Aurelia Butler

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    Kennedy Center Employees, Alarmed by Trump, Push to Unionize

    Employees say they are concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming.”Since President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts earlier this year, his administration has scaled back some programs there and fired nearly 40 employees.Those changes have unnerved many of the center’s administrative staff members, who work in programming, education, marketing, fund-raising, public relations and other areas. Now, seeking greater protection for their jobs, more than 90 of them are leading a push to unionize, they announced on Thursday.The employees, calling themselves the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers, said in a statement that they were concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming without regard to the interests of program funders, philanthropists, national partners and the audiences we serve.“We demand,” the statement continued, “transparent and consistent terms for hiring and firing, a return to ethical norms, freedom from partisan interference in programming, free speech protections and the right to negotiate the terms of our employment.”A push to unionize is likely to escalate tensions at the center, which has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman in February. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Trump administration has previously defended cost-cutting efforts, saying the center is in poor financial health and must scale back to survive. Mr. Trump recently requested $257 million from Congress for capital repairs and other expenses there, according to lawmakers; the funding is still being discussed.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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    Cannes Film Festival 2025: Is This an Early Front-runner for the Palme d’Or?

    “Sound of Falling,” which tracks four German girls over the course of a century, drew early raves. But it might not go the distance.Survey journalists during the first few days of the Cannes Film Festival, and you’re likely to hear some grumbling. Though it may seem uncharitable to complain in such a glittery, glamorous location, it’s practically tradition for critics here to shrug at the initial salvo of movies, wondering how long it will take for a viable contender to emerge that could win the prestigious Palme d’Or.Sometimes, it takes quite awhile. Unlike other major film festivals, Cannes, which started Tuesday, doesn’t front-load its highest-profile titles: Significant movies unspool every day over two weeks, and the Palme winner often does not debut until the festival’s back half.This year, though, an early pacesetter seems to have emerged. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, “Sound of Falling” skips through time to track four girls who have lived on the same German farm over the course of a century. From the prewar era to the modern day, these young women contend with many of the same issues, from nascent sexual curiosity to brutally violent repression.It’s arty and lengthy in the way that Cannes juries often favor, and many of the early reviews were rapturous, especially those by critics who had prescreened the movie before the festival began. To hear those scribes tell it, “Sound of Falling” is “transfixing” (The Hollywood Reporter), “astonishingly poised and ambitious”(Variety), and “a high-water mark that will be hard for another feature to reach” (Vulture).Still, the response on the ground wasn’t entirely positive after Wednesday’s premiere. A critic friend texted me that he found the film “pretty vacuous” and the fest’s popular Screen International grid, which compiles scores from a dozen critics on a scale from one to four, gave “Sound of Falling” an average of 2.8. That’s respectable, but last year’s Palme winner, “Anora,” hit 3.3, while the previous victor, “Anatomy of a Fall,” earned a 3.0.Can passion win out over consensus? Stay tuned. More

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    Joe Don Baker, Actor Who Found Fame With ‘Walking Tall,’ Dies at 89

    His performance as a crusading Southern sheriff made him a star after a decade under the radar in character parts. He went on to play a wide range of roles.Joe Don Baker, the tall, broad-shouldered character actor who found overnight fame when he starred as a crusading Southern sheriff in “Walking Tall,” a surprise hit both at the box office and with critics, and who went on to an impressive range of screen roles over the next four decades, died on May 7. He was 89.The death was announced by his family on Tuesday. The announcement did not say where he died or cite a cause.Released in the era of “Dirty Harry” and “Billy Jack,” “Walking Tall” (1973) is the story of a Tennessee man who moves back to his hometown and finds it hopelessly changed by illegal gambling, prostitution and careless moonshiners. The movie, as Dave Kehr described it almost 40 years later in The New York Times, is “a wild-eyed fantasy about an incorruptible leader who finds it necessary to subvert the law in order to save it.”A low-budget production, directed by the journeyman filmmaker Phil Karlson, it opened on Staten Island months before it arrived in Manhattan but proved to be a phenomenon. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film in The Times, called it “relentlessly violent” but also “uncommonly well acted.”It was soon noticed and praised by a wide array of prominent critics. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it “a volcano of a movie” and saw in Mr. Baker, a 37-year-old unknown with a decade of credits, mostly on television, “the mighty stature of a classic hero.”“The picture’s crudeness and its crummy cinematography give it the illusion of honesty,” she wrote.Vanity Fair wrote in 2000 that “Walking Tall” had “a major asset in Joe Don Baker,” whom it compared to Elvis Presley.MGM, via LMPC/Getty ImagesWe 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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    Diddy’s Lawyers Work to Establish Cassie’s Agency in Freak-Offs

