ST. LOUIS (AP) — The world’s most endangered wolf species got a big boost at a Missouri wildlife reserve — four little puppies born this spring.

The April 26 birth of a female American red wolf pup named Otter was followed by a litter of three other pups — Molly and her brothers Finn and Obi — on May 4, the St. Louis Zoo announced Monday. All four were born at the zoo’s Sears Lehmann Jr. Wildlife Reserve, which sits about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis. Zoo officials said all four are healthy and thriving.

The cuteness overload, however, won’t be open to the public. Visitors aren’t allowed so that the wolves learn natural behaviors and survival skills without much human interaction in case they can eventually be released into the wild, zoo officials said.

Otter was born to 8-year-old Lava and 9-year-old Tyke. The triplets were born to first-time parents Ladybird, age 3, and 8-year-old Wilber.

“When you consider how few red wolves remain, each birth is an achievement,” Sabarras George, director of the St. Louis Zoo WildCare Park, said in a news release.

The red wolf is the only large carnivore solely native to the United States. It’s smaller than a gray wolf, but larger than a coyote, according to the National Wildlife Federation. It differs in appearance from the gray wolf with reddish fur often found around its head, ears and legs.

The red wolf once ranged from central Pennsylvania to southeastern Texas. Populations were decimated by the early 20th century due to predator control programs and loss of habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in 1980, but the Fish and Wildlife Service captured the remaining 14 and started a captive breeding program. The National Wildlife Federation said it became the first animal to be successfully reintroduced after being declared extinct in the wild. Today, the wild red wolves live in North Carolina’s Albemarle Peninsula.

Still, the numbers are small. About 20 live in the wild. Another 290 red wolves live in human care, including 17 at the St. Louis Zoo reserve.

In September, the Fish and Wildlife Service released an updated recovery plan that calls for spending nearly $328 million over the next half-century to get the red wolf off the endangered species list. The agency said at the time that the American red wolf can only survive with “significant additional management intervention.”

“Hunting, habitat loss and human misconceptions about wolves have all played a role in the plight of the red wolf today,” said Regina Mossotti, the zoo’s vice president of animal care. “But every new birth offers hope for future reintroduction efforts for this vital national treasure.”

Zoo officials said the pups will stay with their parents at least two years. After that, they may be sent to other institutions that are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ American Red Wolf Saving Animals From Extinction Program to start their own packs. They could also be released into the wild through the Fish and Wildlife Service, the zoo said.

Allen, a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War and a longtime educator in rural southeastern Missouri, is the oldest American to ever donate an organ, transplant organizations said. He died on May 29 and his liver was successfully transplanted to a 72-year-old woman, according to Mid-America Transplant.

Allen was in robust health until he suffered a fall while picking up storm debris at his home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, on May 27, his daughter, Linda Mitchelle said. He struck the back of his head and was flown to St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau.

Swelling around Allen’s brain couldn’t be healed. As the family was preparing to say goodbye, hospital staff had a question: Would they consider donating his liver?

Given Allen’s age, it was a question that caught the relatives by surprise. But surgeons had examined him and determined the organ was acceptable for transplant.

Knowing their dad’s nature — always the first to check in on people, always at the doorstep of a needy neighbor — the siblings didn’t hesitate.

“It turned it from being such a sad loss of our dad to having this little ray of joy because he was doing what he’d done all his life,” Mitchelle said. “He was giving one more gift.”

Previously, Cecil Lockhart of West Virginia was the oldest person to donate an organ upon death, according to the Center for Organ Recovery & Education, which coordinated recovery of his liver. He was 95 when he died in 2021, and his liver was successfully transplanted to a woman.

More people than ever are getting new organs, according to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, a nonprofit organization that has run the transplant system under a government contract for nearly four decades. Last year was a record year for donations from the deceased — more than 16,000 — and for the number of organ transplants performed — more than 46,000 — according to UNOS. Liver transplants topped 10,000 for the first time ever.

