“MINNEAPOLIS — The two sides in one of the nation’s most closely watched police brutality trials returned one last time to the graphic video of George Floyd’s final moments on Monday, with the prosecution asking jurors to ‘believe your eyes’ and the defense warning them not to be ‘misled’ by a freeze-frame view.
After 14 days of testimony from policing experts, medical doctors, members of the Minneapolis Police Department and bystanders, lawyers made their closing arguments, urging the jurors to use common sense as the case was placed in their hands.
The prosecution focused on the nine minutes and 29 seconds that Derek Chauvin, the white police officer charged with murder, kept his knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, on a Minneapolis street last Memorial Day.
‘This case is exactly what you thought when you saw it first, when you saw that video,’ Steve Schleicher, the prosecutor who delivered the closing argument, said. ‘It’s what you felt in your gut. It’s what you now know in your heart.’
In a lengthy rebuttal, the defense emphasized the 17 minutes leading up to that time — suggesting that Mr. Floyd had taken illicit drugs and had actively resisted when several officers tried to get him into a squad car. Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, repeatedly told jurors to look at the ‘totality of the circumstances.’
‘Do not let yourselves be misled by a single still-frame image,’ Mr. Nelson told the jury, in response to the moment-by-moment analyses of video evidence presented by the prosecution. ‘Put the evidence in its proper context.’
The closing arguments were held on the 18th floor of a government building surrounded by temporary fencing and military sentries. The high security could not keep out the tremors from last week’s fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright just 10 miles away.
Gov. Tim Walz called for calm on Monday as the jury began deliberations. He declared a ‘peacetime emergency’ to allow the police from neighboring states to be called in if necessary, joining more than 3,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen who have been deployed to assist local law enforcement.” Read more at New York Times
“The judge presiding over the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin said recent ‘disrespectful’ statements made by California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters may give the defense grounds to appeal and overturn the trial.” Read more at USA Today
“The jury in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin is deliberating after hearing legal instructions on the three criminal charges filed against him. Chauvin is charged with second-degree and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd last May. Here's what each of those charges entail:
•Second-degree murder charge is causing the death of a human being, without intent to cause that death, while committing or attempting to commit another felony. In this case, the alleged felony was third-degree assault.
•Third-degree murder charge means to unintentionally cause someone’s death by committing an act that is eminently dangerous to other persons while exhibiting a depraved mind, with reckless disregard for human life.
•Second-degree manslaughter is culpable negligence where a person creates an unreasonable risk and consciously takes the chance of causing death or great bodily harm to someone else.
The jury is sequestered to deliberate those charges. As the nation nervously awaits the verdict, the White House is in communication with state and local authorities across the country about preparations for potential protests.” Read more at USA Today
Walter F. Mondale in 1983. ‘My whole life, I worked on the idea that government can be an instrument for social progress,” he said in 2010. “We need that progress. Fairness requires it.’ Credit...George Tames/The New York Times
“Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president and champion of liberal politics, activist government and civil rights who ran as the Democratic candidate for president in 1984, losing to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide, died on Monday at his home in Minneapolis. He was 93.
Kathy Tunheim, a spokeswoman for the family, announced the death. She did not specify a cause. But Mr. Mondale was prepared for the end. Over the weekend he spoke for the last time with former President Jimmy Carter, under whom he served; with President Biden and his wife, Jill Biden; and with Vice President Kamala Harris. And he sent a farewell email to his former staff members.
A son of a minister of modest means, Fritz Mondale, as he was widely known, led a rich public life that began in Minnesota under the tutelage of his state’s progressive pathfinder, Hubert H. Humphrey. He achieved his own historic firsts, especially with his selection of Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York as his running mate in 1984, the first woman to seek the vice presidency on a major national ticket.
Under President Carter, from 1977 to 1981, Mr. Mondale was the first vice president to serve as a genuine partner of a president, with full access to intelligence briefings, a weekly lunch with Mr. Carter, his own office near the president’s and his own staff integrated with Mr. Carter’s.” Read more at New York Times
“Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters at the Jan. 6 insurrection, the District’s chief medical examiner has ruled.
The ruling, released Monday, likely will make it difficult for prosecutors to pursue homicide charges in the officer’s death. Two men are accused of assaulting Sicknick by spraying a powerful chemical irritant at him during the siege.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Francisco J. Diaz, the medical examiner, said the autopsy found no evidence the 42-year-old officer suffered an allergic reaction to chemical irritants, which Diaz said would have caused Sicknick’s throat to quickly seize. Diaz also said there was no evidence of internal or external injuries.
