A U.S. jury resumes deliberations Tuesday in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing George Floyd in one of the country’s highest profile cases in recent years. After hearing closing arguments Monday, the group of 12 jurors met for four hours as they began the process of working toward a verdict. During Monday’s final arguments, a prosecutor accused Chauvin of killing Floyd, an African American man, by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. A defense attorney contended that Floyd died partly from drug use and that Chauvin was following his police training in the way he arrested Floyd last May on the curb of a street in Minneapolis. Prosecutor Steve Schleicher summed up the case against Chauvin, a white police officer who held down the handcuffed Floyd as he lay prone on a city street and gasped — 27 times, according to videos of his arrest — that he could not breathe.Reverend Jesse Jackson visits site of where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, April 20, 2021.“He was trapped … a knee to his neck,” Schleicher said, with Chauvin’s weight on him for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.    “George Floyd was not a threat to anyone,” Schleicher said. “All that was required was some compassion, and he got none.”  Defense attorney Eric Nelson, in more than 2½ hours of arguments before the racially diverse 12-member jury, contended that Chauvin followed his police training in restraining Floyd on the pavement of a city street after the suspect initially resisted police efforts to put him into a squad car.    “No crime was committed if it was an authorized use of force,” Nelson argued.    “The state has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the legal standard for a conviction, the defense attorney concluded as he asked the jurors to acquit Chauvin of murder and manslaughter charges. WATCH: Jury deliberationsSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Maxine Waters with protesters rallying outside of the Brooklyn Center Police Department in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, April 18, 2021.    “I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that’s disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function,” Cahill said.    As the case nears the end, authorities in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis are braced for possible street protests after the verdict. Many stores are boarded up to prevent a recurrence of the damage and looting that took place after Floyd’s death almost a year ago.  “We cannot allow civil unrest to descend into chaos. We must protect life and property,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Monday. “But we also must understand very clearly, if we don’t listen to those communities in pain and those people on the streets, many of whom were arrested for speaking a fundamental truth that we must change, or we will be right back here again.” Protests, some of them violent, broke out in many cities in the U.S. and throughout the world. The Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the demonstrations, but thousands of people who had no previous connection to the Black-led protests joined in to condemn Chauvin’s actions, and more broadly, police treatment of minorities.  The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop on April 11. 
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Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential elections after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday. He was 93. The death of the former U.S. senator, ambassador and Minnesota attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was cited. Mondale followed the trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and the vice presidency, serving under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. His own try for the White House, in 1984, came at the zenith of Ronald Reagan’s popularity. Mondale’s selection of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate made him the first major-party presidential nominee to put a woman on the ticket, but his declaration that he would raise taxes helped define the race. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale and his running mate, Geraldine Ferraro, wave as they leave an afternoon rally in Portland, Ore., Sept. 5, 1984.On Election Day, he carried only his home state and the District of Columbia. The electoral vote was 525-13 for Reagan — the biggest landslide in the Electoral College since Franklin Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in 1936. (Sen. George McGovern got 17 electoral votes in his 1972 defeat, winning Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) “I did my best,” Mondale said the day after the election and blamed no one but himself. “I think you know I’ve never really warmed up to television,” he said. “In fairness to television, it never really warmed up to me.” Years later, Mondale said his campaign message had proved to be the right one. “History has vindicated me, that we would have to raise taxes,” he said. “It was very unpopular, but it was undeniably correct.” In 2002, state and national Democrats looked to Mondale when Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed in a plane crash less than two weeks before Election Day. Mondale agreed to stand in for Wellstone, and early polls showed him with a lead over the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman. But