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(MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.) — Opening statements in the joint federal trial of three former police officers accused of civil rights violations in the death of George Floyd are expected to begin next week after a jury was seated on Thursday.

Fired Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, 28, Thomas Lane, 38, and Tou Thao, 35, are set to fight charges stemming from their alleged roles in the 2020 death of the 46-year-old Black man who their one-time senior officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murdering.

All three are charged with using the “color of the law,” or their positions as police officers, to deprive Floyd of his civil rights on May 25, 2020, by allegedly showing deliberate indifference to his medical needs as Chauvin dug his knee in the back of a handcuffed man’s neck for more than 9 minutes, ultimately killing him.

Kueng and Thao both face an additional charge alleging they knew Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck but did nothing to intervene to stop him. Lane, who was heard on police body camera footage asking if they should roll Floyd on his side to help ease his breathing, does not face that charge.

The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The 18-member jury, including six alternates, was impaneled in just one day, chosen from a pool of 256 potential jurors. The jury is comprised of 11 women and seven men, none of whom are Black.

The trial, expected to last at least two weeks, is being held at the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in St. Paul. Opening statements are expected to begin Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson, who is presiding over the case, has instructed attorneys that he wants the trial to move quickly to lessen the possibility of people involved in the proceedings coming down with COVID-19 as the omicron variant continues to spread across the country.

The trial will commence a little over a month after Chauvin, 45, a former Minneapolis police officer, pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death and the abuse of a 14-year-old boy he bashed in the head with a flashlight in 2017. He admitted in the signed plea agreement with federal prosecutors that he knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck even as Floyd complained he could not breathe, fell unconscious and lost a pulse.

The guilty plea came after Chauvin was convicted in Minnesota state court in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison in the state case and is facing an even stiffer sentence in the federal case.

Kueng and Lane were rookies being trained by Chauvin at the time of Floyd’s fatal arrest.

The May 25, 2020, police encounter with Floyd was recorded on video from start to finish and included multiple angles taken by bystanders with cellphones, police body cameras and surveillance cameras.

The footage showed Chauvin grinding his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Kueng helped keep Floyd down even after he stopped resisting by placing his knee on the man’s back and holding and lifting one of his handcuffed hands. Lane, according to the videos, held down Floyd’s feet.

Thao, according to footage, stood a few feet away, ordering a crowd to stand back despite several witnesses, including an off-duty firefighter, expressing concern for Floyd’s well-being.

Following the federal trial, Lane, Keung and Thao are facing a state trial on charges arising from Floyd’s death of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.

The state trial, which had been scheduled to get underway in March, was postponed until June 13 due to uncertainty over how long the federal trial will last.

The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the state charges.

ABC News’ Whitney Lloyd contributed to this report.

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(MIAMI) — A first-class passenger who allegedly refused to wear a mask disrupted a London-bound American Airlines flight Wednesday night and prompted the pilot to turn back to Miami so the customer could be booted off the aircraft, police and airline officials said.

American Airlines Flight 38, with 129 passengers and 14 crew members aboard, was over the Atlantic Ocean when the passenger allegedly refused to obey instructions to wear a mask and became disruptive, a spokesperson for the airline said.

The flight departed Miami International Airport at about 7:40 p.m. local time. About an hour into the flight, the pilot decided to turn the Boeing 777 aircraft around and head back to Miami, according to the airline.

The flight was ultimately canceled and the passengers needed to rebook on future flights, the airline’s spokesperson said.

“The flight landed safely at MIA where local law enforcement met the aircraft. We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” American Airlines said in a statement.

Steve Freeman, a passenger on the flight, told ABC Miami affiliate WPLG the woman was verbally abusive to the flight crew.

“She sat behind us in first class — she was a first-class passenger and was extremely abusive to the stewards,” said Freeman, who was flying home to London. “I could see the writing on the wall — they gave her a lot of warnings, so we were kind of ready for it.”

