Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Missouri man charged with murder in death of St. Louis retired cop: report

A 24-year-old Missouri man was charged Sunday with first-degree murder in the shooting death of retired police captain David Dorn during civil unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis, local media reported. Stephan Cannon was also charged with first-degree burglary, one count of unlawful possession of a firearm and two counts of armed criminal action, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Historic Oakland black book store sells out of books on racial discrimination

Marcus Books in Oakland, California, has served the black community in the Bay Area with books by and about African Americans for the past 60 years. Its doors have been open during notable events in U.S. race relations ranging from the civil rights and black power movements and the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s to the 1991 Rodney King beating in Los Angeles and the Black Lives Matter movement of the past decade. Floyd's death spurs 'Gen Z' activists to set up new D.C. rights group

Jacqueline LaBayne and Kerrigan Williams met for the very first time in person on Wednesday, at a sit-in they organized in front of the U.S. Capitol over the death of George Floyd. They have been using social media, which they call a "tool of justice," to rally a new, ethnically-diverse generation of young activists connecting online to protest Floyd's May 25 death and push for civil rights reforms in the nation's capital. 'Take a knee,' protesters ask black Secret Service officers in Washington

As protesters implored the black U.S. Secret Service officer to take a knee in solidarity with their demonstration against racism and brutality by law enforcement, the young man explained why he could not. "I appreciate all of this. ... I'm still black. You see what I'm saying? You guys are still fighting for my rights," the unidentified officer told the protesters through a fence outside the Treasury building in Washington. "What I'm saying is, technically we just can't do that." Man drives car into Seattle protest crowd, shoots bystander: police

A man drove his car into a crowd of protesters in Seattle on Sunday, then shot and wounded a demonstrator who confronted him as he came to a stop, according to police and eyewitness video. Seattle police said firefighters took the man who was shot to the hospital and that he was in stable condition. No one else was injured, the police said. Saying Trump 'drifted away' from Constitution, Colin Powell picks Biden

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, joining a growing chorus of Republicans and military leaders criticizing Republican President Donald Trump amid nationwide protests. Powell, a Republican who led the U.S. military during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq under President George H.W. Bush and later headed the State Department under President George W. Bush, said Trump "lies all the time," has "drifted away" from the U.S. Constitution and poses a danger to American democracy. Cristobal weakens into a tropical depression, U.S. NHC says

Cristobal weakened into a tropical depression as it moved farther inland, while additional weakness is expected through Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory. The tropical depression was located about 40 miles (65 km) north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, packing a maximum sustained winds of 35 miles per hour (55 km/h), the Miami-based weather forecaster said on Monday. Minneapolis city council pledges to disband police; Trump lashes out at NFL

Minneapolis city council members pledged to abolish the police force whose officer knelt on the neck of a dying George Floyd, as the biggest civil rights protests in more than 50 years demanded a transformation of U.S. criminal justice. Demonstrations have swept a country slowly emerging from the coronavirus lockdown in the two weeks since Floyd, an unarmed black man, 46, died after choking out the words "I can't breathe" under the knee of a white police officer. New York Times opinion editor resigns after column controversy

James Bennet, the New York Times editorial page editor responsible for publishing a column that advocated using the military to quiet protests over U.S. racial inequality, resigned on Sunday, the newspaper announced. The New York Times has come under fire after it published an editorial on June 3 from U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, titled "Send in the Troops." Cotton wrote that an "overwhelming show of force" would restore order after protests spread across the country, some of which turned violent. Democrats grapple with U.S. protesters' demand to defund the police

U.S. Democrats have largely embraced the activists packing into streets nationwide to decry the killings of black men and women by law enforcement but so far express wariness at protesters' calls to defund the police. While they are clearly attuned to the cries of demonstrators from New York to Los Angeles, some top Democratic elected officials are proceeding cautiously with any suggestion they would slash police budgets to fund programs to address other social ills.