Steve Rose

When Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, Armstrong led the fight to bring them to justice. She talks about those terrible days in 2020 – and the battles that lie ahead

As momentous as the murder of George Floyd was, Nekima Levy Armstrong was not particularly shocked when she first heard the news. “Was it a surprise that the Minneapolis police department killed yet another unarmed Black man? No,” she says. “There had been a series of circumstances in which they had used deadly force unjustifiably.” As a civil rights lawyer, past president of the Minneapolis National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a spokesperson for the local Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter, Armstrong was all too familiar with such incidents. Owing to her standing in the city, she was also one of the first to learn of Floyd’s death. She was in for a long night.

Remember Johnny Depp v Amber Heard? If you thought that was ugly, wait till you see Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni. As the stars of It Ends With Us swap lawsuits over claims of sexual harassment, the conservative media has picked its side – and it’s not pulling any punches

Rarely has a film been so un-presciently named as It Ends With Us. This domestic abuse drama was released in August 2024 and was a huge success, earning over $350m worldwide. But that was only the beginning. What has followed is an offscreen conflagration that is not only threatening to consume the careers of the film’s lead actors, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, but continues to set social media and the entertainment industry ablaze. We’ve still got a long way to go before it really ends – a trial is set for March 2026.