AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Chauvin guilty of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday of murder and manslaughter for pinning George Floyd to the pavement with his knee on the Black man’s neck in a case that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a furious reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.

Chauvin, 45, was immediately led away with his hands cuffed behind his back and could be sent to prison for decades.

The verdict — guilty as charged on all counts, in a relatively swift, across-the-board victory for Floyd’s supporters — set off jubilation mixed with sorrow across the city and around the nation. Hundreds of people poured into the streets of Minneapolis, some running through traffic with banners. Drivers blared their horns in celebration.

“Today, we are able to breathe again,” Floyd’s younger brother Philonise said at a joyous family news conference where tears streamed down his face as he likened Floyd to the 1955 Mississippi lynching victim Emmett Till, except that this time there were cameras around to show the world what happened.

The jury of six whites and six Black or multiracial people came back with its verdict after about 10 hours of deliberations over two days. The now-fired white officer was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

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Crowds react with joy, wariness to verdict in Floyd’s death

London Williams stood in Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., moments before the verdict was read in George Floyd’s murder trial Tuesday, wondering how he would cope if the white police officer who killed the Black man was acquitted.

“I feel very nervous. It’s already hard as it is as a Black man in today’s society,” said Williams, standing with a date in the space near the White House renamed after Floyd’s death last May. “If this doesn’t go right, I don’t know how safe I will feel.”

Then, the verdict came for former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin: guilty on all counts. Williams, 31, doubled over with emotion, covered his face and wept.

With that outcome, Black Americans from Missouri to Florida to Minnesota cheered, marched, hugged, waved signs and sang jubilantly in the streets. But they also tempered those celebrations with the heavy knowledge that Chauvin’s conviction was just a first, tiny step on the long road to address centuries of racist policing in a nation founded on slavery.

Many said they had prepared for a different result after watching countless deaths of people of colour at the hands of police go unpunished. The shooting death of another Black man, Daunte Wright, by officers in suburban Minneapolis during the trial and of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago last month heightened tensions and muted the court victory for many.

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For George Floyd, a complicated life and consequential death

HOUSTON (AP) — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

“I just want to speak to you all real quick,” Floyd says in one video, addressing the young men in his neighbourhood who looked up to him. His 6-foot-7 frame crowds the picture.

“I’ve got my shortcomings and my flaws and I ain’t better than nobody else,” he says. “But, man, the shootings that’s going on, I don’t care what ‘hood you’re from, where you’re at, man. I love you and God loves you. Put them guns down.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press initially published this profile of George Floyd on June 10, 2020. Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted by a jury on April 20, 2021, of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

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AP PHOTOS: Joy, tears, calls for change after Floyd verdict

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, which set off worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing in America.

The jury reached its verdict Tuesday, less than a year after Chauvin, who is white, pinned the 46-year-old Black man down with a knee to his neck last May.

After the decision was announced, crowds across the country celebrated, honking car horns, streaming through the streets with signs of Floyd’s face and breaking down in tears. But the joy was tinged with the realization that much work remains to be done to bring about lasting change.

In Houston’s Third Ward, a historically Black neighbourhood where Floyd grew up, James Walker, 39, called the verdict bittersweet.

Floyd’s “life is still gone. I wouldn’t call it a celebration. Let’s call it a premature step for what needs to be for everybody … I’m happy for the outcome,” Walker said.

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Biden to America after Floyd verdict: ‘We can’t stop here’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday the conviction of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism. But he declared that “it’s not enough.”

Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict alongside Vice-President Kamala Harris, with the pair saying the country’s work is far from finished with the verdict.

“We can’t stop here,” Biden declared.

Biden and Harris called on Congress to act swiftly to address policing reform, including by approving a bill named for Floyd, who died with his neck under Chauvin’s knee last May. Beyond that, the president said, the entire country must confront hatred to “change hearts and minds as well as laws and policies.”

“‘I can’t breathe.’ Those were George Floyd’s last words,” Biden said. “We can’t let those words die with him. We have to keep hearing those words. We must not turn away. We can’t turn away.”

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‘No place for you’: Indian hospitals buckle amid virus surge

NEW DELHI (AP) — Seema Gandotra, sick with the coronavirus, gasped for breath in an ambulance for 10 hours as it tried unsuccessfully to find an open bed at six hospitals in India’s sprawling capital. By the time she was admitted, it was too late, and the 51-year-old died hours later.

Rajiv Tiwari, whose oxygen levels began falling after he tested positive for the virus, has the opposite problem: He identified an open bed, but the resident of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh can’t get to it. “There is no ambulance to take me to the hospital,” he said.

Such tragedies are familiar from surges in other parts of the world — but were largely unknown in India, which was able to prevent a collapse in its health system last year through a harsh lockdown. But now they are everyday occurrences in the vast country, which is seeing its largest surge of the pandemic so far and watching its chronically underfunded health system crumble.

