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US jury acquits three Memphis police officers in Tyre Nichols beating death

US jury acquits three Memphis police officers in Tyre Nichols beating death

A jury in the United States has acquitted three former police officers in the controversial beating death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old father who was killed after a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee. On Wednesday, former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were found not guilty in a state-level case that included charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. This was their second criminal trial, after facing federal charges for Nichols’s death as well. In that case, the three officers were also acquitted of the most serious charges they faced, though they were found guilty of witness tampering for allegedly attempting to cover up the beating. There were five police officers in total involved in the Nichols killing, which took place on January 7, 2023. As video of the beating spread online, Nichols’s death reignited the debate over law enforcement violence and the over-policing of Black communities. Advertisement In the wake of the verdict, Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters that Nichols’s family was “devastated” and “outraged”. “We can understand why they would be outraged, given the evidence,” Mulroy said. “Was I surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts or any of the lesser-included offences, given the overwhelming evidence that we presented? Yes, I was surprised,” he added. “Do I have an explanation for it? No.” A portrait of Tyre Nichols is displayed at his memorial service on January 17, 2023, in Memphis, Tennessee [Adrian Sainz/AP Photo] All five police officers involved in the beating were members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit, a now-defunct squad that focused on alleged crime hotspots in the city. The outcry after Nichols’s death led to it being disbanded. On the day of his killing, Nichols was pulled over for allegedly driving recklessly, though prosecutors have cast doubt on that motive, pointing out that police body cameras show no evidence of wrongdoing. Officers pulled Nichols from his car and tased him while he was on the ground. Nichols then attempted to flee. He ran into a residential neighbourhood not far from where his mother lived, where the five police officers wrestled him to the ground and proceeded to kick, punch and beat him with a baton. Cameras captured Nichols crying out to his mother for help. He died three days later in hospital. An autopsy identified his cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. Advertisement Two of the police officers involved – Desmond Mills Jr and Emmitt Martin – had avoided trial by striking deals with federal prosecutors in exchange for guilty pleas. The two reportedly took plea deals related to the state charges as well. Wednesday’s verdict was the culmination of a nine-day-long trial for the other three officers. The defence team for the three sought to shift the blame to the other officers for the bulk of the violence. It also accused Nichols of resisting arrest and not complying with police orders, leaving the officers fearful for their safety. “This is Emmitt Martin’s and Tyre Nichols’s doing,” said Martin Zummach, a defence lawyer for Smith, one of the three officers. Zummach also alleged that credit and debit cards not belonging to Nichols were found in his car after his beating. That, he told the jury, could explain Nichols’s decision to flee the scene. RowVaughn Wells, the mother of Tyre Nichols, attends the state trial of former police officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith Jr on May 7 [Chris Day/Commercial Appeal/USA Today Network via AP, Pool] But prosecutors in the case argued that Nichols fled out of fear for his life. They also said the officers had a responsibility to stop the beating, which caused tears and bleeding in Nichols’s brain. Video of the beating was also shown to the jury from different angles, as the prosecutors tried to convey the violence of Nichols’s final moments. The trial, which saw seven days of hearings and two days of jury deliberations, took place in Hamilton County, a majority white area in Tennessee. A judge had previously ordered the court proceedings be moved away from Shelby County, where Memphis is located, for fear of that the public scrutiny could bias the jury pool. Advertisement Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented the Nichols family, released a statement after Wednesday’s decision denouncing the outcome. “Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement reads. “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.” Adblock test (Why?)

