Aurelia Butler

No mission is more important than preserving the lives of those who have been jailed for their principles.This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.Turning Point: On Aug. 1, 24 people were released in a multicountry prisoner swap — the largest exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.I experienced a moment of happiness earlier this year when Evan Gershkovich returned to his parents and Lilia Chanysheva to her husband, when Vladimir Kara-Murza saw daylight after 11 months in solitary confinement and Ilya Yashin and Sasha Skochilenko regained their freedom. But I fear for those political prisoners who remain in Russian jails. If there are no Americans, Germans or Britons among their ranks, will anyone stand up for them?During World War II, it was necessary to open a second front to defeat fascism. In the present fight against creeping authoritarianism, democratic states so far have put all their efforts into standing up for political principles, but there is an urgent need to open a “second front” to stand up for the value of human life, centered on a call for the rights of political prisoners to be observed.Thanks to YouTube and social media, we were able to keep track of the fate of the prisoners freed earlier this year. From now on, however, we will know little about the suffering of those still behind bars because the Russian government has blocked these channels. Only the remnants of free speech still being exercised inside the country allow us to be aware of the circumstances facing those who are held in terrible conditions in Russia’s prisons.Among those who remain incarcerated is the boiler mechanic Vladimir Rumyantsev, who declared war on censorship and opened his own personal radio station in the northern Russian city of Vologda. In Siberia, Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor of the online magazine Novy Fokus, is serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for his reporting on 11 military servicemen who refused to go to Ukraine. A court in the city of Akaban convicted him for spreading false information about the “special military operation,” as the war in Ukraine is called in Russia. The director Yevgeniya Berkovich and the playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were thrown into jail and accused of condoning terrorism after Berkovich staged Petriychuk’s play “Finist the Brave Falcon,” which tells the story of women who were persuaded to become the wives of militants in Syria.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

President-elect Donald J. Trump gave a public show of support to his embattled choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Friday morning, saying in a social media post that he will be “fantastic” in the job and that he has a “military state of mind.”Mr. Hegseth has spent the last two days fighting to stay as Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Pentagon amid mounting news reports alleging troubling behaviors over time including rape, sexual assault, financial mismanagement and drunken behavior, which he denies.Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social amounted to a public dare to Republican senators, a number of whom have expressed private concerns about Mr. Hegseth, to vote against his wishes. The president-elect until now has put relatively little of his own capital on the line for Mr. Hegseth and has even floated alternative candidates, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for the job.But on Friday, Mr. Trump doubled down publicly on his initial choice.“Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He was a great student — Princeton/Harvard educated — with a Military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!”A string of damning news articles have reported problematic behavior. One woman filed a police report in 2017 accusing him of rape, which he denied and said was a consensual encounter. He entered into a settlement agreement with her that included a payment of money years later. The New York Times reported that Mr. Hegseth’s mother sent him an email in 2018 during a contentious divorce saying he had “abused” many women in different ways over the years. NBC News reported about concerns about Mr. Hegseth’s drinking, and The New Yorker reported that he had been accused of mismanagement of groups he had previously led.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

The decision came days after the government asserted it had found an online campaign that promoted a little-known ultranationalist candidate, who emerged as a front-runner in the vote.Romania’s Constitutional Court on Friday canceled the final round of a pivotal presidential election with only two days before the vote, saying it needed to ensure the “correctness of the electoral process.” The surprise decision was the latest in a series of political upheavals across Europe, where right wing movements across the European Union are in the ascendancy. The front-runner in Sunday’s now canceled election had been Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist whose victory in a first-round vote late last month stunned Romania’s political establishment.George Simion, a far-right leader who had endorsed Mr. Georgescu, denounced the court ruling, saying “a coup is underway,” but he urged supporters not to take to the street in protest. “The system must fall democratically,” Mr. Simion said.The court gave no explanation for its decision, and it was not clear when a new first round would take place. “The electoral process for the president of Romania will be entirely redone,” it said in a statement.The move set off angry reaction among right-wing groups on social media but was welcomed by the prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, the leader of the governing Social Democrats and a losing candidate in the opening round of the presidential vote.The decision to annul the vote, he said, was the “only correct solution” following the declassification of security council documents that indicated Russian meddling in the election.Not long after the first round last month, The Supreme Council of National Defense, which oversees national security, announced that there had been “cyberattacks” meant to undermine the vote and social cohesion. Mr. Georgescu benefited from the campaign, according to Romanian intelligence documents declassified by the president this week.“Romania, along with other states on NATO’s Eastern Flank, has become a priority for the hostile actions of some state and nonstate actors,” the statement said, singling out Russia.The council, which is led by President Klaus Iohannis and includes other senior officials, also criticized TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, saying the platform had violated electoral laws because it had not identified Mr. Georgescu as a candidate.One of the race’s presidential candidates also made allegations of irregularities in the vote, and the Constitutional Court took up the case, soon ordering a recount. More

