Aurelia Butler

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    Trump’s Wishes Aside, Censoring Racial History May Prove Difficult

    Late last month, when two federal grants to the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana were rescinded, the Trump administration seemed to be following through on its promise to root out what President Trump called “improper ideology” in cultural institutions focused on Black history.After all, the plantation’s mission was to show visitors what life was truly like for the enslaved, contrary to the watered-down Black history that the president seemed to back.Then just as quickly, the grants were restored a few weeks later, the Whitney Plantation’s executive director said in an interview.Because the money had already been approved, “maybe it was an exposure for lawsuits,” the executive director, Ashley Rogers, said, “but who knows?”Ever since Mr. Trump issued an executive order in March decrying cultural institutions that were trying to “rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” sites like the Whitney Plantation have lived with such uncertainty. An order specifically targeting the Smithsonian Institution tasked Vice President JD Vance and other White House officials with “seeking to remove improper ideology from such properties.”But reversals like the one in Louisiana and actions by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture seem to indicate some misgivings about the president’s order. They also show that putting historical knowledge back into the bottle after decades of reckoning with the nation’s racist history will be more difficult than the administration believes.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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    Why Democrats Joined Republicans to Block a California Climate Policy

    Some said they worried that California’s planned ban on gas-powered vehicles would raise the price of cars. Another cited “intense and misleading lobbying” by the oil industry.Representative Lou Correa, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County, Calif., drives a hybrid car and wants the federal government to tackle climate change.But he joined 34 other Democrats last week to help Republicans repeal his state’s landmark requirement that all new vehicles sold in California be electric or otherwise nonpolluting by 2035. In doing so, he helped President Trump and the Republican majority to undercut the nation’s transition away from gasoline-powered cars.“I don’t like giving Trump a win,” Mr. Correa said in an interview after the vote. But electric vehicles remain expensive and impractical in his heavily blue-collar district, he said.“We just finished an election where every poll I’m seeing, everybody I talk to, says, ‘You guys need to listen to the working class, the middle class people,” Mr. Correa said. “I’m listening to my constituents who are saying ‘don’t kill us.’”The 246-to-164 vote in the House stunned environmentalists, who said they were struggling to understand why nearly three dozen Democrats voted to kill one of the most ambitious climate policies in the country. For the past few years, Democrats have overwhelmingly voted for stronger policies to tackle global warming.Some wonder whether that unity is starting to fray in the face of intense lobbying and worries about rising prices amid Mr. Trump’s trade wars.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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    India and UK Strike Trade Deal Amid Trump’s Tariff Upheaval

    The two countries signed a deal three years after negotiations began to strengthen alliances in what the British prime minister called a “new era” of trade.Britain and India agreed to a trade deal on Tuesday, strengthening economic ties between two of the world’s largest economies amid President Trump’s upheaval of the global trade system.The deal, which the British government said would increase bilateral trade by £25.5 billion ($34 billion), comes three years after the negotiations began. Intense talks between Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s business and trade secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, took place last week to finalize the outstanding issues.The British government said India had reduced 90 percent of tariffs on goods, and within a decade most of those would become tariff free. Duties on British whiskey and gin would be halved, to 75 percent, and eventually be lowered to 40 percent. India will also reduce its car tariffs, which exceed 100 percent, to 10 percent under a quota. Britain, in turn, reduced tariffs on clothes, footwear and food products including frozen prawns.Last year, trade in goods and services between India and Britain, the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies, totaled £42.6 billion, according to British data.The trade agreement comes as many countries are seeking to bolster alliances and trade flows after Mr. Trump sent shock waves through the global economy by announcing, and then pausing, high tariffs on dozens of countries. The uncertainty created by the policy whiplash is expected to dampen investment and economic growth around the world.Officials in Britain, which squeezed out 0.1 percent economic growth in the final quarter of last year, have tried to increase investment from foreign companies and sign more trade deals. Other negotiations, including those with South Korea, are continuing.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’s Idea to Turn Alcatraz Back Into a Prison Draws Criticism From Tourists

