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National

Space

Axios Space

SpaceX just launched NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on an historic ride to the International Space Station.

Why it matters: The launch brings crewed launches back to the U.S. for the first time in nine years, since the end of the space shuttle program. 

The latest: Hurley and Behnken have made it to the space station. 

Read our launch story here: SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to orbit in historic first

Read our docking story here: SpaceX capsule carrying astronauts docks with space station

You can watch continuing coverage of the mission via NASA TV in the window below:

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

The astronauts bringing spaceflight back to the U.S.

Live updates: SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to space station

The Falcon 9 rocket took flight at 3:22 p.m. ET Saturday.

Science

Elon Musk

News and analysis of the scientific advances fueling AI and quantum computing, revolutionizing biology and medicine, and tackling climate change. Science is changing the world and colliding with the global politics that shape it.

For the first time in history, a private company has launched people to orbit from U.S. soil. 

Why it matters: This SpaceX launch of its Crew Dragon capsule — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — marks the first time NASA astronauts have been sent to the International Space Station from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. 

"Our country has been through a lot, but this is a unique moment where all of America can take a moment and look at our country do something stunning again." 

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine ahead of launch

What's happening: The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida at 3:22 p.m. ET, carrying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to space. The mission launched from the same launch pad that was used for the first mission to the Moon and the final space shuttle flight.

The Crew Dragon will now take about 19 hours to fly through space before docking to the station, allowing the crew onboard to do some system checkouts as part of this final test flight before SpaceX starts regular operational flights for NASA.

If all goes according to plan, the two astronauts should dock with the station by 10:29 a.m. ET on Sunday. 

It's not yet clear how long the two veteran astronauts will spend onboard the station. NASA has said their mission could last up to a bit more than 100 days. 

Between the lines: The launch also signals the beginning of the end of NASA's reliance on Russian rockets and spacecraft to launch its astronauts to orbit. 

After the space shuttle program ended, NASA was forced to buy seats aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft in order to make sure their people continued to live and work aboard the ISS. 

Now, NASA hopes that instead of paying upwards of $80 million per seat, the space agency will be able to trade seats aboard SpaceX's craft for seats on the Soyuz to maintain its partnership with Russia. 

SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to orbit in historic first

The Falcon 9 launch marks the first time SpaceX has sent people to orbit.

A Falcon 9 rocket launch seen from Mission Control.

The launch seen from Mission Control. Photo: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced on Saturday he is activating the full National Guard to respond to street violence in Minneapolis that broke out during protests of a police encounter that left a black man, George Floyd, dead.

Why it matters: This is the first time the state has activated the full National Guard since World War II. " The Minnesota National Guard told Axios in an email that up to 10,000 soldiers and airmen would be deployed after all activations and processing are complete.

The Minnesota National Guard tweeted, "We are "all-in" to restore order and maintain and keep the peace in Minnesota.

Walz said, during a press conference Saturday, "The situation was so broad and the tactics were so bent on causing destruction that every single person we had mobilized, again, the largest in state's history last evening, was engaged in that." 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, "The show of force tonight has got to be about safety, security, peace and order. Our Minneapolis residents are scared and rightfully so...

"And I want to be very very clear, the people that are doing this are not Minneapolis residents. They are coming in largely from outside this city from outside the region to prey on everything we have built over the last several decades. the dynamic has changed over the last several days."

Go deeper...The aftermath of George Floyd's death: Everything you need to know

Editor's note: Updates with the number of National Guard that will be deployed.

Gov. Tim Walz to mobilize Minnesota's full National Guard

This is the first time the state has activated the full National Guard since World War II.

National Guard troops help block off a section of a street in Minneapolis

Photo: Steel Brooks/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Politics

Minnesota

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered 350 National Guard to Lousiville, following two nights of protests against the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in her home.

Why it matters: Louisville was among the cities to erupt in protest after George Floyd died during an encounter with Minneapolis police, which was a bitter reminder of Louisville's own unresolved extrajudicial killing in March. The officers involved in Taylor's death have been placed on administrative leave but have not been formally charged, according to The New York Times. The FBI announced May 21 it would investigate the Kentucky shooting, per The New York Times.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew. He said, "The tone clearly changed last night. The number of people on our street clearly changed last night, as well. This turned from being a peaceful protest into violence and terrorism and looting on the streets of our city," The Courier-Journal notes.

