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☆ Five Years After Virginia Beach Shooting, ‘No One Is Getting Better’
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-31 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At the end of the event, the site of a future memorial will be dedicated, where, eventually, the 12 names will be etched into the landscape of Virginia Beach. The children of Mary Louise Gayle, whose name will be among them, have no plans to be at the ceremony. Matthew Gayle, her son, is resuming a sailing trip he cut short exactly five years earlier when he learned of a shooting at his mother’s workplace. They could not bring themselves to join hands with a city that they, and members of some of other victims’ families, say let them down. What troubled her so much was that her mother, along with nearly all the other victims, had spent most of her career with the city.

Persons: Mary Louise Gayle, Sarah Leonard, Matthew Gayle, ” Ms, Leonard Locations: Virginia Beach

☆ Work to Move Cargo Ship That Crashed Into Baltimore Bridge Starts Slowly
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-20 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nearly eight weeks after the container ship Dali rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, efforts were underway on Monday to move it back to a berth in the Port of Baltimore. The operation appeared to be off to a slow start, with five tugboats surrounding the giant ship but no official word that the move was underway an hour after its anticipated 5:30 a.m. start. The bridge collapsed on impact, killing six workers doing repairs on the bridge roadway, clogging the waterway with around 50,000 tons of metal and debris, and disrupting the commerce of one of the nation’s key shipping hubs. The salvage and recovery operation has involved more than a thousand workers and scores of barges, cranes, helicopters and Coast Guard cutters. Authorities set a goal of reopening that channel by the end of May.

Persons: Dali, Francis Scott Key Organizations: Coast Guard, Authorities Locations: Port of Baltimore

☆ Gov. Jim Justice Faces Heavy Business Debts as He Seeks Senate Seat
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-12 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Maureen Farrell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jim Justice, the businessman-turned-politician governor of West Virginia, has been pursued in court for years by banks, governments, business partners and former employees for millions of dollars in unmet obligations. And for a long time, Mr. Justice and his family’s companies have managed to stave off one threat after another with wily legal tactics notably at odds with the aw-shucks persona that has endeared him to so many West Virginians. But now, as he wraps up his second term as governor and campaigns for a seat in the U.S. Senate, things are looking dicier. Much like Donald J. Trump, with whom he is often compared — with whom he often compares himself — Mr. Justice has faced a barrage of costly judgments and legal setbacks. And this time, there may be too many, some suspect, for Mr. Justice, 73, and his family to fend them all off.

Persons: Jim Justice, Joe Manchin III, Donald J, — Mr, Justice Organizations: West Virginians, Republican Senate, Democratic, U.S . Senate, Trump Locations: West Virginia, West, U.S

☆ Schools in One Virginia County to Reinstate Confederate Names
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-10 | by ( Campbell Robertson | More About Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After a meeting that lasted for hours, the Shenandoah County school board voted early Friday morning to restore the names of three Confederate officers to schools in the district. With the vote, the district appears to be the first in the country to return Confederate names to schools that had removed them after the summer of 2020, according to researchers at the Montgomery, Ala.-based Equal Justice Initiative. The schools were renamed the next year as Honey Run and Mountain View. But a fury had been unleashed in the rural county in the mountains of Virginia. People crowded into school board meetings, denouncing the naming process as secretive and rushed, and voicing deeper resentments about cultural changes they saw as being foisted upon them.

Persons: George Floyd, — Ashby, Lee Elementary, Stonewall Jackson, Honey Organizations: Initiative, Lee, Stonewall Locations: Shenandoah County, Montgomery, Ala, Virginia

☆ Can Philadelphia Fix One of the Most Drug-Plagued Neighborhoods in the Country?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-07 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Rachel Wisniewski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The vow was unequivocal: The city of Philadelphia was finally going to root out the drug trade that has long monopolized the streets of Kensington. Antonio Alvarez, 58, surrounded by grandchildren on his porch, believed the drug market would go quiet, temporarily, and then return as it always had. Harris Steinberg, 57, standing at the counter of his auto parts shop, said that everything along Kensington Avenue — the tents, dealers and stray needles — was already moving to the neighborhood’s back streets. But, she said, she was stuck on a waiting list for a shelter bed. No one except the drug dealers said that they were happy with how things were in Kensington, one of the most sprawling areas of open drug use and dealing on the East Coast.

