The Police Beat: Police fired teargas in Minneapolis last night to break up crowds after an officer shot and killed a 20-year-old Black man in a traffic stop.

  The dead man was identified as 20-year-old Daunte Wright. Officers said they learned after they stopped his car that he was wanted on a warrant. They said they shot Wright as he got back in his car and tried to drive away.

  As the murder trial of a former Minneapolis officer resumes today, Maryland’s Democrat-controlled legislature over the weekend repealed the state’s police Bill of Rights, becoming the first state in the nation to do that. 

  Advocates for repeal have called the 1974 law “one of the most extreme in the nation” that insulates cops from responsibility for bad behavior. For example, officers had 10 days after an incident during which they could decline to be interviewed by department investigators. It’s nicknamed the “get your story straight period.”

  Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne Jones, a Democrat, tweeted that, “Now, for the first time in our nation’s history, the rights of officers will not be held above the rights of individuals.” 

  Speaking of police work, a Black/Latino lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps is suing two officers in Windsor, Virginia, after they mistakenly pulled him over last December for not having a license plate, threatened him, pepper sprayed him, and promised to ruin his military career if he complained about what they did. 

  When he saw spinning lights behind him, Lt. Caron Nazario drove on to a gas station before pulling over. The cops got out with guns drawn. “Get out of the car,” one yells as Nazario put his hands out the window and repeatedly asked why he’d been stopped, getting no answer.

  “I’m honestly afraid to get out of the car,” Lt. Nazario says.

  “Yeah,” replies one of the officers. “You should be.”

  The officer who said that has been fired.

In the Crosshairs: President Biden would like to see a new ban on the sale to civilians of assault rifles, the semi-automatic gun of choice for “patriots” and mass shooters.

  The original assault weapons ban of 1994 expired after 10 years. It is believed to have somewhat reduced the incidence of mass shootings.

  The proposed Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 would prohibit the sale, manufacture, transfer, and importation of 205 “military-style assault weapons” by name, and bans magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. 

  The bill would not affect the millions of guns already in private hands, or the people who own them. It also exempts more than 2,200 firearms of “hunting, household defense or recreational purposes.”

   The law is an attempt to avoid the mistakes of the original ban, which failed to account for the creativity of the gun industry in altering weapons so they were not covered by the law. 

Blackout: Iran is blaming Israel for a blackout at a nuclear power plant over the weekend and threatening revenge. Israeli news reports say the Mossad did it. Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a statement,  “The Zionists want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions.”

Friends Like These: Former president Donald Trump in a speech Saturday night called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a “dumb son of a bitch” for not helping to overturn the 2020 election that Trump falsely claims he won. 

  Speaking to a Republican National Committee gathering at his Mar-a-Lago Club. Trump called a number of Republicans for what he considers to be insufficient loyalty.

  But he said about McConnell, “If that were Schumer instead of this dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell they would never allow it to happen. They would have fought it,” he said of the Senate certifying Joe Biden’s election.

  In other developments, the grifter-in-chief has re-paid donors $122.7 million they unwittingly gave to his 2020 campaign, The NY Times reports. That’s 11 percent of the money raised.  Trump’s donation site had a pre-checked box that committed supporters to multiple donations and thousands of them didn’t notice until they saw debits to their bank accounts or charges on credit cards.

Viral News: At least 40 percent of the US Marines offered the Covid-19 vaccine have declined, CNN reports.  Overall, the rejection rate in the military is 50 percent. But more colleges and universities say they will require students to be vaccinated if they want to return to campus in the fall.

  The University of Notre Dame, Brown, Cornell, and Northeastern University are among those requiring the vaccine for the fall. 

  So far, 119.2 million Americans have had at least one vaccine shot.

The Obit Page: Former US Attorney Gen. Ramsey Clark, who was a crusader for civil rights under President Lyndon Johnson, has died at age 93.

  Immediately after taking office, Clark filed the first lawsuit to force a public school district — Dale County, Ala. — to desegregate or lose its federal school money. He filed the first voting rights and school desegregation suits in the North. Clark also sued to prevent employment discrimination and oversaw the drafting of the Civil rights Act of 1968.

The Spin Rack: Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama yesterday won the Masters, the first major win for his golf-obsessed country. — In a further effort to return to favor with Donald Trump and his acolytes, Fox News has added former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to its list of paid analysts.  — With 10 weeks to go before the primaries, former presidential candidate and math nerd Andrew Yang is leads in polling to be New York City’s next mayor. — Britain’s Prince Harry, the royal family’s current bad boy, is expected to attend the funeral of his grandfather, Prince Philip. The official word is that Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle, is staying home because she’s pregnant. 

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