Corpus Christi

George Floyd protest live updates: Robert E. Lee monument expected to be removed

The death of George Floyd, a black man who died on Memorial Day after he was pinned down by a white Minnesota police officer, has sparked outrage and protests in Minneapolis and across the United States. Second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter charges have been filed against Derek Chauvin, the officer who prosecutors say held his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. The three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting manslaughter.

On WWI treaty's centenary, Hungary says its 'curse' must go

Hungary's president on Thursday stressed the need for mutual respect between Hungary and neighboring countries where some 2 million ethnic Hungarians live following a post-World War I peace treaty signed exactly 100 years ago. At the same time, Janos Ader spoke of Hungarians' “right” to keep unaltered their “spiritual borders,” despite the changes on the real map, and stressed the need to “rectify" the damage from the treaty. Hungary was on the losing side in the war and was stripped of over two-thirds of its territory, populated by some 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians, after the June 4, 1920, Treaty of Trianon — signed in the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, France.

Britain says nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests sent to U.S. lab came back void

Nearly 30,000 COVID-19 tests which Britain sent to a U.S. lab for processing came back void, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said on Thursday, adding to a mounting pile of questions over the UK's testing regime. Johnson's spokesman said that "operational issues in our lab network" had meant that 67,000 tests were sent to the United States for processing.

Memorial service for George Floyd to held in Minneapolis

Friends, families and strangers are expected to mourn George Floyd's death and honor his life at a memorial on Thursday, the first of a handful of services to honor him. The service begins at 1 p.m. local time at North Central University in Minneapolis, where he lived and died. Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver a "national eulogy," and attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Floyd family, will deliver a "national criminal justice address."

US police have a history of violence against black people. Will it ever stop?

