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      Owners of Colorado Funeral Home Admit to Abusing Nearly 200 Corpses

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      Jon and Carie Hallford pleaded guilty to corpse abuse after dozens of decaying bodies were found at their funeral home.A couple who owned a funeral home at two locations in Colorado pleaded guilty on Friday to multiple counts of corpse abuse, more than a year after 191 bodies were found decaying at their businesses in a horrific scene, the authorities said.The couple, Jon and Carie Hallford, operated the Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs and Penrose, Colo.They agreed to facing 15 to 20 years in prison after they each pleaded guilty in El Paso County Court to 191 felony counts of abuse of a corpse, Michael Allen, the district attorney for the 4th Judicial District of Colorado, said at a news conference.The Hallfords are scheduled to be sentenced in April.Return to Nature advertised to families that their loved ones would be given green burials that included the use of biodegradable caskets, baskets or shrouds.But when a foul odor led investigators to the Penrose location, they found at least 190 improperly stored corpses at the Hallfords’ funeral home in Penrose and Colorado Springs in October last year. They were arrested in November.“The impact on these family members has been immense,” Mr. Allen said.He added that the Hallfords deceived grieving families and that “having somebody violate that trust is something that they’ll likely never recover from.”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 Picks Brooke Rollins, a Conservative Lawyer, to Lead Agriculture Dept.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump on Saturday chose Brooke Rollins, his former White House domestic policy adviser, to helm the Agriculture Department, whose wide-ranging purview includes supporting farmers who grow the nation’s two biggest crops, corn and soybeans, and setting the nutrition standards in school cafeterias across the nation.Ms. Rollins, a conservative lawyer, was considered for Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, but ultimately lost to Susie Wiles, his campaign manager. She is the chief executive of the America First Policy Institute, a prominent think tank founded in 2021 to promote Mr. Trump’s agenda and staffed with many who worked in the first Trump administration.“Brooke’s commitment to support the American farmer, defense of American food self-sufficiency and the restoration of agriculture-dependent American small towns is second to none,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, in announcing his selection.Before her tenure in the White House, Ms. Rollins served as president of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential nonprofit that has worked to push public funding to private schools, increase the role of Christianity in civic life and heavily promote fossil fuels.Ms. Rollins hails from Glen Rose, Texas, and is a former member of National FFA Organization, which promotes agricultural education for youth, and 4-H, a youth development organization. She studied agricultural development at Texas A&M University and said of her career in a recent video recorded for Ag Women Connect: “It all started in agriculture.”If confirmed, Ms. Rollins would oversee an agency with an annual budget of more than $200 billion and nearly 100,000 employees. The department, responsible for promoting, subsidizing and regulating the nation’s agriculture sector, has a sprawling portfolio. It also administers most federal food assistance programs, supports rural development in part by providing electricity to the most isolated areas of the country, and manages nearly 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands.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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      Madeleine Riffaud, ‘the Girl Who Saved Paris,’ Dies at 100

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      Madeleine Riffaud, a swashbuckling French Resistance hero who survived three weeks of torture as a teenager and went on to celebrate her 20th birthday by helping to capture 80 Nazis on an armored supply train, and who later became a crusading anticolonial war correspondent, died on Nov. 6 at her home in Paris. She was 100.Her death was announced by her publisher, Dupuis.Ms. Riffaud was propelled into the anti-Nazi guerrilla underground in November 1940 by a literal kick in the backside from a German officer. He sent her packing after he saw Nazi soldiers taunting her at a railway station as she was accompanying her ailing grandfather to visit her father near Amiens, in northern France.“That moment,” she said in a 2006 interview with The Times of London, “decided my whole life.”“I landed on my face in the gutter,” she told The Guardian in 2004. “I was humiliated. My fear turned into anger.”She decided then and there to join the French Resistance.“I remember saying to myself,” she said, “‘I don’t know who they are or where they are, but I’ll find the people who are fighting this, and I’ll join them.’ ”Madeleine with her father, Jean Émile Riffaud, in about 1925. Mr. Riffaud, who had been wounded in World War I, was a pacifist.Fonds Madeleine RiffaudShe connected with the Resistance in Grenoble, France, at a sanitarium where she was being treated for tuberculosis. She had contracted the disease while studying midwifery in Paris.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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      2-Year-Old Gorilla Dies After Being Struck by Hydraulic Door at Zoo