A bizarre saga in which users noticed the chatbot refused to say “David Mayer” raised questions about privacy and A.I., with few clear answers.Across the final years of his life, David Mayer, a theater professor living in Manchester, England, faced the cascading consequences an unfortunate coincidence: A dead Chechen rebel on a terror watch list had once used Mr. Mayer’s name as an alias.The real Mr. Mayer had travel plans thwarted, financial transactions frozen and crucial academic correspondence blocked, his family said. The frustrations plagued him until his death in 2023, at age 94.But this month, his fight for his identity edged back into the spotlight when eagle-eyed users noticed one particular name was sending OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot into shutdown.David Mayer.Users’ efforts to prompt the bot to say “David Mayer” in a variety of ways were instead resulting in error messages, or the bot would simply refuse to respond. It’s unclear why the name was kryptonite for the bot service, and OpenAI would not say whether the professor’s plight was related to ChatGPT’s issue with the name.But the saga underscores some of the prickliest questions about generative A.I. and the chatbots it powers: Why did that name knock the chatbot out? Who, or what, is making those decisions? And who is responsible for the mistakes?“This was something that he would’ve almost enjoyed, because it would have vindicated the effort he put in to trying to deal with it,” Mr. Mayer’s daughter, Catherine, said of the debacle in an interview.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

The European Union and five South American countries have reached an agreement to establish one of the largest trade zones in the world.The European Union reached a major trade deal on Friday with five South American countries, concluding a long-delayed negotiation that took on new urgency as President-elect Donald J. Trump threatens to impose tariffs on some of the world’s largest economies.The deal, between the European Union and members of Mercosur — a bloc that includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — would establish one of the largest trade zones in the world, and would be the European Union’s biggest trade agreement ever.With European leaders preparing for the possibility that Mr. Trump’s return to office will lead to a more fragmented global economy, the deal is a significant victory for proponents of free trade, linking markets with 780 million people. But it could fuel frustration within the European bloc, with France opposed to the agreement over concerns about the possible dumping of cheap agricultural imports in Europe, which could hurt competition.Here’s what you need to know:What’s in the trade deal?A boon for European carmakers and others.France opposes the deal out of concern for farmers.What’s in the trade deal?If ratified, the agreement would lift tariffs on products including meat, cars, wine and chocolate. A date for the ratification vote has not yet been set. France has strongly opposed the agreement, but Paris does not appear to have persuaded enough other European countries to vote against it.With Mr. Trump’s election, Europe is facing the threat of high tariffs on exports to the United States, its biggest trading partner, and increased competition from China. Mr. Trump has suggested that he would impose tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on products around the world and tariffs of 60 percent or more on Chinese goods.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

Research suggests that you’ll spend less than you otherwise would by setting a strict budget — even if you go over the budget.Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. So you may think that setting limits on holiday spending is a lost cause, right?Not so, said Jamie L. Clark, a certified financial planner in Seattle. The December holidays are still weeks away. “It’s never too late to make a plan.”Chuck Howard, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, said research suggests you’ll spend less by setting a holiday budget that’s “optimistically low.”That’s because even when compliance with budgets is weak, setting stricter, even somewhat unrealistic budgets tends to lead to lower spending, according to a study he helped write on the influence of budgeting on personal spending.Dr. Howard cited this example. Say you usually spend $500 a month dining out. You may think a realistic budget is $400 a month. But if you really want to cut back, you should set a budget of, say, $250. That way, if you spend $350, you’ve still spent much less than you used to.A tight holiday-spending limit serves as a reference point, he said, and even if you surpass it, you’ll probably spend less than if you had set a higher limit or hadn’t set a budget in the first place.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

The Guardian Media Group said it had struck a deal to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media, shortly after a 48-hour strike by journalists had ended.The Observer, a British Sunday newspaper that has been running for more than two centuries, will be sold to the digital media start-up Tortoise Media, the publication’s owner, the Guardian Media Group, said Friday, despite staff protests.The boards of the Guardian Media Group, which also publishes The Guardian, and the Scott Trust, the owner of the Guardian Media Group, have agreed “in principle” to the deal, which is expected to be signed in the next few days. The announcement came shortly after journalists at the two news outlets waged a 48-hour strike, calling the deal “rushed” and a risk to the journalism of both newspapers.The Guardian’s parent company, which bought The Observer in 1993, did not disclose the sale price. But it said the Scott Trust, a 1.3 billion-pound ($1.7 billion) fund, would invest in Tortoise Media and become one of its largest shareholders. The trust will also have representatives on the company and editorial boards of Tortoise Media, which said it had raised £25 million to invest in The Observer.“We knew we needed the right combination of resources and commitment to build a new platform for The Observer,” Ole Jacob Sunde, the chair of the Scott Trust, said in a statement. “It required an ally to be sufficiently funded, long-term in nature, and respect editorial independence and liberal values. I believe we have found this in Tortoise Media.”When the proposed sale came to light in September, it was a surprise to the papers’ journalists, who raised concerns about the ability of Tortoise Media, a six-year-old company that has not recorded a profit, to preserve the future of The Observer.Amid pressure from the staff to reconsider the deal, the Scott Trust pushed to have some say in the editorial direction of The Observer after the sale. Journalists at both newspapers walked off the job on Wednesday and Thursday, hoping to delay the deal. It was the first strike in the newsroom in more than 50 years.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

We wish you a merry Robyn Weintraub Day.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — I don’t need to tell you how fond I am of Robyn Weintraub’s puzzles. I’ve said it before, and besides, you’re probably fond of them, too.Ms. Weintraub has a knack for making crosswords with sparkling long entries, no junky fill and some of the most clever clues I’ve had the honor of solving.And we have reason to congratulate her: While Ms. Weintraub makes puzzles for multiple venues, this is her 50th crossword in The New York Times.Tricky Clues10A. The word rash can describe acting without thinking about the consequences, but in today’s puzzle, it’s a skin irritation. If you [Have a rash reaction], you ITCH.16A. I first entered the word cami for [Teddy alternative], but the substitute we’re looking for is the nickname THEO.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