March 15, 2021
It's going to be cloudy tonight with snow tapering off and a slight chance of freezing drizzle in the southern part of the state. Lows will be in the lower 20s to lower 30s. Tuesday will be mostly cloudy again, and again with the light freezing drizzle in the morning. Highs in the upper 30s to mid 40s. Find more from Updraft. The record settlement the city of Minneapolis reached with the family of George Floyd reverberated through the trial of Derek Chauvin Monday. The City Council approved the $27 million dollar payment late last week. Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, raised concerns about news of the civil settlement reached on Friday.
Nelson has asked Judge Peter Cahill for a change of venue and to postpone the trial. He also argued that the jury should be sequestered. Cahill decided he'll bring back jurors who've been chosen so far to ask about their knowledge of the settlement. And he said he'll take the request to delay the trial under advisement.
Jury selection did press ahead today, with selection of two additional jurors for the 12-member panel, plus two alternates. One of the new jurors said he didn't believe Chauvin intended to kill George Floyd and that he was surprised others didn't intervene. Prosecutors asked if he could set aside opinions about "intent" and he said he could. Minnesota is marking a steady decline in COVID-19 deaths, after a recent rise. State health officials reported adding only a single death in the latest data, after they'd regularly topped a dozen earlier in the month. The seven-day average of fatal COVID cases has returned to the level it reached at the end of February. However, the number of active cases in the state has been ticking up — it has now been over 8,000 for four days. It hasn't been that high for more than a month.
Meanwhile, vaccinations are trending down again, after a second week without any additional Johnson & Johnson doses shipped to the state. Although that company did sign a cooperative manufacturing agreement with Merck, additional production isn't expected to start until May. About 1.3 million Minnesotans have now had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
You can get more of the latest news, in just a few minutes, via the Minnesota Today podcast. — Tim Nelson | MPR News | 