People still can’t breathe. For a second night since a grand jury announced it wouldn’t indict the New York City police officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold that killed him, protesters took to the streets in the nation’s largest city and in several others.
In Portland, defying threats of chill and rain, hundreds of peaceful protesters—some coming from downtown with another large mass coming from North Precinct—converged on the Moda Center and stuck around to greet the hordes leaving the Blazers game. The riot cops came out for little while. Then they went back inside.
Of note, this morning: The Oregonian‘s Casey Parks spent some time getting to know Micah Rhodes, one of the young black men helping organize Portland’s protests.
The non-indictment in Eric Garner’s death, caught on camera, has become proof for advocates that outfitting cops with body cameras won’t singlehandedly deliver police accountability. And yet, several local police agencies, including Portland’s police bureau, are working their way toward putting the devices on cops’ lapels.
Everyone’s soon to learn Rumain Brisbon’s name, too. The Phoenix man, also African American, was unarmed when he took two bullets from police in front of his girlfriend and child.
The Cleveland Police Department, meanwhile—dealing with the police shooting of Tamir Rice, an unarmed black 12-year-old—has become the latest police agency in America rapped by the federal Justice Department for constitutional violations related to officers’ use of force.
A warning that all kinds can march: The German city of Dresden is about to host a thousands-strong gathering of far-right protesters (they seem themselves as “patriotic Europeans”) making a stink about “Islamic extremism.”
The Cascadia Subduction Zone—the Pacific fault system due for a devastating 9.0 earthquake—has gone eerily and unusually silent.
An American mission to Mars took a step closer toward reality this morning. NASA successfully launched and returned to Earth its long-awaited Space Shuttle replacement: the Orion capsule.
Here’s some mixed economic news! The latest employment report showed a gain of 321,000 jobs last month, utterly outstripping expectations—even as it also raised questions about the growth of low-wage work and showed overall labor participation still near historic lows.
Here’s some lousy economic news! China has finally overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy.
Before actor Mark Wahlberg found modest fame as rapper Marky Mark, he was just a kid carrying an assault conviction—after smacking a Boston shopkeeper while trying to steal liquor in 1988. Wahlberg, now grown rich and famous as a movie star, has asked to have that conviction cleared from his record.
There used to be a magazine called The New Republic. Now it’s gone. Along with most of its staffers, who staged a mass resignation.
THIS WAS THE PETER PAN THING ON NBC LAST NIGHT, RIGHT? OR DO I HAVE THAT ALL WRONG?
Poor Marky Mark… Should have kept his mouth shut. Now everyone knows!! Dumbass.