The bereaved and brutalized have been calling for justice for years but the Trump administration reversed Obama’s tentative steps towards reform * George Floyd killing – latest US updates * See all our George Floyd coverageIn Ferguson, Missouri, Mike Brown’s body lay lifeless on the street for four hours after he was shot dead by a white officer. Witnesses described him holding his hands up in surrender before he was killed. In New York City, Eric Garner told a white officer who placed him in a banned chokehold that he could not breathe before he died. He repeated the phrase 11 times. In Cleveland, Ohio, 14-year-old Tamir Rice played on a snowy winter morning with a toy gun before he was shot dead by a white officer. That these horrific deaths of unarmed black men and boys all occurred within four months of each other back in 2014 is no aberration. It is a cycle of American state brutality that has repeated itself year upon year, generation upon generation. In 2015 it would be Tony Robinson, then Eric Harris, then Walter Scott, then Freddie Gray, then William Chapman, then Samuel DuBose. That some of those names have perhaps already faded from national memory is indicative of the crisis. In 2016, I sat with Samaria Rice, mother of young Tamir, at a park bench near the site of her son’s death as she lamented: “When I see any of these murders it’s like the government is throwing more salt on an open wound and I’m not having a chance to heal.”Then, she was referring to Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, both shot dead by police within a day of each other earlier that month. Now, in 2020, it is George Floyd, the 46-year-old loving father and staunch community advocate, placed in a knee-to-neck restraint for almost nine minutes by a white officer in Minneapolis. He died in the same metro area as Philando Castile. He uttered the same final pleas as Eric Garner. The nationwide unrest that follows Floyd’s death is undoubtedly more intense than in 2014; the leadership from the White House immeasurably more reckless, insensitive and life threatening. And yet, here the country is again. > Trump’s response was a marked departure from the Obama administration’sViolence against black men and women at the hands of white authority is foundational to the United States, and continues to influence its policing culture to this day.Precursors to modern-day American police departments include violent slave patrols utilized in southern states before the civil war, then the legal enforcement of racist Black Codes, followed by Jim Crow laws. Early municipal departments in growing US cities were overwhelmingly white, and brutalized vulnerable communities routinely. Thousands of lynchings of black Americans by white vigilantes went unpunished by the judicial system. And during the civil rights era and well beyond, peaceful protest has been harshly suppressed by officers sworn to protect and serve. Just days after I sat with Samaria Rice on that bench in Cleveland, Donald Trump accepted the Republican party’s nomination for president a few miles down the road.  Trump presented himself as the “law and order” candidate during a dark acceptance speech. The former Milwaukee sheriff, David Clarke, led the arena in a chilling round of applause for the Baltimore police officer Brian Rice, who that day had been acquitted on charges related to the death of Freddie Gray, whose spine was almost severed during his 2014 arrest. Trump thrust the issue of race and policing firmly into the culture wars he was fomenting. Trump’s response to police violence was a marked departure from the Obama administration’s. Since Michael Brown’s death, which began a nationwide reckoning and rejuvenated the Black Lives Matter movement, Obama had used his authority to target problematic police departments, including those in Ferguson, Chicago and Baltimore, with justice department investigations.He issued an executive order to curtail local departments’ procurement of certain military-grade equipment. He commissioned a taskforce on 21st-century policing, which memorably urged American law enforcement to move from a “warrior” to a “guardian” culture. Although America has a sprawling, decentralized system of policing – the country has roughly 18,000 police departments each with their own use of force policy, hiring practices and oversight mechanisms making universal reform near impossible – there were at least signs of tentative progress. And then Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States. > Trump's chaotic presidency diverted attention from the debate around police killingsNot only did he fight a PR war against those who knelt during the national anthem to pay tribute to black lives lost and stand against the structural racism underpinning it all. Now a man who called for the death penalty against five black and brown teenagers wrongfully convicted of a rape in Central Park in 1989, had the ability, with a stroke of a pen or a nod to his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to undo any of the progress made. The administration acted quickly. Within two months of assuming office, Sessions forced a sweeping review of court-enforceable reform packages – known as consent decrees – imposed on numerous problematic police departments. He revoked a directive, issued by the Obama administration, to end the US government’s use of private prisons – a marker of the first black president’s attempt to end the disproportionate incarceration of black and brown men. Eight months in and Trump freed up local police to once again procure military-grade equipment, and Sessions had effectively cancelled the US government’s flagship community police program.But beyond the culture wars and quiet policy rollbacks, the most insidious effect of the Trump presidency on the battle for equal justice and fair policing was its partial suffocation of the story itself. Young men continued to die, but in the mania of the Russia inquiry, impeachment and the scandals upon scandal,the movement for black lives received less and less media oxygen. In 2018, 21-year-0ld EJ Bradford was shot three times from behind by an officer in Hoover, Alabama. The incident barely made the news. In 2019 Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old rapper, was shot at 55 times by officers in Vallejo, California, as he lay sleeping in his car. His death failed to capture prolonged attention. In 2020 bloody rioting across Mississippi’s prison system led to more than a dozen deaths. Trump said nothing.  Last year, after a five-year struggle for justice for her son Eric Garner, I sat with Gwen Carr outside NYPD headquarters as she suffered the indignities of an administrative trial that ultimately led to the officer who suffocated her son losing his job – the highest punishment he faced.“There is no justice at all for Eric,” she said, sitting in the shade during a scorching New York summer day. “They murdered him and if there was going to be justice, it would have been at the point when he said, ‘I can’t breathe’.”> 'We need to dismantle the whole system and really rebuild it again'> > Samaria RiceA few weeks later, after years of investigation, the US justice department, now helmed by William Barr, announced that the federal government would not criminally prosecute the officer involved in Garner’s death. The decision was reportedly made by Barr personally. Trump said nothing. It is local and state leadership that has shaped any positive steps on police reform in recent years. The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, intervened in the George Floyd case to elevate former officer Derek Chauvin’s murder charge. In recent years many departments have enforced restrictions on chokeholds and neck restraints. Earlier this week, Ferguson, which is 70% African American, elected its first black mayor, Ella Jones. “It’s just my time to do right by the people,” she said. But for many, incremental change is not enough. The words Samaria Rice said in 2016 have resonated with me throughout this period of unrest. “We need to dismantle the whole system and really rebuild it again.”

Watch live: George Floyd memorial service to be held in Minneapolis

Family members and prominent leaders will speak at the service at North Central University's sanctuary in downtown Minneapolis.

In rare bipartisan bill, U.S. senators tackle climate change via agriculture

U.S. senators on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill that would direct the Agriculture Department to help farmers, ranchers and landowners use carbon dioxide-absorbing practices to generate carbon credits, a rare collaboration on climate change. The proposed Growing Climate Solutions Act directs the USDA to create a program that would help the agriculture sector gain access to revenue from greenhouse gas offset credit markets. The bill is co-sponsored by Republican Senators Mike Braun of Indiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

1.9 million more Americans filed for unemployment, bringing pandemic total to over 42 million

Another 1.9 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday. The coronavirus pandemic has pushed unemployment in the U.S. to its highest rate since the Great Depression. Approximately 42 million U.S. workers have filed jobless claims since mid-March.