Persons: Antonio Alvarez, Harris Steinberg, — Locations: Philadelphia, Kensington, Elizabeth, East

An aerial view of the cargo ship that hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month. The announcement comes ahead of President Biden’s scheduled visit to the site of the wreckage on Friday. The channel will allow one-way traffic of vessels at a time to and from the port, according to the statement. The Biden administration said last week that it was allocating $60 million in emergency federal highway funds, the initial costs of what will likely be a far more costly operation. Mr. Biden has pledged that the federal government would pay for the bridge to be rebuilt.

Persons: Francis Scott Key, Biden’s, Biden Organizations: U.S . Army Corps of Engineers, Army Locations: Baltimore, Port of Baltimore, Patapsco

Follow our live coverage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. But after the cargo ship Dali lost power early Tuesday, there were precious few minutes to act. In those minutes, many people — from the ship’s crew, who sent out a mayday signal, to the transportation authority police officers, who stopped traffic heading onto the Francis Scott Key Bridge — did what they could to avert catastrophe, most likely saving many lives. And the Key Bridge was particularly vulnerable. As long ago as 1980, engineers had warned that the bridge, because of its design, would never be able to survive a direct hit from a container ship.

Persons: Francis Scott Key, Dali Organizations: Eastern Seaboard Locations: Baltimore

But ship collision barriers are standard around the support piers of bridges over major waterways like the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, for example, has massive barriers of concrete and rocks around the bases of the piers that support it. It was not immediately clear how old the barriers are around the piers that supported the bridge in Baltimore. The bridge there was being fitted with devices designed to protect the piers in case of any ship crash. The bridge has massive barriers of concrete and rocks around the bases of the piers that support it and protect it from ship crashes.

Persons: Spencer Platt, Basil M, ”, “, Mr, Karatzas, Amy Chang Chien Organizations: Officials, China Central Television, Getty, Karatzas Marine Advisors Locations: Guangzhou, China, Baltimore, Baltimore’s, New York City, New York

☆ Shani Mott, Black Studies Scholar Who Examined Power All Around Her, Dies at 47
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-24 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Shani Mott, a scholar of Black studies at Johns Hopkins University whose examinations of race and power in America extended beyond the classroom to her employer, her city and even her own home, has died in Baltimore. She died of adrenal cancer on March 12, said her husband, Nathan Connolly, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins. Though Dr. Mott spent her career in some of academia’s elite spaces, she was firmly committed to the idea that scholarship should be grounded and tangible, not succumbing to ivory tower abstraction. She encouraged students to turn a critical eye to their own backgrounds and to the realities of the world around them. In a city like Baltimore, with its complicated and often cruel racial history, there was plenty to scrutinize.

Persons: Shani Mott, Nathan Connolly, Johns Hopkins, Mott, Mott’s, ” Organizations: Johns Hopkins University, Johns, university’s, Africana Studies Locations: America, Baltimore

☆ Indiana Law Requires Professors to Promote ‘Intellectual Diversity’ or Face Penalties
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Anna Betts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A new law in Indiana requires professors in public universities to foster a culture of “intellectual diversity” or face disciplinary actions, including termination for even those with tenure, the latest in an effort by Republicans to assert more control over what is taught in classrooms. The backlash to the legislation, which Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed March 13, has been substantial. Hundreds wrote letters or testified at hearings, and faculty senates at multiple institutions had urged the legislature to reject the bill, condemning it as government overreach and a blow to academic free speech. “The whole point of tenure is to protect academic freedom,” said Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, who described the law as “thought policing.”

Persons: Spencer Deery, Eric Holcomb, overreach, ”, Irene Mulvey Organizations: Republican, American Association of University Locations: Indiana

☆ Amid a Fraught Process, a Philadelphia Museum Entombs Remains of 19 Black People
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There was very little that could be said about the 19 people who were eulogized on Saturday morning in a service at the University of Pennsylvania. Their names were lost, and not much about their lives was known beyond the barest facts: an old age spent in the poorhouse, a problem with cavities. They were Black people who had died in obscurity over a century ago, now known almost entirely by the skulls they left behind. Much more could be said about what led to the service. Jesse Wendell Mapson, a local pastor involved in planning the commemoration and interment of the 19, “has not come without some pain, discomfort and tension.”On this everyone could agree.

