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Earth Day Is Almost Here–Go Green With These Cool Products

by www.forbes.com Leave a Comment

With Earth Day fast approaching, many of us are trying to find ways to use more earth-friendly items to help us, help the planet. Many companies are now doing their part and are offering products that use sustainable manufacturing processes, organic ingredients and recycled packaging. You can now find these green products in unexpected categories, ranging from furniture to socks to gummies. Below are some of my favorites.

Thuma Beds

Thuma has created furniture that is beautifully designed and incredibly easy to assemble. The Thuma bed can be put together in minutes and looks incredibly stylish once assembled. Even better, the Thuma bed is officially GREENGUARD Gold certified, meaning that all of the materials used meet some of the world’s most rigorous third party emissions standards, making the bed both good for the environment and the consumer. These sleek beds are made from upcycled rubberwood with a lifetime warranty and packaged in recycled cardboard. In addition, Thuma donates one tree for every bed sold and to date the company has planted over 150,000 trees.

Grove Cleaning Supplies

Cleaning products can be notoriously toxic. Grove has created the ultimate online shopping experience for just about everything you need to clean your home in the most eco-conscious way. The company has its own brand, but also curates over 100 sustainable, high-performing brands that meet its four-point standard: uncompromisingly healthy, beautifully effective, ethically produced, and cruelty-free. Every order is plastic neutral; every shipment is carbon neutral and Grove has committed to being 100% plastic-free by 2025. Favorite products include their essential cleaner set and glass spray bottles and their laundry detergent sheets.

Unbound Merino Clothing

The clothing industry is responsible for a surprisingly large amount of environmental damage. Unbound Merino’s clothing features merino wool pieces that are incredibly practical, comfortable and sustainable. These essential pieces don’t wrinkle, naturally keep you cool, are odor-free and make ideal travel pieces. The company’s garments are made from Woolmark certified Australian Merino, regarded as the world’s finest and softest wool. Inherently natural, biodegradable and renewable, their wool is sustainably farmed on Australia’s grassland terrain. Woolmark® certified Merino, adheres to the highest standards related to fiber content, performance, color fastness and dimensional stability.

Our Place Cookware

Cookware is something we use almost every day. Our Place is known for creating beautifully crafted, colorful kitchen tools that are also highly functional and easy to use. Their products are also manufactured using thoughtful and responsible materials. Glassware is made, in part, from recycled glass and natural sand, and is naturally dyed. The ever-popular “Always Pan” is made from a portion of recycled materials as well. Items are shipped in packaging that is 100% plastic-free and recyclable and biodegradable. In addition, Our Place cookware is manufactured in factories with safe and ethical working conditions that pay above a living wage.

Honest Baby Products

Parents are understandably very concerned about what products they are using with their babies and young children. The Honest Company has curated a group of products for babies that are designed to keep babies safe and happy and to minimize any negative impact on the environment. The company has created a NO List™ — a list of over 3,500 chemicals/materials that it will not include in its products. Favorites, such as the Baby Arrival Gift Set, contains diapers made of chlorine-free wood pulp from sustainably managed forests, wipes made without genetically engineered ingredients and organic, all-purpose balm.

Raw Garden Gummies and Joints

Raw Garden has taken a sustainable approach to its THC products. The company’s newest gummies are 100% natural and vegan and come in fun flavors such as white peach and meyer lemon. Last year, Raw Garden expanded into a new product category with its cannabis-infused joints that are grown and rolled in-house with no trim, additives, or artificial flavoring. All THC products are grown in their Santa Barbara-based farm and all crops are grown outdoors, using organic nutrients, beneficial insects, and crop rotation to ensure the soil is not depleted. Raw Garden regularly removes all old cannabis hoops and irrigation equipment to plant native California plants such as mustard, legumes, peas, green beans, and clover species to return vital nutrients back to the soil. Water is reduced by utilizing a film and drip irrigation system and preparing a blend of both dry and liquid fertilizers for each specific field.

Parachute Sheets

Everyone wants to snuggle up in bedding that feels luxurious and is also good for the environment. Parachute has created multiple home goods that are both sustainable and of the highest quality. Their organic sheets are GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified. This certification guarantees that the entire supply chain–from cotton production to the finished product–meets stringent ecological and social criteria and that harmful chemicals are never used. Parachute’s down comforters are made from materials sourced from an RDS-certified supplier, meaning that the down comes from humanely treated ducks that are sustainably sourced.

Reel Toilet Paper

Toilet paper is made from paper, which is made from trees, which results in deforestation and global warming. Your current brand may also use plastic packaging. Reel takes an entirely different approach to its paper products. Reel makes its toilet paper and paper towels using bamboo, one of the fastest-growing plants on earth. So instead of cutting down 100 year old trees to make paper, the company uses a plant which grows back in 3-5 years. Bamboo also grows back from the same root once harvested, so it causes less damage and erosion to the ecosystem, making sustainable forestry a possibility. Even better, paper products made from bamboo are soft and strong.

The United Nation of Gucci, and Liberation by Dior

by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

PARIS — Just as the United Nations General Assembly’s session began in New York, and President Trump met up with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Gucci convened its own international summit of sorts in a nightclub-turned-theater in Paris, under the leadership of its secretary general (sorry, creative director), Alessandro Michele.

In the once-abandoned environs of Le Palace, down the aisles of plush brown carpets, he brought together nerds and divas, Disney and Dolly Parton, Janis Joplin rockers and Josephine Baker boogiers. He mixed them in with sequined starlets and Velvet Underground backpackers; introduced them with a film clip that combined Shakespeare and Italian experimental cinema; and set them moving to the distorted tunes of Maria Callas, helicopters and sirens. He gave them a little time out to listen to Jane Birkin, a British expat in France, serenading everyone with a live rendition of “ Baby Alone in Babylone. ”

And he dressed them in his all-at-once wardrobe of Lurex, feathers, G-logo canvas, leather, tennis sweaters, ruffled lounge-singer shirts, jock straps, Chinoiserie, shine, cherry prints (you name it, boys and girls no matter) like an all-star geek glamourama, the better to reconcile their multiple differences. To try to make order out of disorder, bridge high culture and low culture, demonstrate the beauty in difference and the harmony that can come from culture clash, and so on.

Gucci unites the world with the language of clothes! Let no one say Mr. Michele doesn’t have big ambitions, or the vision to make them come true.

It’s just that he’s starting to seem more like a cult leader than a fashion diplomat. He well and truly upended the old order when he arrived, shooing sex out in favor of emotion, prioritizing the values of vintage over the jet set. He’s got the podium. Now instead of indulging in the same baroque rhetoric, he has to figure out where he’s going to go with it. And that doesn’t mean just changing show cities, as he did this season — though that did cause a bit of a cross-border kerfuffle.

Christian Dior, the vaunted French brand that had recently claimed the honor of opening the French shows, was not entirely happy that Gucci had decided to abandon its usual place on the Milan schedule to invade home turf, and in a fit of national pique leapfrogged forward, starting its show earlier in the day to keep its pride of place. And so the curtain came up on the final leg of ready-to-wear in a cavernous chamber constructed to the house’s specifications at the Hippodrome de Longchamp, the racetrack on the fringes of Paris. The better to give a platform to a manifesto on liberation and the body by Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s women’s wear artistic director.