Still, more than 100,000 people are on the nation’s list for a new organ and many will die waiting. The need is so great that scientists are working on alternatives to ease the ongoing shortages. Earlier this year in Massachusetts, Richard “Rick” Slayman became the first recipient of a genetically modified pig kidney. He died two months after the transplant.

Increasingly, older adults can donate organs upon their death, said Kevin Lee, president and CEO of Mid-America Transplant.

“As we’ve seen advances in medical science, we have been educating over the past five years nurses and hospital staff not to think about age when they call in those referrals, but really allow our medical team and transplant physicians to evaluate the medical eligibility of each individual,” Lee said.

Two years ago, a liver was procured from a 90-year-old donor in Mid-America’s region, which includes eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeastern Arkansas, Lee said. Last fall, livers were donated by an 88-year-old and an 84-year-old.

The liver “is resilient. We see liver donations at all ages,” Lee said.

About 12% of deceased organ donors in the first four months of this year were people age 65 or older, UNOS spokeswoman Anne Paschke said.

“Organ donation at advanced ages can be successful and provide life-saving benefits for the recipients,” Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer for UNOS, said in a statement. But the impact of aging varies by organ, he said. In fact, many transplant centers won’t consider hearts from senior donors.

Allen was a lifelong resident of southeast Missouri. He was a pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II, then served in artillery communications in the Army 1st Cavalry Division in the Korean War. After the wars, he spent 27 years in the Army Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

He also farmed and taught vocational agriculture at Neelyville High School, near Poplar Bluff, for nearly four decades. He and his wife of 70 years, Geraldine, who died in 2019, had three children, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

He never got around to signing up to be an organ donor, but the family said they hope his story spurs more people to register.

In fact, they said, it already has.

“A whole bunch of people at the visitation and funeral who were former students and friends said, ‘You know what? I’m going to put donor on my driver’s license right now,’” Mitchelle said.

Greg Allen, one of Orville’s sons, said the ability to donate their dad’s organ was uplifting in an otherwise sad time.

“To me, it’s just a wonderful thing to be able to help somebody else, anybody else, to extend their life for their family,” Greg Allen said.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Arguments before a federal appeals court that is considering whether to reinstate Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for minors focused Thursday on whether it and similar restrictions adopted by two dozen states discriminate on the basis of sex.

Ten judges with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard arguments over a judge’s ruling last year that struck down the ban as unconstitutional. The 2021 law would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18.

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law on behalf of four transgender youths and their parents, said the restriction infringes on the longstanding rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s medical care.

“Arkansas believed that that government knew better than the loving parents in this case what was best for their minor children,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, told the court. “That burdens that longstanding right of parents to direct the medical care of their children.”

At least 24 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those face lawsuits. The restrictions on health care are part of a larger backlash against transgender rights, touching on everything from bathroom access to participation in sports.

The 43-minute hearing on the Arkansas law drew a packed audience that included the actor Elliot Page, who has filed a brief asking the court to uphold last year’s ruling.

Dylan Jacobs, the deputy solicitor general for Arkansas, argued that the law doesn’t discriminate based on sex because it bans the treatments for a specific purpose.

“Minors may be prescribed testosterone for any purpose other than gender transition under this statute,” Jacobs said, adding that states have “wide-ranging authority” to regulate health, safety and medical ethics.

The case went before the full court rather than a three-judge panel after it granted a request by Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin. The move could speed up the case’s march toward the U.S. Supreme Court, which has been asked to block similar laws in Kentucky and Tennessee. All but one of the judges hearing arguments Thursday were appointed by Republican presidents.

Jacobs was repeatedly questioned by Judge Jane Kelly, who was appointed to the court by former President Barack Obama, about the state’s arguments that the law doesn’t discriminate based on sex.

Judge David Stras, who was appointed to the court by former President Donald Trump, asked attorneys on both sides whether gender identity is “fully fixed” before the end of puberty and whether that would be justification for a ban like Arkansas’.

