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      The Sunday Read: ‘The Kidnapping I Can’t Escape’

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      Adrienne Hurst and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeOn Nov. 12, 1974, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s father’s childhood friend Jack Teich was kidnapped out of his driveway in the nicest part of the nicest part of Long Island. He was arriving home from work when two men forced him into their car at gunpoint and took him to a house where they chained and interrogated him.On the second day of his kidnapping, Jack’s wife, Janet, received a call from someone demanding a ransom of $750,000, and a few days later, Janet and Jack’s brother Buddy dropped the money off at Penn Station under F.B.I. surveillance. The F.B.I. did not catch the kidnapper, but afterward, he decided to let Jack go.Jack was home safe. He had survived his kidnapping. But the actual kidnapping is not what this story is about, if you can believe it. It’s about surviving what you survived, which is also known as the rest of your life.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      Bullet or Fragment of One Struck Trump’s Ear, F.B.I. Says

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      The explanation was the most definitive to date after the bureau’s director had earlier suggested the former president might have been hit by shrapnel, igniting a political storm.The F.B.I. said on Friday that Donald J. Trump had been struck by a “bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces,” providing the most definitive explanation to date about what injured the former president’s ear during an assassination attempt this month.Ambiguity about Mr. Trump’s injury turned into a political firestorm as the former president and his political allies attacked the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, for comments he made on Wednesday before Congress.“With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Mr. Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.Mr. Wray’s comments incensed Mr. Trump because they seemed to cast doubt on the former president’s version of what happened at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa., when a gunman opened fire, killing one and injuring two others. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, 20, was killed by a Secret Service sniper.Mr. Trump has maintained that he narrowly escaped death or serious injury after a bullet bloodied his ear, and that divine intervention spared his life. Mr. Wray’s suggestion that it might have been shrapnel angered him.After Speaker Mike Johnson questioned Mr. Wray’s comments on Thursday, the F.B.I. said in a statement that it was examining bullet fragments, and law enforcement officials said the bureau was trying to determine whether it was a bullet or a piece of one.Mr. Trump, who has been deeply critical of the F.B.I. for years, responded with a blistering post on social media: “No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.”He added, “No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”Mr. Wray has never disputed that the former president was in grave danger. He has repeatedly said the assassination attempt was an attack on democracy, and his agency said on Friday that there was no doubt that Mr. Crooks tried to kill the former president.“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the F.B.I. said in a statement.Mr. Crooks fired eight bullets from an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. Gun experts say the ammunition that Mr. Crooks used can easily fragment after hitting a solid object, sending deadly debris through the air. In certain circumstances, shrapnel and bullet fragments can be lethal.On Friday, The New York Times published an analysis that strongly suggested Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of the eight bullets fired by the gunman. More

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      Assessing Cause of Trump Wound, F.B.I. Examines Bullet Fragments From Rally

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      The bureau is assessing what caused the former president’s wound during an assassination attempt. The question has turned political.The F.B.I. is examining numerous metal fragments found near the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., to determine whether an assassin’s bullet — or potential debris — grazed former President Donald J. Trump’s head, bloodying his ear, according to the F.B.I. and a federal law enforcement official.The bureau has asked to interview Mr. Trump as part of its broader investigation, hoping to provide insights into the shooting and possibly a more complete record of his injury, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the continuing inquiry.Unanswered questions about the object that struck the Republican nominee for president have lingered since the shooting on July 13, with Mr. Trump claiming that he was struck by a bullet — and casting his survival as an act of divine intervention.F.B.I. officials have been more circumspect, citing the need to analyze the evidence before determining what struck Mr. Trump — a bullet, metal shard or something else.The bureau’s shooting reconstruction team “continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing,” the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday. In addition to injuring Mr. Trump, the gunman, Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., shot three rally attendees, one fatally.Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, did not answer whether the bureau had asked to review the former president’s medical records after the incident, but Mr. Trump has not released them publicly.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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      How a U.S. Antidoping Law Fueled Global Tensions