Persons: ”, Jesse Wendell Mapson, “ Organizations: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology

☆ Are His Parents Responsible? A Mass Shooter’s Mother Goes on Trial.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Campbell Robertson | More About Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

These starkly different images were presented to jurors in a courtroom in Pontiac, Mich., about 20 miles south of Oxford High School, where the mass shooting took place on Nov. 30, 2021. While the case centered on a momentous legal question — whether parents should be held criminally liable for violent crimes committed by their children — the horror of that day in Oxford hung over the first day of testimony in the trial. School employees, including one who was shot in the arm, testified of the terror they experienced, and surveillance videos of the shooting were played, showing some of the victims. The shooter, Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time, killed four students and injured seven others. He pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Persons: Jennifer Crumbley, Ethan Crumbley Organizations: Oxford High School, School Locations: Michigan, Pontiac, Mich, Oxford

☆ Jewish Groups to Rally for Israel on National Mall
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Jewish organizations in the United States are planning a demonstration for Tuesday on the National Mall in Washington, with tens of thousands expected to gather in a show of solidarity with Israel as it wages war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The rally, called the March for Israel, comes after large protests across the United States and in world capitals denouncing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, which has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis. The event is intended by organizers in part as a response to critics of Israel, where about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack. Jewish groups that have at times clashed over the right approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have announced plans to attend the march. Mr. Fingerhut said the march was also intended to show unity in the face of reports of rising numbers of antisemitic incidents around the country in recent weeks, which he called “an attempt to intimidate the Jewish community and others who support Israel.”

Persons: ”, Eric Fingerhut, Israel, Isaac Herzog, Mike Johnson, Chuck Schumer, Biden, Fingerhut Organizations: Jewish Federations of, Hamas, Educators, Republican, U.S, Health Ministry, Democratic Locations: United States, Washington, Israel, Gaza, Jewish Federations of North America, “, U.S, Louisiana, New York

In 2019, Andy Beshear eked out an upset win for governor of Kentucky, a startling victory for a Democrat in a state that Donald Trump had won in 2016 by around 30 percentage points. But with his re-election on Tuesday, Mr. Beshear, 45, showed that he was more than just lucky. He again won the cities of Louisville and Lexington handily, but also won small rural counties across the state that he had lost four years earlier. The victory followed an aggressive and well-funded campaign that could serve as a blueprint for Democrats across the country, who for years have seen rural states like Kentucky slipping ever further out of reach. It also could position Mr. Beshear as a candidate for national office in 2028 and beyond.

Persons: Andy Beshear eked, Donald Trump, Matt Bevin, Beshear, Daniel Cameron Organizations: Democrat, Republican, Lexington Locations: Kentucky, Louisville

But for a variety of reasons, those facing serious crimes are most often required to serve their sentences in the United States. Image Danelo Cavalcante Credit... Chester County District Attorney's Office, via Associated PressDid U.S. law enforcement know that a fugitive from Brazil was in the United States? Mr. Cavalcante was wanted in Brazil in connection with the slaying of a man in his small town of Figueiropolis in 2017. Even if Brazil had issued an Interpol notice calling for his arrest, the United States would have had no reason to believe he was living in the United States. People who are tried and convicted of a crime in the United States must serve their time here, with rare exceptions.

Persons: Danelo, Danelo Souza Cavalcante, Cavalcante, ”, Aaron Reichlin, Alejandro Mayorkas, Desiree Rios, Biden, Mayorkas, Saul Martinez, noncitizens, ” Mr, Reichlin, Melnick, Eleni Cavalcante, “, William Stock, Stock Organizations: Department of Homeland Security, Prison, Immigrants, Attorney's, Associated Press, . Immigration, Customs, ICE, American Immigration Council, Homeland Security, The New York Times, ., Mr, Congress, United, Pennsylvania State Police, American Immigration Lawyers Association Locations: Pocopson Township, Pa, Brazil, United States, Pennsylvania, Chester, U.S, Chester County, Washington, Figueiropolis, Pompano Beach, Fla, deportable, Philadelphia

☆ Convicted Murderer Captured After 13-Day Manhunt in Pennsylvania
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A convicted murderer who escaped from a Pennsylvania jail and eluded hundreds of law enforcement officers for almost two weeks in quiet, wooded communities outside Philadelphia has been recaptured, the authorities said on Wednesday morning. Officials were expected to release more details later in the morning. The manhunt grew in size and urgency as the days unfolded, becoming especially pressing after Mr. Cavalcante stole a rifle from a garage on the night of Sept. 11. Officials, who had considered him a dangerous fugitive all along, warned that he was “desperate enough” to use the gun. Over the course of the search, Mr. Cavalcante was spotted numerous times, the authorities said, by people in the area and also in the infrared glare of residential security cameras at night.

