Aurelia Butler

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    How Will Trump’s Covid Contrarians Handle the Next Pandemic?

    President-elect Donald J. Trump had already succeeded in rattling the nation’s public health and biomedical establishment by the time he announced on Tuesday that he had picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to run the National Institutes of Health. But amid growing fears of a deadly bird flu pandemic, perhaps no one was more rattled than experts in infectious disease.Dr. Bhattacharya, a Stanford University medical economist and outspoken opponent of lockdowns, masking, school closures and other Covid-19 mitigation measures, and Mr. Trump’s other health picks have one thing in common. They are all considered Covid contrarians whose views raise questions about how they would handle an infectious disease crisis.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s choice for health secretary, has said he wants the N.I.H. to focus on chronic disease and “give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” Dr. Martin Makary, the president-elect’s choice to run the Food and Drug Administration, incorrectly predicted in 2021 that the nation was “racing toward an extremely low level of infection.”Dr. David Weldon, a Republican former congressman who is Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has espoused the debunked theory that thimerosal, a mercury compound in certain vaccines, causes autism. As a congressman, he introduced legislation that would strip the C.D.C. of its role in ensuring vaccine safety, saying the agency had a “conflict of interest” because it also promotes vaccination.And Dr. Mehmet Oz, the talk show host who has been picked by Mr. Trump to run Medicare and Medicaid, prodded officials in the first Trump administration to give emergency authorization for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. The F.D.A. later revoked the authorization when studies showed the drug carried risks, including serious heart issues, to coronavirus patients.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he wants to focus on chronic diseases rather than infectious diseases as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe 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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    PCE, a Key Inflation Measure, Sped Up in October

    Inflation has been stubborn in recent months. Now, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s tariffs loom as a potential risk.The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure sped up in October, a development that is likely to keep central bankers wary as they contemplate the path ahead for interest rates.The Personal Consumption Expenditures index climbed 2.3 percent from a year earlier, quicker than 2.1 percent in September.After stripping out volatile food and fuel costs to get a better sense of the underlying trend in prices, a “core” index climbed 2.8 percent from a year earlier. That was up from 2.7 percent previously.Looking at how much prices climbed over just the past month, the overall index rose 0.2 percent from September, and the core index increased 0.3 percent. Both changes were in line with their previous readings and with economist expectations. Policymakers sometimes look at monthly price changes to get an up-to-date sense of how inflation is evolving.The upshot from the report is that inflation is proving sticky after months of steady progress. Price increases remain much cooler than they were at their peak in 2022, which topped out at about 7 percent for the overall index. But they remain slightly faster than the 2 percent pace that the Fed targets.That is preventing officials from declaring victory over inflation, although policymakers still expect price increases to continue to cool toward their goal.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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    3 Americans Are Said to Be Freed From China in Prisoner Swap

    The three men, John Leung, Kai Li and Mark Swidan, are on planes heading to the United States, officials said.The Biden administration has negotiated a prisoner swap with China for the release of three American men, including one who had been an F.B.I. informant, according to senior U.S. officials.The three Americans — John Leung, Kai Li and Mark Swidan — were on planes heading to the United States on Wednesday morning.“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” said Sean Savett, a National Security Council spokesman.Mr. Leung was outwardly pro-Beijing. He backed the country’s claim to Taiwan, organized groups that promoted American ties with China and frequently appeared with Chinese consular officials in Houston. He had also provided information to the F.B.I. for years, according to two of the American officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the matter.His F.B.I. contacts discouraged him from traveling to China in 2021, one of the officials said. The Chinese authorities arrested him and took him to an undisclosed detention center. For over two years, his friends and family heard nothing. In 2023, a court in the city of Suzhou sentenced him to life in prison, a first for an American charged with espionage in China.The swap has been in the works for months. It involves the release of at least one Chinese prisoner in the United States, two of the officials said. A State Department official in Washington confirmed the names of the Americans being released but would not give further details.During the negotiations, multiple American officials said they were in discussions about releasing Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence officer serving prison time in the United States. The terms of the swap were unclear on Wednesday morning, but Mr. Xu was listed in the Bureau of Prisons system as “Not in B.O.P. custody.”Mr. Xu was the first Chinese spy officer indicted and arrested overseas and brought to trial in the United States, according to the Justice Department.China does not typically do prisoner swaps, said John Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights group in San Francisco. “It suggests to me that they not only want to give a parting gift to Joe Biden, but they are signaling to Donald Trump the possibility of making important concessions,” he said.Both Mr. Li and Mr. Swidan have been ill, Mr. Kamm said.Edward Wong More

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    Forget the Instagram Hard Launch: Are You Location-Sharing Official?