Jacobs said the Legislature setting 18 as the cutoff age implies that was part of its reasoning. Strangio noted that none of the treatments banned by Arkansas are prescribed before the onset of puberty.

It’s unclear when the 8th Circuit will make a ruling. Chief Judge Steven Colloton said it will issue a decision “in due course.”

“This ongoing battle, in Arkansas and across the United States, is a stark reminder of the challenges we face in ensuring that everyone has the freedom to access the care they need and deserve,” the families challenging the law said in a statement after the hearing.

U.S. District Judge Jay Moody last year ruled that Arkansas’ health care restrictions violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youths and families. He also ruled that it violated the First Amendment by prohibiting doctors from referring patients elsewhere for such care. Moody had temporarily blocked the law before it could take effect in 2021.

The ACLU is also representing two medical providers of the care. Multiple medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have opposed Arkansas’ ban and urged the 8th Circuit to uphold the decision against it. An attorney for Justice Department, which opposes Arkansas’ ban, also appeared before the court.

The state has pointed to appeals court rulings allowing Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee’s bans to be enforced. Arkansas’ attorneys have called the care “experimental,” a description that Moody’s ruling said was refuted by decades of clinical experience and scientific research. The state has argued that Moody’s order creates a “novel new” right that parents can direct their children to receive medical care that the state does not find safe.

Judges’ orders are temporarily blocking enforcement of similar bans in Idaho and Montana.

Arkansas’ ban was enacted after the majority-GOP Legislature overrode a veto by Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor at the time. Current Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Hutchinson’s successor and also a Republican, has said she would have approved the ban and last year signed legislation making it easier to sue providers of such care for malpractice.

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This story has been updated to correct that the court’s chief judge is Steven Colloton, not Lavenski Smith.

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DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Arkansas.

The winning numbers were: 22, 24, 40, 52, 64 and the Powerball 10. The winning ticket was sold at Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park, according to the California Lottery.

Phone calls Wednesday night to Midway Market & Liquor went unanswered.

“The phone’s been ringing off the hook, people saying congratulations. Pretty crazy,” the store’s night worker, identified only as Duke, told KCAL-TV.

“Somebody owes me a truck,” he said with a smile. “A lot of customers come in, you know they come in every day to get their tickets, religiously. And a lot of them … said: ‘Oh, if I win I’m gonna get you a new truck.’ So where’s my truck? I’ll be waiting.”

He expected the winner will be a local resident.

Before someone won the giant prize, there had been 35 consecutive drawings without a big winner, stretching back to July 19 when a player in California matched all six numbers and won $1.08 billion.

The jackpot is the world’s second-largest lottery prize after rolling over for 36 consecutive drawings. That streak trails the record of 41 draws set in 2021 and 2022. Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot beyond its earlier advertised estimate of $1.73 billion for Wednesday night’s drawing.

The only top prize that was ever bigger was the $2.04 billion Powerball won by a player in California last November.

Powerball’s terrible odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes becoming ever larger as they repeatedly roll over when no one wins. And wins in recent months have been few and far between.

That didn’t bother those eager to plunk down their money on Wednesday for a long-shot chance at instant wealth.

Robert Salvato Jr., a 60-year-old electrician, bought 40 Powerball tickets at a hardware store in Billerica, Massachusetts.

“I would take care of family and give my cat that extra leg that she needs and make her a good kitty,” said Salvato, who got married on Saturday.

“I could give her a ring on every finger, I guess,” Salvato said of his new wife.

Nevada is among the five states without Powerball, so friends Tamara Carter and Denise Davis drove from Las Vegas across the state line into California to buy tickets. But the line was so long at their first stop that they gave up and went in search of another store.

“The line was about three hours long,” Carter estimated. “I was waiting for maybe a half hour, and it didn’t move.”

The jackpot has grown enormous due to a long dry spell. The previous winning Powerball ticket was sold on July 19, and it was worth $1.08 billion after 39 drawings without a jackpot win.

