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      With the Help of Whales, a Choreographer Falls Into an Abyss

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      Whales, Black bodies, the ocean, climate change, protest movements — over the past few years, they have all made their way into work by Mayfield Brooks, a choreographer, dancer and vocalist.The latest setting for Brooks’s ever-evolving dance project is a majestic one: the Tall Ship Wavertree, the last iron-hulled, three-masted cargo ship in the world. Built in 1885 and docked at Pier 16, the Wavertree extends about the length of a football field.This week, as part of the River to River Festival, Brooks (who uses they/them pronouns) finishes their whale journey with two works: “Whale Fall Abyss,” a dance performance on the ship, which is part of the South Street Seaport Museum; and “Whale Fall Reckoning,” a companion installation at a gallery — a former munitions room storage space — on Governors Island.In “Abyss,” Brooks, wearing white, performs a compass dance — named for its circular choreography — on one end of the ship while Camilo Restrepo, in a long, swirling mint skirt that trails to the deck, is poised on a high platform, his torso undulating in what Brooks calls a spine dance. Under an American flag rippling in the breeze, Restrepo looks a little like the Statue of Liberty. Eventually Brooks, now in the same skirt, makes their way to him and they conjoin for an extended spine duet. Slowly they mesh into each other, one cradling the other in grief. It’s like their bodies are melting.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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      Remembering Willie Mays as Both Untouchable and Human

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      Mays, who died on Tuesday at 93, had been perfect for so long that the shock of seeing baseball get the best of him was the shock of seeing a god become mortal.At the end, the Say Hey Kid looked nothing like the extraordinary force who had been at the center of the American imagination for much of the 20th century.The Kid — Willie Mays — struggled at the plate and stumbled on the basepaths. A line drive arced his way, easily catchable for Mays during most of his career. But he fell. Another outfield mistake caused the game to be tied in the ninth inning.He was a creaky-kneed 42 years old on that October afternoon, Game 2 of the 1973 World Series — Mays’s New York Mets in Oakland facing the A’s. On the grandest stage, the ravages of time had settled upon the game’s most gilded star.That he would redeem himself at the plate three innings later is often forgotten. The unthinkable had happened. Mays had not only failed, he had appeared lost, clumsy and out of sorts.The shock of seeing him that way would linger long past his playing days as a warning: Don’t be like Willie Mays, sticking around too long, stumbling in center field, a shadow of his former self. Such became the axiom, uttered in so many words by everyone from politicians to business leaders to commentators weighing in on great athletes who yearn to play into their twilight.Quit before it is too late.In retirement, Mays, who died on Tuesday at 93, did his best to ignore the game that would be his last. But there is another way to view its echoes.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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      Arizona Man Plotted Mass Shooting to Trigger ‘Race War,’ Officials Say

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      Prosecutors said Mark Adams Prieto of Arizona planned to target Black concertgoers at an Atlanta venue. He was indicted on hate crime and firearm charges.An Arizona man who planned to commit a mass shooting at an Atlanta rap concert as a way of inciting a “race war” has been indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime and firearm charges.The man, Mark Adams Prieto, hatched a plan in several discussions with two people working with the F.B.I. who posed as racist extremists to carry out a mass shooting targeting Black people and other people of color at a concert in Atlanta on May 14 and May 15, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.Mr. Prieto intended for the shooting to incite a “race war” before the presidential election, prosecutors said in a news release.Mr. Prieto, 58, was reported to the authorities last year by an acquaintance who said he had made concerning comments calling for mass shootings targeting Black people and others, according to officials.Mr. Prieto faces two counts of trafficking in firearms, one count of transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime and one count of possessing an unregistered firearm.He faces a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each firearm trafficking and transfer charge and a maximum 10-year sentence for the unregistered firearm charge, prosecutors said. Mr. Prieto also could be fined $250,000 for each count.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, in Pitch to Black Voters in Detroit, Casts Biden as Anti-Black

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      Former President Donald J. Trump, courting Black voters at a church on the west side of Detroit on Saturday, sought to harness animus toward migrants crossing the border, sanitized his track record on race and sold himself as the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln.As he spoke to roughly 200 people, Mr. Trump largely ignored his history of racist statements and his decades of calls for tougher policing that have fueled his three presidential campaigns.Instead, during short remarks before a panel with Black residents of Detroit at the city’s 180 Church, Mr. Trump tried to cast Mr. Biden as anti-Black, focusing intently on the president’s role in shepherding the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a sweeping bill that criminal justice experts have said laid the groundwork for mass incarceration that disproportionately hurt America’s Black communities.Though Black voters have overwhelmingly favored Democrats since the civil rights era, recent polls have shown the party losing some of their support.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMr. Trump, at one point, seemed determined to ensure that Mr. Biden’s role in the crime bill would be the event’s main takeaway. He falsely accused Mr. Biden of coining the term “super predators” and then insisted that those in the audience should not forget Mr. Biden’s role, as a U.S. senator, in championing the bill and helping pass it.“He was the one with the super predators,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Biden. “So just please remember that if you’re going to vote Democrat — because you shouldn’t vote Democrat.”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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      Prosecutor Drops Murder Charges Against Minnesota Trooper Amid Pushback