    It’s the final frontier in digital expressions of coupledom. But for some people, it’s always going to be creepy.Niara Sterling is a D.J. living in Brooklyn who frequently travels to different cities and countries to perform in front of thousands of guests at parties, concerts and other events.In her last relationship, she shared her phone location with her girlfriend, as well as with a few close friends and family members — and didn’t think twice about it. She and her ex, a fellow female D.J., both frequently worked at night, so knowing where they each were afforded some peace of mind in case of an emergency.“God forbid something happens, you can find my location,” said Ms. Sterling, 30. “I also think I didn’t mind it because we had an honest relationship. I didn’t have anything to hide; we lived together already anyway.”Since Apple’s location-sharing app Find My debuted more than a decade ago, it has become widely used as a way not only to keep tabs on your devices, children or luggage, but also to check in on your romantic partner. But the app, which can be used to prioritize your closest friends above other acquaintances, can also complicate dynamics within friend groups.So it’s no surprise that the use of Find My — and similar location-sharing apps — is popular among those in romantic relationships. In many ways, the Find My app has become a way to signal that your relationship is official, much as users would give a partner pride of place in their Myspace Top 8, change their status on Facebook to “In a Relationship” or hard launch on Instagram.But while there are those who see Find My as a helpful tool when coordinating plans or preparing for emergencies, others find it to be controlling and intrusive.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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    At This French Exhibition, Check Your Clothes at the Door

    A museum in Marseille, France, has a show dedicated to the history of social nudity. On a few special nights, visitors strolled around naked, too.A group of visitors listened intently to their tour guide last Friday at one of Marseille’s biggest museums. One woman examined old posters with bright colors and bold graphics. Another studied a collection of black-and-white photographs laid out on a table.They all were naked, save for their shoes.The disrobed spectators had come to the Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, known as Mucem, for an exhibition about social nudity, which practitioners often call naturism. According to the museum, almost 100,000 people have visited the show since it opened in July, and, at five special viewings, about 600 of them have been naked.Some were regular naturists, identifiable by their tan-line-less, often leathery backsides.But many had never been naked with strangers before, except for the odd skinny dip. For them, shared nudity was mostly confined to locker rooms or bedrooms, for sports or for sex. This was a new way to relate to art, and to their bodies. Acceptance. Or, maybe, neutrality.“Normally, bodies are so sexualized,” said Jule Baumann, 27, one of the visitors on Friday. “I liked the idea of being in a place where it’s just normal to be naked.”A naked museum show itself is not novel: Museums in Paris, Vienna, Montreal, Barcelona, Milan and the small English town of Dorchester have hosted such evenings before.The exhibition traces the development of the naturist lifestyle in Europe over a century.France Keyser for The New York TimesWe 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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    Bodhi, the ‘Menswear Dog,’ Dies at 15

    A Shiba Inu of uncommon sartorial panache, Bodhi modeled for Coach and was the subject of his own fashion lookbook.Bodhi, a Shiba Inu whose smartly tailored sport coats and luxurious knitwear helped make him the rare canine men’s wear influencer, died last Monday. He was 15.To hundreds of thousands of fashion enthusiasts who followed him on social media, Bodhi was known simply as the Menswear Dog. His owner, Yena Kim, announced his death Monday on Instagram, alongside an image of Bodhi wearing an arresting striped turtleneck.Bodhi was seldom underdressed. For more than a decade, he modeled herringbone overcoats and pageboy caps, buttery cashmere vests and tortoiseshell glasses. In each image, his dignified snout poked out from beneath caramel-colored fur; it was more typical to see him photographed in a bow tie rather than a dog collar.“Listen, he wore it well,” said Lawrence Schlossman, the co-host of the fashion podcast “Throwing Fits.” “It was always the right Oxford, the right knit tie, a beautiful raincoat with the collar popped.”Mr. Schlossman became familiar with the Menswear Dog account on Tumblr in the early 2010s, as the preppy look modeled by Bodhi gained traction in mainstream fashion. He once layered a raglan-sleeve coat over a white button-up and realized that he was inadvertently channeling the dapper Shiba Inu.“I can only imagine that wherever he is, he’s still getting ’fits off,” Mr. Schlossman said.