the 53-year-old Coleman, emphasizing his youth and vigor, out-hustled the then-74-year-old Mondale in an intense six-day campaign. Mondale was also hurt by a partisan memorial service for Wellstone, in which thousands of Democrats booed Republican politicians in attendance. One speaker pleaded: “We are begging you to help us win this election for Paul Wellstone.” Polls showed the service put off independents and cost Mondale votes. Coleman won by 3 percentage points. “The eulogizers were the ones hurt the most,” Mondale said after the election. “It doesn’t justify it, but we all make mistakes. Can’t we now find it in our hearts to forgive them and go on?” It was a particularly bitter defeat for Mondale, who even after his loss to Reagan had taken solace in his perfect record in Minnesota. “One of the things I’m most proud of,” he said in 1987, “is that not once in my public career did I ever lose an election in Minnesota.” Years after the 2002 defeat, Mondale returned to the Senate to stand beside Democrat Al Franken in 2009 when he was sworn in to replace Coleman after a drawn-out recount and court battle. Mondale started his career in Washington in 1964, when he was appointed to the Senate to replace Humphrey, who had resigned to become vice president. Mondale was elected to a full six-year term with about 54% of the vote in 1966, although Democrats lost the governorship and suffered other election setbacks. In 1972, Mondale won another Senate term with nearly 57% of the vote. His Senate career was marked by advocacy of social issues such as education, housing, migrant workers and child nutrition. Like Humphrey, he was an outspoken supporter of civil rights. Mondale tested the waters for a presidential bid in 1974 but ultimately decided against it. “Basically I found I did not have the overwhelming desire to be president, which is essential for the kind of campaign that is required,” he said in November 1974. FILE – President Jimmy Carter embraces Vice President Walter Mondale on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Jan. 7, 1978.In 1976, Carter chose Mondale as No. 2 on his ticket and went on to unseat Gerald Ford. As vice president, Mondale had a close relationship with Carter. He was the first vice president to occupy an office in the White House, rather than in a building across the street. Mondale traveled extensively on Carter’s behalf and advised him on domestic and foreign affairs. While he lacked Humphrey’s charisma, Mondale had a droll sense of humor. When he dropped out of the 1976 presidential sweepstakes, he said, “I don’t want to spend the next two years in Holiday Inns.” Reminded of that shortly before he was picked as Carter’s running mate, Mondale said, “I’ve checked and found that they’re all redecorated, and they’re marvelous places to stay.” FILE – President Jimmy Carter, right, and Rosalynn Carter, second from right, pose with Vice President Walter Mondale and wife, Joan Mondale, left, following Carter’s inauguration in the White House, Jan. 21, 1977.Mondale never backed away from his liberal principles. “I think that the country more than ever needs progressive values,” Mondale said in 1989. The son of a Methodist minister and a music teacher, Walter Frederick Mondale was born Jan. 5, 1928, in tiny Ceylon, Minnesota, and grew up in several small southern Minnesota towns. He was only 20 when he served as a congressional district manager for Humphrey’s successful Senate campaign in 1948. His education, interrupted by a two-year stint in the Army, culminated with a law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1956. Mondale began a law practice in Minneapolis and ran the successful 1958 gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Orville Freeman, who appointed Mondale state attorney general in 1960. Mondale was elected attorney general in the fall of 1960 and was reelected in 1962. As attorney general, Mondale moved quickly into civil rights, antitrust and consumer protection cases. He was the first Minnesota attorney general to make consumer protection a campaign issue. After his White House years, Mondale served from 1993-96 as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Japan, fighting for U.S. access to markets ranging from cars to cellular phones. He helped avert a trade war in June 1995 over autos and auto parts, persuading Japanese officials to give American automakers more access to Japanese dealers and pushing Japanese carmakers to buy U.S. parts. Mondale kept his ties to the Clintons. In 2008, he endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, switching his allegiance only after Barack Obama sealed the nomination. Mondale and his wife, Joan Adams Mondale, were married in 1955. During his vice presidency, she pushed for more government support of the arts and gained the nickname “Joan of Art.” She had minored in art in college and worked at museums in Boston and Minneapolis. The couple had two sons, Ted and William, and a daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor Mondale became a broadcast journalist and TV host, with credits including “CBS This Morning” and programs with E! Entertainment Television. Ted Mondale served six years in the Minnesota Senate and made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. William Mondale served for a time as an assistant attorney general. Joan Mondale died in 2014 at age 83 after an extended illness. 
