Protesters laid down in a busy Charlotte intersection Tuesday, chanting and singing about police brutality and the need for equality. The demonstration was one of many across the country following grand jury decisions in two high-profile cases in which unarmed black men died at the hands of white police officers who were not indicted. A group of about 60 people gathered at Trade and Tryon streets in uptown Charlotte around 4 p.m. Tuesday before continuing to Romare Bearden Park.
Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson says that quarterback Cam Newton is “in good shape,” after speaking with Carolinas Medical Center doctors. Newton has two fractures in his lower back following a two-car accident Tuesday afternoon. He was expected to be released from the hospital on Wednesday after undergoing tests. The injury suffered to Newton is the same back injury that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo suffered earlier this season. If Newton is ruled unable to play, veteran Derek Anderson would be expected to take over as Carolina’s starting quarterback.
House and Senate leaders have reached a bipartisan deal to avert a government shutdown, agreeing to fund most operations through September of next year. Republicans won some significant victories, such as cuts for the IRS and Environmental Protection Agency, and the gutting of a significant provision in the Dodd-Frank Act. Democrats did manage to increase funding for major financial regulators.
An exhaustive five-year Senate investigation of the CIA’s secret interrogations of terrorism suspects renders a strikingly bleak verdict on a program launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, describing levels of brutality, dishonesty and seemingly arbitrary violence that at times brought even agency employees to moments of anguish.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2014.
