Aurelia Butler

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    Judge Blocks Shutdown of Biden-Era Migrant Entry Programs

    The sweeping order applied to hundreds of thousands of people legally in the country through programs put in place for Ukrainians, Afghans and others.A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from pulling legal protections from hundreds of thousands of people who entered the United States through Biden-era programs, ordering the government to restart processing applications for migrants who are renewing their status.In a sweeping order that extended to Ukrainians and Afghans, as well as military members and their relatives, the judge, Indira Talwani of Federal District Court in Massachusetts, wrote that the Trump administration’s categorical termination of legal pathways for those groups was probably unlawful and had the potential to sow discord across the country.The decision is a major victory for civil and immigrant rights groups that had sued to stop the administration amid a wider campaign by President Trump to strip legal status from a variety of groups living, working and studying in the country on a temporary basis.Judge Talwani wrote that the overarching campaign to strip the protections from those who had already been granted them represented a major escalation by the Trump administration that would cause chaos once the programs were wound down.In April, she had issued a similar order that applied more narrowly to hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with temporary legal status through another program. The government is seeking a reversal of that decision before the Supreme Court.“This court emphasizes, as it did in its prior order, that it is not in the public interest to manufacture a circumstance in which hundreds of thousands of individuals will, over the course of several months, become unlawfully present in the country, such that these individuals cannot legally work in their communities or provide for themselves and their families,” Judge Talwani wrote. “Nor is it in the public interest for individuals who enlisted and are currently serving in the United States military to face family separation, particularly where some of these individuals joined the military in part to help their loved ones obtain lawful status.”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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    NYT Crossword Answers for May 29, 2025

    John Kugelman lifts our spirits and a few other things with today’s clever Thursday puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — John Kugelman’s puzzles have primarily been Sunday grids in The New York Times. This is his 11th crossword here, yet it’s only his second weekday puzzle.He seems to have a good grip on the tricky Thursday shtick: A nice tug of war between the constructor and the solvers. We’ve seen a theme like today’s before, but for those of you who are beginning to solve Thursday puzzles and are wondering what just happened to you, remember: On Thursdays, anything can happen. Keep your mind open, and you’ll enjoy this puzzle much more.Oh, and take another look at your grid when you are finished. Mr. Kugelman set a certain constraint for himself when making this puzzle, and it transforms the crossword into something really elegant. You can read more about it in his notes.Today’s ThemeMr. Kugelman offers three theme entries whose clues seem to be asking the wrong questions. How could the answer to the clue [Mensa, for one] at 19A be CONS? I mean, there could be something funky going on at this organization for Very Smart People, not that I want to start any rumors, but I doubt that this clue is about that.I realized what was going on when I wrote in FLA for 36A’s [One with a minority opinion about the shape of the world]. The answer was most likely FLAT EARTHER, but where was the rest of it? Like most crossword themes, it turns out that the answer was right under my nose. When the entire eighth line of the grid is read from left to right, we get FLA EAR HER. That’s pretty close to the correct answer, but who stole my Ts?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 Commutes Sentence of Imaad Zuberi, Major Donor to 2017 Inauguration

    Imaad Zuberi had been a major donor to Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, before shifting his support to Mr. Trump after his 2016 victory.President Trump on Wednesday commuted the sentence of a California venture capitalist and major political donor who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for violating lobbying, campaign finance and tax laws, and obstructing an investigation into Mr. Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.The donor, Imaad Zuberi, 54, had been a major supporter of Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, before shifting his support to Mr. Trump after his 2016 victory.In the three months after the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Zuberi donated more than $1.1 million to committees associated with Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, scoring coveted invitations to a pair of black-tie dinners celebrating Mr. Trump’s inauguration. In the process, he posted photos of himself with the president, as well as Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus and various cabinet nominees.In 2020, Mr. Zuberi pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into the source of a $900,000 donation he made through his company to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee in late December 2016.In 2019, Mr. Zuberi pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign donations during the Obama administration, including some funded by foreign sources, as part of a scheme to gain access to American politicians for foreign clients.He also pleaded guilty to falsifying records filed with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act to conceal his lobbying work on behalf of Sri Lanka to help burnish the country’s reputation in Washington amid human rights concerns. And he pleaded guilty to failing to report and pay taxes on $5.65 million he was paid for the Sri Lankan lobbying campaign, much of which, prosecutors say, he diverted for personal use.During some of the criminal proceedings, Mr. Zuberi was represented by David Warrington, who is now Mr. Trump’s White House counsel.A senior White House official said Mr. Warrington recused himself from deliberations about the commutation.Part of Mr. Zuberi’s defense involved arguing that some of the activity with which he was charged stemmed from his work as a longtime intelligence source for the Central Intelligence Agency.Mr. Zuberi was sentenced in 2021. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to pay nearly $16 million in restitution and $1.75 million in fines. He had been held at a low-security federal correctional institution in California and was scheduled to be released in 2030, according to the Bureau of Prisons website. More

