Aurelia Butler

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    Max Romeo, Leading Voice in the Heyday of Roots Reggae, Dies at 80

    His early hits were filled with sexual innuendo. But he later switched to a soulful political message that resonated in 1970s Jamaica and beyond.Max Romeo, a reggae singer whose earliest hits dripped with sexual innuendo, but who then switched to a soulful, politically engaged message that provided a soundtrack to the class struggles of 1970s Jamaica and made him a mainstay on the international tour circuit, died on April 11 outside Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. He was 80.Errol Michael Henry, a lawyer who represented Mr. Romeo, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was heart complications.Mr. Romeo, whose real surname was Smith, was among the last of a generation of Jamaican musicians who came to prominence in the 1970s, among them Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear. Their sound, known as roots reggae, centered on the lives of ordinary people in Jamaica, blended with a heavy dollop of Black liberation and Rastafarianism.Until then, reggae had been seen, at least beyond Jamaica, as a musical novelty focused on fleeting love and sex. But the 1970s musicians’ political message and laid-back sound, combined with their open marijuana use, gave reggae a new and lasting cultural resonance.Mr. Romeo, a veteran of the reggae tour circuit, performing in Switzerland in 2023. His tour that year took him to 56 cities.Valentin Flauraud/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Romeo’s career tracked that transition. He began as a clean-cut crooner in Jamaica, part of a trio called the Emotions. After setting out on his own, he found success with raunchy songs like “Wet Dream,” a 1968 track so explicit that many radio stations refused to play it. Nevertheless, it spent 25 weeks on the British singles chart, peaking at No. 10.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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    More Than 400,000 Wireless Phone Chargers Are Recalled Over Fire Hazard

    Casely, a company in Brooklyn, received 51 reports of lithium-ion batteries overheating, expanding or catching fire, resulting in six minor burn injuries.More than 400,000 Casely wireless phone chargers were recalled on Thursday over concerns that they could pose a fire hazard, officials said.Casely, a company based in Brooklyn, received 51 reports of lithium-ion batteries inside the power banks overheating, expanding or catching fire while consumers were charging their phones, causing at least six minor burn injuries, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a notice.Consumers who purchased Casely Power Pods 5000mAh portable MagSafe wireless phone chargers with model number E33A are urged to stop using them immediately and contact the company for a free replacement.The roughly 429,200 affected phone chargers have “Casely” engraved on the front and the model number on the back.The pocket-size power banks were sold at getcasely.com, Amazon and other e-commerce websites from March 2022 to September 2024, the commission said.The phone chargers should not be thrown in the trash or recycled in either the general recycling stream or the used-battery boxes commonly found at retail and home improvement stores, the commission said.That’s because the recalled lithium-ion batteries, which pose a greater fire risk than other batteries, must be discarded differently.Consumers can contact their local household hazardous waste collection center to see if it accepts recalled lithium-ion batteries. If it does not, the commission recommends contacting local municipal officials for more guidance.Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable, last a long time and store a lot of energy in a small space. These features have made them a staple in common devices, including phones, laptops, toothbrushes, power tools and electric vehicles. However, the batteries require safe handling because of their potential to start fires.The U.S. Fire Administration advises consumers to stop using lithium-ion batteries if they emit an odor, put off too much heat, leak, make odd noises or if there is a change in color or shape.Before purchasing products, consumers should look for a “Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory” stamp, according to the administration. More

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    Small Plane Crashes Into Nebraska River, Killing 3

    The plane was traveling along the Platte River when it crashed into the water south of Fremont, Neb., on Friday night, officials said.A small plane crashed into a river in eastern Nebraska on Friday night, killing three people on board, officials said.The plane was traveling along the Platte River when it crashed into the water south of Fremont, which is about 40 miles northwest of Omaha, just after 8 p.m., Sgt. Brie Frank of the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference late Friday night.All three bodies were recovered from the crash site with help from agencies that responded, including with airboats, Sergeant Frank said.The identities of the victims were not immediately known. It was not immediately known where the plane was headed or from where it departed.The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane was a Cessna 180 and that an investigator was expected to arrive at the crash scene Saturday afternoon.The board said that once the investigator documented the scene and examined the aircraft, the plane would be taken to a secure facility for further evaluation.The Federal Aviation Administration will also investigate, Sergeant Frank said.Local news reports showed parts of the plane still in the water on Saturday morning.The crash was the latest in a string of small plane crashes across the United States, including in Florida, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania. More

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    Putin Declares One-Day Easter Truce in Ukraine War

    President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that from Saturday evening through Sunday, he had ordered his forces to “stop all military activity.” Ukraine’s leader said he was trying to “play with people’s lives.”President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” against Ukraine from Saturday evening through Sunday, declaring an “Easter truce” that appeared aimed at showing an impatient Trump administration that Moscow was still open to peace talks.“We will assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example,” Mr. Putin said in a meeting televised on Saturday with his top military commander, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov.Mr. Putin claimed that Kyiv’s response would shed light on Ukraine’s “desire, and, indeed, its ability” to take part in negotiations to end the war.In a post on social media an hour after Mr. Putin’s announcement, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine referred to it as Mr. Putin’s “next attempt to play with people’s lives.” Mr. Zelensky did not specify whether Ukraine would also observe a truce.Air-raid sirens rang out in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, around 5 p.m. local time, an hour before Mr. Putin’s cease-fire was due to start.“Ukrainian air defense and aviation have already begun working to defend themselves,” Mr. Zelensky said. Referring to Iranian-designed Russian drones, he went on: “Russian ‘Shaheds’ in our skies are Putin’s true attitude to Easter and to people’s lives.”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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    Can Trump Really Negotiate Peace in Ukraine, Russians Wonder

