Aurelia Butler

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    Strange Cellmates in a Brooklyn Jail: Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried

    Mr. Combs is sleeping in the same dormitory-style room as Mr. Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul who was convicted of fraud.Sean Combs is living in the same unit of a Brooklyn jail as Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto mogul convicted of fraud, sleeping in a dormitory-style room with a group of other defendants assigned to the same section, according to a person familiar with the living arrangements.Mr. Combs has been held in the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, for nearly a week, since federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging him with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking in what the government has called a “decades-long pattern of physical and sexual violence.”He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers argued strenuously for him to be released on bail, proposing to a judge that he put up a $50 million bond and hire a security team to monitor him at all hours. The judge rejected the proposal, saying that he had concerns about Mr. Combs attempting to witness tamper, landing him in a special housing unit that often holds high-profile inmates.A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency “does not provide information about conditions of confinement, including housing assignments or internal security practices for any particular incarcerated individual.”Mr. Bankman-Fried has been housed in the jail, known as M.D.C., since last year, when his bail was revoked after a judge ruled that he had violated conditions of his release. In the lead-up to his trial, his lawyers complained that he had only intermittent internet access and could not adequately prepare for his case. They said that Mr. Bankman-Fried, a vegan, was subsisting on a diet of water, bread and peanut butter.Mr. Bankman-Fried, who founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, was convicted of masterminding a sweeping fraud in which he siphoned billions of dollars of his customers’ money into venture capital investments, political contributions and other lavish spending. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.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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    What Belongs to Opera? Garth Greenwell’s Novel of Desire

    Greenwell’s “What Belongs to You” reaches the opera stage with a team that includes the composer David T. Little and the director Mark Morris.The composer David T. Little isn’t sure whether it was really his idea to write the opera “What Belongs to You.”Nine years ago, he was given an advance copy of Garth Greenwell’s debut novel of the same name by his friend and fellow musician Alan Pierson, from the group Alarm Will Sound. As Little read the book, a finely hewed account of desire and shame, and their resonances in an American’s dangerous love for a Bulgarian hustler, he thought: This is a song cycle waiting to happen, if not a full-length opera.He said as much in an email to Pierson, taking the first step that led to the premiere of “What Belongs to You” on Thursday at the Modlin Center for the Arts in Richmond, Va. Now, Little said, “I suspect Alan masterminded this thing from the beginning.”In the years since Little was sent the book, Greenwell has become a critical darling, the author of “Cleanness” and “Small Rain,” which was released this month. Little and Pierson brought on more artists: the Grammy Award-winning vocalist Karim Sulayman, for whom the opera was written, and Mark Morris, the choreographer and director, who is staging the work’s premiere.Pierson conducting during a rehearsal of “What Belongs to You” at the Modlin Center for the Arts in Richmond, Va.Maansi Srivastava for The New York TimesAnd, yes, this is exactly what Pierson was hoping would happen.“This is a book that I’ve been deeply connected to from the beginning,” he said. He and Greenwell, a former singer, were students and collaborators at the Eastman School of Music, and remained close friends as Greenwell became a poet, a teacher and then a prose writer, whose style seemed to reflect the different phases of his life. Pierson read early versions of “What Belongs to You,” which Greenwell dedicated to him.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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    Ukrainian Poet and Rock Star Fights Near Front and Performs Behind It

    Serhiy Zhadan, 50, is a beloved Ukrainian poet as well as a novelist, lyricist and rock star. Furious over the invasion, he enlisted to fight even as his band still plays and his readings fill halls.When the Ukrainian army hit a crisis of recruitment earlier this year amid rising losses on the battlefield, one of the most popular cultural personalities in the country stepped up and enlisted.“At some point it became uncomfortable not to join up,” said Serhiy Zhadan, in an interview at a military base in July.A beloved poet, novelist, lyricist and rock star in Ukraine, Mr. Zhadan, 50, joined a local National Guard brigade in his home city of Kharkiv in May and started a two-month stint in boot camp. By summer he was serving in an engineering unit on the second line of defense.Many of his friends were already fighting, he said of his decision to enlist. “This feeling that someone is fighting for you, instead of you, while you are also able to join, was also important.”Although he said he did not intend to set an example, Mr. Zhadan’s decision to join the army resonated with many, across generations and with lovers of both his words and music.He can fill a sports hall or a Kyiv theater for poetry readings, as he did on occasions this summer, and his rock band was acclaimed for delivering the best set at the Atlas music festival, Ukraine’s largest, in July. Proceeds of his performances go toward buying medical supplies and other equipment for the soldiers.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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    Caterina Valente, Singer Who Was a Star on Two Continents, Dies at 93