At the same hardware store as Salvato, Kevin Button seemed to understand the long odds as he bought a ticket.

“I only buy them usually when the jackpot’s high,” Button said. “Seems to have been pretty high quite often lately. So I’ve tried quite a few times and haven’t even won a free ticket. But maybe tonight’s the night.”

In most states, a Powerball ticket costs $2 and players can select their own numbers or leave that task to a computer.

The $1.765 billion jackpot is for a sole winner who opts for payment through an annuity, doled out over 30 years. Winners almost always take the cash option, which for Wednesday night’s drawing was estimated at $774.1 million.

Winnings would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Rodrique Ngowi in Billerica, Massachusetts, and Ty O’Neil in California, near Primm, Nevada, contributed to this report.

Video released by the newspaper Monday shows Joan Meyer shouting at the six officers inside the Marion, Kansas, home she shared with her son, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer. Standing with the aid of a walker and dressed in a long robe or gown and slippers, she seems visibly upset.

“Get out of my house … I don’t want you in my house!” she said at one point. “Don’t touch any of that stuff! This is my house!” she said at another.

The raids of the newspaper and the homes of the Meyers and a City Council member happened on Aug. 11, after a local restaurant owner accused the newspaper of illegally accessing information about her. Joan Meyer died a day later. Her son said he believes that the stress contributed to her death.

A prosecutor said later that there was insufficient evidence to justify the raids, and some of the seized computers and cellphones have been returned. Meanwhile, the initial online search of a state website that the police chief cited to justify the raid was legal, a spokesperson for the agency that maintains the site said Monday.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation continues to examine the newspaper’s actions.

Legal experts believe the police raid on the newspaper violated a federal privacy law or a state law shielding journalists from having to identify sources or to turn over unpublished material to law enforcement.

Two state lawmakers, Kansas House Democratic Leader Vic Miller, and Democratic state Rep. Jason Probst, a former newspaper reporter and editor in Hutchinson, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Marion, said they plan to pursue legislation dealing with search warrants next year but are looking for other ideas as well.

“I don’t want this to fade away until we’ve addressed it,” Miller said during a Statehouse news conference.

The raid on the Record put it and its hometown of around 1,900 residents about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City in the center of a debate about press freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Kansas’ Bill of Rights. It also exposed divisions in the town over local politics and the newspaper’s coverage of the community, and put an intense spotlight on Police Chief Gideon Cody, who led the raids after the newspaper had asked questions about his background.

“As far as Chief Cody goes, he can take his high horse he brought into this community and giddy-up on out of town,” Darvin Markley, a Marion resident, said during a Monday afternoon City Council meeting. “The man needs to go. He needs to be fired.”

Cody did not attend Monday’s meeting or respond to email and cellphone messages seeking comment. He said in affidavits used to obtain the warrants that he had probable cause to believe that the newspaper and City Council member Ruth Herbel, whose home was also raided, had violated state laws against identity theft or computer crimes.

Both Herbel and the newspaper have said they received a copy of a document about the status of the restaurant owner’s license without soliciting it. The document disclosed the woman’s license number and date of birth, which are required to check the status of a person’s license online and gain access to a more complete driving record. The police chief maintains they broke state laws to do that, while the newspaper and Herbel’s attorneys say they didn’t.

Herbel, the city’s vice mayor, presided over the City Council’s meeting Monday, its first since the raids. It lasted less than an hour, and Herbel announced that council members would not discuss the raids — something its agenda already had said in an all-caps statement in red followed by 47 exclamation points. She said the council will address the raids in a future meeting.

While Herbel said after the meeting that she agrees that Cody should resign, other City Council members declined to comment. Mike Powers, a retired district court judge who is the only candidate for mayor this fall, said it’s premature to make any judgments.

Meyer said the newspaper plans to file a lawsuit over the raid of its offices and his home.

The publisher has noted that among the items seized were a computer tower and personal cellphone of a reporter who was uninvolved in the dispute with the local restaurant owner — but who had been investigating why Cody left a Kansas City, Missouri, police captain’s job in April before becoming Marion police chief.