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      A Calgary Zoo staff member mistakenly activated a door that struck the western lowland gorilla named Eyare, a report found.A 2-year-old gorilla died of traumatic injuries last week at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada, after being struck by a hydraulic door that a staff member mistakenly activated, according to the zoo.The western lowland gorilla, named Eyare, who was the offspring of gorillas at the zoo, had been interacting with other gorillas on Nov. 12 in an enclosure where they are fed, observed and trained outside their habitat.A staff member was trying to separate Eyare, who weighed about 30 pounds, from the other gorillas for a vaccination training session.“A team member intended to activate a door that they were looking at, but accidentally used the control lever for a different door,” Colleen Baird, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in an interview on Saturday. “And as that door was closing, Eyare was passing through, and she was struck by it.”Teams attempted lifesaving measures, but Eyare died shortly after 9:30 a.m.Ms. Baird said that the staff member operating the door was “devastated,” and that the person was immediately removed from the workplace. The staff member was not a new employee, and was comfortable working with gorillas, Ms. Baird said.The staff member will undergo additional training before returning to work in that area of the zoo, which is home to six other western lowland gorillas.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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      Kim Kardashian exhibe productos de Tesla y desata teorías políticas

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      Sale de fiesta con Ivanka Trump y ha convertido productos de Tesla en accesorios de moda en las redes sociales. Pero asumir que se trata de declaraciones políticas podría ser incorrecto.¿Se ha vuelto Kim Kardashian parte del movimiento MAGA?Esa pregunta circuló por internet esta semana después de que Kardashian, la personalidad de la telerrealidad y preeminente influente de las redes sociales, publicara una serie de fotografías suyas en Instagram y X posando delante y dentro de un Tesla Cybercab.Llevaba tacones negros y medias de encaje sobre su característico conjunto moldeador de color nude, con un liguero y una chaqueta negra abultada. Un robot Optimus —que al parecer será capaz de hacer prácticamente cualquier cosa, ya sea manejar un Cybertruck o freír un huevo— iba sentado en el asiento del conductor.Había fotos de Kardashian de pie fuera del vehículo. Había fotos de ella sentada en el regazo del robot. Un representante de Kardashian, quien ha ocultado algunos contenidos patrocinados en el pasado, dijo que no se recibieron pagos a cambio de las publicaciones.El momento elegido para hacer estas publicaciones fue sin duda curioso. El director ejecutivo de Tesla, Elon Musk, ha ganado nueva prominencia como uno de los aliados más notables del presidente electo Donald Trump, e incluso Trump le ha pedido que se una a Vivek Ramaswamy para dirigir un nuevo “departamento de eficiencia gubernamental”.Esa conexión fue suficiente para que la gente empezara a especular sobre sus motivaciones, y algunos llegaron a conectar esos cargos con la aparente amistad de Kardashian con Ivanka Trump, la hija de Donald Trump, para reforzar la teoría de que había respaldado políticamente a Trump.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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      Elon Musk recibe un curso intensivo sobre cómo funciona el mundo de Donald Trump

