AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Minneapolis police station torched amid George Floyd protest
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Cheering protesters torched a Minneapolis police station that the department was forced to abandon as three days of violent protests spread to nearby St. Paul and angry demonstrations flared across the U.S over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer kneeled on his neck.
A police spokesman confirmed late Thursday that staff had evacuated the 3rd Precinct station, the focus of many of the protests, “in the interest of the safety of our personnel" shortly after 10 p.m. Livestream video showed the protesters entering the building, where fire alarms blared and sprinklers ran as blazes were set.
Protesters could be seen setting fire to a Minneapolis Police Department jacket.
Late Thursday, President Donald Trump blasted the “total lack of leadership” in Minneapolis. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he said on Twitter.
A visibly tired and frustrated Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey made his first public appearance of the night at City Hall near 2 a.m. Friday and took responsibility for evacuating the precinct, saying it had become too dangerous for officers there. As Frey continued, a reporter cut across loudly with a question: “What's the plan here?”
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Police across US speak out against Minneapolis custody death
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Murder.Brutality. Reprehensible.Indefensible. Police nationwide, in unequivocal and unprecedented language, have condemned the actions of Minneapolis police in the custody death of a handcuffed black man who cried for help as an officer knelt on his neck, pinning him to the pavement for at least eight minutes.
But some civil rights advocates say their denunciations are empty words without meaningful reform behind them.
Authorities say George Floyd was detained Monday because he matched the description of someone who tried to pay with a counterfeit bill at a convenience store, and the 46-year-old resisted arrest. A bystander's disturbing video shows Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd's neck, even as Floyd begs for air and slowly stops talking and moving.
“There is no need to see more video,” Chattanooga, Tennessee, Police Chief David Roddy tweeted Wednesday. “There no need to wait to see how ‘it plays out’. There is no need to put a knee on someone’s neck for NINE minutes. There IS a need to DO something. If you wear a badge and you don’t have an issue with this ... turn it in.”
The reaction from some law enforcement stands in stark contrast to their muted response or support for police after other in-custody fatalities. Sheriffs and police chiefs have strongly criticized the Minneapolis officer on social media and praised the city’s police chief for his quick dismissal of four officers at the scene. Some even called for them to be criminally charged.
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Twitter adds 'glorifying violence' warning to Trump tweet
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twitter has added a warning to one of President Donald J. Trump's tweets about protests in Minneapolis, saying it violated the platform's rules about “glorifying violence.”
Trump, a prolific Twitter user, has been at war with the company since earlier this week, when it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.
The third tweet to be flagged started as a message of support for the governor of Minnesota, where there have been three days of violent protests over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer kneeled on his neck.
Trump added at the end of his tweet, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Twitter did not remove the tweet, saying it had determined it might be in the public interest to have it remain accessible. It does that only for tweets by elected and government officials. A user looking at Trump's timeline would have to click to see the original tweet.
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New Zealand near eradication, but virus has grim global hold
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand on Friday had all but eradicated the coronavirus from its shores with just one person in the nation of 5 million known to be still infected, but developments elsewhere were generally grim, with India reporting another record increase in cases and Pakistan a record number of deaths.
In the U.S., the virus threw more than 2 million people out of work last week despite the gradual reopening of businesses, stoking fears the scourge is doing deep and potentially long-lasting damage to the world's largest economy.
The latest job-loss figures from the U.S. Labor Department bring to 41 million the running total of Americans who have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus shutdowns took hold in mid-March.
In New Zealand, health authorities have not found any new virus cases for a week. Of the 1,504 people who were infected, 22 have died and all but one of the rest have now recovered. The nation's borders remain closed and staying virus-free when they eventually reopen poses a big challenge.
India registered another record daily increase of 7,466 cases just before its two-month lockdown ends Sunday. The government's new guidelines expected this weekend may extend the lockdown in the worst-hit areas while easing the rules to promote economic activity elsewhere.
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Masks on Leatherneck Square: Virus changes Marine training
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — The booming shouts of the rain-soaked Marine recruits echo across Leatherneck Square training field, barely muffled by their masks. And as they jog by, belting out responses to drill instructors in a rhythmic cadence, the white fabric across their faces is the only telltale sign of the coronavirus' effects on their quest to become Marines.
But in ways big and small, the virus is impacting training at the Marine Corps' Parris Island Recruit Depot and across the military. And defense leaders say some of the adjustments are proving beneficial and could become permanent.
Maj. Gen. James Glynn, commander of Parris Island, said requiring recruits to spend two weeks in quarantine before their training has had unexpected benefits.
“They are singularly focused on two weeks of mental and emotional prep for what you guys are seeing today,” he said during a visit Wednesday by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. “I think it’s pretty evident it’s making a difference. They’re mentally focused and have reconciled why they’re here.”
Until this week, recruits spent the two-week quarantine in a complex of large white tents and bathroom and shower trailers that was quickly built on the base to allow health monitoring and keep them isolated. But now recruits are spending the two weeks in dorms at the Citadel, the Marine college in Charleston, about a two-hour drive north.