    Born in Paris to Italian parents and raised in Germany, she had her own show on television in the 1950s and was later a small-screen mainstay in the U.S.Caterina Valente, a polyglot performer who sang in more than a dozen languages and was a television mainstay on two continents in the 1950s and ’60s, died on Sept. 9 at her home in Lugano, Switzerland. She was 93.Her death was announced on her website.Ms. Valente achieved stardom in mid-1950s Germany in a popular music genre known as schlager: novelty songs, with titles like “Ganz Paris Träumt von der Liebe” (“All Paris Dreams of Love”) and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strandbikini.” By 1955, her hits had put her on the cover of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strandbikini” was one of the first of Ms. Valente’s many hit records.DeccaShe had her own television show in Germany in 1957, and she appeared regularly at the Olympia in Paris throughout her career. Her fluid, confident delivery and sure pitch, as well as her skill as both a guitar player and a tap dancer, also carried her across the Atlantic, and by the early 1960s she was a regular on American television.Ms. Valente capitalized on her cosmopolitan origins. She was born in Paris to Italian parents who themselves were entertainers; was brought up in wartime Germany; and was fluent in a half-dozen languages. She would regularly make records for the French, Italian and German markets, which led to hits all across the continent. She won France’s Grand Prix du Disque for her 1959 recording of the song “Bim-Bom-Bey.”Ms. Valente on a 1966 episode of “The Dean Martin Show.” She was a regular on this and other American variety shows for many years.NBC, via Everett CollectionWe 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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    Janet Jackson Repeats False Claims About Kamala Harris’s Race

    After Ms. Jackson told The Guardian that Ms. Harris is “not Black,” her representatives said a man who apologized on her behalf was not authorized to speak for her.There was a swift backlash on Saturday after the pop star Janet Jackson challenged Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity in an interview with The Guardian. On Sunday, a man who identified himself as her manager apologized for her statements.Then Ms. Jackson’s representatives quickly distanced her from that man and his apology, saying he was not her manager and was not authorized to speak for her.The unusual turn of events began when The Guardian published a wide-ranging interview with Ms. Jackson timed to promote the European leg of her concert tour. When the reporter, Nosheen Iqbal, said the United States “could be on the verge of voting in its first Black female president,” referring to Ms. Harris, Ms. Jackson responded by saying: “Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”When Ms. Iqbal replied that Ms. Harris, the Democratic nominee, is the daughter of an Indian woman and a Jamaican father who is Black, Ms. Jackson responded, “Her father’s white.”“That’s what I was told,” she added. “I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”Across social media, people expressed bewilderment over Ms. Jackson’s comments. On “The View” on Monday, one of the hosts, Ana Navarro, said Ms. Jackson had been “very irresponsible” and had used the Guardian interview “carelessly, to spread misinformation.”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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    Benny Golson, Saxophonist and Composer of Jazz Standards, Dies at 95

    Benny Golson, a tenor saxophonist and composer who played with some of the biggest names in jazz and was a founder of one of the leading groups of the hard bop era, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.Jason Franklin, his agent for more than 25 years, confirmed the death.Mr. Golson was a rarity in jazz: a highly accomplished musician who was also sought after as a composer. Indeed, he later had a flourishing second career writing and arranging music for television shows.A number of his compositions are regarded as jazz standards, among them “I Remember Clifford” (written in memory of the trumpeter Clifford Brown, shortly after he died in a car accident in 1956), “Whisper Not,” “Blues March” and “Killer Joe.” Quincy Jones recorded a memorable version of “Killer Joe” in 1969, and Miles Davis recorded “Stablemates,” which Mr. Golson wrote after John Coltrane, a close friend, told him that Mr. Davis had been looking for new material.Mr. Golson wrote or co-wrote four of the six tracks on “Moanin’,” a celebrated 1958 album by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. All five of the tunes on the trumpeter Lee Morgan’s 1957 album “Lee Morgan, Vol. 3” were written by Mr. Golson.Asked whether he preferred composing or playing, Mr. Golson once replied: “It’s like having two wives. I’m a musical bigamist. I can’t decide, so I just go on with both of them.”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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    Travis Scott Has No. 1 Album, After Close Loss to Sabrina Carpenter

