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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Daily News Update</title> <atom:link href="https://lockednloaded.site/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://lockednloaded.site</link> <description></description> <lastBuildDate>Sun, 12 May 2024 03:25:41 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.17</generator> <item> <title>On a Day of Graduations, Berkeley’s Protests Stand Out</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/on-a-day-of-graduations-berkeleys-protests-stand-out/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 12 May 2024 03:25:41 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/on-a-day-of-graduations-berkeleys-protests-stand-out/</guid> <description><![CDATA[After weeks of tumult over protests, many college administrators prepared themselves for disruptions. But several ceremonies unfolded without major incident. Source link]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /><br />After weeks of tumult over protests, many college administrators prepared themselves for disruptions. But several ceremonies unfolded without major incident.<br /><br /><br /><br />Source link </p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Massive Fossil Donation Helps Brazil’s National Museum Rise From the Ashes</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/massive-fossil-donation-helps-brazils-national-museum-rise-from-the-ashes/</link> <pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2024 15:23:16 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/massive-fossil-donation-helps-brazils-national-museum-rise-from-the-ashes/</guid> <description><![CDATA[On the night of Sept. 2, 2018, a fire swept through the National Museum of Brazil, devastating the country’s oldest scientific institution and one of South America’s biggest and most important museums. On Tuesday, the museum announced that it received a major donation of ancient Brazilian fossils to help rebuild its collection ahead of a […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">On the night of Sept. 2, 2018, a fire swept through the National Museum of Brazil, devastating the country’s oldest scientific institution and one of South America’s biggest and most important museums. On Tuesday, the museum announced that it received a major donation of ancient Brazilian fossils to help rebuild its collection ahead of a scheduled 2026 reopening.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Burkhard Pohl, a Swiss-German collector and entrepreneur who maintains one of the world’s largest private fossil collections, has handed over to the National Museum about 1,100 specimens, all of which originated in Brazil. The donation is the biggest and most scientifically important contribution yet to the museum’s rebuilding efforts, after the loss of 85 percent of its roughly 20 million specimens and artifacts in the fire.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The move also returns scientific treasure to a country that has often seen its natural heritage vanish beyond its borders — and presents a potential global model for building a natural history museum in the 21st century.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The most important thing is to show to the world, in Brazil and outside Brazil, that we are uniting private people and public institutions,” Alexander Kellner, the National Museum’s director, said. “We want others to follow this example, if possible, to help us with this really herculean task.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Far more than the public exhibits they host, natural history museums safeguard the world’s scientific and cultural heritage for future generations. The <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/world/americas/national-museum-brazil-fire.html" title="">2018 fire destroyed</a> the National Museum’s entire collections of insects and spiders, as well as Egyptian mummies bought by the erstwhile Brazilian imperial family.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The flames also consumed more than 60 percent of the museum’s fossils, including parts of a specimen that scientists used to identify Maxakalisaurus, a Brazilian long-necked dinosaur. The newly donated fossils include plants, insects, two dinosaurs that might represent new species and two exquisite skulls of pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that soared over dinosaurs’ heads. The donation also includes previously studied fossils, including the enigmatic reptile Tetrapodophis, which was identified as <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aaa9208" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a “four-legged snake”</a> in 2015 but is now thought to be an aquatic lizard.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Pohl, who comes from a family of art, mineral and fossil collectors, said his donations were meant to ensure that Brazil’s national museum has a comprehensive and accessible collection of the country’s own fossil heritage.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“A collection is an organism,” Dr. Pohl said in an interview. “If it’s locked away, it’s dead; it needs to live.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The bones provide snapshots of life in what is now northeastern Brazil between 115 million and 110 million years ago, when the region was <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825221000726?via%3Dihub" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a lake-dotted wetland</a> frequently flooded by a young and growing Atlantic Ocean. Over time, these ancient bodies of water gave rise to the Crato and Romualdo Formations, limestone deposits in the Araripe Basin where quarries now dig for raw material to make cement. Impeccably preserved fossils lurk among the rocks, some of which formed as creatures’ bodies were rapidly covered in microbial muck along ancient shorelines, and then buried. Crato fossils were squished flat like pressed flowers; Romualdo fossils were entombed in nodules of stone.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Since 1942, Brazil has treated fossils as national property and strictly prohibited their commercial export. But for decades, Brazilian fossils from the Crato and Romualdo Formations have circulated in the global fossil market, sold into museum holdings and private collections around the world, including Dr. Pohl’s.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Brazilian paleontologists who were thrilled at the fossils’ return to their home country emphasized the research and training opportunities they represent — and the positive precedent it could help set for other donors. “It’s very positive to show to perhaps some other collectors that things can be done in a friendly manner,” said Taissa Rodrigues, a paleontologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Espírito Santo.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The seeds for Dr. Pohl’s donation were planted in 2022, when Dr. Kellner met Frances Reynolds, the founder of a Brazilian arts nonprofit called the Instituto Inclusartiz. She quickly embraced the mission of rebuilding the National Museum’s collections, reaching out to a network of collectors to secure long-term loans and donations.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“If we people can help and don’t, then I can’t expect anything from anybody else,” Ms. Reynolds said. “It’s been a lot of work but an incredible experience.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Reynolds learned of Dr. Pohl’s fossil collection through his son, who manages galleries owned by Dr. Pohl’s Interprospekt Group, a fossil and gem company based in Switzerland. A year of negotiation followed, and the fossils were shipped to Brazil in 2023; they are being housed in provisional facilities until the museum’s main building is restored.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In addition to the fossils, the National Museum is partnering with the Interprospekt Group to jointly conduct research in the United States. Last summer, a group of six Brazilian paleontologists and students traveled to Thermopolis, Wyo., where Dr. Pohl maintains a private fossil museum. There, the Brazilian team will help dig for fossils that may later join the National Museum’s collections.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Kellner and Ms. Reynolds are actively soliciting donations and collaborations, and international institutions are responding to the call. Last year, the National Museum of Denmark donated <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/the-return-of-the-tupinamba-mantle/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a red cloak of scarlet ibis feathers</a> made by Brazil’s Tupinambá people, one of only 11 such artifacts remaining in the world. The museum is also working closely with Brazil’s Indigenous groups to rebuild the museum’s ethnographic collections.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“This could be a major turning point,” Dr. Kellner said. “It’s really something for the future of our people.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/science/brazil-fossils-museum-donation.