AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
George Floyd, whose death energized a movement, to be buried
HOUSTON (AP) — The black man whose death has inspired a worldwide reckoning over racial injustice will be buried in Houston Tuesday, carried home in a horse-drawn carriage.
George Floyd, who was 46 when he was killed, will be laid to rest next to his mother. On May 25, as a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee on Floyd's neck for several minutes, the dying man cried out for his mother.
His funeral will be private. A public memorial service was held Monday in Houston, where he grew up. Some 6,000 people attended.
Under a blazing Texas sun, mourners wearing T-shirts with Floyd’s picture or the words “I Can’t Breathe” — one of the other things he cried out repeatedly while pinned down by the police officer — waited for hours to pay their respects. Floyd’s body, dressed in a brown suit, lay in an open gold-colored casket.
Shorty after the memorial ended, Floyd’s casket was placed in a hearse and escorted by police back to a funeral home.
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Key Democrats spurn push to defund police amid Trump attacks
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on calls to “defund the police” as a dangerous example of Democratic overreach as he fights for momentum amid crises that threaten his reelection.
Key Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, are distancing themselves from the “defund” push, which some supporters say is a symbolic commitment to end systemic racism and shift policing priorities rather than an actual plan to eliminate law enforcement agencies.
But confusion over the proposal's intent has created an opportunity for the Republican president, who has struggled to navigate the delicate debate over racial justice, risking support from people of color, suburban women and independents less than five months before Election Day.
Facing increasing pressure to weigh in, Biden addressed the issue Monday in an interview with “CBS Evening News.”
“I don’t support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community," Biden said.
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Protesters heartened by swift reform, but vow broader change
ATLANTA (AP) — In the two weeks since George Floyd's killing, police departments have banned chokeholds, Confederate monuments have fallen and officers have been arrested and charged amid large global protests against violence by police and racism.
The moves are far short of the overhaul of police, prosecutors' offices, courts and other institutions that protesters seek. But some advocates and demonstrators say they are encouraged by the swiftness of the response to Floyd's death — incremental as it may be.
“Everywhere you look, you see something that gives you hope,” said Frank James Matthews, 64, an activist in Alabama. “But we have no illusions because something that’s embedded like racism is hard to kill.”
Matthews spent years pushing for the removal of a Confederate monument in Birmingham near the site where four black girls died in a racist church bombing in 1963. The city took down the obelisk last week after protesters tried to remove it themselves during one of the many nationwide demonstrations over Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis.
At a memorial for Floyd on Monday in Houston, Bracy Burnett said it was hard to tell if the changes that have taken place since Floyd’s death will last.
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In poor regions, easing virus lockdowns brings new risks
SAO PAULO (AP) — As many countries gingerly start lifting their lockdown measures, experts worry that a further surge of the coronavirus in under-developed regions with shaky health systems could undermine efforts to halt the pandemic, and they say more realistic options are needed.
Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India and Pakistan are among countries easing tight restrictions, not only before their outbreaks have peaked but also before any detailed surveillance and testing system is in place to keep the virus under control. That could ultimately have devastating consequences, health experts warn.
“Politicians may be desperate to get their economies going again, but that could be at the expense of having huge numbers of people die,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Exeter in Britain.
He said re-imposing recently lifted lockdown measures was equally dangerous.
“Doing that is extremely worrying because then you will build up a highly resentful and angry population, and it’s unknown how they will react,” Pankhania said. And as nearly every developed country struggles with its own outbreak, there may be fewer resources to help those with long overstretched capacities.
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Yemen's rebels crack down as COVID-19 and rumors spread
CAIRO (AP) — In the darkness, the bodies of suspected victims of coronavirus are carried in silence, one after the other, to be buried in several cemeteries across northern Yemen. Flashlights flicker as mourners make their way through the shadows.
The corpses are washed with disinfectants, wrapped in layers of plastic sheets and white linen before being laid to rest in six-feet deep pits. There is no one around except for a handful of relatives in masks, gloves, and white gowns. Large gatherings are not permitted. Phones are not allowed.
Grave diggers and guards at the cemeteries are warned not to speak about the causes of the deaths. If asked, they are told to say that the dead are “unidentified bodies from the war,” according to several residents and one gravedigger. Families are never really told if their relatives died from the coronavirus, which is believed to be the culprit. Test results are never released. These daily funeral rituals come as social media are flooded with condolences and photographs of the dead.
The coronavirus is spreading throughout Yemen, a county that has been devastated by five years of civil war. The fighting is between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, and a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of the internationally recognized government.
The fighting has already killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions. Years of aerial bombings and intense ground fighting has destroyed thousands of buildings, leaving half of Yemen’s health facilities dysfunctional. About 18% of the country’s 333 districts have no doctors. Water and sanitation systems have collapsed. Many families, especially among the millions displaced by fighting, can barely afford one meal a day.