Nurses take a knee in solidarity with Floyd protesters

The nurses knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds – the same amount of time Floyd was pinned down by a police officer

Coronavirus updates: George Floyd tested positive for COVID-19, autopsy shows

A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 386,000 people worldwide. Over 6.5 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks.

Coronavirus cases are climbing again in the South and the West. Will crowded protests spark bigger outbreaks?

As people across all 50 states continue to gather to protest police brutality and systemic racism, the question is whether this will spark a COVID-19 resurgence right when the U.S. seemed to be getting its epidemic under control.

Does drug touted by Trump work on COVID-19? After data debacle, we still don't know

Scientists are resuming COVID-19 trials of the now world-famous drug hydroxychloroquine, as confusion continues to reign about the anti-malarial hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential "game-changer" in fighting the pandemic. The renewed research push follows widespread criticism of the quality of data in a study published by The Lancet, an influential medical journal, which found high risks associated with the treatment. The World Health Organization, which had last week paused trials when The Lancet study showed the drug was tied to an increased risk of death in hospitalized patients, said on Wednesday it was ready to resume trials.

Madeleine McCann is dead, German prosecutor says

A regional prosecutor's office in Germany is investigating a 43-year-old German national on suspicion of murder.

All four officers now face charges in George Floyd's death

Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who pressed his knee on George Floyd's neck, will now face an additional charge of second-degree murder.

Another Man Who Said 'I Can't Breathe' Died in Custody. An Autopsy Calls It Homicide.

SEATTLE -- A black man who called out "I can't breathe" before dying in police custody in Tacoma, Washington, was killed as a result of oxygen deprivation and the physical restraint that was used on him, according to details of a medical examiner's report released Wednesday.The Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office concluded that the death of the man, Manuel Ellis, 33, was a homicide. Investigators with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department were in the process of preparing a report about the March death, which occurred shortly after an arrest by officers from the Tacoma Police Department, said the sheriff's spokesman, Ed Troyer."The information is all being put together," Troyer said. "We expect to present it to the prosecutor at the end of this week or early next week."Ellis's sister, Monet Carter-Mixon, called for action to bring accountability in the death and further scrutiny of both the Police Department's practices and how the investigation into his death has been handled."There's a lot of questions that still need to be answered," Carter-Mixon said.Ellis died from respiratory arrest, hypoxia and physical restraint, according to the medical examiner's office. The report listed methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease as contributing factors.Police officers encountered Ellis, a musician and father of two from Tacoma, on the night of March 3 as they were stopped at an intersection. They saw him banging on the window of another vehicle, Troyer said.Ellis approached the officers, Troyer said, and then threw an officer to the ground when the officer got out of the vehicle. The two officers and two backup officers who joined -- two of them white, one black and one Asian -- handcuffed him."Mr. Ellis was physically restrained as he continued to be combative," the Tacoma Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.Troyer said he did not know all the details of the restraint the officers used -- they were not wearing body cameras -- but said he did not believe they used a chokehold or a knee on Ellis' neck. They rolled him on his side after he called out, "I can't breathe.""The main reason why he was restrained was so he wouldn't hurt himself or them," Troyer said. "As soon as he said he couldn't breathe, they requested medical aid."Troyer said the call for aid came four minutes after the officers encountered Ellis.Ellis was still breathing when medical personnel arrived, Troyer said. He was removed from handcuffs while personnel worked on him for about 40 minutes, Troyer said. He was then pronounced dead.Family members said Ellis was the father of an 11-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter. He was a talented musician at his church. Carter-Mixon said Ellis was like a father figure to her boys, coaching them on things like how handle themselves to keep safe in a world of racial injustices."My heart literally hurts," she said. "It's painful. My brother was my best friend."On Wednesday night, she and others held a vigil in Tacoma.Brian Giordano, a close friend of Ellis, said that the two usually spoke several times a day and that Ellis had videochatted with him two hours before his death. He had been excited about a church service he had attended and proud of how he had played drums during the service, Giordano recalled.He said it would be uncharacteristic of Ellis to act in the violent way described by the police.He was living in a clean-and-sober house and was getting his life back together, he said. "He was always uplifting," Giordano said. "He was always on the up-and-up about taking care of people."The death comes as protests have spread around the nation over the case of George Floyd, a black man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police last week. Minnesota officials have charged all four officers in that case, including Derek Chauvin, who kept his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes during the arrest.Forensics experts who conducted a private autopsy for Floyd's family concluded that another officer's knees on Floyd's back contributed to making it impossible for his lungs to take in sufficient air.Mayor Victoria Woodards of Tacoma said Wednesday that she would take appropriate steps based on the findings of the sheriff's investigation."We will learn the results of that investigation even as our country reels from the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others," Woodards said.Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington said the issue was a top priority for him."We will be pushing to make sure there is a full and complete investigation of that incident," Inslee said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Witness Who Was in Floyd's Car Says His Friend Did Not Resist Arrest

