Police bodycam video released

Two body-worn camera videos from the day George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police were publicly released Monday by the court after a coalition of media companies intervened and argued for their unrestrained release.

The move comes more than a month after a defense attorney filed the two videos with the court as part of a motion, which makes them public data under state law. The court initially withheld them out of concerns that it might taint the jury pool, then allowed them to be viewed by appointment.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill issued an order Friday changing his position on the videos recorded by former officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane and allowing their broad release.

Their former colleagues, Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin, later showed up to assist.

Lane, Kueng and Thao each are charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.

Chauvin is charged with one count each of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Before Cahill released the videos, someone leaked portions of them to The Daily Mail, a British media company, which published them online Aug. 3. The leak is under investigation.

CHAO XIONG, STAR TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS) own decisions about whether masks are necessary in their districts as he continued to encourage but not require their use.

“We’ve given the responsibility to the schools, to the local superintendents,” Kemp said. “Like most things in education, I’m a firm believer that the local governments know their schools better than the state government does.”

His remarks came days after a photo of North Paulding High School students jammed into a hallway in between classes went viral. The school later revealed a half-dozen students and three staffers were diagnosed with COVID-19 and that courses will be held online for at least a few days this week.

Kemp was seconded by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who joined Kemp to highlight Georgia’s new testing initiative.

GREGBLUESTEINTHE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION attends the University of Central Florida. In 2017, joined by his mom, he sued his county school board after being told he could no longer use the boys’ restroom at Nease High.

The decision, written by Judge Beverly Martin, relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last month that held federal law prohibits discrimination against gay and transgender employees in the workplace.

BILL RANKIN, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

missing.

Meanwhile, 300,000 peo- ple have been left homeless, with damages estimated at $10 billion to $15 billion. An international aid conference Sunday spearheaded by Pres- ident Emmanuel Macron of France, which once controlled Lebanon as a protec- torate, raised $298 million.

Diab had promised a swift investigation into the explo- sion, but authorities have continued to tussle over whether international par- ties would be involved in the proceedings. Lebanese President Michel Aoun said last week in a statement on Twitter that calls for an inter- nationally led investigation were “a waste of time.”

On Monday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that the Cabinet had referred the investigation to the Judicial Coun- cil, Lebanon’s top court, at Aoun’s request. Authorities have so far detained 20 people and begun questioning a number of officials. Judge Ghassan El Khoury has begun questioning Maj. Gen Tony Saliba, who heads Lebanon’s State Security agency, the National News Agency said.

In his address, Diab hinted at the difficulties faced by his Cabinet, which early this year pledged reform after months of anti-government protests.

“Previously I said that the system of corruption is entrenched in all parts of the state,” he said. “But I discovered that the corruption system is larger than the state and that the state is shack- led to this system and cannot get rid of it. One of the examples of corruption blew up in the port of Beirut.”

Questions about last week’s blast have centered around why the stockpile of ammonium nitrate had remained in the port for more than six years despite officials there repeatedly asking for its removal; they received no answer.

Critics say negligence is par for the course for the port, which — like many of the country’s public insti- tutions — is plagued by alle- gations of corruption. Oth- ers insist it’s under the de facto control of the Irani- an-backed Lebanese Shiite paramilitary group and polit- ical party Hezbollah, which Washington designates as a terrorist entity.

Hundreds of enraged Leba- nese had gathered in Beirut’s downtown area by early Monday evening before Diab’s address.

Since the blast, protests that erupted last fall over the country’s floundering economy but were lately in abeyance out of coronavi- rus fears have resumed. In clashes markedly more vio- lent than those last fall, security forces have responded with tear gas and, according to local media reports, rubber bullets and live rounds.

Those scenes were repli- cated yet again on Monday. Protesters scrabbled for rocks to pelt a phalanx of security forces clad in full riot gear; the forces in turn lobbed a volley of tear gas canisters at the demonstrators before withdrawing behind concrete barriers erected at the entrance of parliament.

Lebanon’s government is the result of a power-sharing arrangement among the country’s 18 fractious sects; many are headed by figures who first rose as warlords during the country’s 15-year civil war. Though that war ended in 1990, many maintained their power among their constituents by doling out perks, including government jobs, even as the state failed to provide basic services such as 24-hour electricity.

Diab’s government was meant to change that, he said, but “between change and us is a very thick wall, protected by a (political) class which uses every dirty trick to preserve its interests … and its ability to control the state.”