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    Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writer Who Condemned Colonists and Elites, Dies at 87

    Mr. Ngugi composed the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language on prison toilet paper while being held by Kenyan authorities. He spent many prolific years in exile.Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in his native Kenya as much as the misdoings of the postcolonial elite, and who led a passionate campaign for African authors to eschew the languages of foreign occupiers, died on Wednesday in a hospital in Buford, Ga. He was 87.His son Nducu confirmed the death.Often tipped as a potential Nobel laureate, Mr. Ngugi (pronounced GOO-ghee) spent many years in exile to avoid the wrath of a government he criticized. For several decades, he taught comparative literature and English as a professor at the University of California, Irvine. His work inspired successive generations of African writers along with contemporaries such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, both of Nigeria.His canon drew enthusiastic praise, including for his debut novel, “Weep Not, Child,” in 1964. It is the story of Kenyan brothers whose family must confront the challenges of the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The book has been described as the first major novel in English by an East African author.By contrast, “Devil on the Cross” in 1980, composed in his native tongue as “Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini,” was regarded as the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language, spoken by the country’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu. The book, about thieves who vie for supremacy by stealing from the people, sent him on a career writing in his own language and subsequently translating his work into English.Mr. Ngũgĩ began writing “Devil On the Cross” (1982) on prison toilet paper while he was detained by Kenyan authorities for a play that he wrote.HeinemannHe wrote “Devil on the Cross” on prison toilet paper while detained by Kenyan authorities for a year without trial because of a play he wrote. In a New York Times review in 2018, the writer Ariel Dorfman said the book was a “narrative of the devilish temptations he faced and the ruses used to thwart his jailers as he sat writing night after night in his cell.” The novel “shows Ngugi in full command of his craft,” Mr. Dorfman wrote.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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    Elon Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington and DOGE

    Elon Musk took a swipe at President Trump’s signature domestic policy legislation, saying it would add to the national deficit. He complained to administration officials about a lucrative deal that went to a rival company to build an artificial-intelligence data center in the Middle East. And he has yet to make good on a $100 million pledge to Trump’s political operation.Mr. Musk, who once called himself the president’s “first buddy,” is now operating with some distance from Mr. Trump as he says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies. Mr. Musk remains on good terms with Mr. Trump, according to White House officials. But he has also made it clear that he is disillusioned with Washington and frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy, raising questions about the strength of the alliance between the president and the world’s richest man.Mr. Musk was the biggest known political spender in the 2024 election, and he told Mr. Trump’s advisers this year that he would give $100 million to groups controlled by the president’s team before the 2026 midterms. As of this week, the money hasn’t come in yet, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes dynamic.Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. In a post on X, his social media site, on Wednesday night, he officially confirmed for the first time that his stint as a government employee was coming to an end and thanked Mr. Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he added, referring to his Department of Government Efficiency team.The billionaire’s imprint is still firmly felt in official Washington through that effort, an initiative to drastically cut spending that has deployed staff across the government. But Mr. Musk has said in recent days that he spent too much time focused on politics and has lamented the reputational damage he and his companies have suffered because of his work in the Trump administration.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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    Leader of Smuggling Ring Gets 10 Years After Indian Family Froze to Death

