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    Jonathan Braun, Whose Sentence Was Commuted by Trump, Is Charged With Assault

    Jonathan Braun, whose drug sentence was commuted by Donald Trump shortly before he left office, was charged on Long Island, the latest incident to raise questions of how clemency applications were vetted.Ever since Donald J. Trump issued a series of pardons and commutations as he left office, he and his allies have defended his administration’s vetting of clemency candidates, claiming they went through a vigorous screening process.But the case of one of those convicts — a New York drug dealer and predatory lender named Jonathan Braun, who had a history of violence and faced an array of other legal problems — has stood out and raised doubts about how rigorous the vetting was.On Tuesday, the police on Long Island arrested Mr. Braun after he allegedly punched his 75-year-old father-in-law in the head. Mr. Braun struck his father-in-law twice as he tried to protect his daughter from Mr. Braun, who was chasing after her while the couple had an argument in their home, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.Mr. Braun’s wife, according to court documents, told police that Mr. Braun had assaulted her twice in the past five weeks. On July 17, the court documents said, Mr. Braun threw his wife off a bed onto the floor, “causing her substantial pain and bruising her legs.”Last week, on Aug. 12, Mr. Braun threw her to the floor and punched her in the head multiple times “causing her substantial pain, bruising” to her arms, legs and head and causing her to feel dizzy, the documents said.Mr. Braun pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors asked for bail but a judge released him without it.“He was released on his own recognizance after pleading not guilty and will address the allegations judicially,” said Mr. Braun’s lawyer, Marc Fernich.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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    What ‘It Ends With Us’ Gets Wrong (and Right) About Domestic Abuse

    Its depiction of love-bombing and psychological abuse rings true, experts say, but other oversimplified aspects could send a dangerous message.A person trying to escape an abusive relationship, on average, needs seven attempts to actually leave. Lily Bloom, the protagonist of the new drama “It Ends With Us,” needs only one.In the hit adaptation of the best-selling Colleen Hoover novel, Bloom (Blake Lively) is a young woman who grew up watching her father repeatedly hit her mother and who sees her own marriage to the seemingly perfect neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, also the film’s director) deteriorate into physical and emotional abuse. When Bloom learns she’s pregnant with Kincaid’s child after a violent night, she decides to get out.Professionals who counsel domestic violence survivors or work on related issues say “It Ends With Us” is an oversimplified depiction of being in and leaving an abusive relationship. But whether it’s a potential tool for advocacy or an unattainable vision of escaping abuse depends on whom you ask.“I think it’s very likely that people are going to come to the movie and see themselves in Lily,” said Pamela Jacobs, the chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. She said that although “It Ends With Us” had problems, she was surprised by how well it showed abuse overall.The big inaccuracy to professionals is how easily Bloom leaves once she realizes she is being abused. In real life, she would probably have faced stalking, harassment and other escalating pressure tactics, including violence.In “It Ends With Us,” Bloom and her husband peacefully part ways after a single conversation. Jacobs said Bloom’s departure was unrealistically smooth thanks to her financial independence (she owns a flower shop) and unwavering community support, including from her best friend, who is also Kincaid’s sister.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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    Jonathan Majors Is Cast in First Movie Role Since Assault Conviction

    Mr. Majors, who was sentenced to a year of domestic violence programming and was dropped by Marvel, is set to star in the independent thriller “Merciless.”Jonathan Majors will lead a feature film for the first time since he was found guilty of assaulting and harassing his girlfriend, a conviction that doomed a lucrative contract with Marvel Studios and imperiled his status as one of the fastest-rising stars in Hollywood.Mr. Majors, who starred in “Creed III” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” last year, has been cast in “Merciless,” a supernatural thriller about a C.I.A. interrogator out for revenge. The movie will be directed by Martin Villeneuve and produced by Christopher Tuffin, an executive producer of the films “Sound of Freedom” and “Peppermint.”Mr. Tuffin said he believed in second chances and had decided to work with Mr. Majors because he was a “generational talent.”“We live in a culture that treats people as disposable, on both sides,” he said. “I believe that this matter has been adjudicated in the courts and he has a right to go back to his career.”A representative for Mr. Majors declined to comment.Mr. Majors was convicted of a reckless assault misdemeanor and a harassment violation in December, months after an altercation inside an S.U.V. that his girlfriend Grace Jabbari said turned violent. He was acquitted of two other charges that required prosecutors to prove he had acted with intent.A judge sentenced Mr. Majors to 52 weeks of domestic violence programming.In court testimony, Ms. Jabbari said she and Mr. Majors had gotten into an argument in Manhattan while they were dating. She said that he had twisted her arm and that she subsequently felt “a really hard blow across my head.” Mr. Majors did not testify but through his lawyer and in an interview on “Good Morning America,” he disputed Ms. Jabbari’s account and denied assaulting her.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 Upholds Law Prohibiting Domestic Abusers From Owning Guns

