Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Elections

    Review: Jean Smart, Gritty and Poetic in ‘Call Me Izzy’

    The “Hacks” star returns to Broadway after 25 years in a triumph for her, if not for the old-fashioned, flowery play about spouse abuse.Two things can happen when a big star appears in a small play. She can crush it, or she can crush it.The first is almost literal: She leaves the story in smithereens beneath her glamorous feet. The second is colloquial: She’s a triumph, lifting the story to her level.Returning to Broadway after 25 years in “Call Me Izzy,” which opened Thursday at Studio 54, Jean Smart crushes it in the good way.Naturally, Smart plays the title character, a poor Louisiana housewife who writes poems on the sly. In the manner of such vehicles, she also plays everyone else, including Ferd (her abusive husband), Rosalie (a nosy neighbor), Professor Heckerling (a community college instructor) and the Levitsbergs (a couple who have endowed a poetry fellowship).You could probably write the play from that information alone, but I’m not sure you’d achieve the level of old-fashioned floweriness and deep-dish pathos that the actual author, Jamie Wax, has achieved.For this is quite self-consciously a weepie, one that with its allusions to Melville’s lyrical prose (“Moby-Dick” begins with the phrase “Call me Ishmael”) aspires to poetry itself. The play’s first words are an incantation: six synonyms for “blue” as Izzy drops toilet cleaner tablets in the tank. (“Swirlin’ cerulean” is one.) Shakespeare comes next, after a visit to a local library she didn’t know existed. Ears opened, she is soon devising sonnets of her own.This she does in secret, lest Ferd, who sees her hobby as a betrayal, should discover the evidence and beat her up. (He has been doing that with some regularity since their infant son died years earlier.) In a detail that’s a few orders of magnitude too cute, Izzy’s sanctum is the bathroom, where she scratches out her lines in eyebrow pencil, on reams of toilet paper.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

  • 163 Shares159 Views

    in Elections

    Netanyahu says fighting with Iran will continue as long as Israel deems necessary.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told an anxious country in an early morning video statement that Israel had attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities to ward off an existential threat, vowing that the battle would continue for “as many days as it takes.”Israeli forces attacked Iran’s “main enrichment facility in Natanz,” as well its ballistic missile capabilities and top Iranian nuclear scientists, Mr. Netanyahu said. “We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program,” he added. “We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran’s ballistic missile program.”Israel’s targets included nuclear facilities, air defense batteries, homes and headquarters of senior officials, weapons depots and laboratories. The first wave of the assault also focused on senior Iranian figures.Across Israel, people huddled in public shelters and fortified safe rooms in anticipation of an Iranian response. Israel’s defense ministry declared a national state of emergency and told the public to expect Iran to fire missiles and drones in response. Justifying the government’s decision to launch the attack, which caps more than 20 months of war between Israel and Iranian-backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel had to act promptly to eliminate what he called the existential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.“I told our security leadership: We have no alternative but to act swiftly,” he said. “We can’t leave these threats for the next generation. If we don’t act now, there won’t be a next generation.”Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was facing “difficult days, but great days” ahead. He also repeatedly invoked the Holocaust — the annihilation of European Jewry — as a reason not to treat a nuclear Iran lightly. “Together, with God’s help, we will ensure Israel’s eternity,” he said. Adam Rasgon More

  • 125 Shares199 Views

    in Elections

    Supreme Court Sides With Teenager in School Disability Discrimination Case

    Disability rights groups had followed the case closely, warning that arguments by the school district could threaten broader protections for people with disabilities.The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a teenage girl with epilepsy and her parents who had sued a Minnesota school district, claiming that her school had failed to provide reasonable accommodations, which made it difficult for her to receive instruction.The case hinged on what standard of proof was required to show discrimination by public schools in education-related disability lawsuits.In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court held that the student and her family needed to show only that the school system had acted with “deliberate indifference” to her educational needs when they sued.That is the same standard that applies when people sue other institutions for discrimination based on disability.The school district argued that a higher standard — a stringent requirement that the institution had acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment” — should apply. Had the district prevailed, the new standard might have applied broadly to all kinds disability rights claims filed under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.That argument had unnerved some disability rights groups, which had cautioned that a ruling for the school could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.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