Enlisting the help of the Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal and eight dancers, Ms. Chiuri set her collection amid a powerful display of calibrated movement that gave proof to her theory that, as she said backstage before the show, dance is “a language without words that speaks of freedom,” one that is connected to the past and classical rules, but also tries to rewrite them for the modern world.

That this also happens to be the goal of fashion and, in particular, of Dior, was the point. And though sometimes it was hard to concentrate on the clothes for the performance, as petals rained down and the dancers writhed and flowed across the floor like one harmonic organism (and the models did their best to avoid them), it was well made.

Eschewing her more polemical feminism for leotard-like body suits instead of her usual playsuits, Ms. Chiuri layered on Isadora Duncan dresses of draped jersey, macramé’d tulle tea frocks, combined it all with faded denim and folkloric work wear, and then brought on the unforced romance of tie-dyed over-embroidered florals and minutely layered feather appliqués.

With this, she negotiated her way forward, unlike Simon Porte Jacquemus, who seems to be stuck in an increasingly narrow French Riviera rut. Beachy slip dressing dangled lavish fringe, slithery silk knits plunged in deep vees at the breastbone and were slashed high on one thigh, and statement-making (if entirely impractical) super-sized raffia bags and cool costume-jeweled heels accessorized it all.

Mr. Jacquemus is often discussed as one of the leaders of a new generation of French designers; another is Marine Serre, who owes a great debt to Martin Margiela for her one-off garments smartly upcycled from fancy toweling, Formula One castoffs and key chains. But who also has an ability to marry the strength of sneaker speed with the niceties of the cocktail hour; to connect the crescent moon spandex bodysuit to the sculpted pantsuit the better to appeal to a different, more multifaceted constituency, as this collection, entitled “hardcore couture,” showed (“Futurewear” is her rallying cry, and it’s not inappropriate).

If Mr. Jacquemus is going to make it off the backbenches to speechify on the floor, he needs to extend his range.

Pooch power: How the dog park brings people together too

by www.stuff.co.nz Leave a Comment

TOM LEE/STUFF
Dog walkers and their fur babies come from all over the Waikato to Day’s Park in Hamilton.

It’s an awesome sight. You’ve just fetched up beside a “dogs in parks” sign at the bottom of the path that leads down from the carpark. There’s the sound of frenzied yapping from a van that pulls in. As you watch from 50m away, the doors open and the dogs pour out. They race down the slope, thudding like galloping horses straight at you. If you were their quarry, you wouldn’t stand a chance. But you’re not. They don’t even notice you as they tear past, two big ones out front tailed by a game little one, with others further back. They stop another 30m or so further on, race back up the hill, and then back down again, a full motley pack of 10 of them by this time.

Eventually, they slow down, one of them gives you a friendly sniff. That leaves their carer picking up after them before they head further across the rolling parkland, revelling in this crisp weekday autumn morning.

READ MORE: How to keep your pets safe as the summer heat ramps up Why I have nine dogs: ‘It’s really relaxing’ Paws for thought: How big is too big for the little dog park?

You can learn a lot about dogs at Day’s Park. The extreme pace of a pack in joyous flight, for instance.

Or that some huskies have differently coloured eyes. And a truly independent streak.

Mika, one brown eye, one blue, is demonstrating that on Saturday morning by scooting across the Hamilton park and disappearing into a neighbouring property despite the best efforts of owners Jess and Morgan Eades to call her back.

They’re sled dogs, Morgan remarks by way of explanation, as Jess goes to retrieve her.

“If you said ‘go this way’, a nice little german shepherd would see thin ice and go ‘well I don’t want to, you know, I might die if I go this way. But you told me to do it, so I’m going to do that.’”

Huskies are more independent.

“If you ask them to do something that they wouldn’t want to do, they go ‘well, nah, I’m not going to do that’. Every time you ask them to do something, they make that internal decision whether they’re going to listen to you or not.”

Like right now.

This off-leash park has a lot to distract a dog on Saturday morning, quite apart from what may be lurking in a neighbour’s property. The animals are absolutely everywhere, walking, sniffing, gambolling, fetching tennis balls. Especially sniffing. If scents were colours, the park would be glowing and strobing like a pulsing rainbow.

It is a place of unfettered delight for a dog. It’s big and it’s beautiful. Its rolling, tree-dotted contours, with River Road safely distant up a steep bank, and the river just a short walk down a concreted drive, could hardly be bettered.

And the dog walkers come from far afield. The Eadeses, for instance, are here from Karāpiro, while the friends they’re walking with are from Ngāruawāhia.

Morgan and Jess used to bring Mika here five days a week when they lived in Beerescourt. They shifted a few weeks ago, and aim to keep coming. “We know so many nice people out here that we try and still make an effort,” Morgan says.

This is “absolutely” the best place. The new one at Minogue Park is too small, and gets soggy when it’s wet, they say. Plus, on a hot day, long-furred Mika can cool off here by the tree-lined river.

It’s doubtful Morgan knew exactly what he was letting the couple in for when he introduced Mika as a puppy to Jess four years ago.

“I found her on Trade Me and I didn’t tell Jess what we were doing. We went and turned up at [the] house, and we put Mika in Jess’s hands and she couldn’t say no.”

Did she want to say no?

“No. This beautiful little face looking up at you,” she says. “How could you?”

The information says not to let them off the lead, Morgan says. They might have got lucky with Mika. “She’s very chill for a husky.”

Maybe it’s something to do with the owners. He’s had another chill dog in the past, a rescue rottweiler. “You could have robbed my house and he would have helped,” he says, belying the rottweiler breed’s fearsome reputation. “He was just an absolute lovable doofus.”

There are bound to be a few rottweilers here this morning, maybe some pitbulls. This place really does demonstrate it’s about the owner, not the breed, when it comes to dog aggression.

And hundreds of them will visit Day’s Park today, with February’s Saturday visitor average about 650, including non dog-owners. For the year ending February 2023, Day’s Park had an average 920 weekly visitor count. It comfortably outstrips other leash-free parks in Hamilton.

These dogs are among more than 600,000 in New Zealand, as the dog population growth rate outstrips that of humans.

You sense the buzz of Day’s Park as you get close. A young woman walks briskly home with her dog on its lead, while a family group with two dogs run from their cars across the road to the park. A man in the carpark towels down his dog before leaving. There are 10 spaces in the carpark proper and four more alongside. Most are occupied.

The atmosphere is happy and expectant, like a crowd arriving at a festival, while some are leaving having had their fill.

One of those is Vicky Redwood, heading back up from the river with Harley, a friendly jack russell cross with miniature pinscher and griffin.

They’ve come from Hamilton East this morning, in a ritual that brings them here both days of the weekend.

The two of them do laps of the park, and go down to the river. Today’s session has been about 40 minutes.

Harley, 3, is confident, and gets on well with dogs, Redwood says. “Zoomies” down by the river are always good; he’ll get other dogs to chase him, or chase them himself. And he’s not bothered about size. Big, small, they’re all potential playmates.

“He’s just happy cruising around, hanging out with the dogs.”

As if to demonstrate her point, Harley is going up to every passing dog. And he’s drooling big time. Day’s Park is the only place he does that. Redwood can only assume it’s because of all the smells.

Redwood, who has been bringing Harley here for two years, has got to know some of the regulars. “Everyone down here’s really friendly.”

What do they talk about?

“Oh, just dogs and our lives.” Mostly their dogs, though.

