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      How NYPD Will Use Cameras to Help Find Brian Thompson’s Killer

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      The cameras caught the gunman standing alone for five minutes on West 54th Street, ignoring the early-morning rush of people streaming by.They caught him again as he stood in the dark at 6:44 a.m. and locked into his target, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, who was walking on the other side of the street.And they captured video of the gunman, who was dressed in black and wearing a gray backpack, crossing the street and walking up to Mr. Thompson. He appeared calm as he raised a gun, fired several times and then walked away.The seconds before Wednesday morning’s shooting of Mr. Thompson, the fatal moments and the immediate aftermath were all captured on surveillance cameras, leaving investigators with a trail of digital evidence to help search for a man who was “proficient” with firearms, according to Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives for the New York Police Department.After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Police Department, with help from the federal government, poured resources into expanding its surveillance capabilities. New York City now has a vast system of cameras, both public and private, that the police can scour to locate people.The city has “investigatory capabilities that are above and beyond most municipalities,” said Brittney Blair, a senior director in the investigations and disputes practice at K2 Integrity, which advises companies on risk management and security.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 Biggest Takeaways From the DealBook Summit With Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and More

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      Serena Williams, Jerome H. Powell, Jeff Bezos and other leaders across business and technology discussed artificial intelligence, inflation, the media and what the world would look like under a second Donald J. Trump presidency.Mr. Bezos, for one, thinks the president-elect has “a good chance of succeeding.”Elon Musk wasn’t in the room, but he was present throughout at the DealBook Summit. The speakers were largely optimistic about his efforts in the new administration.The event, hosted by Andrew Ross Sorkin, founder of DealBook, has taken place since 2011.Here are five main themes:Inflation is still an issue, but there’s a chance for growth.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said the economy was in a “very good place.” Inflation has come down, and the labor market has rebounded. The big takeaway for investors: The central bank can afford to be more cautious when it considers lowering interest rates, Mr. Powell said. (The next Fed meeting will be Dec. 17-18.)Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel and a top donor to the Republican Party, placed the blame for inflation squarely on the Biden administration, which, he argued, “put this country on an inflationary path that was unprecedented in our lifetime.” Mr. Powell has “had to deal with cleaning up the mess,” he added.Former President Bill Clinton said inflation was the “fundamental problem” that helped Mr. Trump return to the White House.“The average person had not really lived through something like this for 40 years, since the ’70s,” Mr. Clinton 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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      Read the Justice Department’s Report

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      E. MPD Unnecessarily Escalates Encounters with Children.
      We have serious concerns about MPD’s treatment of children and the lasting impact of
      police encounters on their wellbeing and resilience. 42 During interactions with children
      regarding minor issues, MPD officers escalate the encounters with aggressive and
      demeaning language and, at times, needless force.
      At times, MPD aggressively escalates encounters with children who have committed no
      crime or where the child is a victim. In one incident, officers handcuffed and used force
      against a 16-year-old Black girl who called MPD to report she had been assaulted.
      Before arriving at the precinct to give a statement, officers handcuffed the girl after she
      refused to give them her phone. When she became agitated and reactive, the officers
      responded with insults and threats, telling her, “When [the handcuffs] do come off . . .
      Ooh, I’m itching,” “I leave my gloves on when I fight,” and “If I gotta whip your ass, I will.”
      After three hours, officers removed the handcuffs to reposition them. As she complained
      that her hands were hurt and swollen and tried to move her wrists, the officers grabbed
      her and pushed her face down onto the ground to handcuff her again. The girl was then
      arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
      MPD has escalated interactions when enforcing laws that are intended to keep children
      safe. After two Black boys (ages 15 and 16) ran from an officer who was citing them for
      a curfew violation, officers demeaned the boys and threatened violence. When one boy
      asked if they were going to jail, the officer responded, “If it’s my decision, hell yeah . . .
      I’d have so much damn fun rolling your ass down to jail. I’d love doing that shit.” Another
      officer threatened to assault the boys when he worried that he may have lost his MPD
      mobile device during the foot pursuit: “I am fucking these little kids up, man… I am
      fucking you all up, I just wanted to let y’all know that.”
      MPD officers have mistreated children in crisis, even when it is clear the child has
      significant disabilities. In one incident, a CIT officer threatened to take a 14-year-old
      Black boy to adult jail because the boy ran away from home. The boy was diagnosed
      with autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and developmental delays and had the intellectual
      functioning of a four-year-old. The boy’s mother had called the police after the boy, who
      had been released from a mental health facility that day, got upset at bedtime, threw a
      garbage can and a chair, and ran from home. After the boy was found, a CIT officer
      raised his Taser toward the boy, who was calm and compliant, and told him, “I don’t
      want to use it on you, but if you don’t listen to me, I can.” Officers planned to take the
      boy to the hospital for psychiatric treatment. But the CIT officer continued to threaten
      him, saying that he would take the child to jail “with the big boys,” and “If I have to come
      42 Interactions with the police can lead to damaging and lasting outcomes for children, especially Black
      and Latinx teens, including post-traumatic stress, increased levels of depression, diminished academic
      performance, and increased chances that a child will engage in delinquent behavior in the future.
      56 More