    On the first day of cross-examination, a defense lawyer asked Casandra Ventura about messages she wrote to the music mogul ahead of their sex sessions.It was only about a half-hour into the cross-examination of Casandra Ventura that a lawyer for Sean Combs drew on messages the couple exchanged, in an attempt to establish one of the defense’s key arguments in the case: that Ms. Ventura was a willing participant in the sex marathons known as “freak-offs.”Anna Estevao, the defense lawyer questioning Ms. Ventura on Thursday, presented a message the singer wrote to Mr. Combs in 2009, that read, “I’m always ready to freak off lolol.”In another exchange from around that time, Ms. Ventura expressed her excitement in graphic terms, and he told her: “I can’t wait to watch you. I want you to get real hott.”She answered: “Me too. I just want it to be uncontrollable.”Conversations like those, which could involve both explicit flirtation and logistical planning about their meetings and preparations, were “somewhat typical” for the two, Ms. Ventura testified.Those messages showed a very different side of the relationship than what Ms. Ventura described in the first two days of her testimony, under questioning by prosecutors. Over hours of sometimes excruciating testimony, she said that Mr. Combs had forced her to take part in “hundreds” of these episodes over about 10 years, and used violence and threats of releasing explicit videos from the freak-offs as what she called “blackmail materials.”Mr. Combs, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have vehemently denied that any of his sexual encounters were not consensual.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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    Luigi Alva, Elegant Tenor With a Lighthearted Touch, Dies at 98

    A Peruvian-born international star, he made a specialty of roles in operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Mozart, becoming one of their pre-eminent interpreters.Luigi Alva, the Peruvian tenor who was a pre-eminent interpreter of Mozart and Rossini roles that highlighted his light-lyric voice, elegant phrasing and subtle acting during a three-decade career on the world’s opera stages, died on Thursday at his home in Barlassina, Italy, north of Milan. He was 98. His death was confirmed by the Peruvian tenor Ernesto Palacio, a close friend and the intendant of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy.Mr. Alva did not have the booming, resonant voice needed for dramatic tenor performances in the biggest opera houses. But he triumphed in opera buffa roles — such as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” and the lovesick Ernesto in Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” — which demanded fine comedic timing and an appreciation for absurd situations without resorting to slapstick or mugging.In more serious roles, such as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Mr. Alva displayed a warm timbre and gracious line that gained him an enthusiastic following. Few tenors could match his ability to deliver long coloratura passages with a single breath, as Mr. Alva did time and again in “Il mio tesoro,” the famous aria from “Don Giovanni.”“The real trick is not merely to sing the passage, but to make it sound easy,” the critic Alan Rich of The New York Times wrote on the occasion of Mr. Alva’s New York recital debut at Judson Hall in 1961. “And this was the way he sang throughout the evening — beautifully, and with an assurance that was literally breathtaking.”In more serious roles, such as Don Ottavio in “Don Giovanni,” Mr. Alva displayed a warm timbre and gracious line that gained him an enthusiastic following. Here he performed the role in 1963 at La Scala.Erio Piccagliani/Teatro alla ScalaWe 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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    How Much Does It Cost to See Beyoncé? It Depends.

