Karen Zraick

Tchen was a founder of the organization’s signature initiative: a legal-defense fund for women in all industries who experienced sexual harassment at work. The fund has so far raised more than $24 million.

The previous chief executive, Lisa Borders, resigned abruptly in February, after less than four months on the job, after her adult son was accused of sexual misconduct. Rebecca Goldman, who had served as interim chief executive, will continue as chief operating officer.

Tchen, 63, called it “the role of a lifetime” after more than 30 years of working on diversity and inclusion. She said it was a pivotal moment in which those issues had come to the forefront around the world.

“We are having a global conversation around workplaces, around the role of women and gender equity, in a way that in those three decades, I’ve never seen before,” she said Friday.

The organization is also starting a new project called the Time’s Up Impact Lab, focused on research and policies about sexual harassment and other forms of workplace discrimination. The lab received a significant contribution from Pivotal Ventures, an incubator founded by Melinda Gates and led by Jennifer Klein, a strategist for Time’s Up.

The organization declined to say exactly how much Pivotal Ventures had donated. In an article in Time, Gates pledged to donate $1 billion over the next 10 years to expand women’s power and influence in the United States. She wrote that the group would focus on dismantling barriers to women’s professional advancement; fast-tracking women in sectors such as technology, media and politics; and pressuring companies and organizations to change policies.

A short history of Time’s Up

Time’s Up was founded two years ago amid the fallout from revelations about Harvey Weinstein and other powerful Hollywood figures. Actresses, producers, agents and other women began to meet and strategize about a campaign for gender parity and workplace safety. They were prompted to think about women in other industries by an open letter from female farmworkers with the group Alianza Nacional de Campesinas that expressed both sympathy and solidarity.

Time’s Up was a formidable presence at the Golden Globes in January 2018. Members invited activists as their guests, and most celebrities attending the awards show wore black as a sign of solidarity. Many added pins with the Time’s Up logo.

The legal defense fund was started the same month, and since then, it has connected more than 3,600 workers in dozens of industries to legal or public relations support for sexual harassment cases. They have included farmworkers, wait staff, FBI agents and opera singers. Most had low incomes, the organization said.

The fund is administered by the National Women’s Law Center. Major initial donors included Shonda Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep. Nearly 800 lawyers have volunteered free or low-cost legal services.

The other co-founders of the fund are the lawyer Robbie Kaplan; Fatima Goss Graves, the president and chief executive of the National Women’s Law Center; and the communications strategist Hilary Rosen.

Kaplan, who is best known for representing Edith Windsor in the Supreme Court case that forced the government to recognize same-sex marriage, said in a statement that Tchen “is like my long-lost sister — someone I have looked up to since we first worked on a case together years ago.”

While pursuing individual cases, the organization also tried to work with lawmakers and others around the country to amend or introduce legislation related to sexual assault and workplace discrimination. Perhaps its most notable victory so far was a bill signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York last month to extend the statute of limitations in certain rape cases.

Cuomo was joined at the signing by Kaplan and actresses affiliated with Time’s Up, including Julianne Moore, Mira Sorvino and Michelle Hurd.

The organization has also pushed studios to hire more women directors, producers and executives, and has created projects focused on other industries, like health care and advertising.

A little more about Tchen

Tchen currently leads Buckley LLP’s workplace culture practice, and will leave the firm to become president and chief executive of Time’s Up on Nov. 1. She will continue as a chairwoman of the group The United State of Women, along with Valerie Jarrett, her former colleague in the Obama White House.

At the White House, Tchen headed the Office of Public Engagement and the White House Council on Women and Girls, and served as an assistant to the president and chief of staff to the first lady. Before that, she was a longtime lawyer and partner at the corporate firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &amp; Flom. In an interview, she made a point of mentioning that she had also been a single mother throughout her career.

Tchen also serves on several advisory boards, and was asked to help two high-profile organizations after gender-related controversies in the last two years. The first was the Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys. Its previous president, Neil Portnow, came under fire for saying that women in music should “step up” to advance their careers, though the vast majority of nominees are male. Tchen served as chairwoman of a task force on inclusion and diversity for the organization.

