Death in the Royal Family: Buckingham Palace announced that Britain’s popular Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, has died at age 99. 

  As a young man, Philip had been a naval officer and then spent his adult life one step behind the queen. Nonetheless, he managed to establish himself as his own man who ran the business of the royal family. A former associate told CBS News, “Essentially the queen has always worn the crown, and Prince Philip was allowed to wear the trousers.” 

Breathless: A well-regarded pulmonary doctor testified in the murder trial of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin that the way officers pinned George Floyd to the street, it was as if his chest was in a vice.

  Chauvin is charged with murdering Floyd while arrested him a year ago on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

  Dr. Martin Tobin said Floyd died for lack of oxygen with Chauvin’s knee on his neck and his arms pulled up behind his back. He said, “He’s jammed down against the street. And so the street is playing a major role in preventing him from expanding his chest.”

  Tobin described Floyd trying to leverage his face against the pavement to get the pressure off his chest so he could breath.

  In one of the most dramatic and sickening moments of the trial, Tobin narrated the video of Floyd’s death. With the video showing Chauvin’s knee firmly pressed to Floyd’s neck, Tobin said, “You can see his eyes, he’s conscious. And then you see that he isn’t. That’s the moment the life goes out of his body.”

  Tobin also gave testimony that counters the defense argument that Floyd may have died of a drug overdose. He said Floyd’s breath rate was a normal 22. And that, “With fentanyl, his respiratory rate should be down at around 10.” 

Girls Gone Gaetz: A friend of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz who’s already indicted on charges of sex trafficking and other crimes is reported to be negotiating a plea agreement in which it’s presumed he would testify against Gaetz.

  Fritz Scheller, the lawyer for former Seminole County tax commissioner Joel Greenberg, told reporters, “I am sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.”

 Greenberg is charged with 33 federal counts ranging from identity theft to sex trafficking of a minor. Conviction would put him in prison for a long time, and his way out is through the front Gaetz.

   Federal prosecutors are inquiring whether Gaetz and Greenberg paid underage girls or offered them gifts in exchange for sex, the Associated Press reports. Gaetz, who’s already reported to be under investigation for consorting with a teenage girl, insists he never paid for sex and that he will not resign his seat in Congress.

Bang, You’re Regulated: The morning after a mass shooting in South Carolina and only hours before another in Texas yesterday, President Biden announced modest executive orders on gun reform and called gun violence in the US “an international embarrassment” 

  The President said, “Our flag was still flying at half-staff for the victims of the horrific murder of eight primarily Asian-American people in Georgia when 10 more lives were taken in a mass murder in Colorado. You probably didn’t hear it, but between those two incidents, less than one week apart, there were more than 850 additional shootings. 850 that took the lives of more than 250 people and left 500 injured.”

  In south Carolina Wednesday night, a former professional football player shot and killed a popular doctor, his wife, and two grandchildren, 5 and 9. He also killed an air conditioning technician working at the house and gravely wounded another before going home and killing himself.

  In Bryan, Texas, yesterday, an employee of a cabinet-making company shot and killed one employee and wounded five others.

  Biden’s proposals barely nick the gun problem. One of his orders calls on the states to pass red flag laws that can prevent a gun sale to someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.

  The President’s big order seeks to control so-called “ghost guns,” which are guns assembled in parts resulting in a weapon with no serial number that’s impossible to track. They’ve become commonly used in gun crimes and Biden wants every separate part to have a serial number.

  Before yesterday’s shooting in his state, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott tweeted that Biden “just announced a new liberal power grab to take away our guns. We will NOT allow this in TX.” 

Executive Accounting: The former daughter-in-law of Donald Trump’s longtime chief business executive has turned over boxes of financial documents to Manhattan prosecutors investigating the former President and his business. Jennifer Weisselberg was married to a son of Trump executive Allen Weisselberg.

  Prosecutors are examining whether Trump and his company lied about the value of properties it owned — basically giving two different values — in order to get favorable loans on high values, and lower taxes on the lower stated values.

The Obit Page: Charles Coolidge, the oldest recipient of the Medal of Honor awarded to him for action in France during World War II, has died at age 99. Then Sgt. Coolidge spent four days organizing an infantry resistance to German tanks trying to take a vital hill in eastern France near the German border. He went on to spend his life working in his family’s printing firm. — Anne Beatts, one of the original writers for NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” who helped establish the show as a lasting showcase of American comedy, has died at 74. Among her creations were the school age nerds Lisa Loopner and Todd DiLaMuca played by Gilda Radner and Bill Murray.

Jimminy Cricket!: The Walt Disney company’s Downtown Disney attraction is preparing to offer hungry visitors a fried pickle corn dog, which is a hot dog stuffed into a dill pickle, then battered, panko-crusted, fried and served with a side of peanut butter. It’ll make America great again.

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