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A white Cleveland patrolman who shot a 12-year-old black boy carrying a pellet gun told investigators that he and his partner continuously yelled “show me your hands” before he fired the fatal shots, according to the officer’s statement released by prosecutors Tuesday.

The rookie officer said of the estimated two-second encounter that Tamir Rice didn’t obey his commands and that he saw the boy pulling a weapon out of his waist band.

“I knew it was a gun and I knew it was coming out,” officer Timothy Loehmann said in the statement given to investigators.

It turned out Tamir was carrying a nonlethal, Airsoft-type gun that shoots plastic pellets when Loehmann shot him twice outside a recreation center on Nov. 22, 2014. He died a day later.

A grand jury will decide if Loehmann or his field training officer should be charged criminally for Tamir’s death.

Prosecutors in recent weeks released a frame-by-frame analysis of the surveillance camera footage from the shooting, along with expert reports that called the shooting justified.

Attorneys for the Rice family have asked Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty to step aside and allow a special prosecutor to take over the case. They called the prosecutor’s presentation to the grand jury “biased” and “improper” after releasing the reports that found no fault with the officers’ actions.

They said Tuesday that allowing both officers to make unsworn statements that won’t be subject to cross examination “further taints these proceedings.”

The statements from Loehmann and patrolman Frank Garmback describe in detail action that the surveillance video shows took about two seconds.

They were responding after a 911 caller reported that a man was waving a gun and pointing it at people. The caller told the dispatcher that the gun might not be real. The call also said the man might be a juvenile, but that information wasn’t passed on to the officers.

Loehmann said he and his partner thought Tamir was going to run as they drove up to him, but Tamir turned toward the cruiser.

“The suspect lifted his shirt, reached down into his waistband. We continued to yell ‘show me your hands,'” Loehmann said in the statement. “I was focused on the suspect. Even when he was reaching into his waistband, I didn’t fire. I still was yelling the command ‘show me your hands.'”

The rookie officer said he was getting out of the cruiser when he saw a weapon in the boy’s hand coming out his waistband. “The threat to my partner and myself was real and active,” Loehmann said.

He said he fired two shots and heard his partner still yelling “show me your hands” after Tamir fell to the ground.

Garmback, who was driving the cruiser, said in his statement that he wanted to keep the boy away from the recreation center and that the patrol car slid when he hit the brakes. The car didn’t stop where he intended, Garmback said.

He said he saw the gun Tamir was carrying when Loehmann opened his door. “I thought the gun was real,” Garmback said.

Subodh Chandra, an attorney for Tamir’s family, said Tuesday that the officers’ statements were contradictory and did not make sense.

“Loehmann, for example, insists that he observed things and took action that would have been physically impossible for any human being to do in the under two seconds it took him to shoot a 12-year-old child,” he said in a statement.

Chandra also noted that Loehmann said he issued at least three commands to “show me your hands,” but that Garmback said he thought the cruiser’s windows were rolled up as they drove toward Tamir.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The coast of southern Chile has become a grave for 337 sei whales that were found beached in what scientists say is one of the biggest whale strandings ever recorded.

Biologist Vreni Haussermann told The Associated Press Tuesday that she made the discovery along with other scientists in June during an observation flight over fjords in Chile’s southern Patagonia region. The team has been collecting samples since then.

“This is one of the largest strandings worldwide,” said Haussermann, the director of the Huinay Scientific Field Station, which focuses on marine research. She declined to disclose the conclusions, which will be published by a scientific journal later this year.

The scientific expedition counted 305 bodies and 32 skeletons of whales through aerial and satellite photography in the remote Aysen area between the Gulf of Penas and Puerto Natales. The cause of death of the sei whales is unknown, but human intervention has been ruled out.

Whale strandings are common in Aysen, a region of southern Patagonia where rainfall is nearly constant and rivers plunge from Andean glaciers to the Pacific Ocean through green valleys and fjords.

“They probably died at sea, we don’t know exactly where, but they didn’t just die by stranding,” said Carolina Simon Gutstein, a paleontologist at University of Chile who was part of the team.

Sei, humpback and blue whales, which belong to the rorquals family, are the largest group of baleen whales, and “are not normally seen gathering in large groups,” Gutstein said.

Scientists say the whale die-off might help them find out more about their habits and develop policies to protect them, including the creation of a whale sanctuary in the Gulf of Penas.

The first 37 beached whales were found in April by a team led by Haussermann. They alerted the National Fisheries Service, which launched an investigation in May together with environmental police and the Chilean Navy.

Since the Fisheries Service did not carry out observation flights, the scientists got funding for their own flights in June and August. They were unable to examine the whales because the area is so remote, the coast is so steep and the sea is so rough that it makes it nearly impossible to land. But they were still able to take the photographs to confirm the deaths.

Based on their size and location, scientists believe they are all sei whales. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the sei as an endangered species. Also called pollack, adults can be longer than 50 feet (15 meters) and weigh 20 tons or more.

Between 1999 and 2001, about 600 gray whales were stranded on the North American Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico. But scientists say it happened over a longer period of time and in a larger area.

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After failing twice to land a rocket on a ship at sea, SpaceX plans to try again in December — but this time on solid ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida Today reports.

SpaceX, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, wants to lower the cost of getting to space by recycling used rockets instead of dumping them in the ocean after every launch. To that end the company has tried landing them on a robotic barge at sea.

Two recent launches — in April and February — went smoothly and delivered payloads to space, but SpaceX has yet to nail the landing part.

Both rockets toppled over and blew up while trying to land:

Those explosions happened well out of harm’s way in the middle of the ocean. But now SpaceX wants to stick the landing on solid ground.

It might sound risky, since Cape Canaveral is somewhat closer to populated areas, but it actually makes a lot of sense:

“The company still believes it has shown that it can steer a booster from space back to the ground with precision, and that trying to land on an unstable target bobbing in the ocean has only added to the challenge,” James Dean writes for Florida Today.

The stakes are pretty high.

The December launch will be the company’s first since a disaster in June, when one of its rockets exploded in midair on the way to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. And the landing attempt will happen just weeks after Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin successfully landed a rocket after launching it just past the edge of space, 62 miles above the Earth.

However, Blue Origin’s rocket didn’t have enough power to launch anything into orbit around the Earth. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket does. So what SpaceX is attempting here is exponentially more challenging.

Still, Musk seemed a little ruffled by Bezos’ success, and he declared a land-based landing would be next on Twitter:

A rocket costs upwards of $60 million, and right now they can only be used once. If we can successfully land rockets and reuse them after each launch, it could dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight.

SpaceX has not yet announced the exact date of the December launch-and-landing attempt, which has to be approved by Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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Derek Jeter’s media startup, The Players’ Tribune, has drawn a lot of interest from sports fans because all the articles are written by current and former pro athletes.

But the biggest spark came on Sunday, when Kobe Bryant announced his retirement exclusively through a post on The Players’ Tribune.

Bryant’s post was the most trafficked story ever on the site, attracting more than a million visits within the first two hours of going live — and causing the Players’ Tribune to shut down temporarily on Sunday.

“It’s fair to say the post caused the site to crash,” the company told us in an email.

In large part due to Bryant’s post, the Players’ Tribune also had the best month to date in November. The site said it’s averaging two million unique visitors per month, with each visit generating 4 to 5 minutes of average time on page, but last month saw over 4 million uniques.

Bryant’s decision to announce his retirement through Jeter’s startup shouldn’t have been surprising if you’ve been following the company since its launch last year. Bryant led the $5.5 million follow-on Series B round of investment in October, according to Crunchbase, and said he’s made a “significant investment” in the site.

The Players’ Tribune, founded in 2014 by Jeter following his retirement from baseball, has raised a total of $18 million to date. The venture capital firm NEA is also a big investor in the company.

The site started out with a single post a month, but now it’s generating multiple stories a day. Some of the other most popular posts were written by Pete Sampras, David Ortiz, and Jason Collins.

SEE ALSO: Derek Jeter has a startup that just raised $9.5 million in funding

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AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs during an explosion in Afghanistan hopes to inspire others with his story of how he recovered from his injuries and got on with his life partly by helping other amputees.

Travis Mills is raising his family, delivering motivational speeches and helping other wounded warriors through his foundation.

With his book, “Tough As They Come,” he’s added author to his accomplishments.

“My message is pretty clear. Never give up. Never quit. Find your motivation. Find your goals. And keep moving,” he said Tuesday.