He said flight attendants tried to offer the passenger several different masks.

“She complained about each mask,” Freeman said.

Det. Argemis Colome of the Miami-Dade Police Department told ABC News on Thursday that police were contacted by American Airlines about a disruptive female passenger refusing to wear a mask.

Colome said police officers met the plane when it returned to the Miami International Airport. He said officers escorted the passenger off the plane, but she was not arrested or charged.

Colome said the woman, whose name was not released, was turned over to American Airlines officials to handle administratively.

A spokesperson for American Airlines told ABC News on Thursday that the woman has been placed on the airline’s internal no-fly list pending an investigation. Such incidents are referred to the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a standard reporting process, the spokesperson said.

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — An individual with two guns was “neutralized” near the San Francisco International Airport’s Bay Area Rapid Transit entrance, temporarily delaying BART service Thursday morning, officials said.

When officers responded to the airport’s international terminal in front of the BART station entrance, they tried to de-escalate the situation, but the suspect kept showing “threatening behavior,” airport spokesperson Doug Yakel said.

Police “engaged non-lethal measures,” but the gunman “continued to advance, at which time SFPD officers fired shots to neutralize the threat,” Yakel said.

ABC San Francisco station KGO reported that the suspect has died.

One bystander suffered minor injuries and has been treated and released, he noted.

The incident didn’t impact any airport operations, Yakel said. BART service to the airport was temporarily suspended and has since resumed.

“The entire incident happened in the terminal. It didn’t happen at BART. It was near the entrance of our station but not at our station,” a BART spokesperson said.

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(NEW YORK) — About 4.6 million Black people in the U.S. — roughly 1 in 10 — are immigrants, and that figure could more than double to 9.5 million by 2060, according to a study by Pew Research Center.

Pew based its calculations in the study, released Thursday, on Census data collected from from 2006 to 2019 through community surveys.

“The nation’s immigrant population has been, to some extent, largely driven by trends from Latin America and Asia,” said Mark Lopez, director of race and ethnicity research for Pew and a coauthor of the study. “But African and particularly Black immigrant trends have become a growing part of the story of the nation’s immigrant population overall.”

Lopez noted that in addition to the roughly 10% of Blacks who came from anther country, another 9% were born in the U.S. from an immigrant parent, meaning “the immigrant experience is not far from the daily life experiences of about 1 in 5 Black Americans today.”

In 2019, New York (about 900,000) and Florida (about 800,000) had the most Black immigrants, according to the study.

“Our report is part of a broader research agenda to understand the diversity of the country, including the diversity of the nation’s Black population,” Lopez added.

Abraham Paulos, deputy director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is based in Brooklyn, said Black immigrants and those who’ve lived in the U.S. longer face many of the same challenges.

“I think whatever is happening in Black America is also happening to Black immigrants,” said Paulos, noting America’s historically discriminatory criminal justice system, police brutality and housing inequality. Many of those represented by BAJI also struggle to unionize and to advocate for better working conditions.

Most Black immigrants, the study showed, came from Jamaica (about 760,000) and Haiti (about 700,000) from 2009 to 2019, and many of them, Paulos noted, also faced comparatively more difficult acclimation periods, including more discrimination, than some from other nations.

In September, thousands of Haitian asylum seekers camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The Biden administration came under fire when images were released showing Customs and Border Patrol officers using horses to push back migrants crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S. And in December, a group of Haitian migrants sued the Biden administration, alleging mistreatment in that incident.

“Haiti is a great example,” Paulos said. “I think with the Haitian immigrant, I think it is probably the best analogy to sort of get a window into how Black Americans are treated by the immigration apparatus.”

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(NEW YORK) — An 11-month-old girl has been shot in the face in the Bronx, prompting a search for the gunman and outcry from New York City’s new mayor.

The baby is in the hospital in critical but stable condition, the New York City Police Department said.

