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New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Seeking the Giant Panda, and Daddy's Love
THE BEAST IN THE CLOUDS: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda, by Nathalia Holt In 1869, a French missionary dispatched from Chengdu to Paris the pelt of an animal that had never been seen in Europe: a bear with black and white fur, which scientists would call a panda, apparently derived from the Nepalese term meaning 'bamboo eater.' Over the next six decades, expeditions to find the elusive mammal failed to bring one back — either dead or alive. That set the stage for President Theodore Roosevelt's two eldest sons, Kermit and Ted, who in 1929 obtained the backing of Chicago's Field Museum and set off for Asia in search of immortality. 'The Beast in the Clouds' is Nathalia Holt's immersive, sometimes harrowing account of the siblings' Himalayan adventure. In her prior books, Holt has excelled at telling tales of high-achieving women in male-dominated institutions. Her focus this time is on an equally engrossing dynamic, that of emotionally damaged sons drawn into an all-consuming competition with their alpha-male father. As Holt tells it, the brothers' ambitions were fueled by a deep sense of inadequacy. Kermit and Ted had a loving but difficult relationship with their larger-than-life father. Theodore Roosevelt played boisterous games with his children and wrote them long, affectionate letters from his travels. But he had no tolerance for fecklessness and failure, once ridiculing Kermit as 'a weakling.' His shadow 'influenced their every action and demeanor toward others,' Holt writes. As the assistant secretary of the Navy during the Harding administration, Ted became implicated in the Teapot Dome bribery scandal, detonating his political aspirations. Kermit failed at business, drank heavily and was serially unfaithful to his wife. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
3 days ago
- New York Post
How the sons of Teddy Roosevelt discovered the mythical Giant Panda
Among the great hunters and adventurers of the Roaring 1920s were the two eldest sons of Teddy Roosevelt, America's 26th president, former New York governor and one of the country's most energetic and famous figures. The Roosevelt family had funded museums to fill their halls with exhibits of virtually every large animal known to man, but for one — the elusive and legendary creature, the giant black and white panda. 7 Ted and Kermit Roosevelt in 1926 during their ambitions and unprecedented journey across the Himalayas to find the mythical Giant Panda. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Emboldened by their legendary lineage, Ted Jr. and Kermit Roosevelt decided to follow in the footsteps of their big-game-hunting father who had brought back kills of lions, tigers, elephants and bears — often exhibited in New York City's American Museum of Natural History, which the boys' grandfather had co-founded in 1869. Pursuing fame and glory — as well as hoping to escape the shadow of their father — the brothers set out for remote, and inhospitable Himalayan mountains in Asia, which had yet to be explored by Westerners. Their goal was to find the panda thought to be some kind of polar bear — but a beast that many believed did not exist. And the brothers faced a punishing route up a 16,000-foot peak with howling winter storms. As Nathalia Holt writes in her deeply researched nonfiction account, 'The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda' )One Signal Publishers): 'The animal the brothers coveted looked like no other species in the world . . . a black and white bear so rare that many people did not believe it was real. 7 The brother's legendary, swashbuckling father, Pres. Teddy Roosevelt, the pioneering naturalists who inspired his sons' search for the Giant Panda Getty Images 'Not even naturalists who had worked in China all their lives would say precisely where the creature lived, what it ate, or how it behaved . . . The Roosevelts desired this one animal so acutely that they could barely speak about it with each other, much less anyone else,' the author observes. Few people in the Republic of China had ever seen the panda, but there was a probable reference to it in Chinese literature in the early Third Century, according to the author. And proof of its existence arose when Joseph Milner, a missionary, donated the skin he had purchased of a giant panda to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1919. A French missionary, Armand David, had hired hunters in the Chinese province of Sichuan in 1869 to collect interesting specimens. They returned with a lifeless body of an unidentified animal, possibly the panda. David skinned it and shipped the pelt to Paris to be identified by experts. But scientists would not confirm it was authentic. 7 The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the distance, one of the many jew-dropping backdrops to the brothers' East Asian Panda quest in 1929. Photograph by Herbert Stevens In 1929, the determined Roosevelt siblings began an expedition to finally find this elusive bear, more legend than fact, in the inhospitable bamboo forests of the Tibetan Plateau in the high Himalayas. The brothers were accompanied by naturalists, trackers, guides, interpreters and scientists, and funded by Chicago's Field Museum and a wealthy donor. The Roosevelts were unprepared for what they faced: treacherous glacier crossings of the Himalayas, raiders ready to attack travelers, and air so thin that it was easy to die of oxygen deprivation. But they were driven by their ambitions to find a beast in the clouds that was considered the most challenging trophy on earth. The trail that crossed China and Tibet was desolate and forbidding with its intense wind, snow and ice, writes Holt. Indeed, there was 'no tent strong enough' to withstand the mountain squalls, and no fire hot enough to warm the explorers. 