Midday Roundup: Baltimore seethes as Freddie Gray is laid to rest

Laid to (un)rest. Representatives from the White House and families of police brutality victims joined mourners today at the Baltimore funeral for Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old African-American man died April 19 after being injured in the back of a police van. His family members have said his voice box was crushed and his spinal cord injured. Anti-police protests in Baltimore turned violent Saturday. Police arrested about 35 people, but insist most demonstrations in the city have been peaceful. “We had a few people, mainly from out of town, to come and to start beating up on police cars and throwing all kinds of projectiles,” U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said. Gray’s death is under investigation, but no one has said exactly what happened in the van after he was arrested. Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts has said officers should have offered medical care to Gray sooner than they did.

Questionable cash. A forthcoming book calls for an investigation into massive foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. “Is it coincidence in a pattern that we see repeated dozens of times where large Clinton supporters have business before the State Department; they make large payments and favorable actions are taken?” Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, asked Sunday on Fox News. “I don’t think that coincidences occur that frequently.” The foundation’s acting CEO, Maura Pally, said in a blog post Sunday the organization had made mistakes and was working to correct them, including redoing tax filings from recent years.

Due process. The trial of James Holmes, accused in a mass shooting at an Aurora, Colo., theater in 2012, begins today with opening statements. Holmes’ attorneys plan to present an insanity defense, admitting he committed the shooting but saying he was psychotic at the time. Lawyers and investigators involved in the case for the past 2 1/2 years have been under a gag order, so the trial likely will reveal much previously unknown information about the crime and Holmes, who faces 24 counts of murder and the death penalty.

Showing restraint. Pro-family demonstrators are gathering at the Supreme Court today to deliver hundreds of thousands of letters in support of traditional marriage. The court will hear oral arguments tomorrow in several cases about whether states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. At the “Restrain the Judges” event today, protesters will “be delivering hundreds of thousands of ‘restraining orders’ from Americans who stand united against a court contemplating the Roe v. Wade of marriage,” according to a press release from Conservative Republicans of Texas.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry contributed to this report.