By MICHAEL TARM, SCOTT BAUER and AMY FORLITI

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The jury in Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial was to move into a third day of deliberations Thursday, even as its request to re-watch video in the case sparked a fresh bid from his attorneys for a mistrial.

Judge Bruce Schroeder did not immediately rule on the request, which stemmed from the defense team’s assertion that it received an inferior copy of a potentially critical video from prosecutors. It was the second mistrial motion from the defense in a week.

At issue Wednesday was a piece of drone video that prosecutors showed the jury during closing arguments in an attempt to undermine Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim and portray him as the instigator of the bloodshed in Kenosha in the summer of 2020. Prosecutors said the footage showed him pointing his rifle at protesters before the shooting erupted.

Rittenhouse attorney Corey Chirafisi said the defense initially received a smaller compressed version of the video and didn’t get the higher-quality larger one used by the prosecution until the evidence portion of the case was over.

He said that the defense would have approached things differently if it had received the better footage earlier and that it is now asking for “a level, fair playing field.”

Chirafisi said the mistrial request would be made “without prejudice,” meaning prosecutors could still retry Rittenhouse.

Last week, the defense asked for a mistrial with prejudice, meaning Rittenhouse could not be put on trial again. That request was prompted by what the defense said were improper questions asked by prosecutor Thomas Binger during his cross-examination of Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse, 18, is on trial on homicide and attempted homicide charges for killing two men and wounding a third with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle during a tumultuous night of protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Black man, by a white police officer. Rittenhouse, a then-17-year-old former police youth cadet, said he went to Kenosha to protect property from rioters.

He shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, now 28. Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot. The case has become a flashpoint in the debate over guns, racial injustice, vigilantism and self-defense in the U.S.

Rittenhouse could get life in prison if convicted of the most serious charge against him.

The dispute over the video erupted after the jurors asked to re-watch footage on the second day of their deliberations.

Defense attorneys said they would object to the jury viewing the drone video. The same footage prompted a heated dispute earlier in the trial over technical questions of whether a still image taken from the video was distorted when it was enlarged.

The prosecution contends the video proves Rittenhouse lied on the stand when he said he didn’t point his rifle at protesters. But the key moment in the video is hard to decipher because of how far away the drone was and how small a figure Rittenhouse is in the frame.

A smaller file size or lower-resolution video file is fuzzier and grainier, particularly if played on a larger screen, said Dennis Keeling, an adjunct professor in the cinema and television arts department at Columbia College Chicago. That’s why people working with video footage are careful to check the file size, length and other details after making a copy to ensure the new version is what they wanted, he added.

Prosecutors told the judge Wednesday that the jury saw the highest-quality version during the trial and that it was not the state’s fault that the file size got smaller when received by the defense.

“We’re focusing too heavily on a technological glitch,” prosecutor James Kraus said.

The judge said he had “qualms” about admitting the video during the trial, but because it had already been shown in court, he would allow the jury to re-watch it during deliberations.

But if it turns out the video should not have been admitted into evidence, “it’s going to be ugly,” Schroeder warned.

He said the mistrial request will have to be addressed if there is a guilty verdict.

If Rittenhouse is acquitted, the issue will be moot. But if he is found guilty, a mistrial ruling would essentially void the verdict.

Julius Kim, a Milwaukee-based defense attorney who has been watching the case, said a mistrial could be declared even if the judge finds it was an honest mistake or a technical problem.

But to win a mistrial, the defense will have to meet a high bar and explain to the judge why what happened actually hurt Rittenhouse, said Ion Meyn, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“You can’t just say, ‘The state gave me a lower-quality video and therefore I get a mistrial,’” Meyn said. “That’s a losing argument for sure.”

Earlier in the day, the judge criticized news coverage of the case and second-guessing from legal experts in the media, saying he would “think long and hard” about allowing televised trials in the future.

He took exception to news stories about his decisions not to allow the men Rittenhouse shot to be called “victims” and to let Rittenhouse draw the lots that determined which jurors were alternates. The judge also complained about criticism that he had yet to rule on the earlier mistrial request.

Schroeder said he hadn’t had a chance to read the motion because he had just received it and wanted to give the state a chance to weigh in.

“It’s just a shame that irresponsible statements are being made,” the judge said of comments in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story from law school professors.

