Aurelia Butler

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    For Iranian Women, Can a Revolution Take Place at Home?

    .fallbackimg:before { content: “”; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; background-image: url(”); opacity: 0.5; background-size: cover; background-position: center; } #bgvideo{ opacity: 0.5; } .mobile-only{ display:block; } .desktop-only{ display:none; } h1.headline.mobile-only{ margin-bottom: 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 740px){ .fallbackimg:before{ background-image: url(”); opacity: 0.5; } #bgvideo{ opacity: 0.5; } .mobile-only{ display:none; } […] More

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    Jewish Museum Acquires Never-Shown Entry to Venice Biennale

    Ruth Patir refused to display her video installation at the Israel pavilion until a cease-fire and hostage agreement was reached. “(M)otherland” will debut in Tel Aviv.The Jewish Museum in New York has acquired a video installation by the artist Ruth Patir that was commissioned for the Venice Biennale. It was never displayed, since Patir and the curators insisted that Israel’s pavilion not open until an agreement was reached for the return of hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023 and for a cease-fire in the Gaza war.Patir’s “(M)otherland” will debut in March at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum announced Monday, and then will travel to New York after the Jewish Museum’s collection galleries are reinstalled later next year.The museum declined to disclose the price it paid for “(M)otherland,” which comprises five videos, one made in reaction to the Gaza war and offering a personal view of global tragedy. Four video pieces use ancient female figurines retrieved by archaeologists from the eastern Mediterranean to dramatize Patir’s decision to freeze her eggs after learning that she carries the BRCA gene mutation — an odyssey through an Israeli social system that encourages childbearing and aggressively funds fertility procedures. The small figurines, blown up to life-size dimensions and digitally animated, walk the halls of Israeli clinics, check their iPhones in the waiting rooms, and inject themselves with hormones.The exhibit also includes a fifth video piece, “Keening,” in which the figurines — some now shattered — are reimagined as participants in a display of public mourning following last year’s attack.Still from Ruth Patir’s video “Intake,” 2024.Ruth Patir; via Braverman Gallery, Tel AvivRuth Patir, “Petach Tikva (Waiting),” 2024, video still.Ruth Patir; via Braverman Gallery, Tel AvivStill from Ruth Patir’s video, ”(M)otherland,” 2024.Ruth Patir; via Braverman Gallery, Tel AvivWe 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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    Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Steps Down Amid Chipmaker’s Struggles

    Pat Gelsinger stepped down after nearly four years at the helm of the company, Intel said Monday.Intel’s chief executive officer, Pat Gelsinger, stepped down after nearly four years leading the semiconductor company, Intel announced Monday, a surprise leadership change as the chipmaker has struggled in recent months.Mr. Gelsinger, who took the helm in 2021, also resigned from the company’s board of directors. He will be replaced in the interim by two Intel executives, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus. The company said it would continue its search for permanent replacements.The leadership change signals Intel’s growing urgency to turn around its business, which has been left in the dust during the lucrative artificial intelligence boom that has turned its rival chipmaker, Nvidia, into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Intel recently cut 15,000 jobs, and its revenue declined more than 30 percent from 2021 through 2023.Shares of Intel rose about 5 percent in premarket trading, before paring back some of those gains, after the company announced Mr. Gelsinger’s retirement. A loss in market share and struggles in the A.I. market have contributed to a 52 percent slump in the company’s stock price so far this year.“We have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence,” Frank Yeary, who will serve as the company’s interim executive chair on the board, said in a statement.Mr. Gelsinger said in the statement that the move was bittersweet. “It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics,” he added.Mr. Gelsinger first joined Intel in 1979, eventually ascending to become the company’s chief technology officer during his initial 30-year stint at the chipmaker. He led the cloud computing company VMware before rejoining Intel as chief executive in early 2021.For decades, Intel was the industry’s leading chip company. Its semiconductors were the digital engines in more than 80 percent of personal computers, and it later adapted that technology for larger computers in data centers.But in recent years, Intel lost its one-time dominance. It was too wedded to its highly lucrative PC-era technology, analysts say, as others — most notably, Nvidia — pioneered new designs. In manufacturing, Intel steadily lost its lead to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.As chief executive, Mr. Gelsinger focused on restoring the company’s onetime lead in chip manufacturing technology, but longtime company watchers said Intel badly needed more popular products — such as A.I. chips — to bolster declining revenue.The company had faced a number of recent setbacks, including the Biden administration last week saying it would reduce the total amount of money granted to Intel under the CHIPS Act. Intel had extended timelines for some projects beyond a government deadline of 2030.In October, the company posted a $16.6 billion quarterly loss — its biggest in its 56-year history.Steve Lohr More

