After two nights of protests over another police shooting in Minneapolis, attorneys on Tuesday began building the case in defense of former officer Derek Chauvin. They called witnesses who encountered George Floyd in a 2019 police stop about one year before he died. Retired police officer Scott Creighton testified that Floyd’s May 6, 2019, arrest escalated quickly. Retired paramedic Michelle Moseng said Floyd told her he had high blood pressure and he had been taking multiple opioids every 20 minutes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policy change on Tuesday allows women to receive an abortion pill without visiting a doctor’s office or clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The FDA’s acting head, Janet Woodcock, said recent studies “do not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns” when women take the pill without first visiting a health facility.

President Joe Biden has decided to leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 deadline, the timeline that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban. Biden’s new goal is to pull soldiers out before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks later this year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday said they were investigating potentially dangerous blood clots in six women who received the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine. In the meantime, they recommended the country pause use of the shot. The reported complications appeared in women within two weeks of vaccination, and they also had low platelets in veins that drain blood from the brain. Federal officials want time to investigate and educate doctors on spotting and treating the clots.

Iran will increase its uranium enrichment levels to 60 percent, just shy of weapons-grade level, nuclear negotiator Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday. The 2015 nuclear deal only allowed 3.67 percent enrichment, but Iran boosted its levels to 20 percent after the assassination of its lead scientist in January. Araghchi said formal talks in Vienna to restore the nuclear deal would begin Thursday.

Hundreds of protesters defied a nighttime curfew on Monday and clashed with police for a second night in Brooklyn Center, Minn., following Sunday’s fatal shooting of a black man during a traffic stop. Police in riot gear used gas canisters and flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowds. Authorities reported the arrests of about 40 people and minor injuries to some police officers. Earlier in the day, Judge Peter Cahill refused a defense attorney’s request to sequester the jury in former officer Derek Chauvin’s trial.

Police officers responded to a report of a possible gunman at a high school in Knoxville, Tenn., Monday afternoon. They found the student inside a bathroom at Austin-East Magnet High School just before afternoon dismissal and asked him to come out. He opened fire and died when police fired back. Authorities said another officer who was shot at least once in the leg is receiving treatment.