Aurelia Butler

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    Inspector Let Recruits Who Failed Psychological Exam Join the N.Y.P.D.

    Terrell Anderson, the former head of a unit charged with assessing candidates, has been transferred. He has been praised as an innovative officer.A New York police inspector was transferred after allowing dozens of prospective officers to continue in the hiring process even though they failed to meet mental health standards set by the department, according to two people briefed on the matter.Terrell Anderson, who had commanded the candidate assessment division, was sent to the housing unit because officials learned he had overridden negative psychological reports for 80 candidates. That allowed them to go into the Police Academy even though they should have been disqualified based on their psychological assessments, according to the two people.It is not clear how many of the candidates went on to graduate from the academy and become police officers. The psychological reports had been overridden over the past several years, according to one of the people.In a statement, the police said that Inspector Anderson had been transferred and that the matter was under investigation. The inspector declined to comment.The inspector’s decisions came as the department, the nation’s largest police force, has been hemorrhaging officers. The department’s head count has been falling since 2020. There were 33,531 uniformed officers in the department as of April 1, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office, down from a peak of 40,000 in 2000.Chris Monahan, the president of the Captains Endowment Association, the union representing Inspector Anderson, said the inspector was always “open and above board” about overriding psychological reports he did not agree with. “He’s not wrong here,” Captain Monahan said.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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    Trump Claimed a Video Showed ‘Burial Sites’ of White Farmers. It Didn’t.

    During a meeting with South Africa’s president, President Trump played the video as evidence of racial persecution. A Times analysis found he misrepresented the contents of the video.In a White House meeting on Wednesday, President Trump showed President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa a social media video of a rural road lined with white crosses and hundreds of vehicles.Mr. Trump told Mr. Ramaphosa that the footage showed “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa.A New York Times analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept. 5, 2020, near Newcastle, South Africa. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year.The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event and were later removed.The misrepresentation of the footage took place during a stunning meeting in which Mr. Trump made false claims about a genocide against white farmers. Mr. Trump dimmed the lights to play the footage, presenting it as evidence of racial persecution against white South Africans.As the clip played, Mr. Trump said: “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”Contrary to Mr. Trump’s statements, the crosses are not gravesites for farmers and were not permanently placed along the road. Footage posted to social media before the remembrance event, in early September 2020, shows people setting up the white crosses, and Google Street View images from 2023 indicate they have since been taken down.There have been a number of protests against the killing of white farmers in South Africa. White crosses are known to be used at these events to represent slain farmers. Videos and photos at the Sept. 5 event also showed tractors adorned with flags condemning farm murders and a large banner reading, “President Ramaphosa, how many more must die???” stretched between two vehicles above the roadway. South Africa has an exceptionally high murder rate, but police statistics do not show that white South Africans or farmers are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people.A White House official told The Times each cross represented a white farmer who had been killed but did not comment on why Mr. Trump had characterized the video as showing burial sites.It’s unclear where Mr. Trump got the video from, or who, if anyone, characterized to him what the video showed. Elon Musk — who is originally from South Africa and is one of Mr. Trump’s advisers — had posted the video on the social media site X at least twice before today’s meeting.In Wednesday’s meeting, when Mr. Ramaphosa asked where the video was from, Mr. Trump said, “I mean, it’s in South Africa.” More

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    Jim Irsay, Colts Owner and CEO, Dies at 65

    He took over the business from his father in 1997 and turned the team into one of the best in the league, with a Super Bowl win during the 2006 season.Jim Irsay, the straight-shooting, hard-living, football-loving owner and chief executive of the Indianapolis Colts who spent his entire adult life around the team that his father bought more than a half-century ago, died on Wednesday. He was 65.His death was announced in a statement by Pete Ward, the Colts’ chief operating officer, noting that he died in his sleep that afternoon. No cause was given.Mr. Irsay had health issues in recent years, including hip surgery, which left him reliant on walking poles. He was also battling an addiction to alcohol.But through it all, Mr. Irsay remained an active and forceful presence in N.F.L. circles. He was on the powerful finance committee and, unlike his fellow owners, rarely shied away from offering his opinions to reporters, commenting even on sensitive topics, like contract disputes, fellow owners and their worthiness to own their teams.He was also an active and visible cheerleader for the Colts, sending inspirational messages on social media to fire up fans before games.By his own proclamation, Mr. Irsay considered himself one of the standard-bearers for the N.F.L. He would often point out that George Halas Sr., the founding owner of the Chicago Bears and a co-founder of the N.F.L., attended his wedding in 1980. Mr. Irsay also did not hide from one of the most controversial episodes in N.F.L. history: his father’s decision to move the Colts team from Baltimore to Indianapolis on a snowy night in 1984. The move was derided as an example of the N.F.L.’s bottomless greed and willingness to abandon fans and their city in search of more money.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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    Warning Sirens Were Silent Ahead of Deadly Tornado in St. Louis, City Says

    Mayor Cara Spencer placed the city’s emergency manager on administrative leave pending an investigation into the failure to warn residents.Just before a tornado descended on St. Louis with a roar — killing five people and injuring dozens during its sweep through the city on Friday — there was a silence where there should not have been.There was no wailing warning from the city. No high-pitched alarm. Nothing to warn the city’s residents and send them scrambling to their basements or bathtubs. Only wind.The city’s sirens to warn people of a tornado threat were never activated by the City Emergency Management Agency, and a backup to activate the mechanism that is operated by the Fire Department was broken.Mayor Cara Spencer has placed the city’s emergency manager, Sarah Russell, on paid administrative leave while an investigation is conducted into a series of failures, Ms. Spencer’s office said in a statement issued on Tuesday. The mayor’s office also said that it had changed the protocol for activating the warning system as a result of what had happened.The city’s emergency management agency “exists, in large part, to alert the public to dangers caused by severe weather, and the office failed to do that in the most horrific and deadly storm our city has seen in my lifetime,” Ms. Spencer said in her statement.Ms. Russell could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.City officials confirmed that one of five people killed in Friday’s storm was outside when the tornado ripped through St. Louis. About 40 people were injured in the storm, but city officials did not know how many of them were outdoors when they were hurt.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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    U.S. Fights to Keep Mahmoud Khalil From Holding His Month-Old Child

    A judge ordered the Trump administration to let Mr. Khalil meet with his wife and infant son before a hearing on his immigration case. It was unclear whether they would be separated by plexiglass.On Wednesday evening, hours before the latest immigration hearing in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration was in the midst of pitched battle to prevent Mr. Khalil from holding his 1-month-old son.Lawyers for Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who was a leading figure in pro-Palestinian protests on the campus, have been fighting for days to win him what is known as a “contact visit” with his wife and child. Mr. Khalil, who is being detained in Louisiana, has not seen his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, in person since he was arrested in March, and has never met their son, Deen, who was born on April 21.On Wednesday, a New Jersey judge, Michael E. Farbiarz, ordered the administration to allow Mr. Khalil to hold a single joint meeting with his wife and his lawyers. But it was unclear whether the judge’s order would permit Mr. Khalil to meet his son, given Trump officials’ reluctance to allow such a visit.“Granting Khalil this relief of family visitation would effectively grant him a privilege that no other detainee receives,” Justice Department officials wrote in a court filing on Wednesday. “Allowing Dr. Abdalla and a newborn to attend a legal meeting would turn a legal visitation into a family one.”Their filing also included an affidavit from Brian Acuna, the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in New Orleans.“Because the facility does not house female detainees or minors, it is unsafe to allow Mr. Khalil’s wife and newborn child into a secured part of the facility,” Mr. Acuna wrote, adding that a contact visit had “never been offered to any other detainee.”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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    Trump’s Federal Cuts Threaten Natural Disaster Support Americans Rely On

    President Trump’s efforts to downsize the government threaten essential functions that Americans have come to rely on before, during and after natural disasters.States and cities along ​t​he Atlantic and Gulf coasts are ​heading into hurricane season​ with an extraordinary level of uncertainty, unable to ​g​auge how significant cuts at vital federal agencies will affect weather forecasts, emergency response and long-term recovery.They are bracing for the likelihood that fewer meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will lead to less accurate forecasts, and that the loss of experienced managers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency will lead to less coordination and more inaction.Governors and mayors are also anticipating less financial aid, as the Trump administration shifts the burden of response and recovery away from the federal government. Exactly who will pay for what moving forward is a gaping question as disasters become bigger and costlier.“There’s no plan in writing for how FEMA intends to respond during this disaster season,” said Trina Sheets, the executive director of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents state emergency managers. “Things seem to be changing on a daily basis. But there’s no road map for states to follow or to be able to plan for.”FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.The Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative led by Elon Musk, has left agencies that would normally be preparing for a run of extreme weather at this point in the year trying instead to find their footing after leadership changes and staffing cuts.Workers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency looking through the wreckage in Swannanoa after Hurricane Helene, in October.Loren Elliott for The New York TimesWe 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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    British Retailer M&S Says Cyberattack Will Cost It $400 Million

    The company also said it would take several more weeks to resolve issues relating to the attack, which came to light last month.Marks & Spencer, one of Britain’s largest retailers, said on Wednesday that disruption from a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack that crippled operations over the last month was expected to linger until July and would cost the company about 300 million pounds ($400 million) in lost profits this year.The breach, which emerged over the Easter weekend, has been costing the company millions of pounds a day after it had to pause online orders, staff had to resort to manual processes and food waste piled up.Some processes like food deliveries to stores are running smoothly again, but the company is still not taking online orders for clothing and home goods and customers cannot get access to its loyalty program. Online orders and related back-end operations will not fully return until July, the company said.“This has been a challenging time,” Stuart Machin, the retailer’s chief executive, said in a call with analysts on Wednesday.“We’re now focused on recovery and customers should be able to shop in our stores as normal,” he said, adding that it would take several more weeks to restart online orders.Cyberattacks and other digital security breaches are relatively prevalent in Britain, disrupting stores, charities and hospitals. But even when they are contained or interrupted, the damage can last a long time as organizations slowly get processes back online and staff members are diverted from other priorities.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 Monster-Slaying Game You Can Play Almost Anywhere

    You’re a space marine. The mission is to shoot your way through a monster invasion unfolding on the moons of Mars. And the monsters? They come from hell.When Id Software — six mostly 20-somethings at the time — pitched this gleefully unhinged premise to prospective recruits in 1993, millions answered the call. The technically masterful, thrillingly glib video game that Id released online crashed Carnegie Mellon University’s network within hours because so many students were playing. Two years later, actual Marines were using a version of it for training exercises, and it had purportedly been downloaded onto more computers than Windows 95, the newest PC operating system. The game was called Doom.Sequels, prequels and offshoots inevitably followed, including this month’s Doom: The Dark Ages, with each new title bringing more resources to the pursuit of mass exorcism.But Doom’s most entertaining developments happen in the shadow of the franchise, where fans resurrect the original game over and over again on progressively stranger pieces of hardware: a Mazda Miata, a NordicTrack treadmill, a French pharmacy sign.These esoteric achievements quickly became a meme. Now they look more like a legacy.Doom defined the first-person shooter genre, put computer games on the map and helped ignite a graphics war. But what many hard-core tech hobbyists want to know is whether you can play it on a pregnancy test.The answer: positively yes. And for the first time, even New York Times readers can play Doom within The Times’s site. (Start by hitting the button below. The game is rated Mature for both violence and blood and gore.) More