jtrent238 test blog: Evening Briefing: Memphis police officers charged with murder

January 26, 2023

By Matthew Cullen

Good evening. Here's the latest at the end of Thursday.

Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy announcing the arrests today.Brad J. Vest/The New York Times

1. Five Memphis police officers were charged with murdering Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man.

The officers were arrested on seven felony charges including second-degree murder after a traffic stop confrontation with Nichols, who was hospitalized and later died. Memphis's police chief described the actions of the officers, who were fired last week, as "a failing of basic humanity."

Nichols was stopped by officers on suspicion of reckless driving on Jan. 7. After what the police officers described as two confrontations with Nichols, an ambulance was called when he complained of shortness of breath. His family shared a photograph of him in a hospital bed, taken before he died, with his face bruised and swollen. He suffered "extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating," according to an autopsy commissioned by his family.

Video of the traffic stop will be released tomorrow, and the city is braced for any angry response to the footage. The director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who watched the recordings, said, "In a word, it's absolutely appalling." He added, "This was wrong, this was criminal."

In other crime news, an Uzbek man who drove a truck down a New York City bike path in 2017, killing eight people, was convicted of murder. He could face the death penalty.

Also, a survivor of the Monterey Park shooting captured footage minutes before the attack.

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2. The U.S. economy showed momentum at the end of 2022, defying fears of a recession.

Data released today showed that the U.S. gross domestic product, when adjusted for inflation, increased at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the last three months of 2022. This was despite a year of rapidly rising prices and a campaign by the Federal Reserve to cool the economy.

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The increase, while lower than the previous quarter, was a solid finish after the economy plummeted in the first six months of the year. Economists said that the economy's strength was a reflection of the red-hot job market and trillions of dollars in pent-up savings that allowed Americans to weather inflation.

In other economic news, after rapid growth in the retail industry from pandemic-fueled shopping, some companies are downsizing.

A house in Hlevakha, Ukraine, destroyed by a Russian missile today.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

3. A day after Ukraine was promised tanks, Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles.

Strikes were reported across Ukraine today, including in the capital city of Kyiv, killing at least 11. The barrage began just a day after the U.S. and Germany committed to sending tanks to Ukraine to aid the war effort.

Ukraine's prime minister said that Russia targeted energy infrastructure, as it has for months. Since October, Russia has launched more than a dozen missile and drone campaigns on Ukraine's energy facilities in a campaign to leave civilians without power, heat and light over the winter.

In other news from the war, Ukraine is not done asking the West for more advanced weapons. The next item on its wish list: fighter jets.

Donald Trump's support has been wavering among evangelicals, who provided a key push in his 2016 win.Hilary Swift for The New York Times

4. Republicans express doubts that Donald Trump can win back the White House.

Members of the Republican National Committee are set to gather in Southern California tomorrow to select the group's leader. Few of them — even fans of the former president — are eager to crown Trump their nominee for a third time.

My colleagues Reid Epstein and Lisa Lerer called, emailed or texted all 168 R.N.C. members, asking them about their view on Trump's 2024 campaign. Only four unabashedly endorsed Trump. While some praised Trump's policies and accomplishments as president, many expressed deep concerns about his age, temperament and ability to win a general election, often in unusually blunt terms.

In other news from Washington, Trump and his supporters claimed that the investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia was a witch hunt. But a nearly four-year investigation into those claims did not uncover anything like the deep state plot alleged by Trump.

Also, Representative Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment trial of Trump, said he would seek the California Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein.

China apparently seeks to deter those who might have been emboldened by the protests.Thomas Peter/Reuters

5. China is cracking down on last year's "zero Covid" protesters.

Four young women who attended protests in November against the government's pandemic policies have been arrested in Beijing by the Chinese police. These are the first formal arrests connected with the demonstrations, which were the boldest challenge to Beijing in decades.

The arrests are part of a broader, quiet crackdown: The party is also working to discredit the protesters by casting them as tools of malevolent foreign powers.

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Dr. Elizabeth De Pirro treating Richard Walker at his home in Albuquerque.Kholood Eid for The New York Times

6. Your next hospital bed might be at home.

The American health system needs more beds, and during the pandemic's worst surges this reality became more obvious. The circumstances can be more dire in rural areas compared with urban emergency rooms, and they are expected to get worse as baby boomers continue to age.

The problem has led a handful of medical institutions to create hospital-at-home programs, which provide inpatient level of care in people's homes. Research has found that patients treated in their homes had shorter stays of hospitalization and that their care cost about 30 percent less.

In other health news, a committee advising the F.D.A. recommended that the original version of coronavirus vaccines be phased out and replaced with the updated vaccines being used as boosters.

7. Where's all the snow?

We are now midway through the winter, and New York and other major cities along the I-95 corridor are experiencing some of their least snowy seasons in the last 50 years. The region has been warmer than usual, thanks in part to La Niña (a recurring climate pattern originating in the Pacific Ocean), and the storms that have blown through the country have skirted the coastal mid-Atlantic.

In parts of the West Coast, however, it's a different story. Mammoth Lakes, a town in California's Eastern Sierra, has gotten 500 inches of snow so far this season — more than anywhere else in North America.

Natasha Lyonne in "Poker Face."Phillip Caruso/Peacock

8. "Poker Face" brings a classic television style to streaming.

Rian Johnson's new crime thriller starring Natasha Lyonne, which premieres tonight on Peacock, is a deliberate throwback to the television storytelling style of the 1970s and 1980s: Each episode tells a self-contained story in the old case-of-the-week format.

Our reviewer wrote that the show "makes a great diversion if you're in the mood for a crime-y treat, but when you watch episodes back-to-back-to-back, the repetitiveness of the formula becomes glaring."

On the big screen, women still have to fight for jobs and respect, but our chief film critic is uncharacteristically optimistic about the future of female representation in the industry.

To prepare for her concert, Yuja Wang cut back on partying so she can get eight hours of sleep a night.Jingyu Lin for The New York Times

9. A pianist will scale a musical Everest.

The pianist Yuja Wang is set to take on one of the most herculean concerts of her career this weekend at Carnegie Hall: a three-and-a-half-hour marathon of Rachmaninoff's four piano concertos and "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." It's a feat few other artists have tried.

Wang, one of classical music's most in-demand stars, has made a career out of dazzling displays of virtuosity. But taking on these Rachmaninoff pieces together — more than 400 pages of music, including some of the most vexing piano passages in the repertory — poses a new test.

In other arts news, our critic writes that Sam Smith's new album, "Gloria," shows flashes of boldness but often retreats to generics.

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10. And finally, what will we cringe over in the future?

We spoke to more than 30 people from academia, fashion, media, the arts and business — as well as a certain infamous chatbot — and asked them to predict what common trends from this moment will be particularly regrettable in the future.

Their list includes our obsession with social media, plastic bottles and pushing domestic pets in baby strollers. Here's what else they said.

Have an unabashed night.

Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.

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