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      The Olympics are opening amid outright antagonism between international sports authorities and the United States over American investigations into the handling of doping allegations abroad.In the tumultuous final weeks of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, he signed into law, with little fanfare, bipartisan legislation that gave the United States vast new powers to police doping at competitions like the Olympics.The law authorized the Justice Department to criminally prosecute coaches, trainers, doctors and sports officials from around the world involved in facilitating doping, even if the event was held outside the United States.Nearly four years later, simmering anger among global athletic authorities about use of the law has exploded into public conflict. That has left the Olympic and antidoping movements unsettled as the Summer Games prepare to open on Friday in Paris and raised new questions about the reach of U.S. law enforcement powers abroad.The Justice Department is continuing to investigate whether Chinese antidoping authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency — the organization, known as WADA, that is supposed to ensure a level playing field in sports — covered up the positive tests of nearly two dozen elite Chinese swimmers who went on to win medals at the last Summer Games.Some of those swimmers are competing again in Paris.The backlash from the investigation intensified on Wednesday when the International Olympic Committee announced that it had awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. The award came with a stunning catch: The committee, deeply unnerved by the U.S. investigation, insisted on the right to rescind the decision if the United States continues to take actions “where the supreme authority of the World Anti-Doping Agency in the fight against doping is not fully respected.”The move set up a situation in which the bid may be contingent on the results of a Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation and led to new salvos between two camps. On one side are the I.O.C. and WADA, and on the other are Travis Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Congress and advocates for athletes.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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      FBI Director Testifying Before Congress Over Trump Rally Shooting

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      The F.B.I. director disclosed that the gunman flew a drone for about 11 minutes, just two hours before the former president was shot during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, disclosed on Wednesday that the gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump appeared to have used a drone to survey the site of the shooting for about 11 minutes in the hours before Mr. Trump took the stage.“It appears that around 3:50 p.m., 4:00, on the day of the shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area,” Mr. Wray said during his testimony, noting that it was “not over the stage, but about 200 yards, give or take, away from that.”The gunfire on July 13 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., left Mr. Trump’s ear bloodied, killed a rallygoer who had been sitting in the stands and seriously injured two others.Mr. Wray said the would-be assassin operated the drone about two hours before Mr. Trump spoke at the rally.Secret Service snipers killed the gunman, Thomas Crooks, 20, after locating him on a nearby roof. Mr. Crooks was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and had magazines for the rifle and a bulletproof vest in his car. Mr. Wray confirmed that the F.B.I. recovered eight bullet cartridges from the roof where the gunman opened fire.So far, Mr. Wray said, the F.B.I. has not found a motive for the shooting even as the investigation evolves. But the bureau continues to examine the gunman’s electronic devices for additional clues about Mr. Crooks’s mind-set and movements beforehand.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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      F.B.I. Searches $3.5 Million Home of Former Aide to Gov. Hochul

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      The early-morning raid took place on Long Island’s North Shore at the house of Ms. Hochul’s former deputy chief of staff, Linda Sun.Before dawn on Tuesday, F.B.I. agents swept into a small cul-de-sac on Long Island’s North Shore to search a five-bedroom house where a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul lives with her husband.The basis for the search at the $3.5 million home of Linda Sun, the former deputy chief of staff, and the crimes under investigation remain unclear. Neither Ms. Sun, 40, nor her husband, Chris Hu, 41, have been accused of wrongdoing. Neither could be reached for comment and they did not respond to voice mail and text messages.A spokesman for the F.B.I. confirmed that agents from the bureau’s New York office had “conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity” at the expansive red brick house in a gated community in Manhasset, but would not comment further. The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn obtained the warrant for the search, according to people with knowledge of the matter; a spokesman for that office also declined to comment.No arrests were made at the family’s home, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The property was owned by Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu until they transferred it to a trust early this year.Ms. Sun, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and government from Barnard College and a Master of Arts from Teachers College at Columbia University, has worked in state government for nearly 14 years, holding a variety of positions, according to her LinkedIn profile.She began her state career in the legislative branch as chief of staff to an assemblywoman, Grace Meng, who is now a congresswoman, and then worked in various positions in the administrations of both Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Ms. Hochul, according to the profile.Ms. Sun’s roles included business development; Asian American affairs; and diversity, equity and inclusion. She left the executive chamber after roughly 15 months, moving on to a position in the Labor Department in November 2022. Five months later, she left the state to serve as campaign manager for Austin Cheng, a Democrat who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress on Long Island.Avi Small, the press secretary for Ms. Hochul, declined to comment.Mr. Hu operates a liquor store in Flushing, Queens, Leivine Wine & Spirits, and has incorporated several other businesses over the last decade, including a company he created in 2020 during the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic called Medical Supplies USA LLC. He also created Golden Capital Group LLC in 2016 and LCA Holdings LLC in 2023, although the nature of those business could not be immediately determined.It is unclear when the F.B.I. agents first arrived at the gated community where Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu live, which is called Stone Hill, but a security guard there said that agents were there twice.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Gunman at Rally for Former President Trump Had Drone in Car

