Deadly Force: The chief of detectives who is also the most senior member of the Minneapolis police department testified yesterday that the force applied to George Floyd was “totally unnecessary.”

  Former officer Derek Chauvin, who’s on trial for murder, kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. In  devastating testimony for the defendant, Lt. Richard Zimmerman said,“putting your knee on a neck for that amount of time is just uncalled for. I saw no reason why the officers thought they were in danger, if that is what they felt. And that’s what they would have to feel to use that kind of force.”

  Although the defense says Chauvin was trained to do what he did, Zimmerman said he had never in all his years on the force been trained to kneel on a suspect’s neck.

  Asked  “What level of force might that be?” Zimmerman answered, “That would be the top tier, the deadly force.” He said, “If your knee is on a person’s neck, that can kill him.
  George Floyd died with Chauvin’s knee on his neck.

Capitol Crime: One Capitol police officer in Washington was killed yesterday and another injured when a man rammed his car into a barrier. The man identified as 25-year-old Noah Green from Indiana was shot and killed when he got out of his car and threatened officers with a knife. 

  The dead officer was identified as William F. Evans, known as “Billy,” an 18-year veteran of the force. Another officer is in the hospital in stable condition.

  Green had recently told friends he had left his job and had “afflictions,” but there was no further explanation for what he did.

  Green had described himself as a supporter of the Nation of Islam, had left his job and had been “faced with fear, hunger, loss of wealth and diminution of fruit.”

Run for the Border: The border patrol reports that it caught more illegal immigrants in March than in any month in the past 15 years, more than 170,000 people. That’s also a 70 percent increase from February.

  The pressure on the Biden administration to deal with it is enormous.

  Thousands of the migrants are unaccompanied children. At least 18,700 unaccompanied children and teenagers were taken into custody last month, nearly double the number in February. Many of the adults are being sent back, but the unaccompanied children pose a problem both for housing them and finding a place for them to go in the future.

Voting With Their Feet: In response to the more restrictive voting laws passed in Georgia, Major League baseball pulled this summer’s All-Star game from suburban Atlanta. The move came in part in response to pressure from civil rights organizations and the Players Association.

  There might be a limit to how many states MLB can pull out of. The Texas senate passed a bill that would limit early voting hours, ban drive-through voting, add restrictions to absentee voting, and make it illegal to mail absentee ballot applications to voters, even if they qualify. 

  Major corporations are also feeling the heat to take a stand. Coca Cola and Delta Airlines, both based in Georgia, didn’t say anything until after the law was passed. In Texas, American Airlines and Dell Technologies have spoken up. Michael Dell, the chief executive of the Texas-based company he founded, said that “free, fair, equitable access to voting is the foundation of American democracy.” 

Get to Work: The economy added 916,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate dropped to 6 percent. 

  It’s the biggest job growth since last August. Job gains were strongest in leisure and hospitality, while construction grew by 110,000.

Viral News: The Centers for Disease Control now says people who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus can safely travel within the United States. The CDC updated its website to say that two weeks after full vaccination, it’s no longer necessary to go into quarantine before seeing friends and family.

  Despite that bit of good news, Covid-19 infections are up 19 percent in the past two weeks. A total of 554,105 Americans have died. 

Unspeakable: Republicans politicians are turning against Matt Gaetz, the Florida representative under investigation for a possible relation with a 17-year-old girl.

  CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash said, “If you could see my text messages from some of his current and former colleagues, I actually can’t repeat what some of them say on morning television.” 

  She said Gaetz has not made himself popular with Republican colleagues. “We’re talking about people who he has antagonized in the name of being … as beholden and as loyal to the former president, Donald Trump, as possible. In the name of being on conservative media, being on Fox News. Being the darling of that.”

Hoop Dreams: The Arizona Wildcats shocked the UConn women’s basketball machine to win a spot in the NCAA final to be played tomorrow night.

  UConn is a basketball team with a university attached to the locker room. They’ve won the women’s NCAA title 11 times.

  Arizona held on to the ball for long possessions and peppered the basket with three-point shots to win 69-59. They face #1 seed Stanford in the final.

  “We shocked the world tonight,” said Aari McDonald, an Arizona senior who scored 26 points.  “Keep betting against me and my teammates, we’re going to prove you wrong.”

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