Saturday,  May 30th, 2020

Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, who was recorded on video kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for several minutes and eventually causing his death, is taken into custody by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and charged with third-degree murder and second degree manslaughter. (KSTP)

Hundreds of Minnesota National Guard officers are deployed in Minneapolis–Saint Paul to enforce a night curfew, after Mayor Jacob Frey declared a state of local emergency amid civil unrest. (Star Tribune)

Protesters vandalize the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, while several Atlanta Police Department vehicles are attacked and set on fire as protests spread. Seven people are reportedly arrested. (Newsweek)

Several other mostly peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism take place in large cities across the United States. (CNN)

U.S. President Donald Trump says he is terminating the country’s relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO) over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the WHO has become a “puppet of China” and that American funding will be redirected to “other global public health needs”. (Reuters)

Protests against police brutality escalate nationwide  Protesters gathered in several cities across the U.S. on Friday night to demonstrate against police brutality and institutional racism. Protests in Brooklyn, New York; Atlanta, Georgia; San Jose, California; Washington, D.C.; and Minneapolis, Minnesota, started peacefully, with attendees demanding justice in the case of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes on Monday. Some protesters clashed with police — in Brooklyn, where a heavy police presence awaited protesters, officers reportedly used tear gas on crowds, meanwhile in Atlanta, a police car was reportedly set on fire. In San Jose, protesters blocked freeway traffic; and in D.C., the White House was briefly on lockdown as demonstrators arrived in the area. The National Guard sought to enforce a curfew in Minneapolis. Source: CNN

Twitter labels Trump tweets about looting and shooting as ‘glorifying violence’  President Trump tweeted Friday that he “can’t stand back” and watch as protests in Minneapolis against the police killing of George Floyd bleed into looting and arson. Trump threatened to send in the National Guard, which Gov. Tim Walz (D) had activated Thursday, adding: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. … Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” Twitter added a warning to that second tweet stating it “violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence,” but left it up because “it may be in the public’s interest for the tweet to remain accessible.” The official White House Twitter account later quoted and posted the tweet. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday “challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet,” The Associated Press writes. The move comes after Twitter labeled two of Trump’s tweets on mail-in ballots as misleading. Source:  Axios

Consumer spending dropped record 13.6 percent in April  On Friday, the government reported that consumer spending in April plunged 13.6 percent from the month prior, which Bloomberg says is “the sharpest drop in Commerce Department records back to 1959.” Meanwhile, the personal savings rate, which describes the amount of a person’s disposable income that they are putting into savings, hit 33 percent in April, “by far the highest since the department started tracking in the 1960’s, and [surpassing the] consumer savings during the Global Financial Crisis,” CNBC reports. The high personal savings rate, combined with the extremely low consumer spending, reflects Americans’ jitters about spending money during the pandemic. Personal income, meanwhile, rose 10.5 percent in April, a record boost due to the federal stimulus payments and unemployment benefits, while economists had expected a decrease of 2.1 percent. Source: Bloomberg

A Minneapolis Police Department station is abandoned by police after being overran by protesters and is then looted and set on fire. An MPD spokesman confirmed the Third Precinct building had been evacuated “in the interest of the safety of our personnel”. (Politico)

The End