Presidential Twitter Fight; Public Transit Fears May Clog Roads; NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge Finalists

Plus, COVID-19 is creating hardship for landlords, too. by Korva Coleman and Jill Hudson First Up [The city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first began to spread, is pictured on May 14. Many Chinese cities have seen rush hour traffic return to pre-pandemic levels — or worse — after reopening, according to traffic data company TomTom.]( Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images Here's what we're following today. Four officers have been fired after a black man, identified as George Floyd, died in Minneapolis police custody. A 10-minute video [widely circulated on social media]( and referenced by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, shows a police officer using his knee to pin the man's neck to the ground for multiple minutes. In the video, Floyd repeatedly cries out and says, "I cannot breathe," while the officer continues to push down on the man's neck with his knee. As people start returning to work after weeks sheltering at home, local officials are starting to worry about a return to clogged traffic. Some of that traffic may be from motorists who previously took public transit, but are [too apprehensive to do so now](. Eve Strother, a lawyer in Boston, says she won't be getting on the T anytime soon because she’s worried about being close to people who refuse to wear masks or follow social distancing guidelines. "It's kind of scary to not know how your commute will go," she says. President Trump is threatening to move this summer’s Republican National Convention out of Charlotte, N.C., unless the governor reopens the state more quickly. Gov. Roy Cooper won’t commit to that, and there’s concern about hosting an August convention of tens of thousands of people because of the pandemic. [Trump is giving him a week to act](. The Justice Department has closed insider-trading investigations into one Democrat and two Republicans, but Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., remains a subject of interest to the FBI and prosecutors. [All four lawmakers came under scrutiny]( after making stock trades worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in late January and early February — before markets collapsed as the public became fully aware of the pandemic's scale. Stock traders wore masks at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday as the trading floor reopened for the first time since March. The exchange had been [restricted to electronic trading]( for two months due to the pandemic. In addition to wearing masks, brokers will be restricted to certain sections of the floor to enforce social distancing. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- To Infinity … And Beyond [NASA astronaut Douglas Hurley rehearses putting on his SpaceX spacesuit at the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building Kennedy Space Center in Florida, last week.]( NASA/Kim Shiflett/NASA/Kim Shiflett The last person to pilot a U.S. space shuttle was Doug Hurley, and if the weather cooperates, he and co-pilot Bob Behnken will blast into space Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center. The NASA astronauts will be piloting a private [SpaceX Dragon]( capsule to the International Space Station, where they will spend between one and four months. It’s been nine years since the last space shuttle took off from U.S. soil. The entire event will be [streamed live on NASA TV]( at 4:33 p.m. EDT. --------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Listens [Video of Amy Cooper calling the police Monday on a man has gone viral on social media. The man says he asked Cooper to put her dog on a leash in New York's Central Park.]( Christian Cooper via Facebook/Screenshot by NPR A black man says he asked a white woman in New York’s Central Park to put her dog on a leash. Then video shows her calling police and telling emergency operators that the man was threatening her and her dog. The woman, identified as Amy Cooper, later apologized. But by Tuesday afternoon, she was fired from her job at an investment management firm. The man who shot the video of the encounter, Christian Cooper, told NPR Tuesday evening that what the woman did was "pretty crappy without a doubt." But he wonders if the response to her actions was "really proportionate." ([Listen here]( or [read the story]( Twitter has placed a fact-checking warning on a tweet issued by President Trump in which he claims without evidence that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Twitter's move on Tuesday marks the first time the technology company has sanctioned Trump as criticism mounts about how the president has amplified misinformation to more than 80 million followers on the social media platform. Trump responded by accusing Twitter of stifling free speech. ([Listen here]( or [read the story]( The coronavirus pandemic has created financial hardship for many Americans. Small mom-and-pop landlords are worried about their own financial future as tenants struggle to pay rent. ([Listen here]( --------------------------------------------------------------- The NPR Student Podcast Challenge Coronavirus, homework, sports, climate change: Working in the midst of a nationwide school shutdown, high school and middle school students around the country took on these and many more topics in this year's NPR Student Podcast Challenge. We've narrowed the list down to 25 finalists. [Click here to read and listen to the full list](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Before You Go [Six Flags is preparing to reopen its Frontier City theme park in Oklahoma City on June 5, requiring visitors and staff to wear face masks.]( Business Wire - Six Flags will reopen its first amusement park on June 5th. People visiting any Six Flags park this summer will be [required to wear face masks at all times]( and the company will use thermal imaging to screen temperatures of guests and employees before they can enter. - NPR listeners came together to write a community poem for Ahmaud Arbery, the black jogger whom two white men admitted shooting as he jogged through a neighborhood. NPR’s Poet in Residence, Kwame Alexander, took the submissions and crafted [Running For Your Life](. - WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, [HBO Max]( launches today with hundreds of movies and access to all of HBO’s series. It also has a few original series, and our reviewers have a quick preview. — Suzette Lohmeyer contributed to this report. --------------------------------------------------------------- Follow [The New Normal]( on Instagram! What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [dailynewsletter@npr.org](mailto:dailynewsletter@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Politics, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Daily News emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy](