The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
'You changed the world, George': George Floyd remembered in rousing, poignant memorial service
Politicians, civil rights legends and celebrities joined family members Thursday to mourn George Floyd in ways both rousing and uplifting, and for one long, poignant moment, silent.
The private memorial for Floyd, whose death after being pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police ignited a global cry of outrage and grief, was held in the sanctuary on the downtown Minneapolis campus of North Central University.
In spirited ebbs and flows, the Rev. Al Sharpton eulogized Floyd while at the same time calling for social change for African-Americans and others who feel oppression in this country.
But Sharpton closed his eulogy in a quiet and symbolic way, directing those in attendance to stand in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the time representing how long one officer used his knee to pin Floyd by the neck last week as he pleaded “I can’t breathe” until falling motionless.
After the final second passed, Sharpton said, “That’s how long he was laying there.”
Minnesota's county attorneys call for giving Attorney General Keith Ellison's office power to charge all police killings
Minnesota’s county prosecutors on Thursday voted to recommend giving the attorney general’s office authority to take on all cases of police-involved killings, in a move that would need signoff from state lawmakers during this month’s special session.
The Minnesota County Attorney’s Association will also call on the Legislature for extra funding for the attorney general’s office and the creation of an independent unit at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to investigate police killings of civilians.
BuzzFeed News
Graphic Video Shows Buffalo Police Pushing A Man And Causing Him To Hit His Head On A Sidewalk
Graphic video shows Buffalo, New York, police officers pushing an elderly man back while enforcing curfew, knocking the man over and causing him to hit his head on the sidewalk and bleed from his ear.
The short, but shocking video was captured by local NPR station WBFO, and it quickly went viral after it was posted on Twitter.
The Washington Post
Mattis’s rebuke of Trump forces Republicans to choose between revered Marine and Trump
Former defense secretary Jim Mattis’s strong rebuke of … Trump forced Republicans to choose sides between a revered retired Marine Corps general and a leader with a near-stranglehold on the party and the voters critical to their election.
Mattis moved one senior Senate Republican to finally declare she had to speak out against Trump’s handling of the racial injustice protests, and against his moral leadership more broadly, while signaling she may not support him in November.
“When I saw General Mattis’s comments yesterday, I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) … said Thursday.
People are sawing through and climbing over Trump’s border wall
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has asked contractors for help making … Trump’s border wall more difficult to climb over and cut through, an acknowledgment that the design currently being installed across hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico boundary remains vulnerable.
The new request for information notice that CBP posted gives federal contractors until June 12 to suggest new anti-breaching and anti-climbing technology and tools, while also inviting proposals for “private party construction” that would allow investors and activists to acquire land, build a barrier on it and sell the whole thing to the government.
Los Angeles Times
As protests mount around the world, Trump ignores calls for police reforms
[…] “There’s been no signal from the Trump administration that they are interested in doing anything other than photo-op-style events, maybe a listening session or something,” said Scott Roberts, senior criminal justice campaign director for Color of Change, a racial justice nonprofit.
Trump has pledged to crack down on the looting and rioting that has occasionally accompanied peaceful demonstrations, urging governors to “dominate” the streets and threatening to deploy the U.S. military.
His approach has transformed parts of the nation’s capital into a garrison, with an ever-expanding security perimeter around the White House and armed troops at many intersections and national landmarks.
Troubling videos capture L.A. police violence, aggression amid demonstrations
In one video, at least eight Los Angeles police officers surround a woman lying in a Hollywood street as the buzz of a Taser fills the air. People scream from apartment balconies for the officers, who appear to be firing the stun gun at the woman, to stop.
In another video, an LAPD vehicle barrels into a crowd of protesters in Pershing Square, nearly driving over one before backing up and speeding away as protesters throw objects at the car.
On Tuesday, footage of a curfew arrest in Hollywood ends with the unarmed arrestee held at gunpoint and pleading for mercy as a police radio squawks with orders for officers to take anyone they see into custody. In L.A. County, sheriff’s deputies in one video appear to shoot pellets out of a moving vehicle at young men on the street, and those in another video punch and knee a young man on the ground in Compton.
