Aurelia Butler

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    Cardinal Roger Mahony, Accused of Hiding Sex Abuse, Will Help Close Pope Francis’ Casket

    Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who was accused of covering up cases of abuse as archbishop of Los Angeles, will have an official role in the ceremonies around Francis’ funeral.An American cardinal who was accused of covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests and was later stripped of some duties, is set to play an official role in the ceremonies surrounding Pope Francis’ funeral.Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, will participate in the closing of the pope’s casket at St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday evening and in his burial at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on Saturday, according to Vatican announcements.The cardinals taking part were chosen based on seniority, a spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said at a news briefing on Thursday.Cardinal Mahony, 89, was the archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until his retirement from the Roman Catholic Church in 2011. In 2013, internal church personnel files released as part of a civil case revealed that Cardinal Mahony had played a role in covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests.The documents show that Cardinal Mahony and others worked to protect abusive priests from punishment and withhold evidence of sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, also sent priests who had molested children out of state for treatment, in part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report evidence of child abuse to the police, according to the documents.In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to settle claims from more than 500 victims, the largest settlement for priest sexual abuse at the time. Last year, the church agreed to pay another $880 million to settle abuse claims from 1,353 people.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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    Book Club: Read ‘The Safekeep,’ by Yael van der Wouden, With the Book Review

    In May, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss “The Safekeep,” Yael van der Wouden’s novel about a woman wrapped up in a historical drama and a forbidden romance.Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Every month, we select a book to discuss with our readers. Last month, we read “Playworld,” by Adam Ross. (You can also go back and listen to our episodes on “We Do Not Part,” “Orbital,” and “Our Evenings.”)Whenever I mention that I work in books, the next question I invariably get is: “Do you have a good book recommendation?” It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer effectively on the spot. Tastes vary. The genres, tones and moods that I love may not be what someone else finds compelling. The trick becomes suggesting something that is excellent, that the inquirer likely hasn’t already read and that will appeal no matter what kind of reader I’m talking to.For the past few months, when faced with this query, I have had one go-to answer: “The Safekeep,” by Yael van der Wouden.A debut novel that was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, “The Safekeep” is many things at once — a historical tale (sure, it’s set only 60 years ago, but it’s grappling with the baggage of a discreet, postwar era), a psychological thriller, a forbidden romance. It opens in the Netherlands in 1961. Isabel is a joyless loner who spends most of her time hiding in her deceased mother’s old country house. One night she goes out to dinner with her brothers, Hendrik and Louis. Surprisingly, Louis brings along a new girlfriend, Eva, and Isabel immediately senses something is amiss. On the surface Eva is silly and brash, but Isabel can detect that under Eva’s ditsy facade lurks a sharper, more dangerous disposition.When Louis has leaves for a work trip, he sends Eva to stay at the country house, much to Isabel’s chagrin. But Isabel doesn’t have a say; technically, the house was promised to Louis and he can do with it as he pleases. Forced together, Isabel and Eva form a charged and ever-evolving relationship that threatens to upend everything that Isabel thought she knew.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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    Tell Us Your Wild New York City Roommate Stories

    When the rent is high and the vacancy rates are low, sharing your space with others becomes a must.As summer arrives in New York City, so does the seasonal influx of interns and new graduates, eager to make their way in the metropolis of dreams. But with the city in the midst of a housing crisis — where the median rent recently hit a record high — where will young people on entry-level salaries live? Most likely: with each other. It’s roommate time.Having a New York City roommate (or several) is a rite of passage, and for some it is the only way to make the city affordable. For every New York City roommate situation, there is a wild New York City roommate story. Whether your roommate story happened 10 years ago or 10 days ago, we want to hear it.Did your roommate eat the cake you baked for your mother’s birthday? Leave dirty underwear in the bathroom? Perform the Heimlich maneuver and save your life? Become a famous actor? Break your favorite drinking glass? Disappear without paying rent? Tell us!We will read all of the responses to this questionnaire and reach out to you if we are interested in learning more about your story.We will not publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. We won’t share your contact information outside the Times newsroom or use it for any reason other than to get in touch with you.Tell Us Your Wild New York City Roommate Stories More

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    The Zuckerbergs Founded Two Bay Area Schools. Now They’re Closing.

    Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, opened the schools to help communities of color. Some families wonder if the shutting of the schools is related to his D.E.I. retrenchment.The Primary School opened in 2016, just a couple miles from Facebook’s headquarters. Its mission was to serve as a tuition-free hub where children from low-income families could be educated and have access to health care and social workers under one roof.Dr. Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician married to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, worked with Meredith Liu, an educator and friend, to build the school in East Palo Alto, Calif., a diverse town that rarely reaps the benefits of its far wealthier Silicon Valley neighbors.They talked about how low-income children were more likely to have experienced trauma early in life, and how that trauma would have lasting effects. The Primary School, its website declared, tried to overcome the systemic racism and poverty that hurts communities of color.This week, however, school officials stunned families when they told parents the campus will shutter in the summer of 2026.Emeline Vainikolo said she and other parents were invited by school administrators to a breakfast of bagels, fruit and Starbucks coffee and were abruptly told of the closure, but given no reason. They were left staring at one another “dumbfounded,” she said. Her son, a kindergartner, later relayed a reason that he had gleaned from his teacher, she said.“‘Mommy, the guy who’s been giving money to our school doesn’t want to give it to us anymore,’” he told 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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    NYT Crossword Answers for April 25, 2025