    The family of four that used the network got disoriented and lost their way in 2022 while trying to reach the United States from Canada on foot in blizzard conditions.More than three years after a young Indian family froze to death trying to cross into the United States from Canada during a blizzard, a federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the convicted architect of the human smuggling network that they used to a decade in prison.Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, a 29-year-old Indian national who lived in Florida, was sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison for his role in the operation that ferried Indians into the United States via Canada. He will be deported after serving time, the Justice Department said.His convicted co-conspirator, Steve Anthony Shand, 50, a U.S. citizen from Florida, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison followed by two years of supervised release.Prosecutors said during the trial that the men were part of a large-scale criminal operation that arranged for dozens of Indians to enter Canada on fake student visas, and then smuggled them into the United States over land.Mr. Patel orchestrated the logistics with other co-conspirators. Mr. Shand was the driver who met the immigrants south of the Canadian border and transported them to Chicago, according to the Justice Department. It said in a news release that the smugglers had charged $100,000 for passage from India to the United States.Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, left, and Steve Anthony Shand were sentenced on Wednesday.Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, via Associated PressFor Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, and their 11-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, the journey in January 2022 ended in tragedy. Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their ice-encased bodies in the desolate borderland between Manitoba and Minnesota.The Patels were part of a group of 11 Indians who had set out from the tiny Canadian town of Emerson with instructions on how to cross the border on foot.They expected to meet on the American side a person who would deliver them to their destination, most likely Illinois, where they had family or friends. But the family was separated from the rest of the group and most likely struggled to stay on course in the dark, buffeted by winds that whipped up blinding snow.The wind chill temperature was minus 36 degrees and lower, and wind gusts were as high as 50 miles per hour during their trek, the Justice Department said. An autopsy determined that the family had died from exposure to the cold. The seven other passengers survived.The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations, a specialized unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.“The callous disregard for life that led to the tragic deaths of an entire family will not be forgotten,” Jamie Holt, the special agent in charge in St. Paul, Minn., said in a statement on Wednesday.The sentencing took place in the northwestern Minnesota town of Fergus Falls, where a jury convicted the two men last fall of four counts each related to human smuggling, including causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy. More

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    The Times Confirms More Names on Trump’s Crypto Dinner Guest List

    Some were identified through photos as they entered the event. Others posted about their evening on social media.They came from faraway spots, including Estonia and China, and closer locations, such as San Francisco and even Maryland, but one thing almost all of them had in common was some tie to the cryptocurrency industry.That is the common thread that emerges among the two dozen additional guests The New York Times has added to its list of those invited to President Trump’s dinner last Thursday at his golf club in Virginia.The Times obtained a partial list of all 220 invitees, along with email addresses and phone numbers for many of them. But in some cases the names were common enough or the contact information was so incomplete that The Times could not immediately confirm the attendees’ identities.Work toward confirming these details has continued since last week and The Times has now added another two dozen individuals invited to the dinner and in some cases also for a White House tour. Those additional names have been added to the more than 30 names that The Times published in the past week. More

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    Larry Hoover, Former Chicago Gang Leader, Wins Commutation From Trump

    Mr. Hoover was accused of directing the Gangster Disciples even after he went to prison in the 1970s. The federal commutation will not change his state prison sentence.When an Illinois judge sentenced Larry Hoover to up to 200 years in prison for murder in the 1970s, it was the sort of punishment that seemed destined to end his career as a Chicago gang leader.But in the decades that followed, prosecutors said, Mr. Hoover’s power only grew as he directed one of Chicago’s most powerful gangs, the Gangster Disciples, from behind prison walls.Young members would pledge allegiance to Mr. Hoover, whom they called their “king,” and those who broke Gangster Disciple rules, prosecutors said, would face bloody retribution “up to and including murder.” His influence continued to grow into the 1990s, when he was convicted of more crimes in federal court and shipped off to a supermax prison with a life sentence.On Wednesday, after years of lobbying from Mr. Hoover’s supporters, including celebrities, President Trump fully commuted the federal sentence of Mr. Hoover, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.The commutation was not likely to bring Mr. Hoover, who is now 74 and largely a memory in his hometown, back to Chicago’s streets. His state prison sentence remains in effect, with a projected parole date of 2062, when Mr. Hoover would be 111. But the president’s decision showed his willingness to extend leniency to some prisoners, despite his frequent rhetoric about the danger of violent criminal gangs.Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Hoover, said that the process to commute Mr. Hoover’s sentence had been years in the making. The entertainer Ye, who was formerly known as Kanye West, lobbied Mr. Trump during his first term in office, she said, and others have joined the effort since then.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