Aurelia Butler

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    36 Deaths in Police Custody Should Have Been Called Homicides, Report Finds

    An audit of deaths in Maryland found that in cases of people who died after being restrained by the police, medical examiners often classified the deaths as natural or accidental.Medical examiners in Maryland miscategorized dozens of deaths that happened in police custody over the past two decades, according to a report released by state officials on Thursday.At least 36 of those deaths should have been called homicides, the report said. Instead, medical examiners had classified them as accidental, or as a result of natural or undetermined causes.The report, 70 pages long, capped a yearslong audit that revisited medical examiners’ reports over 17 years ending in 2019 — a time period matching Dr. David R. Fowler’s tenure as Maryland’s chief medical examiner — and found evidence of racism and pro-police bias.Anthony Brown, Maryland’s attorney general, said at a news conference on Thursday that medical examiners had been less likely to call a death a homicide if the person who died was Black, or if he or she had died after being restrained by police officers.“These findings have profound implications across our justice system,” Mr. Brown said. “They speak to systemic issues rather than individual conduct.”Dr. Fowler did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. He was not solely responsible for the decisions made by medical examiners during his tenure, and in the past he has defended the work of the pathologists in his office.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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    Cassie Confronted by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Lawyer Over ‘Freak-Offs’ During Trial

    During cross-examination, the defense team depicted Casandra Ventura as fully engaged in staging and participating in the marathon sex sessions she says were abusive.Lawyers for Sean Combs worked on Thursday in court to portray his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, as a willing and full participant in sex marathons with prostitutes, as they sought to undermine her harrowing account of an abusive, coercive relationship riddled with violence.Ms. Ventura’s credibility is central to the government’s case, in which they have charged Mr. Combs, the music mogul, with sex trafficking and racketeering. Earlier this week she told the jury of eight men and four women of how she had suffered through hundreds of degrading sexual encounters and many injuries out of a misguided attempt to please a man she loved.But on the fourth day of Mr. Combs’s trial, the defense tried to recast Ms. Ventura, a singer known professionally as Cassie, as not nearly the victim she had portrayed herself to be. During cross-examination, Anna Estevao, one of Mr. Combs’s lawyers on a team led by Marc Agnifilo, repeatedly had her read text messages in which she expressed graphic enthusiasm for their sexual encounters, including the now famed “freak-offs” involving paid escorts.“I’m always ready to freak off lolol,” Ms. Ventura said in a message from 2009.In another exchange from around the same time, Ms. Ventura expressed her excitement in graphically sexual 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.”Jurors gazed at the barrage of text messages, which were displayed on screens in front of them, sometimes leaning forward to get a closer look.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his defense has argued that the government is trying to criminalize unconventional, but lawful, sexual relations between consenting adults. In her first two days on the stand, Ms. Ventura said that she might have feigned interest at times to avoid Mr. Combs’s anger, and she recited a litany of incidents in which she was beaten when she failed.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 Military Parade in D.C. Could Cost $45 Million, Officials Say

    The parade is scheduled for June 14, the date of the Army’s 250th anniversary, and is billed as the “Army’s birthday celebration.” President Trump turns 79 that day.A military parade planned for next month could cost up to $45 million and is expected to include up to two dozen M1 Abrams tanks rolling through the streets of Washington, two defense officials said Thursday.The parade, according to the Army’s website, will be held on June 14, which is both the date of the Army’s 250th anniversary and President Trump’s 79th birthday.The officials who spoke about the costs said that the estimate, previously reported by Reuters, did not include the cleanup or repairs from damage to Washington’s roads from the tank traffic. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planningThe Army has said the parade will include 150 vehicles, 50 warplanes and the participation of more than 6,600 soldiers.The thousands of visiting soldiers in Washington for the parade will stay in unused government buildings and sleep on cots, according to the Army. They will be provided three daily meals and a stipend, the Pentagon has said.A Bradley Fighting Vehicle on display for a Fourth of July event in Washington in 2019.Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe anniversary celebration is expected to include a daylong festival with musical performances and displays of equipment. Mr. Trump also proposed a military parade for Veterans Day in November during his first term, but the notion was derailed by members of his administration over cost concerns.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the parade is intended to honor the sacrifice of American troops who helped secure the country’s independence.“There are a lot of vapid things to celebrate, plenty of reality shows and garbage music and stuff on Netflix,” he said in a speech this month. “How about we hold up our special operations community? How about we recognize the Army and the Marine Corps?”But some Democratic lawmakers have cast the planned parade as wasteful and over-the-top. Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, introduced a bill last month that would bar spending federal money on a military parade in Washington “primarily intended to celebrate the birthday, personal milestone, or private interest of any individual, including President Donald J. Trump.”Mr. Cohen suggested in a statement that Mr. Trump planned to “waste taxpayer dollars burnishing his insatiable ego.”Protests of the parade are planned in Washington and other American cities.Many countries — including France, China and North Korea — put on regular military parades, but such displays are rare in the United States. More

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    Chris Brown Arrested in Connection With 2023 Assault, British Authorities Say

    The R&B singer is charged with grievous bodily harm.British prosecutors on Thursday arrested and charged Chris Brown, the R&B singer, with grievous bodily harm and are holding him in custody.Brown, 36, was charged over an assault that reportedly took place at a venue in Hanover Square in London, on Feb. 19, 2023, according to the Metropolitan Police. He remains in custody and will appear at Manchester Magistrates’ Court at 10 a.m. on Friday, the police said.A news release from prosecutors gave no further details. Under British law, news outlets are not allowed to publish details of an incident that may prejudice any trial once someone has been charged.“It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings,” the prosecution service said.A lawyer and a talent agency that represents Brown did not immediately respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Thursday night.Brown is known for his impeccable dancing skills, sultry love songs and catchy hooks that have landed him 17 Billboard Top 10 hits. Most of them were released between 2005 and 2015.Hank Sanders More

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    Can C-SPAN Pull Off ‘Crossfire,’ but With Civility?