Darryl Eastwood is a newbie, here for just the second time with Roxy, a pitbull rhodesian ridgeback cross. It’s a misunderstanding to think those breeds are born to fight, he says. Saffron, his last dog, was a boxer, a breed which he says was trained to attack bulls back in Roman days. “So it’s not about the breed. It’s about the people that are looking after the breed.”

Roxy is Eastwood’s recovery dog because he has PTSD after a serious motor vehicle accident. Someone suggested keeping a dog as a companion, Roxy popped up as a rescue animal and Eastwood thought, could he afford to have her? “And then I sat down that night and thought, can I afford not to?”

As he talks, other dogs keep turning up, milling around, heedless of the humans, who risk tripping should they take a step in this seething mass. Roxy trots over to one. “Oh, they found each other again,” Eastwood calls to the other owner. “They like each other, don’t they?” she calls back before heading down to the river.

Eastwood will come here daily. “This place here is so open, and leash-free so the dogs learn to socialise. She’s only a 9-month-old puppy, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

He’s got her on a lead for now, partly because of how excited she gets. Sure enough, as soon as he unleashes her, Roxy scoots off down to the river.

Eastwood has some final words. “I want people to know it’s important that places like this don’t get closed down or anything. You know, you can’t keep your dog at home behind a fence 24/7. It’s like keeping an elephant chained up.

“Right, I’d better go and find her.”

Anahera Sheehy has two dogs with her at the park. “This is Buddy. And Sage over there is saying hello to everyone,” she says, striking a very Day’s Park note.

Buddy, wearing a Rasta-coloured collar, is her partner’s dog. He’s an old timer and has slowed down, but he starts running around when she puts his collar on him. And just before he’s getting fed. She laughs. “Food is his life.”

Sage, meanwhile, has a harness of no particular colour. Sheehy started bringing her to the park two years ago after getting her as a puppy. To start with, she kept her on the lead for half the walk before letting her off and observing how she went.

She went at speed. Sage’s mum is an English staffie and her dad is a whippet. “She’s an odd mix,” Sheehy says. “She’s so quick. So super quick, but she’s also a big baby.”

A baby who needs to move. Buddy, not so much. He’s a dog who needs to feel secure.

“I think having both of them together has actually helped,” she says. “He’s helped calm her down a lot. And she has kind of helped build his confidence.”

Sheehy is a regular and, like everyone else, she says the contact is important for her charges. Sage had an enforced week at home, after which she started attacking other dogs. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, okay, never again. We’re walking every single day.’”

She seems very attuned to her dogs.

“You learn them,” she says. “You learn their actions and what they want, I suppose. It took me a while but I think I was just so obsessed with her. And I was just watching her every move and seeing what she would do. I suppose like a baby, eh?” Again, she laughs

Day’s Park is named for Eric Charles Day, who died in 1969. “At his wish this land has been dedicated for the delight and recreation of the people of Hamilton” reads a plaque at the park. He got his wish. This is the best dog park in Hamilton, hands down. Everyone agrees.

It’s so good it has its own Facebook page, Day’s Park Doggies , with photos taken by Kirsty Lyall. She’s a self-trained photographer who started with a point and shoot when she used to walk her own rhodesian ridgeback around the park, and has carried on since. These days she’s using a Pentax K-3, and mixes it up with photos of dogs playing as well as some on their own.

Dogs can get a bit freaked by the bigger lens, she says. But the opposite can also be true. “A lot of people take a lot of photos of their dogs. So those dogs know what cameras are. They’re like ‘are you ready for me?’”

Her payment is in pats. “It’s all about the pats. I get pats, I get slobbers, I get everything.”

Kristen is another dog walker who has come from out of town, to the north of Hamilton.. She builds the walk into a weekend routine that includes supermarket shopping. Boston has the barrel-like build of a purebred English bulldog, and he is here to smell lots and meet friends, Kristen, who asked her surname not be used over concerns around theft of bulldogs, says. She’s neatly equipped with poo bags and treats for Boston, all you need for a civilised walk. Not everyone takes care of their dog’s business, and Kristen is not sure why some don’t carry the bags. “It’s quite a pain if you accidentally stand on it.”

One who diligently deposits his dog’s droppings in the nearby, slightly whiffy, rubbish bin is Tom Bronlund, here with partner Sarah Dawe and their 10-month-old staffie cross, Billy, who they got from the pound eight months ago.

The couple, who shifted from Auckland and then rented for several months, started looking for a dog almost as soon as they bought their house. They’ve driven from Hillcrest, which they do most Saturdays and Sundays, in the absence of off-leash parks closer to home. It’s a stretch to say it’s a bone of contention, but they wonder why there aren’t more off-leash parks around the city. They’ve tried Resthills in Glenview, but it doesn’t have the same community as Day’s Park.

They mean dog community, but that involves a human community as well.

“This is probably the most social place in Hamilton,” Bronlund says. “We’ve talked to more people here than we would anywhere else, I’d say.”

Some of it, as newbie owners, is about harvesting experiences, picking up tips about the likes of training.

What would their own top tips for the park be?

Stick to the path is one, especially when the grass hasn’t been mown for a while, to avoid stepping in something nasty.

“I think it’s the best place to take a dog in Hamilton,” Bronlund says. “It’s a good open space. It’s got the water here. There’s lots of other dogs around and everyone’s very responsible.”

They’ve never had a bad experience with another dog at the park.

“It’s cute, there’s a few dogs that we see regularly so they kind of become friends,” Dawe says.

They can tell the dogs remember each other because they skip the normal greeting period and get straight into chasing each other.

“Sometimes you almost lose your dog if they’re down by the water,” Dawe says. “There’ll be 10, 15 dogs at once and it’s really chaotic.”

Billy is trying to play with a ball chaser. That’s unlikely to work out. Dawe says he just wants attention. He doesn’t care about the ball, but he’ll take off with it because he wants the dog to chase him.

Soon Billy turns his attention to another, more suitable dog. “They’ll just go for hours if we left them,” Bronlund says, as the excitable Billy momentarily loses control and performs a near somersault before getting straight back up and carrying on.

It’s a different park on a weekday, with fewer people. On Wednesday morning, Rachel McShane is walking Crash and Lulu, a study in contrasts. Crash is a big white swiss shepherd, Lulu a tiny black pug.

McShane has an abiding relationship with Day’s Park; her father’s name is on a seat in his favourite place beside the river, and her mother walked here – wearing red – pretty much every day for 50 years, most recently with her dog Chip, until a slip at the park in January stopped her. Gregor was “a violinist and a socialist”, she says; Cecilie is a pianist and music teacher.

“Cecilie would walk every day with the dog and then go home and play the piano.” Everybody knew her.

When Rachel walks along the bottom area by the river, she’ll sit in her dad’s seat, look at the view and contemplate things.

She and other family members, including sister Kristine, are helping Cecilie at the moment, and it means she’s tending to walk in the park just once daily instead of her preferred twice.

McShane sees plenty of regulars. It’s a community. Families without dogs come because they know it is a safe place to be around animals they can’t have themselves. Down the bottom by the river, people stand and talk. “It’s such a community, actually.”

She has a contrasting view to Dawe and Bronlund. “It’s good that there’s parks dribbled around Hamilton that have that facility for the dogs because the owners need it, the dogs need it.”