The medical examiner noted Sicknick was among the officers who engaged the Capitol mob and said ‘all that transpired played a role in his condition.”” Read more at Washington Post
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership Tuesday, according to the president's official schedule. Politico reports the lawmakers are expected confront Biden directly on immigration – including raising the idea of passing some measures through the reconciliation process – and Hispanic representation in the administration. The meeting is also expected to address vaccine distribution in Hispanic communities. The session will come in the aftermath of the administration backtracking after Biden referred to the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border as a ‘crisis’ Saturday, arguing he meant the conditions in Central America that have led more people to flee. ‘The president does not feel that children coming to our border seeking refuge from violence, economic hardships and other dire circumstances is a crisis,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.” Read more at USA Today
“PARIS — The French government bears ‘significant’ responsibility for ‘enabling a foreseeable genocide,’ a report commissioned by the Rwandan government concludes about France’s role before and during the horror in which an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered in 1994.
The report, which The Associated Press has read, comes amid efforts by Rwanda to document the role of French authorities before, during, and after the genocide, part of the steps taken by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to improve relations with the central African country.
The 600-page report says that France ‘did nothing to stop’ the massacres, in April and May 1994, and in the years after the genocide tried to cover up its role and even offered protection to some perpetrators….
In the years before the genocide, ‘French officials armed, advised, trained, equipped, and protected the Rwandan government, heedless of the Habyarimana regime’s commitment to the dehumanization and, ultimately, the destruction and death of Tutsi in Rwanda,’ the report charges.
French authorities at the time pursued ‘France’s own interests, in particular the reinforcement and expansion of France’s power and influence in Africa.’” Read more at Boston Globe
“Russian authorities moved imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a hospital on Monday for what was described as treatment with vitamins.
The Russian penitentiary system released a statement saying that a commission of government doctors had decided on the move for Navalny, who is now nearly three weeks into a hunger strike. Navalny’s personal doctors have reported that he is suffering from a range of severe symptoms that they call life threatening.
There was no immediate response from Navalny’s political allies or personal doctors about the recommendation for treatment with vitamins. Over the weekend, they said that Navalny’s blood tests had showed a risk of imminent heart or kidney failure.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Russia is holding last-minute military exercises that threaten to strangle Ukraine's economy, according to an internal memo from Ukraine's ministry of defense reviewed by Axios' Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu.
Why it matters: With the eyes of the world on the massive buildup of troops in eastern Ukraine, the leaked document shows Russian forces escalating their presence on all sides of the Ukrainian border.
Zoom in: On Friday, Russia announced it intends to block foreign ships in parts of the Black Sea for military exercises through October — an escalation that a State Department spokesman condemned as an example of Moscow's ‘ongoing campaign to undermine and destabilize Ukraine.’
Days earlier, the Pentagon called off plans to send two U.S. warships to the Black Sea, according to Reuters. No explanation was provided.
The leaked Ukrainian document estimates that the total area of Russian military exercises takes up 27% of the Black Sea — a proportion that has steadily crept up, in a sign of efforts to establish de facto control over international waters.
Russians are leveraging civilian infrastructure for military purposes, according to Ukraine. The document says Russia has installed radars on natural gas platforms that it seized from Ukraine after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The leaked document shows Russian forces are escalating their presence on all sides of the Ukrainian border.
It finds a ‘high probability’ Russia may be trying to provoke Ukrainian forces to create a pretext for incursion, like in Georgia in 2008.” Read more at Axios
“China, Russia and other foreign adversaries weaponized QAnon, the false far-right conspiracy theory, in the months surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot, a new report says. The findings from the Soufan Center suggest these foreign actors are using the movement to sow discord among the American public. FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week the bureau isn’t looking into QAnon ‘in its own right,’ but sources say federal agencies are looking into how foreign adversaries are using the movement. Those inquiries are part of a broader effort to address the threat posed by domestic extremists in the aftermath of January's violence.” Read more at CNN
“The former law enforcement officer suspected of fatally shooting three people, including his wife and 17-year-old daughter, in Austin on Sunday has been captured after a 20-hour manhunt, authorities said.
Stephen N. Broderick, 41, was arrested early Monday by the same agency that once employed him, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies tracked him down aftergetting two 911 calls about a man walking along a road in the Austin suburb of Manor. He had a pistol in his waistband but was taken into custody without any further violence, said Kristen Dark, a spokeswoman for the department.