Louisville Courier-Journal
Breonna Taylor's pregnant neighbor is suing police officers, saying they 'blindly fired'
Breonna Taylor's neighbor is suing the Louisville Metro Police officers who raided Taylor's apartment March 13 and killed her, claiming that their shots were "blindly fired" throughout the neighboring apartment and nearly struck a man inside.
The lawsuit, filed in May, says officers who were at Taylor's apartment to execute a search warrant went on to "spray gunfire into Chelsey Napper's apartment with a total disregard for the value of human life."
"A bullet that was shot from the defendant police officers' gun flew inches past Cody Etherton's head while he was in the hallway of Chelsey Napper's apartment," it states.
Napper was pregnant and had a child in the home.
In emotional debate, Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris plead for Rand Paul to allow anti-lynching bill to pass
An anti-lynching bill that Sen. Rand Paul has held up in the Senate for several months led to a heated and passionate battle on the Senate floor Thursday, pitting the Kentucky Republican at odds with two of the Senate's three black members over changes to the bipartisan legislation.
The emotional debate centered on the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, which passed the House in a bipartisan 410-4 vote in February and would make lynching a federal crime. Paul has put forth changes to bill he argues would prevent those involved in minor altercations from being charged with lynching and receiving a 10-year sentence. The bill is named in memory of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black teenager who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 and whose death was a catalyst for the civil rights movement.
CNN
Ahmaud Arbery was hit with a truck before he died, and his killer allegedly used a racial slur, investigator testifies
(CNN)William Bryan told investigators he heard Travis McMichael use a racial epithet after fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified Thursday at a preliminary hearing.
The hearing lasted about seven hours, with the judge ruling all three defendants -- McMichael; his father, Gregory McMichael; and William "Roddie" Bryan -- would stand trial on all charges.
The details of Arbery's last moments emerged amid a week of nationwide protests over another killing -- that of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis -- and demonstrators have also called for justice in Arbery's case.
GBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Richard Dial testified that Bryan told police Travis McMichael said "f***ing n***er" after three blasts from his shotgun left Arbery dead in the street in the Satilla Shores neighborhood in February. Body camera footage also showed a Confederate flag sticker on the toolbox of McMichael's truck, he said.
Indian defense minister says there have been 'significant' Chinese troop movements amid border tensions
Chinese troops have moved into a tense, disputed section of the Himalayan border shared by China and India, according to a high-ranking Delhi official.
Speaking to CNN-affiliate News18, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said Tuesday a "significant number" of Chinese troops had moved to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries.
"It is true that people of China are on the border. They claim that it is their territory. Our claim is that it is our area. There has been a disagreement over it ... India has done what it needs to do," Singh said during the interview.
The Seattle Times
‘Can’t breathe’: Tacoma police restraint of Manuel Ellis caused his death, medical examiner reports
Manuel Ellis died in handcuffs while being restrained on the ground by Tacoma police…
The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office has determined the 33-year-old died March 3 of respiratory arrest due to hypoxia due to physical restraint. […]
The medical examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide, which legally means he was killed by another person. Fatal police shootings, for instance, are generally determined to be homicides. It is up to prosecutors to decide if police acted lawfully and if the homicide was justifiable or a criminal act was committed.
Bloomberg
Trump’s Promised Farm Bonanza From China Deal Far From Fulfilled
Donald Trump’s promise that his phase one trade deal with China would provide a $36.5 billion election-year bonanza for his rural base was always a stretch. Now it looks like it may never be fulfilled.
Trump is back to bashing China. The Asian nation’s roaring economy was stalled for months by the coronavirus pandemic, cutting its demand for imports. And a plunge in Brazil’s currency is cheapening products of the U.S.’s main international agricultural competitor.
“There’s absolutely zero chance” of reaching the purchase commitment announced in January when the deal was reached, said Joe Glauber, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s former chief economist. “They’re just so far behind.”
Google Spots Chinese Phishing Attempts on Biden Campaign Staff
A Chinese hacking group targeted the personal email accounts of Joe Biden’s campaign staff, Google said Thursday.
The company recently observed the Chinese activity against the Democratic presidential campaign, according to a company statement. […]
The Biden campaign confirmed in a statement that it was aware of the reports. The campaign has known that it would be targeted with attacks of this kind and was prepared, according to the statement.
Houston Chronicle
Texas is among the most politically polarized states in U.S., study shows
Texas is among the most politically polarized states in the U.S., and its congressional leaders are more partisan than those of any other populous state in the nation, according to a recent ranking.
