that Israel struck two centrifuge production facilities in Iran, the latest hit to the country’s nuclear and missile infrastructure amid ongoing strikes that began last Friday.Earlier attacks severely damaged Iran’s largest uranium enrichment center at Natanz. On Tuesday, the I.A.E.A. — the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations — confirmed “direct impacts” on the site’s underground enrichment halls.The Israeli military also struck laboratories that work to convert uranium gas back into a metal — one of the last stages of building a weapon — at a complex outside the ancient capital of Isfahan where Iran’s most likely repository of near bomb-grade nuclear fuel is stored. The stockpile has so far been spared from attack.Iranian missile capability has also been degraded by the strikes. Israel said it struck 12 missile launch sites and storage facilities on Tuesday alone.See a more detailed look at the damage to strategic infrastructure at the link below.See What Strategic Infrastructure Israel Has Damaged in IranIsrael has attacked nuclear, military and energy facilities in Iran. Here is a look at the destruction so far. More