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      Lewiston Shooting Panel Presses Army Reservists on Maine Gunman

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      A commission in Maine asked former colleagues of the shooter about key moments of inaction before the rampage. A commission investigating the October mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, interrogated Army Reserve colleagues of the gunman, Robert R. Card Jr., at a hearing Thursday, pressing for answers about their failed efforts to prevent him from inflicting harm and eliciting some of the most detailed accounts yet of the months leading up to the rampage. Members of the commission drilled down on key moments of inaction by military supervisors who knew of the shooter’s threats, erratic behavior and access to weapons, seeking accountability among the multiple law enforcement agencies and military personnel who traded concerns about Mr. Card, as his mental state deteriorated last year.“Since families can’t police their own, was it a very good plan that relied on the family to remove his weapons?” George Dilworth, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maine and a commission member, asked Army Reserve Capt. Jeremy Reamer, who was involved in the response to Mr. Card’s worrisome behavior.After a failed attempt by the local sheriff’s office to check on Mr. Card’s welfare in September, authorities conferred with his family on a plan for them to secure his firearms. “I didn’t know the family dynamic, so I can’t comment on that, but it was a plan, and in my experience, a viable plan,” said Capt. Reamer, his voice quiet and his demeanor solemn as he sat alone at the witness table.On the night of Oct. 25, Mr. Card, a 40-year-old Army Reserve grenade instructor, shot and killed 18 people at two popular recreation venues in Lewiston, a bowling alley and a bar where cornhole enthusiasts gathered to unwind. After a two-day manhunt for the missing gunman, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.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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      Death of David Gail, ‘Port Charles’ Star, Was Drug Related, Publicist Says

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      The 58-year-old actor, who was also on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” died last month in a Tampa, Fla., hospital days after going into cardiac arrest.David Gail, the “Port Charles” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” actor who died in a Tampa, Fla. hospital on Jan. 16, had been intoxicated from a mix of drugs and alcohol that caused him to go into cardiac arrest, his publicist said on Tuesday.A number of drugs were found in Mr. Gail’s system, including amphetamines, cocaine, alcohol and fentanyl, according to a statement from the publicist, Linda Brown. The cardiac arrest led to a brain injury, which ultimately caused his death days later, she said.The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to a request for Mr. Gail’s autopsy report on Tuesday evening.The family previously said that Mr. Gail, 58, had died from complications from a sudden cardiac arrest.Paramedics who found Mr. Gail after he went into cardiac arrest performed CPR and used a defibrillator to try to revive him, but he ultimately wound up on life support at the hospital, according to Ms. Brown.Mr. Gail’s mother, Mary Painter, said in the statement that her son had for years been reliant on medication to manage pain from hand and wrist surgeries that kept him out of work for nearly a decade.“It breaks my heart to learn my son died this way,” Ms. Painter said, adding, “I can only assume that his former dependence played a part in self-medicating from uncontrolled sources.”Her son’s death, she said, highlighted victims of pharmaceutical addiction and the fentanyl epidemic.Mr. Gail had a bountiful television acting career in the mid- to late 1990s, including his most prominent role, as Dr. Joe Scanlon on the “General Hospital” spinoff show “Port Charles.” Mr. Gail played Dr. Scanlon in 216 episodes in one season, which ran in 1999 and 2000, according to IMDb.Years before that, Mr. Gail appeared on eight episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210,” playing a minor part in an episode in the first season and returning to the show for the fourth season in a more established role.“When I came back it was such a shock, I was asking, ‘How could I possibly come back?’” Mr. Gail said about his return on the “Beverly Hills Show Podcast” in 2021.“But it worked,” he added.He also made dozens of appearances in a variety of television shows throughout the 1990s and several films in the 2000s. More

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      A ‘Corpsicle’ Came Back to Life on ‘True Detective.’ Is That Possible?

