Aurelia Butler

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    Trump is Pushing Allies Away and Closer Into Each Other’s Arms

    Important U.S. allies are trying to bolster their ties as the Trump administration shifts priorities and reshapes the world order.New trade deals. Joint sanctions against Israel. Military agreements.America’s closest allies are increasingly turning to each other to advance their interests, deepening their ties as the Trump administration challenges them with tariffs and other measures that are upending trade, diplomacy and defense.Concerned by shifting U.S. priorities under President Trump, some of America’s traditional partners on the world stage have spent the turbulent months since Mr. Trump’s January inauguration focusing on building up their direct relationships, flexing diplomatic muscles and leaving the United States aside.This emerging dynamic involves countries such as Britain, France, Canada and Japan — often referred to by international relations experts as “middle powers” to distinguish them from superpowers like the United States and China.“These are industrialized democracies, allies of the United States, supporting multilateral rules and institutions,” said Roland Paris, a professor of international relations and the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.“And as the international order has been disintegrating, and the United States has been indicating that it’s less willing to underwrite it, what we’ve seen is a shift in the role of middle powers,” he added.That role, Professor Paris said, is characterized by the pursuit of “opportunistic and self-interested initiatives that are still collaborative,” including a slew of smaller agreements over trade and defense involving European countries and Canada.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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    What Happens to Harvard If Trump Successfully Bars Its International Students?

    If President Trump makes good on all his threats, Harvard may lose much of its influence and prestige. It could also become even harder to afford.As President Trump and his team dialed up the pressure on Harvard University last month, threatening to bar its international students, the school issued what was at once a warning and a plea.“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” school officials wrote in a lawsuit asking a judge to stop the federal government’s actions.It left unsaid what Harvard, if it were no longer Harvard, would become.It’s a scenario that some inside Harvard are beginning to imagine and plan for as the Trump administration lobs attacks from all angles, seeking to cut the university off from both students and billions of dollars in federal funding.Top leaders at Harvard, one of the nation’s oldest universities, including its provost, John F. Manning, a conservative legal scholar who once clerked for the former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, are meeting more frequently to strategize.The school’s board of trustees, the Harvard Corporation, has discussed whether hundreds, if not thousands, of people will need to be laid off.And on 8:30 a.m. Zoom calls once or twice a week, administrative officials meet with senior leaders of Harvard’s undergraduate and graduate schools to share updates about the latest Trump developments, which keep coming rapid-fire.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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    I Had an Affair With a Politician Who Denies Being Gay. Do I Keep His Secret?

    Is what happened between us my story to tell?Many years ago, I had a brief relationship with another young man. We had sex once, and he wanted to continue but asked me to keep it secret because he was in politics. I was a hotheaded gay activist, and I refused on principle, ending the affair. He went on to become one of the most prominent politicians in his country. He was a single man for a long time, but when asked about his sexuality he denied being gay. He eventually married a woman and lives a putatively heterosexual life.I am a writer. Is what happened between us my story to tell, or is it his story to (still) hide? Is he entitled to privacy? Am I obligated to keep his name a secret even though I didn’t agree to do that at the time, and when asked to keep it quiet I refused? — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:Let’s start with the obvious questions: Why now, after all this time? What would you hope to gain from this disclosure? You say that this man is a prominent politician in “his country” (which is presumably not your own), but you don’t indicate that you think he’s a threat to the common good. Is what moves you a belated desire for recognition? A murky wish to be acknowledged in a story that has long since moved on without you — to insert yourself in someone else’s Wikipedia page?Sexual intimacy presupposes a measure of respect for the privacy of those involved. Would your brief encounter have occurred had you announced in advance that you felt free to publish the names of your sexual partners? And there’s an ethical weight that comes with holding in your hands another person’s private life, or an episode of it, anyway. You don’t know how he now thinks of his own sexuality, what his wife knows, how they’ve shaped their lives together or what accommodations have been made in the privacy of a life that has nothing to do with you anymore. Before you risk bruising another family, perhaps it’s worth closing your laptop and pausing to consider: Do you really have good reason to change course and stop honoring the intimacy of your youthful affair?Once a story like this reaches the media, especially social media, it can spiral far beyond your control. Depending on the political culture of his country, what begins as a personal anecdote can quickly turn into a public spectacle. The result could be more intrusive, more destructive and more lasting than you anticipate — for him, his family and for you. You can send a story out into the world, but you can’t call it home.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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    Broadway Dreams Were Dashed, Then Rob Madge Knocked on Some Doors

    The British performer is bringing “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” to City Center this week, after an earlier run was canceled.“Everybody needs a good setback in their life and gosh, 2024 did that for me.”That was Rob Madge, speaking on video last month from their London home. A theater maker who identifies as nonbinary, Madge smiled wide into the camera and, wearing a crisp white guayabera-style shirt that was mostly buttoned, looked as if they were on their way to a “White Lotus” resort happy hour.But Madge wasn’t talking about cocktails and island intrigue. They were recalling dashed Broadway dreams.In February 2024, the Broadway run of Madge’s autobiographical show “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” was postponed just weeks before it was to begin preview performances at the Lyceum Theater. There was talk of opening on Broadway the following season, but that never materialized.In a statement last month, the show’s producers, Tom Smedes and Heather Shields, said “the heartbreaking decision” to call off a Broadway run was because “the risks of launching and sustaining the production were simply too great” for the show’s “long-term health.”The actor in the production, which incorporates projected scenes from the “living room shows” that Madge performed as a kid.Mark SeniorMadge, 28, said having Broadway fall through prompted them to consider difficult and dueling questions, the likes of which plague any theater artist putting work into the world.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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    5 Ways to Prevent Falling

