Ballistics records in the shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville, Kentucky, police tell a different story than the one Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron presented last week, the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
Police shot and killed Taylor in her apartment while executing a no-knock warrant in March. A grand jury investigation concluded Taylor's boyfriend fired at officers when they entered, and they returned fire, Cameron announced Wednesday. But Cameron's assertion that the investigation ruled out "friendly fire" as the source of the 9mm shot that hit Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly's thigh isn't backed up by a Kentucky State Police ballistics report from the scene, Vice News first reported.
"Due to limited markings of comparative value" on the bullet that went through Mattingly's leg, it was neither "identified nor eliminated as having been fired" from Walker's gun, the report concluded. An LMPD record showed one officer at the scene was also issued a 9mm gun, making it impossible to draw a conclusion.
Vice News also reported that documents and body camera footage taken after Taylor's killing show "officers appearing to break multiple department policies," and "corroborate parts of Taylor's boyfriend's testimony." The LMPD requires all officers involved in a critical incident to be "paired with an escort officer at the scene and 'isolated from all non-essential individuals for the remainder of the initial investigation,'" Vice News writes.
But none of the seven officers in Taylor's case were seemingly paired with an escort, and four of them continued investigating the scene even after being told to clear out. "I've never seen anything like this,” a former LMPD narcotics officer who revealed the footage told Vice News. "This is not how it's supposed to work." Kathryn Krawczyk
A strengthening Tropical Storm Zeta is expected to become a hurricane on Monday, forecasters said Sunday night, and could hit the northeastern tip of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or western Cuba by late Monday or early Tuesday before heading toward the Gulf Coast.
Late Sunday night, Zeta was 260 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, and is essentially at a standstill, with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. Zeta is stuck in the western Caribbean between high pressure systems to the east and west, and "just has to sit and wait for a day or so," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press. "It just needs anything to move."
Zeta could reach the central Gulf Coast by Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, making landfall anywhere from Louisiana to Florida's Panhandle. Zeta is the earliest named 27th Atlantic storm in recorded history. Catherine Garcia
The Los Angeles Dodgers were victorious on Sunday night in Game 5 of the World Series, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2. They now lead the series 3-2, and if the Dodgers win Game 6 on Tuesday night, they will earn their first World Series title since 1988.
The team had an early lead, thanks to Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger scoring singles in the first inning and Joc Pederson following up with a home run in the second inning. The Rays came back with Yandy Diaz and Randy Arozarena scoring two runs in the third, but Dodgers first baseman Max Muncy hit a solo home run in the fifth inning, giving the Dodgers a two-run lead.
Game 6 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, is set for Tuesday at 8:08 p.m. ET. Catherine Garcia
For the first time in 100 years, the New Hampshire Union Leader has endorsed a Democrat for president.
In a editorial published Sunday, the conservative-leaning paper's editorial board said it has "significant" policy disagreements with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and while he "may not be the president we want," in 2020 he is "the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state."
Biden is a "caring, compassionate, and professional public servant," the editorial board said. "He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for all of America, and we take him at his word." President Trump, they wrote, is "not always 100 percent wrong, but he is 100 percent wrong for America."
Trump didn't receive the newspaper's 2016 endorsement, either. That year, the editorial board picked Libertarian Gary Johnson, breaking its 100-year tradition of selecting Republicans, CNN reports. During the Republican primaries, the newspaper endorsed then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), which caused Trump to call publisher Joseph McQuaid a "lowlife" and "bad guy." Catherine Garcia
In less than a month, there has been a 200 percent rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations in El Paso, Texas, and on Sunday, city officials urged residents to stay home for the next two weeks.
More than 680,000 people live in El Paso, and Angela Mora, the city's director of public health, said that over the last three weeks, the number of hospitalizations has increased from 259 to 786. On Sunday, more than 500 new COVID-19 cases were reported in El Paso.
"If we continue on this trend, we risk detrimental effects to our entire health care system," Mora said in a statement. "For the sake of those hospitalized and the front line health care workers working tirelessly each day to care for them, we ask you to please stay home for two weeks and eliminate your interactions with those outside your household until we can flatten the curve."
The public health department also said people who ignore new local health orders making masks and social distancing mandatory will be fined, NBC News reports. This week, the city's convention center will be transformed into a field hospital. Catherine Garcia
As of Sunday morning, nearly 60 million Americans have cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential election.
The U.S. Elections Project, an independent data analysis project by the University of Florida, reports that of the 59,399,395 ballots cast, 39,909,913 are from mail-in voting and 19,489,482 are in-person votes. More than one-third of those votes are from California, Texas, and Florida, the U.S. Elections Project says — the three most populous states. The early votes amount to more than 42 percent of all votes cast in 2016.
Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, told The Guardian there are long lines at early voting sites around the country because "people really have bought into the understanding that if this isn't the most important election we've ever had, it's one of several. People are determined to express themselves and we all know why: Donald Trump. This includes his base: The cult is going to support the cult leader. But there are more, maybe quite a bit more, who want to end this nightmare. And that's the way people put it. If you don't like the word, I'm sorry — that's just the way it is."
Sabato said there is a "hidden campaign that people haven't talked about," which involves Trump's team spending the last four years identifying Trump supporters who weren't registered in 2016 or didn't vote. While Democrats have the edge on early voting and Republicans traditionally have turned out in higher numbers on Election Day, it's risky to "put all your chips" on that final day to vote, Sabato said.
"Suppose there's a hurricane barreling toward Florida," he continued. "Almost certainly there will be really bad weather in at least a couple of swing states, you know, lots of things happen in life, and maybe the spike up in coronavirus will keep a lot of these older Republicans away on the day." Catherine Garcia