Several Texas lawmakers were rated among the most partisan in the nation, including U.S. Reps. Chip Roy, a Central Texas Republican who rated as the third-most partisan member of Congress, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, whose record in the Senate is less partisan than those of just five other senators since 1993.
The Guardian
Trump orders agencies cut environment reviews, citing 'economic emergency'
The Trump administration continued to weaken core environmental protections in the US by announcing a pair of policies to cut reviews for large infrastructure projects and downplay the health benefits of rules to curb pollution.
Both changes could disproportionately hurt communities of color, which are far more likely to live with pollution because of decades of environmental racism. They come after a week of nationwide protests over police killings of black Americans.
The proposals could also make it easier for the government to ignore the climate crisis in making decisions.
One of the policies came as an executive order from Donald Trump instructing agencies to use emergency authorities to bypass bedrock environmental laws and speed federal approvals for highways and oil and gas pipelines. The order said it is meant to accelerate the recovery from the “dramatic downturn” in the economy and high unemployment from the Covid-19 pandemic.
'Can't quite believe it': New Zealand tiptoes towards elimination of coronavirus
As health officials announce each new day of no new Covid-19 cases, social media explodes with New Zealanders celebrating the news. […]
Twenty-two New Zealanders have died of Covid-19, ; thousands have lost their jobs and the nation’s largest export sector, tourism, lies in tatters. But as New Zealanders look to the hundreds of thousands of deaths recorded in other countries, there is a sense that the rest of the world faced a different pandemic, the disastrous scale of which never fully arrived here.
Now, providing there are no new and unexpected cases to marr the country’s 14-day streak of zero fresh instances of Covid-19, scientists say they expect to be able to declare next week that the virus has been eliminated from New Zealand – making it the first country among the OECD group of wealthy nations, and the first country that has recorded more than 100 cases to make such a statement, analysts said.
Politico
Mass arrests jeopardizing the health of protesters, police
Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread, according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups.
As tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the arrest and detention of thousands further jeopardizes the health of demonstrators — and that of police officers and the broader community.
The use of tear gas and pepper spray, which provoke coughing, adds to the health risk, as do police crowd control techniques like “kettling” — pushing demonstrators into smaller, contained and tightly packed spaces.
Esper risks being sidelined as White House floats replacements
Donald Trump is unhappy with Pentagon chief Mark Esper. Aides are gossiping about who could replace him. Yet the embattled Defense secretary may be on his way to a more Trumpian punishment: sidelined within the administration.
Esper’s future is in question after he opposed Trump on Wednesday over the president’s call to deploy active-duty troops to quash protests taking part throughout the U.S. In the 24 hours since Esper spoke out, he has met with the president at the White House and has received tepid-at-best endorsements from Trump’s team.
But instead of being shown an early exit, one person in the administration said, Esper could just face an icing out.
ABC News
Tempers flare as Republican senators seek unilateral subpoena power to probe Russia investigation
A bitter partisan fight in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday forced its [Republican] chairman, Lindsey Graham, to delay a vote that would give him unilateral subpoena power in a [Republican]-led probe of the counterintelligence investigation that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
The move for subpoena authority -- which Graham predicted would be approved in a party-line vote next week -- would allow him to compel the appearance of more than 50 witnesses, the majority of whom served in the Obama administration. One currently works for former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
3 former officers charged in George Floyd's death make 1st court appearance
A Minneapolis judge remanded three of the four former officers involved in George Floyd's death on a million dollars bail during their first court appearance Thursday afternoon.
Kiernan Lane, Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were all charged with second-degree aiding and abetting felony murder and second-degree aiding and abetting manslaughter in the death of the 46-year-old man. Former officer Derek Chauvin was arrested last week and initially charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, but those charges were upgraded to second-degree murder Wednesday. He is currently in jail on a $500,000 bond.
WUSA
No law enforcement agency admits to using tear gas Monday, but tear gas canisters were found at the scene
As of Thursday evening, US Park Police, Arlington Police, DC Metro Police and the Secret Service have all denied using any kind of tear gas in Lafayette Square Monday evening.
But federal law enforcement did launch tear gas Monday evening outside Lafayette Park, and WUSA9 crews witnessed it.