    Some fans who paid top dollar for the star’s Cowboy Carter Tour are feeling miffed as prices drop. Other procrastinators are reaping the benefits.Tanaka Paschal, 43, was thrilled to be taking her son to Beyoncé’s final Southern California show on her Cowboy Carter Tour this month. They had missed the Renaissance World Tour two summers ago; tickets had sold out so fast, some fans ventured overseas to catch a gig.“I thought I was not going to be able to see her, so I jumped on it,” she said.Paschal bought a pair of floor seats for about $900 total, but like many others, she soon had a bit of buyers’ remorse. In the weeks that followed, she saw the price for similar seats drop by hundreds of dollars, then increase, then drop again.“It’s frustrating,” she said. “The next time, I’m going to wait until the day of.”When tickets for big summer tours by acts like Lady Gaga, the Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar and SZA go on sale, the prevailing wisdom is you have to move fast during one of the presales offered by artists and credit card companies or you’ll be shut out.Most, if not all, tickets are usually snatched up immediately, with prime seats popping up on resale platforms like StubHub or Ticketmaster’s own secondary market at inflated prices. (Fans hoping to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour famously didn’t even get a shot at the general on-sale: All the tickets were long gone.)Kendrick Lamar is also on a stadium tour this year, supporting his recent album, “GNX” and a big year.Graham Dickie/The New York TimesBut things have been different for Beyoncé’s tour this time supporting her Grammy album of the year-winning “Cowboy Carter”; tickets moved during the presales, but a glance at the seat maps on Ticketmaster’s pages later revealed not only a lot of pink dots indicating resale tickets, but plenty of blue dots representing available seats that had gone unpurchased, too. And those prices were notably changing.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 to Expect From Cassie’s Cross-Examination at Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Trial

    Lawyers for Sean Combs are expected to focus on moments of her agency in the relationship and on jealousy related to infidelities.Across two days on the witness stand, Casandra Ventura, a longtime girlfriend of Sean Combs, delivered hours of testimony about a relationship filled with harrowing physical abuse and meticulous control, and defined by the expectation that she would fulfill his sexual fantasies.Ms. Ventura, the government’s star witness, will now face questions from Mr. Combs’s lawyers. Some might even come directly from Mr. Combs, who has been passing notes to his legal team throughout the proceedings.The defense has acknowledged responsibility for domestic violence — including against Ms. Ventura — but has vehemently denied that his behavior warrants the charges against him of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.The lawyer expected to question Ms. Ventura is Anna Estevao, who has rarely been the lead voice for the team during court proceedings to this point. She faces the delicate task of challenging the testimony of a visibly pregnant woman who testified that years of physical violence and sexual coercion by Mr. Combs led her to such emotional distress that she considered suicide.Here are a few things we can expect from the cross-examination.The defense will try to highlight moments of agency.Mr. Combs is charged with sex-trafficking Ms. Ventura. To prove that, the government has to convince the jury that Mr. Combs forced or coerced her into sex parties with male prostitutes known as “freak-offs.”Ms. Ventura testified that during her relationship with Mr. Combs, she repeatedly followed his directions and felt powerless to do otherwise. But the defense is likely to try highlighting moments when she might have displayed agency.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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    ‘The Damned’ Review: Unfortunate Sons

    In Roberto Minervini’s intimate and impressionistic drama, a group of Civil War scouts faces the harsh realities of the uncharted Montana territory.The skies are overcast and the tone is contemplative in “The Damned,” as a small company of Union Army soldiers sets out in 1862 to explore the dangerously unmapped territories of the American West.What emerges, though, is more akin to a mood poem than a war movie. In keeping with the socially conscious sensibilities of its director, the Italian-born Roberto Minervini (whose previous work has sometimes probed the forgotten souls of rural Texas and urban Louisiana), “The Damned” is shaped as a wistful and laconic study of the minutiae of survival. Though billed as his first fiction film, it wobbles tantalizingly on a permeable line between narrative and documentary. Unscripted events and largely unnamed characters emerge organically from the director’s offscreen prompts and the men’s immersion in the life of the camp where much of the movie takes place.This means that, for long stretches, we’re watching the soldiers pitch tents, play cards, do laundry and complain about the deepening winter and declining rations. Embedded alongside the men, we eavesdrop on conversations that range from instructive to confessional, hopeful to cautiously philosophical. They have come from all over, with beliefs as varied as their reasons for enlisting. A golden-haired 16-year-old admits to having shot only rabbits and squirrels before following his father and older brother into the Army. When the three pray together, secure in their faith that the only happiness lies in the afterlife, his innocence is heartbreaking.If God is here at all, he’s in the details: the pot of coffee bubbling on a laboriously built fire; the dusting of snow on a pitch-black beard; the veins of gold in a lump of quartz.“This land has it all,” one man marvels, seeing beyond the conflict to the promise of the soil and the wildlife around them. At times, these moments are acutely lyrical, as when we watch a soldier lovingly clean his horse’s head (of mud or blood, we don’t know), then press his forehead against the animal in silent communion.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