The pink-faced young man at the dispatch box of the Oxford Union looked slightly bewildered. He glanced up at the packed chamber, nervously fingering his mop of blond hair, as if he’d been transported there through a window in the space-time continuum.
This was October 1983 and it was a ‘freshers debate’, an opportunity for new arrivals to make a good impression on the senior members of the famous debating society. I was due to speak after this young man and had spent several days preparing.
‘Can someone kindly remind me what the motion is?’ he asked in an exaggerated, upper-class accent. Who was this pantomime toff?
One man is dead and 11 people suffered non-life-threatening wounds in a shooting in Minneapolis, police said early Sunday.
Law enforcement had first said 10 people had been shot with ‘various severity levels of injuries,’ but revised their total upward in a tweet posted just after 3 a.m.
The area is about three miles west of the Minneapolis commercial area and neighborhood hit by rioting in the wake of George Floyd´s May 25 death. Minnesota began allowing bars and restaurants to reopen with limited service on June 1 after some six weeks of closure because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Police had not yet released details on what led to the shooting which is reported to have involved people firing ‘around 80 rounds’ at each other. No one was in custody in connection with the shooting as of 4 a.m.
A preliminary investigation indicated that ‘individuals on foot’ started shooting around 12:30 a.m. and later fled the scene. The victims have not been identified.
Photographs posted to social media show windows at the Landmark’s Uptown Theatre and another storefront shot out. Screams were audible on a live video posted to Facebook that showed the aftermath at the scene.
