Today in History: May 25, George Floyd killed by Minneapolis police
Advertisement
In 1946, Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, Abdullah I.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress: 'I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.'
In 1964, the US Supreme Court, in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, ordered the Virginia county to reopen its public schools, which officials had closed in an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka desegregation ruling.
In 1977, 'Star Wars' was released by 20th Century Fox; it would become the highest-grossing film in history at the time.
Advertisement
In 1979, 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
In 2008, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on the Red Planet to begin searching for evidence of water; the spacecraft confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site.
In 2012, the private company SpaceX made history as its Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
In 2018, Harvey Weinstein was arrested and charged in New York with rape and another sex felony in the first prosecution to result from the wave of allegations against him. (Weinstein would be convicted of two felony counts in 2020, but an appeals court would overturn the conviction in 2024. A retrial on the charges began in April 2025.)
In 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn't breathe; Floyd's death, captured on video by a bystander, would lead to worldwide protests, some of which turned violent, and a reexamination of racism and policing in the US.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
an hour ago
Key moments from the sixth week of Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial
NEW YORK -- The sixth week of the Sean 'Diddy' Combs' sex trafficking trial was shortened by a holiday and a juror's illness as prosecutors nearly concluded their case, setting the stage for a one- or two-day defense presentation next week. In the trial's first five weeks, jurors repeatedly heard testimony about drug-fueled marathon sex events described as 'freak-offs' by one of Combs' ex-girlfriends and as 'hotel nights' by another. In the sixth week, they were shown about 20 minutes of video recordings from the dayslong events. Combs, the founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges in the trial, which continues Monday. Here are key moments from the past week: Jurors largely kept their reactions muted when they were shown about 20 minutes of recordings made by Combs of his then-girlfriends having sex with male sex workers at the elaborately staged 'freak-offs' or 'hotel nights.' Prosecutors say the events were proof of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges because Combs coerced his employees, associates and even his girlfriends to recruit and arrange flights for sex workers while his workers obtained drugs, stocked hotel rooms with baby oil, lubricant, condoms, candles and liquor and delivered cash. In her opening statement, defense lawyer Teny Geragos had called the videos 'powerful evidence that the sexual conduct in this case was consensual and not based on coercion.' Prosecutors played about 2 minutes of the recordings before the defense team aired about 18 minutes of the videos. The public and the press were unable to observe whether the prosecutors or defense lawyers had the better arguments after the judge ruled that neither the recordings nor the sound could be seen or heard by anyone except lawyers, the judge and the jury. Several jurors seemed to cast their eyes and sometimes turn their bodies away from the screens directly in front of them while the recordings played. The jurors listened through earphones supplied by the court, as did Combs and lawyers. Judge Arun Subramanian started the week by dismissing a juror whose conflicting answers about whether he lived in New Jersey or New York convinced the judge he was a threat to the integrity of the trial. Subramanian said the juror's answers during jury selection and in the week before he was excused 'raised serious concerns as to the juror's candor and whether he shaded answers to get on and stay on the jury.' 'The inconsistencies — where the juror has lived and with whom — go to straightforward issues as to which there should not have been any doubts, and the answers also go to something vital: the basic qualifications of a juror to serve,' the judge said. Residents of New Jersey would not be permitted to sit on a New York federal jury. A day before Subramanian ruled, defense lawyers argued fiercely against dismissal, saying that replacing the Black juror with a white alternate juror so late in the trial would change the diverse demographics of the jury and require a mistrial. The jurors are anonymous for the Combs trial. It wasn't the only issue regarding jurors for the week. The judge, angered by a media report about the questioning of another juror the week before that occurred in a sealed proceeding, warned lawyers that they could face civil and criminal sanctions if such a leak happened again. That juror was not dismissed. And Wednesday's court session had to be canceled after a juror reported "vertigo symptoms" on the way to the courthouse. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo seemed to close the door on any chance Combs would testify when he said Friday that the defense presentation would be finished Tuesday or Wednesday the following week, even if prosecutors don't rest until late Monday. It is not uncommon for defendants to choose not to testify at criminal trials. Besides being exposed to cross-examination by prosecutors, the testimony can be used by the government against the defendant should there be a need for a retrial. Also, if there is a conviction, the judge can conclude that the jury believed the defendant lied on the stand. Brendan Paul, fresh off the college basketball courts where he once played in a cameo role for Syracuse University, joined Combs' companies as a personal assistant in late 2022 and was warned by a friend who had worked for Combs about what was ahead. 'He told me to get in and get out,' Paul recalled for the jury, citing the endless days and always-on-edge existence. 'If you have a girlfriend, break up with her. And you're never going to see your family.' The friend also instructed him to 'build a rolodex of clientele and get out,' he said. Paul said he worked 80 to 100 hours a week for a music power broker who received 'thousands and thousands' of text messages and emails a day. He was paid $75,000 salary initially, but it was raised in January 2024 to $100,000. He said Combs told him he 'doesn't take no for an answer' and wanted his staff to 'move like Seal Team Six.' Several times, Paul said, he picked up drugs for Combs and knew to keep his boss out of the drug trade because 'it was very important to keep his profile low. He's a celebrity.' The job came to an abrupt end in March 2024 when Paul was arrested at a Miami airport on drug charges after a small amount of cocaine that he said he picked up in Combs' room that morning was mistakenly put in his travel bag as he prepared to join Combs on a trip to the Bahamas. The charges were later dropped in a pretrial diversion program.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Two boys missing, last seen on Treasure Island, S.F. police say
A 10-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy are missing, San Francisco police said Friday afternoon. The boys, Leonardo Henderson and Deandre Jones Jr., were last seen between 11:30 p.m. and midnight on Thursday in the 1400 block of Gateview Court on Treasure Island, police said. Law enforcement said the boys might have traveled into San Francisco on Muni, and that Jones is known to frequent the 200 block of Taylor Street. Henderson, 10, is Black, 5 feet tall and weighs around 115 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, police said. The San Francisco Police Department said the boy is considered at-risk 'due to his age and behavioral and psychological challenges.' The 10-year-old boy was last seen wearing a dark green T-shirt that says 'NASA' on the front, dark green joggers and white Adidas with blue stripes, police said. Jones, 14, is Black, 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs around 125 pounds, police said. The boy has reddish hair, brown eyes and freckles, police said. He was last seen wearing a black hoodie, black skinny jeans and black and white Jordan shoes.
Boston Globe
7 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Purdue Pharma's $7B opioid settlement is set for votes from victims and cities
Government entities, emergency room doctors, insurers, families of children born into withdrawal from the powerful prescription painkiller, individual victims and their families, and others will have until Sept. 30 to vote on whether to accept the deal. Advertisement The settlement is a way to avoid trials with claims from states alone that total more than $2 trillion in damages. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up This month, 49 states announced they had signed on to the proposal. Only Oklahoma, which has a separate settlement with the company, is not involved. Massachusetts is in line for up to $105 million from the settlement, Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Tuesday. If approved, the settlement would be among the largest in a wave of lawsuits over the past decade as governments and others sought to hold drugmakers, wholesalers, and pharmacies accountable for the opioid epidemic that started rising in the years after OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The other settlements together are worth about $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to combat the crisis. Advertisement In the early 2000s, most opioid deaths were linked to prescription drugs, including OxyContin. Since then, heroin and then illicitly produced fentanyl became the biggest killers. In some years, the class of drugs was linked to more than 80,000 deaths, but that number dropped sharply last year. Last year, the US Supreme Court rejected a version of Purdue's proposed settlement. The court found it was improper to protect members of the Sackler family from lawsuits over opioids, even though they themselves were not filing for bankruptcy protection. In the new version, groups that don't opt in to the settlement would still have the right to sue members of the wealthy family whose name once adorned museum galleries around the world, as well as programs at several prestigious US universities. Under the plan, the Sackler family members would give up ownership of Purdue. They resigned from the company's board and stopped receiving distributions from its funds before the company's initial bankruptcy filing in 2019. The remaining entity would get a new name and its profits would be dedicated to battling the epidemic. Most of the money would go to state and local governments to address the nation's addiction and overdose crisis, but potentially close to $900 million would go directly to individual victims. That makes it different from the other major settlements. The payments would not begin until after a hearing, likely in November, in which Lane would be asked to approve the entire plan if enough affected parties agree.