At the sheriff’s office in Travis County, Tex., home to Austin, Broderick investigated property crimes until he was arrested in June and charged with sexually assaulting a child, Dark said. He was placed on administrative leave and later resigned.” Read more at Washington Post
“Michael Vivona, 25, a man who Olympian Sakura Kokumai, who is Japanese American, said verbally harassed her and called her racial slurs in early April, punched a 79-year-old man and his 80-year-old wife , both Korean Americans, in the same California park Sunday, authorities said.” Read more at USA Today
“The British government is facing pressure to revise its coronavirus restrictions for funerals after a photograph taken at Prince Philip’s funeral on Saturday showed reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II sitting alone in St George’s Chapel as she grieved for her husband of 73 years. To many Britons, the image seemed to symbolize what families worldwide have had to face since the pandemic began: grieving without the touch or closeness of anyone else to ease the pain.” Read more at Washington Post
“Tyrannosaurs probably hunted in packs, scientists announced Monday after analyzing fossils unearthed in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a conclusion challenging long-held assumptions that the iconic dinosaurs were solitary predators.” Read more at Washington Post
“Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is pushing for a new law to allow the direct election of the nation’s leader as a way to break the country’s two-year political deadlock.
The proposal could guarantee Netanyahu another term as prime minister after he and his religious and nationalist allies failed to win a clear majority in March 23 elections. It also would allow him to stay in power while facing a lengthy corruption trial.
But such a move faced a major setback after Netanyahu’s opponents wrested control of a parliamentary committee on Monday.
Netanyahu has a May 4 deadline to build a governing coalition. After that, a group of small parties that oppose him hope to be able to cobble together an alternative government.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Armin Laschet looks to have prevailed in the battle to become the candidate for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc in September’s federal election. The battle for their party’s soul may only be beginning.
Laschet has been vying with Markus Soeder, the Bavarian state premier whose CSU is the sister party to Laschet and Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Polls suggest whoever becomes the contender would be the front-runner to occupy the Chancellery once Merkel steps down.
A late-night decision by the CDU leadership in Laschet’s favor effectively ended Soeder’s campaign, despite the Bavarian’s higher approval ratings. But it’s unlikely to bring a close to the rivalry between their respective camps.
The fight is about more than just personalities: Laschet represents the center ground that Merkel made her own, to the anger of many in her own party; Soeder is to the right, and has in the past espoused a more skeptical stance on issues from migration to Europe.
That’s a divide now openly simmering at the heart of the ruling bloc just five months from the most unpredictable election in a generation or more, and one with consequences for Europe. It’s a gift for the Greens, who announced party co-leader Annalena Baerbock as their chancellor candidate yesterday, and are polling in second place.
Skeptics will say that Merkel’s legacy of centrist politics is a riven bloc struggling to cling to power. It may be that she was the last thing holding the CDU and CSU together.” — Read more at Bloomberg - Alan Crawford
“Mountains of paperwork, visa requirements and spiraling fees for European tours are forcing musicians to reconsider life in the U.K., Isolde MacDonogh reports. In this post-Brexit world, the careers of scores of British musicians have been upended, forcing many to consider moving to Europe.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Australia and New Zealand have opened a bubble that will link the two countries, allowing travelers to go to and fro without a quarantine period or Covid-19 test. Both countries have done a remarkable job keeping cases at almost zero.” Read more at [Insider / Katie Warren
“Farewell, Castros? The Cuban Communist Party elected Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s current president, to replace Raul Castro as first secretary, the nation’s most powerful office at the end of its eighth national congress on Monday. Díaz-Canel’s election marks the end of the Castro dynasty in Cuba, which began when Fidel came to power in 1959—though some have argued that the family will continue to run the country behind the scenes. ‘Comrade Raul will be consulted on the most important strategic decisions of greatest weight for the destiny of our nation,’ Díaz-Canal said after his election. ‘He will always be present.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“The Biden administration is considering requiring tobacco companies to lower the nicotine in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. to levels at which they are no longer addictive, according to people familiar with the matter.
Administration officials are considering the policy as they approach a deadline for declaring the administration’s intentions on another tobacco question: whether or not to ban menthol cigarettes.
