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      Video Shows Fiery Fatal Crash After Police Chase

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      Francisco Guzman Parra, 31, died after crashing a stolen Honda in Upper Manhattan. Two officers chasing him drove away after the car caught fire, according to video surveillance footage.Video surveillance footage obtained from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shows the incident in Upper Manhattan in April.Jeremy G. Feigenbaum via MTAIt was still dark when the driver of a stolen Honda CRV sped down a ramp off the Henry Hudson Parkway and careened out of control into a building in Upper Manhattan.Flames immediately erupted from the rear of the vehicle, according to video surveillance footage released by a lawyer for the driver’s family on Thursday. About 10 seconds later, at 4:40 a.m. on April 2, the police car that had been chasing the S.U.V. drove down the same ramp. The flames had diminished but still appeared to be flickering when the cruiser, its siren lights off, reached the bottom of the ramp.The officer driving the cruiser slowed down, but instead of turning toward the Honda he turned left on Dyckman Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan and left the wreckage behind. The driver, Francisco A. Guzman Parra, 31, died from blunt impact injuries to the head and torso and “thermal injuries,” according to the medical examiner’s office.The video, which the family obtained from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, gave the first visual account of a crash that is now being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and led to the suspension of the two officers in the cruiser. Mr. Guzman Parra’s family said the video confirmed what they had feared for months: that the police left him to die.“They could have helped get him out,” said Carmen Colon, his stepmother, who, along with Mr. Guzman Parra’s sisters, spoke with reporters after watching the video at their lawyer’s office in Lower Manhattan.“I think that when we see that video we’re seeing a crime being committed,” she said.About 16 minutes after the crash, firefighters and officers from the 34th Precinct, which covers Inwood, received a 9-1-1 call about a car on fire. When they arrived, they found the Honda fully engulfed in flames.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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      Supreme Court Blocks Mexico’s Suit Against U.S. Gunmakers

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      The case focused on whether the Mexican government could legally sue U.S. manufacturers over claims that they shared blame for violence by drug cartels.The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Mexican government cannot sue U.S. gun manufacturers to hold them responsible for violence committed by drug cartels.In a unanimous decision by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held that a lawsuit by the Mexican government was barred by U.S. legislation that insulates gun makers from liability. Mexico, she wrote, had not plausibly argued that American gun manufacturers had aided and abetted in unlawful gun sales to Mexican drug traffickers.Mexico had argued that the gun industry’s production and sale of arms in the United States had helped fuel and supply drug cartels, harming the Mexican government. Mexican government lawyers also claimed the companies were aware that some of their guns were illegally trafficked, and that the country should therefore be allowed to sue.During an oral argument in early March, a majority of the justices appeared skeptical that Mexico could prove a direct link between gunmakers and cartel violence. Several justices appeared persuaded that a 2005 law shielding gun makers and distributors from most domestic lawsuits over injuries caused by firearms could also apply to the case brought by the Mexican government.The case began in 2021, when Mexico filed a lawsuit against a number of American gun makers and one distributor, arguing that they shared blame for drug cartel violence. The country asked them for $10 billion in damages.In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the Mexican government alleged that the gun industry’s actions had burdened the nation’s police, military and judicial system. Mexico also argued that the U.S. gun industry had been negligent in marketing, distributing and selling high-capacity guns.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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      Lorna Simpson: Painting as a Weapon of Freedom

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      In a small but haunting survey at the Met, a celebrated conceptual artist shifts gears, with meteoric results.Some of our most interesting artists have one thing in common. They do outstanding work early on, then, rather than coasting by recycling that success, they complicate it, even change gears.The artist Lorna Simpson is one these restless souls, and she has the technical and imaginative chops to make major changes work, as is evident in a corner-turning retrospective of paintings, “Source Notes,” now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.In the late 1980s and 1990s, Simpson gained a strong reputation as a standout among a new generation of conceptual photographers and artists who — following “Pictures Generation” progenitors like Cindy Sherman a decade earlier — used photographic techniques somewhat the way painters used paint. Through a traditionally point-and-shoot, ostensibly reality-capturing medium, they created entirely fictional images.Simpson began as a straight-up picture-taker. A native New Yorker — born in Brooklyn in 1960, and raised in Queens — she studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and initially identified her work with the genre of “street photography.” Graduate school at the University of California, San Diego, where Conceptualism was the reigning mode, added a new dimension to that early impulse. So was the perception that her career opportunities in the field were limited: “Being a Black woman photographer was like being nobody,” as she has put it. So she saw no reason not to experiment both with her medium and with the subjects that interested her, namely the politics of gender and race.To that end she developed a studio-based style that combined staged images, notably shots of unnamed Black women posing in plain white shifts against a neutral backdrop, their faces turned away from the camera or out of its range, with results that evoke voyeuristic 19th-century ethnological documents, mug shots, and performance art stills. Most of these images have incorporated short texts that hint at explanatory narratives, some violent, without actually providing anything explicit.Detail of “5 Properties,” 2018. Ebony and Jet magazines, poly sleeves, bronze, plaster, glass.Dana Golan for The New York TimesCreating on aura of mystery has been her generative M.O., one she has applied to film and installation work as well as to still photography. What has changed in the past decade is her primary medium. Around 2014, she began, for the first time since her pre-art-school years, to focus on painting, and the Met exhibition is a tight but monumental survey of this new work.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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      Billy Joel Documentary ‘And So It Goes’ Traces His Early Days