    The justices rejected a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law that makes it a crime for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders to possess a gun.The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the government may disarm a Texas man subject to a domestic violence order, limiting the sweep of its earlier blockbuster decision that vastly expanded gun rights.That decision, issued in 2022, struck down a New York law that put strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. It also established a new legal standard for assessing laws limiting the possession of firearms, one whose reliance on historical practices has sown confusion as courts have struggled to apply it, with some judges sweeping aside gun control laws that have been on the books for decades.The new case, United States v. Rahimi, explored the scope of that new test. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion in the 2022 decision, dissented.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Second Amendment rights had limits.“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may — consistent with the Second Amendment — be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect,” he wrote. “Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”The case started in 2019 when Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas, assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, leading her to obtain a restraining order. The order suspended Mr. Rahimi’s handgun license and prohibited him from possessing firearms.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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    Man Charged in Bronx Sexual Assault Partly Captured on Disturbing Video

    The video shows him throwing a belt around a woman’s neck, pulling her to the ground and dragging her along.The video captures a disturbing sequence: A woman can be seen walking along a sidewalk in the Bronx on an early May morning, when a man, his face covered, approaches from behind. He throws a looped belt around the woman’s neck and yanks her to the ground. She loses consciousness. He drags her in between two parked cars.Then, police said, he sexually assaulted her.The scenes captured on the video sowed fear among many residents of the South Bronx. On Saturday, the police said they had arrested a man — Kashaan Parks, 39, also of the Bronx — in connection with the assault.Mr. Parks faces several charges, including rape, assault, strangulation, sex abuse and harassment. The police said Mr. Parks had been arrested two other times: Once in 2018 for domestic assault, and in 2013 for theft of service in the transit system. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between Mr. Parks and the woman.The incident took place around 5 a.m. on May 1 near the intersection of East 152nd Street and Third Avenue. The woman, who was not named, went to Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx after the attack. She did not report the assault to the authorities, Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives for the Police Department, told reporters at a briefing on Friday.The police learned about the assault when they saw the footage caught on security cameras that was being shared online, Chief Kenny said.Officers tried to determine where the video came from, he said. Then an officer from a Bronx precinct where the woman was assaulted realized they already knew where the victim was: in police custody for an unrelated minor offense, Chief Kenny 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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    Top French University Faces Yet Another Crisis as Leader Resigns

    Mathias Vicherat, the director of Sciences Po, and his former partner are expected to face trial over mutual accusations of violence. His resignation prolongs years of tumult in the school’s highest ranks.One of France’s most elite universities found itself without a leader for the second time in just three years on Wednesday after its director, Mathias Vicherat, resigned to face a court case over accusations of domestic violence.The university, Sciences Po in Paris, has produced five of France’s last eight presidents and over a dozen prime ministers, as well as top business leaders, well-known journalists and scores of high-ranking civil servants. It has been striving to grow even stronger by diversifying its student body and competing internationally for students.But the resignation of Mr. Vicherat, 45, who denied any wrongdoing and said he was stepping down to protect Sciences Po’s standing, was the latest in a series of episodes of internal turmoil that have tarnished the school’s reputation.Mr. Vicherat’s predecessor, Frédéric Mion, stepped down in 2021 after admitting that he had not taken action against a longtime professor and board member despite knowing of incest allegations against him; an investigation into the professor by prosecutors was later dropped because the statute of limitations had expired. The school’s previous director, Richard Descoings, was found dead in a Manhattan hotel room in 2012 — a death that was followed by an embarrassing government audit over the school’s use of public funds.Sciences Po said in a statement on Wednesday that it had “taken note” of Mr. Vicherat’s resignation “to safeguard the institution,” but did not comment on the unrest surrounding his departure.Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, who heads the National Foundation of Political Sciences, a private entity that oversees the university’s budget and governing strategy, said in a message to faculty members and students that a provisional administration would be appointed in the coming days.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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    Shining a Light on Postpartum Depression