'These were the Roosevelts. They bore an air of invulnerability that had carried the entire group forward into this treacherous environment,' writes Holt — even when passing through a region called the Valley of Death, located in what is today the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, that was said to be full of evil spirits that haunted people while they slept — never to awaken. During the trek, forest walls closed in on all sides, and the extremely high mountain elevation made it difficult to breathe. There were bandits — including a 'band of eight hundred Tibetan marauders' — who roamed the rugged terrain. 7 Ted and Kermit Roosevelt in 1926 along with local associates who helped them with their quest to find the mythical Giant Panda. Courtesy of the Library of Congress One night, their team of mules mysteriously disappeared and starvation became a stark possibility with few provisions left beyond dried green peas and rice. A Tibetan lamasery provided nourishment before the crew moved on in blizzard-like storms. While the elusive panda remained little more than a fantasy, the scientists captured birds, broke their necks and skinned them. Capturing as many specimens as they could for natural history museums, an entire family of nine golden snub-nosed monkeys — the last of their kind — was killed in the name of science. After rugged days and nights, the expedition was finally on the panda's trail when reports of a white bear sighting came from a nearby village. The natives considered this beast a 'supernatural being, a sort of demi-god,' writes Holt. The villagers never tried to capture it and only agreed to take the white hunters in search of it — for money. At the base of a tree trunk, panda scat was discovered with bamboo in it, known to be the daily diet of the panda, along with its coarse white hair. 7 Today Giant Pandas still remain among the Earth's rarest creatures — often presented by the Chinese government to foreign nations as gifts of international diplomacy. Getty Images A trail of paw prints in the snow and half-munched bamboo quickly led them to their ultimate target. He was shot and killed on sight — a panda! 'For the explorers, it felt like the end,' writes Holt. 'In the five months of their expedition, the party had collected five thousand bird skins, two thousand small mammals, and forty big mammals,' but not the great bear. 'It was only here, at the end, that the brothers realized they had been wrong and the panda wasn't the wild, bellicose predator they had expected,' writes Holt. The gentleness of 'the panda had permanently altered their sense of purpose — and immediately following the panda hunt they were struck by illness.' A cut on Ted's leg became infected with bacteria spreading up his torso. News coming in revealed that Kermit's shipping business was headed to bankruptcy, and he had to return to New York. As soon as Kermit left, Ted felt himself emotionally and physically unraveling, according to Holt. 'His body ached from months of sleeping on the ground, repeated illness, and hard climbing,' Holt writes. 'Together we had shivered in the bitter winter cold of the high mountains and sweltered in the damp heat of the semi-tropics. Together we had passed through troubles ranging from lost mules to bandits. Now in all probability we would never meet again,' Ted later wrote. He came down with malaria and was admitted to a Saigon hospital where doctors found he had dysentery, caused by bacteria or parasites. The two brothers had always depended on each and now they were separated and barely speaking. 7 Author Nathalia Holt. Credit Larkin Holt Kermit's company was bleeding money and, worse, he had become an alcoholic. With his marriage unravelling, he started having affairs. In June 1943, he placed a revolver under his chin and pulled the trigger. Ted lived a year longer. They had awakened a pandamonium with pandas now being hunted for excessive sums becoming one of the rarest mammals on earth. 'A dark shadow had fallen across their lives the moment the brothers had simultaneously pulled their triggers,' writes the author. 'The panda hunt had forever altered his life,' writes Holt, and they had awakened a 'panda-monium' with pandas now being hunted for excessive sums becoming one of the rarest mammals on earth.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Runs Up Supreme Court Winning Streak, Amassing More Power
(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court's just-completed term had a clear winner: President Donald Trump. Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer Mapping the Architectural History of New York's Chinatown With a 6-3 ruling Friday restricting the power of judges to issue nationwide blocks on presidential initiatives, the court put an exclamation mark on a term dominated by Trump victories. The court's conservative supermajority sided with Trump on both broad legal questions and an unprecedented barrage of emergency requests to let his policies take effect right away. The end result was a stack of decisions deferring to Trump. The court let him discharge transgender people from the military, fire top officials at government agencies and open hundreds of thousands of migrants to deportation. The Supreme Court repeatedly reinstated Trump policies found by lower courts to be illegal, and it undercut judges who said the administration had violated their orders. At times, the court gave little if any explanation for its actions, even as liberal justices blasted the majority for rewarding what they said was Trump's lawlessness. 