“And dog owners are generally really responsible,” she adds. Not always, though. Like her mother, Rachel had a fall at the park, in her case bowled by an out of control dog, breaking her leg and doing in her ACL. It was around then they got Crash, who is a support animal for her son who has autism. His impact has been amazing, she says. “It’s just having a friend who’s just your friend. It teaches young children and young people and adults how to relate to another being, it doesn’t matter that it’s not a human being.”

As unusual as swiss shepherds are, Crash is not the only one strolling the park this morning; off in the distance is Lucian, a patriarch who keeps all the others in line, McShane says. She often sees his owner walking with several others.

That’s the thing, you’re always bumping into people, including from your past. McShane went to Fairfield College with a New Zealand hockey rep who is now involved in coaching. She was walking in the park while recovering from her accident and thought this person looked familiar. They got chatting. “We’ve reconnected after, what, 30 years, going off and doing completely other things.”

In the afternoon, she is joined by daughter Jasmine and sister Kristine, along with Chip and Kristine’s labrador Tago Mago, named for a Jimi Hendrix album.

Kristine has been walking here a lot, including exercising Chip since Cecilie’s fall, and enthuses about the park. “It’s not my thing to go to try dog parks all over New Zealand. But I’ve been to many and I have to say this is probably the top of the list. It’s got everything. It’s got the river. It’s got the beautiful park up there. It’s got trees, shade, seats, including my dad’s. Places to park. It’s amazing. And it’s like a nice little bush walk, it’s got everything and you get a decent walk done.”

Day’s Park has a double personality on Saturday morning. One minute dogs, forever sniffing, are eddying everywhere. The next moment there is scarcely a dog or human in sight.

And then, finally, there’s what sounds like a fracas in the distance. But the dogs’ tails are up, and they’re just cavorting.

This place brings dogs together. And it brings humans together.

It’s day two for Darryl Eastwood. As he leaves the park he is deep in conversation with another owner.

Jess and Morgan Eades have also struck up conversations, and friendships, with fellow dog walkers here. Late last year, the couple got married. The original plan was Rarotonga in 2020, but Covid ruled that out. They settled on Aotea, near Kāwhia, a beach Jess’s family have been going to for 30 years. Sadly, Mika couldn’t be with them; the lack of fencing at the property made that impossible. Among the guests, however, were friends they made walking their dogs at Day’s Park.

India’s ticking heat bomb is testing limits of human survival

by economictimes.indiatimes.com Leave a Comment

Synopsis

The national weather office has forecast rising temperatures in the coming weeks after India experienced its hottest February since 1901. That’s stoked concerns that there will be a repeat of last year’s record heat wave, which caused widespread crop damage and triggered hours-long blackouts. While no country is untouched by global warming, there are multiple reasons that make India an outlier.

India, on course to becoming the world’s most-populous country, risks approaching the limit of human survival as it experiences more intense and frequent heat waves.

The national weather office has forecast rising temperatures in the coming weeks after India experienced its hottest February since 1901. That’s stoked concerns that there will be a repeat of last year’s record heat wave, which caused widespread crop damage and triggered hours-long blackouts. While temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) are unbearable in any condition, the damage is made worse for those of India’s 1.4 billion population who are stuck in tightly packed cities and don’t have access to well-ventilated housing or air-conditioning.

“Heat stress for humans is a combination of temperature and humidity,” said Kieran Hunt , a climate scientist at the University of Reading who has studied the country’s weather patterns. “India is typically more humid than equivalently hot places, like the Sahara. This means sweating is less efficient, or not efficient at all.”

This is why in India a measurement known as the wet-bulb reading — which combines air temperature and relative humidity — provides a better gauge of heat stress on the human body. A November report by the World Bank cautioned that India could become one of the first places in the world where wet-bulb temperatures could soar past the survivability threshold of 35°C. “The question is, have we got inured to heat-led suffering?” said Abhas Jha, one of the report’s authors. “Because it’s not a sudden onset disaster, because it’s a slow onset, we don’t push back on it.”

While no country is untouched by global warming, there are multiple reasons that make India an outlier. The following interview with Hunt, which examines those factors, has been edited for length and clarity.

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What’s the climate science behind India’s more intense heat waves?

It helps to separate heat wave temperatures into two parts — the background, or the monthly average temperature, and the anomaly, or the the bit added or subtracted by the specific weather occurring at the time. Over India, since the pre-industrial period, the background has increased by about 1.5°C. Therefore, everything else being equal, the heat wave weather patterns today would be associated with temperatures about 1.5°C warmer than had they occurred a hundred years ago. There are other compounding factors: over some cities, the urban heat island effect has added roughly an additional 2°C to the background. Deforestation also contributes.

Why are they happening more frequently?

This can also be split into two parts. Firstly, the Indian government’s definition of a heat wave is fixed, so as background temperatures increase, less and less strong anomalies are required to surpass the heat wave definition threshold. Secondly, it does appear that the weather patterns — high pressure over north India, leading to dry, sunny, clear conditions with weak wind — associated with these anomalies are also increasing in frequency.

And what makes them more dangerous?

Hotter heat waves, where the temperatures stay higher for longer, tend to result in more fatalities. In India, this is exacerbated by the rapid population increase over the last few decades.

[The danger lies with] India’s background temperature already being so high. In May, for example, the only places on the planet comparable in temperature to north India are the Sahara and parts of the inland Arabian peninsula, both of which are very sparsely populated. With the background temperatures already being so high, over 40°C, even small increases are likely to push close to human survival limits.

How do the heat waves affect people?

There are wide-ranging effects on Indian society. Extended periods of heat waves lead to significant drying of soil over large regions. Aside from the obvious agricultural implications, this can impact the monsoon onset a month later… and can negatively affect agriculture, water security, and even lead to localized flooding, where heavy rain hits dry soil that is unable to absorb it.

Unusually hot pre-monsoon periods are also associated with decreased labor productivity, particularly in outdoor sectors such as agriculture and construction; increased demand for cooling, which can strain the power grid and lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions; and general health risks, such as heatstroke, which disproportionately affect children, the elderly, and low-income communities.

So what can be done to mitigate the damage?

Some ideas that are often talked about in this context are, on the policy level, implementing urban planning guidelines that prioritize green spaces, shade, and ventilation in building design. These are becoming increasingly popular in many Mediterranean cities. At the corporate level: invest in research and development of low-energy cooling solutions, such as passive cooling systems, and promote energy-efficient building design. And for communities, encourage the use of cool roofs, green roofs, and tree planting to reduce the urban heat island effect.

What does the future look like for India as the planet keeps warming?

At the moment, India very occasionally slightly surpasses [a wet-bulb temperature of] 32°C, so we need quite a lot more warming to get to the survivability limit. That said, with increased urbanization, and so urban heat island effect, and more warming, the risks of fatal heatwaves are always growing.

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Husband’s 911 call key in reaching verdict in Alabama mom’s murder, says juror

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It was just after 11 p.m. on May 2, 2017, when then-37-year-old Jason Crawford called 911 from right outside his home in Cullman, Alabama, about 50 miles north of Birmingham.

911 DISPATCHER: 911, where is your emergency?

JASON CRAWFORD: Uh, my wife is shot. I need someone out here, please

911 DISPATCHER: Sir, is she breathing?

JASON CRAWFORD: I don’t know … I’m trying to pick her— lift her up so I can see.

Jason remembers that night vividly .

Jason Crawford : It felt like it was taking longer and longer for anybody to get there … And eventually, I saw some headlights.

