Aurelia Butler

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    NYT Crossword Answers for June 2, 2025

    Anthony V. Grubb wears down our defenses.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Most crossword themes are just language patterns. Perhaps I shouldn’t say “just” — I’m in awe of the way that constructors identify subtle links between given sets of words, sounds or expressions. Discovering them in the puzzle is always fun, often thrilling, and sometimes leaves me downright speechless.The theme of today’s crossword, constructed by Anthony V. Grubb, follows a familiar format — follows it to a tee, one might say in this case. There are echoes of recent puzzle themes by Rena Cohen, Ilana Levene and Scott Hogan. I can assure you, however, that Mr. Grubb’s grid is bespoke. Not only is it fresh, funny and smart, but everything in it just fits.Today’s ThemeThis one comes together slowly, slowly and then all at once. The revealer at 64A reads: [Where duds are draped to dry … or a literal description of 18-, 28- and 49-Across?]The answer is CLOTHESLINE. Each of today’s themed entries are lines, or expressions, that use clothing metaphors. A brushoff that echoes [“Go fly a kite!”] at 18A is EAT MY SHORTS (popularized by Bart Simpson). At 28A, telling someone to [“Pipe down!”] means you want that person to PUT A SOCK IN IT. And at 49A, [“No skin off my nose!”] is another way of saying SUIT YOURSELF!It’s funny to observe that the expressions in the themed clues are as figurative as the entries themselves. Flying a kite means eating shorts, and piping down (of nautical origin) is the same as stuffing a sock in one’s mouth (of World War I origin). We may be able to hop from metaphor to metaphor without ever saying exactly what we mean.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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    Stanley Fischer, Who Helped Defuse Financial Crises, Dies at 81

    He was the No. 2 at the Federal Reserve and the I.M.F. during periods of economic turmoil, and he mentored future economic leaders, like Ben Bernanke.Stanley Fischer, an economist and central banker whose scholarship and genial, consensus-seeking style helped guide global economic policies and defuse financial crises for decades, died on Saturday at his home in Lexington, Mass. He was 81.The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his son Michael said. Mr. Fischer served as the head of Israel’s central bank from 2005 to 2013, as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 2014 to 2017 and as the No. 2 officer at the International Monetary Fund from 1994 to 2001, when that agency was struggling to contain financial panics in Mexico, Russia, Asia and Latin America.As a professor at M.I.T., he was a thesis adviser or mentor to an extraordinary range of future leaders, including Ben S. Bernanke, later chairman of the Fed; Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank; and Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan. His former students also included two people who chaired the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, Christina D. Romer and N. Gregory Mankiw, as well as Lawrence H. Summers, who served as secretary of the Treasury and president of Harvard University.“He had a role in shaping a whole generation of economists and policymakers,” Mr. Bernanke said in a February 2024 interview for this obituary. That included spurring Mr. Bernanke’s initial interest in macroeconomics and monetary policy.In 1998, The Times described Mr. Fischer as “the closest thing the world economy has to a battlefield medic.” He helped negotiate a rescue package for Russia by cellphone while standing atop a sand dune on Martha’s Vineyard, where he was on vacation. 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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    Breast Cancer Patients Get Early Warning of Faltering Drugs With Blood Test

    A clinical trial found that women could switch drugs without waiting for scans showing cancer progression, which improved their quality of life.Breast cancer patients whose tumors have spread to other parts of their bodies live from scan to scan. Is their treatment working? Or will they learn their cancer is growing again?But a new study sponsored by the drug company AstraZeneca showed that there is an alternative: Instead of waiting for a scan to show that a cancer is growing, it’s possible to find early signs that the cancer is resisting the drugs that were controlling it.To do that, researchers used a blood test to find mutations in cancer cells that let the tumors defy standard treatments. Early detection allowed patients to be switched to a different drug that overcomes the mutated cancer. The result was to keep the cancers in check longer, and allow patients to have more than an extra year without deteriorating quality of life.The study was reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and published in The New England Journal of Medicine.Breast cancer specialists who were not associated with the study applauded the results, saying blood tests could transform the way they monitor patients.“This is a paradigm change,” said Dr. Mary Disis, professor of medicine and oncology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.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 Aides Insist That Tariffs Will Remain, Even After Court Ruling

    One official said that the president is unlikely to delay his initial 90-day pause on some of his highest rates.President Trump’s top economic advisers stressed on Sunday that they would not be deterred by a recent court decision that declared many of the administration’s tariffs to be illegal, as they pointed out a variety of additional authorities that the White House could invoke as it looks to pressure China and others into negotiations.They also signaled that Mr. Trump had no plans to extend an original 90-day pause on some of his steepest tariff rates, raising the odds that those duties — the mere announcement of which had roiled markets — could take effect as planned in July.“Rest assured, tariffs are not going away,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”Asked about the future of the president’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, first announced and quickly suspended in April, Mr. Lutnick added, “I don’t see today that an extension is coming.”The president’s tariff strategy entered uncharted political and legal territory last week after a federal trade court ruled that Mr. Trump had misused an emergency economic powers law in trying to wage a global trade war.The decision would have put a quick halt to those duties, which form the centerpiece of the president’s strategy of pressuring other countries into trade talks. But an appeals court soon granted the government a brief administrative pause to sort out arguments in the case, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court.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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    Ukraine Says Russian Strike on Military Base Killed 12 Soldiers