Persons: Danelo Cavalcante, Cavalcante Locations: Philadelphia, Chester, West Chester, Pa

☆ A Fugitive’s Capture Brings Relief to a Corner of Pennsylvania
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After nearly two weeks of combing the cornfields and dense woods of Chester County, Pa., with hundreds of law enforcement officers and a battery of drones, dogs and helicopters, the capture itself took about five minutes. A little after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, in a densely wooded area of South Coventry Township, a team of officers quietly surrounded Danelo Cavalcante, 34, who had broken out of Chester County Prison, where he was being held after he was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend. He was taken by surprise, officials said, and tried to crawl away through the underbrush, but a search dog caught him. “Subject is in custody,” an officer radioed to dispatchers at 8:16 a.m. “Confirmed, subject is in custody.”So ended a manhunt that had unnerved communities all over Chester County, an affluent suburb of Philadelphia, and even rattled people back in Mr. Cavalcante’s home country of Brazil, where he is wanted in connection with a 2017 killing.

Persons: ”, Cavalcante’s Organizations: Prison Locations: Chester County, Pa, South Coventry Township, Danelo, Chester, Philadelphia, Brazil

☆ Pennsylvania Fugitive Now Armed After Stealing Rifle From Garage
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Campbell Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The fugitive who has eluded the authorities in Pennsylvania for nearly two weeks after breaking out of jail is now armed, having stolen a rifle from a house, officials said on Tuesday. Seeing the tracks of his prison-issued shoes at the scene of the sighting, officers followed the trail into the woods. A little after 10 p.m., Colonel Bivens said, Mr. Cavalcante saw a garage door that was open. He went inside the garage, where he found a .22 caliber rifle leaning in a corner. The owner of the house was in the garage at the time, and fired several shots at Mr. Cavalcante with a pistol, but Mr. Cavalcante escaped with the rifle.

Persons: Cavalcante, Col George Bivens, Bivens Organizations: Pennsylvania State Police Locations: Pennsylvania

He has been spotted several times, even as officers use drones, dogs and helicopters to find and arrest him. Mr. Cavalcante, a Brazilian national, is also wanted for a 2017 murder in his home country. On Saturday night Mr. Cavalcante was seen on a doorbell camera miles away. Police are now searching an area deeper in the Pennsylvania countryside, where he abandoned the van, apparently after it ran out of gas. They urged people in the area to be vigilant and warned of consequences for anyone who helped him.

Persons: Cavalcante Organizations: Police Locations: Brazilian, Pennsylvania

☆ Pennsylvania Fugitive Is Seen About 25 Miles From Previous Search Area
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-10 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Joel Wolfram | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The fugitive who escaped Chester County Prison and has eluded authorities for a week and a half was seen on Saturday night near a town about 25 miles from the area where hundreds of law enforcement officers had been searching for him for days, the Pennsylvania State Police said. The state police released photos early Sunday of Danelo Cavalcante, 34, that they said were taken near Phoenixville, Pa., apparently by a door camera. He was seen clean-shaven, wearing a black baseball cap, a light-colored hooded sweatshirt and green prison pants. He had also apparently obtained a vehicle, a 2020 White Ford van with a refrigeration unit on the top. Late morning Sunday, however, the Pennsylvania State Police said in a message on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that “investigative leads have emerged that indicate Cavalcante is no longer” in the Phoenixville area.