Body camera footage shows what Cullman County Sheriff’s deputies found when they first got to the scene.

DEPUTY: EMS is on their way, OK?

Jason’s wife, 32-year-old Tiffiney Crawford , was slumped over in the driver’s seat of her own van. There was a pink revolver in her left hand, which Jason says she kept in the driver’s side door of her vehicle for protection. When one of the sheriff’s deputies tried to check Tiffiney for a pulse, the gun fell out of her hand .

DEPUTY: What happened tonight?

JASON CRAWFORD: Uh, I—We were arguing. … I gave her—her stuff, so she can go. I didn’t let her in the house. … And the last thing I remember, she said she loved me, and I was going in the house, and I heard a shot, a scream and then another shot.

Tiffiney had been shot twice in the head. Paramedics tried to revive her —

Jason Crawford : And I was thinking that maybe there’s a chance she’s still alive.

—but it was too late .

Jason Crawford : And they come over and told me that she was dead … It just made me feel sick in my stomach.

To at least one of the deputies on the scene that night, it appeared pretty clear that this was a suicide.

DEPUTY: There’s nothing here so far that says anything to me other than a suicide.

And it wasn’t long before deputies realized who Jason Crawford was — the son of Ronda Crawford, who works as an office manager at the sheriff’s office.

DEPUTY: You know it’s Ronda’s daughter-in-law.

Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry soon got word.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : The chief deputy called me … and said, ‘Hey … it appears that … Ronda’s daughter-in-law … had shot herself.” … I said, “I’ll go out there and check on them.”

By the time the sheriff got there, Ronda Crawford was already on scene. It was Ronda – Jason’s mother – who called Tiffiney’s mom, Cheryl McGucken to tell her what happened.

Cheryl McGucken : I felt like I was kind of frozen in time in that moment. … And I said, “Is Jason there? Can I talk to him?” And he was already speaking with the police.

Cheryl McGucken : And so, um, I got off the phone and … I tried to figure out what my next step was (cries).

Cheryl’s thoughts soon turned to Tiffiney and Jason’s children. They shared a 5-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter. Tiffiney was also stepmom to Jason’s then-14-year-old son, Logan. All the kids were inside the house that night; the two youngest were asleep. For Cheryl, life really hasn’t been the same since then.

David Begnaud | “48 Hours” contributor : What are the things that you miss about her?

Cheryl McGucken : You know, the things I miss about her is her spontaneity. … Tiffiney was an individual that had a huge heart, and she just wanted to engulf everyone around her and help them find joy.

That is why Cheryl says Tiffiney devoted much of her spare time to a support group that she had started on Facebook called “Mothers Helping Mothers.”

TIFFINEY CRAWFORD VIDEO: We’re there to laugh with each other, to love each other, and to just build you up in everyday motherhood.

Cheryl McGucken : She saw a vision that there were … other mothers … that needed somebody to talk to … And that group took off like a wildfire and spread all over the country.

Tiffiney and Jason had been married a little more than six years when she died.

David Begnaud : What did you think of Tiffiney when you first met her?

Jason Crawford : I thought she was striking and beautiful. She was outgoing. A lot of things I wasn’t, you know? So, it was more of, like, I guess opposites attract kind of thing.

When they started dating, Jason had been divorced for several years. His first wife, he says, had cheated on him. Tiffiney was in a relationship at the time — married, in fact. It wasn’t exactly a fairytale beginning from the outside looking in, but Jason says, for the two of them, it was.

Jason Crawford : It was like fireworks from — in the beginning.

Tiffiney eventually got divorced, and that is when she and Jason married and started their family. Just what led up to her death on that night in May 2017 would be up to the investigators to find out. Sheriff Gentry remembers a conversation he had on the scene with the coroner.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : He says, it appears to be a suicide. He said the only weird thing is there’s two shots.

David Begnaud : What do you recall about what you thought in that moment?

Sheriff Matt Gentry : Well, that’s weird. It’s strange. … Now, has that happened before? Yes. But it’s not normal.

One of the shots was to her left jaw area, the other was to her left temple.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : I said because of his mother’s connection to our office, for transparency, there has to be an autopsy done.

Sheriff Gentry says his investigators went on to process the scene that night.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : We investigate every suicide like a homicide … So, the van was searched. Evidence that was needed to be was seized.

But the next morning, Sheriff Gentry decided to turn the case over to the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : I could have told our guys to work it. … But because of the potential for conflict … I want full transparency.

Joe Parrish is the state agent who got the case.

David Begnaud : What’s the first thing you do?

Joe Parrish : I went to the District Attorney’s Office … And asked him about the van.

Parrish wanted to get his hands on that van in which Tiffiney was shot so he got a search warrant for it, but there was just one problem: the van had been released to the Crawford family, and by the time Parrish got to it — less than 24 hours after Tiffiney died — it had already been cleaned by Jason’s family members. The sheriff’s office had given them the go ahead.

Jason Crawford : I didn’t want the kids to see anything. I was worried about them when they woke up in the morning.

David Begnaud : What did you make of that, that the van had been cleaned?

Joe Parrish : It was odd that they would clean it up that quick after something like that.

But Sheriff Gentry defends his decision to release the van.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : There was nothing of evidentiary value to the van. … They processed it, took, uh, pictures. They did everything they normally would do on a crime scene, uh, that night.

David Begnaud : Right. But if you’re treating it like a homicide, I’m not turning the van over to the family.

Sheriff Matt Gentry : Sure. So — so and I — I mean, I completely understand. So, it was treated — we worked it like a homicide, but it was treated like a suicide. … Every bit of evidence that was needed was taken.

But as it turns out, that van would be significant. And so would what Jason and Tiffiney were arguing about right before she died.

THE AFFAIR

Jason Crawford says that in the months leading up to his wife Tiffiney’s death, he noticed a change in her.

Jason Crawford : Yeah— I could tell something was going on because she was getting more distant…

Jason Crawford : She had been drinking a lot … too … two or three bottles a week sometimes.

David Begnaud : So, you had a feeling something was up?

Jason Crawford : Yes.

And he says his suspicions were confirmed the night Tiffiney died. Just hours before she got home, Jason found messages on their computer suggesting that she was having an affair.

Jason Crawford : I started calling her, you know, just trying to see if she would tell me anything. And… She’s like … I don’t know what you’re talking about, denying it. And I was like, “OK, well, I think you need to get home.”

Tiffiney’s mom, Cheryl, says she knew about the affair.

Cheryl McGucken : She called to let me know she was on her way home. And that, um, Jason and her were going to have to have a discussion about their problems …

David Begnaud : Did she sound worried?

Cheryl McGucken : She did not sound worried. She sounded kind of hyper and, you know, anxious. … I just said, “Well, I love you. Be careful.”

Tiffiney’s friend, Lyndsy Luke, says she also knew about the affair. Lyndsy says Tiffiney told her she was making plans to leave Jason, and that she got a job at a local grocery store to save up money for a new life on her own.

Lyndsy Luke : She knew what she needed to leave him and how she was so close.

David Begnaud : Was Tiffiney afraid that Jason was going to find out about the affair?

Lyndsy Luke : Yes. And she didn’t want him to because she didn’t want to hurt him.

But that night, when he did find out, Jason says he was hurt and angry. This was the second time a wife had cheated on him. When Tiffiney got home, he says that’s when he confronted her, and refused to let her go inside.