He joked with people at a bookstore, patiently signing books with a Sharpie, using his prosthetic hand. He’s right-handed and the prosthesis is on the left hand, making it even more difficult to write.

Mills, 28, was an Army staff sergeant with the 82nd Airborne Division on his third deployment when an improvised explosive device detonated when he dropped his backpack on the ground during a foot patrol on April 10, 2012. The blast disintegrated his right arm and leg. His other leg was left dangling and his remaining wrist was shredded.

The former 6-foot-3, 230-pound athlete awoke four days later, on his 25th birthday, to learn he had no limbs. He endured 19 months of rehabilitation. He told his wife to leave, but she stayed by his side.

Mills isn’t alone in having lost parts of all four limbs. He’s one of five quadruple amputees to survive the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he’s met the others.

Mills’ recovery was remarkable. He’s been snowboarding and mountain biking. He’s jumped out of planes. He’s started a foundation that bought property formerly owned by cosmetics pioneer Elizabeth Arden with a goal of transforming it into a fully accessible summer retreat to help other wounded veterans and their families.

He’s visited war amputees at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and traveled to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston to meet with Boston Marathon bombing victims who lost limbs.

He’s happy to be able to provide hope.

“I’m able to inspire and change people. I don’t do it by saying, ‘You think you have it bad? Then look at me.’ I’ll never play that card,” Mills said.

Collaborating with Marcus Brotherton on a book that Mills describes as equal parts “Saving Private Ryan” and “Forrest Gump” seemed like a logical step because others draw inspiration from the story of a small-town boy from Vassar, Michigan, who’s managed to maintain a positive outlook after debilitating injuries.

Tuesday’s book-signing event was the first near his hometown of Manchester, Maine, and the store ran out of books. Signings also are planned this month in Texas, where he lived after leaving the hospital, and in Michigan.

Mills said part of maintaining a positive outlook is keeping things in perspective. He said he’s lucky that modern medical care saved his life. He’s grateful that his wife, Kelsey, stuck with him. He’s happy to be able to make waffles for breakfast and to drive his 4-year-old daughter Chloe to pre-school every day.

It’s common for people to refer to Mills as a “wounded warrior.”

He said he’s living with scars, but he’s no longer wounded.

“I don’t want people to pity me. I’m not a sob story. People need to understand that it’s up to them to change their outlook on life and how they view themselves,” he said.

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This story has been corrected to show Mills’ Michigan hometown is Vassar, not Vashar.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mere days after Clay Helton took over as Southern California’s interim coach seven weeks ago, his Trojans began lobbying loudly for their beloved assistant to get the permanent job.

Now that the No. 24 Trojans (8-4, 5-3 Pac-12) have exactly what they wanted, they’re even more motivated to show their appreciation to athletic director Pat Haden with a victory in the Pac-12 championship game.

“We all love Coach Helton, and for Mr. Haden to make that decision just makes everybody more pumped up,” tailback Justin Davis said. “To know that we have a permanent head coach makes me want to play for him that much harder. It’s great.”

Helton thought the Trojans looked particularly sharp Tuesday in their first practice since he agreed to a five-year contract. USC travels to Santa Clara, California, to face No. 7 Stanford (10-2, 8-1) on Saturday for a chance at the league title and a Rose Bowl berth.

“We were all pushing for him to be the head coach,” receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said. “He got the job, and we’re all excited. There’s no more need to worry about what’s going on with that. We can just focus on Stanford.”

USC was 3-2 when Steve Sarkisian was fired in mid-October, but the Trojans captured the Pac-12 South title by winning five of their last seven games, losing only on the road to national powers Notre Dame and Oregon.

Helton’s steady guidance is all over USC’s midseason resurgence, but the Trojans realize the career assistant wasn’t a glamorous choice for one of college football’s most prominent jobs. Yet nobody who actually wears the cardinal-and-gold uniform seems to care what others think.

“People outside (USC), they might not know about him,” Davis said. “But if they just met him, sat down 10 minutes with him, they would know it’s the right decision.”

Davis is averaging 110 yards on the ground over the past four games in Helton’s run-first offense, teaming with freshman Ronald Jones II at the front of USC’s horde of talented tailbacks.

“Toward the beginning of the season, I felt like we really didn’t have an identity as a team,” Davis said. “These past few weeks, we’ve really established this physical, hard-nosed football type of identity, and going forward, I think that’s the best chance we have to win against Stanford.”

Davis was recruited out of Stockton by Helton, and he quickly formed a tight bond with the assistant coach. His observations over the past several years echo the opinions of many teammates: In the wild world of elite college football, Helton is an island of stability.

“Some recruiters, I can kind of tell that they’re just fake,” Davis said. “The thing about Coach Helton, anybody can tell you that he was the same way recruiting me that he is right now. He’s such a great person, and that’s how he operates.”

Quarterback Cody Kessler advocated emotionally for Helton, his longtime position coach, after the Trojans’ win over UCLA last weekend. But the opinion of Kessler’s probable successor likely carries more weight — and it is equally strong.

Max Browne, the nation’s top quarterback recruit in 2013, is likely to be the Trojans’ starter next year after three seasons behind Kessler. Although Browne believes he could thrive in any offensive system, he was thrilled to learn he will be playing in 2016 under Helton, the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator who recruited him out of the Seattle suburbs.

“Over my 3 1/2 years here, he’s been the one stable portion,” said Browne, a part of the recruiting class that has had four head coaches in three years. “Being a quarterback, that’s a big decision with my future, so you pay attention to it. But I knew if we took care of the South, Coach Helton would have a great shot at getting the job, and that’s exactly what happened.”

NOTES: C Khaliel Rogers received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his sprained ankle to speed its healing. He still hopes to play Saturday, but fourth-string center Nico Falah and emergency fifth-stringer Viane Talamaivao worked out at the position. … Five Trojans made the all-conference first team chosen by the league’s coaches: Smith-Schuster, LB Su’a Cravens, CB Adoree Jackson, DT Antwaun Woods and OT Zach Banner. … Banner claimed he hasn’t decided whether to head for the NFL next year.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with rising pressure from Congress, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday that the Obama administration is pursuing ways to counter Russia’s violation of a key arms control treaty, but actions will be rolled into a broader response to Kremlin aggression in Ukraine and other parts of the world.

The U.S. announced last year that Russia is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that President Ronald Reagan signed with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Russia has not acknowledged the violation, which dates to as early as 2008, or addressed concerns that U.S. officials have been raising with Moscow since 2013.

The treaty says the U.S. and Russia cannot possess, produce or test-fly a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. Possessing or producing launchers of these type of missiles also is banned under the treaty, which helps protect the security of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Far East.

“The evidence is conclusive,” Brian McKeon, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, told members of a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. “Russia has tested this ground-based system well into the ranges covered by the INF treaty. We are talking about a real system and not a potential capability.”

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said he has long asked the administration about how it would respond to the treaty violation. “How are we going to convince the Russians that we do mean business, if we do mean business? What’s the administration going to do to hold the Russians’ feet to the fire and hold them accountable?”

McKeon said the Joint Chiefs of Staff has conducted a military assessment of the threat posed to the U.S. or its allies if Russia were to deploy one of these cruise missiles in Europe or the Asia-Pacific region. Since then, defense officials have reviewed a range of military options. That review, he said, comes at a time when Russia is modernizing its military systems, destabilizing European security through its annexation of Crimea, battling Ukraine forces in eastern Ukraine and conducting airstrikes against U.S.-backed forces fighting against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The goal, McKeon said, is not to make Russia an enemy, but to make sure its treaty violations do not leave Moscow with a military advantage over the U.S. or its allies. But he said that in light of recent aggressive behavior by Russia, the U.S. response cannot be solely focused on the treaty violation.

That provoked a response from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

“My fear is that this set of responses that have been prepared a year ago for consideration are now going to get just blended into the new challenges that we have to face,” Rogers said. “And we’re going to get no action on the violations of the INF treaty. That is a longstanding violation that needs an appropriate response by this nation.”

McKeon offered only a broad outline of what new actions the Obama administration is pursuing and what additional activities it will seek congressional funding to implement. McKeon, who testified with Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, promised to share more details with the lawmakers in a classified session that followed the public hearing.

He said the U.S. is maintaining a persistent air, land and sea presence of U.S. forces in the Baltics and central Europe to conduct multilateral military exercises, reassure its allies and build up their capacities. The U.S. is modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, working with NATO to improve readiness and urging allies to invest more in defense, he said.

McKeon said the U.S. was positioning tanks, artillery, infantry, fighting vehicles and other equipment in the region. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland have agreed to host company- or battalion-sized units of the equipment, which will be moved around the region for training, he said.

He also said the U.S. also expanding air defense systems to deny Russia’s offensive capabilities.

“We are investing in the technologies that are most relevant to Russia’s provocations, developing new unmanned systems, a new long-range bomber, a new long-range stand-off cruise missile and a number of innovative technologies,” McKeon said.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Islamic State group has between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters in Libya and has demonstrated its intention to control more territory in the strategically located North African country — but it is only one player among multiple warring factions, United Nations experts said in a report Tuesday.

The experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida and spinoff groups said in the report to the U.N. Security Council that the Islamic State group is benefiting from its “appeal” and notoriety in Iraq and Syria and poses “an evident short and long-term threat in Libya.”

The group’s central command views Libya “as the ‘best’ opportunity to expand its so-called caliphate” from Syria and Iraq, the experts said.

The 24-page report cautioned, however, that the group “faces strong resistance from the population, as well as difficulties in building and maintaining local alliances” — and stressed that its threat “needs to be realistically assessed.”

Nonetheless, the experts said there is concern at the spread of the Islamic State group in Libya, given the country’s strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea and its use as a transit point in North Africa.

More territory would not only enable IS and al-Qaida-linked groups to further influence ongoing conflicts in North Africa and the Sahel but give the extremists a new hub outside the Middle East, they said.

Eight independent experts were appointed by the Secretary-General to write the report, with expertise in counter-terrorism, financing of terrorism, arms embargoes, travel bans and related legal issues.

Oil-rich Libya slid into chaos following the 2011 toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. It is divided between an elected parliament and government based in the eastern port city of Tobruk and an Islamist militia-backed government in the capital Tripoli — with militants from IS and al-Qaida also exploiting the chaos.

The United Nations has been pressing the rival governments to form a national unity government, so far unsuccessfully. The international community views a united government as the first step toward addressing the threat posed by extremist groups, and the perilous migration by tens of thousands of asylum seekers across the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe.

The report said the current political and security challenges in Libya have provided an opportunity for IS and al-Qaida-linked groups including Ansar al-Sharia, which took part in the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb known as AQIM, “to opportunistically exploit and complicate an already difficult situation on the ground.”

It said Ansar Al-Sharia in Benghazi and Ansar Al-Sharia in Derna “seem to have weakened” since the Islamic State group established a foothold in Libya, due to the loss of fighters who either joined IS or were killed during clashes with its militants.

AQIM, the Islamic extremist group Al-Mourabitoun which carried out attacks in Mali last month, and Ansar Al-Sharia in Tunisia, “continue to use the country as a rear base for their operations in the region,” the report said.

The panel said senior leaders of AQIM, which has taken advantage of the turmoil in Libya since 2011, see the growing appeal of IS as serious competition for their group.

According to the experts, the Islamic State group in Libya is the only known affiliate to benefit from support and guidance from IS headquarters. They cited two reasons — around 800 Libyans who previously fought for IS in Syria and Iraq are now fighting for IS in Libya, and the group’s leaders continue to send emissaries from the Mideast to Libya with instructions.

The panel said the relatively quick establishment and expansion of the Islamic State group in Libya was a surprise to many local groups. In addition to the returning Libyan fighters, it said IS has benefited from a sizable contingent of fighters from the Maghreb and a significant number of defectors from local Libyan groups.

Several U.N. member states told the experts “that in total (IS) has no more than 2,000-3,000 fighters in Libya,” with about 1,500 now in Sirte, the report said.

Islamic State fighters took control of Sirte in February but the group has faced “strong resistance from armed residents” and sporadic clashes continue, it said.

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BALTIMORE (AP) — A jury will be seated Wednesday for the trial of Officer William Porter, the first of six Baltimore police officers to stand trial in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of a spinal injury he suffered in custody.

The panel will be chosen from some of the 150 prospective jurors questioned Monday and Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court.

SEATING A JURY

The jury of 12 people, plus several alternates, will be seated Wednesday, possibly followed by opening statements, court spokeswoman Terri Charles said.

They’ll hear the case in a building known as Courthouse East, across the street from the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse where preliminary jury screening took place.

Judge Barry Williams has ordered extraordinary measures to shield the identities of prospective jurors. Their names have not been publicly released, and much of the preliminary screening, including dismissal notifications, was done out of public view.

A verdict is likely to set the tone for the city. If Officer William Porter is acquitted, there could be protests and possibly more unrest. A conviction could send shock waves through the city’s troubled police department.

THE DEFENDANT AND THE CHARGES

Officer William Porter, 26, was born and raised in Baltimore. He had been on the force for three years when he was charged in Freddie Gray’s death last spring. Porter faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. Prosecutors say he asked Gray, who had been placed in the back of a police transport van with handcuffs and leg shackles, if he needed a medic. But when Gray responded that he couldn’t breathe, Porter did not call for aid and instead simply picked Gray up off the floor of the van and placed him on a bench, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors also say Porter was negligent for failing to buckle Gray into a seatbelt. Porter told investigators that he was familiar with Gray and thought he was faking his injury. “It’s always a big scene whenever you attempted to arrest Freddie Gray,” Porter told investigators, according to a recent court filing.

He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of the three most serious charges. Punishment for misconduct in office is left to the judge’s discretion.

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THE VICTIM

Freddie Gray died on April 19, a week after he was critically injured in the back of a police transport van. On April 12, Gray was arrested outside the Gilmor Homes, a public housing complex in West Baltimore, after making eye contact with a Baltimore police officer on bike patrol and running from the officer.

Gray had a knife that defense attorneys maintain was an illegal switchblade. Prosecutors say it was a legal folding knife and he should have never been arrested.

Gray was handcuffed and put in the back of a police transport van. During a 45-minute ride from the Gilmor Homes to the Western District station house, the van made several stops during which officers, including Porter, checked on Gray but did not render medical aid despite Gray’s repeated requests.

THE TRIAL

Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams will preside over the six officers’ trials. He previously ruled to keep the trials in Baltimore, denying a series of defense motions to move them out of town on the grounds that pretrial publicity and the citywide curfew after the riot would make it particularly difficult to empanel a fair and impartial jury.

Williams has called 150 potential jurors in for questioning. He said he expects the trial to wrap up no later than Dec. 17.

THE CITY AND THE STAKES

The verdict in Officer William Porter’s trial will likely set the tone for the city as well as the rest of the proceedings.

Freddie Gray’s death inspired thousands to take to the streets in protest. The day he was buried, looting and rioting broke out along swaths of East and West Baltimore, causing millions of dollars in property damage and prompting a five-day, citywide curfew.

In the riot’s aftermath, the city’s commissioner Anthony Batts was fired amid harsh criticism from rank-and-file police officers that he and his administration mishandled the unrest. In May the homicide rate began to climb, leading some residents in poor, violent neighborhoods to blame the police for taking a hands-off approach to the crime fight. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced shortly after that she wouldn’t seek re-election.

Since April’s unrest the city’s homicide rate has continued to climb, but the protests have remained peaceful. In October, a group of high school students were arrested after staging a sit-in at City Hall during the swearing-in ceremony for Commissioner Kevin Davis, who took over for Batts.

“Everything is at stake. The future of the city is at stake,” Davis said.

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This story has been corrected to show that Porter is 26, not 25.

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There are two clear winners on Wall Street through 2015 so far.

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs lead the pack in global investment bank revenue across fixed income, equities, and banking for the first nine months of the year, according to data-analytics company Coalition.

And they’re pulling away from the competition.

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs also ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in overall global revenues in the same period last year. But importantly, those two firms were also the two strongest performers this year compared to last year.

That’s indicated by the green arrows in the graphic below.

Deutsche Bank and Citi are tied for third place in the investment bank revenue ranking, followed by Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, which tied for fifth place. That marks an improvement for Morgan Stanley, which ranked sixth last year. 

Credit Suisse, Barclays, UBS, and BNP Paribas round out the top ten.

In fixed income, JPMorgan and Citigroup rank joint first, while in equities Morgan Stanley ranks number one. JP Morgan ranks number one in traditional investment banking.

Here are the full rankings from this year and last year, via Coalition:

SEE ALSO: 3 slides show just how brutal 2015 has been for Wall Street’s biggest business

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