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      The first half of the HBO documentary premiered at the Tribeca Festival on Wednesday night. Joel, who is fighting a brain disorder, sent a message via its directors.The Tribeca Festival’s opening-night premiere of the upcoming HBO documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” was marked, in part, by the absence of Billy Joel himself. Late last month, the musician announced that he was canceling all of his upcoming concerts because of a brain disorder called normal pressure hydrocephalus, which has led to problems with his hearing, vision and balance.After Robert De Niro called Joel “the poet laureate of New York” and helped introduce the film with a dramatic reading of some of his lyrics (“He works at Mr. Cacciatore’s down on Sullivan Street,” he intoned), one of the film’s co-directors, Susan Lacy, told the Beacon Theater audience that Joel sent his greetings — with typical wry humor: “In fact, he said, ‘Getting old sucks, but it’s still preferable to getting cremated.’” The audience roared with laughter. On a note of encouragement, Lacy said Joel “will be back.”The crowd broke out into applause throughout the screening, which included just the first part of the two-part film. It still ran nearly two and a half hours as it covered Joel’s childhood and rise to fame through his infamous 1982 motorcycle accident. (To put that in perspective: It doesn’t get to the writing of “Uptown Girl.” No Christie Brinkley yet.)There are pictures and footage of early Joel performances and stories about the surprisingly robust Long Island rock scene of the 1960s. But “Part One” is largely an intimate portrait of Joel’s relationship with his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, who would eventually become his manager, and it elevates her to a starring role in his life. It also features a host of stories about the making of some of his best-known songs, and tidbits about his Long Island obstinance. Here’s some of what we learned.As Joel’s relationship with Weber first foundered, he attempted suicide twice.Joel and Weber’s relationship began in dramatic fashion: She was married to Jon Small, Joel’s early bandmate, and had a son with him. Joel and Small first played together in a group named the Hassles, then broke off to start a Led Zeppelin-inspired metal outfit called Attila. (An album cover shoot featuring a longhaired Joel standing amid sides of raw beef, wearing fur, is something to behold.) Eventually, Joel fell in love with Weber, but when a guilt-ridden Joel shared his feelings with Small, he got punched in the nose and Weber left.Despondent, Joel overdosed on pills and was in a coma for days. His sister, Judy Molinari, who had provided the pills to help him sleep, recounts her guilt onscreen. “I felt that I killed him,” she says. Joel drank a bottle of furniture polish in another attempt on his life. After moving back into his mother’s house, he checked into an observation ward where his own struggles were put into perspective. From there he started to channel his feelings into music, and the songs that he wrote as a result of the experience would become his first solo album, “Cold Spring Harbor.” After about a year, Weber re-entered his life.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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      Four States Ask F.D.A. to Lift Special Restrictions on Abortion Pill

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      The states consider it a move to force the F.D.A. to review and acknowledge extensive research showing the pill’s safety.In a strategy aimed at countering efforts to further restrict the abortion pill mifepristone, attorneys general of four states that support abortion rights on Thursday asked the Food and Drug Administration to do the opposite and lift the most stringent remaining restrictions on the pill.The petition filed by Massachusetts, New York, California and New Jersey might seem surprising given the opposition to abortion expressed by Trump administration officials. But the attorneys general consider it a move that would require the F.D.A. to acknowledge extensive scientific research that has consistently found mifepristone safe and effective, said an official with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office who worked on the filing and asked not to be named in order to share background information. It would also prevent the F.D.A. from changing mifepristone regulations while the petition is pending.The petition notes that at a May senate hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, responded to questions by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, who opposes abortion, by saying he had ordered the F.D.A. to do a “complete review” of mifepristone.“We want to make sure that when F.D.A. is making these decisions that they have all the data in front of them, all of the really powerful data that show that mifepristone is safe” the Massachusetts official said.The F.D.A. is required to respond within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time. In its responses, the agency must document its position, which could be useful in lawsuits, including one that the four states could file if their petition is denied.Mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy development, was approved for abortion in America in 2000. The F.D.A. imposed an additional regulatory framework called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, on mifepristone. That framework has been used for only about 300 drugs, currently covering only about 60 medications.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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      Syrians Rejoice at Being Exempted From Trump Travel Ban