Fischer said seven people were shot during Friday's protests, and two of them were taken into surgery while five are in good condition, per the Times. 

Background: Police allegedly shot Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, while they were executing a "no-knock" warrant during a narcotics investigation, per the Times. 

Taylor was not the focus of the investigation, but a judge had signed off on the warrant, per The Courier-Journal.

Taylor's friends and family "question why police entered Taylor's home in the early morning hours and opened fire, leaving the 26-year-old dead with at least eight bullet wounds," the Journal reports.

Police say they knocked on the door to announce their presence but forced their way in "after midnight before being met by gunfire."

Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was also home at the time and said he did not hear the police announce themselves. A 911 recording shows that Walker telling the dispatcher, "somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend," the Times writes.

Walker was charged with attempted murder after shooting a police officer in the leg during the intrusion, but the charges have been dropped.

The aftermath of George Floyd's death: Everything you need to know 

National Guard heads to Louisville, Ky., to quell protests over fatal March police shooting

Breonna Taylor, 26, was fatally shot in March allegedly by police conducting a drug investigation.

A man spray paints a sign that reads "Justice for Breonna" as Louisville remains in a state of protest

Police

The photos of protests around the country following the death of George Floyd during an encounter with Minneapolis police are hauntingly familiar. We’ve seen them many times before, going back decades.

Why it matters: "What is also unmistakable in the bitter protests in Minneapolis and around the country is the sense that the state is either complicit or incapable of effecting substantive change," Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University writes in the New York Times. The images that follow make all too clear how little has changed since the modern Civil Rights Movement began in the 1950s. 

Now: Baltimore police arrested Freddie Gray, 25, on April 25, 2015, and charged him with carrying a knife. While in police custody, he fell into a coma and died a few days later. Protests started and quickly escalated after police failed to release information regarding Gray's injuries. The police officers charged with his death were either acquitted or their cases ended in mistrials.  

Officers carry a man to a police van as they arrest him after the 10 p.m. curfew on West North Avenue as protestors walk for Freddie Gray around the city in Baltimore, MD on Wednesday April 29, 2015

Officers carry a man to a police van for violating the 10 p.m. curfew implemented due to protests over the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in April 2015. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Then: By April 1963, there were 758 civil rights protests organized in 186 cities and more than 14,733 arrests, The Guardian reports. In New York, Congress of Racial Equality organized against employment discrimination.

An African American Woman Being Carried to Police Patrol Wagon During Demonstration, Brooklyn, New York, 1963

A woman is carried to a police patrol wagon during a civil rights demonstration in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1963. Photo: Education Images/Contributor/Getty Images

Now: Protesters in Los Angeles began mostly peaceful demonstrations on Wednesday, their frustrations over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis very clear.

A protester occupies the intersection of South Hill Street and W Second Street after a Black Lives Matter Protest in solidarity with other national demonstrations

A protester occupies an intersection in Los Angeles after a Black Lives Matter Protest in solidarity with other national demonstrations following George Floyd's death. Photo: Gabriella Angotti-Jones/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Then: Sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., went on strike in February 1968 following the deaths of Echol Cole and Robert Walker in a garbage truck compactor. The workers were demanding better pay and safer working conditions, and Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support them just before his assassination on April 4, 1968. 

Civil Rights activists blocked by National Guardsmen with bayonets. The marching demonstrators, who are wearing signs which say "I Am A Man,"

Civil Rights activists are blocked by National Guardsmen brandishing bayonets while trying to stage a protest in Memphis, Tenn. The marching demonstrators were also flanked by tanks. Photo: 
Bettmann/ Contributor/Getty Images

Now: The death of George Floyd sparked protests in Minneapolis, New York City and Los Angeles. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, protesters have taken to the streets calling for police brutality to end.

Harina Yacob, 26 of Los Angeles along with fellow Black Lives Matters protesters gather in DTLA to protest the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota by police Wednesday, May 27, 2020 in Los Angeles, CA

Harina Yacob, 26 of Los Angeles wears a face mask that says, "Please, I can't breath" as people protest following the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota by police. Photo: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Then: Martin Luther King Jr. led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to press for voting rights. Even as the protesters marched peacefully, the police attacked and arrested them. 

