AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Police: Minnesota officer meant to draw Taser, not handgun

BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. (AP) — The police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb apparently intended to fire a Taser, not a handgun, as the man struggled with police, the city’s police chief said Monday, as police clashed with protesters for the second night in a row.

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon described the shooting death Sunday of 20-year-old Daunte Wright as “an accidental discharge.” It happened as police were trying to arrest Wright on an outstanding warrant. The shooting sparked protests and unrest in a metropolitan area already on edge because of the trial of the first of four police officers charged in George Floyd’s death.

“I’ll Tase you! I’ll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!” the officer is heard shouting on her body cam footage released at a news conference. She draws her weapon after the man breaks free from police outside his car and gets back behind the wheel.

After firing a single shot from her handgun, the car speeds away, and the officer is heard saying, “Holy (expletive)! I shot him.”

Crowds began gathering outside the the Brooklyn Center police station late Monday afternoon, with hundreds there by nightfall despite the governor’s dusk-to-dawn curfew. A drum beat incessantly, and the crowd broke into frequent chants of “Daunte Wright!” Some shouted obscenities at officers.

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Defence set to take turn in ex-cop’s trial in Floyd death

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The defence for a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death was set to start presenting its case Tuesday, following 11 days of a prosecution narrative that combined wrenching video with clinical analysis by medical and use-of-force experts to condemn Derek Chauvin’s actions.

Prosecutors called their final witnesses Monday, leaving only some administrative matters before they were expected to rest Tuesday. Once the defence takes over, Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson is expected to have his own experts testify that it was Floyd’s drug use and bad heart, not Chauvin’s actions, that killed him.

The defence hasn’t said whether Chauvin will take the stand.

Prosecutors effectively wrapped up their case with George Floyd’s younger brother, alternately smiling and tearing up as he recalled Floyd, followed by another look at the harrowing video and testimony from a use-of-force expert who said Chauvin’s actions were clearly unreasonable.

Seth Stoughton, a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, judged Chauvin’s actions against what a reasonable police officer in the same situation would have done, and repeatedly found that Chauvin did not meet the test.

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Attack on Iran’s Natanz plant muddies US, Iran nuke talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — The attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility is casting a major shadow over Tuesday’s resumption of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran over resurrection of the international accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

Neither Iran nor the U.S. say the incident will crater the negotiations. But the attack and the destruction of a significant amount of Iran’s uranium enrichment capability add uncertainty to the discussions in Vienna.

The attack gives both sides reason to harden their positions, yet each has incentives to keep the talks on track.

Iran wants Washington to lift sanctions that have contributed to damaging its economy, including measures not related to its nuclear program. It insists that the sanctions be lifted before it returns to compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement that then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.

For the Biden administration, the talks are a high-stakes gamble that it can salvage what the Obama administration considered one of its prime foreign policy achievements and slow Iran’s programs, even as critics claim the accord had given Iran a pathway to a nuclear weapon instead of closing it off.

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Student fires at officers at Tennessee school, is killed

A student opened fire on officers responding to a report of a possible gunman at a Tennessee high school Monday, and police shot back and killed him, authorities said. The shooting wounded an officer and comes as the community reels from off-campus gun violence that has left three other students dead this year.

Police found the student in a bathroom at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, a city about 180 miles (290 kilometres) east of Nashville, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David B. Rausch said at a news conference. They ordered the student to come out, but he wouldn’t comply, and that’s when he reportedly opened fire, Rausch said. Police fired back.

The student died at the school, and the officer was taken into surgery after being shot at least once in the upper leg, authorities said. The officer was expected to recover, and no one else was hurt. It wasn’t yet clear why the student brought a gun to school or why he fired at officers.

“It’s a sad day for Knoxville, and it’s tough for Austin-East,” Rausch said.

Asked about the overwhelming police response to a call that came in just before afternoon dismissal, Knoxville Police Chief Eve Thomas said, “We have a student, a school incident. It’s our worst fear, an active shooter in a school.”

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Japan to start releasing Fukushima water into sea in 2 years

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s government decided Tuesday to start releasing massive amounts of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years — an option fiercely opposed by local fishermen and residents.

The decision, long speculated but delayed for years due to safety concerns and protests, came at a meeting of Cabinet ministers who endorsed the ocean release as the best option.

The accumulating water has been stored in tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged its reactors and their cooling water became contaminated and began leaking.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., says its storage capacity will be full late next year.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the ocean release was the “most realistic” option and that disposing the water is “unavoidable” for the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant, which is expected to take decades.