    The “Days Before Rodeo” rerelease is the rapper’s fourth title to reach the top.Three weeks ago, a photo finish on the Billboard album chart saw Sabrina Carpenter edge out Travis Scott by a margin of less than a thousand copies. Now — after challenging those results — Scott has finally snagged No. 1, thanks to vinyl sales.After opening at No. 2, Scott’s mixtape “Days Before Rodeo,” which came out in 2014 and was rereleased last month for its 10th anniversary, slipped down the Billboard 200 chart in successive weeks, falling all the way to No. 106 last week. Now it leaps to No. 1, becoming the Houston rapper’s fourth title to reach the top. It had the equivalent of 156,000 sales in the United States, 149,000 of them from shipments of vinyl LPs that fans had ordered on Scott’s website. After a month in wide release, the album’s streams were minimal, just eight million for the week.But the victory was hard fought by Scott. After Billboard certified a victory for Carpenter, who had released her “Short n’ Sweet” on the same day as “Days Before Rodeo,” the rapper’s team revealed that they had sent a four-page letter in the days before the chart — which would credit Carpenter with 362,000 sales and Scott with 361,000, in rounded numbers — was finalized. The letter called the chart process “unreliable and incomplete.”The letter also complained that Billboard and Luminate, its data partner, had not counted 1,291 copies sold in the final minutes of the tracking week; in such a tight race, those sales would have tipped the scales in Scott’s favor. Luminate defended the accuracy of its numbers, and the chart was not changed. Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” held the top spot for three straight weeks and now falls to No. 2, with the equivalent of 108,000 sales.Also this week, Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” holds at No. 3, Post Malone’s “F-1 Trillion” is No. 4 and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 5. More

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    Alan Sparhawk of Low Lost His Other Half. He’s Learning to Sing Again.

    Alan Sparhawk did not think his new song was any good. It was early 2017, and he was working on “Double Negative,” the 12th album by his longtime band, Low. The record would become a late-career breakthrough, the intimate harmonies between Sparhawk and his wife, Mimi Parker, supplanted from their slow, soft acoustic settings into beds of brittle noise.But at that moment, Sparhawk was still wrestling with “Always Trying to Work It Out,” an elliptical portrait of a faltering friendship. He played it for Parker, whom he forever called “Mim.” When, unbidden, she began singing, he knew he had a keeper.“That was as much approval as I ever needed. That was the way she communicated,” Sparhawk said during a phone interview, pausing often to cry. “When Mim would sing, that was all I needed to know.”“I’m going to wrestle with the universe and generate art, because that’s what I do,” Alan Sparhawk said. On his new album, he processes his voice through an effects pedal.Erinn Springer for The New York TimesSparhawk no longer has that filter or confidant. Parker died in November 2022, two years after learning she had ovarian cancer on Christmas Eve. Across three decades, Sparhawk, Parker and a succession of bassists built Low into one of indie-rock’s most mesmerizing acts, their voices moving in tandem like the blowing wind or a flickering candle. Self-diagnosed with autism and borderline personality disorder, Sparhawk also depended upon Parker as an emotional anchor, the person who could help him understand his frustrations simply by listening.He is now trying to find his voice and language anew, to find ways to move forward in life and music without the person who guided so much of his past. Made with a drum machine and minimal guitar, his first record since her death — “White Roses, My God,” out Friday — routes his oaken baritone through an effects pedal, rendering him alternately robotic and animalistic. His second, due next year, is a collaboration with the bluegrass band Trampled by Turtles, fellow Minnesotans that Low took on early tours.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