The shooting took place at about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday while the baby was in a parked car with her mother outside a grocery store, waiting for the father who was inside the store, police said.

A man chasing another man fired two shots, hitting the baby in the face, police said.

“An 11-month-old baby shot in the Bronx. If that’s not a wake up call, I don’t know what is,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams tweeted. “It should be unimaginable that this would happen in our city. But it did.”

“Leaders at every level have abandoned city streets. I won’t,” he said. “I refuse to surrender New York City to violence.”

Police have released surveillance video of the suspect, who they said fled the scene in a gray four-door sedan. The suspect is described as a man in a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt with a white Nike logo on the front, gray sweatpants, and black and white sneakers.

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

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(JACKSONVILLE, N.C.) — Two Marines have been killed and more than a dozen injured in a rollover accident Wednesday near Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, according to officials.

Seventeen Marines were injured in the accident after they were ejected from the back of the 7-ton military vehicle as it tried to make a turn onto a highway just miles from the base at about 1 p.m., according to the North Carolina Highway Patrol. Two of the injured were airlifted to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, while the other 15 were transported on the ground.

The 19-year-old Marine who was driving the military vehicle, Louis Barrera, has been charged with exceeding a safe speed and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, according to the highway patrol.

One Marine who was ejected from the truck was hit by another military vehicle trailing the accident, police said.

The vehicle was carrying 19 Marines total, all from the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, stationed at Camp Lejeune. The driver, Barrera, and passenger in the front of the vehicle were uninjured.

Officials will release the identifications of the victims once next of kin have been notified.

An investigation into the accident is ongoing, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.

North Carolina Highway Patrol Sgt. Devin Rich said at a press conference he was not sure if this was part of a training mission.

The 2nd Marine Logistics Group had initially posted on Twitter, “We are aware of a vehicle rollover in Jacksonville, North Carolina, involving service members with 2nd MLG. We are working closely with @camp_lejeune and Onslow County officials to gather details regarding this incident.”

Camp Lejeune is located in southeast North Carolina along the Atlantic coast. It is home to more than 30,000 people.

ABC News’ Mark Osborne and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

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(FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.) — A Virginia man convicted of murder has been charged in connection with two decades-old cold case homicides, authorities said.

Charles Helem, 52, is currently serving life in prison at a Virginia supermax state prison after he was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of a Chantilly woman who was found strangled in her townhome in 2002.

He has been now been charged in two unrelated homicides in Virginia and Maryland after allegedly confessing to both murders, authorities announced Wednesday.

“We now know even more about the dangers the killer presented to the entire national capital region,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a press briefing.

The murder of Eige Sober-Adler was among Fairfax County’s notable cold cases. The 37-year-old was found dead in a field in Herndon on Sept. 9, 1987, badly beaten.

Helem allegedly confessed to the murder during an interview with Fairfax County detectives in October, officials said.

“Detectives were able to corroborate this confession with details known only to the killer,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said during the Wednesday briefing.

On Tuesday, a grand jury indicted Helem for murder in connection to Sober-Adler’s death. Descano said his office will now pursue a “vigorous” prosecution of Helem.

Authorities in Prince George’s County, Maryland, have also charged Helem in connection with an unsolved murder in Mount Rainier. Jennifer Landry, 19, was found dead in a wooded area on Aug. 15, 2002. An autopsy determined she had died of asphyxia and cutting wounds to her neck. It took nearly three years for police to positively identify her body.

In 2010 and 2017, Helem sent letters to law enforcement claiming to have information on the Landry murder, though he refused to speak with detectives until last year, police said.

“He verbally confessed to killing Jennifer Landry,” Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz said during the briefing.

Helem initially provided information on the unsolved Fairfax County murder while talking to Prince George’s County detectives, police said.

It is unclear if Helem has an attorney. Court records for Fairfax County and Prince George’s County not have yet listed his case.

Davis and Aziz said authorities are exploring whether Helem may be connected to other unsolved cases.