 
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A U.S. jury in a Minnesota courtroom Monday heard sharply different claims of how George Floyd, a Black man, died last year, then began deliberations in the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing Floyd in one of the country’s highest profile cases in recent years. A prosecutor accused Chauvin of killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. A defense attorney contended that Floyd died partly from drug use and that Chauvin was following his police training in the way he arrested Floyd last May on a Minneapolis street. Prosecutor Steve Schleicher summed up the case against Chauvin, 45, the white police officer who held down the handcuffed, 46-year-old Floyd, as he lay prone on a city street and gasped — 27 times, according to videos of his arrest — that he could not breathe.Prosecutor Steven Schleicher makes closing arguments as defense attorney Eric Nelson listens during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for second-degree murder.“He was trapped … a knee to his neck,” Schleicher said, with Chauvin’s weight on him for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.“George Floyd was not a threat to anyone,” Schleicher said. “All that was required was some compassion, and he got none.”But defense attorney Eric Nelson, in more than 2½ hours of arguments before the racially diverse 12-member jury, contended that Chauvin followed his police training in restraining Floyd on the pavement of a Minneapolis city street after the suspect initially resisted police efforts to put him into a squad car.“No crime was committed if it was an authorized use of force,” Nelson argued.“The state has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the legal standard for a conviction, the defense attorney concluded as he asked the jurors to acquit Chauvin of murder and manslaughter charges.The defense lawyer contended that rather than treating Floyd poorly, Chauvin told him to relax while he was on the ground and called for an emergency medical crew, although it arrived after Floyd had lost consciousness.Nelson dismissed the prosecution’s claim that Chauvin asphyxiated Floyd, saying that Floyd’s death was caused at least partly by his drug use and a sudden heart failure.WATCH: Video report on Derek Chauvin trialSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Defense attorney Eric Nelson mimics someone feigning a medical emergency as he makes closing arguments during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for second-degree murder.Trial judge Peter Cahill read instructions on legal aspects of the case to the jurors for them to apply when they consider whether to convict or acquit Chauvin. The judge told the jury not to draw any inference on Chauvin’s innocence or guilt from his declining to testify in the case, as was his right.Last week, Chauvin invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination and did not take the witness stand. Under U.S. law, the prosecution must prove the allegations against defendants, and defendants are assumed innocent until proved beyond a reasonable doubt.Jurors will be sequestered until they reach a verdict.As the case nears the end, authorities in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis are braced for possible street protests after the verdict. Many stores are boarded up to prevent a recurrence of the damage and looting that took place after Floyd’s death almost a year ago.Protests, some of them violent, broke out in many cities in the U.S. and throughout the world. The Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the demonstrations, but thousands of people who had no previous connection to the Black-led protests joined in to condemn Chauvin’s actions, and more broadly, police treatment of minorities.The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop on April 11.
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“I’m willing to compromise,” U.S. President Joe Biden told a group of bipartisan lawmakers during a Monday Oval Office meeting about his $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure proposal.“Obviously, I put a lot in the package, and I think it all should be included,” the president told the members of Congress, who all previously served as governors or mayors.The big question, Biden acknowledged, is “how to pay for it.”Monday’s meeting was the second time the president has hosted a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers together in hopes of crafting legislation on U.S. infrastructure that could be supported on both sides of the aisles in the House and Senate.Some Republicans criticize the president’s American Jobs Plan as too expensive and too broad, going way beyond the traditional definition of infrastructure. Opposition lawmakers are also generally opposed to raising corporate taxes from 21% to 28%, as Biden desires.While Biden’s $2 trillion proposal, which is short on specifics, would fund roads and bridges, it also includes projects to mitigate climate change and expand access to home and community-based care.The president faces pressure from the Republicans but also from the progressive wing of his own Democratic Party, which feels some of Biden’s proposals do not go far enough.Vehicles drive along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, part of the city’s aging infrastructure, beneath the Brooklyn Heights promenade, April 6, 2021, in New York.Some analysts see the initial infrastructure-improvement and jobs-creating legislation being whittled down to as little as $800 billion if a bipartisan compromise is reached.White House press secretary Jen Psaki made clear again Monday, just before the Oval Office meeting, that the Biden administration is flexible and that everything does not need to be included in one big initial package.“The president’s bottom line here is that the only thing we cannot do is fail to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, rebuild our economy and create millions of jobs,” Psaki told reporters during the daily press briefing. “That’s the only piece he does not want to see us fail to do as a country and fail to do, hopefully, in a bipartisan manner.”The administration is “quite open to a range of mechanisms for agreed upon legislation moving forward, smaller packages, pieces being peeled off,” Psaki said. “In terms of what the package or size looks like — we’re just not quite there yet.”For compromise to occur “both sides have to want to come to the table,” said Michele Nellenback, vice president of strategic initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center.”You can do this issue by issue,” she said, predicting, despite the differences between the two parties, legislation is likely to be passed, even if it does not occur this year, for funding highways, internet broadband and water projects. “There are elements of this that are going to get through.”  The Senate this week, is set to consider a $35 billion water infrastructure bill, which enjoys wide bipartisan support but is far short of the amount the president wants to spend. It would help replace aging water pipes and bolster wastewater systems against natural disasters.   