The Food and Drug Administration must respond in court by April 29 to a citizens’ petition to ban menthols by disclosing whether the agency intends to pursue such a policy. The Biden administration is weighing whether to move forward on a menthol ban or a nicotine reduction in all cigarettes—or both, the people familiar with the matter said.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“145 million — The number of Covid-19 vaccine doses that are expected to be delivered to 92 low- and middle-income nations by May through an initiative backed by the World Health Organization and wealthy countries. The total is lower than an earlier estimate of 240 million doses, largely because India, the program's main supplier, has stopped exporting shots to handle its own coronavirus surge.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The State Department said Monday that it would start updating its travel advisories this week to drastically increase the number of countries that get the ‘Level 4: Do Not Travel’ designation.
In a statement, the department said roughly 80 percent of countries worldwide would soon be marked at the highest warning level. As of Monday afternoon, about 16 percent of countries had that label.
‘This alignment better reflects the current, unpredictable, and ever-evolving threat posed by covid-19,’ the department said in an email. ‘We continue to strongly recommend U.S. citizens reconsider all travel abroad, and postpone their trips if possible.’
In a media note, the department said the change doesn’t ‘imply a reassessment of the current health situation in a given country,’ but instead indicates a change in the advisory system to rely more heavily on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Read more at Washington Post
“A group of Black religious leaders in Georgia will call for a boycott of Home Depot for not pushing back on the state’s new voting law.” Read more at New York Times
“Forty-five percent of Texas voters said in a poll that they would vote for Matthew McConaughey if he were to run for governor.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: LaDonna Allard helped kick off the movement opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline by donating her land to be used as the site of a resistance camp. She died at 64.” Read more at New York Times
“Apple will let Parler back onto the App Store after Parler made attempts to improve its speech detection and moderation.” Read more at Axios
“First female four-star admiral in Coast Guard history:President Biden will nominate Coast Guard Vice Adm. Linda Fagan for vice commandant.” Read more at Axios
“Princeton University is ramping up its effort to increase enrollment of first-generation and low-income students and ease their path to graduation, backed by a $20 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
On Monday the school is announcing a new center, focused on improving access and opportunities for such students. It will house a range of existing programs like targeted summer orientation, mentoring, social activities and workshops on topics like choosing a major and translating professors’ jargon.
The center will also serve as a base for research to determine the most effective support mechanisms for first-generation and low-income students and how they can be used by colleges nationwide.
The goal is to share findings with other universities to scale up a range of efforts that can help get underrepresented students “to, through and beyond the university,” said Khristina Gonzalez, an associate dean and the director of programs for access and inclusion at Princeton. She will head up the new Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity.
Ms. Bloomberg, daughter of the billionaire businessman and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, is a 2001 Princeton graduate and Bloomberg Philanthropies board member, and has founded and worked with nonprofits focused on education and alleviating poverty.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The members of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, gathers in Switzerland today for its annual meeting as the world’s most popular sport faces a mutiny.
On Sunday, 12 of the world’s richest clubs, six from England, three from Spain, and three from Italy, announced the formation of a European Super League. The move would create a closed, American-style league that would replace the current top-flight European competition, where qualification is based on a team’s end-of-season position in their respective national leagues. The proposal effectively guarantees a permanent cash flow for the richest teams, eliminates the financial risk associated with not qualifying, and shuts the door on potential interlopers.
The decision by the clubs, valued collectively at over $35 billion and whose owners include American and Chinese businessmen, a U.S. hedge fund, a Russian oligarch, and an Emirati sheikh, has been met with condemnation by fans and politicians alike as a money-grubbing ploy. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government would support attempts to kill the proposal, as has French President Emmanuel Macron. That won’t be easy. European competition law is in favor of the mutineers and U.S. bank J.P. Morgan has already committed $4.8 billion in financing.
For the league’s proponents, the group are merely following the trend of consolidation in other entertainment fields like music, movies, and television and a pursuing a broad base over niche appeal. ‘Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans,’ Real Madrid president and Super League chairman Florentino Perez said in a statement. ‘And our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.’
Amateur echoes. To a U.S. audience used to closed shops like the NBA, NFL, and MLB, the move might seem like a natural progression. But whereas the lifeblood of U.S. sports comes largely from a network of colleges and universities, European sports retain some of their amateur foundations: players are still recruited locally from a young age, stadiums mostly remain within walking distance for fans, and some teams, like Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, are even owned by supporters (although neither club’s members were consulted on the new league). (For more on the U.S.-Europe sports divide, read Tom McTague’s 2019 piece in The Atlantic.)” Read more at Foreign Policy