Tests are delayed. Medical oxygen is scarce. Hospitals are understaffed and overflowing. Intensive care units are full. Nearly all ventilators are in use, and the dead are piling up at crematoriums and graveyards. India recorded over 250,000 new infections and over 1,700 deaths in the past 24 hours alone, and the U.K. announced a travel ban on most visitors from the country this week. Overall, India has reported more than 15 million cases and some 180,000 deaths — and experts say these numbers are likely undercounted.

“The surge in infections has come like a storm and a big battle lies ahead,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an address to the nation Tuesday night.

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Sikh group wants probe of gunman’s possible supremacist link

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A Sikh civil rights organization called on law enforcement Tuesday to investigate whether a former FedEx employee who fatally shot eight people — four of them Sikhs — at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis last week had any ties to hate groups.

The Sikh Coalition’s request came a day after Indianapolis police released a report from last year stating that an officer who seized a shotgun from Brandon Scott Hole’s home after his arrest in March 2020 saw what he identified as white supremacist websites on Hole’s computer.

The coalition, which identifies itself as the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the U.S., said it has sent letters to law enforcement and state and federal lawmakers “clearly expressing the continuing and urgent need to investigate the possibility of a bias motivation” in last Thursday’s mass shooting.

Hole was arrested last year at his family’s home after his mother told police her son might commit “suicide by cop.” A prosecutor said Monday that after his arrest, Hole never appeared before a judge under Indiana’s “red flag” law, which allows police or courts to seize guns from people who show warning signs of violence.

Hole, 19, used two rifles to kill eight FedEx workers and wound several others inside and outside the facility and then fatally shot himself before police entered the building, authorities have said.

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Brazil COVID cases still soaring among unprotected majority

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s slowly unfolding vaccination program appears to have slowed the pace of deaths among the nation’s elderly, according to death certificate data, but COVID-19 is still taking a rising toll as unprotected younger people get sick.

People 80 and over accounted for a quarter of the nation’s COVID-19 deaths in February, but less than a fifth in March, according to data provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday by Arpen-Brasil, an association which represents thousands of the notaries who record death certificates in Brazil.

But relatively few beyond the elderly have been protected: Less than 9 million of Brazil’s 210 million residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to Our World in Data, an online research site.

Confirmed new infections from the virus among all age groups jumped about 70 per cent between December and March: Reported cases rose from 1.3 million in December to 1.5 million in January, to 1.36 million in February and to 2.25 million in March.

But among people aged 20 to 59 the death toll tripled from February to March, hitting 23,366, according to the notaries.

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Super League collapses after the 6 English clubs withdraw

LONDON (AP) — The Super League collapsed before a ball was kicked in the European breakaway competition after being abandoned by the six English clubs, leaving the Spanish and Italian participants stranded.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham throughout Tuesday evening deserted the proposal to launch a largely-closed midweek competition amid an escalating backlash from their supporters and warnings from the British government that legislation could be introduced to thwart it.

The Super League project was overseen by Real Madrid President Florentino Perez, who also signed up Barcelona and Atlético Madrid in Spain, and Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan from Italy. The rival for the UEFA-run Champions League became unviable without the six clubs from the world’s richest league.

The remaining fledgling Super League organization was defiant, blaming “pressure” being applied for forcing out the English clubs and insisting the proposal complied with the law and could yet be revived in some form.

“Given the current circumstances,” the Super League said in a statement, “we shall reconsider the most appropriate steps to reshape the project, always having in mind our goals of offering fans the best experience possible while enhancing solidarity payments for the entire football community.”

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Oscar predictions: Can anything beat ‘Nomadland’?

Ahead of Sunday’s 93rd Academy Awards, Associated Press Film Writers Jake Coyle and Lindsey Bahr share their predictions for a ceremony that is forging on in the midst of the pandemic.

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The Nominees: “The Father,”“Judas and the Black Messiah,”“Mank,”“Minari,”“Nomadland,”“Promising Young Woman,”“Sound of Metal,”“The Trial of the Chicago 7.”

COYLE: A contemplative character study made for $5 million and populated by non-professional actors, Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” is not your typical Oscar heavyweight. And yet it’s overwhelming the favourite, a roundly acclaimed movie from an exciting auteur that has already ruled at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and, most crucially, the producers and directors’ guilds. The weirdness of this unending pandemic awards season adds a drop of uncertainty to everything. But as much as I’d like to see “Sound of Metal,”“Promising Young Woman” or “Minari” sneak in for an upset, “Nomadland” is a near-lock, and an eminently worthy winner. But it’s udder madness that Kelly Reichardt’s lyrical “First Cow” never contended here. And how much better would the season have been if Steve McQueen’s explosive “Small Axe” film anthology (which instead will vie at the Emmys) had somehow been in the mix? Old Oscar traditions are eroding, but not quickly enough.

BAHR: You had to bring up “Small Axe,” didn’t you? I would have liked to see “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” go the distance too, but I guess this year there was only room for one contemplative character study made for under $5 million — and the one about the rural Pennsylvania teens on a bleak road trip wasn’t it. But it would still be “Nomadland’s” year and that’s only cause for celebration.