WUSA9 cameras were at the fence line near the Northwest corner of Lafayette Square Park. At around 6:15 p.m., we heard two bullhorn addresses from the direction of federal police. We could not make out what they said, and by appearance, none of the protesters could either. US Park Police said they gave three verbal warnings to clear H Street before the mayor's 7:00 p.m. curfew.
Our crew also witnessed nothing but peaceful protester behavior, even with our unique 15-foot-high camera position.
NPR News
No Names, No Insignias: Democrats Call For Anonymous Policing Of Protests To End
When Russian-speaking troops showed up in Ukraine six years ago, they were dubbed "little green men": armed forces whose green fatigues bore neither insignia nor identification.
A similar genre of unidentified, armed personnel clad in insignia-free uniforms has appeared policing street protests in Washington, D.C., in recent days, and Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers about just who these anonymous enforcers are.
"Some officers have refused to provide identification and have been deployed without identifying insignias, badges and name plates," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote Thursday in a letter to … Trump. "The practice of officers operating with full anonymity undermines accountability, ignites government distrust and suspicion, and is counter to the principle of procedural justice and legitimacy during this precarious moment in our nation's history."
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Condemns Trump's Threat To Use Military At Protests
In rare public comments, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Ret. Gen. Martin Dempsey condemned Trump's threat to use military force to suppress nationwide protests as "dangerous" and "very troubling," in an interview with NPR on Thursday.
"The idea that the president would take charge of the situation using the military was troubling to me," Gen. Dempsey said. […]
The retired general said military involvement should be reserved for "conflict in external wars."
"The idea that the military would be called in to dominate and to suppress what, for the most part, were peaceful protests — admittedly, where some had opportunistically turned them violent — and that the military would somehow come in and calm that situation was very dangerous to me," he said.
Ars Technica
The Pentagon’s hand-me-downs helped militarize police. Here’s how
The images of this past week are both inescapable and indelible: protesters flooding the streets of cities across the United States, met by police forces equipped with full body armor and tactical vehicles that vaguely resemble tanks. The local law enforcement responding to even nonviolent protests has often looked more like the US Armed Forces—and that was before President Donald Trump deployed an actual military police battalion against peaceably assembled US citizens in the nation's capitol Monday. That’s no accident.
It’s easy enough to buy tactical gear in the US, and the Homeland Security Grant Program has funneled billions of dollars to law enforcement agencies to acquire military-grade equipment. But for decades, a primary driver for why it can be so hard to tell a National Guard troop from a local cop has been the Department of Defense itself, through a program that has parceled out everything from bayonets to grenade launchers to precincts across the country.
“Let’s start a riot”: Denver cop fired for inflammatory Instagram post
The Denver police department has fired an officer who posted a photo to Instagram with the caption "let's start a riot."
"The officer violated the Department's social media policy, posted content inconsistent with the values of the Department, and the officer has been terminated," the department announced on its official Twitter account.
The now-deleted post showed officer Tommy McClay in riot gear alongside two other officers. McClay wrote "let's start a riot" below the photo on a day when his colleagues used tear gas and foam bullets on protesters in the city.
Gizmodo
Tear Gas Is Dangerous and Should Be Illegal
Tear gas is a chemical weapon that is banned for use in warfare, yet U.S. police have repeatedly deployed it against people protesting police brutality and anti-black violence this week. Though it’s considered a non-lethal weapon, tear gas is actually far more dangerous than advertised—especially in the midst of a global pandemic.
There are different types of chemicals available as so-called riot-control agents. But the most common ingredient used today in what we call tear gas is 2-chlorobenzylidene malonitrile, or CS. Though also deployed as a spray, the tear gas form of CS is actually a powder that’s aerosolized when the canister or grenade containing it goes off. Like the name implies, the immediate effects of CS exposure include an intense, painful irritation of the eyes that causes crying, spasms, and itching. But the chemical can also affect practically every part of the body that it comes into contact with.
A 2016 scientific review lays out the laundry list of health effects from tear gas. On skin, it can cause redness, itching, rashes, and oozing blisters. When it’s inhaled, the gas causes fits of coughing that can progress to choking and chest tightness. In our eyes, a dose at close range can cause bleeding, tearing of the corneas, and possibly even traumatic nerve damage.