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North Korea cuts off all communication with South Korea
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said it was cutting off all communication channels with South Korea on Tuesday, a move experts say could signal Pyongyang has grown frustrated that Seoul has failed to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency said all cross-border communication lines would be cut off at noon in the “the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things.”
When South Korean officials tried to contact their North Korean counterparts via several channels after the North’s announcement Tuesday, the North Koreans didn’t answer, according to the South Korean government.
North Korea has cut communications in the past — not replying to South Korean phone calls or faxes — and then restored those channels when tensions eased. North Korea has been accused at times of deliberately creating tensions to bolster internal unity or to signal its frustration over a lack of progress in nuclear talks with Washington.
In its announcement, North Korea said Tuesday's move was a response to South Korea’s failure to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across their border.
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Hong Kong leader says all should learn from year of protest
HONG KONG (AP) — A year on from the start of Hong Kong's anti-government protests, the leader of the semi-autonomous Chinese city said Tuesday that all sides should learn from the difficulties and challenging times over the past year.
“Everyone has to learn their lesson, including the Hong Kong government,” Carrie Lam told reporters before a weekly meeting with advisors. “Hong Kong cannot bear that kind of chaos, and the people of Hong Kong want a stable and peaceful environment to be able to live and work here happily.”
Lam did not elaborate on what lessons should have been learned.
Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the first large-scale protest against a proposed extradition bill that would have allowed people in this former British colony, which has its own legal system, to be sent to mainland China to stand trial. Organizers pegged the turnout at more than a million people, while police estimated a crowd of 240,000.
“The mass protest on 9 June last year has been etched in the collective memory of Hongkongers," the Civil Human Rights Front, which organized the event, wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. "It also marks the beginning of our togetherness in defending our beloved city.”
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Cristobal to merge with new storm system after lashing South
Tropical Storm Cristobal could soon renew its strength by uniting with another storm system coming from the west to form one giant cyclone, forecasters say.
After drenching much of the South, forecasters now expect the remnants of Cristobal to bring fierce winds, heavy rain and thunderstorms to much of the Midwest by Tuesday.
A very strong storm system sweeping out from the Rocky Mountains is expected to meld with Cristobal in the next couple of days, said Greg Carbin, who oversees forecasts at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
“The two will eventually merge into a large cyclone," Carbin said. “It’s a pretty fascinating interaction we'll see over the next couple of days."
Wind gusts of up to 45 mph (72 kph) are expected in Chicago by Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said. Boaters were being warned of gale-force winds on nearby Lake Michigan on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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Anger, activism grow over police abuse amid French lockdown
PARIS (AP) — With France confined to fight the virus, a video circulated online in April showing a young man lying on the bloody ground next to two police officers — and quickly set off protests in struggling neighborhoods around the Paris region.
Sometime before, the man had been on a motorcycle. Then, he crashed into a suddenly opened police car door. Whether the door was opened on purpose or not is unclear, but what was clear was the anger the video sparked. A protest that night in the town of Villeneuve-la-Garenne led to others in a dozen Paris suburbs and similar neighborhoods around France in the ensuing days.
The relationship between police and marginalized residents of France’s low-income neighborhoods, many of whom are Arab or black and trace their roots to former French colonies, has long been tense. Safety measures intended to curb the spread of COVID-19 further empowered police — but also empowered community activists using apps or online sleuthing to track and challenge what they see as an abuse of police power.
George Floyd’s death in the U.S. has resonated especially loudly in places like Villeneuve, one of many banlieues, or suburbs, where poverty and minority populations are concentrated in France. Floyd-related protests against police violence and racial injustice have been held around France, and more are planned for Tuesday evening.
In a pivotal moment for modern France, rioting engulfed the country for three weeks in 2005 after two boys who were running from police, Zyed and Bouna, were electrocuted while hiding in an electric generator in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. A state of emergency was declared and almost 3,000 people were arrested.
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Q&A: State of Tokyo Olympics 2 1/2 months after postponement
TOKYO (AP) — It's been 2 1/2 months since the Tokyo Olympics were postponed until next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So where do the games stand? So far, many ideas about how the Olympic can take place are being floated by the International Olympic Committee, Japanese officials and politicians, and in unsourced Japanese newspaper articles coming from local organizers and politicians. The focus is on soaring costs, fans — or no fans — possible quarantines for athletes, and cutting back to only “the essentials."
No one blames the IOC for not knowing what conditions will be a year from now. And from the IOC perspective, there is no need yet to speak frankly and possibly alienate Japanese politicians and citizens, sponsors and TV broadcasters, and athletes.
The IOC executive board meets on Wednesday and will hear a brief presentation from Tokyo organizers on a remote hookup, explaining where things stand. Few surprises and few specifics are expected. The meeting is behind virtual closed doors, although IOC President Thomas Bach will speak afterward.
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Q: Given the pandemic, will the Olympics really open on July 23, 2021? There are skeptics, particularly if no vaccine is available.