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A U.S. prosecutor says the gunman who killed eight people at an Indianapolis FedEx sorting facility last week never had a hearing under Indiana’s “red flag” law, which allows police to seize guns from people who may be prone to commit violent acts.  Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears told reporters Monday that police questioned the shooter, Brandon Hole, in March 2020 after his mother called police saying he might commit “suicide by cop.”  He said police seized Hole’s pump-action shotgun at the time but did not request that he appear before a judge under the state’s “red flag” law.  Mears said that moving forward with the red flag process was risky because if prosecutors lost, they would have had to return the firearm to Hole.  “That’s not something we were willing to do,” Mears said. FILE – Law enforcement confer at the scene, April 16, 2021, in Indianapolis, where multiple people were shot at a FedEx Ground facility near the Indianapolis airport.Police have said that they never returned the weapon to Hole. However, had prosecutors won their case, Mears might have been prevented from purchasing further weapons. The teenager legally bought two assault rifles just months after his shotgun was confiscated. Mears said the fact that Hole’s mother believed her son may have been suicidal and wanted to provoke a lethal response from police was not sufficient evidence to pursue an order from a judge under the red flag law. “I think this case illustrates the limitations” of the law, Mears said. Indiana was one of the first states to enact a red flag law in 2005 after an Indianapolis police officer was killed by a gunman whose firearms were returned to him despite having been previously hospitalized for mental health issues.  The state’s red flag law gives authorities two weeks after seizing someone’s weapon to make a case to a judge that the person should not be allowed to possess a gun. Mears said the timeline often doesn’t give authorities enough time to investigate. Police have said Hole was a former FedEx employee who last worked at the facility in the fall of 2020. They say it is not clear why Hole returned to his former place of employment and opened fire. Police said Hole shot randomly at victims outside the facility before entering the building and continuing to shoot at employees. Hole then apparently killed himself. Authorities said the shooting lasted only a couple of minutes and was over by the time police officers arrived on the scene. 
 
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Jurors in the U.S. state of Minnesota are set to hear closing arguments Monday in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd. Derek Chauvin’s defense wrapped up two days of questioning witnesses last week after two weeks of the prosecution presenting its case. After hearing final arguments from each side, the jurors will be isolated until they reach a verdict. Prosecutors argued that Chauvin, who is white, caused Floyd’s death by kneeling on his neck. Floyd, who is African American, was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill, and bystander video of the police response last May sparked widespread protests in the United States and other parts of the world against police brutality and racial inequality.WATCH: Chauvin trialSorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 30 MB1080p | 58 MBOriginal | 70 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioChauvin declined to take the witness stand during the trial. His defense lawyers argued Chauvin acted reasonably against a suspect who was struggling, and that Floyd died because of an underlying heart condition and drug use. If convicted of the most serious charge against him, second-degree murder, Chauvin could face up to 40 years in prison, though state guidelines suggest a sentence of about 12 years for such a charge. The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again about a week ago when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb killed a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop. 
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