Free Republic

An Oklahoma district attorney declined to file charges in connection with the death of nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict, officials said Thursday. Benedict, a 16-year-old student at Owasso High School near Tulsa, died by suicide on Feb. 8, one day after a fight in a high school bathroom. "Based upon the investigation of the Owasso Police Department, I am in agreement with their assessment that the filing of juvenile charges is not warranted," Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen A. Kunzweiler said in a statement. "From all of the evidence gathered, this fight was an instance of mutual combat," Kunzweiler wrote.

Carter Brantley Love, a senior photo editor at The New York Times, died Tuesday in his Brooklyn apartment. Love, 41, started his career at Women's Wear Daily and later worked for W magazine. Love took his own life, according to his uncle Ben Brantley. "He had just been very unhappy lately. He was a paradoxical guy. He was very, very sunny to most people that he worked with and that he knew."

The death of a nonbinary teen who collapsed a day after an altercation at a high school in Owasso, Okla., has been ruled a suicide, according to a one-page summary report released Wednesday by the state’s chief medical examiner. Nex Benedict’s death last month triggered vigils not only in that Tulsa suburb but across the country because the sophomore, who used they/them pronouns, had told family that other students were bullying them in school. The fight happened Feb. 7. The 16-year-old collapsed at home the next morning and died within hours at a Tulsa hospital. The medical examiner’s report said...