Aurelia Butler

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    2 New York Representatives Are Denied Access to ICE Facility

    Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez were turned away when seeking to inspect a migrant detention area inside a Manhattan federal building.Federal officials prevented two members of Congress on Sunday from entering an immigration detention facility in Manhattan where the representatives were seeking to investigate reports of overcrowding, stifling heat and migrants sleeping on bathroom floors.The representatives, Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez, both Democrats from New York, said officials at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building had denied them access to the 10th-floor detention area because it was a “sensitive facility.”The building, at 26 Federal Plaza, a few blocks from City Hall, has been the site of recent protests against the transport of migrants there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also houses immigration courts where ICE has been making arrests in recent weeks.Members of Congress are allowed special access to any Department of Homeland Security facility, including those operated by ICE, as long as they give at least 24 hours’ advance notice, according to visitation guidelines.“Today, ICE violated all of our rights,” Representative Espaillat said at a news conference on Sunday after being turned away. “We deserve to know what’s going on on the 10th floor.”He added, “If there’s nothing wrong, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to go in to see it.”Representative Velázquez said she was outraged about being turned away. “Our duty is to supervise any federal building,” she said.“This is not Russia; this is the United States of America,” she added. “The president of the United States is not a king.”A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said Sunday evening that the lawmakers had shown up unannounced. ICE officials had told them, she said, that they “would be happy to give them a tour with a little more notice, when it would not disrupt ongoing law enforcement activities and sensitive law enforcement items could be put away.”The representatives arrived a day after dozens of protesters at the complex tried to block ICE vehicles carrying migrants. Many held up signs, including some that said “Stop Deportations!” and “To Get Our Neighbors You Have To Get Through Us!”That demonstration erupted in a clash with police officers, some of whom blasted protesters with pepper spray. The police said 22 people were taken into custody. Most were issued summonses or asked to return to court at a later date, according to a spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney.“This is the nightmare scenario we’ve been taught to fear since childhood,” said John Mark Rozendaal, 64, of Manhattan, who has protested at the building over the last three weeks.We need to “stand up to the repression that’s coming into our nation,” he added.Santiago Castro, 28, a student who is from Colombia, said he had come to the demonstration for a personal reason: ICE agents arrested his father in Manhattan on Tuesday.Mr. Castro said he was demonstrating “for my family.” More

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    Map: 6.3-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Colombia

    Shake intensity Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 4 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “light,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown.  All times on the map are Colombia time. The New York Times More

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    Map: Tracking Tropical Storm Barbara

    Barbara was a tropical storm in the North Pacific Ocean Sunday morning Mountain time, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. The tropical storm had sustained wind speeds of 60 miles per hour.  All times on the map are Mountain time. By The New York Times What does the storm look like from […] More

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    Why TV Meteorologist John Morales’s Hurricane Plea Went Viral

    A TV forecaster said he was not confident he could predict the paths of storms this year, touching a nerve amid concerns about how federal cuts could affect hurricane season.A meteorologist who has spent his career warning South Florida about hurricanes had a new warning for viewers last week: He’s not sure he can do it this year.John Morales of WTVJ in Miami said the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the National Weather Service could leave television forecasters like him “flying blind” this hurricane season. “We may not exactly know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline,” he warned.Clips of Mr. Morales’s comments have spread widely: one posted on MSNBC’s TikTok account has nearly 4,500 comments, and news outlets around the world have written articles about what he said. (This isn’t the first time Mr. Morales has been the subject of viral attention: In the fall, his emotional reaction to Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification also hit a nerve.)Here’s what Mr. Morales had to say and more about what is going on with the Weather Service.He warned of less accurate forecasts.Mr. Morales’s presentation on Monday began with a clip of himself following the Category 5 Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as it moved over the Bahamas. He reassured his Florida viewers that the powerful storm would turn north before it reached their coastline. And it did, exactly when Mr. Morales assured anxious viewers it would.The clip cuts to him in present day, slightly older and now wearing glasses. He recalled the confidence he used to have in delivering an accurate forecast to his viewers.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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    Are Millennials ‘Childless’ or ‘Child Free’?

    More from our inbox:America, a Beacon No More? Dadu ShinTo the Editor:“Why Do Millennials Dread Having Babies?,” by Michal Leibowitz (Opinion guest essay, June 1), left me sad, impatient and energetically questioning her conclusion.Sad to read that she and others in their 20s and 30s are so fearful of having children. Impatient with her portrait of a mental health culture that seems to her to encourage people to live in a world limited by parental abuse and inadequacy. And energetically questioning her conclusion that such a culture is causing childlessness.Young people I know are indeed hesitant about having children, but almost exclusively for the reasons Ms. Leibowitz touches on in the beginning of her piece, but does not return to in her analysis. Some worry about their ability to support children financially, and many are deeply concerned about our country’s appetite for authoritarianism and the kind of future that climate change will bring.It is critical to the psychotherapeutic enterprise to recognize the influences — especially the traumas — that have shaped our feelings and behavior. But responsible therapists also do everything possible to help patients and clients loosen the hold of damaging childhood experience, and wrest from its pain the strength and wisdom to live mindfully and hopefully in the present.Most of the people I’ve worked with on this issue over 50 years — including women who as children suffered horrendous physical abuse — have said that their therapeutic experience made them far more comfortable with having children. Friends who have worked with other therapists say the same. Some do worry whether they will do a better job than their parents, but just about all welcome the opportunity and the challenge.James S. GordonWashingtonThe writer is a psychiatrist and the author of “Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing.”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 Turned the Oval Office Into “Watch What Happens Live”