    The commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack, saying that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”A Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian military training base killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded more than 60 others on Sunday, the Ukrainian military said, in a rare statement acknowledging casualties within its ranks.The commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack on the base, in the Dnipro region, saying in a statement that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”Ukraine’s military said it was investigating the circumstances, but emphasized that there was not a mass gathering at the time of the attack — an apparent attempt to demonstrate lessons learned from previous incidents.“At the time the air raid alert was announced, all personnel were in shelters, except for those who may not have had time to reach it,” Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said in an interview with Ukrainian news media.Ukraine’s military does not typically disclose official casualty figures, which are treated as a state secret and are a highly sensitive topic in the country. Past attacks with large numbers of military casualties — like when a Russian missile killed soldiers gathered for an awards ceremony in southern Ukraine in late 2023 — have raised questions about security protocols.The strike on the training base came on the eve of another round of peace talks in Istanbul, proposed by Moscow. While Kyiv had insisted it see a promised memorandum outlining Russia’s cease-fire terms before sending any officials to the talks, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced on Sunday that Kyiv would in fact send a delegation.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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    Al Foster, Master of the Jazz Drums, Is Dead at 82

    He was probably best known for his long tenure with Miles Davis, who praised his ability to “keep the groove going forever.”Al Foster, a drummer who worked with some of the most illustrious names in jazz across a career spanning more than six decades, leaving his distinctive stamp on important recordings by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and many others, died on Wednesday at his apartment in Manhattan. He was 82.His daughter Kierra Foster-Ba announced the death on social media but did not specify a cause.Mr. Foster came up emulating great bebop percussionists like Max Roach, but his most high-profile early gig came with Mr. Davis, who hired him in 1972, when he was refining an aggressive, funk-informed sound. Mr. Foster’s springy backbeats firmly anchored the band’s sprawling psychedelic jams.In “Miles: The Autobiography,” written with Quincy Troupe and published in 1989, Mr. Davis praised Mr. Foster’s ability to “keep the groove going forever.”Mr. Foster also excelled in a more conventional jazz mode, lending an alert, conversational swing to bands led by the saxophonists Mr. Henderson and Mr. Rollins and the pianists Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Tommy Flanagan.“What he was doing was reminiscent of some of the great drummers of our period,” Mr. Rollins said of Mr. Foster in a phone interview, citing foundational figures like Art Blakey and Max Roach. “He always had that feeling about him, those great feelings of those people. And that’s why I could never be disappointed playing with Al Foster. He was always playing something which I related to.”Mr. Foster often framed his long career as a fulfillment of his early ambitions.“I’ve been so blessed because I’ve played with everybody I fell in love with when I was a young teenager,” he told the website of Jazz Forum, a club in Tarrytown, N.Y.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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    Over 20 Killed Near Aid Distribution Site in Gaza, Palestinian Health Officials Say

    It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack. The Israeli military denied any of its fire had harmed people within the site.At least 20 people were killed on Sunday in southern Gaza near an aid distribution site, according to local health officials, as hungry Palestinians gathered en masse hoping to receive some food from the facility.It was not immediately clear who had opened fire in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its paramedics had evacuated at least 23 killed and 23 wounded from the area, all with gunshot wounds. In a statement, Gaza’s health ministry gave a higher toll of 31. The Israeli military said it was not aware of any injuries caused by Israeli fire “within the humanitarian aid site,” but did not immediately rule out shooting nearby. Hamas accused Israeli forces of attacking people who had gathered to seek food. The New York Times could not verify the circumstances of the attack.Over the past week, Israel has launched a contentious plan to overhaul aid distribution in Gaza. Israeli officials say the new system — run mainly by American contractors — of four sites in southern Gaza would prevent Hamas from seizing the food, fuel and other goods, but aid agencies have criticized the initiative.Huge crowds of Gazans have headed for the new aid sites, hoping to receive a box of food supplies. While some days have gone relatively smoothly, there have also been chaotic scenes, including one instance in which Israeli forces fired what they described as warning shots.The United Nations and other major humanitarian relief groups have boycotted the sites, accusing Israel of wielding aid as part of its military strategy. U.N. officials said there was little evidence that Hamas systematically diverted relief. Critics in Israel have warned the effort could be the first step toward establishing formal Israeli rule over Gaza.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 Politics and Perils of Pornography

    More from our inbox:Investing in War K YoungTo the Editor:Re “The Delusion of Porn’s Harmlessness,” by Christine Emba (Opinion guest essay, May 25):Thanks to Ms. Emba for writing about pornography and its negative effect on society.I try to teach my daughter and 8-year-old granddaughter that they bring more to the table than their looks, that they are more than the sum total of their body parts. I’m breathing a slight sigh of relief that maybe this next generation will realize that.Jenny MottierCincinnatiTo the Editor:In her essay, Christine Emba writes: “As a society, we are allowing our desires to continue to be molded in experimental ways, for profit, by an industry that does not have our best interests at heart.” But I’m left wondering, what industry does?The food industry floods us with ultraprocessed products that are literally killing us. The fossil fuel industry drives us toward climate catastrophe. The health care industry leaves thousands uninsured and allows people to die if they can’t pay.Surely, Ms. Emba must see that the real problem is the current state of capitalism, where profit is the only true priority. The porn industry is just one more expression of that system.Karaca MestciLondonTo the Editor:As long as we, as a society, continue to withhold age-appropriate sex education from our young people, they will continue to seek out answers to their questions and context for their feelings anywhere they can find them. The internet has, unfortunately, become the primary source of this for many children and young adults.Withholding reliable and useful information about sex does not make the normal and appropriate curiosity that young people have about bodies, behavior and sex go away. It just encourages the naturally curious to seek out answers in other places.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