The parents of both women are deceased, authorities said, though officials in both counties said they hoped the latest charges bring some closure to the victims’ surviving families and friends.

“My team and our partners in law enforcement did not waver in our dedication to seek answers and pursue justice in this cold case,” Descano said.

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(NEW YORK) — Recent attacks on Jewish institutions — including the 10-hour-long hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas on Jan. 15 — have cast a dark shadow on the simple act of walking into a Jewish institution.

The faith-based attacks have forced community leaders to prioritize security and safety precautions to maintain their ability to pray, congregate and practice their faith, Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, told ABC News.

“This is not new,” Fingerhut said. “This has been a particularly violent period of attacks on Jewish institutions and on Jewish community.”

On Jan. 15, an armed suspect that claimed to have bombs took a rabbi and three others hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was held hostage, told reporters that his training with the Jewish-led security training organization Secure Community Network helped get his congregants out safely.

Since antisemitism is still present in the U.S., protecting one’s congregation is key, community leaders say. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked 2,024 antisemitic incidents in 2020, the third-highest year on record since the organization began tracking these incidents in 1979.

Faith-based communities will “likely” continue to be the target of violence “by both domestic violent extremists and those inspired by foreign terrorists,” according to a note sent on Monday to law enforcement officials and houses of worship nationwide by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

“The fact that he’d been trained like so many members of the clergy and other communal leaders in active shooter drills, in hostage crises, and how to deal with terrorist scenarios unfolding in your synagogue … it’s actually not a surprise,” ADL’s CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt told ABC News.

“We are in an environment where, whether you run a synagogue or a JCC [Jewish community center] or a day school or a summer camp, you need to take action and be vigilant because of the very real threat of violence,” Greenblatt said.

The Secure Community Network is a national security initiative composed of former high-level law enforcement officials that work across 146 federations and more than 300 individual groups. They train religious leaders in threat and vulnerability assessments, training and drill programs.

Brad Orsini, the organization’s senior national security advisor, said that in Texas, leaders were taught basic situational awareness: what to look for, what suspicious behavior may look like. They also engaged in active shooter training, countering an active threat training and life-saving training to stop bleeding.

“We really teach that community the necessary tools to stay alive for three to five minutes prior to law enforcement getting there,” Orsini told ABC News. “Law enforcement is not there when an incident happens so we need to know those initial steps to keep ourselves alive.”

The organization said it also provides a 24/7 analyst who is on alert for security threats from across the country.

Security and safety training are beginning to become a part of daily life as Jewish leaders, Fingerhut said. He said they’re doing what it takes to protect the community’s ability to practice their faith rightfully and freely.

“The basis of our religion is the community,” Fingerhut said. “If people are afraid to take their kids to a JCC or to summer camp or afraid to go to synagogue to pray with their community, that would be the ultimate tragedy.”

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(CHICAGO) — It was reopening day at a greater Chicago mass vaccination site Tuesday, as local health officials bring previously closed locations back online to meet renewed demand during the omicron surge.

Cook County closed the last of its six suburban mass vaccination sites six months ago due to declining demand and as vaccine administrations shifted more to pharmacies and doctors’ offices. But with renewed interest in recent weeks, county officials have been encouraged to reopen several of the sites operated by Cook County Health.

“With the surge in omicron, we’ve actually seen an increase in interest in, particularly, boosters,” Dr. Gregory Huhn, Cook County Health’s vaccine coordinator and an infectious disease physician, told ABC News. “We believed that we would need this type of opportunity again to really meet that demand, as people recognize the importance of vaccination in combating against omicron.”

About 80% of Cook County residents have received at least one vaccine dose, while 40% of those eligible have gotten their booster, Huhn said.

A majority — around 75% — of Cook County Health’s patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and that rate is higher for those in the intensive care unit and on ventilators, according to Huhn.