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Elections

    Chaos At Site of Air India Plane Crash

    Firefighters raced to douse smoking buildings as emergency workers recovered bodies after a deadly passenger plane crash in India.Dozens of medical school students in the western Indian state of Gujarat were eating lunch on Thursday when an Air India passenger plane carrying 242 people to London crashed into their dining hall. In the aftermath of the disaster, the ripped tail of the wrecked plane could be seen jutting out of the building.At least five students died in the crash in the city of Ahmedabad, said Minakshi Parikh, the dean of B.J. Medical College, whose campus is near the end of the runway of the airport. Officials feared that the death toll at the medical campus and its neighboring buildings could be higher.“Most of the students escaped, but 10 or 12 were trapped in the fire,” Ms. Parikh said.At least 204 people were killed in the crash of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, G.S. Malik, the police commissioner of Ahmedabad, said in an interview. That makes the crash India’s deadliest aviation disaster since 1996.Verified video shows the plane descending, almost as if on a glide, and then a fireball rises in its place. Photos and verified videos from the crash site show widespread carnage as well as medical workers carrying the bodies of victims into ambulances on stretchers.Dr. Bharat Ahir, who reached the scene soon after the crash, said he had seen rescuers bringing people out of thick smoke. Inside the damaged dinning hall, he said, the meals of many of the students sat unfinished.Dt. Ahir said he feared that casualties in a nearby residential complex, a multistory block where doctors and their families live, could outnumber those at the dinning facility.“The plane’s back part is stuck in the dinning hall, and the front hit the residential building,” he said.Wreckage from the plane at the site of the crash. Amit Dave/ReutersImages emerging from the scene show the blackened tangle of the wreckage of the plane. The aircraft appeared to have broken into large pieces, with one wing lying on a roadway. Firefighters could be seen spraying burned-out buildings and sooty, cracked trees as they stepped carefully around the hunks of debris.At a nearby hospital, medical workers raced through busy rooms with empty stretchers and wheelchairs, verified video showed. Crowds of people milled about.Outside, a group of men walked through the streets with a stretcher carrying an injured person. Ambulance after ambulance drove by.Mujib Mashal More

  • 138 Shares109 Views

    in Elections

    Five Key Discoveries in the Family Tree of Pope Leo XIV

    We went back 500 years and found his connection to some fascinating people.On May 8, an American cardinal named Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV. Later that day, The Times, drawing on research by Jari C. Honora, a genealogist, reported that Prevost had recent African American ancestors. This revelation came from going back just three generations — what else might be found by looking even further into the past?Certainly, the fans of “Finding Your Roots,” the PBS show I have hosted for 13 years, wanted to know. My inbox was flooded with emails asking us to trace the new pope’s ancestry. In collaboration with the genealogists at American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, we were able to go back as far his 12th-great-grandparents, who were born in the early 1500s. Here are some of our discoveries, ​which you can read in detail in The New York Times Magazine feature.Pope Leo’s lineage is surprisingly international.His diverse ancestry reflects the history of American immigration. The forebears identified so far were born in France (40), Italy (24), Spain (21), the United States (22), Cuba (10), Canada (6), Haiti (1) and Guadeloupe (1). The birthplaces are unknown for another nine ancestors who have been identified.Many of Pope Leo’s American-born ancestors were Black.Seventeen of the pope’s American ancestors were Black, described in historical records in terms ranging from “negresse” and “free person of color” to “mulâtresse créole” and “quadroon.” Another Black ancestor, the pope’s grandfather Joseph Nerval Martínez, was born in Haiti, to which his African Americans parents migrated from New Orleans before returning to the city in 1866.A dozen of the pope’s ancestors were slaveholders — including several who were Black.We Traced Pope Leo XIV’s Ancestry Back 500 Years. Here’s What We Found.Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveowners: what the complex family tree of the first American pontiff reveals.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