Video from a security camera overlooking the newsroom showed an officer reading the reporter her rights during the raid. Bernie Rhodes, the newspaper’s attorney, said the action meant she wasn’t free to leave and could have been jailed.

“People keep asking me, ‘Why haven’t you already sued?’” Rhodes said. “I don’t want to be rash like the police were. I’m doing a thorough investigation.”

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Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this report.

But reporter Phyllis Zorn, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer and the newspaper’s attorney said Sunday that no laws were broken when Zorn accessed a public state website for information on restaurant operator Kari Newell.

The raid carried out Aug. 11 and led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody brought international attention to the small central Kansas town that now finds itself at the center of a debate over press freedoms. Police seized computers, personal cellphones and a router from the newspaper, but all items were released Wednesday after the county prosecutor concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the action.

Late Saturday, the Record’s attorney, Bernie Rhodes, provided copies of the affidavits used in the raid to The Associated Press and other news media. The documents that had previously not been released. They showed that Zorn’s obtaining of Newell’s driving record was the driving force behind the raid.

The newspaper, acting on a tip, checked the public website of the Kansas Department of Revenue for the status of Newell’s driver’s license as it related to a 2008 conviction for drunk driving.

Cody wrote in the affidavit that the Department of Revenue told him that those who downloaded the information were Record reporter Phyllis Zorn and someone using the name “Kari Newell.” Cody wrote that he contacted Newell who said “someone obviously stole her identity.”

As a result, Cody wrote: “Downloading the document involved either impersonating the victim or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought.”

The license records are normally confidential under state law, but can be accessed under certain circumstances, cited in the affidavit. The online user can request their own records but must provide a driver’s license number and date of birth.

The records may also be provided in other instances, such as to lawyers for use in a legal matter; for insurance claim investigations; and for research projects about statistical reports with the caveat that the personal information won’t be disclosed.

Meyer said Zorn actually contacted the Department of Revenue before her online search and was instructed how to search records. Zorn, asked to respond to the allegations that she used Newell’s name to obtain Newell’s personal information, said, “My response is I went to a Kansas Department of Revenue website and that’s where I got the information.”

She added, “Not to my knowledge was anything illegal or wrong.”

Rhodes, the newspaper’s attorney, said Zorn’s actions were legal under both state and federal laws. Using the subject’s name “is not identity theft,” Rhodes said. “That’s just the way of accessing that person’s record.”

The newspaper had Newell’s driver’s license number and date of birth because a source provided it, unsolicited, Meyer said. Ultimately, the Record decided not to write about Newell’s record. But when she revealed at a subsequent City Council meeting that she had driven while her license was suspended, that was reported.

The investigation into whether the newspaper broke state laws continues, now led by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. State Attorney General Kris Kobach has said he doesn’t see the KBI’s role as investigating the conduct of the police.

Some legal experts believe the Aug. 11 raid violated a federal privacy law that protects journalists from having their newsrooms searched. Some also believe it violated a Kansas law that makes it more difficult to force reporters and editors to disclose their sources or unpublished material.

Cody has not responded to several requests for comment, including an email request on Sunday. He defended the raid in a Facebook post soon after it happened, saying the federal law shielding journalists from newsroom searches makes an exception specifically for “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”

The Record received an outpouring of support from other news organizations and media groups after the raid. Meyer said it has picked up at least 4,000 additional subscribers, enough to double the size of its press run, though many of the new subscriptions are digital.

Meyer blamed the stress from the raid for the Aug. 12 death of his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner. Her funeral services were Saturday.

Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday issued a withering critique of Minneapolis police, alleging that they systematically discriminated against racial minorities, violated constitutional rights and disregarded the safety of people in custody for years before George Floyd was killed.

The report was the result of a sweeping two-year probe, and it confirmed many of the citizen complaints about police conduct that emerged after Floyd’s death. The investigation found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech.