'The court treated him as if he were a normal president, and I think that was probably a mistake,' said Kermit Roosevelt, a professor who teaches constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania. The court has yet to grapple with 'what to do with the president who does not seem to be motivated by public spiritedness or the good of the country and doesn't necessarily subscribe to American values like due process and liberty and equality.' The ruling Friday gives the administration a new tool to try to stop judges from putting policies on hold. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett faulted three trial judges for issuing so-called nationwide injunctions halting Trump's plan to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. 'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch,' said Barrett, one of three Trump appointees on the court. Trump, who thanked by name the six Republican-appointed justices in the majority, declared the decision a 'monumental victory.' He said the administration would move to lift holds judges have placed on a number of his policies, mentioning fights over refugee resettlement, federal spending and so-called sanctuary cities. 'The Supreme Court has finally put a stop to this judicial activism, which has abused our constitutional separation of powers for too long,' Alabama's Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in an emailed statement. The decision was one of five rulings the court released Friday as it issued the term's last opinions in argued cases. Among other decisions was one that backed Trump's position by declaring that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school lessons for religious reasons. Earlier in the month, the court agreed with Trump in another culture-war clash, upholding state bans on certain medical treatments for transgender children. The court on Monday and Thursday will likely indicate new cases the justices will hear in their next nine-month term, which will start in October. Salvadoran Prison Trump suffered a rare setback in May when the court blocked the administration from using a rarely used wartime law to send about 176 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison before they had a chance to make their case to a judge. 'This ruling was particularly significant because it showed the court's willingness to enforce constitutional constraints even on immigration enforcement — typically an area where the court defers strongly to executive authority,' said Stephanie Barclay, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown Law School. But the following month, the court appeared to undercut the decision when it let the administration resume quickly deporting migrants to countries other than their own. The court gave no explanation for the decision, which lifted a judge's order that gave people 10 days notice and a chance to argue they would be at risk of torture. The birthright citizenship case didn't directly concern the legality of the restrictions, which would upend a longstanding constitutional right. Trump seeks to jettison what has been the widespread understanding that the Constitution's 14th Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone born on US soil. The executive order would restrict that to babies with at least one parent who is a citizen or legal permanent resident. The practical effect of the ruling remains to be seen. The 22 states challenging the citizenship plan can still argue at the lower court level that they need a nationwide halt to avoid the financial costs and administrative headaches that would result if the restrictions applied in neighboring jurisdictions. And Barrett explicitly left open the prospect that people challenging policies can press class action lawsuits. A prominent critic of nationwide injunctions, Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray, hailed the decision — but also predicted a surge of class action suits and new court orders blocking the citizenship policy. 'I do not expect the president's executive order on birthright citizenship will ever go into effect,' Bray said in a statement. Barrett cast the ruling as a nonpartisan one, noting that the Biden administration also sought to rein in the use of nationwide injunctions. 'It's easy to see why. By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached 'a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act was immediately frozen by a federal district court,' Barrett wrote, quoting from a law review article co-written by Bray and University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude. Critics of the court said that characterization missed a key point. 'It is true, of course, that universal injunctions have bedeviled both prior Democratic and Republican administrations,' Michael Dorf, a professor who teaches constitutional law and federal courts at Cornell Law School, said in an email. 'But the court fails to recognize (or chooses to ignore) the fact that eliminating a tool for courts to rein in the executive branch is especially perilous at this particular moment, when we have an administration that is already inclined to take a casual attitude towards judicial orders.' America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1 Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Runs Up Supreme Court Winning Streak, Amassing More Power
