Bedugul Coffee: Thursday Briefing: Defense expert testifies George Floyd died of heart disease

Today's Top Stories

The George Floyd murder trial nears its end, Olympics speculation swirls, and meet the climate scientists swapping fieldwork for finance

A medical expert who testified in defense of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin told jurors he believed George Floyd’s death while under arrest was the result of heart disease which made his heart beat erratically.

Dr. David Fowler, a forensic pathologist who was Maryland’s chief medical examiner until his retirement in 2019, also told the jury he believed exhaust fumes from the police car next to which Chauvin pinned Floyd to the road may also have contributed to Floyd’s death in May 2020.

Fowler is himself a defendant in a civil case that accuses him of covering up the cause of death of a Black teenager.

As the murder trial winds down, a crucial decision faces Chauvin’s defense lawyers: whether to put Chauvin on the witness stand, breaking with convention in a bid to humanize the former Minneapolis policeman.

Meanwhile, the white suburban police officer who fatally shot young Black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in Minnesota has been charged with manslaughter.

↑ The former chief medical examiner of Maryland, Dr. David Fowler, answers questions on the thirteenth day of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's trial in Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 14, 2021 in this courtroom sketch

WORLD

↑ Demonstrators take part in a protest against a U.S. plan to send warships to the Black Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey, April 14, 2021

The United States will announce sanctions on Russia as soon as today for alleged election interference and malicious cyber activity, targeting several individuals and entities. Meanwhile the U.S. has canceled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, Turkish diplomatic sources say, amid concerns over a Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders.

India and Thailand reported record daily coronavirus cases, as a new wave of infections, combined with a shortage of hospital beds and vaccines, threatens to slow Asia's recovery from the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims thronged to a religious festival in northern India, stoking fears of another surge.

A senior Japanese ruling party official says that canceling this year's Olympics in Tokyo remains an option if the coronavirus crisis becomes too dire, dropping a bomb on a hot-button issue and sending social media into a frenzy.

A young mother said she was repeatedly raped over 11 days by 23 soldiers in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Doctors told Reuters she is among hundreds to report that they were subjected to horrific sexual violence by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean troops.

Business

Coinbase Global shares jumped 11% in early trades, a day after the cryptocurrency exchange went public in a high-profile debut on the Nasdaq that briefly valued it at more than $100 billion.

Laura Garcia Velez cut her teeth on projects to help Ethiopian farmers insure crops for drought and connect remote Colombian communities to the electricity grid. Now she’s an analyst for a Swiss bank, as finance firms compete to grab the people with the right green expertise.

Workers' overwhelming rejection of a union at an Amazon.com warehouse in Alabama last week has sparked soul-searching in the labor movement over what went wrong and what unions need to do differently in the future to regain ground.

After it shut down for two months last year, Jan-Ie Low and her family reduced the hours at their Las Vegas restaurant and converted much of their dining room into a food delivery hub. We look at the Asian-American businesses suffering an outsized pandemic toll.