In March, she was asked to be an adviser to the Southern Poverty Law Center after accusations of sexual harassment and racism surfaced at the civil rights nonprofit. Tchen said both projects were wrapping up.

She will continue to be based in Chicago, where she said Time’s Up would open an office.

In a statement, Rimes and the actress Eva Longoria, both principal founders of Time’s Up, praised Tchen for her dedication and vision.

“She has been with us since the beginning, honoring our commitment to transform work for women everywhere,” Longoria said.

This article originally appeared in

Tina Tchen, Ex-Obama Aide, Will Take Over Time's Up

Time’s Up, the advocacy organization founded by powerful women in Hollywood as the MeToo movement roiled the nation, has appointed Tina Tchen, a lawyer and former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, as its new chief executive.

James Fields Jr., 21, faced 29 federal charges for his actions at the “Unite the Right” rally. They included one count of a hate crime that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, an anti-racism activist, and 28 counts for the injuries to nearly 40 other protesters. Each of the 29 counts carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.

Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement that the hate crimes “were also acts of domestic terrorism.”

“In the aftermath of the mass murder in New Zealand earlier this month,” Barr said, “we are reminded that a diverse and pluralistic community such as ours can have zero tolerance for violence on the basis of race, religion, or association with people of other races and religions.”

He added that prosecuting hate crimes was a priority for his office.

Fields was convicted in December of first-degree murder and other state charges connected to the attack. The jury found that Fields intentionally plowed his car into a crowd of people protesting against white nationalists, and recommended that he spend the rest of his life in prison.

He was also convicted of nine other state charges, including aggravated malicious wounding and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, for which the jury recommended a sentence of hundreds more years in prison.

He is due to be sentenced on both the federal and state charges in July, The Associated Press reported.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/us/charlottesville-attack-james-fields.html" id="13107410-3f6c-3631-ad34-b48da54a3604">The New York Times</a>.

Charlottesville Attacker Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crimes Charges

A man convicted of murder for killing a woman when he drove into a crowd protesting a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to additional federal hate crimes charges on Wednesday.

Not as lifelike as a drill at an Indiana elementary school in January, according to teachers there, whose union says they were shot with plastic pellets that caused welts, cuts and bruises.

The teachers’ experience at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, Indiana, was detailed by a representative from their union in testimony before state legislators this week. The union was promoting a provision that would bar trainers from shooting school staff members or students with any kind of projectile during safety drills.

During the active-shooter drill, “four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles — resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn,” the union, the Indiana State Teachers Association, wrote on Twitter during the hearing.

“The teachers were terrified, but were told not to tell anyone what happened,” the union said. “Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated.”

The teachers have not been publicly identified, and none have spoken on the record about their experience.

One teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said trainers fired pellet guns at the teachers during several training exercises, not just the execution-style shooting. But in other exercises “you were allowed to try to not get hit,” she said in a phone interview Friday.

She said the teachers were not told they were going to be shot before the execution-style shooting exercise began, and the trainers did not ask the teachers about their medical histories before subjecting them to physical force.

“It hurt really bad,” said the woman, who said she was left with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts that took almost two weeks to heal. “You don’t know who you are shooting and what types of experience those individuals had in the past, whether they had PTSD or anything else. And we didn’t know what we were going into.”

She described the training as frightening, painful and insulting.

“What makes it more outrageous is they thought we would need to have that experience of being shot to take this seriously,” she said. “When I thought about it that way, I really started to get angry. Like we are not professionals. It felt belittling.”

Dan Holub, executive director of the Indiana State Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said that teachers recognized the need for safety training but that the risks of venturing so far into realism outweighed the benefits.

“We need to use common sense — and not use these extreme methods of training,” he said.

The provision that the union is pushing for is an amendment to a school safety bill that would require schools to conduct annual active-shooter drills. The bill would also provide schools with funding for school resource officers and mental health services. It has passed the House and is now in the Senate.

The author of the House bill, Rep. Wendy McNamara, who is also a high school principal, said it was based on the recommendations of a task force authorized by the governor to examine school safety practices after the Parkland, Florida, shooting.