Persons: Danelo Cavalcante, White Ford Organizations: Prison, Pennsylvania State Police Locations: Chester, Phoenixville, Pa

The number of officers searching for Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped from the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31, grew to nearly 400, with multiple helicopters circling and officials abruptly closing roads in an area near Longwood Gardens. Mr. Cavalcante, who was convicted of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death, had been photographed by a trail camera at the gardens Wednesday night and then spotted there again around noon on Thursday. Also on Friday, local officials said the jail had fired a corrections officer who was on duty when Mr. Cavalcante clambered up to a roof to escape. An 18-year veteran of the jail, the officer, who was not named, had been stationed in a watchtower but failed to see Mr. Cavalcante escape the exercise yard. He was put on administrative leave earlier this week and fired on Thursday, said Michelle Bjork, a spokeswoman for the Chester County Commissioners’ Office.

Persons: Danelo Cavalcante, Cavalcante, Michelle Bjork Organizations: ’ Locations: Philadelphia, Chester, Longwood, Chester County

Before Danelo Cavalcante crab-walked his way up and out of the Chester County Prison, launching a sprawling manhunt in the wooded suburbs outside Philadelphia, a man named Igor Bolte escaped from the same jail. The first time was in July 2019, when Mr. Bolte, who was serving a sentence for aggravated assault, walked out of a work-release center at the jail, “scaled a security fence and fled, on foot,” according to an affidavit. He was found early the next morning about a mile and a half from the jail. With Mr. Cavalcante eluding authorities for more than a week now, scrutiny has turned to the jailbreaks at Chester County Prison. The key failing in last week’s escape was that an officer in the tower, charged with watching over the inmates in the exercise yard, did not appear to notice Mr. Cavalcante, said Howard Holland, the acting warden overseeing the jail, in a news conference on Wednesday.

Persons: Igor Bolte, Bolte, “, ” —, Cavalcante, Howard Holland Organizations: Mr Locations: Chester, Philadelphia

☆ With an Escaped Killer Loose, an Unsettling Encounter in a Darkened House
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Joel Wolfram | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In a news conference on Wednesday, Howard Holland, the acting warden of the prison, described for the first time how Mr. Cavalcante escaped. The earlier escape was thwarted within minutes when a corrections officer in a watchtower saw the person fleeing and sounded the alarm. But this time, the officer in the tower, for some reason, did not see Mr. Cavalcante, whose absence was discovered by officers in his cell block nearly an hour later. Mr. Holland said the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office was investigating the escape. For many residents, Mr. Cavalcante has been an unseen presence dominating their daily lives, creating as much of an inconvenience as any sense of panic.

Persons: Howard Holland, Cavalcante, Holland, general’s, George Bivens, Bivens, “, ”, Kristin Muzik Organizations: Pennsylvania State Police Locations: Pennsylvania

☆ Escaped Convict Still at Large Outside Philadelphia
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( Campbell Robertson | Joel Wolfram | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Hundreds of law enforcement officers were scouring the railways, creeks and roads in a suburban county near Philadelphia on Friday, looking for a man who escaped from prison a little over two weeks after being convicted of first-degree murder. The authorities said on Friday that local, state and federal officials were using “helicopters, drones and dogs” to find the convicted murderer, Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped from Chester County Prison early Thursday. “We believe that he is still in the general area,” said Deborah Ryan, the Chester County district attorney, at the Friday news conference. “We believe that he is hiding somewhere locally and that he is alone.”Image Danelo Cavalcante, 34, was last seen on Thursday morning. “We have every reason to believe he is considered dangerous at this time,” she said.

Persons: ”, Danelo Cavalcante, Deborah Ryan, “, Ryan Organizations: Prison, Attorney's, Associated Press, Labor Locations: Philadelphia, Chester, Chester County

A little after 2 p.m. on Tuesday, David Chrzanowski, 31, walked into Knox Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, pushing his baby daughter in a stroller. He was there to vote on Issue 1, a measure meant to raise the vote threshold needed to approve a state constitutional amendment from a simple majority, as most states require, to 60 percent. It was a change that Mr. Chrzanowski, an engineer who described his politics as center right, might have been open to considering, he said — if that were what it was really about. “Everyone kind of knows,” said Mr. Chrzanowski, who, along with 57 percent of Ohio voters on Tuesday, cast his ballot against Issue 1. Supporters of the measure hardly kept this a secret, and campaign donors lined up accordingly: Much of the money in support came from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a Washington-based anti-abortion advocacy group.

Persons: David Chrzanowski, Chrzanowski, ”, Susan B, Anthony Pro Organizations: Knox Presbyterian Church Locations: Cincinnati, Ohio, Washington

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