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| Happy Thursday, Daily Briefing readers. Robert Aaron Long, the 21-year-old suspected gunman in the Georgia spa shootings that left eight people dead, six of whom were Asian women, is scheduled to appear in court today. Millions of people in the Southeast could see powerful storms, including some areas that are at high risk for big twisters . On the lighter side, college basketball fans will get to see NCAA Tournament games for the first time since 2019 tonight. (Last year's men's and women's events were canceled due to the pandemic.) |
| Steve and Jane are here with Thursday's news. |
| Let's get started with some stories that people are talking about this morning. |
| 🏠 Our friend Will Carless spoke to two people who lived with Long in transitional housing and is reporting Long had been in rehab for sex addiction and was wracked with guilt about his sexual urges. |
| 🚔 A Facebook page appearing to belong to Georgia sheriff's office spokesman Jay Baker, who is helping to investigate the shootings, promoted a T-shirt with racist language about China and the coronavirus last year. Baker also came under criticism for saying Wednesday the man accused of carrying out the massacres had had a "bad day." |
| 🏀 Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Kobe Bryant, has revealed the names of four Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies she accuses of improperly sharing photos of her late husband's remains at the site of his fatal helicopter crash last year. She is suing the deputies, the sheriff's department, the L.A. County Fire Department and the County of Los Angeles, accusing them of invasion of privacy and negligence. |
| 🏀 Sad news out of Utah as former NBA center Shawn Bradley is paralyzed after he was struck by a vehicle while riding his bike on Jan. 20 near his home in St. George, the Dallas Mavericks said in a statement. He sustained a traumatic spinal cord injury, and after neck fusion surgery, he has spent the past eight weeks in the hospital and undergoing rehab. |
| 🎵 We'll avoid SPOILERS, but we will tell you that half of the sleuths from "The Masked Singer" – Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke – were on the right track when it came to identifying the celebrity eliminated in this week's episode. |
| 🎧 On today's 5 Things podcast, listen for reaction to the deadly shootings in Georgia. Plus, some vulnerable communities still have vaccine hesitancy – find out why. You can listen to the podcast every day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your smart speaker. |
| Here's what's happening today: |
Suspect in Georgia spa shootings scheduled for first court appearance |
| Authorities on Wednesday said Robert Aaron Long, who is suspected of killing eight people, six of whom were Asian women, at three spas in Georgia on Tuesday was officially charged by authorities with eight counts of murder. Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, will appear in court for his arraignment Thursday. Four of the counts against Long are related to shootings at a spa in Acworth, which is in Cherokee County. The other four counts are related to shootings at two spas in Atlanta. Rodney Bryant, Atlanta's police chief, said it was too soon in the investigation to say whether the shootings were a hate crime. Reynolds said Long told authorities that his actions were not racially motivated and that he had a sex addiction. Long had been in rehab for sex addiction and was wracked with guilt about his sexual urges, according to two people who lived with him in transitional housing. Grace Kao, an expert on Asian American studies and the sociology department chair at Yale University, said it was hard to disentangle race from the killings. |
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What else people are reading: |
| 🎖 The Army has rejected an appeal to return medals for valor to retired Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a Special Forces soldier former President Donald Trump pardoned for alleged murder in Afghanistan. It was one of three high-profile cases in which Trump interceded on behalf of troops accused of war crimes. |
| 🎤 Billie Eilish, the 19-year-old superstar singer who took home two more Grammy Awards on Sunday night, announced on Instagram on Wednesday that she has parted ways with her signature green and black hairstyle in favor of a brand new bright blond hairdo. |
| 🤴👸 According to Gayle King, Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry had a contingency plan for their explosive Oprah Winfrey interview, which aired on CBS during Prince Philip's hospitalization. The couple planned to delay the interview if the health of Harry's grandfather had taken a turn for the worse. |
| 💰 Good news, tax procrastinators: The IRS is pushing back the tax filing deadline by a month and income taxes and payments will now be due May 17 instead of April 15. |
Biden's national security advisers to meet Chinese diplomats in Alaska |
| President Joe Biden's top national security advisers will meet with Chinese diplomats Thursday in a high-stakes showdown that could determine whether Washington and Beijing are headed for a new "cold war" or a diplomatic thaw. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will lead the two days of talks in Anchorage, Alaska, which come a day after the U.S. sanctioned 24 Chinese officials over Beijing's crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong. The administration has signaled it will take a hard line on Hong Kong, as well as on China's mass internment of Uyghur Muslims, aggression toward Taiwan and trade coercion against Australia. |
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Jury selection in the trial of Derek Chauvin to continue |
| Jury selection is scheduled to resume Thursday morning in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man. The incident sparked protests worldwide. Two more jurors were chosen Wednesday, replacing two who were cut because they said they couldn't be impartial after hearing about the city's historic $27 million settlement with Floyd's family . "We're back where we started this morning, but it's better than being behind," Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said. No jurors were selected Tuesday. Nine of 12 jurors have been seated so far; two alternates also will be selected. Five of the nine jurors identify as white, one as multiracial and three as Black, according to the court. |
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Tornadoes, thunderstorms forecast for Southeast region |
| There will be a continued threat of widespread severe storms across the Southeast into Thursday, Weather.com reported. School systems in Alabama and Mississippi canceled classes, planned online sessions or announced early dismissals because of the threat. On Wednesday afternoon, a tornado reportedly damaged homes in Wayne County, Mississippi, the National Weather Service said. At least nine tornadoes were reported across the South on Wednesday, the weather service's Storm Prediction Center said: Six in Alabama, two in Mississippi and one in Louisiana. No injuries were reported. The weather service also issued more than 50 tornado warnings in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. Nearly 22,000 homes and businesses in Mississippi and Alabama were still without power Thursday morning, according to poweroutage.us. |
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🎥 Fans get their wish: 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' arrives on HBO Max 🎥 |
| The anticipated "Zack Snyder's Justice League" debuted Thursday morning on HBO Max. The epic movie is a four-hour (!!) director's edition of the 2017 DC superhero teamup adventure featuring Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Superman (Henry Cavill) created to finish Snyder's vision. If you're wondering how we got here, it began with Snyder and his producer wife Deborah stepping back from post-production in 2017 after their daughter Autumn's death , and Joss Whedon ("The Avengers") being brought in to finish the film and shoot new scenes. After the original movie with Whedon's scenes took a big hit in critical circles, a grassroots #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign grew. Is the Snyder Cut worth a watch? While our critic pal Brian Truitt calls it "an improvement on 'Justice League,'" he also says "the existence of the Snyder Cut is most interesting as a fascinating study of two filmmakers'(Snyder's and Whedon's) radically different views of iconic superheroes." |
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More news you need to know: |
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NCAA Tournament tips off with 'First Four' games |
| The logistics of the 2021 NCAA men's basketball tournament have led to a slight shift in the traditional Thursday-Sunday schedule of marathon action from the first and second rounds. With mandatory COVID-19 tests and quarantining upon arrival for participants, first round games will instead start a day later, on Friday. As a result, the four play-in games — normally played on Tuesday and Wednesday — will all be played on Thursday. The game of the night features NCAA Tournament blue blood programs UCLA and Michigan State facing off (9:57 p.m. ET, TBS) for the right to move on and face BYU on Saturday. |
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ICYMI: Our top stories published Wednesday |
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