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>2024 Met Gala Red Carpet Photos: Zendaya, Kim Kardashian, Doja Cat, Cardi B</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/2024-met-gala-red-carpet-photos-zendaya-kim-kardashian-doja-cat-cardi-b/</link> <pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2024 03:22:06 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/2024-met-gala-red-carpet-photos-zendaya-kim-kardashian-doja-cat-cardi-b/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Cardi B made a late entrance in her billowing layered black gown, Dua Lipa showed up in a deconstructed lace emsemble, Rosalia kept it classic in a strapless black dress — and Zendaya came around twice, with two completely different looks. They all offered a taste of how guests interpreted this year’s “Garden of Time” […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Cardi B made a late entrance in her billowing layered black gown, Dua Lipa showed up in a deconstructed lace emsemble, Rosalia kept it classic in a strapless black dress — and Zendaya came around twice, with two completely different looks.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">They all offered a taste of how guests interpreted this year’s “Garden of Time” theme, which included a flurry of florals, vintage and fascinators at this year’s Met Gala, fashion’s biggest night held on the first Monday in May.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Celebrities, executives, musicians, politicians and more showed off every angle for photographers and fans. Guests sashayed down an off-white carpet dotted with teal borders and posed in front of backdrops of vegetation and flora, creating an ethereal quality to the evening’s festivities. The “Midsummer Night’s Dream” vibe was countered by the dramatic flair from celebrities like Colman Domingo and co-chair Bad Bunny, and it wouldn’t be a Met Ball without the trains (on Alton Mason, Lea Michele and Demi Lovato, to name a few).<span class="css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0"> </span></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/fashion/met-gala-photos-red-carpet.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Opinion | The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez You Don’t Know</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/opinion-the-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-you-dont-know/</link> <pubDate>Sat, 04 May 2024 15:20:43 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/opinion-the-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-you-dont-know/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Six days after winning election to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did what so many young progressives do while visiting the nation’s capital: She went to a rally. It was 2018, and Democratic dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump was a constant in Washington — but Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t protesting a Republican policy. She was at a sit-in […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Six days after winning election to Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did what so many young progressives do while visiting the nation’s capital: She went to a rally. It was 2018, and Democratic dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump was a constant in Washington — but Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t protesting a Republican policy. She was at a sit-in at Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office organized by a group dedicated to pushing Democrats to the left on climate issues. Ms. Pelosi said she welcomed the protest, but behind closed doors, top Democrats soon became exasperated with their new colleague.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">First impressions are hard to erase, and the obstinacy that made Ms. Ocasio-Cortez an instant national celebrity remains at the heart of her detractors’ most enduring critique: that she is a performer, out for herself, with a reach that exceeds her grasp.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Democrats frustrated by her theatrics may be missing a more compelling picture. In straddling the line between outsider and insider, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is trying to achieve the one thing that might just shore up her fractured party: building a new Democratic coalition that can consistently draw a majority of American support.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The strategy she has come to embrace isn’t what anyone would’ve expected when she arrived in Washington. In some ways, she’s asking the obvious questions: What’s broadly popular among a vast majority of Americans, and how can I make it happen? To achieve progress on these issues, she has sought common ground in places where her peers are not thinking to look. Her willingness to forge unlikely alliances, in surprisingly productive places, has opened a path to new voters — for her party, her ideas and her own political ambitions if she ever decides to run for higher office.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Since 2016, there have been two competing visions for the Democratic Party. One is the promise that began with Barack Obama of a multiracial coalition that would grow stronger as America’s demographics shifted; the other is the political revolution championed by Bernie Sanders as a way to unite nonvoters with the working class. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez bridges the gap between the two. The dream for Democrats is that one day, she or someone like her could emerge from the backbench to bring new voters into the party, forging a coalition that can win election after election. It’s too early to tell whether she has what it takes to pull that off. But what’s clear is that at a time when Democrats are struggling, she is quietly laying the groundwork to build a coalition broader than the one she came to power with, unafraid to take risks along the way.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Those instincts are in short supply in Washington. After five years in Congress, she has emerged as a tested navigator of its byzantine systems, wielding her celebrity to further her political aims in a way few others have. Three terms in, one gets the sense that we’re witnessing a skilled tactician exiting her political adolescence and coming into her own as a veteran operator out to reform America’s most dysfunctional political body.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">To grasp what sets</strong> Ms. Ocasio-Cortez apart from many of her colleagues, you have to understand where she finds allies. In 2019, she and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas considered joining forces to write a bill that would bar former members of Congress from becoming lobbyists. Asked why she would consider an alliance with someone so loathed by liberals, she <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpki1myaZc8" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a>, “I will swallow all of my distaste in this situation because we have found a common interest.” It was a window into the politician she would become: pragmatic and results-driven, willing to work with people she considers her political adversaries, at least on legislation that appeals to her base.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">That effort with Mr. Cruz sputtered out, but she has continued to strike up working relationships with Republicans such as Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy SEAL who has supported the construction of a border wall as well as efforts to roll back abortion rights. Last year, she cosponsored a bill he’d introduced to study psychedelic drug therapy as a potential treatment for active service members with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. She had first introduced an amendment to encourage psychedelic drug research in 2019, six months into her first term; it failed by a 331-to-91 vote. “It was on the House floor, and a member of my own party, a senior member, walked up to me and said, ‘Oh, is this your little shrooms bill?’” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who declined to be interviewed for this article, told The Washington Post last year. Four years later, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Crenshaw were able to drum up bipartisan support to pass the measure.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">She has attributed the success of these efforts at least in part to her role as the second most powerful Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which she said has “opened many windows” for collaboration. “They’re very few and far between,” <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/us/politics/aoc-third-term-congress.html" title="">Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told The Times</a> last year, “but where we identify them, I think it’s important to burrow in.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It was at an Oversight Committee hearing that she and other members, including Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio, grilled the defense contractor TransDigm on a report that found that the company had wildly overcharged the Pentagon for its services. After the hearing, TransDigm agreed to return $16.1 million. One week later, Mr. Meadows — a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus — supported bipartisan efforts to rein in facial recognition technology, saying the initiative “hit the sweet spot that brings progressives and conservatives together.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in this — other members of the informal alliance of roughly a half-dozen left-wing representatives known as the Squad have also worked with conservatives — but none have achieved her level of visibility. And while these bills may seem like small victories, they are more than that because, in a sense, she is redefining what bipartisanship looks like in Washington.