    Adrian Johnson is quite a stacker of words.Jump to: Tricky CluesFRIDAY PUZZLE — I think those of us who have tried to construct a crossword puzzle can agree that it’s not an easy task. Even the best puzzle makers run into jams. A grid might be filling like a dream and then suddenly the constructor runs into a dead end, where nothing fits. The resulting choice may be between refilling the entire section or settling for a less-than-desirable word such as “esne,” a word that describes a feudal laborer and has achieved fame as a bit of crosswordese.Stacking entries well, whether they are horizontal or vertical stacks, is another high-wire act. For one thing, it increases the likelihood of filling failure by quite a bit, because the entries in the stack have to be exciting. The crossings also have to be familiar words all the way across those entries.Adrian Johnson’s 11th crossword in The New York Times contains some beautiful quadruple stacks in the northwest and southeast. His center entry at 34A made me a bit excited, thinking that we might be solving a rare themed Friday puzzle. His crossword is not themed, but the entry is lively nonetheless.While you’re solving, take some time to appreciate the stacks and their crossings. Note that every Down crossing is fairly familiar, and be duly impressed at the amount of work it took to achieve the quality of those sections. That’s the way to stack entries. Nicely done, Mr. Johnson.Tricky Clues17A. [Booked it] is slang for having moved quickly, and the answer is RAN LIKE MAD.19A. The word [Skinny] can describe thinness, but in today’s puzzle it’s slang for information, or the INSIDE DOPE.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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    Indicted ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Pays Roger Stone $600,000 to Lobby for Him

    The longtime Trump ally is lobbying Congress to change the law that the crypto entrepreneur Roger Ver was charged with violating.Roger J. Stone Jr., the longtime associate of President Trump’s, has been lobbying for a pioneering cryptocurrency investor known as “Bitcoin Jesus” who is facing federal fraud and criminal tax charges, according to congressional filings.Mr. Stone filed paperwork last month indicating that he had been retained by Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor who was charged last year and accused of shielding his cryptocurrency holdings from $48 million in taxes.Mr. Stone noted in a filing last week that he had been paid $600,000 by Mr. Ver since early February to help his client’s case, partly by trying to abolish the tax provisions at the heart of the charges.Mr. Ver, a former California resident who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014, was arrested last year in Spain, according to the Justice Department, which announced plans at the time to extradite him.Mr. Ver disputed the charges, claiming in a video posted on social media in January that he was being threatened with a possible sentence of more than 100 years in prison because of his political views and his role in promoting cryptocurrency.In the video, which was framed as an appeal to Mr. Trump, Mr. Ver linked his case to the president’s grievances about the weaponization of the justice system.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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    Forced Labor Taints Brazilian Coffee, Say Complaints to U.S. Authorities

    Two legal actions seeking U.S. government intervention say that some of the coffee bought by major American retailers is harvested in conditions that amount to slavery.Tariffs are not the only threat to business for big companies selling coffee in the United States. On Thursday, a watchdog group petitioned the Trump administration to block coffee imports that it says are produced with forced labor akin to modern-day slavery in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee grower.The petition to Customs and Border Protection, filed by the nonprofit Coffee Watch, names Starbucks, by far the largest coffee retailer in the country, as well as Nestle, Dunkin’, Illy, McDonald’s and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the owner of Peet’s, as companies that rely on potentially dubious sources. It asks the Trump administration not to allow distribution of any imports from Brazil that “wholly or in part” rely on human trafficking and forced labor.“This isn’t about a few bad actors,” Etelle Higonnet, the founder and director of Coffee Watch, said in a statement. “We’re exposing an entrenched system that traps millions in extreme poverty and thousands in outright slavery.”The request for U.S. action was filed a day after another group, International Rights Advocates, sued Starbucks in federal court on behalf of eight Brazilians who were trafficked and forced to toil in “slavery-like conditions,” said Terry Collingsworth, a human rights lawyer and the founder of the group.The suit seeks certification as a class action representing thousands of workers who it says have faced the same plight while harvesting coffee for a major Starbucks supplier and regional growers’ cooperative in Brazil called Cooxupé.“Starbucks needs to be accountable,” Mr. Collingsworth said in an interview, adding that “there is a massive trafficking and forced labor system in Brazil” that the company benefits from.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 Executive Order Makes It Easier to Fire Probationary Federal Workers

    The order declares that employees will only attain full employment status if their managers review and sign off on their performance, adding a new obstacle for probationary workers to clear.President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday making it easier for the government to fire federal employees who are in a probationary period.Probationary government workers already have far fewer job protections than their established colleagues, and they were the Trump administration’s first targets for mass firings earlier this year. At least 24,000 of those terminations have led to court-ordered reinstatements that were overturned on appeals.Normally, probationary federal employees attain full status in one or two years, depending on the job — unless the agency they work for takes steps to dismiss them, which usually involves citing poor performance.Under the executive order, whose implications were outlined in a White House fact sheet, probationary employees will only attain full status if their managers review and sign off on their performance.“This is a very big step,” said Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. “The administration has been looking for ways to cut probationary employees, and this puts more power in the hands of agency managers.”Probationary workers can range from young people entering the work force to longtime employees promoted to new positions. Many probationary employees are highly skilled, were recruited for specific roles and have been vetted throughout the government’s hiring process.Tens of thousands of probationary workers targeted by the Trump administration’s cuts have been in limbo for months. Most are on administrative leave and are getting paid, but have no indication of how long that will continue.Mr. Kettl said that the executive order Mr. Trump issued on Thursday suggested that the administration had learned some lessons from the court challenges to its mass firings.Once the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm, formally issues the new policy, the government will be in a better legal position to fire probationary employees, he said. More