She said she learned of the drill only after her bill passed, but she would work with colleagues to try to add appropriate language to protect teachers during safety drills.

“You can only assume that people would want to be reasonable and put those protections in,” she said. “And if not, then I’ll find a way to make sure that happens.”

Holub, whose organization represents 40,000 educators from kindergarten to 12th grade across the state, said it was the first time he had heard of such injuries during a safety drill. He added that he believed the police officers carrying out the exercise had gone beyond the prescribed curriculum of the training.

The White County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the drill, did not respond to a request for comment. Sheriff Bill Brooks told The Indianapolis Star that his officers would not use the pellets during teacher trainings anymore.

Twin Lakes School Corp., which oversees Meadowlawn and four other schools in or near Monticello, about 90 minutes north of Indianapolis, issued a statement Thursday about the training.

The corporation said it routinely teamed up with the sheriff’s office to run safety drills, including “ALICE training,” which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. After teachers voiced concern about the training, the corporation met with them and the sheriff’s office to discuss the matter, the statement said.

The ALICE trainings were developed by a private company after the Columbine shooting in 1999 and are now used in schools around the country.

ALICE trainings have been criticized at times for their approach, which encourages countering — if there is no way to escape — in order to distract and disrupt a gunman.

In a statement, the ALICE Training Institute said its methods “empower individuals to participate in their own survival in the face of violence.”

The statement said the institute has tens of thousands of certified instructors across the country, and said local agencies were best positioned to adapt the trainings to an institution or community’s needs.

“ALICE training provides proactive response options to increase survivability,” the statement said.

While school security has become a huge growth industry, experts caution that there is a scarcity of research about which tactics are most appropriate. Debates have erupted over arming teachers, the usefulness of metal detectors and best practices during unthinkable scenarios.

“I’m not sure that one mock example of this would ever prepare anyone for what occurs during a true active-shooting situation,” Holub said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/indiana-teachers-shot.html" id="8ef5717b-0d9c-37e5-a9d5-3b482bf7806c">The New York Times</a>.

How realistic should active-shooter trainings be?

Indiana Teachers Were Shot With Pellets During Active-Shooter Drill, Union Says

The author of the House bill, Rep. Wendy McNamara, who is also a high school principal, said it was based on the recommendations of a task force authorized by the governor to examine school safety practices after the Parkland shooting.

She said that she learned of the drill only after her bill passed, but that she would work with colleagues to try to add appropriate language to protect teachers during safety drills.

The Twin Lakes School Corp., which oversees Meadowlawn and four other schools in or near Monticello, about 90 minutes north of Indianapolis, issued a statement Thursday about the training.

The corporation said that it routinely teamed up with the sheriff’s office to run safety drills, including “ALICE training,” which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. After teachers voiced concern about the training, the corporation met with them and the sheriff’s office to discuss the matter, the statement said.

ALICE trainings have been criticized at times for their approach, which encourages countering — if there is no way to escape — in order to distract and disrupt a gunman. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

While school security has become a huge growth industry, experts also caution that there is a scarcity of research about which tactics are most appropriate. Debates have erupted over arming teachers, the usefulness of metal detectors and best practices during unthinkable scenarios.

“I’m not sure that one mock example of this would ever prepare anyone for what occurs during a true active shooting situation,” Holub said.

Supporters of the bill, approved by the Republican-controlled House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice on Tuesday, contend that it is meant merely to resolve questions over how to put Amendment 4, which voters approved in November, into practice.

But voting rights advocates say the bill would unfairly punish those who are unable to pay and undermine the central objective of the amendment: ending permanent disenfranchisement.

“This bill is just flying directly in the face of what two-thirds of Florida voters said very clearly,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

Since the amendment took effect in January, it has caused some confusion. It did not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, and questions arose about which crimes should be counted in those categories.

More contentious is the financial issue: Would felons be required to pay up for their sentence to be pronounced “completed?”

The bill, which would also clarify the relevant offenses, passed the subcommittee by a vote of 10-5, split along party lines, with the Democrats opposed.