WASHINGTON -- A longtime friend of George Floyd's who was in the passenger seat of Floyd's car during his fatal encounter with a Minneapolis police officer said Wednesday night that Floyd tried to defuse the tensions with police and in no way resisted arrest."He was, from the beginning, trying in his humblest form to show he was not resisting in no form or way," said the friend, Maurice Lester Hall, 42, who was tracked down Monday in Houston, arrested on outstanding warrants and interviewed by Minnesota state investigators."I could hear him pleading, 'Please, officer, what's all this for?' " Hall said in an interview Wednesday night with The New York Times.Hall recounted the last moments with Floyd on Memorial Day, May 25, after they had spent part of the day together."He was just crying out at that time for anyone to help because he was dying," Hall said. "I'm going to always remember seeing the fear in Floyd's face because he's such a king. That's what sticks with me, seeing a grown man cry, before seeing a grown man die."Hall is a key witness in the state's investigation into the four officers who apprehended Floyd, including Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, even after he became unresponsive.But Hall -- who had outstanding warrants for his arrest on felony possession of a firearm, felony domestic assault and felony drug possession -- provided a false name to officers at the scene of Floyd's arrest, according to a Minnesota official.Hall left Minneapolis and hitchhiked to Houston two days later, after visiting a memorial at the site of the police encounter."When the whole world was finding out that they murdered George Floyd," he said, "I went and said a prayer where I witnessed him take his last breath, and I left."Hall said he had left dinner with his family late Monday evening when their car was surrounded by at least a dozen law enforcement officers. After his arrest, he was questioned for hours by a Minnesota state investigator about Floyd's death -- not about his warrants. Hall was then transferred to the Harris County Jail in Houston, and Tuesday, he returned to his home in the city, after his lawyers fought for his release."When Hall's family found us, he had been isolated in jail for 10 hours after being interrogated until 3 a.m.," said Ashlee C. McFarlane, a partner at Gerger Khalil Hennessy & McFarlane, who is representing Hall. "This is not how you treat a key witness, especially one that had just seen his friend murdered by police. Even with outstanding warrants, this should have been done another way.""I knew what was happening, that they were coming. It was inevitable," Hall said in the interview with the Times. "I'm a key witness to the cops murdering George Floyd, and they want to know my side. Whatever I've been through, it's all over with now. It's not about me."Hall and Floyd, both Houston natives, had connected in Minneapolis through a pastor and had been in touch every day since 2016. Hall said that he considered Floyd a confidant and a mentor, like many in the community, and that he went back to Houston because the "only ties I had in Minnesota that had me Houston-rooted was George."Agents of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is building the state's case against Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the Floyd case, "attempted to contact Hall numerous times to no avail," said Bruce Gordon, a spokesman for the bureau.Hall said that he was distraught and working through his trauma with his family and was not taking phone calls in the days immediately after.The bureau asked law enforcement agents in Texas to arrest Hall because it believed he was not cooperating with its investigation. Hall and McFarlane, his lawyer, said that he cooperated fully with the Minnesota official's interview."They got a testimony, and that's what they were after," Hall added. "They came and saw, and left me to fighting for my freedom."Passengers in the car with Floyd, a man and a woman, had remained unidentified until Hall spoke with The Times on Wednesday. Hall said that he did not know the woman's name.Minnesota officials said Wednesday that the state had upgraded the charges against Chauvin to second-degree murder from third-degree murder and manslaughter. They also charged the other three officers who took part in the fatal arrest -- Thomas Lane, 37; J. Alexander Kueng, 26; and Tou Thao, 34 -- with aiding and abetting murder.All four officers were fired the day after Floyd died and video of his death went viral online."I walk with Floyd," Hall said. "I know that I'm going to be his voice."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Louisville man shot and killed during protests

"There's nothing bad to say about this man," one customer said of David McAtee. "He was a good man."