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">For decades, bipartisanship has meant bringing together moderates, lobbyists and establishment insiders to produce watered-down legislation unpalatable to many voters in both political parties. What Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is doing is different; she’s uniting politicians on the fringes of American politics around a broadly popular set of policies.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Americans in both parties <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/views-of-the-u-s-political-system-the-federal-government-and-federal-state-relations/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">overwhelmingly say</a> that they don’t trust the government to do the right thing and that donors and lobbyists have too much sway over the legislative process. A Pew Research Center poll conducted last year found that more than 8 in 10 Americans believe politicians “are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems.” One-fifth of respondents said lack of bipartisan cooperation was the biggest problem with the political system.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Seen in that light, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s efforts to reach out to Republicans are offering what a sizable portion of Americans want from Congress: a return to getting things done.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The few policy matters on which progressives and conservatives align often boil down to a distrust of politicians and of big corporations, particularly technology companies and pharmaceutical giants. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has shrewdly made those causes her passion, building alliances with conservative colleagues interested in holding these industries accountable.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Last spring, she cosponsored a bill with, among others, Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, and Matt Gaetz, the Florida rabble-rouser who has become one of Mr. Trump’s most steadfast allies. The legislation would bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks, a measure that as of the fall of 2022 was supported by nearly 70 percent of voters across party lines.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">On Gaza, too, she has been willing to buck other members of her party to pursue an agenda that a majority of voters support. She was one of the first Democrats to call for a cease-fire; within weeks, nearly 70 percent of Americans said Israel should call one and try to negotiate with Hamas.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">As the war has ground on and the death toll has mounted, it has tested her relationship with the far left. In March, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was accosted by a handful of protesters who demanded that she call Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. She had already been supportive of the Michigan activists encouraging voters to vote “uncommitted” rather than back the president in their state’s Democratic primary and had been working to persuade Democrats to support a cease-fire. But at the time, she had not yet said that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide. The protesters wanted more.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Less than three weeks later, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/nyregion/aoc-genocide.html" title="">accuse Israel</a> of genocide and chastised the White House for providing military aid to the country while it blockaded Gaza. “If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor, “open your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.” Last month, she voted against providing additional funding for Israel. Those were unpopular positions in Congress, where unconditional support for the country remains the norm, but they put her in line with a majority of Democratic voters.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">These stances haven’t been enough to quell the doubts from a faction of the left that helped get her elected. Over the past few weeks, some have accused her of caving in to pressure from moderate Democrats on Gaza, noting that she was the only founding member of the Squad to sign a statement saying that while she and the other signees opposed “supplying more offensive weapons that could result in more killings of civilians in Rafah and elsewhere,” they supported “strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">This pattern is, at this point, familiar to close followers of the Squad, whose members are routinely criticized from the left. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has taken much of the heat from leftist activists who see her as a symbol of the contradictions and compromises inherent in the political system. It may not be realistic to expect absolute purity from her; she is, after all, a politician. But these critiques overlook the promise of what she’s doing behind the scenes.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">With six months left</strong> before Election Day, Democratic pollsters and strategists are searching for ways for Mr. Biden to win back Muslims and Arab Americans in swing states such as Michigan and Georgia, recent college graduates who hoped to have their student debt forgiven, immigrant-rights activists and Latinos. Some of the betrayal these voters feel was hardly the president’s fault; he was hampered on student loan debt by a federal judiciary stacked with judges sympathetic to conservative legal arguments, and Congress refused to pass the comprehensive immigration bill he supported in 2021, which would have provided legal status to as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants. Still, Mr. Biden has struggled to help voters understand the reasons for these failures.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A more gifted orator might have been able to make the structural impediments in his way clear to voters, while also putting forth a proactive vision for dismantling the core problems baked into our politics.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In that, someone like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Mr. Biden for re-election in 2023, may be able to help. She’s the Democratic Party’s most charismatic politician since Barack Obama and its most ardent populist since Bernie Sanders. Crucially, she can offer voters something more substantial than a hollow rebuke of Trumpism. Last month, when the journalist Mehdi Hasan <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://zeteo.com/p/exclusive-aoc-on-gaza-iran-and-the" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">asked her</a> how she’d respond to “a young progressive or Arab American who says to you, ‘I just can’t vote for Biden again after what he’s enabled in Gaza,’” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said a vote for Mr. Biden didn’t necessarily mean an endorsement of all his policies. “Even in places of stark disagreement, I would rather be organizing under the conditions of Biden as an opponent on an issue than Trump,” she said. It was a shrewd political maneuver, designed to distance herself from Democrats who support Israel unconditionally, while meeting voters — some of whom have lost family members in Gaza — where they are. She was, in effect, acknowledging their pain and attempting to channel their righteous anger into a political movement.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">There are, of course, limits to this strategy. Some on the left see Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Mr. Biden as a betrayal of progressive values, particularly in the wake of the climbing death toll in Gaza. The moderate Republicans who turned out for Mr. Biden in 2020 might shrink from a Democratic Party led by someone they consider an outspoken progressive. But for every moderate or leftist voter lost with a strategy like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s, the Democratic Party may be able to win someone new — from the pool of disillusioned Americans who feel shut out of the political process.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Democrats have a chance here to expand their base — and build a coalition less reliant on the whims of a shrinking group of moderates. Analyses of election data suggest that many of the Democratic voters who have defected to the other side identify as conservatives, particularly on social issues. What’s more, the once-strong Democratic support among Arab Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans now seems shaky, and Republicans have captured a large majority of white voters without college degrees. In other words, the coalition Democratic leaders could once rely on to defeat Mr. Trump is already falling apart, and their current strategy — to hammer the former president — may not be enough to win in November.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">If she ever runs for higher office, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez might be able to galvanize voters of color who, despite leaning left, do not regularly show up at the polls. She could contrast her commitment to issues that matter to a large number of voters, like raising the minimum wage and protecting <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/us/politics/abortion-midterm-elections-democrats-republicans.html" title="">reproductive rights</a>, with Republicans’ endless culture wars. And she could frame herself as one of the few Democrats who opposed unconditionally spending billions on an unpopular war while Americans struggled to afford groceries and gas.