(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court's just-completed term had a clear winner: President Donald Trump. Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer Mapping the Architectural History of New York's Chinatown With a 6-3 ruling Friday restricting the power of judges to issue nationwide blocks on presidential initiatives, the court put an exclamation mark on a term dominated by Trump victories. The court's conservative supermajority sided with Trump on both broad legal questions and an unprecedented barrage of emergency requests to let his policies take effect right away. The end result was a stack of decisions deferring to Trump. The court let him discharge transgender people from the military, fire top officials at government agencies and open hundreds of thousands of migrants to deportation. The Supreme Court repeatedly reinstated Trump policies found by lower courts to be illegal, and it undercut judges who said the administration had violated their orders. At times, the court gave little if any explanation for its actions, even as liberal justices blasted the majority for rewarding what they said was Trump's lawlessness. 'The court treated him as if he were a normal president, and I think that was probably a mistake,' said Kermit Roosevelt, a professor who teaches constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania. The court has yet to grapple with 'what to do with the president who does not seem to be motivated by public spiritedness or the good of the country and doesn't necessarily subscribe to American values like due process and liberty and equality.' The ruling Friday gives the administration a new tool to try to stop judges from putting policies on hold. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett faulted three trial judges for issuing so-called nationwide injunctions halting Trump's plan to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. 'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch,' said Barrett, one of three Trump appointees on the court. Trump, who thanked by name the six Republican-appointed justices in the majority, declared the decision a 'monumental victory.' He said the administration would move to lift holds judges have placed on a number of his policies, mentioning fights over refugee resettlement, federal spending and so-called sanctuary cities. 'The Supreme Court has finally put a stop to this judicial activism, which has abused our constitutional separation of powers for too long,' Alabama's Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in an emailed statement. The decision was one of five rulings the court released Friday as it issued the term's last opinions in argued cases. Among other decisions was one that backed Trump's position by declaring that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school lessons for religious reasons. Earlier in the month, the court agreed with Trump in another culture-war clash, upholding state bans on certain medical treatments for transgender children. The court on Monday and Thursday will likely indicate new cases the justices will hear in their next nine-month term, which will start in October. Salvadoran Prison Trump suffered a rare setback in May when the court blocked the administration from using a rarely used wartime law to send about 176 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison before they had a chance to make their case to a judge. 'This ruling was particularly significant because it showed the court's willingness to enforce constitutional constraints even on immigration enforcement — typically an area where the court defers strongly to executive authority,' said Stephanie Barclay, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown Law School. But the following month, the court appeared to undercut the decision when it let the administration resume quickly deporting migrants to countries other than their own. The court gave no explanation for the decision, which lifted a judge's order that gave people 10 days notice and a chance to argue they would be at risk of torture. The birthright citizenship case didn't directly concern the legality of the restrictions, which would upend a longstanding constitutional right. Trump seeks to jettison what has been the widespread understanding that the Constitution's 14th Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone born on US soil. The executive order would restrict that to babies with at least one parent who is a citizen or legal permanent resident. The practical effect of the ruling remains to be seen. The 22 states challenging the citizenship plan can still argue at the lower court level that they need a nationwide halt to avoid the financial costs and administrative headaches that would result if the restrictions applied in neighboring jurisdictions. And Barrett explicitly left open the prospect that people challenging policies can press class action lawsuits. A prominent critic of nationwide injunctions, Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray, hailed the decision — but also predicted a surge of class action suits and new court orders blocking the citizenship policy. 'I do not expect the president's executive order on birthright citizenship will ever go into effect,' Bray said in a statement. Barrett cast the ruling as a nonpartisan one, noting that the Biden administration also sought to rein in the use of nationwide injunctions. 'It's easy to see why. By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached 'a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act was immediately frozen by a federal district court,' Barrett wrote, quoting from a law review article co-written by Bray and University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude. Critics of the court said that characterization missed a key point. 'It is true, of course, that universal injunctions have bedeviled both prior Democratic and Republican administrations,' Michael Dorf, a professor who teaches constitutional law and federal courts at Cornell Law School, said in an email. 'But the court fails to recognize (or chooses to ignore) the fact that eliminating a tool for courts to rein in the executive branch is especially perilous at this particular moment, when we have an administration that is already inclined to take a casual attitude towards judicial orders.' America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1 Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump runs up a Supreme Court winning streak, amassing more power