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Forliti reported from Minneapolis; Bauer from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan; Kathleen Foody from Chicago.

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Find the AP’s full coverage of the Rittenhouse trial: https://apnews.com/hub/kyle-rittenhouse

By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — An estimated 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in one year, a never-before-seen milestone that health officials say is tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more dangerous drug supply.

Overdose deaths have been rising for more than two decades, accelerated in the past two years and, according to new data posted Wednesday, jumped nearly 30% in the latest year.

President Joe Biden called it “a tragic milestone” in a statement, as administration officials pressed Congress to devote billions of dollars more to address the problem.

“This is unacceptable and it requites an unprecedented response,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of National Drug Control Policy.

Experts believe the top drivers of overdose deaths are the growing prevalence of deadly fentanyl in the illicit drug supply and the COVID-19 pandemic, which left many drug users socially isolated and unable to get treatment or other support.

The number is “devastating,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University expert on drug abuse issues. “It’s a magnitude of overdose death that we haven’t seen in this country.”

Drug overdoses now surpass deaths from car crashes, guns and even flu and pneumonia. The total is close to that for diabetes, the nation’s No. 7 cause of death.

Drawing from the latest available death certificate data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 100,300 Americans died of drug overdoses from May 2020 to April 2021. It’s not an official count. It can take many months for death investigations involving drug fatalities to become final, so the agency made the estimate based on 98,000 reports it has received so far.

The CDC previously reported there were about 93,000 overdose deaths in 2020, the highest number recorded in a calendar year. Robert Anderson, the CDC’s chief of mortality statistics, said the 2021 tally is likely to surpass 100,000.

“2021 is going to be terrible,” agreed Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

The new data shows many of the deaths involve illicit fentanyl, a highly lethal opioid that five years ago surpassed heroin as the type of drug involved in the most overdose deaths. Dealers have mixed fentanyl with other drugs — one reason that deaths from methamphetamines and cocaine also are rising.

Drug cartels in Mexico are using chemicals from China to mass produce and distribute fentanyl and meth across America, said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

This year, the DEA has seized 12,000 pounds of fentanyl, a record amount, Milgram said. But public health experts and even police officials say that law enforcement measures will not stop the epidemic, and more needs to be done to dampen demand and prevent deaths.

The CDC has not yet calculated racial and ethnic breakdowns of the overdose victims.

It found the estimated death toll rose in all but four states — Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey and South Dakota — compared with the same period a year earlier. The states with largest increases were Vermont (70%), West Virginia (62%) and Kentucky (55%).

Minnesota saw an increase of about 39%, with estimated overdose deaths rising to 1,188 in May 2020 through April 2021 from 858 in the previous 12-month period.

The area around the city of Mankato has seen its count of overdose deaths rise from two in 2019, to six last year to 16 so far this year, said police Lt. Jeff Wersal, who leads a regional drug task force.

“I honestly don’t see it getting better, not soon,” he said.

Among the year’s victims was Travis Gustavson, who died in February at the age of 21 in Mankato. His blood was found to show signs of fentanyl, heroin, marijuana and the sedative Xanax, Wersal said.

Gustavson was close to his mother, two brothers and the rest of his family, said his grandmother, Nancy Sack.

He was known for his easy smile, she said. “He could be crying when he was a little guy, but if someone smiled at him, he immediately stopped crying and smiled back,” she recalled.

Gustavson first tried drugs as kid and had been to drug treatment as a teenager, Sack said. He struggled with anxiety and depression, but mainly used marijuana and different kinds of pills, she said.

The morning of the day he died, Travis had a tooth pulled, but he wasn’t prescribed strong painkillers because of his drug history, Sack said. He told his mother he would just stay home and ride out the pain with ibuprofen. He was expecting a visit from his girlfriend that night to watch a movie, she said.

But Gustavson contacted Max Leo Miller, also 21, who provided him a bag containing heroin and fentanyl, according to police.

Some details of what happened are in dispute, but all accounts suggest Gustavson was new to heroin and fentanyl.

Police say Gustavson and Miller exchanged messages on social media. At one point, Gustavson sent a photo of a line of a white substance on a brown table and asked if he was taking the right amount and then wrote “Or bigger?”

According to a police report, Miller responded: “Smaller bro” and “Be careful plz!”

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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.