Trump says he’ll decide on name of ‘Persian Gulf’ on Middle East visit

Trump says he’ll decide on name of ‘Persian Gulf’ on Middle East visit

US president says he will announce decision on waterway during trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. United States President Donald Trump has said he will make a decision on how the US refers to the “Persian Gulf” during an upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said he expected his hosts to ask about the name the US uses for the waterway during his first trip to the Middle East since retaking the White House. “I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said in response to a question about whether he would make an announcement on the body of water’s name. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I don’t know if feelings are going to be hurt.” “I’m going to be given a briefing on that and I’ll make a decision,” Trump added. Trump’s comments came after US media reported that he plans to use the May 13-16 trip to announce that the US will begin referring to the body of water as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia. The name of the waterway has long been a source of tensions between Arab nations and Iran. Advertisement Iran argues that the “Persian Gulf” is the appropriate name in light of historical evidence, including ancient maps, that shows it is part of its territory. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and other Arab states use the term “Arabian Gulf” or “the Gulf”. In 2023, Tehran summoned the Iraqi ambassador to protest his country’s use of the name “Arabian Gulf Cup” for the region’s flagship football tournament. In 2012, Iran threatened to sue internet giant Google for leaving the waterway nameless on its online map services. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the latest suggestions of a name change as “indicative of hostile intent toward Iran and its people”, and warned that such a move would “only bring the wrath of all Iranians from all walks of life”. “Such biased actions are an affront to all Iranians, regardless of their background or place of residence,” Araghchi said in a post on X early on Thursday. “Let’s hope that the absurd rumours about the PERSIAN Gulf that are going around are no more than a disinformation campaign by ‘forever warriors’ to anger Iranians all over the world and agitate them.” In one of his first actions as president, Trump in January signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”. Adblock test (Why?)

What are India and Pakistan’s military and nuclear capabilities?

What are India and Pakistan’s military and nuclear capabilities?

On Wednesday morning, India carried out multiple missile attacks on parts of Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, in which at least 26 people were killed, including a three-year-old child. India has claimed its Operation Sindoor targeted nine sites with “terrorist infrastructure”. In response, Pakistan has claimed it has brought down five Indian planes – but India has not commented on this claim. At least 10 civilians have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir due to Pakistani fire since Wednesday morning, according to local officials. Al Jazeera visualises what has happened so far and the military capabilities of both countries. Why did India attack Pakistan? On Wednesday morning, Pakistan’s armed forces said Indian missiles struck six locations, including four places in Punjab province – the first time that India has hit Pakistan’s most populous state since the 1971 war between the neighbours. The remaining two places targeted were Muzaffarabad and Kotli, both in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Advertisement India claims that it also struck a seventh location – Bhimber, also located in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The attacks are India’s response to a deadly attack on tourists on April 22, in which gunmen killed 25 tourists and a local pony rider in the scenic town of Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir. According to multiple witness accounts, the attackers separated the men from the women and tried to pick non-Muslims as their targets. The gunmen subsequently escaped, and Indian security forces are yet to find them 16 days later. (Al Jazeera) India and Pakistan tensions at a glance In 1947, the British colonial rulers drew a line of partition, dividing the Indian subcontinent into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. What followed was one of the largest – and, perhaps, bloodiest – migrations in human history. Seventy-eight years on, the two nations remain bitter foes. But now they have nuclear arms. The tension between India and Pakistan has escalated sharply once again after the Pahalgam attack. The Muslim-majority Kashmir region, a former princely state, has been in dispute since the partition of India. India, Pakistan and China each control a part of Kashmir. India claims all of it, while Pakistan claims the part administered by India. The two countries have gone to war four times, and there have been numerous cross-border skirmishes and escalations, including one in 2019 after at least 40 Indian soldiers were killed in a suicide attack claimed by the Pakistan-based armed group, Jaish-e-Muhammad. Advertisement In retaliation, India launched air strikes in Balakot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa later that month, claiming that its jets had struck “terrorist” bases, killing many fighters. Many independent analysts have questioned whether India actually struck bases of armed groups and whether it killed as many fighters as it claims it did. What are the military capabilities of India and Pakistan? According to Global Firepower’s 2025 military strength rankings, India is the fourth-strongest military power in the world, and Pakistan is ranked as the 12th strongest. India is the fifth-largest spender in the world on military. In 2024, it spent $86bn on its military, or 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a leading defence and armaments think tank. In comparison, Pakistan spent $10.2bn, or 2.7 percent of its GDP, on the military in 2024. India’s total military strength is 5,137,550 personnel, which is almost three times larger than Pakistan’s 1,704,000. Neither country has mandatory conscription. India possesses 2,229 military aircraft, compared with Pakistan’s 1,399. India has 3,151 combat tanks, compared with Pakistan’s 1,839. Pakistan’s navy covers its 1,046 kilometre-long (650-mile) southern coastal borders in the Arabian Sea and possesses 121 naval assets, while India’s mainland coast covers nearly 6,100km (3,800 miles) with 293 naval assets. India and Pakistan’s nuclear arms race According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW), a global coalition to ban nuclear weapons, in 2023, countries spent an estimated $91.4bn on nuclear weapons, with India spending $2.7bn and Pakistan $1bn. Advertisement India carried out its first nuclear test in May 1974, and in May 1998, conducted another five tests, declaring itself a nuclear weapons state. Pakistan carried out its first nuclear tests shortly after India’s in 1998, officially becoming a nuclear weapons state. Since then, the two born together, star-crossed nations have been engaged in an arms race that has cost them billions of dollars. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Missile Defence Project, New Delhi nuclear deterrents are mainly aimed at rivals Pakistan and China. India has developed longer range missiles and mobile land-based missiles. In conjunction with Russia, it is in the developing stages for ship and submarine missiles. The CSIS also states that Pakistan’s arsenal consists primarily of mobile short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, which have enough of a range to target India. China’s significant technical assistance on its nuclear and missile programmes has helped Pakistan in recent years. Who supplies arms to India and Pakistan? According to SIPRI, the cross-border tensions between the two nations fuel arms imports by both countries. India was the second-largest arms importer from 2020-2024, after Ukraine, bearing an 8.3 percent share of global imports. The majority of India’s imports come from Russia, although it has been shifting its arms sourcing to France, Israel and the United States. Across the border, Pakistan’s arms and weapons imports increased by 61 percent between 2015–19 and 2020–24 as it started to receive deliveries, including combat aircraft and warships. On a global scale, Pakistan is the fifth-largest arms importer with 4.6 percent imports in 2020–24. Advertisement Since 1990, Pakistan’s main supplier has been China. China supplied 81 percent of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2020–24; Russia supplied 36 percent of India’s arms during the same period. Adblock test (Why?)