“We will have breakthrough infections, we know that,” Huhn said. “But with the booster, we’re able to generate enough antibodies to protect people against the progression of their infection and disease, to keep them out of the hospital and keep them from dying.”

On Tuesday, the first of three mass vaccination sites reopening across the county started administering doses again. There were a couple hundred appointments scheduled, and more walk-ins.

Stephen Gallardo showed up to the Forest Park site after trying more than a week to get his booster elsewhere, he told Chicago ABC station WLS. “Most places are booked for a while,” he told the station.

The other two sites are scheduled to open Thursday and Saturday, with all three offering weekend hours.

Local leaders are hoping the weekends will draw out residents who have not yet gotten their first dose.

“We know that certain populations have not availed themselves of the vaccines, so what we hope to see is church congregations coming on Sundays to get vaccines here in Forest Park,” Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins told reporters Tuesday.

All three sites are in former big-box stores, which have provided a large amount of open space to easily maneuver patients from station to station, Huhn said.

“We find that this type of environment is really highly conducive to our vaccine operations and efficiency,” he said.

When the sites first opened nearly a year ago, they were partially staffed by members of the National Guard. Now, they’re relying on both Cook County Health administrators and support from nursing agencies.

The clinics will run as long as there is demand.

“We have adequate vaccine supply, we have the staff,” Huhn said. “We really want to make it easy and accessible for everybody to get the vaccine that they need.”

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(NEW YORK) — A series of “missed opportunities” and an overreliance on false statements made by Robert Durst delayed his prosecution for the murder of his then-wife, Kathleen “Kathie” Durst, by almost 40 years, Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah said Wednesday.

Rocah’s office released a 13-page report that probed the entire scope of the investigation and found both police and prosecutors relied too much on Robert Durst’s alibis that his wife was last seen in Manhattan before she disappeared from their South Salem home on Jan. 31, 1982. Her body has never been discovered.

Even though Robert Durst’s claims were refuted by other evidence, investigators continued their search for Kathie Durst in New York City instead of Westchester, the report said.

“In short, it appears that the initial investigation suffered to some degree from ‘tunnel vision’ — having a theory of a case, which is maintained even when there are red flags that should cause those initial theories to be questioned,” the report said.

New York investigators uncovered evidence that showed Kathie Durst was the victim of domestic violence by Robert Durst before she was killed. Neighbors at the Dursts’ Manhattan residence told investigators at the time that Kathleen Durst had knocked on their window seeking protection from her husband, who allegedly beat her and threatened to shoot her.

Neighbors of his South Salem home refuted Robert Durst’s claims that he stopped by their house for drinks after he dropped off Kathie at a train station the night of her disappearance.

“And yet focus of the investigation remained guided by Durst’s version of events that he had driven her to the train to New York City on the night she disappeared,” Rocah said at a news conference Wednesday.

Susan Berman, Durst’s friend and unofficial spokeswoman, also gave questionable statements to the police suggesting Kathie had run off with another man, the report said.

Berman was murdered in 2000 before she was set to speak with police for a follow-up investigation into Kathie’s disappearance. Robert Durst was arrested in 2015 and charged in connection with Berman’s death, following the airing of the final episode of the HBO documentary “The Jinx,” where he was recorded on a hot mic allegedly incriminating himself.

Robert Durst was convicted in Berman’s death last year and was sentenced to life in prison in October. Shortly after the sentencing, Rocah’s office charged Durst with Kathie Durst’s murder.

Robert Durst died of natural causes earlier this month in custody.

Kathie Durst’s family wasn’t invited to Rocah’s press conference, according to family attorney Robert Abrams, who added that they’re calling for Rocah’s resignation. She was elected as DA in November 2020.

“There have been numerous individuals, including members of the Durst family, that have knowingly and intentionally participated in a criminal conspiracy to help Robert Durst avoid prosecution,” Abrams said in a statement. “Through her misrepresentations and omissions, DA Rocah must now be considered part of the cover-up.”

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