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Prosecutors seek higher sentence for Chauvin in Floyd death
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors are asking a judge to give Derek Chauvin a more severe penalty than state guidelines call for when he is sentenced in June for George Floyd's death, arguing in court documents filed Friday that Floyd was particularly vulnerable and that Chauvin abused his authority as a police officer.
Defence attorney Eric Nelson is opposing a tougher sentence, saying the state has failed to prove that those aggravating factors, among others, existed when Chauvin arrested Floyd on May 25.
Chauvin, who is white, was convicted last week of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as the Black man said he couldn't breathe and went motionless.
Even though he was found guilty of three counts, under Minnesota statutes he’ll only be sentenced on the most serious one — second-degree murder. While that count carries a maximum sentence of 40 years, experts say he won’t get that much.
Prosecutors did not specify how much time they would seek for Chauvin.
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Formal start of final phase of Afghan pullout by US, NATO
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The final phase of ending America's "forever war" in Afghanistan after 20 years formally began Saturday, with the withdrawal of the last U.S. and NATO troops by the end of summer.
President Joe Biden had set May 1 as the official start of the withdrawal of the remaining forces — about 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops and about 7,000 NATO soldiers.
Even before Saturday, the herculean task of packing up had begun.
The military has been taking inventory, deciding what is shipped back to the U.S., what is handed to the Afghan security forces and what is sold as junk in Afghanistan's markets. In recent weeks, the military has been flying out equipment on massive C-17 cargo planes.
The U.S. is estimated to have spent more than $2 trillion in Afghanistan in the past two decades, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which documents the hidden costs of the U.S. military engagement.
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How the Gaetz probe grew from sex trafficking to medical pot
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — When Rep. Matt Gaetz vacationed in the Bahamas in 2018, he was joined by a doctor who donated to his campaign and a former colleague in the Florida state legislature.
The Republican congressman, Dr. Jason Pirozzolo and Halsey Beshears were united in their enjoyment of politics, fancy travel and the company of beautiful women. They also had another mutual interest: Florida’s $1.2 billion medical marijuana industry.
The Bahamas trip is a central element of a federal investigation surrounding Gaetz that has suddenly endangered his political career. What began as a probe into sex trafficking and whether Gaetz paid women and an underage girl in exchange for sex has grown into a larger review of public corruption, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Investigators are looking at whether Gaetz and his associates tried to secure government jobs for some of the women, the people said. They are also scrutinizing Gaetz’s connections to the medical marijuana sector, including whether Pirozzolo and others sought to influence legislation Gaetz sponsored. The probe includes legislation from 2018, when Gaetz was in Congress, and earlier work in the state legislature, according to one of the people.
Pressure on the congressman could build in the coming weeks as Joel Greenberg, a Gaetz associate who has been accused of trafficking a minor for sex, faces a May 15 deadline to strike a plea deal with prosecutors. If he does, Greenberg may be pressed to co-operate with federal investigators and deliver damaging information against Gaetz.
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GOP seeks to convince vaccine skeptics within its own ranks
WASHINGTON (AP) — When a group of Republican doctors in Congress released a video selling the safety of the coronavirus vaccine, their message wasn't explicitly aimed at their conservative constituents, but nonetheless had a clear political bent.
Getting the shot is the best way to "end the government's restrictions on our freedoms," Rep. Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and heart surgeon who donned a white lab coat and stethoscope when he spoke into the camera.
The public service announcement was the latest effort from GOP leaders to shrink the vaccination gap between their party and Democrats. With vaccination rates lagging in red states, Republican leaders have stepped up efforts to persuade their supporters to get the shot, at times combating misinformation spread by some of their own.
"Medicine and science and illness, that should not be political," said Dr. Brad Wenstrup, a Republican congressman from Ohio and a podiatrist who has personally administered coronavirus vaccine shots both as an Army Reserve officer and as an ordinary doctor. "But it was an election year and it really was."
Wenstrup said both parties helped foment some skepticism, though increasingly vocal moves by other Republicans amount to acknowledgement that GOP vaccine hesitancy is a growing public health problem — and potentially a political one.
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India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
NEW DELHI (AP) — In hopes of taming a monstrous spike in COVID-19 infections, India opened vaccinations to all adults Saturday, launching a huge inoculation effort that was sure to tax the limits of the federal government, the country's vaccine factories and the patience of its 1.4 billion people.
The world's largest maker of vaccines was still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages that delayed the rollout in several states. And even in places where the shots were in stock, the country’s wide economic disparities made access to the vaccine inconsistent.
Only a fraction of India’s population will be able to afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot, experts said, meaning that states will be saddled with immunizing the 600 million Indian adults younger than 45, while the federal government gives shots to 300 million health care and front-line workers and people older than 45.
So far, government vaccines have been free, and private hospitals have been permitted to sell shots at a price capped at 250 rupees, or around $3. That practice will now change: Prices for state governments and private hospitals will be determined by vaccine companies. Some states might not be able to provide vaccines for free since they are paying twice as much as the federal government for the same shot, and prices at private hospitals could rise.