    Boatloads of tourists traipsed around Alcatraz Island on Monday morning and peered into tiny prison cells, learning about the most notorious inmates who stayed there — and the ones who tried to escape.The tour was standard at the revered San Francisco attraction, save for one topic that simply could not be avoided in the conversations echoing off the old cellblock walls.Can you believe that President Trump wants to convert Alcatraz back into a federal prison?The morning tour groups were full of international travelers, and many of them had received phone alerts about Trump’s plan or read news reports over breakfast. Some wondered if they might actually be among the last visitors allowed to wander the island. But nobody seemed to think the idea was nearly as brilliant as Mr. Trump thought it was.“I thought it was a joke,” said Philipp Neumann, who was visiting from Germany. “It’s a ruin, isn’t it, more or less?”A ruin, yes, with some buildings deteriorating so badly they no longer have roofs or complete walls. The cells have broken toilets, if they have any at all, with no running water or sewage system.The exterior walls of the cellblocks are so weak that they are reinforced with netting to prevent chunks of concrete from crumbling onto tourists’ heads. Bird deposits coat much of the island. All supplies from food to fuel must be brought in by boat.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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    Anna Sawai Breaks Down Her Dior Met Gala Look

    The actress caps off a winning awards show season by changing up her look.After a series of head-turning red carpet looks during this year’s awards season, Anna Sawai is ready to bring her style to her first Met Gala.The “Shogun” actress, who won Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG awards for best actress in a drama television series, grabbed the attention of the fashion world in a series of gowns that tastefully exposed skin and pooled elegantly around her feet.So, even though she was not quite expecting to get an invite to fashion’s biggest event so quickly, it did seem like a fitting final stop on her whirlwind red carpet tour.“The Met is the place where you can have the most fun,” Ms. Sawai, 32, said on a video call from a hotel room on the Upper East Side on Sunday, “because it’s a heightened version of the red carpets that we get to do.”For the event, Ms. Sawai opted for a white blazer and trousers from Dior. She’ll top the look with a wide-brimmed hat by Stephen Jones — tilted ever so slightly to cover her right eye for a “mysterious look,” she said. In the ensemble, she said she felt like she was tapping into a new side of herself: “I feel like every carpet, I’ve only worn dresses.”“This is going to be the first time that I’m getting to kind of channel my androgynous side,” she added. “And I’m really excited to pay respect to Black dandyism.”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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    Rihanna Arrives at the Met Gala, Appearing to Confirm A Third Pregnancy

    The pop star seemed to confirm rumors she was pregnant when she met shouts of congratulations with: “Thank you!”Rihanna loves a show — a splashy late arrival, a “personal news” tease. The pop star arrived at the Met Gala on Rihanna time, around 10 p.m.Tonight is of course about her partner, ASAP Rocky, who is co-chair of the gala and arrived earlier in the evening, wearing a suit he said nodded to the film “Harlem Nights.” But it’s also about Rihanna in the sense that everything is always about Rihanna.The pop star set social media atwitter earlier in the day, when she walked into the Carlyle Hotel wearing a gray two piece suit, captured in photos that sparked speculations the singer was pregnant again. It wouldn’t be Rihanna’s first stunt pregnancy reveal: At the 2023 Super Bowl, she used her half time performance to debut a subtle bump, confirming the news moments after she left the stage. Even before that, during her first pregnancy, she announced the news in a street shoot that launched a thousand imitators (“pink padded coat” sales shot up 200 percent).Walking up the blue-carpeted steps of the Met, the pop star seemed to confirm the suspicions when she met shouts of congratulations with: “Thank you!”ASAP Rocky, in an interview Monday night, appeared to add his own confirmation, saying: “I don’t know, whatever, just don’t really cover her baby bump, you dig?”The theme of the night was “tailored for you,” a celebration of personal twists on dandy style that ranged from André 3000 with a piano on his back to Stevie Wonder in a bedazzled cape. But the Met Gala is also perpetually an event tailored for Rihanna. In 2018, she made waves in a papal get-up; in 2023, her look verged on walking wedding cake, but glamorous. This year, her absence for hours on the red carpet, and the swirl of rumors surrounding it, said more than any outfit could.When she finally arrived, she joked with reporters who had been waiting for her arrival: “I can barely wink,” she told them, “but I’ll do it for you.” More