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    California Lawmakers to Propose $25 Million Fund to Litigate Trump Administration

    California lawmakers will convene a special session on Monday to discuss legislation to bolster the state against potential attacks by Donald J. Trump’s administration, including a proposed fund of up to $25 million to underwrite litigation against the federal government, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.President-elect Trump and fellow Republicans signaled during the campaign that he would target signature California policies if he were to win the election, including environmental protections, safeguards for immigrants, civil rights laws and abortion access. Democratic governors across the country have expressed concerns that the second Trump administration will be better prepared and less restrained.California’s Democratic leaders, who have been working for more than a year on contingency plans in the event of a second Trump term, announced within days of the election that they would begin to meet early this month on plans to “Trump-proof” the nation’s most populous state.“We will work with the incoming administration and we want President Trump to succeed in serving all Americans,” Governor Newsom said in a statement on Monday. “But when there is overreach, when lives are threatened, when rights and freedoms are targeted, we will take action.”The fund for litigation aims to pay for legal resources in the state’s Justice Department and regulatory agencies to “challenge illegal federal actions in court and take administrative actions to reduce potential harm,” according to the governor’s office.The proposed $25 million figure is significantly less than the roughly $42 million that California spent on lawsuits against the federal government during the first Trump administration, when the state sued the government more than 120 times. The smaller number — a fraction of the state’s nearly $300 billion annual budget — is a testament to concern over the risk of a financial shortfall. California’s lawmakers struggled to close a deficit this year.The figure is also a nod to the number of fronts on which the state’s Democrats expect the Trump administration to attack California. Mr. Newsom has already vowed to provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if Mr. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit. The governor also has floated a possible disaster assistance fund to cover victims of floods and wildfires should Mr. Trump withhold federal aid from the disaster-prone state.California also extends health insurance coverage under the state’s version of Medicaid to low-income residents regardless of immigration status, a program that the next administration has also targeted.But the fund’s size also reflects the state’s success during and after Mr. Trump’s first term in protecting Californians against efforts to weaken state regulations, and the likelihood that Democratic states will work together to challenge Mr. Trump. More

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    An Arctic Hamlet is Sinking Into the Thawing Permafrost

    On the shore of Lake Tiktalik in Canada’s Western Arctic, the thawing permafrost had set off two huge landslides into the water, leaving yawning craters on the tundra. These “thaw slumps” measured several hundred feet wide and just as deep.Jaden Cockney, 17, clambered down the side of one slump as his boss, William Dillon, looked on cautiously. Jaden was part of the team that Mr. Dillon, 69, had created to measure the retreating permafrost. Only a few decades earlier, the permafrost had lain just several inches below much of the region’s surface. But now it was thawing so rapidly that it was being pushed further and further underground. Along shorelines, it collapsed into lakes or the Arctic Ocean.For centuries, the Western Arctic has been home to Mr. Dillon and his ancestors, the Inuvialuit, as the region’s Inuit are called. But these days, the thaw slumps — like the one Mr. Dillon’s team was documenting 10 miles south of their hamlet, Tuktoyaktuk — are the most dramatic evidence of a phenomenon that could turn the local Inuvialuit into Canada’s first climate refugees.William Dillon, Jaden Cockney and their colleague, Derek Panaktalok, overlooking a permafrost thaw slump at the edge of Tiktalik Lake.Mr. Dillon collects data on the climate and the evolution of the territory for the Tuktoyaktuk Community Corporation and has been monitoring the land for three decades.Tuktoyaktuk itself now stands face to face with the Arctic Ocean’s increasingly angry Beaufort Sea, and rests atop 1,300 feet to 1,600 feet of thawing permafrost threatening to sink 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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    France’s Prime Minister Pushes Through Budget Bill; No-Confidence Vote Could Follow

