Kim Potter found guilty in Daunte Wright's death, NORAD is tracking Santa: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Former police officer found guilty in Daunte Wright's death
Kim Potter will be sentenced next year for manslaughter. Plus, NORAD keeps tracking Santa, it's Nochebuena in Latino communities, the omicron variant is forcing flight cancellations and we remember Joan Didion.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here.
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is 5 Things you need to know Friday, the 24th of December 2021. Today, Kim Potter has been found guilty. Plus the importance of Nochebuena and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
The Unabomber has been moved. Ted Kaczynski was transferred earlier this month from the notorious supermax prison in Colorado to a medical facility in North Carolina. It's not clear what his medical condition is as he serves life without parole for killing three people in a series of explosions between 1978 and 1995.
At least 39 people are dead after a massive fire swept through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh earlier today. The ship was carrying 800 passengers.
And a new UN report says some 22 million people will need food aid in Ethiopia in 2022. Several regions of the country have been in conflict for years.
Kim Potter has been found guilty.
Judge Regina Chu:
We the jury on the charge of manslaughter in the first degree, while committing a misdemeanor on or about April 11th, 2021, in Hennepin county, state of Minnesota, find the defendant guilty.
Taylor Wilson:
That's judge Regina Chu. The former Minnesota police officer shot and killed 20 year old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop earlier this year, outside Minneapolis. She was found guilty of both first and second degree manslaughter. Her attorneys pushed for her to be released on bail to spend the holidays with her family before sentencing, something Judge Chu denied.
Meanwhile, attorneys for Wright's family - Benjamin Crump, Antonio Romanucci, and Jeff Storm - said in a statement, "From the unnecessary and overreaching tragic traffic stop to the shooting that took his life, that day will remain a tragic one for this family and yet another example for America of why we desperately need change in policing, training and protocols."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison thanked jurors for their deliberation and also spoke to law enforcement officers, saying the verdict restores trust in them. Potter, who is white, fatally shot Wright, who was black, while yelling "taser" on April 11th. She and a trainee officer pulled him over later saying it was because he had a blinker on, in the wrong turn lane, expired tags and an air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror.
Officers then discovered he had a warrant for his arrest on a weapons violation and tried detaining him, leading to a struggle. Potter then shot Wright, who drove down the street and crashed into an oncoming vehicle injuring three people in the process. Defense attorneys say that Potter, a longtime police veteran, mistook her gun for a taser, but was justified in using deadly force to prevent another officer from being injured.
Prosecutors, though, say she was culpably negligent and recklessly handled her firearm causing Wright's death while also abusing her position of authority to cause a greater than normal danger. Sentencing is expected on February 18th of next year. The first degree manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. While second degree is up to 10 years. But since Potter has no criminal history, she'll probably be sentenced and ultimately serve less than half that time.
Merry Christmas Eve, December 24th is not a federal holiday, but many businesses and places like the New York Stock Exchange will recognize it as a day off snce Christmas falls on a Saturday this year. And some federal offices will close their doors as well. When the typical date of a federal holiday falls on a non-work day, full-time employees are given an in-lieu-of holiday or a different day for the holiday to be observed. We'll see a similar thing next week for New Year's, because the first day of 2022 also falls on a Saturday.
Meanwhile, many kids around the country and the world are expecting Santa Claus to visit tonight. And with that tradition, another continues the NORAD Santa Tracker. The North American Aerospace Defense Command puts out a website and posts on social media, alerting kids where Santa will be throughout the day. And you can also call 1-877-HI-NORAD to hear where he is. NORAD commander, Glen VanHerck, says the service continues this year, despite the ongoing pandemic.
Glen VanHerck:
Normally we have a call center of about 1500 volunteers that maintain that call center. Due to social distancing and the need to maintain safety for all of our people, we've had to scale back on the call center. We hope it brings some normalcy to their life and some cheer during the holiday season. With the past year we know we need that. So as much as we can bring good tidings and enjoyment to the family and all the children, that'll be a big success.
Well, Santa Claus has been doing this for many, many years, as you know. And he's been through pandemics before and challenges all around the globe. I'm 100% confident that Santa Claus knows exactly how to stay safe. He's very fast and I'm confident that he and his team will remain safe.
Taylor Wilson:
Happy Nochebuena. Christmas Eve is a huge holiday in many Latino and Filipino communities around the world. In many cases, tonight's celebrations are even bigger than Christmas day itself. Traditions of the night vary based on culture and region, but there's a common theme throughout. It's about being together.
In the United States, Latin parts of Houston have another tradition as well: Pancho Claus. He's Santa's cousin who wears a zoot suit, and offers toys and cultural connection for the city's Spanish speaking community. National Correspondent on Identity and Inclusion Issues Mark Ramirez tells us the history of this Christmas tradition.
Mark Ramirez:
Pancho Claus seems to go back to 1956, as far as I know. There was a song by the Chicano singer Lalo Guerrero, and he had a single called Pancho Claus. And it was also like a parody of Santa Claus, but with a Chicano theme. So it had lines like, "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the casa, mama was busy in the kitchen preparing the masa." And so it had kind of this Chicano theme. And it seems like in Texas, a number of people have run with that concept and created this concept of Pancho Claus to reach out to their local Latino family. So in Houston, I profiled a man named Richard Reyes, and he started doing this 40 years ago as part of a community theater project. He wrote a play built around Pancho Claus, and it just grew into this giant effort where he now delivers 15,000 toys a year.
Pancho, it depends on who's putting it on. So in Lubbock, there's a Pancho Claus that wears a serape and a sombrero. So it's a Mexican-themed or a Chicano-themed play on Santa Claus. And he may speak in Spanish. He may use a mix of English and Spanish. In Houston, Richard Reyes' version, he wears a bright red zoot-suit. And he also created a twist on 'Twas the Night Before Christmas that involves low-riders and other images that people would be familiar with in the culture
Taylor Wilson:
For more search Pancho Claus on USATODAY.com.
As the omicron variant of COVID-19 keeps leading to restrictions around the country, the airline industry is again being hit by the virus as well. Several airlines have canceled flights this week, and as of 2:30 this morning, Delta had 49 flights canceled for Christmas day tomorrow with United canceling 46. As for today, United canceled 165 flights and Delta canceled 113. The airlines say a spike in infections among crew members are leading to cancellations, and it's possibly harder to find replacements who had already requested time off around the holidays. Delta said bad weather in some areas is also playing a part in canceled flights.
Joan Didion has died. The acclaimed writer passed away yesterday after a fight with Parkinson's disease. She was famous for her essays like Slouching Towards Bethlehem and the White Album, and more recently the memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. She also worked for years as a features editor at Vogue magazine. Along with Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Gay Talese, Didion was part of the so-called new journalists who emerged in the 1960s combining literary style to non-fiction reporting. She won several honors, including the 2005 National Book Award for Non-Fiction for The Year of Magical Thinking and the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. She was also the subject of a 2013 Netflix documentary called, The Center Will Not Hold.
Joan Didion in The Center Will Not Hold:
My first notebook was given to me by my mother with the suggestion that I amuse myself by writing down my thoughts. I didn't have any real clear picture of how to do it, but I do remember having a very clear sense that I wanted this to continue.
Taylor Wilson:
Didion often wrote about mortality. In The Year of Magical Thinking, she wrote, "We are not idealized wild things. We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all." Joan Didion was 87-years-old.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us right here every day of the year, wherever you like to find your pods, including Spotify and Apple podcasts. Thanks as always to PJ Elliott for his fantastic work on the show. And I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kim Potter found guilty, NORAD is tracking Santa: 5 Things podcast
