Author: NY TIMES

The Trump administration asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to sharply restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone — taking the same position as the Biden administration in a closely watched case that has major implications for abortion access.The court filing by the Justice Department is striking, given that President Trump and a number of officials in his administration have forcefully opposed abortion rights. Mr. Trump often boasts that he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed the national right to abortion.…

Perez was born in New Jersey to parents of Cuban heritage and raised mostly in southern Florida. Her parents sent their four daughters to a Christian school. Celene loved to act and sing — she dreamed of making it to Broadway — and Perez followed her to local theater productions, usually ending up in the ensemble. When she was 15, she started to write songs in earnest, fiddling around with piano, ukulele and guitar. She binge-listened to Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko, queer artists whose work she said “literally saved my life”; Kiyoko’s “Girls Like Girls” became a kind of…

A contest of sorts has played out across Europe, the United States and the Middle East in recent days as President Trump’s two older sons have pursued a blitz of family moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history.A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in…

The Met Gala has outdone itself, even before it’s begun.The annual gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — the flashy fashion extravaganza that highlights the city’s social scene every May — is expected to raise more than $31 million this year, the biggest gross in the event’s 77-year history.The money haul — and the avid interest the gala inspires — further cements its place as the pre-eminent benefit among the city’s cultural institutions, and one the world’s most sought-after tickets. The Met’s take dwarfs events like a September gala for the New York Philharmonic (which brought in nearly $4…

When more than a million refugees and economic migrants poured into Europe a decade ago, Pope Francis urged compassion and, in a display of empathy and support, washed the feet of 12 asylum seekers at an Italian reception center.Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Hungarian archbishop considered a contender to succeed Francis, took a different approach: Citing legal obstacles, he ordered church doors in Hungary closed to migrants, saying that “we would become human smugglers if we took in refugees.”He reversed his position after an audience with Francis, and he never embraced the inflammatory messaging on migrants of Hungary’s populist prime minister,…

President Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced” outside the United States, proclaiming in a social media post on Sunday that the issue posed a national security threat. Mr. Trump said he had authorized Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of taxing “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Mr. Trump added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”The Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, declined to comment. The association’s latest…

With its horse-trodden roads, endless fields of almond blossoms and cowboy heritage, the 20,000 person town of Oakdale, Calif., fits the American West of imagination. And for decades, its media diet was classically all-American, too.Nightly news broadcasts played on living room televisions. Copies of local newspapers lined doorsteps on Sunday mornings. The town even had two media outlets dedicated to rodeo and horse roping news.But that version of Oakdale is a thing of the past.First the nearby newspapers shrank, and hundreds of local reporters in the region became handfuls. Then came the presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, and the…

In a Boston V.A. hospital, six social workers are conducting phone and telehealth visits with veterans from a single, crowded room, clinicians say. In Kansas City, providers are planning patient care while facing each other across narrow, cafeteria-style tables in a large, open space, according to staff members.And in South Florida, psychiatric nurses have been treating veterans with mental health conditions in a hallway near a bathroom, sitting down with them in a makeshift medical bay jury-rigged out of filing cabinets and a translucent screen.“People walking by can hear everything that’s going on,” said Bill Frogameni, an acute care psychiatric…

Joel Krosnick, the admired longtime cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, who helped shape its championing of new American music as much as its commitment to the classics, died on April 15 at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. He was 84.His death, from pancreatic cancer, was announced by the Juilliard School in New York City, where Mr. Krosnick was head of the cello department and had taught for 50 years.Mr. Krosnick’s playing combined the two hallmarks of the Juilliard String Quartet’s renowned style: intensity and precision. He was ideally suited to inherit the mantle of his two cellist predecessors in…

A ballistic missile launched from Yemen struck near the main terminal of Israel’s international airport close to Tel Aviv on Sunday, after the military failed to intercept the projectile seemingly aimed at one of the country’s most sensitive locations.The strike, carried out by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, resulted in a temporary suspension of flights. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.Israel’s military said that several efforts were made to intercept the missile and that an impact was identified in the area of Ben Gurion Airport. The military added that the episode was under review.The Magen David Adom emergency ambulance service…