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Muslims open Ramadan with social distanced prayers, vaccines

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Muslims in Indonesia began marking Ramadan with communal prayers Tuesday in a socially distanced contrast to the empty mosques of a year ago when Islam’s holiest month coincided with the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 cases are spiking in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but vaccines are being administered and the government is loosening restrictions. Mosques were allowed to open for Ramadan prayers with strict health protocols in place, and with malls and cafes open, passers-by could again see curtains shielding the sight of food from people fasting.

Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas announced in a televised address Monday evening that the new moon had been spotted. The holy month is marked by intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting and nightly feasts.

Last year, authorities shuttered all mosques and clerics issued a fatwa, or edict, urging Muslims to pray at home over the holy month rather than congregate in crowded spaces and risk spreading the virus.

Muslims this year are expecting a virus resurgence but all mosques will be continuing to adhere to social distancing and other precautions, which will significantly reduce crowds, said Nasaruddin Umar, imam of Jakarta’s Istiqlal grand mosque.

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AP Photos: Things starting to stir at Tokyo Olympic venues

TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics are getting closer and things are starting to stir around the venues, though not as much as you might expect. Many preparations are still up in the air as organizers try to figure out how to hold the postponed games in the middle of a pandemic.

Much of the city will be watching Wednesday as the countdown clocks around town hit the 100-days-to-go mark.

The new national stadium in the heart of Tokyo exemplifies the state of preparations. Kengo Kuma’s $1.4 billion venue is still largely sealed off to outsiders by a white wall that circles the stadium.

Over the weekend, passersby could hear rumblings from inside the venue — possible practice for the opening ceremony on July 23. The Paralympics follow on Aug. 24.

There is little movement around the Athletes’ Village, located near Tokyo Bay. The village will be tightly controlled during the Olympics, operating largely as a bubble for 11,000 Olympic athletes and 4.400 Paralympic athletes.

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Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala deploy troops to lower migration

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has struck an agreement with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to temporarily surge security forces to their borders in an effort to reduce the tide of migration to the U.S. border.

The agreement comes as the U.S. saw a record number of unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border in March, and the largest number of Border Patrol encounters overall with migrants on the southern border — just under 170,000 — since March 2001.

According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Mexico will maintain a deployment of about 10,000 troops, while Guatemala has surged 1,500 police and military personnel to its southern border and Honduras deployed 7,000 police and military to its border “to disperse a large contingent of migrants” there. Guatemala will also set up 12 checkpoints along the migratory route through the country.

A White House official said Guatemala and Honduras were deploying troops temporarily in response to a large caravan of migrants that was being organized at the end of March.

Psaki said “the objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the borders more difficult.”

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EXPLAINER: Prosecution explores Floyd’s ‘spark of life’

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors trying a white former Minneapolis police officer in George Floyd’s death put one of Floyd’s brothers on the witness stand Monday in a further effort to humanize him for the jury and counter the defence narrative that Floyd was at least partially responsible for his own death due to his use of illegal drugs.

Philonise Floyd, who has frequently occupied the Floyd family’s sole seat in the socially distanced courtroom, was allowed to testify under a legal doctrine called “spark of life.” He told the jury about how they grew up poor in Houston’s Third Ward, his brother’s passion for sports, his marginal cooking skills and how he was devastated by his mother’s death.

The defence didn’t use Philonise Floyd’s appearance to discuss George Floyd’s drug use. That contrasted with earlier spark of life testimony from George Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, who told the jury how they both struggled with addiction to opioids.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter. Prosecutors say he knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds, pinning the handcuffed man to the ground. The most serious charge — second-degree murder — carries up to 40 years in prison.

WHAT IS THE “SPARK OF LIFE” DOCTRINE?

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Fox stands behind Tucker Carlson after ADL urges his firing

Fox Corp. is standing behind Tucker Carlson after the Anti-Defamation League last week called for the company to fire the opinion host for his on-air defence of the white-supremacist “great replacement” theory.

In a letter sent Sunday to the civil rights group and shared with The Associated Press, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Carlson had “decried and rejected replacement theory” when he said during the Thursday evening segment, “White replacement theory? No, no, this is a voting rights question.”

The ADL argued in a reply sent Monday to Murdoch that Carlson used white-supremacist language even if he claimed he didn’t.

“Mr. Carlson’s attempt to at first dismiss this theory, while in the very next breath endorsing it under cover of ‘a voting rights question,’ does not give him free license to invoke a white supremacist trope,” wrote ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

The replacement conspiracy theory holds that people of colour are replacing white people in the West, enabled by Jews and progressive politicians.

The Associated Press