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Cities gird for more violence

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday turned up the pressure on governors to quell the violence set off by the death of George Floyd, demanding New York call up the National Guard to stop the “lowlifes and losers.” As more demonstrations began taking shape around the country during the afternoon, and cities girded for another round of scattered violence after dark, the president amplified his hard-line calls of a day earlier, in which he threatened to send in the military to restore order if governors didn’t do it. “NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD,” he tweeted. “The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast! Don’t make the same horrible and deadly mistake you made with the Nursing Homes!!!” Protests were held in such places as Orlando, Florida, where more than 1,000 people gathered in the afternoon to decry the killings of black people. “This has to change,” said 39-year-old Aisxia Batiste, an out-of-work massage therapist. “Something has to give. We’re done. This is the beginning of the end of something. It has to be.”

Police face civil rights probe

MINNEAPOLIS — The state of Minnesota on Tuesday launched a civil rights investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department in hopes of forcing widespread changes following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for minutes, even after he stopped moving. Gov. Tim Walz and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights announced the filing of the formal complaint at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The governor and Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said they hope to reach agreement with the city to identify short-term ways to address the police department’s history of racial discrimination, and use the investigation to find long-term solutions for systemic change. Lucero said their goal is to negotiate a consent decree with the city that courts could enforce with injunctions and financial penalties. There are precedents, she said, including a consent decree approved in Chicago last year after the U.S. Justice Department found a long history of racial bias and excessive use of force by police. Widely seen bystander video showing Floyd’s death has sparked sometimes violent protests around the world. The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers involved were fired but have not been charged. “We know that deeply seated issues exist,” the governor said. “And the reason I know it is we saw the casual nature of the erasing of George Floyd’s life and humanity. We also know by the reaction of the community. They expected nothing to happen, and the reason is because nothing did happen for so many times.”

China delayed releasing info

Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.” But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found. Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents. Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. Even then, China stalled for at least two weeks more on providing WHO with detailed data on patients and cases, according to recordings of internal meetings held by the U.N. health agency through January — all at a time when the outbreak arguably might have been dramatically slowed. WHO officials were lauding China in public because they wanted to coax more information out of the government, the recordings obtained by the AP suggest. Privately, they complained in meetings the week of Jan. 6 that China was not sharing enough data to assess how effectively the virus spread between people or what risk it posed to the rest of the world, costing valuable time.

Floyd outrage goes global

PARIS — Tear gas choked Paris streets as riot police faced off with protesters setting fires Tuesday amid growing global outrage over George Floyd’s death in the United States, racial injustice and heavy-handed police tactics around the world. French protesters took a knee and raised their fists while firefighters struggled to extinguish multiple blazes as a largely peaceful, multiracial demonstration degenerated into scattered tensions. Several thousand people defied a virus-related ban on protests to pay homage to Floyd and Adama Traore, a French black man who died in police custody. Electric scooters and construction barriers went up in flames, and smoke stained a sign reading “Restaurant Open” — on the first day French cafes were allowed to open after nearly three months of virus lockdown. Chanting “I can’t breathe,” thousands marched peacefully through Australia’s largest city, while thousands more demonstrated in the Dutch capital of The Hague and hundreds rallied in Tel Aviv. Expressions of anger erupted in multiple languages on social networks, with thousands of Swedes joining an online protest and others speaking out under the banner of #BlackOutTuesday. Diplomatic ire percolated too, with the European Union’s top foreign policy official saying the bloc was “shocked and appalled” by Floyd’s death.

Biden blasts Trump’s narcissism

PHILADELPHIA — Joe Biden mounted one of his most aggressive attacks against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, deriding the commander in chief’s disregard of core constitutional values and blistering him for being “more interested in power than in principle.” “He thinks division helps him,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a speech at Philadelphia’s City Hall. “This narcissism has become more important than the nation’s well-being.” Biden seized on police driving back peaceful protesters near the White House on Monday so Trump could briefly pose with a Bible in front of nearby St. John’s Church. “If he opened it instead of brandishing it, he could have learned something,” Biden said as he chided authorities for using “tear gas and flash grenades in order to stage a photo op.”

Looting devastates businesses

NEW YORK — Looting and vandalism in cities across the country have dealt another blow to small businesses that were already reeling from the coronavirus outbreak. Along with big chain stores like Target, Walgreen and Macy’s, independent retailers in neighborhoods and downtown sections were targets of vandals and looters who struck as police mobilized to contain large demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Many businesses had been closed by state and local government orders as officials tried to contain the spread of the coronavirus, leaving owners with little or no revenue since March. Now, already facing an uncertain future amid ongoing restrictions related to the virus, owners must figure out how to rebuild or relocate their companies. Over three nights, Ahmed Muhumud’s Minneapolis optician shop was vandalized, looted and burned, leaving Midtown Eye Care in ruins. The store was just getting back to business after having been shut since mid-March by the virus outbreak.

Social media dark for Black Out

NEW YORK — Though Black Out Tuesday was originally organized by the music community, the social media world also went dark in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, joining voices around the world outraged by the killings of black people in the U.S. Instagram and Twitter accounts, from top record label to everyday people, were full of black squares posted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Most of the captions were blank, though some posted #TheShowMustBePaused, black heart emojis or encouraged people to vote Tuesday with seven states and the District of Columbia are hosting the largest slate of presidential primary elections in almost three months. Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Radiohead, Coldplay, Kelly Rowland, Beastie Boys and were among the celebrities to join Black Out Tuesday on social media. “I won’t be posting on social media and I ask you all to do the same,” Britney Spears tweeted. “We should use the time away from our devices to focus on what we can do to make the world a better place …. for ALL of us !!!!!”

Thieves blow up, steal ATMs

PHILADELPHIA — One man was killed and explosions punctuated the overnight hours in Philadelphia as thieves blew up and stole ATMs across the city in what authorities believe was a “coordinated” effort. At least 10 machines were vandalized, mainly at neighborhood convenience stores and gas stations, police said. The thieves mainly blew up the machines before making off with the cash. In some cases, they stole entire machines. It wasn’t clear who was behind the ATM thefts. They came as police have been trying to cope with large demonstrations against police brutality and widespread vandalism and theft from businesses in a number of areas of the city. Police said a 24-year-old man died several hours after attempting to break into an ATM with explosives in north Philadelphia early Tuesday. Police said live explosives were recovered. His name wasn’t immediately released.

Black boxes for copters sought

Federal safety investigators bypassed aviation regulators on Tuesday and urged leading helicopter manufacturers to install so-called black boxes that would help determine the cause of crashes such as the one that killed former NBA star Kobe Bryant. The National Transportation Safety Board appealed directly to six manufacturers after the Federal Aviation Administration failed to act on the board’s recommendations to require the devices on most helicopters. The safety board said turbine-powered helicopters should record data, audio and images during flight. The NTSB identified seven crash investigations between 2011 and 2017 in which it said the lack of recorder information slowed its ability to find potential safety issues. The NTSB’s move is highly unusual. The board investigates accidents but has no authority to make regulations; that falls to the FAA. The board said it recommended flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders in 2013 and 2015, but the FAA did not act. The request for image-recording capability is new.

Exotic’s zoo goes to chief rival

WYNNEWOOD, Okla. — A federal judge in Oklahoma has awarded ownership of the zoo made famous in Netflix’s “Tiger King” docuseries to Joe Exotic’s chief rival. In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Scott Palk granted control of the Oklahoma zoo that was previously run by Joseph Maldonado-Passage — also known as Joe Exotic — to Big Cat Rescue Corp. The Florida group was founded by Carole Baskin, who also featured prominently in the hit Netflix series. Maldonado-Passage is currently serving a 22-year federal prison term for killing five tigers and plotting to have Baskin killed. Baskin previously sued Maldonado-Passage for trademark and copyright infringements and won a $1 million civil judgment against him. Palk’s judgment Monday found that ownership of the zoo was fraudulently transferred to Maldonado-Passage’s mother in an attempt to avoid paying the judgment. The decision said the zoo animals must be removed from the property within 120 days but it does not detail what should happen to them.

SAT drops plans for home exam

The company that administers the SAT college entrance exam is scrapping plans to provide a home version of the test this year, saying it can’t guarantee all students would have access to the needed technology. The College Board announced Tuesday that it’s pausing plans for the remote exam but still hopes to make it possible in the future. Offering the test at home would have required three hours of uninterrupted internet access, the company said. Officials in April said they were creating a home exam in case schools remained closed into the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of offering the test on paper under a proctor’s supervision, the company said it would rely on “remote proctoring” using the computer’s camera and microphone. Instead, the College Board said that it’s working to expand the availability of the SAT at in-person test centers this fall, and it’s asking colleges to be more flexible with testing requirements.

Nine states, DC vote amid unrest

Voters across America navigated curfews and health concerns Tuesday in a slate of primary elections amid dueling national crises as Joe Biden looked to move closer to formally clinching the Democratic presidential nomination. In all, nine states and the District of Columbia were hosting elections, including four that delayed their April contests because of the coronavirus outbreak. While voters cast ballots from Maryland to Montana, Pennsylvania offered the day’s biggest trove of delegates. The state also represented a significant test case for Republicans and Democrats working to strengthen their operations in a premier general election battleground.

The dynamic was especially intense in Washington, D.C., where Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a 7 p.m. curfew as law enforcement agencies and National Guard troops prepared for a fifth night of protests near the White House following the police killing of George Floyd. A large fence was erected in front of the White House and military vehicles blocked some streets in downtown. In-person voting numbers were down in every state as many voters were encouraged to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet there were reports of long lines, particularly in minority communities in the Philadelphia area, where election officials consolidated the vast majority of polling places to minimize health risks, according to Erin Kramer, executive director of One Pennsylvania. She noted that some polling places in African American communities are in police stations.

Protests ignite fears of contagion

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As demonstrators flooded streets across America to decry the killing of George Floyd, public health experts watched in alarm — the close proximity of protesters and their failures in many cases to wear masks, along with the police using tear gas, could fuel new transmissions of the coronavirus. Many of the protests broke out in places where the virus is still circulating widely in the population. In fact, an Associated Press review found that demonstrations have taken place in every one of the 25 U.S. communities with the highest concentrations of new cases. Some have seen major protests over multiple days, including Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. The protests have come just as communities across the nation loosen restrictions on businesses and public life that have helped slow the spread of the virus, deepening concern that the two factors taken together could create a national resurgence in cases. “As a nation, we have to be concerned about a rebound,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser warned Sunday after days of protests rocked the nation’s capital. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo bemoaned the crowds, saying that hundreds could potentially have been infected, undoing months of social distancing.

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