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">She could take the message that catapulted her into Congress — as a tireless champion of the underclass — to the national level. In some ways, she already has. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez hit the picket line with striking United Auto Workers members in Missouri and requested a hearing on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, nearly a year before Mr. Biden visited the community. These are constituencies the Democratic Party has been losing, perhaps because they’ve written them off as Republican voters, if they bother to vote at all. But in the same way Ms. Ocasio-Cortez isn’t afraid to collaborate with conservatives when it helps her policy agenda, she has shown up for people whom other Democrats have abandoned — and voters may remember that when they cast a ballot in 2028.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Gaby Del Valle is a reporter based in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in The Intercept, Politico, The Nation and other publications.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0"><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">The Times is committed to publishing </em><a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/letters/letters-to-editor-new-york-times-women.html" title=""><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">a diversity of letters</em></a><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0"> to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">tips</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">. And here’s our email: </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">letters@nytimes.com</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">.</em></p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0"><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">Follow the New York Times Opinion section on </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">Facebook</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">, </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">Instagram</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">, </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">TikTok</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">, </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">X</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0"> and </em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">Threads</em><em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">.</em></p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><script async defer src="https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Richard Tandy, Keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra, Dies at 76</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/richard-tandy-keyboardist-for-electric-light-orchestra-dies-at-76/</link> <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 03:18:01 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/richard-tandy-keyboardist-for-electric-light-orchestra-dies-at-76/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Richard Tandy, the keyboardist for the British rock band Electric Light Orchestra, who helped shape the futuristic blend of Beatles-esque pop and orchestral arrangements that catapulted the group to global fame in the 1970s, has died. He was 76. His death was announced by Jeff Lynne, the band’s frontman and leader, in a social media […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Richard Tandy, the keyboardist for the British rock band Electric Light Orchestra, who helped shape the futuristic blend of Beatles-esque pop and orchestral arrangements that catapulted the group to global fame in the 1970s, has died. He was 76.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">His death was announced by Jeff Lynne, the band’s frontman and leader, in a social media post. Mr. Lynne, who called Mr. Tandy his “longtime collaborator,” did not specify when Mr. Tandy had died or the cause of death.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Born on March 26, 1948, in Birmingham, England, Mr. Tandy joined E.L.O. after the release of its first album in 1972. He initially played bass guitar but became the group’s keyboardist after another member left.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Tandy remained a core member of the band through ever-changing lineups, alongside Mr. Lynne and the drummer Bev Bevan, until it disbanded in 1986. He was Mr. Lynne’s “multi-instrumentalist, co-orchestrator and valued musical partner,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://rockhall.com/inductees/elo/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> when it inducted E.L.O. in 2017. When Mr. Lynne revived the band in the 2000s, Mr. Tandy was the only other longtime member to participate.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/arts/music/richard-tandy-dead.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Surprise Tactics and Legal Threats: Inside R.F.K. Jr.’s Ballot Access Fight</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/surprise-tactics-and-legal-threats-inside-r-f-k-jr-s-ballot-access-fight/</link> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:13:24 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/surprise-tactics-and-legal-threats-inside-r-f-k-jr-s-ballot-access-fight/</guid> <description><![CDATA[As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign mounts a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access, he has often credited enthusiastic volunteers and grass-roots backers with driving the effort. In fact, the operation has become increasingly reliant on consultants and paid petitioners whose signature-gathering work has yielded mixed results and raised questions of impropriety, even […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">As Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign mounts a bruising state-by-state battle for ballot access, he has often credited enthusiastic volunteers and grass-roots backers with driving the effort.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In fact, the operation has become increasingly reliant on consultants and paid petitioners whose signature-gathering work has yielded mixed results and raised questions of impropriety, even among Mr. Kennedy’s fans. In order to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in all 50 states, as is his goal, his campaign has deployed a multipart strategy: aggressive legal action, shrewd political alliances and surprise filing tactics meant to slow or prevent challenges.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In most states, Mr. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer and heir to an American political dynasty, must produce thousands of signatures, under rules that are varied, intricate and confusing at times even to the local officials administering elections. The effort has already cost his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a supporting super PAC at least $2.4 million more, federal campaign finance records show. It has involved a number of professionals who specialize in getting people on the ground with clipboards and petitions, and helping candidates navigate the complicated process. Their success is what will make or break Mr. Kennedy’s campaign.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">This month, Mr. Kennedy got on the ballot in Michigan, a key presidential battleground, by securing the nomination of a minor political party. He will soon officially be on the ballot in Hawaii, having overcome a challenge from the local Democratic Party. As of Sunday, the campaign says it has gathered enough signatures to submit petitions in six<strong class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10"> </strong>other states, including New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina, with more expected to be announced this week.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Ballot access is existential for any campaign. It is also essential for a healthy and prosperous democracy,” said Stefanie Spear, a spokeswoman for the campaign. “The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket will be on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We have the field teams, volunteers, legal teams, paid circulators, supporters and strategists ready to get the job done.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It is unclear whether Mr. Kennedy’s presence on the ballot poses a greater electoral threat to President Biden or former President Donald J. Trump. Polls suggest he could draw votes from both major-party candidates in the general election. But the Democratic Party is more openly concerned with Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy, and has dedicated national legal and public-relations teams to tempering his influence.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">According to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, the Democrats’ efforts have included old-fashioned political subterfuge.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Along with regularly accusing the Democratic National Committee and Democratic secretaries of state of conspiring against Mr. Kennedy, some of Mr. Kennedy’s advisers say the party and its allies have sought to impede the campaign’s hiring by offering prospective workers large sums that come with noncompete agreements, which would effectively prevent them from aiding Mr. Kennedy.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Democratic Party denied any such efforts.