Editorial: A very abbreviated history of police officers killing black people

Surely we can demand better of our police than the plethora of killings of African Americans.

Winging it: Paris gallery keeps visitors apart with extension hats

An art gallery in Paris has sought inspiration in ancient China to help it enforce social distancing, by providing hats with winged extensions for visitors. The colourful papier-mâché hats are modelled on headgear from the Song dynasty, which ruled China between 960 and 1279, with extensions just long enough to keep wearers the one metre (three feet) apart stipulated in France's COVID-19 regulations. "Back in the day, these were worn to prevent public officials from whispering," Dominique Pouzol, who designed the hats for the 59 Rivoli gallery, told Reuters.

George Floyd's brother calls for first-degree murder charge

Former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin is facing a second-degree murder in connection to George Floyd's death.

Trump promises Stone won’t serve prison time: ‘He can sleep well at night!’

The pledge from the president represents his latest intervention in the case of his longtime political adviser.

3 more Minneapolis officers charged in George Floyd death, Derek Chauvin charges elevated

The three former officers are charged with aiding and abetting murder. The fourth, who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes, now faces a second-degree murder charge.

Social media sites are cracking down on users doing a 'George Floyd Challenge' where they put a knee on a friend's neck

Social media websites are taking a stance against the trend, with the likes of Facebook, Instagram and TikTok blocking the hashtag.

Tropical Storm Cristobal forecast to re-strengthen before path reaches US

Tropical Storm Cristobal is over Mexico Thursday, bringing deadly flash floods and mudslides to Central America and Mexico. Cristobal is weaker Thursday morning; it is barely holding on to its tropical storm strength. It is forecast to weaken further throughout the day and will become Tropical Depression as it drifts over land.

Loss of biodiversity will lead to more pandemics in the future, Prince Charles says

Prince Charles has spoken about his experience recovering from coronavirus, and said that the erosion of biodiversity will contribute to further pandemics in the future. "The more we erode the natural world, the more we destroy what's called biodiversity, which is the immense diversity of life, plant life, tree life, everything else," he said in an interview with Sky News. Prince Charles gave the interview via video call from Scotland, where he has been isolating since the beginning of the pandemic.

U.S. states see major challenge in delivering record mail ballots in November

With a health crisis expected to drive a surge in mail voting in November, U.S. election officials face a major challenge: Ensure tens of millions of ballots can reach voters in time to be cast, and are returned in time to be counted. In Ohio, for example, whose nearly all-mail election on April 28 was marred by ballot delivery delays, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose has asked state lawmakers to change the deadline for voters to request a mail ballot to one week before an election, up from three days currently. "It is not logistically possible" for all voters asking for ballots at the last minute to get them in time to return them by mail, LaRose told Reuters.

Supreme Court is faulted for shielding police officers from excessive-force claims

Supreme Court has shielded police from being sued for using excessive force. Now it's under pressure to reverse course.

George Floyd protests: Number of US arrests tops 10,000

The number of people arrested over the last week at demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd has passed 10,000.According to a tally by the Associated Press, Los Angeles has seen the most arrests, with about a quarter of the total. The only other US city with an arrest toll that comes close is New York, with about 2,000.

Woman claims cop put knee on neck after she was yanked from car

Police say they thought the woman and driver were among looters in the area when they swarmed the car outside a mall and started banging their batons on the windows.

Dozens raided over hate comments on slain German politician

German investigators on Thursday carried out raids on dozens of people suspected of posting hate messages about a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party who was killed last year. Walter Luebcke, who led the regional administration in the central Kassel region, was shot on his porch on June 1, 2019, and died later that night. Prosecutors say that he attended an October 2015 town hall event where Luebcke defended the German government’s decision to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country.

George Floyd was infected with COVID-19, autopsy reveals

The official cause of death, according to the full 20-page report made public on Wednesday by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, was cardiopulmonary arrest while Floyd was being restrained by police taking him into custody on May 25. The coroner ruled the manner of death to be a homicide.