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      The prosecution of Ryan Londregan, a white Minnesota state trooper who fatally shot a Black motorist last year, sparked rare bipartisan outrage. The top prosecutor in Minneapolis has dropped murder charges against a state trooper who fatally shot a motorist last year after a traffic stop, her office said on Sunday, a stunning turnaround in a case that ignited a political firestorm.The trooper, Ryan Londregan, had been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Ricky Cobb II. But the prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, a longtime public defender who was elected Hennepin County attorney in 2022, said she concluded that the evidence was too weak to take to trial.For months, Ms. Moriarty defended the murder charges amid criticism from both Democratic and Republican officials, as well as law enforcement officials. In a statement on Sunday, she said that the announcement dismissing the charges was “one of the most difficult I’ve made in my career.”The pushback over the charges reflected a shifting view on policing in the state four years after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national outcry over racism and abuses by law enforcement. Mr. Cobb, 33, was Black; Trooper Londregan, 27, is white. Ms. Moriarty took office promising sweeping changes in the wake of Mr. Floyd’s murder, including stronger efforts to hold officers accountable for misconduct. Civil rights activists had hailed her decision to charge Trooper Londregan as courageous. Gov. Tim Walz, a fellow Democrat, had voiced his unease and made clear that he was considering using his legal authority to remove the case from her purview. In recent months, six of the state’s eight members of Congress issued statements criticizing the prosecution. 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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      Justices’ ‘Disturbing’ Ruling in South Carolina Gerrymandering Case

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      More from our inbox:Questions for RepublicansThe Case Against the PurebredChatbot TherapyCriticism of Israel Caroline Gutman for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In Top Court, G.O.P. Prevails on Voting Map” (front page, May 24):The action of the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, anchoring the 6-to-3 decision to allow the South Carolina Legislature to go forward with redistricting plans that clearly marginalize African American representation in the state — and after a meticulous review by an appellate court to preclude the plan — is disturbing.The persistent erosion of voting rights and apparent denial that racism is still part of the fabric of American society are troubling.Surely there can be deference to decisions made by states; concocting “intent” to deny true representative justice in an apparent quest to return to the “Ozzie and Harriet” days of the 1950s seems too transparent an attempt to “keep America white again” — as they may perceive the challenge of changing demographics.This particular ruling cries out for the need to expand court membership.Raymond ColemanPotomac, Md.To the Editor:Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito presumes the South Carolina lawmakers acted “in good faith” in gerrymandering the voting district map for the purpose of favoring the Republicans, and not for racial reasons, an improbable rationale on its face.Astoundingly, he further reasons that the gerrymander is acceptable because it was for partisan rather than race-based reasons (acknowledging that redistricting based on race “may be held unconstitutional.”)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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      Biden Underestimates How Much Black Americans Care About This Issue

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      Black voters will not only be a driving force in the 2024 elections; they will most likely be the driving force. Recent polls showed that roughly 20 percent of Black voters said they would probably vote for Donald Trump if the election were held today — the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the civil rights era. An additional 8 percent said they wouldn’t vote at all.Democratic campaign officials are rightly worried, but there’s still time for President Biden to make up the ground he has lost. One way he could do it is by talking to Black America, especially young Black voters, about a sleeper issue: the climate crisis.As an environment and climate researcher, I have found that despite the growing threat posed by climate change, politicians often seem to downplay the crisis when courting Black communities. Democratic strategists seem to see climate change as a key political issue only for white liberal elites and assume that other groups, like Black voters, are either unaware of or apathetic about it.In reality, Black Americans are growing increasingly concerned about climate change.An April poll from CBS News showed that 88 percent of Black adults said it was “somewhat” or “very important.” That makes sense: The most severe harms from climate change, from heat waves to extreme flooding, are already falling disproportionately on their communities. And it’s starting to be reflected in their political priorities. A poll conducted by the Brookings Institution last September showed that climate change is now a greater political concern for Black Americans than abortion or the state of democracy.If Democrats are serious about making inroads with some of the people they have lost in these communities, they should begin by talking to voters about what the climate crisis looks like for them. In major Democratic strongholds such as Cleveland, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, heat waves and flooding are driving up electricity bills and destroying homes. If Mr. Biden were to routinely speak about these challenges and commit to creating forums for Black Americans to discuss climate concerns with government officials, his administration could earn back some of the faith it has squandered.As a start, Mr. Biden could focus more intently on young Black people, a group passionate about climate change. Until May 19, when he gave the commencement address at Morehouse College, the president had largely refrained from direct engagement with young Black audiences on the campaign trail. When he speaks to Black voters, climate often is a footnote, or it’s mentioned in a policy buffet along with the economy, abortion and voting rights. During his speech at Morehouse, he mentioned the climate crisis explicitly only in a stray line about “heeding your generation’s call to a community free of gun violence and a planet free of climate crisis and showing your power to change the world.”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