Blue cities adopt Pride flags as official symbols in bid to skirt red-state laws

Blue cities adopt Pride flags as official symbols in bid to skirt red-state laws

Two Democrat-run cities in the Rockies are skirting state laws dictating which flags can be flown on government property, according to The Associated Press – and are granting particular attention to the LGBTQ Pride flag. Utah and Idaho both have laws on the books barring government buildings from flying most flags, save for a select few – like the American flag and military flags. Utah’s law went into effect Wednesday. UTAH BANS LGBTQ+ PRIDE FLAGS, MAGA FLAGS, OTHER UNAPPROVED FLAGS IN GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, SCHOOLS In an eleventh-hour bid to circumvent the coming restrictions, Salt Lake City adopted four flags Tuesday: its existing flag, as well as modified versions of the Progress Pride, Transgender Pride and Juneteenth flags – each including the city’s signature sego lily.  They were presented by Mayor Erin Mendenhall for adoption via ordinance, explained her spokesperson, Andrew Wittenberg, to Fox News Digital.  “My sincere intent is not to provoke or cause division,” Mendenhall said, according to The AP.  “My intent is to represent our city’s values and honor our dear diverse residents who make up this beautiful city and the legacy of pain and progress that they have endured,” she continued. Violators of the Utah law, which Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, allowed to pass without his signature, can be fined $500 per day. The law’s supporters maintain that it’s a matter of institutions maintaining political neutrality. STATE DEPARTMENT BLOCKS PRIDE, BLM FLAGS FROM EMBASSIES, OUTPOSTS WITH ‘ONE FLAG POLICY’ “This law is about keeping government spaces neutral and welcoming to all,” Republican House Speaker Mike Schultz said. “Salt Lake City should focus on real issues, not political theatrics.” Meanwhile, in Boise, Idaho, Mayor Lauren McLean issued a proclamation last week retroactively designating the pride flag as an official city flag. McLean has maintained that the Idaho law is not sound – and has even flown the pride flag over City Hall after it was enacted. McLean has yet to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. McLean and Mendenhall spoke Monday night to discuss their cities’ respective plans, though Wittenberg stressed to Fox News Digital that there was “no prior or additional coordination” between the cities’ officials. The Associated Press contributed to this report.