The financial question led a Democratic opponent of the bill, Rep. Adam Hattersley, to label it “blatantly unconstitutional as a poll tax,” a reference to the fees used to keep African-Americans from voting in the South starting in the 1890s. (African-Americans are disproportionately affected by felony disenfranchisement, though the majority of Floridians with felony convictions are white.)

Rep. James Grant, a Republican and the subcommittee’s chairman, has said that the goal of the bill is to establish a uniform set of criteria to determine who is legally eligible to vote.

Politico reported Tuesday that the measure was expected to move easily through the House, and that the Senate was preparing its own bill containing “guidance” on how the amendment should be put into effect. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.

The matter is especially pernicious in Florida because of the state’s rigid rules on fines and fees, said Ashley Thomas, the Florida director of the nonprofit Fines and Fees Justice Center. Almost no waivers are granted to the indigent, she said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/us/florida-felon-voting-rights.html" id="56456b5b-45a3-3daf-aa06-18285225035d">The New York Times</a>.

A Florida House panel this week approved a bill that would require felons to pay fees and fines before having their voting rights restored, prompting criticism from those who say it would undermine a new amendment that allows more than 1 million felons to vote again.

Florida House Panel Approves Bill That Would Set Terms on Voting Rights for Felons

That’s the advice from astrologers while the planet Mercury is in retrograde, which lasts until March 28 this time around. The phrase has become a go-to explanation — or scapegoat — for when things go a little haywire.

Of course, actual scientists point out that any “retrograde” motion by Mercury is an optical illusion. And they vigorously dispute the core belief of astrology, that the motion of the planets can influence events here on Earth. In fact, studies have shown no correlation between the behavior of planets and of people.

Astrologers and their many loyal followers are not persuaded about that.

But two prominent astrologers we spoke to said there was some exaggeration in the popular mind about the chaos caused by Mercury’s motion.

Susan Miller, the force behind the popular site Astrology Zone, finds the alarmist headlines about “surviving” Mercury in retrograde to be a bit much.

“It’s not tragic,” she said. “It’s annoying.”

Chani Nicholas, whose writing is infused with political and social commentary, agreed. “It’s given way too much emphasis generally,” she said.

They preach caution, not panic. For example, you might have to purchase a gadget while Mercury is in retrograde. That’s fine.

“Just keep your receipts,” Nicholas said.

Mercury is the planet closest to the sun, and it revolves around the sun in just 88 days. That’s much faster than Earth, which takes 365 days to make the trip.

Rick Fienberg, a spokesman for the American Astronomical Society in Washington, suggests picturing Mercury as a race car in an inner lane and Earth in an outer lane, as they both make their way around a circular track. Mercury is going much faster and has a shorter distance to travel.

Now, on to the issue of direction: If you watch the planets from the Northern Hemisphere, most of the time they appear to be going right to left, over a period of several weeks, as seen against the starry background. (Mercury is also hard for us to see — it’s visible only close to sunrise and sunset.)

But three or four times a year, an optical illusion occurs: It looks as if Mercury is going backward. It happens when Mercury is passing between Earth and the sun, leaving Earth in its dust. That’s Mercury retrograde, and it lasts for about three weeks each time. The next one starts July 7.

“It’s lapping us, basically,” Fienberg said. “It’s coming around and it’s going to pass us."

The visual effect is similar to when you speed up to pass another car, and it looks for a moment as if the other car is slowing down — but it’s really just maintaining its speed.

Astrology has soared in popularity in recent years, particularly among young, female and queer online communities. Miller said that her site received 300 million page views in the last year alone. And this year, she said, there has been an uptick in concern about Mercury retrograde. (Online searches for the term have risen dramatically over the past five years, according to Google data.)

“The meteoric rise of New Age practices may be trendy, but it’s one way millennials are acknowledging that the current system isn’t working,” Krista Burton wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed last year.

“We’re trying out new things that are actually old things; we’re seeing what else could make life a little more meaningful, a little more bearable.”

But astrology is sometimes met with ridicule or derision by scientists and nonbelievers. Nicholas said she was emphatically pro-science, and “baffled” about the negative reaction that some people have to astrology.