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      Investigators have information that suggests a man intent on assassinating former President Donald J. Trump flew the device over the campaign event location on the day of the shooting.Times reporters flew a drone over the rally site three days after the shooting from a publicly accessible street. Aerial footage would have allowed the gunman to survey the site.Video by Charlie Smart and Leanne AbrahamInvestigators found a small drone in the car owned by the gunman who tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump — and believe it was used to survey the site of Mr. Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., at least once before the shooting, according to law enforcement officials.Thomas Crooks, 20, visited the area near the fairgrounds used for the rally on July 7 — six days before the event — and appears to have made another trip the morning of the shooting, according to geolocation data found on one of his two cellphones, the officials said.At some point last Saturday, Mr. Crooks seems to have flown the drone to gather footage for a layout of the Butler Farm Show grounds using a preprogrammed flight path, according to an official briefed on the situation who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about a continuing investigation.The discovery of the drone was delayed when investigators found two rudimentary explosive devices in his Hyundai Sonata shortly after Mr. Crooks — a highly intelligent and technologically sophisticated community college graduate — was felled by a sniper after bloodying Mr. Trump’s ear, killing a man in the crowd and seriously injuring two other people.Investigators also found several magazines for the rifle he used and a bulletproof vest in the vehicle.Over the past several days, F.B.I. technicians analyzed the drone in its lab, along with two of Mr. Crooks’s phones and other electronic devices in hopes of determining his motive.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 Art Forger Had Fooled Thousands. Then He Met Doug.

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      When a man obsessed with woodblocks began to do business with a man obsessed with medical antiques, their relationship flowered — until it soured.Earl Washington loves wood.He loves maple wood from Wisconsin and boxwood from Turkey. He loves running his hands on its surface, feeling its heft and texture. But most of all he loves carving it. Thoughts about carving, he says, consume his waking moments.“If I’m looking at your face when I’m talking to you, I’m literally looking at how I’m going to carve your eyes and carve your nose on a piece of wood,” he said in an interview.For decades, beginning in the late 1990s, Washington, 62, created thousands of ornate woodblocks and used them to make intricate prints of all kinds of things: biblical imagery, erotica, anatomical illustrations, the stark motifs of German expressionism.Mastery was never enough for him, though. To profitably sell woodblocks — which can be an oddity in the art market — Washington decided he also needed myth. So he created elaborate origin stories for his pieces. Some, he claimed, had been made or acquired by his great-grandfather. Others he promoted as rare creations from the 16th and 17th centuries.Thousands of people bought them unquestioningly, but a few became suspicious and raised concerns online and to the authorities. The F.B.I. fielded some complaints, but was not aware, it said later, of the “depth and the breadth” of Washington’s scheme, so he continued to sell his creations, having mastered the craft of carving and the art of fooling others.Until one day in 2013, when he met Douglas Arbittier.Everything Earl Washington feels about wood, Arbittier feels about medical antiques.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