    Small changes and good habits make a difference.If you’ve ever watched children at a playground or visited a skating rink, you’ve undoubtedly seen people of all ages taking tumbles. Falling is never fun, but the consequences become more serious as we get older.More than 14 million adults age 65 and over report falling every year in the United States, and the risk increases with age. In fact, falls are the primary cause of injury-related death among older adults in the United States, and they can result in broken hips, spinal fractures and traumatic brain injuries.But many falls can be prevented, said Dr. Gerald Pankratz, a geriatrician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That makes him “optimistic about this issue,” he said.According to a recent policy statement from the American Public Health Association, evidence-based fall prevention strategies can reduce falls by 6 to 36 percent, depending on the intervention.In his practice, Dr. Pankratz said, it is not unusual for people assessed as having a 50 percent chance of falling over the next year to cut their risk in half by taking action to avoid slips and trips.Why falling increases with ageNormal changes in our bodies as we age make us more prone to falling and more likely to experience injuries from those falls, said Dr. David Reuben, a geriatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.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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    Fulbright Board Quits, Accusing Trump Administration of Political Interference

    The board of the prestigious program told the State Department it had no right to cancel scholarships for nearly 200 American professors and researchers.The dozen board members of the prestigious Fulbright program that promotes international educational exchanges resigned on Wednesday because of what they said was political interference by the Trump administration in their operations, according to people familiar with the issues and a board memo obtained by The New York Times.The members are concerned that political appointees at the State Department, which manages the program, are acting illegally by canceling the awarding of Fulbright scholarships to almost 200 American professors and researchers who are prepared to go to universities and other research institutions overseas starting this summer, said the people, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire.The board approved those scholars over the winter after a yearlong selection process, and the State Department was supposed to send acceptance letters by April, the people said. But instead, the board learned that the office of public diplomacy at the agency had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based mainly on their research topics, they said.In addition, the department is reviewing the applications of about 1,200 scholars from other countries who have already been approved by the board to come to the United States, the people said. Those foreign scholars were also supposed to receive acceptance letters around April.The memo written by the board says that members are resigning “rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago,” according to a copy obtained by The Times.The board posted the memo online on Wednesday morning, after sending a resignation letter to the White House.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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    This Elusive Antarctic Squid Was Seen for the First Time

    An expedition in the Southern Ocean captured video of a rare species of deep-sea cephalopod. Until now, it had been found only in fishing nets and in the bellies of seabirds.The deep-sea environs of the Earth’s poles are home to mysterious ocean creatures: giant sea spiders, Antarctic sea pigs, phantom jellyfish. Finding and identifying these animals can be difficult, however; some are known only because researchers found their remains in fishing nets or in the bellies of seabirds. But on Christmas Day last year, the crew of the R/V Falkor (Too), the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel, caught sight of a creature never before seen alive.The team had planned to deploy its remotely operated vehicle, SuBastian, in a site known as the Powell Basin, but the movement of ice blocks forced the group to explore the region’s outer edges instead.When the submersible dropped 7,000 feet, the team unexpectedly spotted a shadow through the live feed, which turned out to be an Antarctic gonate squid, a rare species of cephalopod, three feet long and releasing a green cloud of ink.“It was a beautiful squid,” said Andrew Thurber, a deep-sea researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was aboard the vessel. “You see beauty all the time in the deep ocean, and this was just one classic example of it.”No Antarctic gonate squid had ever been seen alive before, as far as the team was aware. They followed it for a couple of minutes and made sure to record it on video, capturing the creature’s red coloration and white spots.“Videos like this get me really excited,” said Linsey Sala, a museum scientist who manages the pelagic invertebrate collection at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and was not involved in the expedition. Discoveries of species like this “can be really informative to how they live life at great depths,” Ms. Sala said. Unidentified specimens might be sitting in collections around the world, she added, in which case the video footage could be helpful in revealing what they are.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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    Mikie Sherrill Wins the Democratic Primary for Governor of New Jersey

    Ms. Sherrill, the only woman in a six-candidate race for the Democratic nomination, emphasized her service as a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot.Representative Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday won the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for governor of New Jersey, capping a hard-fought primary that featured a large field of prominent and well-funded candidates.With about 90 percent of the estimated vote reported, Ms. Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, was outpacing five other candidates by a wide margin, according to The Associated Press.She is now expected to compete in November’s general election against Jack Ciattarelli, the winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary. Mr. Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, is running his third race for governor and is backed by President Trump, who has made clear his goal of helping to propel a Republican to the State House in Trenton after eight years of Democratic control.Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark was in second place, just ahead of Mayor Steven Fulop of Jersey City, according to results tallied by the A.P., which are likely to change somewhat after ballots mailed by Election Day are fully counted.The three other candidates carved up the balance of the total vote: Representative Josh Gottheimer, of New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District; Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association; and Stephen Sweeney, a former State Senate president.“I’m going to protect our rights — including a right to an abortion,” Ms. Sherrill told supporters gathered in Morristown, N.J., to celebrate her victory. As for Mr. Ciattarelli, she said, “I am ready to shake up the status quo, and Jack is the status quo.”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