    A collapse of the government could further unnerve financial markets since it would put a quick passage of the budget at risk.Prime Minister Michel Barnier of France pushed a budget bill through the lower house of Parliament without a vote on Monday — a risky move that sets the stage for a likely no-confidence motion this week that could topple the government.The prospect of a government collapse — and of a failure to pass a budget — has rattled financial markets, sharply increased France’s borrowing costs, and further deepened the uncertainty that has gripped the country since snap elections last summer yielded no clear parliamentary majority.The fate of Mr. Barnier and of his cabinet, both appointed by President Emmanuel Macron just three months ago, now rests almost entirely in the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.Mr. Macron, whose term runs through mid-2027, will remain as president even if Mr. Barnier and his cabinet fall. But Mr. Macron will need to appoint a new prime minister.Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Barnier, a veteran center-right politician, have engaged in a game of chicken over the past week. Ms. Le Pen dangled the threat of a no-confidence motion ever more vocally if Mr. Barnier did not accede to her demands on the budget. Mr. Barnier warned of “serious turbulence on the financial markets” and the troubles ahead if the country reaches the new year without a budget — warnings that Ms. Le Pen has dismissed as fear-mongering and “fake news.”Mr. Barnier made some concessions, announcing that he was scrapping a hike in electricity taxes and reducing health care coverage for undocumented people. But Ms. Le Pen indicated those changes were not enough to sway her lawmakers from joining those on the left who oppose Mr. Barnier’s leadership in voting to topple the government.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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    Test Yourself on These Young Adult Novels Adapted Into Films

    Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions, video games and more. This week’s challenge is focused on tween and teen novels that made the leap from the page to the screen — and some of them more than once.Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their movie versions.3 of 5This 1972 middle-grade novel by Mary Rodgers has been adapted for the screen in 1976, 1995, 2003 and 2018, and its various productions over the years have starred Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Heidi Blickenstaff and Jodie Foster, among others. What is the title of the book? More

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    Volkswagen Unions Begin Short Strikes and Threaten More

    Workers at nine of the automaker’s German factories walked off their jobs for several hours, and warned they would escalate the action if their demands went unmet.Volkswagen workers across Germany escalated their labor dispute with management by walking off their jobs for several hours on Monday, and their union threatened longer strikes if their demands were not met.The automaker is in the middle of labor negotiations with IG Metall, the union representing most of its workers, as the company tries to reduce costs in an effort to return it to profitability. Volkswagen is seeking 10-percent wage cuts and threatening to close factories in Germany, the first such move in its 87-year history.Thousands of workers at nine of the company’s plants in Germany, as well as several other subsidiaries that are covered under a wage agreement with the automaker, staged two-hour strikes on Monday, demanding that Volkswagen guarantee their jobs and keep its factories open.IG Metall has threatened to start longer walkouts, or open-ended strikes, unless it is able to reach an agreement with Volkswagen managers.“If necessary, this will be the toughest collective-bargaining battle Volkswagen has ever seen,” said Thorsten Gröger, the chief negotiator and district manager for the union. “Volkswagen will have to decide at the negotiating table how long and how intense this dispute has to be.”The labor battle, the company’s first involving strikes since 2018, comes as Volkswagen, Germany’s leading automaker, faces slowing demand for its cars in Europe and Asia, as well as increased competition from Chinese automakers.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