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“RFK Jr. has never met a conspiracy theory he doesn’t like and clearly that extends to his bizarre fantasies about the D.N.C. — none of which are rooted in reality,” said Lis Smith, a strategist for the D.N.C. focused on third parties. </p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At a rally in Iowa this month, Mr. Kennedy told the crowd that the “D.N.C.’s law firm” had tried to hire away his campaign’s ballot access lawyer by offering him $1 million a year. (Mr. Kennedy was referring to Paul A. Rossi, according to a Kennedy campaign official. But Mr. Rossi said the offer, from a firm he declined to name, was not an effort to sideline him — the timing just didn’t work out.)</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Rossi, whose law practice has focused on federal lawsuits seeking to block the enforcement of state and local limits on petition circulation and signature gathering, has played a key role in devising Mr. Kennedy’s state-by-state strategy. He works closely with Trent Pool, a petition circulator in Texas whose firm, Accelevate 2020, is a paid consultant to the campaign, and with the campaign’s ballot access director, Nicholas Brana.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Rossi’s tactics initially rubbed at least one eventual ally the wrong way. Earlier this year, when the campaign was seeking the nomination of the <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/20/us/politics/rfk-jr-michigan-ballot.html" title="">Natural Law Party of Michigan</a> — which already had access to the state’s ballot — Mr. Rossi reached out to the party’s chair, Doug Dern, with orders.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“‘Do this, do this, do this,’” Mr. Dern said. “He seemed really pushy, like he was barking out orders to me. I just emailed him back and said, ‘Who the hell are you?’”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But the pair smoothed things over — in an interview, Mr. Rossi expressed admiration for Mr. Dern — allowing Mr. Kennedy to get on the ballot. The campaign could make similar alliances in other states to get on minor-party ballot lines.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The campaign is also purposefully delaying its filings to election officials. Mr. Kennedy’s operation plans to gather the required signatures in a given state, but hold off on filing the actual ballot petition until just before the deadline, with the aim of giving the Democratic Party less time to challenge the filings.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The D.N.C. knows this is coming,” Ms. Spear said, “and we would be remiss to give them more time to challenge our ballot access.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In an interview, Mr. Rossi underscored the importance of their legal strategy. His team pre-emptively filed three lawsuits for Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, challenging ballot access and signature collection rules in Idaho, Utah and Maine. He said he was planning a challenge in New York State,<strong class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10"> </strong>where the campaign this month has been gathering signatures ahead of a May 28 deadline.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Our strategy is to knock out as many ballot access restrictions across the country as possible,” Mr. Rossi said. He called it a “broader attack” to help future candidates as well as Mr. Kennedy.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In Utah, for example, Mr. Rossi’s legal efforts continue even though the campaign has already secured ballot access. The lawsuit there challenges disclosure requirements for paid signature gatherers, among other rules.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In Nevada, another critical swing state, Mr. Rossi said he planned to pursue legal action after it emerged last month that the petition the campaign submitted for ballot access in the state, including more than 15,000 signatures, did not include a vice-presidential candidate and was therefore most likely invalid under state law. The rule, which has been in place for years, was conveyed to candidates in an early <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showpublisheddocument/12293/638355490400900000" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">March memo</a>, but a staff member at the state elections office did not explain it explicitly in email correspondence with the campaign, records show.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In a March 25 statement, Mr. Rossi blamed the “D.N.C. Goon Squad and their lackeys in the Nevada secretary of state’s office,” saying, inaccurately, that they had “outright invented a new requirement for the petition.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The secretary of state responded that the staff member’s “inaccurate guidance” was a simple error. “In no way was the initial error or subsequent statutory guidance made with intent to benefit or harm any political party or candidate for office.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Rossi and Mr. Pool have been instrumental in steering the campaign away from the volunteer signature gatherers whose grass-roots support Mr. Kennedy has played up, outsourcing the work to professionals.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Some of Mr. Kennedy’s early supporters say they have felt sidelined by the influx of paid consultants, adding that the national ballot access team has created an adversarial relationship with Mr. Kennedy’s longtime backers from his decades of work with anti-vaccine and environmental groups.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The divide between volunteers and paid contractors created friction in Hawaii, for example, after Mr. Rossi took over the drafting of bylaws for a new political party formed to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot there, according to people involved in the effort, boxing out the original volunteers.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Rossi praised the volunteer efforts, but said that bulletproof applications are the most important thing: “It has to be supplemented by professionals.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Petitioning can also be expensive. Petitioners may be paid by the signature or by the hour, depending on the state. A listing posted last week on Craigslist for Albany, N.Y., lists a salary of $40 an hour for “self-confident, enthusiastic individuals to canvas the local area and gather signatures” to get Mr. Kennedy on New York’s ballot.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Between November and the end of March, the Kennedy campaign paid Accelevate 2020 $389,000 for “campaign consulting,” records show, including a $300,000 payment last month.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Rossi has not yet filed an invoice with the campaign, he said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The only way to get rid of ballot access restrictions is to litigate them,” Mr. Rossi said. “It is time-consuming, costly and piecemeal.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/us/politics/rfk-jr-ballot-access.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Tornadoes Strike Nebraska and Iowa, Injuring at Least 5</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/tornadoes-strike-nebraska-and-iowa-injuring-at-least-5/</link> <pubDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2024 03:10:27 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/tornadoes-strike-nebraska-and-iowa-injuring-at-least-5/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa on Friday, leveling dozens of homes, causing the collapse of an industrial building and injuring at least five people, extending an outbreak of severe weather that started the day before. A tornado struck parts of Nebraska, including Omaha and Waverly, leading to the collapse of an industrial […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa on Friday, leveling dozens of homes, causing the collapse of an industrial building and injuring at least five people, extending an outbreak of severe weather that started the day before.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A tornado struck parts of Nebraska, including Omaha and Waverly, leading to the collapse of an industrial building, injuring at least three people and prompting a widespread emergency response, officials said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Images on social media from Iowa also showed widespread damage and leveled buildings in Minden, a city that is a little more than 100 miles west of Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Pottawattamie County, where, the sheriff’s office confirmed, a tornado had swept through.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In Lancaster County, Nebraska, the sheriff’s office responded to an industrial building at Garner Industries around 3 p.m. and found it “pretty much totally collapsed” with several people trapped inside, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Three people were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, he said, adding that roughly 70 people were inside when the tornado struck.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The sheriff’s office also received reports of a derailed train in Waverly, Chief Houchin said, adding, “They didn’t require any emergency assistance, so we’re hoping it’s very minor.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The National Weather Service also <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/NWSOmaha/status/1783959670669074458" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">confirmed on social media</a> that a tornado had struck western Omaha.