Jason Crawford : I kept telling her she’s not staying the night. … She asked me, “why can’t I stay?” I was like … “you’ve destroyed the sanctity of our marriage.”

David Begnaud : You were really angry.

Jason Crawford : Uh, yeah, I was angry, but I was controlled anger.

Jason claims they argued for more than an hour, and when he remained insistent that Tiffiney was not going inside, he says she asked him to go and get her work clothes.

Jason Crawford : I went in and grabbed some clothes and threw them to her. And then … I told her I’m done talking. Um, so, I went in the house. And as soon as I went in the house … I heard a shot, her scream, and then another shot.

David Begnaud : And then you did what?

Jason Crawford : Went right back outside.

David Begnaud : And what position was the door in — the car door?

Jason Crawford : The car door. It was pulled to or closed.

Jason says that’s when he called 911. But in that call and the police body camera footage from that night, Jason never mentioned an affair.

JASON CRAWFORD (dash cam video): Last thing I remember, she said she loved me …

Lead investigator Joe Parrish says authorities didn’t learn about the affair until the next day. Also, when Parrish listened back to that 911 call, there was more that caught his ear.

Joe Parrish : It was very cold … It didn’t sound like somebody that was worried about his wife.

911 DISPATCHER: I’m gonna need some more information from you …

And there was one question that the 911 dispatcher kept asking Jason that he wouldn’t answer .

911 DISPATCHER: Who shot her in the head?

Joe Parrish : Who shot your wife? … He was avoiding the question.

David Begnaud : I would like to play the 911 call for you.

Jason Crawford : OK.

911 DISPATCHER: 911, EMS and Fire, where is your emergency?

JASON CRAWFORD: Uh, my wife is shot.

David Begnaud : You seem cool as a cucumber.

Jason Crawford : Well, maybe that’s just the way my tone of voice is.

911 DISPATCHER: She’s been shot? Who’s she been shot by?

JASON CRAWFORD: Please send an ambulance now, please.

David Begnaud : She asked you who’s she been shot by. And you didn’t respond. Why not?

Jason Crawford : Yeah. I just felt like if I said it into existence, it’d be true.

JASON CRAWFORD: She’s been shot in the head.

911 DISPATCHER: Did she shoot herself in the head?

David Begnaud : This lady gave you an opportunity to say yes.

Jason Crawford : Yeah.

David Begnaud : And you didn’t respond?

Jason Crawford : Well, I don’t know how many more times I can tell you. … I just froze in thought.

David Begnaud : Do you understand how somebody listens to that and says, yeah, ’cause he did it?

Jason Crawford : Yeah. I can understand that.

And that’s exactly what Joe Parrish thought. A week after Tiffiney died, and with her autopsy results still pending, Parrish decided to bring Jason in for questioning.

During that interview, Jason spoke in detail about discovering the affair and the argument that he had with Tiffiney:

JASON CRAWFORD: I said, “You’ve ruined our home.” I was like, “You’re no longer a part of this …”

And he also answered a question that Parrish believed was key:

AGENT JOE PARRISH: Was she left or right-handed?

JASON CRAWFORD: She’s right-handed.

AGENT JOE PARRISH: Right-handed.

JASON CRAWFORD: Yeah.

Tiffiney was right-handed, but the gun had been found in her left hand.

David Begnaud : How often , in your experience, do suicides happen where the individual uses their non-dominant hand?

Joe Parrish : I’ve never seen it personally.

Jason Crawford : It’s not like I know she’s like so predominantly right-handed that she couldn’t use her left hand.

But why would Tiffiney, a woman who devoted so much time to helping others, suddenly kill herself?

Lyndsy Luke : There was nothing suicidal about her.

Even Jason finds it hard to explain.

David Begnaud : Had she ever spoke about wanting to kill herself?

Jason Crawford : Not that I know. Not to me.

After Parrish interviewed Jason, he was free to go. But about a week later, he was brought back in for questioning —- this time by Parrish’s colleague. Jason agreed to take a polygraph, and investigators told him he failed.

POLYGRAPH EXAMINER: Your reactions were off the chain. OK? … You’re saying that there’s no way that you shot your wife?

JASON CRAWFORD: Correct.

It wasn’t long before things turned contentious.

INVESTIGATOR: I don’t want to hear that — that, “I didn’t shoot my wife …” … Because I know that’s a f****** lie.

JASON CRAWFORD: I can get up and leave because I’m not under arrest, right?

INVESTIGATOR: Huh! You listen to me, huh! … (Jason walks out the door) Walk out that f****** door.

That interview also ended with no arrest. Because of a backlog, it would take nearly a year to get the missing piece of the puzzle: those autopsy results. You see, the manner of death was ruled a homicide, and that is when the decision was made to present the case to a grand jury. Jeff Roberts was the Cullman County Assistant District Attorney at the time.

Jeff Roberts : I have no doubt in my mind he’s guilty at all. … I think the forensics tipped the case.

But would a grand jury indict Jason? Even Tiffiney’s mother had her doubts.

Cheryl McGucken : Even though I didn’t want to believe it was a suicide, naturally, I wouldn’t want to believe my son-in-law killed her either.

TIFFINEY’S DEATH RULED A HOMICIDE

Cheryl McGucken : It’s a sad situation, whether on one side you believe somebody committed suicide or somebody committed murder. … Neither one of those scenarios work in my mind.

In the year following her daughter Tiffiney’s death, Cheryl McGucken says she had a hard time believing that her daughter could have killed herself — but she also couldn’t imagine that her son-in-law, Jason, would’ve pulled the trigger.

David Begnaud : Did you ever call the investigators and say, I want to know every bit of details you have? I want to know all the details.

Cheryl McGucken : No.

David Begnaud : Why not?

Cheryl McGucken : I suppose I didn’t want to, um, let that cloud, my time with my grandkids and my relationship with Jason and his family —

Jason Crawford : My family and friends … they never questioned that I wouldn’t kill my wife.

Jason did have a lot of support, but not from the investigators or then-Cullman County Assistant District Attorney Jeff Roberts and his legal assistant Debra Ball.

Debra Ball : She was too out there to help other people. … She’s not gonna kill herself.

Jeff Roberts : There’s no way that that’s what happened.

Once Roberts had received word that the medical examiner had ruled Tiffiney’s death a homicide, he decided, along with lead investigator Joe Parrish, to seek an indictment against Jason.

Jeff Roberts : I couldn’t figure out who else did it. He’s the only one who had a motive to do it, for one thing.

Agent Joe Parrish : The grand jury came back with an indictment for murder for Jason Crawford.

Cheryl McGucken : Jason called me and told me. … It was very shocking. And very confusing.

On May 21, 2018, just over a year after Tiffiney died, Jason surrendered.

Joe Parrish: Walked in, I told him he was under arrest. He didn’t seem to be worried.

David Begnaud : He didn’t seem to be worried?

Joe Parrish : No.

Jason wasn’t in custody for very long. In fact, he was released on bond and Robert Tuten and Nickolas Heatherly became his defense attorneys .

Robert Tuten : We don’t believe Jason is guilty of this at all. … There’s no evidence … They did not see blood or anything on him. They found nothing that would indicate he had, had fired a, a firearm recently.

But the night of the shooting Jason was never tested for gunshot residue, and his house was never searched for bloody clothing. Still, Tuten and Heatherly say they believe Jason, who says he was inside the house when the gunshots rang out.