    More from our inbox:How Climate Change Feeds ‘Eco-Anxiety’Domestic ViolenceTrump’s Strategy: StallMaking a Minyan to Mourn Together Travis Dove for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Look at Life in the Throes of Postpartum Depression” (news article, July 6):Thank you for bringing attention to postpartum depression. Unfortunately, it is estimated that up to half of women with it never get screened and identified. And fewer get effective and adequate treatment.Because so many of its symptoms, such as lack of energy and trouble concentrating, overlap with what normally occurs after delivery, it may not be suspected.But when these symptoms coexist with a predominantly depressed mood that is present all day, when there is a loss of interest and a lack of pleasure, and when the symptoms last for at least two weeks, that is not a normal consequence of childbirth. And it needs to be evaluated and treated.Without treatment, depression can last for months or years. In addition to the personal suffering, the depression can interfere with the mother’s ability to connect and interact with her baby, which can negatively affect the child’s development.Deciding between the two types of treatment mentioned in your article, psychotherapy and medication, need not always be an either/or choice. As with many other forms of depression, a combination of the two may be most effective.Monica N. StarkmanAnn Arbor, Mich.The writer is an active emerita professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan.To the Editor:As the mom of a 6-week-old (she is asleep in my arms as I write this), I appreciate the increased coverage of postpartum depression and anxiety that I’ve noticed lately in this newspaper and other sources.Since giving birth, I’ve been screened for those conditions more times than I can count — in the hospital, at my OB-GYN’s office and at my daughter’s pediatrician visits.However, in my household, there are two moms: me (the birthing parent) and my wife. Though she may not be experiencing the same shifting hormones or bodily changes and demands as I am, my wife is certainly undergoing the radical life transformations associated with new parenthood.Despite that, she has never been screened for postpartum depression or anxiety, though she currently suffers from the latter to the point that she can hardly sleep.We should be screening all parents — birthing and non-birthing, regardless of gender or biological affiliation with the child — for postpartum depression and anxiety. And we should be including discussion about those individuals in publications such as this one to increase awareness.Andrea B. ScottAustin, TexasHow Climate Change Feeds ‘Eco-Anxiety’A search and rescue worker in Cambridge, Vt. Officials said access to some communities remained almost completely cut off.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Urgent Call in Vermont for Better Preparedness” (news article, July 13):Vermont’s catastrophic flooding, and the flooding, fires, tornadoes and severe heat currently engulfing much of the nation, are obvious byproducts of climate change. Our growing fears over these destructive events are less obvious, since they are often left out of the conversation over climate change, even with the devastation left in our communities and the loss of lives that almost always follows these tragic events.An unanticipated consequence of deadly climate change is “eco-anxiety,” the chronic fear of environmental collapse and community destruction. As therapists, we see more and more patients struggling with overwhelming feelings ranging from terror, disgust and rage to grief, sadness and despair.A study of eco-anxiety published in The Lancet showed that 46 percent of young adults in the U.S., and 56 percent globally, believe we are all doomed by climate change, especially with young people experiencing greater anxiety over their futures.Fighting climate change requires