    Many thought President Trump would be able to finish the war. Now they are not so sure.Many Russians cheered President Trump’s election because they thought he could make a deal for a negotiated peace in Ukraine that would satisfy the Kremlin.Three months into Mr. Trump’s second term, the disappointment in Moscow is palpable.In interviews, people in the Kremlin’s orbit have revealed frustration both with Mr. Trump’s whirlwind approach to the talks and with President Vladimir V. Putin’s apparent inflexibility in the negotiations. With Mr. Trump and his top diplomat warning on Friday that the United States could walk away from the discussion, some of them fear that a collapse in talks could lead to a further escalation of the fighting.Movement toward peace is going “much more slowly than it should be, and not the way one would want it to be,” said Grigory A. Yavlinsky, a liberal politician in Moscow who held a rare meeting with Mr. Putin in 2023 to urge a cease-fire. In the meantime, he said, Mr. Putin “is just fighting, he’s seizing the moment. He wants to achieve the maximum before substantive talks.”The question now is whether Mr. Putin climbs down from demands that seem little changed from the cease-fire conditions he outlined last summer, when he said Ukraine would have to agree not to join NATO and also withdraw from a large swath of territory before Russia stopped fighting.For now, the increasingly blunt warnings from Mr. Trump and his lieutenants that they could run out of patience have had little effect. Mr. Putin has not budged from his rejection of a monthlong cease-fire that Ukraine agreed to in March.On Saturday, Mr. Putin declared a one-day “Easter truce,” a tactic that appeared aimed at showing that Russia was still interested in peace.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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    Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens in Gaza, Health Ministry Says

    Israel was keeping up its intense bombing campaign in the enclave, which has exacted a heavy price on civilians struggling to find safe places to shelter.The latest round of Israeli attacks in a renewed military offensive in Gaza has killed dozens of Palestinians, the territory’s health ministry said on Saturday.The ministry said that 92 dead and 219 wounded people had arrived at hospitals over the past 48 hours. Gaza health officials do not differentiate between civilians and combatants in casualty counts.Since the collapse last month of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s military has embarked on a major bombing campaign and seized territory in Gaza. Israeli officials have said that the military is targeting militants and weapons infrastructure in a bid to compel Hamas to release more hostages held in the enclave.More than 1,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the cease-fire fell apart, and more than 51,000 people have been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to the health ministry.Israel’s renewed offensive has exacted a heavy price on civilians struggling to find places to shelter and reinforced a feeling among Palestinians in Gaza that nowhere is safe.On Friday, the Israeli military told The New York Times that Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastal land in southern Gaza, was no longer considered a “humanitarian zone.” Earlier in the war, the Israeli military repeatedly instructed Palestinians to go to Mawasi, which it had described at the time as a “humanitarian zone.”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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    Former Trump Staff Members Liken His Actions to Those of ‘Royal Despot’

    A number of prominent Republicans, including several former members of the first Trump administration, have signed an open letter decrying the president for using his power to punish two former administration officials who criticized him, likening his actions to those of a “royal despot.”“For a president to personally and publicly direct the levers of the federal government against publicly named citizens for political reasons sets a new and perilous precedent in our republic,” the group wrote. “No matter one’s party or politics, every American should reject the notion that the awesome power of the presidency can be used to pursue individual vendettas.”Earlier this month, Mr. Trump issued two executive orders revoking the security clearances of Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under during Mr. Trump’s first term and rebutted his claims that the 2020 election had been rigged and stolen, and Miles Taylor, who once served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Taylor anonymously wrote a New York Times opinion essay in 2018 accusing Mr. Trump of rampant “amorality” and telling of an internal government “resistance.”Mr. Trump’s executive orders also revoked the security clearances of people and institutions affiliated with Mr. Krebs and Mr. Taylor, and called for investigations into their government tenures. The letter, signed by more than 200 people, criticized those actions as part of a “profoundly unconstitutional break” with precedent.“Behavior of this kind is more to be expected from a royal despot than the elected leader of a constitutional republic,” the signers wrote. “This is the path of autocracy, not democracy.”The letter’s signatories include Ty Cobb, a lawyer who led Mr. Trump’s response to a special counsel’s investigation of his ties to Russia during its early phases, and John Mitnick, who served as general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security until he was fired in 2019 after clashing with the White House.Mr. Cobb and Mr. Mitnick, like many of the other Republicans on the list of signatories, have been openly critical of Mr. Trump since parting ways with his administration.The letter was spearheaded by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a group run by Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served on the staff of the first team of House Democrats that worked to impeach Mr. Trump in 2019. More

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    2 Memoirs by Rock ’n’ Roll Muses Who Were So Much More

    Marianne Faithfull was a star in her own right; Peggy Caserta was a hippie tastemaker. Their memoirs are riveting.Marianne Faithfull on the set of “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” in 1968.Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns, via Getty ImagesDear readers,This week’s authors have a good deal in common. Both women were fetishized for their looks, entangled romantically with musical superstars, situated at the epicenter of 1960s culture, veterans of yearslong heroin addictions. And both were profoundly underestimated.In their memoirs, both also divulge a preposterous amount of glamorous detail. But that’s not what makes these books remarkable. Every addiction story comes with a proof of fire testing. The best ones speak frankly, without euphemism or hosanna, and both of these make the cut.When you consider that the authors spent years chasing a numbed, obliterated existence, their books are all the more meaningful for their clarity of feeling, vision and memory. Thank goodness they were paying attention all those decades ago. Thank God they made it out alive.—Joumana“Faithfull: An Autobiography,” by Marianne Faithfull with David DaltonNonfiction, 1994We 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