The inquiry also concluded that both police and the city discriminated against Black and Native American people and those with “behavioral health disabilities.”

“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

Garland said officers routinely neglected the safety of people in custody, noting numerous examples in which someone complained that they could not breathe, only to have officers reply with a version of “You can breathe. You’re talking right now.”

The officers involved in Floyd’s May 25, 2020, arrest made similar comments.

Police “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all,” the report said. Officers “used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized the police.”

Police also “patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing or using force against people during stops,” according to the report.

As a result of the investigation, the city and the police department agreed to a deal known as a consent decree, which will require reforms to be overseen by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. That arrangement is similar to reform efforts in Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri.

Consent decrees require agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight is removed, a process that often takes many years and requires millions of dollars.

Terrence Floyd, a younger brother of George Floyd, praised the Justice Department for its review.

“That’s how you solve and stop what’s going on with law enforcement,” said Floyd, who is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who was hired last year to oversee reforms in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing, said his agency was committed to creating “the kind of police department that every Minneapolis resident deserves.”

Mayor Jacob Frey acknowledged the work ahead.

“We understand that change is non-negotiable,” Frey said. “Progress can be painful, and the obstacles can be great. But we haven’t let up in the three years since the murder of George Floyd.”

The scathing report reflected Garland’s efforts to prioritize civil rights and policing nationwide. Similar investigations of police departments have been undertaken in Louisville, Phoenix and Memphis, among other cities.

The Minneapolis investigation was launched in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the killing of Floyd, who was Black.

During their encounter, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes. The killing was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as part of a broader national reckoning over racial injustice.

The Justice Department reviewed police practices dating back to 2016, and found that officers sometimes shot at people without determining whether there was an immediate threat.

Officers also used neck restraints like the one Chauvin used on Floyd nearly 200 times from Jan. 1, 2016 to Aug. 16, 2022, including 44 instances that did not require an arrest. Some officers continued to use neck restraints after they were banned following Floyd’s killing, the report said.

The investigation found that Black drivers in Minneapolis are 6.5 times more likely to be stopped than whites, and Native American drivers are 7.9 times more likely to be pulled over. And police often retaliated against protesters and journalists covering protests, the report said.

The city sent officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results,” according to the report.

The findings were based on reviews of documents, body camera videos, data provided by the city and police, and rides and conversations with officers, residents and others, the report said.

President Joe Biden called the conclusions “disturbing” and said in a written statement that they “underscore the urgent need for Congress to pass common sense reforms that increase public trust, combat racial discrimination and thereby strengthen public safety.”

Some changes have already been made.

The report noted that police are now prohibited from using neck restraints like the one that killed Floyd. Officers are no longer allowed to use some crowd control weapons without permission from the chief. “No-knock” warrants were banned after the 2022 death of Amir Locke.

The city has also launched a program in which trained mental health professionals respond to some calls rather than police.

Keisha Deonarine, director of opportunity, race and justice for the NAACP, applauded the Justice Department for holding police accountable but said much work remains, and not just in Minneapolis.

“This is a constant issue across the nation,” Deonarine said. “When you look at the police system, it’s a militarized system. It is absolutely not used, utilized or trained in the way that it should be.”

The Justice Department is not alone in uncovering problems.

A similar investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found “significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” It criticized “an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language with impunity.”

The federal report recommends 28 “remedial” steps to improve policing as a prelude to the consent decree. Garland said the steps “provide a starting framework to improve public safety, build community trust and comply with the constitution and federal law.”

The mayor said city leaders want a single monitor to oversee both the federal plan and the state agreement to avoid having “two different determinations of whether compliance has been met or not. That’s not a way to get to clear and objective success.”

Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He struggled with police when they tried to put him in a squad car, and though he was already handcuffed, they forced him on the ground.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for murder. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in that case. He is serving those sentences in Tucson, Arizona.

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Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, Aaron Morrison in New York and Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri, contributed to this report.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the killing of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd