Pentagon ready to send troops to Minneapolis if state asks
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Saturday it is ready to provide military help to authorities scrambling to contain unrest in Minneapolis, where George Floyd’s death has sparked widespread protests, but Gov. Tim Walz has not requested federal troops. Jonathan Rath Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said several military units have...
Trump vows to stop ‘mob violence’ in protests over Floyd death
WASHINGTON — President Trump vowed his administration would end what he called “mob violence” in U.S. cities following the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of Minnesota police, blaming leftist groups for clashes with police and property damage around the nation. “The mobs are devastating the life’s...
N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs bill granting front-line worker death benefits
NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Saturday granting death benefits to the families of police officers, public health workers and other front-line workers who have died of the coronavirus. “You gave your lives for us; we will be there for your families going forward,” Cuomo...
Fox News reporter attacked amid protest near White House
NEW YORK — A Fox News reporter was pummeled and chased by protesters outside the White House early Saturday as part of nationwide unrest following the death of George Floyd. Demonstrators broke windows and vandalized the Atlanta office building where CNN is headquartered, and police in Louisville, Ky., apologized Saturday...
Killing of federal officer near California protest called act of terrorism
OAKLAND, Calif. — The killing of a federal contract security officer who was watching over a protest in Oakland was an act of domestic terrorism, U.S. authorities said Saturday. A vehicle pulled up outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building about 9:45 p.m. Friday, and someone opened fire at two...
On SpaceX rocket, Americans take off for space from U.S. after long hiatus
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era of commercial space travel and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly...
Trump claims protesters in D.C. risked facing ‘vicious dogs’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed that many Secret Service agents were “just waiting for action” and ready to unleash “the most vicious dogs, and the most ominous weapons, I have ever seen” if protesters angered by his response to George Floyd’s death had crossed the White House’s...
Outsiders blamed for havoc in Detroit, Minneapolis
Nearly two-thirds of the 60 people arrested Friday night during protests in downtown Detroit over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis were from the city’s predominantly white suburbs. Thirty-seven of those taken into custody were from places such as Warren, Farmington Hills, West Bloomfield and even Grand Blanc, which...
Biden ally sees Klobuchar as less likely Biden running mate
WASHINGTON — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar seems a less likely choice to become Joe Biden’s running mate on his presidential ticket following this week’s death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis, a key ally of the former vice president said. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., told reporters on...
Watch: SpaceX ready for historic launchVideo
SpaceX will try again today to make a historic launch. Liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 3:22 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. It would be the first launch from the U.S. with NASA astronauts in nearly a decade, according to the...
Trump, N.C. governor speak about GOP convention details
RALEIGH, N.C. — President Donald Trump and North Carolina’s governor disagreed on Friday over the viability of a full-fledged Republican National Convention, the governor’s office said, as Trump does not want to see signs of the pandemic in his renomination audience. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Trump spoke by phone,...
Trump WHO funding cut prompts criticism as virus spreads
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s announcement he was cutting U.S. funding for the World Health Organization prompted criticism Saturday, as spiking infection rates in India and elsewhere served as a reminder the global pandemic is far from contained. Trump on Friday charged that the WHO didn’t respond adequately to the...
China says U.S. action on Hong Kong ‘doomed to fail’
BEIJING — The mouthpiece newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party said Saturday that the U.S. decision to end some trading privileges for Hong Kong “grossly interferes” in China’s internal affairs and is “doomed to fail.” The Hong Kong government called President Donald Trump’s announcement unjustified and said it is “not...
National Guard summoned to aid cities amid police clashes
MINNEAPOLIS — Governors in several states called in National Guard troops as protests over repeated police killings of black men grew Saturday from New York to Tulsa to Los Angeles, where police fired rubber bullets to scatter crowds and at least one police car burned. The protests, which began in...
Thousands ignore Minneapolis curfew as U.S. protests spread
MINNEAPOLIS — Thousands of protesters ignored a curfew and vows of a forceful police response to take to the Minneapolis streets for a fourth straight night, as the anger stoked by the police killing of George Floyd spread to more cities across the U.S. The Pentagon on Saturday ordered the...
Derek Chauvin, officer arrested in George Floyd’s death, has a record of shootings and complaints
Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer arrested in the death of George Floyd, opened fire on two people during his 19-year career. Eighteen conduct complaints were filed against him, two of which resulted in reprimands. The 44-year-old officer, who is white, is seen in a video kneeling on the neck...
$349 USB ‘bioshield’ taps into 5G, coronavirus conspiracy fears
Clark Stanley would be proud. The “Rattlesnake King,” a former cowboy, made a splash at the 1893 World’s Exposition in Chicago by cutting open a live snake in front of onlookers as a promotion for “Stanley’s Snake Oil,” a liniment later found to contain no snake oil of any kind,...
Protests, some violent, spread in wake of George Floyd death
ATLANTA — Demonstrators marched, stopped traffic and in some cases lashed out violently at police as protests erupted Friday in dozens of U.S. cities following the killing of George Floyd after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck during a stop in Minnesota. In Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas,...
War hero McRaven tells MIT grads they’re the ‘real heroes’
William McRaven, the retired U.S. Navy admiral who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, told members of MIT’s graduating class Friday that they are the “real heroes” who will save the world from pandemics, war, climate change, poverty and racism. McRaven, who delivered his address online to the...
Phoenix march to protest George Floyd’s death turns violent
PHOENIX — A rally in downtown Phoenix to protest the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis turned violent when protesters in Arizona’s largest city threw rocks and bottles at officers, broke windows at police headquarters, and damaged businesses and vehicles, officials said. Phoenix police say hundreds...
Michigan sheriff: Woman hit by deputy had bitten him first
DETROIT — A black woman who was seen on video being punched by a Michigan sheriff’s deputy bit the officer before she was struck, the sheriff said Friday. Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton played video and audio from the confrontation with Sha’Teina Grady El, which occurred Tuesday night while deputies...
Minneapolis protest misinformation stokes racial tensions
CHICAGO — The false social media posts started just hours after protesters first began chanting and carrying banners around the Minneapolis neighborhood where George Floyd, an African American man, died handcuffed in police custody. “The cop who killed George Floyd,” Facebook and Twitter users claimed, wrongly identifying a man pictured...
‘We don’t have law and order’: Black and Latino business owners face destruction in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS — Abdishakur Elmi looked on in horror as flames raged and smoke billowed from the roof of the brick building next to his restaurant. A single truck and a few firefighters battled the blaze that had already consumed several neighboring businesses overnight in a gentrified section of East Lake...
U.S. cuts World Health Organization ties over virus response
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. will be terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization, saying it had failed to adequately respond to the coronavirus because China has “total control” over the global organization. He said Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO...
Virus ignited in U.S. no earlier than mid-January, study says
NEW YORK — The spark that started the U.S. coronavirus epidemic arrived during a three-week window from mid-January to early February, before the nation halted travel from China, according to the most comprehensive federal study to date of when the virus began spreading. That means anyone in the U.S. who...