Robert Tuten : His oldest son … heard his father come back in the house right before the first gunshot.

And about that polygraph test that Jason was said to have failed?

Robert Tuten : Police investigators use those as an investigative tool. If they think somebody is guilty, they tell them that they have failed the polygraph and insist they tell / what really happened.

David Begnaud : They gave you a lie detector test and you failed it.

Jason Crawford : Hmm, yeah. … They can make those read how they want to.

Jason’s defense team also downplayed that 911 call — the one in which Investigator Parrish noticed Jason sounded calm, even evasive.

Robert Tuten : If someone’s never been in a high-pressure situation like that where they’ve just been shocked by what they’re seeing, they probably would not understand how that affects somebody.

Jason Crawford : It just felt like I was outside my body not knowing what was going on.

But the prosecution was confident that Jason was guilty. Dr. Valerie Green was confident, too. She is the medical examiner who conducted Tiffiney’s autopsy.

David Begnaud : Do you remember saying … to yourself … “I got a feeling there’s more to this story”?

Dr. Valerie Green : Oh, yes, definitely. … I think the thing that made me think that there could be something else going on with this case is … that gunshot wound on the left side of Ms. Crawford’s head.

Dr. Green says that based on the absence of gunpowder particles and abrasion around the wound to Tiffiney’s left temple, she concluded that the shot had to have been fired from at least 10 inches away.

Dr. Valerie Green : That’s indicating that, you know, she’s holding her arm outward beyond 10 inches and trying to shoot herself. … not saying … that it’s impossible. But it’s not likely.

It is especially unlikely, says Dr. Green, because Jason reported that he found Tiffiney in the driver’s seat of her own van with the gun in her left hand and the car door closed.

DEPUTY: Where’s the gun, sir?

JASON CRAWFORD: It’s right here in her hand.

Dr. Valerie Green : That was concerning to me because I mean … For you to be able to hold up a gun and shoot yourself in the head … it would be difficult to do, and that’s such a small space.

That’s not all, says Dr Green. Neither of Tiffiney’s injuries were contact wounds.

David Begnaud : She didn’t have a contact wound here and she didn’t have a contact wound here.

Jason Crawford : Correct.

David Begnaud : Most suicides involve the barrel, or the tip of the gun being placed on the skin.

Jason Crawford : Yeah. And you said most, not all.

But there was something else Dr. Green noticed, specifically about that van.

Dr. Valerie Green : I remember looking at pictures of the driver’s side door … And I didn’t see any blood on that door. I didn’t see any blood on the glass or the window. I didn’t see anything even low on the door. … That makes me think that the door was not closed. … And I think that that door is open because he was standing there.

Despite the autopsy report, and the fact that a grand jury had indicted Jason, Tiffiney’s mom continued to support him.

Cheryl McGucken : I never changed how I felt towards Jason. I mean, what purpose would that serve? You know, he’s also somebody’s child. And he’s the remaining parent to my grandchildren.

More than four years would pass before the case ever went to trial. During that time, the defense would retain their own medical examiner—the former chief medical examiner for the state of Alabama — and he had a drastically different opinion than Dr. Green.

Dr. James Lauridson : I believe it’s a suicide.

THE TRIAL OF JASON CRAWFORD

In November 2022, more than five years after Tiffiney Crawford died, her husband, Jason Crawford, went on trial for her murder. Prosecutor Jeff Roberts was confident in his case, but he knew there would be challenges.

Jeff Roberts : The fact that … it was considered by the officers on the scene apparently consistent with suicide, I thought this is going to be really tough to overcome.

Jason’s defense attorneys Robert Tuten and Nickolas Heatherly also felt that they had their work cut out for them.

Robert Tuten : Simply because there’s no way to really find a definitive answer for exactly what happened.

“48 Hours” was only allowed to film the trial from outside the courtroom, through a windowed door. Tiffiney’s mother, Cheryl, who said she didn’t want to hear the details surrounding her daughter’s death, chose not to attend the trial.

Cheryl McGucken : I knew that there would be things said on both sides that I … didn’t want to have in my head.

But she did go on day one—solely to testify. She was the prosecutor’s first witness.

Cheryl McGucken : He assumed that I was on their side

Instead, Cheryl says she told the jury how she really felt about Jason.

CHERYL MCGUCKEN: I’ve never had any issues with Jason.

Megan Brock was a juror on the case.

Megan Brock : She was telling everybody, me and Jason have a great relationship. … I was, like, “really?”

David Begnaud : You thought it was weird that his mother-in-law—might still be supporting him—as he’s on trial for murder?

Megan Brock : Mm-hmm. Yup.

Undeterred, the prosecution moved on with what they felt was evidence of Jason’s alleged motive: anger over his wife’s affair. A friend of Tiffiney’s testified that Jason called her after learning that Tiffiney had been cheating on him, and that he said, “He couldn’t go through this again,” referencing the fact that his first wife had also had an affair. Jason claims he didn’t say that.

David Begnaud : His first wife cheated on him. Tiffiney cheated on him. Isn’t it plausible for somebody on the jury to think, hey, look, the guy snapped … so he killed her.

Robert Tuten : I don’t think that happened at all. He didn’t snap over his first wife. … They remained friends even to this day.

Jason’s 911 call was also played for the jury, and they saw some of that police body camera footage, too.

The prosecution also called DNA analyst Angela Fletcher, who examined swabs taken from Tiffiney’s gun. She testified she couldn’t say for sure whether there was any female DNA on the gun because there was only a trace amount of DNA detected. But she was certain that both the grip and the trigger contained male DNA.

David Begnaud : Is it Jason Crawford?

Angela Fletcher : No. The profile was so limited that I was unable to do any type of comparisons.

Jason Crawford : There are other people that have touched that gun that were males. My dad gave her the gun, so his DNA may be on it. … Her brother also shot it.

With so little DNA detected, the prosecution argued that Jason must have wiped the gun and then planted it in Tiffiney’s hand .

Robert Tuten : There’s no proof. There’s no evidence of it at all, no.

Jeff Roberts : Her DNA would have had to be on that gun if she did it herself.

But perhaps the most damaging testimony against Jason came from Medical Examiner Dr. Valerie Green. She told the jury how she believes the gunshot wound to Tiffiney’s temple was fired from more than 10 inches away.

Jeff Roberts : Which is way more consistent with him standing outside the car, shooting her than … her trying to hold a gun, you know, over 10 inches away.

But the defense showed the jury a pre-recorded deposition with their own medical examiner, Dr. James Lauridson.

DR. JAMES LAURIDSON: I believe that — that Mrs. Crawford shot herself first in the left side of the face and then shot herself in the left side of the head.

Dr. Lauridson also testified there is no way to tell how far away the gun was when that shot to Tiffiney’s temple was fired — because her hair was in the way.

Dr. Valerie Green : I do realize that scalp hair can filter out gunpowder particles … but that was taken into consideration. … I would expect more abrasions to have been able to filter though her hair.

The defense also argued that Tiffiney had been struggling emotionally. She had started seeing a counselor just one day before she died. And friends of Tiffiney testified that she had been drinking excessively, and that she was upset because the man with whom she was having an affair had recently broken up with her.

Robert Tuten : He told her he didn’t want to have anything else to do with her.

Robert Tuten : Basically, her whole life is falling apart, and I think she just gave up.