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    Kehlani Concert in Central Park Is Canceled After Pressure From Mayor

    The singer, a vocal critic of Israel, had been scheduled to perform in June as part of Pride festivities. Two weeks ago, Cornell dropped a plan to have her headline a concert.The nonprofit group behind the SummerStage concerts has canceled a scheduled Central Park performance by the popular R&B singer Kehlani under pressure from the administration of Mayor Eric Adams.The move came on Monday after a top New York City official warned the group, the City Parks Foundation, that its license to stage the long-running concert series could be at risk if it did not “promptly take steps” to address “security concerns” raised by the planned show.Billed as “Pride With Kehlani,” the concert was to take place on June 26 as part of the city’s broader Pride festivities. It was the second scheduled Kehlani performance to be canceled in recent weeks amid a furor over the singer’s pro-Palestinian stance.Unlike Cornell University officials, who explicitly cited what they said were Kehlani’s antisemitic and anti-Israel views when they dropped the singer two weeks ago as the headliner of an annual campus concert, the city official, First Deputy Mayor Randy M. Mastro, did not invoke the singer’s personal opinions.Instead, he said in a letter to the foundation’s executive director, Heather Lubov, that the Adams administration’s concerns were based on “the controversy” surrounding the scheduled Cornell performance, as well as the security demands posed by such an event in Central Park and by other Pride events around the city.Mr. Mastro wrote that the police would conduct a security assessment of the concert. If the department determined that the event posed “an unacceptable risk to public safety,” he added, there could be implications for SummerStage’s future. The series began in 1986.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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    Kim Kardashian, Demi Moore and Others Flaunt Dramatic Trains on the Met Gala Carpet

    Some gowns required small teams to manage vast amounts of fabric and help their wearers up the Met steps.They’re long, dramatic and a potential tripping hazard. More than a dozen guests at the Met Gala on Monday night wore looks with giant, appendage-like trains flowing behind them.The gala’s dress code, “Tailored for You,” was intended to spur creative interpretations of classic tailoring techniques and coincide with the Costume Institute’s new exhibit about the history of Black dandy fashion.While many stars chose suiting variations worn close to the body, others dragged behind them swathes of fabric so long that they blanketed large portions of the carpet. Demi Moore, Shakira, Megan Thee Stallion, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Taraji P. Henson and the K-pop star Rosé all arrived in the silhouette — many of them in the form of sweeping overcoats that could presumably be removed once inside the Metropolitan Museum for the gala’s dinner.The Met Gala has always been a venue for theatrical looks, but trains have a relatively recent history at the event. In 2015 when the Met’s Costume Institute staged an exhibit about the influence and ingenuity of Chinese design, Rihanna seemed to set the agenda with a yellow dress by the Chinese designer Guo Pei with a vast train that cascaded down the steps.This year, Rihanna’s fashion influence was felt even among musical artists who were famous before she was born. Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder both wore trains that swallowed whole sections of the Met’s famous steps. (Rihanna herself, who showed up at the event’s tail end, did not wear a train this year and instead opted for a suiting-inspired looked.)Ms. Ross wore a white feathered overcoat embroidered with the names of her children and eight grandchildren that reportedly included a 18-foot train, requiring several people to assist her up the stairs.Mr. Wonder’s black beaded suit included a heavily embellished train that also called for the help of multiple stewards as he moved about the carpet.Shakira’s monochromatic bubble-gum pink look was accessorized with a Gobstopper-size gem necklace. But the jewel paled in comparison to the size of her train, which, in images, appears to be the same length of about 15 photographers lined up on the gala’s carpet.Megan Thee Stallion’s billowing white furry coat also extended far behind her, much like the black train skirts worn by the actress Cynthia Erivo and the model Vittoria Ceretti.The burgundy overcoat worn by the singer and actor Teyana Taylor draped over the Met’s flower-speckled carpet as she posed for photographs, and Serena William’s sea foam look included a ruched top that also cut a dramatic, long shape.Other guests, including Lana del Rey, Nicole Scherzinger, Lauryn Hill, Charli XCX, Tyla and Amelia Gray Hamlin, also appeared in the silhouette — all before Rihanna even arrived. More