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Good evening. Here is the latest end of Friday.
1. Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, a rare reprimand against a police officer who killed someone on duty.
The decision brought a measure to close a case that sparked waves of protests across the country against police abuse of blacks. It came more than a year after a widespread video showed the former Minneapolis police officer holding his knee on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes.
Judge Peter Cahill announced the verdict after final, emotional statements from the Floyd family, including his brother Philonise Floyd, who said his family had already been “sentenced to life imprisonment,” and Gianna Floyd, the 7-year-old daughter of George Floyd, who in a recorded video said, “I ask about him all the time.”
Chauvin offered his condolences to the Floyd family for the first time. His mother said her son was “a good man”.
2. The Justice Department is suing Georgia over its new electoral law, an important step by the Biden administration to confront states that have enacted election restrictions.
The Justice Department’s complaint alleges that Georgia law effectively discriminates against black voters and seeks to show that state lawmakers intended to do so. The law gives the Republican lawmaker and governor a staggering assertion of power in elections.
While some GOP lawmakers turned to law to change the balance of power, some Republican allies took a different approach: hard-line conservative spies infiltrated progressive groups in an attempt to manipulate politics and reshape the voting card. They also targeted moderate Republicans and basically anyone considered a threat to the far-right agenda put forward by Trump.
3. Donald Trump’s family business could be prosecuted from a Manhattan District Attorney investigation.
Prosecutors have told Trump’s lawyers that they are considering filing a criminal complaint against the Trump organization in connection with fringe benefits the company has awarded a top executive, Allen Weisselberg. If the case progresses, prosecutor Cyrus Vance Jr. could file charges as early as next week, according to several people.
An indictment against the Trump organization would be the first indictment of Vance’s longstanding investigation into the former president and his business relationships.
4. An intensive search for survivors lasted over a second day in the rubble of the collapsed condominium near Miami Beach.
Up to 159 people were missing on Friday afternoon after the Champlain Towers complex in Surfside, Florida collapsed. The death toll rose to four, officials said, and it remained unclear how many others were in the building at the time of the building’s collapse. Miami-Dade County’s Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said officials “still had hope” of finding survivors in the tangled concrete.
The Champlain Towers complex drew a mix of residents only found in Miami – beach-seeking New York retirees, young families, Orthodox Jews, and well-connected South American immigrants. “I knew them all,” said one survivor who lived in the building for 20 years.
5. President Biden promised Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan President that the US would support a secure future for the country amid the withdrawal of US and international troops.
Biden assured the Afghan leader that the government would continue to provide security assistance to the country. Despite an increasing threat from the Taliban and possible civil war in the coming weeks and months, Biden’s message remains clear, officials say: The U.S. military will leave by September 11th. A Times photographer recently photographed Afghanistan’s elite troops disrupting Taliban’s operations in Helmand, one of the country’s most explosive provinces.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris made her first visit to the southern border, where she toured a migrant processing center in El Paso. She was immediately criticized: Republicans said she should have gone there sooner and some Democrats argued that she should have visited another hard-hit location along the border.
6. Meet Dragon Man, a new breed of ancient people who lived at least 140,000 years ago, say scientists.
A team of researchers found a massive fossilized skull of an adult male with a huge brain, massive brow ridges, deep-set eyes and a bulbous nose in northeast China. The skull had remained hidden in an abandoned well for 85 years after a worker discovered and hidden it on a construction site. The new species, Homo longi, is nicknamed “Dragon Man” for the region of the Dragon River where the skull was found.
The team said that Homo longi, rather than Neanderthals, are the extinct human species most closely related to our Homo sapiens. A number of experts have questioned this conclusion. Many still thought that the find could help to reconstruct the family tree of mankind.
7. The US government has no explanation for 143 UFO sightings A new report has been found in the past two decades. It doesn’t rule out extraterrestrial activity.
Of these, 21 reports of unknown phenomena may have technological capabilities that the US is not aware of. The objects in the report are also believed to be beyond the technological capabilities of Russia, China, or other terrestrial nations. The government outlined a plan to develop a better program to monitor and collect data on future unexplained phenomena.
The report is likely to fuel theories. In a guest post, Chris Carter, creator of the TV series “The X Files” explains why he is skeptical.
8. Last year Pride was a muted celebration. This year it’s back and it’s full of premieres.
The first incumbent vice president in a Pride parade. First pride parades in places like Haddon Township, NJ. And there’s Carl Nassib, who made history this week by becoming the first active NFL player to come out gay. He says he has longed to change the world.
Many activists argue that carrying rainbow flags can only go so far. A short-term t-shirt from The Gap featured the sobering logo of the Lesbian Avengers, a radical activist group that flourished 30 years ago. The backstory turned out to be more complicated than a corporate appropriation case.
There are many ways to celebrate this weekend. In New York, the city is back in full swing, with parties, demonstrations, and family gatherings.
9. This may be the perfect summer cocktail.
Pastis is the ideal summer aperitif for our wine critic Eric Asimov. Popular in the south of France, Pastis is both the name of an anise-flavored spirit and a simple drink that just requires adding cold water to this liquor. And the preparation has a built-in entertainment – adding water to the liquor quickly turns it milky and pearly in a transformation known as a louche.
“Drinking a pastis in the summer,” writes Asimov, “gives one the wisdom to understand that calm and not unjustified effort is the preferred course of action.”
Setting just a few key ratios in memory can make mixology at home a breeze. Here are three equal part drinks to get you started.
10. Finally, can you crack these codes?
Erik and Martin Demaine, a father-and-son team of “algorithmic typographers”, have created a whole range of mathematically inspired typefaces that are also puzzles. The main application is fun.
A font, a homage to the mathematician and juggler Ron Graham, draws its letters from the movement patterns of balls that are thrown into the air during juggling tricks. And today the Sudoku font made its debut, based on the puzzles whose unique solutions reveal the letters of the alphabet.
“When we get stuck with a problem, we like to find an artistic way to portray it,” says Erik Demaine.
Have an undisturbed weekend.
David Poller has put together photos for this briefing.
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