Tiffiney’s journal was also entered into evidence. And in an entry dated the day she died, she wrote that she was “…struggling with figuring out what to do with herself” and that she was “… trying to avoid breaking down.”

David Begnaud : Isn’t it possible that she was having thoughts of suicide?

Jeff Roberts : I would say no. … She had started seeing a counselor. That’s somebody who was looking forward in life.

Jason’s son, Logan, also took the stand for the defense. He testified that he heard his father inside the house when the gunshots went off that night. But the prosecution questions his memory .

Jeff Roberts : When he keeps hearing the same story, his stories will start matching up somewhat like all 14-year-olds would.

Nickolas Heatherly : His story never changed. He was interviewed by law enforcement, and it stayed consistent.

As the trial was drawing to a close, the defense made a bold decision. They called Jason to the stand. He testified that he loved Tiffiney and denied killing her, but both the prosecution and the defense acknowledge there was a point where he lost his cool.

Robert Tuten : He argued a little bit with the prosecutor.

Jeff Roberts : The person on the stand was the person that you could easily see doing this.

Jason also testified that he called Tiffiney a degrading name that night she died.

David Begnaud : You said to the jury, I was trying as best I could to make her hurt inside as much as I was hurting.

Jason Crawford : Mm-hmm. Yeah. … I was just basically talking down to her … like she was not human. … I feel sorry … because I feel like maybe that contributed to what pushed her to — over the edge to do that.

Even though Jason’s testimony likely did him no favors, there was still no direct physical evidence pointing towards his guilt.

Robert Tuten : There’s no evidence that Jason fired the gun.

And after four days of testimony, the case went to the jury.

Megan Brock : I said, “Oh, God, here we go. … I don’t know if this man did it or not.”

HOW THE JURY REACHED A VERDICT

It was Nov. 18, 2022, and Jason Crawford’s fate was now in the hands of a jury. Behind closed doors, Megan Brock says she and several fellow jurors were on the fence about his guilt.

Megan Brock : And I was, like, “So, we’re gonna sit here for the next, however long it takes?”

Cheryl McGucken : My stomach was in knots.

Cheryl McGucken admits she was nervous for Jason and his family.

Cheryl McGucken : You know, this is my son-in-law.

After several hours deliberating, the jury requested access to that body camera footage. Then they asked for the 911 recording.

JASON CRAWFORD (to 911): …My wife is shot. I need someone out here, please.

About 30 minutes later, they announced they had reached a decision. Cheryl was in the courtroom, only for the second time.

David Begnaud : And who were you with for the verdict?

Cheryl McGucken : I was sitting with my husband right behind Jason’s parents and the rest of his family.

As for the verdict, this is how Megan says the jury came to their decision.

Megan Brock : When we listened to that 911 call again, that was it.

David Begnaud : So, the 911 call sealed the deal?

Megan Brock : That was it.

David Begnaud : Really.

Megan Brock : The … operator, she keeps asking him, you know, “who shot her?” Finally, she was, like, OK, well, where is the gun at? And he said, laying beside her. … And we were like, like, wait what?

911 DISPATCHER: Where is the gun at?

JASON CRAWFORD: It’s laying beside her.

Megan Brock : He clearly said “the gun is laying beside her” … When in fact, the body cam footages showed her holding the gun, barely, but holding the gun.

David Begnaud : The gun wasn’t laying beside her.

Jason Crawford : It was beside her because it’s on her side, in her hand.

David Begnaud : They found the gun in her hand?

Jason Crawford : Yes.

David Begnaud : You understand the difference between in her hand and laying beside her?

Jason Crawford : To some people, yes. Like, beside her, it’s beside. Like laying on her — it’s beside her. … I just chose the wrong words to say.

But the jury did not see it that way.

Megan Brock : I said, “Oh f***. He’s guilty.” Everybody said the same thing. They were like, “he’s guilty.”

David Begnaud : The verdict was guilty.

Jason Crawford : Yes. … It just felt like it shouldn’t be happening … it was unbelievable. So, I was just stunned.

Cheryl McGucken : You know, I had a friend that said … “hallelujah.” And that really bothered me. Because that wasn’t anything to cheer about. … There’s no justice here. Everybody loses.

David Begnaud : You are a grandmother.

Cheryl McGucken : Mm-Hmm.

David Begnaud : And there are two kids left behind who had nothing to do with this.

Cheryl McGucken : Right. Exactly.

David Begnaud : But at the end of the day, this man was put on trial.

Cheryl McGucken: Mm-hmm.

David Begnaud : The evidence was heard.

Cheryl McGucken: Mm-hmm.

David Begnaud : He was convicted.

Cheryl McGucken : Mm-hmm.

David Begnaud : So, he is a killer in the eyes of the law.

Cheryl McGucken : You know, they’re going to do an appeal. I don’t want to misspeak on this at all.

David Begnaud : But when you say they’re doing the appeal, what do you mean? Are you protecting him?

Cheryl McGucken : I — I don’t have any reason to protect him, um, but I’m going to let things play out as they will.

Following this interview, Begnaud asked Cheryl if she had any interest in seeing the evidence.

David Begnaud : You said you did. You asked if we could show it to you. We provided you with what was in the public record.

Cheryl McGucken : Yeah.

David Begnaud : What do you now believe?

Cheryl McGucken : Well, I now believe that he did kill her.

Cheryl McGucken : Reading the evidence, going through what was said during the trial. It — it — it made it painfully obvious.

On March 10, 2023, Cheryl McGucken took the stand again at Jason’s sentencing hearing. But this time, she spoke for her daughter.

CHERYL MCGUCKEN (reading): I couldn’t understand how my son-in-law, Jason, could look me in the eye for five-and-a-half years, if he had murdered my daughter.

“48 Hours”‘ cameras were again outside the courtroom looking in, so Cheryl shared with us, what she said directly to Jason.

CHERYL MCGUCKEN (reading): Jason, if not you, who? You were there. You know the truth. … I pray you will someday find wisdom and strength to speak the truth.

She said that in front of her grandchildren, too — they were sitting in the very front row. Cheryl didn’t know that Jason’s parents were going to bring them.

As the judge prepared to sentence Jason Crawford, his lawyers were still pleading his innocence, just as Jason did when Begnaud first spoke with him.

David Begnaud : If I could interview Tiffiney today, what do you think she’d tell me?

Jason Crawford : Probably that she’s sorry. She’s — didn’t realize that it would affect so many people like — like it did.

David Begnaud : She wouldn’t tell me that you’re a liar and a killer?

Jason Crawford : No. I don’t think so.

Jason was sentenced to 99 years in prison. But under Alabama law, he will be eligible for parole in 15 years.

David Begnaud : What do you think Tiffiney would say now, having seen you on the stand?

Cheryl McGucken : I can hear her saying, “I’m proud of you, Mama.”

Now, Cheryl just wants to make sure that her grandchildren are proud of their mother, and never forget who Tiffiney was and what she stood for.

Cheryl McGucken : She was just an angel that came down from heaven for a short time to teach all of us … how to love and be kind and be giving.

Tiffiney’s children currently live with Jason’s parents.

Produced by Stephanie Slifer and Judy Rybak. Gabriella Demirdjian is the field producer. Ryan Smith is the development producer. Liz Caholo is the associate producer. Jud Johnston, Wini Dini and George Baluzy are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

David Begnaud

David Begnaud is the lead national correspondent for “CBS Mornings” based in New York City.