    On Thursday, right around the time of the online breakout of a feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump that resembled a “Real Housewives” reunion show, we were treated to another episode of what has become the president’s favorite reality TV reboot. Call it “The Apprentice: World Leaders,” and in this latest installment, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, appeared alongside Mr. Trump, displaying a sophisticated instinct to hold his ground and emerge unscathed during his visit to the gilded zoo of the Oval Office.We’re becoming all too used to watching this new kind of presidential meet-and-greet. What traditionally had been a low-stakes and highly choreographed government function has this year been reinvented by Mr. Trump as “Watch What Happens Live” set in the Oval Office (with JD Vance on hand to play the supporting role of the bartender).For many of us, watching these affairs offers the same queasy experience as the most car-crash-reminiscent reality shows, but with geopolitical consequences. We brace ourselves for the inevitable moments of skirmish and bluster, of braying rudeness and the possible surprise reveal straight out of “Punk’d” or “Jerry Springer.” We grimace in preparation for the next big cringe moment before the show goes to commercial. We watch — often through eyes shielded in dismay — as the president falls just short of resorting to his favorite catchphrase: “You’re fired!”It’s natural to conflate these moments with the worst — and most addictive — elements of reality TV. Maybe it’s a remnant of my early career writing public-television program guide listings, or perhaps my childhood spent within reach of the Bronx Zoo, but I have come to understand, or at least to tolerate, these diplomacy-shattering displays of ginned-up drama as more like episodes of classic nature programs.For me, they often recall “The Living Planet,” that grand adventure in BBC travel-budget largess, narrated by David Attenborough, from the 1980s — right around the time a self-styled real estate developer from Queens was buying up New Jersey casinos that would go bankrupt.Admittedly, I might be overly influenced by the news that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a recent most-favored autocracy, will be sending two rare Arabian leopards to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington. Brandie Smith, the director of the zoo, said that Mr. Trump was most interested in learning about the leopards’ “personality.”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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    An Immigration Clash

    President Trump orders the National Guard to Southern California. President Trump ordered at least 2,000 National Guard members to Los Angeles County. For two days, hundreds of demonstrators have faced off with immigration agents in riot gear. More protests are expected today, and a Trump official said that troops would arrive in L.A. within 24 hours. Here’s what we know:Protests: Some of the most active demonstrations took place in Compton and in Paramount, a majority Hispanic area about 25 miles southeast of the Hollywood sign. Agents used flash-bang grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets on crowds of protesters. Some demonstrators threw fireworks and rocks at police officers. The L.A.P.D. detained a number of protesters but also said that demonstrations in the city of L.A. were peaceful.Deployment: Trump’s order is the first time that a president has activated a state’s National Guard without a request from that state’s governor since 1965, an expert said. Then, Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. Trump said he considered efforts to block ICE agents a “form of rebellion.”Context: Protests broke out on Friday as federal agents rolled through L.A.’s garment district in search of undocumented migrant workers. The raids signaled a new phase of Trump’s immigration crackdown focused on workplaces, Lydia DePillis and Ernesto Londoño wrote.Response: California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, described Trump’s order as “purposefully inflammatory,” saying that federal officials “want a spectacle.” Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, said the presence of the troops would “not be helpful.”Follow live updates.Camp outTatsiana Volkava/Getty ImagesThe trope of the overscheduled child doesn’t go away just because the school year ends. Type A parents, panicked about falling behind, increasingly use summer camp to build our kids’ skills and pad their résumés. We stress about the best offerings and rush to reserve spots as soon as admissions open up. I registered my middle child for his Pennsylvania sleepaway camp all the way back in August. Yes, I recognize that’s absurd.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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    Justice Jackson Just Helped Reset the D.E.I. Debate

    At the heart of the debate over diversity, equity and inclusion is a question: How much should the law treat a person as an individual rather than as a member of a group?For a very long time, American law and American institutions answered that question unequivocally. People were defined primarily by the group they belonged to, and if they happened to be Black or Native American or a woman, they were going to enjoy fewer rights, fewer privileges and fewer opportunities than the people who belonged to the categories white and male.That was — and remains — a grievous injustice. At a minimum, justice demands that a nation and its institutions cease and desist from malicious discrimination. But doesn’t justice demand more? Doesn’t it also require that a nation and its institutions actually try to provide assistance to targeted groups to help increase diversity in employment and education and help targeted groups overcome the systemic effects of centuries of discrimination?On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously decided a case that was directly relevant to the latter question, and while the outcome wasn’t surprising, the court’s unanimity — and the identity of the author of the court’s opinion — certainly was.The facts of the case, Ames v. Ohio, are simple. In 2004, the Ohio Department of Youth Services hired a heterosexual woman named Marlean Ames to work as an executive secretary. By 2019, she’d worked her way up to program administrator and set her sights higher — applying for a management position in the agency’s Office of Quality and Improvement.The department interviewed Ames for the job but decided to hire someone else, a lesbian. The department then demoted Ames and replaced her with a gay man. Believing she’d been discriminated against on the basis of her sexual orientation, she filed suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.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