“It’s a waste of your energy to be hating on astrology, because we really aren’t out here trying to harm people,” she said.

The National Science Board, which submits biennial reports to Congress on the state of science and engineering in the United States, including attitudes toward “pseudoscience,” has also found that younger Americans are less likely to reject astrology. Its 2018 report found that 54 percent of those 18 to 25, and 53 percent of those 25 to 34, said astrology was “not at all scientific.” Among all respondents, that number was 60 percent.

And a Pew Research Center survey of American adults released last year found that 37 percent of women and 20 percent of men said they believed in astrology. The numbers were highest among people ages 30 to 49, followed by those who were 18 to 29.

Many people, of course, may peruse their horoscope without embracing all of the teachings of astrology. And having “Mercury retrograde” as a go-to phrase to describe things going wrong can be pretty useful.

Both Miller and Nicholas said that there were positive aspects to Mercury being in retrograde, and that it was a good opportunity to look back, reflect and regroup.

Nicholas is using the time to complete revisions on her upcoming book about astrology and radical self-acceptance, due out in December.

“My main concern is that everyone has access to the therapies and practices that are healing to them,” Nicholas said.

“And if astrology is not that for you, then great, move on.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/style/mercury-retrograde-facts.html" id="0d231ba2-c433-3c65-abbe-991bc9e47c44">The New York Times</a>.

Do not sign contracts. Do not buy electronics, or anything with moving parts or gears. Do not be surprised if the mail is screwed up, or something goes awry when you’re in transit. And be mindful: You’re liable to forget something, like your glasses or phone.

Mercury Is in Retrograde. Don't Be Alarmed.

While it was only a short test flight — less than 3 miles in total — the team that created the drone at the University of Maryland says it was a worldwide first and a crucial step in its quest to speed up the delicate and time-sensitive task of delivering donated organs.

The team’s leader, Dr. Joseph R. Scalea, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said he pursued the project after constant frustration over organs taking too long to reach his patients. After organs are removed from a donor, they become less healthy with each passing second. He recalled one case when a kidney from Alabama took 29 hours to reach his hospital.

“Had I put that in at nine hours, the patient would probably have another several years of life,” Scalea said Tuesday. “Why can’t we get that right?”

To carry out the project, Scalea’s team of medical experts worked with colleagues in aviation and engineering at the university, as well as the Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland, which oversees organ donations. He performed the transplant along with two other surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Dr. Rolf N. Barth and Dr. Talal Al-Qaoud.

The woman who received the kidney, Trina Glispy, a 44-year-old nursing assistant from Baltimore, said she had begun to lose hope before she got a call on April 18, when she learned she had matched with a donor.

Glispy, who has three children, had discovered her kidneys were failing in 2011, when a patient kicked her at work and her leg swelled dramatically. She started on dialysis three times a week, for four hours each time, draining her energy. It became hard to do the physical labor required at her job at a Veterans Affairs hospital, which she had loved.

So she was thrilled and relieved when she got the call, fittingly, during a dialysis session. The surgery went smoothly, and 11 days later, Glispy said she was doing well. She expressed gratitude as she recalled her worst fears during her years of treatment.

“I feel very fortunate, especially after watching so many people pass being on dialysis,” she said. “I’m seeing a lot of people die and I’m like, ‘It’s taking so long, it might not happen for me either.’”

Dialysis can be taxing on the body and does not cure kidney disease. Life expectancy for patients on dialysis varies greatly, but the average is five to 10 years, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Kidney transplants can improve life expectancy and quality of life, but many people who get one eventually need another.

The United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the American transplant system, says that although the need for organs still far exceeds supply, donations are at historic highs. From January to March, 9,500 transplants were performed, from 4,500 donors.

But there are still about 75,000 people who are cleared to have surgery and are waiting for organ donations. Including those not currently eligible for surgery, more than 113,000 people are waiting for organs.

The shortage of organs has lethal consequences. In 2017, the agency said, more than 6,500 candidates died while on the waitlist, or within 30 days of leaving the list for personal or medical reasons without receiving a transplant. That makes the notion of an organ becoming less healthy during transit all the more galling, Scalea said.

