In Other News: Two space fans get seats on billionaire’s private flight; Latest graphic novel about John Lewis coming in August

Published 1:50 pm Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Teen who took Floyd video says he was ‘begging for his life’

MINNEAPOLIS — The teenager who shot the harrowing video of George Floyd under the knee of the Minneapolis police officer now charged in his death testified Tuesday that she began recording because “it wasn’t right, he was suffering, he was in pain.” Darnella Frazier, 18, said she was walking to a convenience store with her younger cousin when she came upon the officers, and sent the girl into the store because she didn’t want her to see “a man terrified, scared, begging for his life.” Frazier grew emotional at times, breathing heavily and crying as she viewed pictures of officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd last May. Floyd’s death and the video of Floyd pleading for his life and onlookers angrily yelling at Chauvin to get off him triggered sometimes-violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality in the U.S.

Latest graphic novel about John Lewis coming in August

NEW YORK — The award-winning series of graphic novels about congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis will continue a year after his death. Abrams announced Tuesday that “Run: Book One” will be published Aug. 3, just over a year after Lewis died at age 80. As with the “March” trilogy, which traced Lewis’ growing involvement with the civil rights movement in the 1960s, “Run” features longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell as they shape a narrative around Lewis’ reflections. Comic artist L. Fury will assist with illustrations. “Run: Book One” begins after the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Two space fans get seats on billionaire’s private flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A billionaire’s private SpaceX flight filled its two remaining seats Tuesday with a scientist-teacher and a data engineer whose college friend actually won a spot but gave him the prize. The new passengers: Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, and Chris Sembroski, a former Air Force missileman from Everett, Washington. They will join flight sponsor Jared Isaacman and another passenger for three days in orbit this fall. Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered Tuesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He’s head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card-processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is paying for what would be SpaceX’s first private flight while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Their SpaceX Dragon capsule — currently parked at the International Space Station for NASA — will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 335 miles. That’s 75 miles higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope. The capsule will be outfitted with a domed window in place of the usual space station docking mechanism for their trip.