    “Ceasefire” will be the low-key public affairs channel’s first new weekly show in two decades. The question is whether Republicans and Democrats will show up.As a young producer at CNN in the 1990s, Sam Feist spent countless hours working on “Crossfire,” one of the first cable news shows to pit partisan pundits against one another. At lunch one day, the co-host Michael Kinsley mused about an alternative idea: “Ceasefire,” a program where Republicans and Democrats tried to find areas of agreement.“It sat with me for, gosh, 20-something years,” Mr. Feist recalled.Now Mr. Feist is the chief executive of C-SPAN, the low-key public affairs network beloved by political junkies. And “Ceasefire” is about to become a reality.Envisioned as a respectful conversation between lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, “Ceasefire,” which is expected to debut in the fall, will be C-SPAN’s first new weekly program in two decades. “No shouting, no fighting, no acrimony,” Mr. Feist said in an interview. “Just two American political leaders with a willingness to find common ground.”And where, pray tell, does he expect to find those?Mr. Feist, a fixture of the Washington press corps who led CNN’s elections coverage for many years, acknowledged with a laugh that bipartisan relations in the nation’s capital were at a low ebb. That, he explained, is why a show like “Ceasefire” is sorely needed.“I’m not sure this program would work on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC,” said Sam Feist, the chief executive of C-SPAN since September.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images“The country rarely sees Republicans and Democrats engaged in a productive conversation,” he said. So for the past year, every time he has met with a member of Congress, Mr. Feist has pitched his idea for the show and asked the lawmaker who his or her best friend from the opposing party is.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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    An Afrikaner Farming Family Trades South Africa for Alabama

    Errol Langton and eight members of his family were among the first group of white South Africans to arrive in the United States this week after President Trump created an expedited path to citizenship.The Afrikaner family of nine looked around the small office space in Birmingham, Ala., feeling jet-lagged as they took in their new surroundings. Errol Langton, the patriarch of the white South African family, had spent much of his time so far with a pen in hand, signing required documents at a refugee coordinating office.His granddaughter played with toy blocks on the floor. His oldest son watched over her. They had just eaten noodles. Later, they would spend time looking for apartments.“Everybody still doesn’t believe that we’re actually standing here,” Mr. Langton, 48, said in an interview, about 40 hours after landing at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. His family was among the first group of 59 South Africans who arrived in the United States this week, about three months after President Trump signed an executive order establishing refugee status for Afrikaners, the white ethnic minority that ruled during apartheid.The president essentially halted all refugee admission programs on his first day in office. But he soon created an expedited pathway for Afrikaners, who claim they have been discriminated against and subjected to violence because of their race, or have reason to believe they will be.Now, the Langton family has traded its South African hometown on the beach, Hibberdene, for a southern American city thousands of miles away. But Mr. Langton said he felt much safer already, as did his extended family who had joined him: his wife, son, three daughters, son-in-law and two grandchildren.Mr. Langton has a brother in Birmingham. But he said another factor had also drawn his family to the state.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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    She Vanished for 3 Weeks in the Sierra. Then the Phone Rang: ‘Dad, I’m Alive.’

    A search for Tiffany Slaton, 28, covered roughly 600 square miles of mountainous terrain in California. She was found at a cabin, where she waited out a blizzard.The resort, nestled in the wilds of the Sierra in California, caters to guests looking for an “off-grid getaway.”For several months of the year, it is virtually inaccessible, the roads cut off by snow and ice, just like they were during a blizzard this week.It’s not unusual for bears to invite themselves into the tents at the Vermilion Valley Resort, but one of the cabins was unexpectedly occupied on Wednesday when the resort’s owner, Christopher Gutierrez, went to check on the property.“We see the door open,” Mr. Gutierrez recalled. “And I see some shoes down there. I’m like OK, well, it’s just a hiker who just decided to” take shelter from the blizzard the night before.The person who emerged was Tiffany Slaton, a camper from Georgia who had been missing for more than three weeks and had been the focus of an intense search of roughly 600 square miles of the Sierra.“She pops out,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday announcing that Ms. Slaton had been found. “Didn’t say a word. Just ran up, and all she wanted was a hug.”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 Budget Cuts Hobble Antismoking Programs

    Students at Wyoming East High School in West Virginia’s coal country had different reasons for joining Raze, a state program meant to raise awareness about the health risks of tobacco and e-cigarettes.Cayden Oliver, 17, grew up around generations of people who smoked and vaped, and he wanted to make his own choice. Nathiah Brown, 18, was struggling to quit e-cigarettes and showed up for moral support. Kimberly Mills, 18, wanted to prove that even though she had been a foster child, she would defy the odds.This high school’s program cost West Virginia less than $3,000 a year and was meant to protect teenagers in the state that has the highest vaping rate in their age group. It fell prey to U.S. government health budget cuts that included hundreds of millions of dollars in tobacco control funds that reached far beyond Washington, D.C.At the high school, students pack into stalls in the school restrooms, sneaking puffs between classes. “It’s bad now,” said Logan Stacy, 18, a member of the Raze group. “Imagine what it will be like in two years.”Experts on tobacco control said the Trump administration’s funding cuts would set back a quarter-century of public health efforts that have driven the smoking rate to a record low and saved lives and billions of dollars in health care spending. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 29 million people in the United States continue to smoke.The decimation of antismoking work follows a year of lavish campaign donations by tobacco and e-cigarette companies to President Trump and congressional Republicans.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