science and action. It also requires integrating climate-aware therapy into the equation. We must provide mental resilience for our minds so that we can sustain the fight to repair climate change.Barbara EasterlinLeslie DavenportSan FranciscoThe writers lead the California Institute of Integral Studies’ climate psychology certificate program.Domestic Violence Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times; photographs by Michael Ochs Archives and Adam Gault/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Another Threat to Domestic Abuse Survivors,” by Kathy Hochul (Opinion guest essay, July 12):Firearms and domestic violence are a deadly mix. Every day on average three women are killed by a current or former partner. When a male abuser has access to a gun, the risk he will kill a female partner increases by 1,000 percent. Abusers also use guns to wound, threaten, intimidate and terrorize victims.Governor Hochul is right to be concerned for the safety of domestic violence survivors. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in United States v. Rahimi was dangerous and callously put millions of survivors and their children at risk. It also recklessly disposed of a law effective in reducing intimate partner homicides.Dangerous abusers and others intent on harm should not have access to firearms. The National Network to End Domestic Violence urges the U.S. Supreme Court to put survivor safety front and center and overturn the Fifth Circuit’s misguided decision. Lives are at stake.Melina MilazzoWashingtonThe writer is deputy director of public policy, National Network to End Domestic Violence.Trump’s Strategy: Stall Jordan Gale for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Bid to Delay Florida Trial Poses Key Early Test for Judge” (front page, July 12):Donald Trump’s legal strategy is now clear: Delay, delay, delay until after the 2024 presidential election and do everything possible, legal or otherwise, to win that election, so that he will be able to either pardon himself or install a puppet attorney general who will dismiss all charges.It may not be constitutional for him to pardon himself, but that would ultimately likely be decided by the Supreme Court, with its six-member right-wing supermajority, half of which was appointed by him.It follows that for there to be any hope of justice being done, Mr. Trump can’t be allowed to use his presidential candidacy as an excuse to stall prosecution and can’t be allowed to regain the White House and use the power of the presidency to escape justice.Eric B. LippsStaten IslandMaking a Minyan to Mourn Together Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times; photograph by Jeff Swensen/GettyTo the Editor:Re “By Killing 11 Jews, He Killed Something Else, Too,” by Mark Oppenheimer (Opinion guest essay, July 1):Mr. Oppenheimer writes that the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh (the city where I was born and raised) not only tragically took the lives of these individuals but also has made it difficult for the synagogue to make a minyan, the quorum of 10 Jews required to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish, among other prayers.The reality is that making a minyan has been a problem for synagogues in this country long before the most recent wave of antisemitic events. As the ritual vice president for a Conservative synagogue in a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago, I see this problem firsthand.We constantly struggle to get a full minyan at our weeknight services, potentially depriving those in mourning or observing a yahrzeit (anniversary of a death) the opportunity to recite Kaddish.The requirement of a minyan reinforces a central value of Judaism: that we do not mourn alone, but as part of a supportive community. It’s incumbent on synagogues to convey this message to their congregations and preserve this age-old tradition.Josh CharlsonDeerfield, Ill. More