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      La persona más rica del mundo, no muy conocida por su humildad, está aprendiendo la despiadada política cortesana del círculo íntimo de Donald Trump, y su influencia final sigue siendo una incógnita.Durante los primeros 53 años de su vida, Elon Musk apenas pasó tiempo con Donald Trump. Luego, a partir de la noche del 5 de noviembre, básicamente no pasó tiempo sin él.Y así, Musk, más que cualquier otro actor clave en la transición presidencial, se encuentra en un entrenamiento intensivo para aprender la política cortesana del círculo íntimo de Trump. Para la persona más rica del mundo —no muy conocida por su humildad o su paciencia— es un reto de ingeniería social mucho más difícil y menos familiar que la fabricación pesada o la ciencia de cohetes.Abundan las dudas sobre si se graduará en 2028 con un título de cuatro años en Trumpismo: en este momento, en Washington y Silicon Valley, es como un juego de salón especular cuánto durará la relación Musk-Trump. La respuesta, como te dirán los asesores descartados del primer mandato de Trump, puede depender de la capacidad de Musk para aplacar al jefe y mantener un perfil relativamente bajo, pero también para apuñalar a un rival cuando llegue el momento.En resumen, cómo jugar a la política en el mundo de Trump.La mayoría de las personas que rodean actualmente a Trump en la transición son ayudantes curtidos en batallas anteriores o amigos personales desde hace décadas. Musk no es ni lo uno ni lo otro. Lo que aporta en cambio son sus 200 millones de seguidores en X y los aproximadamente 200 millones de dólares que gastó para ayudar a elegir a Trump. Ambas cosas han impresionado mucho al presidente electo. Trump, asombrado por la disposición de Musk a despedir al 80 por ciento del personal de X, ha dicho que el multimillonario de la tecnología ayudará a dirigir un Departamento de Eficiencia Gubernamental junto con Vivek Ramaswamy.Musk mostró a Trump y a legisladores republicanos la sala de control antes del lanzamiento de un cohete de SpaceX el martes, en el sur de Texas. Foto de consorcio de Brandon BellWe 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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      Sectarian Violence Kills at Least 25 in Northwest Pakistan

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      The clashes overnight between Sunni and Shiite tribes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province came a day after gunmen ambushed a convey of vehicles in the area.Violent clashes erupted overnight between Sunni and Shiite tribes in northwestern Pakistan, leaving at least 25 people dead and markets, homes and government properties in flames, officials and residents said on Saturday.The violence occurred in Kurram, a scenic mountainous district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan. It took place in the same area where gunmen ambushed convoys of vehicles on Thursday, killing 42 people, all Shia, despite the protection of security forces.Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, but Kurram’s population of 800,000 is nearly half Shiite Muslim, a dynamic that contributes to tribal and sectarian tensions. Officials and residents said that the violence started on Friday afternoon in parts of the district where Sunni and Shiite groups live close to each other.Muhammad Shoaib, a resident of a Sunni-populated town where the Shiite convoys came under attack on Thursday, said that hundreds of heavily armed people from the rival sect had attacked the main market on Friday night and set fire to dozens of shops and houses.“For hours on that night, heavy gunfire was exchanged between both sides, with large weapons being used freely,” said Mr. Shoaib, who on Friday morning had moved his family to stay with relatives in a neighboring district out of fear for their safety.“We knew that there would be a retaliatory attack,” he said. “It’s a cycle of violence that we have been witnessing and suffering for years now.”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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      Donate This Holiday Season: Women and Children Need Your Help

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      This column is part of Times Opinion’s 2024 Giving Guide. Read more about the guide in a note from Times Opinion’s editor, Kathleen Kingsbury.Forget the necktie that will sit in Dad’s closet or the perfume that your sister Sue will soon regift, for I have some better ideas.This is my annual holiday giving guide, and I think you’ll like the charities I recommend this year — and so will Dad and Sue if you contribute in their names. You can donate and find out more information through my Kristof Holiday Impact Prize website, KristofImpact.org, which I’ve used for the past six years to support nonprofits in my giving guide.Here’s what your contributions can accomplish this year:Give a woman her life back! One of the most heartbreaking conditions I’ve reported on is obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that happens in poor countries when a woman endures many hours of obstructed labor and no doctor is available to perform a C-section. The baby usually dies, and the woman is left with injuries affecting the vaginal wall and the bladder or rectum, so she continuously leaks bodily waste.These women — sometimes just teenage girls — can feel stigmatized and humiliated, even that they have been cursed by God.The good news is that together we can help them reclaim their lives, with a corrective surgery that costs just $619 per person. A nonprofit called the Fistula Foundation has financed more than 100,000 surgeries through a network of more than 150 hospitals in more than 30 countries. Yet need remains enormous.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