Advertisement At times, the court gave little if any explanation for its actions, even as liberal justices blasted the majority for rewarding what they said was Trump's lawlessness. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The court treated him as if he were a normal president, and I think that was probably a mistake,' said Kermit Roosevelt, a professor who teaches constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania. The court has yet to grapple with 'what to do with the president who does not seem to be motivated by public spiritedness or the good of the country and doesn't necessarily subscribe to American values like due process and liberty and equality.' The ruling Friday gives the administration a new tool to try to stop judges from putting policies on hold. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett faulted three trial judges for issuing so-called nationwide injunctions halting Trump's plan to restrict automatic birthright citizenship. Advertisement 'Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the executive branch,' said Barrett, one of three Trump appointees on the court. Trump, who thanked by name the six Republican-appointed justices in the majority, declared the decision a 'monumental victory.' He said the administration would move to lift holds judges have placed on a number of his policies, mentioning fights over refugee resettlement, federal spending and so-called sanctuary cities. 'The Supreme Court has finally put a stop to this judicial activism, which has abused our constitutional separation of powers for too long,' Alabama's Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in an emailed statement. The decision was one of five rulings the court released Friday as it issued the term's last opinions in argued cases. Among other decisions was one that backed Trump's position by declaring that parents have the right to opt their children out of public-school lessons for religious reasons. Earlier in the month, the court agreed with Trump in another culture-war clash, upholding state bans on certain medical treatments for transgender children. The court on Monday and Thursday will likely indicate new cases the justices will hear in their next nine-month term, which will start in October. Trump suffered a rare setback in May when the court blocked the administration from using a rarely used wartime law to send about 176 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison before they had a chance to make their case to a judge. 'This ruling was particularly significant because it showed the court's willingness to enforce constitutional constraints even on immigration enforcement — typically an area where the court defers strongly to executive authority,' said Stephanie Barclay, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown Law School. Advertisement But the following month, the court appeared to undercut the decision when it let the administration resume quickly deporting migrants to countries other than their own. The court gave no explanation for the decision, which lifted a judge's order that gave people 10 days notice and a chance to argue they would be at risk of torture. The birthright citizenship case didn't directly concern the legality of the restrictions, which would upend a longstanding constitutional right. Trump seeks to jettison what has been the widespread understanding that the Constitution's 14th Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone born on US soil. The executive order would restrict that to babies with at least one parent who is a citizen or legal permanent resident. The practical effect of the ruling remains to be seen. The 22 states challenging the citizenship plan can still argue at the lower court level that they need a nationwide halt to avoid the financial costs and administrative headaches that would result if the restrictions applied in neighboring jurisdictions. And Barrett explicitly left open the prospect that people challenging policies can press class action lawsuits. A prominent critic of nationwide injunctions, Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray, hailed the decision — but also predicted a surge of class action suits and new court orders blocking the citizenship policy. 'I do not expect the president's executive order on birthright citizenship will ever go into effect,' Bray said in a statement. Barrett cast the ruling as a nonpartisan one, noting that the Biden administration also sought to rein in the use of nationwide injunctions. Advertisement 'It's easy to see why. By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached 'a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act was immediately frozen by a federal district court,' Barrett wrote, quoting from a law review article co-written by Bray and University of Chicago Law School professor William Baude. Critics of the court said that characterization missed a key point. 'It is true, of course, that universal injunctions have bedeviled both prior Democratic and Republican administrations,' Michael Dorf, a professor who teaches constitutional law and federal courts at Cornell Law School, said in an email. 'But the court fails to recognize (or chooses to ignore) the fact that eliminating a tool for courts to rein in the executive branch is especially perilous at this particular moment, when we have an administration that is already inclined to take a casual attitude towards judicial orders.'