The drone used had backup propellers and motors, dual batteries and a parachute recovery system, to guard against catastrophe if one component encountered a problem 400 feet in the air. Two pilots on the ground monitored it using a wireless network, and were prepared to override the automated flight plan in case of emergency. The drone also had built-in devices to measure temperature, barometric pressure and vibrations, among other indicators.

Scalea called the flight “proof of concept that this broken system can be innovated.”

He added that current organ transport is “data-blind,” meaning doctors often cannot see an organ’s progress in transit. The drone allows timely updates on its progress, the way you might track an approaching taxi on your phone.

“We can monitor in real time,” Scalea said. “It’s like Uber for organs.”

The drone flew over 700 hours in 44 test flights before this journey, he added. The exercise allowed the team to overcome logistical and regulatory hurdles involved in transporting a viable organ, and it will now focus on flying “farther and faster,” he said.

Dr. Christopher Marsh, director of the transplant program at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, and a member of the American Society of Transplantation, said it was too early to pass judgment on the reliability of delivering organs by drone. But surgeons would be keeping a close eye on developments, he said.

Marsh, who was not affiliated with the test, noted that the technology could be helpful to avoid traffic in big cities.

“We’re entering a new world,” he said. “Things change, so we have to be open to that.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/health/drone-delivers-kidney.html" id="fa3b780b-55e6-3fe0-a9a1-cfc00c8305f8">The New York Times</a>.

A custom-made drone delivered a kidney recently to a Maryland woman who had waited eight years for a lifesaving transplant.

Like 'Uber for Organs': Drone Delivers Kidney to Maryland Woman

The Bible was among hundreds of rare books, maps and other items, worth about $8 million in total, that the authorities have said were stolen by the archivist in charge of the collection over nearly 20 years.

Prosecutors say the archivist, Gregory Priore, 62, sometimes walked out of the building with the items in plain sight. He then sold the works to a prominent book dealer, John Schulman, 55, whose shop was a block away and who had appeared as an expert appraiser on the television show “Antiques Roadshow,” according to an affidavit.

The two men were charged last year with numerous counts of theft, conspiracy and other charges, and await trial. Robert G. Del Greco Jr., a lawyer for Schulman, said his client maintained his innocence, but declined to comment otherwise. A lawyer for Priore did not immediately return a call on Friday.

FBI officials said they had given the Bible to the office of the Allegheny County district attorney, Stephen A. Zappala Jr., who is prosecuting the case and will use the Bible as evidence.

The Bible is similar to one known to have been carried to North America by the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, Robert Jones, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said at a news conference Thursday.

“One can only imagine the journey this particular Carnegie Library Bible has taken,” Jones said.

Using sales records, investigators last year traced the Bible to a museum focused on American pilgrims in Leiden, Netherlands, said the museum’s director, Jeremy Bangs.

Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney, said the museum bought the Bible in 2015 through a private seller for $1,200, and that it was currently appraised at $5,500.

Bangs, an American historian who has lived in the Netherlands for decades, said he had acquired the Bible from a reputable seller for exhibitions, scheduled to take place in 2020 and 2021 in Massachusetts, on the books that Pilgrims owned.

The Bible was translated by English Protestant exiles in Geneva during the reign of Queen Mary Tudor, the museum’s site notes. It is also called a “Breeches Bible” because of its unusual translation in Genesis 3:7 — “Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knewe that they were naked, and they sewed figtree leaues together, and made themselues breeches,” the site states. The King James Bible does not use the word “breeches.”

An addition to the book’s cover, which Bangs said was most likely made in the 19th century, reads “Holy Bible —- Breeches Edition.” It is weathered, with evidence of mold on some pages, and loose binding.

Bangs said that investigators initially contacted him last year and asked him to mail the Bible back. Given its delicate condition, he questioned whether the request was real, he said.

After learning more about the Pittsburgh case, Bangs said he contacted the Dutch police, who assigned an investigator trained in handling artwork to take possession of the Bible and transport it to the U.S. Embassy. The FBI said its own Art Crime Team helped to bring the Bible back to the United States, covered in Bubble Wrap and nestled in a protective container.