Since state governments and private players compete for shots in the same marketplace, and states pay less for the doses, vaccine makers can reap more profit by selling to the private sector, said Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert. That cost can then be passed on to people receiving the shots, increasing inequity.
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Hospital fire kills 18 virus patients as India steps up jabs
NEW DELHI (AP) — A fire in a COVID-19 hospital ward in western India killed 18 patients early Saturday, as the country grappling with the worst outbreak yet steps up a vaccination drive for all its adults even though some states say don't have enough jabs.
India on Saturday set yet another daily global record with 401,993 new cases, taking its tally to more than 19.1 million. Another 3,523 people died in the past 24 hours, raising the overall fatalities to 211,853, according to the Health Ministry. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
The fire broke out in a COVID-19 ward on the ground floor and was extinguished within an hour, police said. The cause is being investigated.
Thirty-one other patients at the Welfare Hospital in Bharuch, a town in Gujarat state, were rescued by hospital workers and firefighters and their condition was stable, said police officer B.M Parmar. Eighteen others died in the blaze and smoke before rescuers could reach them, Parmar said.
On April 23, a fire in an intensive care unit killed 13 COVID-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai.
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Giuliani search warrant resolved Justice Department dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) — The question of whether to serve a search warrant for Rudy Giuliani's records simmered inside the Justice Department in the waning months of the Trump administration, dividing officials in New York and Washington and remaining unresolved for a new leadership team to sort out.
The new crowd resolved it this week in dramatic fashion. On Wednesday, federal agents raided the home and office of former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, collecting phones and computers as part of their probe into whether he broke U.S. lobbying laws by failing to register as a foreign agent related to his work.
It’s not clear exactly why Justice Department officials chose this particular moment to strike, but it wasn't out of character for the agency under new Attorney General Merrick Garland. The move was just one in a series of headline-making decisions by a department moving quickly to assert itself in investigations and policy setting.
In the past two weeks, President Joe Biden's attorney general has also made good on a promise to amplify the department's civil rights focus, announcing sweeping investigations into police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville as well as hate crime charges against three Georgia men in connection with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
The FBI action in New York on Wednesday was especially notable both because of the high-profile nature of the Giuliani investigation and because of the vigorous debate the search warrant question had produced inside the Trump-era Justice Department.
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'The Captain' challenges impoverished youth to love France
PIERREFITTE-SUR-SEINE, France (AP) — The man they call "the Captain" runs a tight ship, reaching into his years of military service to inculcate confidence, courage and a love of France in his proteges, youths from poor French suburbs,.
But first they must learn how to wake up on time and brush their teeth, says Nourouddine Abdoulhoussen, a former member of the 8th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, who heads an association called Laissez Les Servir (Let Them Serve) with a unique approach to integration.
In his own way, the white-bearded, 53-year-old Abdoulhoussen is working to uplift some of France's battalions of impoverished youth, often from heavily immigrant housing projects known for unemployment and delinquency, and to restore French values to create "the citizens of tomorrow."
Abdoulhoussen, a Muslim originally from India, has no sympathy for complainers.
"I, too, have a background," he said. "I crossed the seas to come here. I lived the problem of integration. I know how it feels to have people stare at you because you behave differently. Or people look at you because you look different."
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Workers protest Indonesia's labour law in May Day rallies
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Workers in Indonesia marked international labour day on Saturday with significantly less attended marches due to coronavirus restrictions but thousands still vented their anger at a new law they say harms their rights and welfare.
About 50,000 workers from 3,000 companies and factories were expected to take part in traditional May Day marches in 200 cities and districts in Southeast Asia's largest economy, said Said Iqbal, the president of the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions.
However, most rallies are held outside factories or company compounds with strict health protocols, Iqbal said.
In the Philippine capital, where a monthlong coronavirus lockdown has been extended by two weeks amid an alarming surge, police prevented hundreds of workers belonging to left-wing groups from holding a Labor Day rally at a public plaza, protest leader Renato Reyes said.
Authorities in the capital, Jakarta, the epicenter of the national epidemic, have warned labour groups to adhere to social distancing and other measures, which will significantly reduce crowds, said Jakarta Police spokesperson Yusri Yunus.
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Eli Broad, billionaire entrepreneur who reshaped LA, dies
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eli Broad, the billionaire philanthropist, contemporary art collector and entrepreneur who co-founded homebuilding pioneer Kaufman and Broad Inc. and launched financial services giant SunAmerica Inc., died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 87.
Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, confirmed his death to The Associated Press. Emmerling said Broad died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long illness. No services have been announced.
The New York Times first reported his death.
"As a businessman Eli saw around corners, as a philanthropist he saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them, as a citizen he saw the possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father and friend he saw the potential in each of us," Gerun Riley, president of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said in a statement Friday.
It was Broad (pronounced brohd) who provided much of the money and willpower used to reshape Los Angeles’ once moribund downtown into a burgeoning area of expensive lofts, fancy dining establishments and civic structures like the landmark Walt Disney Concert Hall. He opened his own eponymous contemporary art museum and art lending library, the Broad, in 2015 in the city's downtown next to Disney Hall.