Three things for November 17
1. Prosecutors rest Ahmaud Arbery’s case
On Tuesday, Nov. 16, prosecutors rested their case in the trial of three white men charged with chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery.
Prosecutors called 23 witnesses during eight days of testimony.
“They concluded with Dr. Edmund Donoghue, the state medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Arbery’s body, followed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s lead investigator in the case,” reports AP News. “Donoghue testified that Arbery was hit by two of the three shotgun rounds fired at him. He said both gunshots caused such severe bleeding that either blast alone would have killed the 25-year-old Black man.”
The jury saw close-up photos of his injuries — photos of his clothing showed his T-shirt turned red with blood. Cellphone video of the shooting shows it was originally white.
Prosecutors say the three men — father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and neighbor William Bryan — chased Arbery for five minutes to keep him from leaving the Satilla Shores subdivision outside the port city of Brunswick.
The chase ended when Arbery, trailed by Bryan’s truck, tried to run around the McMichaels’ truck as it idled in the road ahead. A video shows Travis McMichael confronting Arbery and then shooting him as he throws punches and grapples for the gun.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said defense attorneys will begin their cases Wednesday.
2. Adele attracts 10 million television views
On Sunday, Adele debuted new music on a television special with Oprah Winfrey, attracting nearly 10.3 million views. During the special, the singer facilitated a marriage proposal and discussed her divorce with Winfrey.
The show nearly had a bigger audience than April’s Oscars ceremony, reports AP News. When delayed viewers are eventually figured in, the special is expected to exceed the Oscar’s number of viewers.
Adele’s newest album “30” is scheduled for release on 19 November 2021 by Melted Stone and Columbia Records. This is the singer's fourth studio album – six years after her last album, 2015's "25."
3. Hundreds go missing in Burkina Faso amid extremist violence
A deadly terrorist raid on Sunday in Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa, has killed at least 32 people, including 28 military police officers and four civilians. The raid comes just days after seven security force personnel were killed in another attack. The Islamic extremist violence is ravaging Burkina Faso, killing thousands and displacing more than 1 million people.
President Roch Kabore decreed three days of national mourning for the victims of the attack. The government said it was carried out by unidentified armed men. According to Reuters, Burkinabe forces and civilians are regularly targeted by militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, particularly near the borders with Mali and Niger.
According to AP News, people are going missing. Reports of missing relatives quadrupled from 104 to 407 between 2019 and 2020, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which defines a missing person as someone whose whereabouts cannot be accounted for and requires state intervention.
“With the conflict, you have more sudden movements of people, you have more incidents which can lead to separation and disappearance,” said Marina Fakhouri, head of protection with the ICRC in Burkina Faso. “Certainly we are concerned also by the number of families who are coming to us directly to signal that they have a missing relative and need support.”
While some families blame the jihadis for the disappearances of their loved ones, many others point to the security forces as the main perpetrators. The military has been accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings and targeting people deemed to be associated with the jihadis, reports AP News.
For more information on the Sunday raid, read Reuter’s full article. For more information about the missing Burkinabe people, read the full AP News article.