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      Damascus residents hope the decision is another sign that the world is normalizing relations with Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.During his first term, President Trump included Syria in a series of travel bans targeting mostly Muslim-majority nations, branding refugees from the war-ravaged country as requiring “extreme vetting” to protect national security.The impact was immediate: flights were canceled, refugee resettlements were halted, and families were separated.But on Wednesday, Syria was exempted from Mr. Trump’s new travel ban, representing another sign of the seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy toward the country after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, the former president, in December.Syria was one of only four countries that were blacklisted in Mr. Trump’s first term that were excluded this time around, alongside Iraq, North Korea and Nigeria.For many Syrians, the news added to a growing sense of optimism about the country’s future as it emerges from years of war and decades of authoritarian dictatorship.“This is something that brings hope for the future, especially for the younger generation,” said Lina Habshi as she shopped in Damascus to prepare for Eid al-Adha, a major religious holiday. “My daughter was studying chemistry, but opportunities were limited here. Now she might be able to travel and grow in her field.”Her 16-year-old daughter, Rama, echoed Ms. Habshi’s sentiment. “I feel like the government’s actions are changing how Syrians are viewed,” she said. “Now we have a presence outside our country.”For decades, the United States treated Syria as a pariah. That position hardened following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State, a terrorist group that seized parts of the country and carried out attacks overseas.But in recent months, the Trump administration has sought better relations. Mr. Trump lifted some sanctions on Syria last month and held talks with the new president, Ahmed al-Shara, a former rebel commander with past links to Al Qaeda. It was the first time the leaders of the two countries had met in 25 years.The new Syrian government has pledged to restore stability after more than a decade of war. In return, Washington has sought to leverage the promise of a rapprochement with a number of demands, including the expulsion of “foreign terrorists” from Syria and guarantees that the Islamic State will not be allowed to gain more power, according to the White House.For many Syrians, the travel ban exemption was another sign that the country was once again being accepted by the wider world after decades of isolation.“We’re so happy,” said Tahani Madani, an employee at Syria’s largest commercial bank. “Honestly, it’s hard to even describe our joy. Thank God, things are getting better.” More

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      I Was Sidelined by Illness. This Ghanaian Soup Got Me Back in the Kitchen.

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      Brothy and bright, this Ghanaian light soup is the perfect summer balm, Yewande Komolafe writes.A good recipe offers a clear set of instructions and a satisfying result. A great one is much more, engaging our imagination with each step, offering a way to replicate a meal after it’s been considered, made, consumed.But what happens when our ability to cook the food we love suddenly changes? What does it look like to document a sensory experience through an intermediary?Recipe: Light Soup With MushroomsIn December 2023, after a lifetime in kitchens working on the line and then developing recipes for cookbooks and magazines, I experienced a health crisis that kept me from cooking for well over a year. During that time, I began to accept the fact that making new recipes — a balance of passive observation and active adjustments — would require careful planning and, because of physical limitations, even more steps in an already complex dance.The processes I undertook seamlessly before would have to be accomplished much more slowly, and collaboratively. I would have to watch as assistants cooked via my words, acting as more of a passenger than driver, and hand over tasks that had, before my illness, become second nature to me.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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      Supreme Court Backs Catholic Charity Denied Exemption in Tax Case

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      The Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled that the group’s activities in serving the state’s poor were not religious enough to qualify for the exemption.The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin was entitled to a tax exemption that had been denied by a state court on the ground that its activities were not primarily religious.The Wisconsin Supreme Court had ruled that the group’s activities were “primarily charitable and secular” and that it did not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith.” Indeed, the state court said, the group employed and served people of all religions.That meant, the state court found, that the group should be denied the tax exemption even as it accepted the charity’s contention that its services were “based on Gospel values and the principles of the Catholic social teachings.”The case was one of three concerning religion heard by the justices this term, and it extended a remarkable winning streak at the court for religious people and groups.Another case, about whether parents in Maryland have a religious right to withdraw their children from classes when books with gay and transgender themes are discussed, will be decided in the coming weeks.In the third case, the justices deadlocked in May by a 4-to-4 vote over whether a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma passed constitutional muster, letting stand a state court ruling against the school but setting no national precedent.The Wisconsin case, Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, No. 24-154, concerned a state law that exempts religious groups from state unemployment taxes so long as they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.”Catholic Charities Bureau, the social ministry of the Catholic Diocese in Superior, Wis., has said its mission is to provide “services to the poor and disadvantaged as an expression of the social ministry of the Catholic Church.” But state officials determined that the charity did not qualify for the exemption because it “provides essentially secular services and engages in activities that are not religious per se.”When the case was argued in March, a lawyer for the state acknowledged that the charity would qualify for the exemption if it were part of the church rather than a separate corporation. But he said there must be principles that separate religious institutions from others. More