Fundraisers say donations to Biden surge as George Floyd protests sweep country

President Donald Trump's response to the demonstrations over George Floyd's death - including on Monday when police drove peaceful protesters out of a park in Washington so Trump could pose for photos in front of a church - pushed new donors and even some Republicans to open their checkbooks, the fundraisers said. Biden, the former vice president who will face the Republican Trump in the Nov. 3 election, told supporters in an email on Monday that his campaign hit an ambitious $6 million online fundraising goal over six days at the end of May.

Florida offers drive-through Botox to quarantined residents

Quarantined Florida residents worried about their laughter lines and crows' feet need frown no longer - Botox is back, and it's being offered at a drive-through. Michael Salzhauer, a plastic surgeon known as 'Dr. Miami' who has also starred in a reality television show, has been conducting drive-through Botox injections in the garage of his building in the posh Miami neighborhood of Bal Harbour. Arman Ohevshalom, 36, was enthusiastic as he waited in line with his wife in their car, although it was their first time receiving the injections.

Three white men to face Georgia judge in death of black jogger

Three white men charged with the murder of an unarmed black man in Georgia will face a judge Thursday morning in a case that caused a national outcry after cellphone video of the shooting was leaked on social media. Protests are expected outside the courthouse after more than a week of demonstrations across the United States over the death of George Floyd, a black American who was pinned down to the ground by a white police officer in Minneapolis. In the case in Georgia, the three men were not charged until more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was shot dead while running on Feb. 23.

Exclusive: GM plans electric van for business users in bid to pre-empt Tesla

General Motors Co is developing an electric van aimed at business users, joining a growing list of carmakers planning EVs for the same segment which includes customers such as Amazon.com Inc and United Parcel Service Inc, five people familiar with the plans told Reuters. GM's plan to develop an electric van has not previously been reported.

A triple whammy of crises tests Trump's support ahead of November's election

Battered by crisis after crisis, President Donald Trump appears to be in political peril as never before. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has weathered storm after storm, always emerging with a fighting chance at being re-elected. Now Trump's Teflon shield is being put to an acid test as he faces a triple whammy - the biggest public health crisis in a century, the worst economic downturn in generations and the largest civil unrest since the 1960s.

Letters to the Editor: Police kneeling with protestors isn't reform; it's an empty gesture

Chiefs of police should resign when their officers kill unarmed people of color, not engage in empty gestures meant to make protesters go away.

Peaceful protests for George Floyd prevail in New Jersey, despite history of racial tensions with police

For the past week, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets -- in the U.S. and all over the world -- to voice their anger over the tragic death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody with a white officer's knee on his neck. In Newark, civic leaders, police and mayors from surrounding cities in New Jersey participated alongside residents in peaceful protests on Saturday, while members of People's Organization for Progress circulated throughout the crowd, encouraging orderliness, social distancing and handing out water.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested in anti-police-brutality protests across the US since George Floyd's death

A tally from the Associated Press said more than 10,000 have been arrested in the anti police-brutality protests across the country.

Quaranstream: Free events and services to watch online while self-quarantining

As novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States, millions of Americans are spending more time at home.MORE: Here's everything coming to Disney+ in JuneBut whether you're doing so because of a job loss, working from home situation or otherwise taking part in the mass effort to stay safe, chances are you've been bored once or twice while living under quarantine. ...

The overflowing police cells in New York: 'I was screaming at them that I couldn't breathe and they just laughed'

When Nikko Lester was released from the NYPD’s Central Booking station, he was so discombobulated he could not be sure what time of day it was. His face was bloodied, his nose bent out of shape. The 33-year-old from downtown Brooklyn did not know whether he sustained the injury from the police baton that had struck him during his arrest, the knee that then pinned him to the ground, or from the seizure that followed. The musician says he had been out peacefully protesting with friends the night before - his first ever march - when he was rushed by four officers, pushed to the pavement and handcuffed. “I kept saying over and over again, 'I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything.' There had been no provocation,” he told the Telegraph. “They weren’t in any mood to listen.” And just like that, another black man in America became a statistic.

Art van adds a splash of colour to drab Gaza life

Every day Ammar Abu Shamalla adds a little colour to drab routine life in Gaza, loading up his camper van with pictures he displays and sells in the Palestinian territory's streets and markets. Depicting mainly landscapes, flowers or portraits, Abu and Arwa's paintings hang off the sides of the van, and he brings out more from inside once he has parked it and crowds gather.