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At least two people suffered minor injuries in the tornado, which “took out a number of houses,” Todd Schmaderer, the Omaha police chief, said at a news conference on Friday evening.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Omaha Police Department <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/OmahaPolice/status/1783978809273790714" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said on social media</a> that emergency personnel were helping those in the path of the tornado and that additional officers were coming to help respond to emergency calls.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Eppley Airfield in Omaha temporarily closed because of the storm, the airport <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/OMAairport/status/1783980207637987371" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said on social media</a>. It later confirmed that a tornado had touched down there.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Passengers were placed in storm shelters for their safety, the airport said, noting that although the terminal was unaffected, “a number of buildings in the General Aviation area on the east side of airport property sustained damage.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">There were no reports of any injuries, the airport said, though footage on social media showed the airport and planes were damaged.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Melanie Colton, 44, said she was preparing to pick up her children from school when she saw the funnel cloud appear and begin to make its way toward her in-laws’ farm home, just outside Waverly.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The house is really unlivable,” she said. “A lot of the windows are broken out and there’s a tree through the roof. The two sheds in the back yard are destroyed with debris from the sheds spread out about two miles.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Colton’s in-laws, who have lived at the home for 46 years, said that no one was injured, except for the family horse, Shasta, who had to get stitches.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The community has already stepped in and is providing help, as over a dozen neighbors and friends could be seen picking up and moving debris into trash bins. </p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We’re really appreciative and grateful for all the manpower we’ve already received to get this house back to livable,” Ms. Colton said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Numerous homes in Elkhorn, Bennington and Waterloo in western Douglas County in Nebraska were also severely damaged, county officials said. Residents were displaced but no fatalities or serious injuries were reported, officials said.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Stephanie Fisher, the city administrator for Waverly, said there were no reports of injuries or damage within the city.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I’ve been told that a business outside of the city between Waverly and Lincoln has been hit by the tornado, and there’s a large amount of emergency personnel out there,” she said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Bryan Trauma Center at Bryan West Campus treated two patients who were injured in the tornadoes in Lancaster County, said a hospital spokesman, Brad Colee. </p><h2 class="css-9ycfei eoo0vm40" id="link-7fa5422f">More severe weather is possible on Saturday</h2></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A widespread risk of dangerous weather remains possible by Saturday, spreading from Texas to Michigan.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Cities such as Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Dallas could experience severe storms. Hail ranging in size from golf balls to baseballs could fall and damaging winds would be possible.</p><h2 class="css-9ycfei eoo0vm40" id="link-3990d6b0">The risk continues Sunday</h2><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The threat of severe thunderstorms will continue into Sunday, including areas from southeast Texas to western Illinois.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Storms will be slightly less likely to occur but there will still be some risk of some forming and even producing a couple of tornadoes, and generating quarter-size hail and damaging winds.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Livia Albeck-Ripka<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/us/tornado-storms-plains-oklahoma.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Columbia Says Student Protesters Agree to More Talks and to Remove Some Tents</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/columbia-says-student-protesters-agree-to-more-talks-and-to-remove-some-tents/</link> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:09:54 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/columbia-says-student-protesters-agree-to-more-talks-and-to-remove-some-tents/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Columbia University awoke Wednesday to a calendar that lays bare the breadth of its troubles. House Speaker Mike Johnson was expected on campus to visit with Jewish students. The university president, Nemat Shafik, was preparing to confer with the university senate, which could censure her as soon as Friday. And protesters and university officials were […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia University awoke Wednesday to a calendar that lays bare the breadth of its troubles.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">House Speaker Mike Johnson was expected on campus to visit with Jewish students. The university president, Nemat Shafik, was preparing to confer with the university senate, which could censure her as soon as Friday. And protesters and university officials were negotiating over the possible dismantling of an encampment that is dominating a swath of the campus lawn.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Overnight, the university and protesters narrowly avoided another confrontation that could have involved the police.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Shafik had warned Tuesday evening of a midnight deadline for the demonstrators to disperse, but around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the university said in a statement that student protesters had agreed to remove a significant number of the tents erected on the lawn, ensure non-students would leave, and bar discriminatory or harassing language among the protesters.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“In light of this constructive dialogue, the university will continue conversations for the next 48 hours,” the university said, less than one week after Dr. Shafik’s decision to ask the New York Police Department to clear the protest. That move led to the arrest of more than 100 students and reignited a divisive debate over free speech and the need to protect Jewish students who have felt threatened.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Hours before it announced the continuing talks, the university had said it was prepared to consider “alternative options” for clearing the tent city. The warning had alarmed student organizers, who told protesters to expect a police sweep overnight. Protest leaders instructed demonstrators to wear a red band if they were willing to be arrested and a yellow one if not.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A student group, which was previously <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/nyregion/columbia-university-ban-student-groups-israel-hamas-war.html" title="">suspended</a> by the university, said in a statement that school administrators had threatened to call in the National Guard if protesters did not disperse. A spokeswoman for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York pointed to her earlier comments that she had no plans to deploy the Guard.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">After months of demonstrations on campuses protesting the war in Gaza, the unrest has reached a fever pitch in the final weeks of classes at some of the country’s most storied academic institutions. On Monday, police were called in to make dozens of arrests at Yale and New York University. Encampments have also sprung up at Tufts, Emerson and the University of California, Berkeley.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Administrators at campuses across the nation have been struggling to balance students’ free speech rights and the need to protect Jewish students. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, threats or support for Hamas, the armed group based in Gaza that led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson’s visit to campus will not include a meeting with Dr. Shafik. Instead, he is expected to focus, his office said, on the “troubling rise of virulent antisemitism on America’s college campuses.” His trip will turn the spotlight of Washington toward the university again — Columbia was the subject of a congressional hearing last Wednesday — just as Dr. Shafik is also scrambling to navigate the campus’s politics.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Some university senate leaders are hoping that her appearance at an emergency meeting will help to calm faculty members, many of whom remain furious over the decision to call in the police officers who made more than 100 arrests last Thursday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I don’t expect it to be a love fest,” Brendan O’Flaherty, a professor of urban economics who serves in the senate, predicted of the meeting.