Manko said investigators were making progress in recovering other works as well. An initial search turned up 24 items, and 18 “cannibalized” or partial items, from a warehouse. Since then, investigators have recovered 18 books and 293 maps, plates and pamphlets, worth about $1.6 million, he said.

The case has shocked the rare-book world. Until the theft was discovered and Priore was fired in 2017, he had been the sole archivist for the collection of rare books in the Oliver Room at the Carnegie Library, which is Pittsburgh’s public library system. Schulman was a respected member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. The organization said he once led its ethics committee.

Over the years, Priore would carry items out of the library and drop them off at the shop, the affidavit states. Priore sometimes used an X-acto knife to remove part of a book and sell it individually, prosecutors contend. The affidavit states that Schulman paid Priore up front and then resold many of the items.

Priore said he needed the money to “stay afloat” and pay tuition for his four children, and accused Schulman of spurring him on, the affidavit shows.

“I should never have done this,” he told investigators. “I loved that room, my whole working life, and greed came over me.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/geneva-bible.html" id="a97b48c0-ec50-347b-a999-b3afca04fe04">The New York Times</a>.

400-Year-Old Bible Stolen From Pittsburgh Library Is Recovered in the Netherlands

A 1615 Geneva Bible stolen two decades ago from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh in a long-running theft scheme has been recovered from a Dutch museum, the FBI announced Thursday.

The first case involved Sgt. Robert Stamm of the Virginia Division of Capitol Police, who had been assigned to protests calling on Gov. Ralph Northam to resign over a racist yearbook photo that surfaced in February.

Anti-Fascists of the Seven Hills, which said it was based in Richmond, Virginia, wrote online in February that Stamm came to its attention because he had a large Band-Aid covering his neck while patrolling. The group found photos on social media of Stamm with tattoos, flags and banners that used white supremacist symbols and images, it said in a blog post.

It also said he was linked to the Asatru Folk Assembly, an extremist group that invokes pre-Christian Nordic religion and culture and has spread through the Virginia jail system. In 2015, the FBI foiled a plot by members of the group to attack black churches and synagogues as part of a plan to incite a race war in the Chesterfield area.

Stamm was suspended after the group published its post. On Wednesday, Col. Anthony Pike, the Capitol Police chief, announced in a statement that Stamm had been “separated from his employment.” He did not explain what had led to the firing.

In the second case, Daniel Morley, a school resource officer with the Chesterfield County Police Department, was fired Thursday following an investigation into allegations that he was affiliated with the group Identity Evropa, also known as the American Identity Movement. Members of that group helped plan the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Antifa Seven Hills had identified Morley as a “pledge coordinator” for the group, which recruits on college campuses and elsewhere. Antifa said Morley was responsible “for guiding new applicants through the vetting process” and had been a member since 2017.

Morley was suspended in March while the department investigated the claims. Col. Jeffrey Katz, the police chief, wrote on social media Thursday that investigators had authenticated the online postings and activities.

“The views espoused by and attributed to Mr. Morley violate county and departmental policy and our organizational values; his continued employment is antithetical to the expectations of our personnel and those we serve,” he wrote.

The anti-fascist group also alleged that Stamm and Morley knew each other, and in March it posted what it said was a photo of the two together.

Efforts to reach both men Thursday night were unsuccessful.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/white-nationalists-virginia-police.html" id="cf9eacd3-a34a-3d78-aa4a-9c2927af34c8">The New York Times</a>.

Two Virginia police officers who worked for different agencies were fired this week after an anti-fascist group linked them to white nationalist organizations.

2 Virginia Police Officers Are Fired Amid Allegations of Links to White Nationalists

The footage appeared to have been shot two years earlier, on Jan. 1, 2015, hours after the couple had hosted a New Year’s party at their Minnesota home. It showed her husband forcibly penetrating her with an object as she slept in their bed, their 4-year-old son asleep beside her, according to a criminal complaint. She was motionless as he attacked her. She believes she had been drugged.