A man with a straw hat that reads 'Freedom' on its band walks with others during on the Selma to Montgomery marches held in support of voter rights, Alabama, late March, 1965

A man with a straw hat that reads 'Freedom' on its band walks with others during a march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in, late March 1965. Photo: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images

Now: Riots consumed Ferguson, Mo. after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The shooting led to weeks of protests, some of which turned violent. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas on the crowds.

A woman kneels on the streets as police spray tear gas on her

Tear gas reigns down on a woman kneeling in the street with her hands in the air after a demonstration over the killing of teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer in August 2014. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Then: Activists in Birmingham, Ala., worked to end the city's segregation laws. Known as the Birmingham Campaign, it was one of the most influential efforts of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Firefighters spray protesters during the Birmingham Campaign in Alabama in May 1963

Firefighters spray protesters during the Birmingham Campaign in Alabama in May 1963. Months later, a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham would kill for young black girls and injure many others.

Now: Demonstrations grew to nearly 30 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, over four days to protest the killing of George Floyd during an encounter with Minneapolis police, and more are planned. 

Protestors walk in downtown Los Angeles after a demonstration on May 27, 2020. 

Protesters in downtown Los Angeles after a Black Lives Matter demonstration on May 17, 2020, over the death of George Floyd in downtown Los Angeles. Photo: Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Then: “We maintained the hope while transforming the hate of traditional revolutions into positive nonviolent power. As long as the hope was fulfilled there was little questioning of nonviolence. But when the hopes were blasted, when people came to see that in spite of progress their conditions were still insufferable … despair began to set in...Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil,” Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife Coretta Scott King lead a black voting rights march on March 30, 1965, in Alabama.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King, lead a voting rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. Photo: William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images

Go deeper...In photos: Protests over George Floyd's death grip Minneapolis

In photos: We've seen images like the protests in Minneapolis before

These images make all too clear how little has changed since the Civil Rights Movement.

Two images show one woman wearing an American flag hijab and a little girl, but both are protesting racial inequality

Civil rights

The fury over George Floyd's killing is erupting as the U.S. faces a looming wave of business bankruptcies, likely home evictions and a virus pandemic that will all disproportionately hit African Americans.

Why it matters: What these seemingly disparate issues share in common is that they emanate from systemic abuses that calls to action and promised reforms have yet to meaningfully address.

Consider the extrajudicial killings in the past decade of Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and numerous other black Americans for which there was no fundamental legal resolution.

The overwhelming majority of their killers went free and some retained their jobs in law enforcement.

Be smart: Likewise, much of the economic fallout we're seeing because of the coronavirus stems largely from unresolved issues left over from the 2008 Great Recession.

After the recession, none of the top executives who had originated, boxed or sold the collateralized debt obligations and improperly rated mortgage-backed securities faced criminal charges.

And many of the big banks that profited from selling the subprime mortgages that precipitated the fallout not only survived, but thrived in the recession's aftermath.

The root cause of the 2008 crisis — rampant corporate greed — was never sufficiently contained.

Many of the meager protections created for everyday Americans through the Dodd-Frank financial reform act have since been clawed back by the Trump administration and the Fed.

And much of the reckless behavior that Dodd-Frank prohibited at banks simply moved to the unregulated shadow banking sphere and continues at much the same pace.

Between the lines: The swift action from the Federal Reserve and Congress that saved the financial system had the unintended effect of exacerbating the nation's growing income inequality. Last year, the Census Bureau reported the U.S. had its highest level of income inequality ever.

America's unfinished business

Police violence and a host of other problems have all been caused by unresolved systemic abuses.

Axios

Saturday's top stories

Live updates: SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to space station

SpaceX launches NASA astronauts to orbit in historic first

Gov. Tim Walz to mobilize Minnesota's full National Guard

National Guard heads to Louisville, Ky., to quell protests over fatal March police shooting

In photos: We've seen images like the protests in Minneapolis before

America's unfinished business

Deaths without consequences

Teenager killed after shots fired at protesters in Detroit

Supreme Court sides with California on coronavirus worship service rules

Zuckerberg says Trump’s “shooting” tweet didn’t violate Facebook’s rules