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Protest management is a particularly resonant matter for modern Columbia presidents, who have known well how Grayson L. Kirk’s tenure came to a turbulent close after endemic criticism about his handling of demonstrations in 1968, when he summoned the police to the private university.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The university senate could vote on a resolution to censure Dr. Shafik as soon as Friday — not long after the 48-hour negotiation period concludes.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. O’Flaherty declined to gauge the temperature of the senate, noting that it is a complex organization of more than 100 faculty members, students, alumni and administrators from a wide range of academic disciplines.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But the draft resolution is harsh and accuses Dr. Shafik of violating fundamental rules by ignoring a 13-member senate executive committee that had unanimously rejected her request to summon armed New York City Police onto the campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">By calling in the police anyway, the resolution said, Dr. Shafik had endangered both the welfare and the futures of the arrested students.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A censure vote is meant to show disapproval in a leader’s performance. It is a step short of a vote of “no confidence,” which is essentially a call for a leader’s removal.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia has so far rebuffed calls for Dr. Shafik’s resignation, including one Monday from some of Mr. Johnson’s House Republicans.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Eryn Davis<!-- -->, <!-- -->Annie Karni<!-- -->, <!-- -->Santul Nerkar<!-- -->, <!-- -->Katherine Rosman<!-- -->, <!-- -->Karla Marie Sanford<!-- --> and <!-- -->Ed Shanahan<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/columbia-protests-encampment.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/as-protests-continue-at-columbia-some-jewish-students-feel-targeted/</link> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 03:09:24 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/as-protests-continue-at-columbia-some-jewish-students-feel-targeted/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students. Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be unaffiliated with the university just outside Columbia’s gated campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public because of the protests.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Some of those protests took a dark turn on Saturday evening, leading to the harassment of some Jewish students who were targeted with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal attacks left some of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Jewish students who are supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus said they felt solidarity, not a sense of danger, even as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There’s so many young Jewish people who are like a vital part” of the protests, said Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia who is part of a student coalition calling on Columbia to divest from companies connected to Israel.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">And in a statement, that group said, “We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us” and added that the group’s members “firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Reports of antisemitic harassment by protesters surfaced on social media late Saturday. A video <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/Davidlederer6/status/1781948249214996901" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">posted on X</a> shows a masked protester outside the Columbia gates carrying a Palestinian flag who appears to chant “Go back to Poland!” One Columbia student wrote on social media that some protesters had stolen an Israeli flag from students and tried to burn it, adding that Jewish students were splashed with water.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Chabad at Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1782133257695318082" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in a statement</a> that some protesters had hurled expletives at Jewish students as they walked home from campus over the weekend, and had said to them, “All you do is colonize” and “Go back to Europe.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We are horrified and worried about physical safety” on campus, said the statement, adding that the organization had hired additional armed guards to chaperone students walking home from Chabad.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Eliana Goldin, a junior at Columbia who is the co-chairwoman of Aryeh, a pro-Israel student organization, said she did not “feel safe anymore” on campus. Ms. Goldin, who is out of town for Passover, said campus had become “super overwhelming,” with loud protests disrupting class and even sleep.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In a statement, Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman, said that the university was committed to ensuring the safety of its students.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Columbia students have the right to protest, but they are not allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students and members of our community,” said the statement. “We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The upheaval on and around the Columbia campus this week marked the latest fallout from the testimony that the university’s president, Nemat Shafik, <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/nyregion/columbia-university-president-nemat-shafik-hearing.html" title="">gave at a congressional hearing on antisemitism</a> on Wednesday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Shafik vowed to forcefully crack down on antisemitism on campus, in part by disciplining professors and student protesters who used language she said could be antisemitic, such as contested phrases like “from the river to the sea.” Her testimony, meant as an assertive display of Columbia’s actions to combat antisemitism, angered supporters of academic freedom and emboldened a group of protesting students who had erected an encampment of about 50 tents on a main lawn in the campus this week.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">University officials said the tents violated the school’s policies and called in the New York Police Department on Thursday, leading to the arrests of more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who refused to leave. But the police involvement only fueled the uproar. Students pressed on with their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” sleeping in the cold without tents on a neighboring lawn, and some began to erect tents again on Sunday, without Columbia’s permission.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Students who support the protesters say there is a wide range of opinion among Jewish students at Columbia. “To say that it’s unsafe for Jewish people, to me, indicates that you’re only speaking about a certain portion of Jewish people,” Mr. Miner, 27, said at the university on Sunday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We are totally opposed to any sort of antisemitic speech,” he added. “We are here to, you know, stand in solidarity with Palestine. And we refuse — our Jewish members refuse — to equate that with antisemitism.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Makayla Gubbay, a junior studying human rights at Columbia, said that as a Jewish student, she has mostly been concerned for the safety of her peers protesting for Palestinians.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Gubbay said that throughout the past six months her friends — particularly those who are Palestinian and other students who are Muslim — have been injured by the police and censored for their activism. Though she was not involved in the organizing of the encampment, she went there for the Sabbath on Friday, attended a speech given by a participant in <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/nyregion/columbia-protest-1968-vietnam.html" title="">Columbia’s intense 1968 protest</a> and brought hot tea for friends.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There’s been a lot of amazing solidarity in terms of other students coming on campus, hosting Shabbats, hosting screenings, having faculty give speeches,” Ms. Gubbay said. </p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia officials have previously said there have been several antisemitic incidents on campus, including one physical attack in October — the <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/nyregion/columbia-university-israel-hamas-protests.html" title="">assault of a 24-year-old Columbia student</a> who was hanging fliers a few days after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">While many Jewish students had left campus to celebrate Passover, which begins on Monday evening, the rising tensions led at least one rabbi on campus to suggest that the Ivy League school was no longer safe and that Jewish students should leave.