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Travel disruptions challenge global transplant deliveries
PETAH TIKVA, Israel (AP) — Over the past two months, as air travel ground to a halt, Mishel Zrian has crisscrossed the Atlantic and the United States dozens of times, sleeping in empty airports and unable to return home to see his family in Israel, all in a race against time to deliver life-saving transplants.
Zrian is a courier hired by Israel's Ezer Mizion bone marrow donor registry, which has had to perform logistical acrobatics to get its transplants to their destinations amid the travel disruptions caused by the pandemic. The nonprofit, as well as others involved in coordinating transplants around the world, has been tested by the shortage of flights and restrictions on travel, forced to find creative solutions or risk the health of patients.
“It’s been a struggle the entire time but at the back of our minds always is that the patient must receive this transplant or else he will die,” said Bracha Zisser, director of Ezer Mizion, the world’s largest Jewish bone marrow donor registry.
With the coronavirus upending air travel and countries shutting down borders to prevent the influx of infected travelers, airlines have been forced to drastically cut services, leaving those who still rely on commercial flights scrambling for ways around the logjam.
For those in need of a bone marrow transplant — usually cancer patients — finding the right DNA match is difficult and often requires the help of international donors.
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Virus taking hold in rural, old plantation region of Alabama
HAYNEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Sparsely populated Lowndes County, deep in Alabama's old plantation country, has the sad distinction of having both the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 cases and its worst unemployment rate.
Initially spared as the disease ravaged cities, the county and other rural areas in the state are now facing a “perfect storm:” a lack of access to medical care combined with poverty and the attendant health problems, including hypertension, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease and diabetes, that can worsen the outcomes for those who become sick with the coronavirus, said Dr. Ellen Eaton.
“I think a lot of people fell into this idea that we were immune because we’re not in tight spaces like in New York and New Jersey, and we’re in wide-open areas,” said Eaton, who specializes in infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
But no longer. Lowndes and nearby poor, mostly black counties in rural Alabama are facing an increase in confirmed infections. Their outbreaks are also affecting urban areas, since many of the sick need to be transferred to city hospitals.
Less than 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the white-domed Capitol in Montgomery, Lowndes lies along the highway where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led voting rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Today, it has a population of 9,700, and 220 have now tested positive for the virus.
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Communion ritual unchanged in Orthodox Church despite virus
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — One by one, the children and adults line up for the centuries-old ritual of Holy Communion, trying to keep a proper social distance. The priest dips a spoon into the chalice of bread and wine, which the faithful believe is the body and blood of Christ, and puts it into the mouth of the first person in line.
Then, with a move that would alarm an epidemiologist, he dips the spoon back into the chalice and then into the next person’s mouth.
Again and again, through the entire congregation.
Contrary to what science says, the Greek Orthodox Church insists it is impossible for any disease — including the coronavirus — to be transmitted through Holy Communion.
“In the holy chalice, it isn’t bread and wine. It is the body and blood of Christ,” said the Rev. Georgios Milkas, a theologian in the northern city of Thessaloniki. “And there is not a shred of suspicion of transmitting this virus, this disease, as in the holy chalice there is the Son and the Word of God.”
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7 shot at Louisville protest over fatal police shooting
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least seven people were shot in Louisville as protesters turned out to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police in her home in March.
Louisville Metro Police confirmed in a statement early Friday that there were at least seven shooting victims, at least one of whom is in critical condition. The statement said there were “some arrests,” but police didn't provide a number.
“No officers discharged their service weapons,” police spokesman Sgt. Lamont Washington wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Washington said that all seven were civilians.
Around 500 to 600 demonstrators marched through the Kentucky city's downtown streets on Thursday night, the Courier Journal reported. The protests stretched for more than six hours, ending in the early hours of Friday as rain poured down.
“Understandably, emotions are high,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted just before midnight, sharing a Facebook post asking for peace that he said was written on behalf of Taylor's mother. “As Breonna's mother says let's be peaceful as we work toward truth and justice.”
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Australian court rules queen's letters can be made public
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court ruled on Friday to make public letters between Queen Elizabeth II and her representative that would reveal what knowledge she had, if any, of the dismissal of an Australian government in 1975.
The High Court’s 6-1 majority decision in historian Jenny Hocking’s appeal overturned lower court rulings that more than 200 letters between the now 94-year-old monarch of Britain and Australia and Governor-General Sir John Kerr before he dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s government were personal and might never be made public.
The only dismissal of an elected Australian government on the authority of a British monarch triggered a political crisis that spurred many to call for Australia to sever its constitutional ties with Britain and create a republic with an Australian president. Suspicions of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency conspiracy persist.
Hocking, a Monash University academic and Whitlam biographer, said she expected to read the 211 letters at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra next week when a coronavirus lockdown is lifted.
She described as absurd that communications between such key officials in the Australian system of government could be regarded as personal and confidential.