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      An incident involving a group of frozen bodies on the fourth season of the HBO series has raised some scientific questions.The men lay frozen naked in a ghoulish pile, with mouths agape and eyes glazed over, their hair encrusted with ice and snow. They were all dead — or so the investigators on the HBO series “True Detective: Night Country” thought.Frozen bodies are a familiar problem in this fictional Alaska town near the Arctic Circle, but this giant “corpsicle” is unusual. And so is what happens at the end of the episode, which aired last Sunday: one of the men wakes up when his arm is accidentally snapped off by an officer.The resurrection has sparked grisly speculation among some fans: How can a person be living, a viewer on Reddit asked, if that person’s limbs are so frozen? “They could have been flash frozen in a moment of terror” at the moment of their deaths, another speculated. Many were skeptical that the human body could survive such an ordeal and wondered if the show was straying into the supernatural.Doctors say that it is impossible for a completely frozen person to make a recovery. But it is possible for someone who appears frozen — limbs stiff, skin cold and hard, and without a pulse or breath — to be resuscitated, depending on how long the person has been out in the cold.“If all the tissue in your body is ice, or has ice in it, then you’re not coming back,” said Ken Zafren, a physician and a professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University, who also works in Alaska. But, he added, “I’ve seen plenty of cases in which the person really looked dead, and could come back.”During hypothermia, an adult’s body temperature can cool well below the normal average of 98.6 degrees, Dr. Zafren said. A person’s pulse and breathing slow significantly, reducing the body’s need for oxygen. Eventually, the person may go into cardiac arrest, stopping the pulse and breathing altogether. But because the brain is cold, the lack of oxygen takes longer to cause damage, he 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?  More

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      Rep. Jennifer Wexton Announces Rare Neurological Disorder Diagnosis

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      Ms. Wexton, a Democrat who disclosed a Parkinson’s diagnosis in April, will not seek re-election after learning she has progressive supranuclear palsy, for which there is no effective treatment.Representative Jennifer Wexton, Democrat of Virginia, announced on Monday that she would not seek re-election next year after receiving a diagnosis of a rare neurological disorder.Ms. Wexton, 55, who represents a competitive district in the Virginia suburbs west of Washington, D.C., revealed in a statement that she has progressive supranuclear palsy, which she described in a statement as “Parkinson’s on steroids.”“I’m heartbroken to have to give up something I have loved after so many years of serving my community,” she said.Ms. Wexton was elected to represent Virginia’s 10th Congressional District in 2018, defeating a two-term Republican incumbent, Barbara Comstock, by 12 percentage points.In April, Ms. Wexton announced that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, saying at the time that it would not stop her from continuing to live her life, or pursuing her political career.“I’m doing well, and I want to bring about as much good from this diagnosis as I can — including here in Congress,” Ms. Wexton wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.However, she wrote in her statement on Monday that she had noticed that people in her Parkinson’s support group weren’t having the same experience she was, and that she wasn’t making as much progress as she had hoped. She sought out other medical opinions and testing, which she said had led to her new diagnosis.Ms. Wexton said she planned to serve out the remainder of her term.“While my time in Congress will soon come to a close,” Ms. Wexton said, “I’m just as confident and committed as ever to keep up the work that got me into this fight in the first place for my remaining time in office — to help build the future we want for our children.”What is progressive supranuclear palsy?It is not uncommon for people with progressive supranuclear palsy, also known as P.S.P., to be misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s, as Ms. Wexton was. The two disorders share many symptoms, such as difficulty swallowing, and speech and balance issues.P.S.P. is caused by damage to nerve cells in areas of the brain that control thinking and body movement. It affects walking and balance as well as eye movement, and progresses more rapidly than Parkinson’s. There is currently no treatment that effectively stops or slows the disorder’s progression or symptoms, according to the National Institutes of Health.Symptoms typically appear when a person is in their mid-to-late 60s, later than when Parkinson’s symptoms usually start. Most people with P.S.P. develop severe disability within three to five years of the onset of symptoms, and may experience serious complications such as pneumonia, choking or the risk of head injuries from falls. It can also cause changes in behavior, such as forgetfulness and increased irritability.Given the nature of the disorder, Ms. Wexton said she wanted to spend her “valued time” with her friends and loved ones, including her husband and two sons.Her diagnosis has political implications for 2024.When Ms. Wexton won in 2018, she flipped her Northern Virginia district from red to blue, part of an anti-Trump wave that led to Democrats regaining control of the House. She came into Congress along with two other Democratic women who had flipped seats in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria.While Ms. Luria lost her race for re-election last year, Ms. Wexton won her third term by six points. But Ms. Wexton’s district, one of the wealthiest in the country, remains competitive, and is likely to be even more so without an incumbent running for the seat.Ms. Wexton’s decision not to run again leaves Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the House, with an opportunity to pick up a seat in the 2024 election, when Democrats will be angling to win back control of the chamber.Annie Karni More