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      Sen. Laphonza Butler Discusses the Election During Her Last Days in Office

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      An interview with Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California, during her final week in the Senate.Laphonza Butler will have served as a senator from California for only about 15 months. But she has been a close ally of Vice President Kamala Harris for 15 years.This week, I spoke with Butler, whose long partnership with Harris — they first met when Butler was a Los Angeles-based union leader — gives her an intriguing perspective on why her party lost the presidential election and how it might rebuild.Harris hasn’t said much publicly about why she lost. In Butler’s view, some of the fault starts with President Biden, who she believes broke what was a clear campaign promise by running for re-election. But just blaming Biden isn’t enough: Democrats, she says, must stop talking and start listening. Really listening.Butler was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the U.S. Senate seat left open by the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein in September 2023. Because she decided not to run for re-election, this week is her last in the body: On Monday, Representative Adam Schiff will be sworn in as the state’s newest senator.This interview was edited for length and clarity.LL: Why do you think Harris lost?LB: The American people wanted a change. They wanted a candidate who they thought represented change. And I think that might simply be it.Should Biden not have run?President Biden said initially that he was going to be a transitional leader. I think that is the expectation that people had. So in that sense, I think that he probably would have been better to remain in that posture. We can’t deny the success of his presidency. When history looks back, his presidency will be one of the most impactful in my lifetime, for sure. But I think once you sort of create an expectation with people, there is the need to hold to that.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 requests dismissal of charges in Georgia election interference case

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      Donald Trump’s attorney in Georgia has asked the state’s appellate court to dismiss election interference charges against the president-elect, arguing that a sitting president “is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal”.The filing by attorney Steve Sadow before the Georgia court of appeals asks the court to dismiss Trump’s appeal of a lower-court decision to allow Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to remain as prosecutor on the case, because the Fulton county superior court no longer has jurisdiction, given Trump’s electoral victory.The filing cites the Department of Justice’s decision to end federal prosecutions against Trump last month, and a finding in 2000 by the Office of Legal Counsel that the president cannot be subject to local prosecutors’ criminal enforcement.“The constitution forbids ‘plac[ing] into the hands of a single prosecutor or grand jury the practical power to interfere with the ability of a popularly elected president to carry out his constitutional functions’,” Sadow wrote, quoting the OLC memo.That memo emerged in the wake of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, when perjury charges were being considered in the scandal over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The rule was to be applied to federal prosecutions, but the office concluded as a matter of law that the prohibition was categorical – that it did not matter what the charges were – as long as the president was still in office.Sadow’s filing does not ask the court to dismiss the case against the remaining co-defendants in the election interference case, who do not enjoy the same constitutional protections as a president.Trump faces eight charges in Georgia, including a racketeering charge over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state, after Georgia voted for Joe Biden to become US president. Trump pleaded not guilty to the sprawling 2020 election interference case in Fulton county last year along with 18 other co-defendants. Four have since taken plea deals and agreed to testify against the other defendants.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case has been on hold since June, when the appeals court paused proceedings to consider an appeal asking for Willis to be removed from the case. Defendants argue that Willis’s relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade created an impermissible conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety. More

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      How South Korea’s Impeachment of President Yoon Could Happen

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      President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea is facing proceedings that could remove him from office after his imposition of martial law plunged the country into a political crisis. Members of South Korea’s opposition submitted a motion on Wednesday to impeach Mr. Yoon. Here’s how the process could unfold. Only two previous presidents have faced […] More

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      Guardian Journalists Strike Over Planned Sale of The Observer

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      Workers have begun a 48-hour walkout, the first in 50 years for the outlet, over a proposal to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media, a digital media start-up.Journalists at the Guardian and the Observer newspapers in Britain began a 48-hour strike on Wednesday over plans to sell The Observer, the country’s oldest-running Sunday publication, to a digital media start-up.Workers picketed outside their newsroom in London to protest the proposed sale to Tortoise Media, arguing it had been “rushed through” without the support of the staff.It is the first strike in more than 50 years for Guardian News & Media, which publishes both papers. The Observer has run in print since 1791. The plans to sell it came to light in September and were a surprise to journalists, who are now calling for the company to pause sale negotiations and consider alternatives.The deal is nearly done and could be announced soon, according to a person briefed on the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were private. The Scott Trust, the owner of both publications, wanted to ensure that it would remain one of the largest shareholders with a say in The Observer’s editorial direction, an issue that was expected to be resolved shortly, the person said.“It can’t be right to go ahead with a rushed sale when journalists haven’t been consulted and we do not understand the logic for this,” said Sonia Sodha, a columnist for The Observer who was on the picket line Wednesday morning. “We think it puts both Observer and Guardian journalism at risk.”The Guardian bought The Observer in 1993. Executives have said the sale would allow the company to focus on international expansion.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