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    I Ran Into My Horrible Ex in My Therapist’s Waiting Room. Help!

    A reader seeks advice on how to contend with the possibility of a future encounter with her ex after an explosive and painful breakup.My ex and I broke up six months ago. It ended very badly, with lots of volatility and rage. I was so distressed by the experience that I went to therapy for the first time. It’s been helpful to recognize how much I internalized my ex’s criticisms of me. I hadn’t seen him since our breakup — until yesterday. I was sitting in my therapist’s waiting room, and he walked in with a woman who I assume is his new girlfriend. I pretended not to see him, and he walked out as soon as he saw me. The experience was alarming and mortifying: Not only has he moved on so quickly, but he’s already in couples therapy! My question: How do I avoid these run-ins in the future? I probably don’t have the right to ask him not to come to therapy during my time slot, but it’s the only time I could arrange.EX-GIRLFRIENDBefore we get to the uncomfortable waiting room, let’s review all the progress you’ve made: After a terrible breakup, you recognized that you needed help, and you went out and got it. You are exploring the ways in which your ex made you feel bad about yourself, and you and your therapist are probably working on strategies to prevent that from happening again. You’re killing it!Now, that doesn’t mean there won’t be occasional backsliding. And running into your ex for the first time after a bad breakup is virtually guaranteed to cause one. Still, you show maturity in recognizing that it’s not reasonable to tell your ex that he can’t sit in the same waiting room as you. (In fact, it’s probably good that he’s getting therapy, right?)Best of all: You have a therapist in place to help you with this issue. I would consider briefly acknowledging your ex — with a nod or a wave — and then returning to your phone or magazine. This may help you normalize sitting in the same space with him. My concern: Try not to make too much of his presence there. The fact that he has a new girlfriend — if she’s his new girlfriend — says nothing about you. Keep the focus on yourself, OK?Miguel PorlanBefore Bringing in the Pros, a Child Care Trial RunMy partner and I have an infant. I earn significantly more money than he does, and my job is more time-intensive. We both work from home. During my maternity leave, I did most of the child care. My partner thinks he will be able to pick up those duties when I return to work, but I’m afraid he won’t be up to it. I also want to set boundaries that allow me to keep working even though I am just steps away from the baby. I’ve suggested a sitter or day care, but he’s concerned about the cost. How can I talk about this without making him feel that he’s not up to the job?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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    The Israel-Hezbollah Cease-Fire: What to Know

    Under the agreement, Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from Lebanon over the next 60 days, and Hezbollah will not entrench itself near the Israeli border.A cease-fire meant to end the deadliest war in decades between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah officially took effect early Wednesday, less than a day after President Biden announced the deal and Israel approved its terms.Thousands of Lebanese began to return to their homes in the first hours of the cease-fire. The fighting has killed thousands in Lebanon and around 100 Israeli civilians and soldiers. The conflict has also displaced about one million people in Lebanon, in addition to doing vast physical damage there, and about 60,000 people in Israel.Lebanon’s government agreed on Wednesday morning to the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed it on Tuesday night and argued that a truce would allow Israel to rebuild its weapon stockpiles while it works to isolate Hamas, the Hezbollah ally that Israel is fighting in Gaza.Here’s what you need to know:A 60-day truceHow will it be enforced?What are the obstacles to a permanent deal?Why did the sides agree to stop fighting?How did we get here?A 60-day truceThe agreement, mediated by American and French diplomats, calls for Israel and Hezbollah to observe a 60-day truce.During that period, Israel would withdraw its forces gradually from southern Lebanon.Hezbollah forces would move north away from the Israeli border and the Lebanese military will send more troops to Lebanon’s south.The withdrawals would effectively create a buffer zone between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, along the Israeli border.If the truce holds though the 60-day period, negotiators hope the agreement will become permanent.How will it be enforced?Under the terms of the deal, a U.N. peacekeeping force, along with the Lebanese Army, will keep the peace in the border zone, as envisioned in a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the previous Israel-Hezbollah war but that was never fully carried out.The cease-fire will be overseen by several countries, including the United States and France, as well as by the United Nations.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