Teeson, now 39, told the police about the video when she found it. But under a state law known as the “voluntary relationship defense,” some of the most serious sex crimes charges cannot be brought against an accuser’s spouse or domestic partner. Her husband ended up being charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony.

While marital rape has been a crime in all 50 states since 1993 — a milestone achieved after years of dogged campaigning by women’s rights activists — the overwhelming majority of states still have loopholes on the books that can make it difficult, or even impossible, to prosecute such cases, according to data compiled by AEquitas, a nonprofit in Washington that assists prosecutors in gender-based violence cases.

Those loopholes can take many forms, involving the statute of limitations, use of force, age or the victim’s capacity to consent. In Minnesota, sex with someone who is physically helpless, as Teeson was, cannot be prosecuted as rape if the two people are married or domestic partners.

Though she was devastated to learn of the arcane law in Minnesota, Teeson quickly threw herself into the fight to change it, meeting with lawmakers and testifying at the state Capitol.

In February, her campaign scored a major victory. A bill to repeal the voluntary relationship defense unanimously passed the state House. Lawmakers gave Teeson a standing ovation.

“It felt very powerful to be able to speak because I’ve been silent for so long,” she said.

The bill is now making its way through the Senate, where it is sponsored by Sen. Michelle Benson, a Republican. The full Senate is expected to vote on the bill before the summer recess begins May 21. A spokeswoman for Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said he would sign it if it passes.

Rep. Zack Stephenson, a Democrat and the chief author of the House bill, credited Teeson as the driving force behind the legislation. He is a local prosecutor, and he said he was “flabbergasted” when he heard her story.

“This is not a controversial issue,” Stephenson said. “It’s something that should have happened a long time ago.”

The fight to criminalize marital rape stretches back decades

While the issue of marital rape came up as early as the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, it was eclipsed by the push for voting rights, said Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of the National Judicial Education Program at Legal Momentum, a women’s legal defense organization.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that women’s rights activists started campaigning for states to criminalize marital rape, a difficult goal in male-dominated state legislatures. By 1993, they had succeeded in all 50 states, though the laws and legal precedents vary widely.

Laura X, a Berkeley-based activist who worked on campaigns in dozens of states as director of the National Clearinghouse on Marital and Date Rape, said activists were fighting against the notion that men were somehow entitled to their partner’s bodies.

“It was a principle that nobody should own another person that drove most of us through those decades,” she said.

American statutes on marital rape were carried over from English laws, which drew on writings by the 17th-century jurist Matthew Hale on “contractual consent.” Schafran said they were tied to the notion that rape by an intimate partner was somehow less painful.

“In fact, the opposite is true,” she said. “The loss of trust is devastating.”

Hurdles to prosecution persist in most states

AEquitas, which maintains a comprehensive database on marital rape laws, said hurdles to prosecuting sexual misconduct involving spouses or partners existed in 41 of 58 jurisdictions it reviewed. Those include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and federal and military law.

That is piled on top of the difficulties of prosecuting intimate partner rape at all. Cases are rarely reported, there are often no witnesses, and many victims struggle with testifying against a former partner.

Yet many instances of sexual violence occur within intimate relationships. An estimated 9 percent of women are raped by an intimate partner at some point, and an estimated 16 percent experience other forms of sexual violence by their partner, according to federal data.

“It’s long overdue to treat rape in the marital setting with the same seriousness as rape that occurs outside of it,” said Sunu Chandy, legal director for the National Women’s Law Center.

“I’m glad to see Minnesota is making strides in that direction, and I hope other states will follow suit.”

A stark illustration of the problem

In March 2017, Teeson discovered a trove of videos that her husband had secretly filmed. They included clips of her getting dressed, of the two of them having sex, and of his co-workers in the bathroom, she said.

The files, which she had found on an unfamiliar flash drive, shocked and terrified her, but they also gave her some much-needed clarity: She had to seek a divorce from her husband, Matthew Charles Heger.

Jenny Teeson was in the middle of a divorce when she found a video of her husband sexually assaulting her in her sleep. The discovery turned her into a leading advocate for overturning archaic laws that can make it nearly impossible to prosecute men for marital rape.

Karen Zraick

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