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    Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and Putin | Rebecca Solnit

    Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like Trump and PutinRebecca SolnitLike all abusive men, dictators seek to control who can speak and which narratives are believed. The only difference is scaleAs the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolded, I was reminded over and over again of the behaviour of abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends. At first he thinks that he can simply bully her into returning. When it turns out she has no desire to return, he shifts to vengeance.Putin insisted that Ukraine was rightfully part of Russia and didn’t have a separate existence. He expected his army to grab and subjugate with ease, even be welcomed. Now his regime seems bent on punitive destruction – of energy infrastructure, dwellings, historic sites, whole cities – and rape, torture and mass murder. This too is typical of abusers: domestic-violence homicides are often punishment for daring to leave.Everything I needed to know about authoritarianism I learned from feminism, or rather from feminism’s sharp eye when it comes to coercive control and male abusers. Sociologist and gender violence expert Evan Stark, in his book Coercive Control, defined the title term as one that subsumes domestic violence in a larger pattern of isolation, intimidation and control. (The book has been so influential that in the UK, coercive control is now recognised as a crime.) The violence matters, Stark writes, “but the primary harm abusive men inflict is political, not physical, and reflects the deprivation of rights and resources that are critical to personhood and citizenship”. This connects it directly to what dictators and totalitarian regimes do to the people under their rule – it’s only a matter of scale. And the agenda at all scales is to control not just practical matters, but fact, truth, history; who can speak and what can be said.The antithesis of this is, of course, democracy, which is likewise a principle that works at all scales. A marriage can be called democratic if both parties exercise power equally and are unconstrained and unintimidated by the other. Equally, a marriage can be a little tyranny in which one gains and the other surrenders rights and powers through the union, which was until recently how marriage was defined legally and socially. Likewise we call democratic those nations in which national decisions are (however imperfectly) made by representatives elected by, and accountable to, the public.At the very root of tyranny, no matter whether it’s personal or public life, lies the belief that the agency and agenda of others is illegitimate, that only the would-be tyrant should control the household or the nation. You can see this in authoritarian politicians’ rejection of the outcome of elections – Donald Trump, or in the Maga candidate Kari Lake’s unsuccessful run for Arizona governor, or the 8 January riot in Brasília to reject Lula’s victory.One term formerly used to describe relationships between an abusive man and a manipulated woman, gaslighting, became an indispensable word in public life when Trump became president. The gaslighting, the bullying, the fury to crush dissent, the assumption that he should be in charge of everything including facts, the rage, the insistence that every other power and voice is illegitimate: these are all hallmarks of dictators in the domestic and the political sphere. He began his presidency in the shade of a recording in which he infamously advocated grabbing women “by the pussy”; he ended it in the shadow of an insurrection that was a refusal to accept the verdict rendered by more than 80 million voters and the rules laid down by the US constitution.What’s striking about gaslighting is that it’s an attempt to push a lie or a distortion by using advantages of power, including credibility and social status, to overwhelm the gaslit person or people – or populace. It’s another kind of violence, not against bodies, but facts and truth. In stories of abusive households, the Trump administration and histories of authoritarianism, the men in charge regarded fact, truth, history and science as rival systems of power to be crushed or overwhelmed. And they are rival systems: a democracy of information means what prevails is what’s demonstrably true and substantiated, whether or not it’s convenient to whoever’s in power.That gaslighting was a staple of the Soviet Union is well known through the work of George Orwell and later historians (when I wrote about Orwell, I found a striking example cited by Adam Hochschild: that when Stalin’s demographers showed that the Soviet population was declining, he had them killed, causing the next round of demographers to offer more pleasing numbers). It’s also true in brutal households, where the first rule is that one must not say that it’s brutal, lest more violence transpire.Another way that studies of domestic abuse inform our political understanding is “Darvo”, an acronym that the domestic violence expert Jennifer Freyd coined in 1997 for how abusers respond in court or when otherwise challenged. It stands for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. You insist that anyone mentioning what you’ve done is insulting you, is a liar, then insist that your accuser is the abuser and you are the victim, and keep shouting it until you believe it and maybe convince others. Freyd herself, with another psychologist, recently noted “a growing trend in the world of civil litigation: alleged perpetrators of interpersonal violence are filing defamation lawsuits against the individuals who have named them as abusers … For abusers, these lawsuits are an opportunity to enforce Darvo through civil litigation.”Trump is trying to make a comeback. It’s not working | Lloyd GreenRead moreDarvo happens all the time in political life. In the US, the Republicans have a pattern of claiming to defend what they’re attacking and to be the victims of what they’re perpetrating. Or as the New York Times columnist Charles M Blow put it in January, describing the agenda of the new Republican majority in the lower house of Congress: “Understanding that they can’t throw federal investigators off the trail of multiple conservatives – including, and perhaps principally, Donald Trump – they have decided to complicate those investigations by kicking up so much dust that the public has a hard time discerning fact from fiction.” The very mention of those crimes is treated as an insult and an outrage, with those complicit the offended parties, and so they shout down the evidence. Prolonged loud noise is an effective tactic.Blow mentions that the Republicans in the house are creating the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, which will label the pursuit of Republican crimes, notably Trump’s around January 6, as baseless political vendettas. It’s, of course, a cover-up masquerading as a crusade. He continues: “The Republicans are using a fundamentally Trumpian tactic, accusing others of that which one is guilty of. It was Donald Trump, not the Democrats, who attempted to weaponize the federal government against his enemies.” That’s Darvo at its purest.Individuals can be bullied into silence and obedience. So can whole populations. And so can facts and truth. Democracy matters at all scales.
    Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist
    TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionRepublicansVladimir PutinFeminismDomestic violenceUS politicscommentReuse this content More