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Elie Buechler, an Orthodox rabbi who works at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to a group of more than 290 Jewish students on Sunday morning saying that campus and city police had failed to guarantee the safety of Jewish students “in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.” He recommended that students return home “until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus,” wrote Rabbi Buechler, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Columbia University and Barnard College. “No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Citing Passover preparations, Rabbi Buechler declined to be interviewed, but he said that his message was meant as a personal statement and did not reflect the views of the university or Hillel, the Jewish organization on campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Indeed, in an apparent response, Hillel issued a statement on Sunday afternoon saying that the organization did not believe that Jewish students should leave Columbia, but it pressed the university and the city to step up safety measures.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We call on the university administration to act immediately in restoring calm to campus,” Brian Cohen, the group’s executive director, wrote. “The city must ensure that students can walk up and down Broadway and Amsterdam without fear of harassment,” he added, referring to the avenues that run alongside the Upper West Side campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Noah Levine, 20, a sophomore at Columbia and an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, said they found the rabbi’s comments “deeply offensive.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I’m a Jewish student who has been in this encampment since its inception,” they said. “I’m also a student who has been organizing in this community with these people since October, and even before that, and I believe in my heart that this is not about antisemitism.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. student in biology, said the mood for Jewish students was “very dire.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There are students on campus who are yelling horrible things, not about Israelis only or about the actions of the state or the government, but about Jews in general,” he said.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Sharon Otterman<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/nyregion/columbia-protests-antisemitism.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Arrives</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/taylor-swifts-the-tortured-poets-department-arrives/</link> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 15:04:51 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/taylor-swifts-the-tortured-poets-department-arrives/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys. Then it came time for her to promote a new album. In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Then it came time for her to promote a new album.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all but inescapable, online and seemingly everywhere else. Her lyrics were the basis for an Apple Music word game. A Spotify-sponsored, Swift-branded “library installation,” in muted pink and gray, popped up in a shopping complex in Los Angeles. In Chicago, a QR code painted on a brick wall directed fans to another Easter egg on YouTube. Videos on Swift’s social media accounts, showing antique typewriters and globes with pins, were dissected for clues about her music. SiriusXM added a Swift radio station; of course it’s called Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version).</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">About the only thing Swift didn’t do was an interview with a journalist.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At this stage in Swift’s career, an album release is more than just a moment to sell music; it’s all but a given that “The Tortured Poets Department” will open with gigantic sales numbers, many of them for “ghost white,” “phantom clear” and other collector-ready vinyl variants. More than that, the album’s arrival is a test of the celebrity-industrial complex overall, with tech platforms and media outlets racing to capture whatever piece of the fan frenzy they can get.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Threads, the newish social media platform from Meta, primed Swifties for their idol’s arrival there, and offered fans who shared Swift’s first Threads post a custom badge. Swift stunned the music industry last week by <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/arts/music/taylor-swift-tiktok-umg-music.html" title="">breaking ranks</a> with her record label, Universal, and returning her music to TikTok, which Universal and other industry groups have said pays far too little in royalties. Overnight, TikTok unveiled “The Ultimate Taylor Swift In-App Experience,” offering fans digital goodies like a “Tortured Poets-inspired animation” on their feed.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Before the album’s release on Friday, Swift revealed that a music video — for “Fortnight,” the first single, featuring Post Malone — would arrive on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. At 2 a.m., she had another surprise: 15 more songs. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” she wrote in a <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C57qcCPucLV/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">social media post</a>, bringing “The Anthology” edition of the album to 31 tracks.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Tortured Poets Department,” which Swift, 34, announced in a Grammy acceptance speech in February — she had the Instagram post ready to go — lands as Swift’s profile continues to rise to ever-higher levels of cultural saturation.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Her Eras Tour, begun last year, has been a global phenomenon, crashing Ticketmaster and lifting local economies; by some estimates, it might bring in as much as $2 billion in ticket sales — by far a new record — before it ends later this year. Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has been breathlessly tracked from its first flirtations last summer to their smooch on the Super Bowl field in February. The mere thought that Swift might endorse a presidential candidate this year sent conspiracy-minded politicos reeling.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Tortured Poets Department” — don’t even ask about the missing apostrophe — arrived accompanied by a poem written by Stevie Nicks that begins, “He was in love with her/Or at least she thought so.” That establishes what many fans correctly anticipated as the album’s theme of heartbreak and relationship rot, Swift’s signature topic. “I love you/It’s ruining my life,” she sings on “Fortnight.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Fans were especially primed for the fifth track, “So Long, London,” given that (1) Swift <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@xorcontent/video/7241546673565043994?lang=en" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has said</a> she often sequences her most vulnerable and emotionally intense songs fifth on an LP, and (2) the title suggested it may be about Joe Alwyn, the English actor who was Swift’s boyfriend for about six years, reportedly until early 2023. Indeed, “So Long” is an epic breakup tune, with lines like “You left me at the house by the heath” and “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” Tracks from the album leaked on Wednesday, and fans have also interpreted some songs as being about Matty Healy, the frontman of the band the 1975, whom Swift was briefly linked to last year.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The album’s title song starts with a classic Swift detail of a memento from a lost love: “You left your typewriter at my apartment/Straight from the tortured poets department.” It also name-drops Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and, somewhat surprisingly given that company, Charlie Puth, the singer-songwriter who crooned the hook on Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” a No. 1 hit in 2015. (Swift has <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d31gQjsmaxs" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">praised Wiz Khalifa</a> and that song in the past.)</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Other big moments include “Florida!!!,” featuring Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, in which Swift declares — after seven big percussive bangs — that the state “is one hell of a drug.” Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers and songwriters who have been Swift’s primary collaborators in recent years, both worked on “Tortured Poets,” bringing their signature mix of moody, pulsating electronic tracks and delicate acoustic moments, like a bare piano on “Loml” (as in “love of my life”).</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">As the ninth LP Swift has released in five years, “Tortured Poets” is the latest entry in a remarkable creative streak. That includes five new studio albums and four rerecordings of her old music — each of which sailed to No. 1. When Swift played SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles in August, she spoke from the stage about her recording spurt, saying that the forced break from touring during the Covid-19 pandemic had spurred her to connect with fans by releasing more music.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“And so I decided, in order to keep that connection going,” she said, “if I couldn’t play live shows with you, I was going to make and release as many albums as humanly possible.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">That was two albums ago.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async defer src="https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/arts/music/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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