  • 138 Shares179 Views

    in Elections

    Paul McCartney, Carole King and Others Pay Tribute to Brian Wilson

    Wilson, whose death was announced on Wednesday, leaves behind an immense musical legacy that spans several decades. King and others share how his music shaped them.Brian Wilson, the leader of the Beach Boys who death at 82 was announced on Wednesday, provided a joyous soundtrack for beach vacations and summer road trips for generations of people.Among pop and rock musicians he will also be remembered as a talented songwriter and studio pioneer whose music has had an immense influence for decades on those who followed him.The Beach Boys had 13 singles in the Billboard Top 10, with three of them reaching No. 1. Their influence on the surf rock genre and on popular music generally was recognized by the variety of people who paid respects on social media to Wilson on Wednesday.Here’s what some of Wilson’s friends had to say about his death and legacy.Paul McCartney, a Wilson contemporary, noted that there was a chorus of tributes from other musicians, saying Wilson had a “mysterious sense of musical genius” that made his songs special. “The notes he heard in his head and passed to us were simple and brilliant at the same time,” McCartney said. “I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while. How we will continue without Brian Wilson, ‘God Only Knows.’”Carole King, also a contemporary, wrote on Facebook that Wilson was her friend and brother in songwriting. “We shared a similar sensibility, as evidenced by his 4 over 5 chord under ‘Aaaah!’ in ‘Good Vibrations’ and mine under ‘I’m Into Something Good,’” she said. “We once discussed who used it first, and in the end we decided it didn’t matter.”In 2015, “Love & Mercy,” a biopic about Wilson’s life starring John Cusack was released. On Wednesday, Cusack said that the “maestro” had died, adding that the hitmaker was an open heart with two legs “with an ear that heard the angels.”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

  • 113 Shares149 Views

    in Elections

    Why Israel May Be Considering an Attack on Iran

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran, “one way or the other,” from building a nuclear bomb.Israel has long envisioned a military attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in an attempt to halt what it considers an existential threat. But any such military strike would risk igniting a major conflict that could draw in the United States.Many in the Middle East are now wondering whether that moment has arrived. But it is unclear whether the heightened tensions are the result of saber-rattling in an attempt to influence negotiations between the United States and Iran over a nuclear deal, or a genuine Israeli attempt to carry out a planned attack. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that officials in the United States and Europe believed that Israel seemed to be gearing up for a potential strike, even as Trump administration is seeking a deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear program. The following day, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations — the first such censure in two decades.It is unclear how extensive an attack Israel is considering. But the United States has withdrawn diplomats from the region over concerns about the attack and any Iranian retaliation.Here’s what we know.Why might Israel attack now?Iran’s nuclear program has advanced considerably over the past decade, analysts say. Iran is on the brink of being able to manufacture enough nuclear material to fuel 10 nuclear weapons, although producing a usable bomb would likely take many more months.But Iran has been weakened since Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Iran, have been decimated in the war with Israel.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

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Elections

    Met Opera’s ‘Diva Whisperer’ Retires After 18 Years

    Suzi Gomez-Pizzo, wearing a tangerine sweatshirt and sneakers, barreled down the backstage corridors of the Metropolitan Opera on a recent afternoon, a trolley full of clothes behind her.It was the first act of John Adams’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” and Gomez-Pizzo, who supervises costumes for female leads at the Met, was lining up a series of quick changes for the soprano Julia Bullock, the opera’s Cleopatra. In the span of minutes, Gomez-Pizzo had to help Bullock change from a sleek burgundy gown to a slinky watercolor dress to a bejeweled pharaoh’s outfit.“You got this,” Gomez-Pizzo told Bullock, handing her a water bottle. “You look stunning.”After 18 years, Gomez-Pizzo, 64, a fast-talking native New Yorker, is retiring this month from the Met. She has garnered a reputation as a calm troubleshooter with a knack for defusing last-minute sartorial snafus: broken shoes, missing earrings, ripped gowns.“Before I even think of it, she anticipates the needs,” said the soprano Jullia Bullock, here with Gomez-Pizzo. “I know that no matter where my mind is, or feelings are, I’ve got this totally secure, reliable person.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York TimesBut perhaps her most important role has been as confidante and cheerleader to the stars. She meets opera singers at their most vulnerable, casually asking them to strip down and sit for fittings. She is often the last person they see before heading onto the Met’s stage, one of the grandest in opera. It is a critical moment when doubts, fears and yearnings — for water, chocolate or moral support — are particularly urgent.At the Met, Gomez-Pizzo is known simply as the diva whisperer. Over the years, she has befriended some of opera’s biggest stars, including Anna Netrebko, Lise Davidsen, Angel Blue, Elza van den Heever, Deborah Voigt and Natalie Dessay.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