Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Ukraine gamble pays off: Republicans face little backlash in primaries

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Flying budget airlines might not be as cheap as it seems

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

Boeing delays spaceflight again as it continues to struggle with leak

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

Top White House aide to meet Netanyahu, who is under political pressure

The other side of Punta Cana: A crackdown on Haitians

Mexican taquería’s new Michelin star puts street eats on par with gourmet food

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

Tariffs against China hamstring the transition to a clean energy future

In photos: The 149th running of the Preakness Stakes

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

Gov. Doug Burgum speaks in support of Trump

Ask Amy: Should my husband get a say in what I do with my inheritance?

Carolyn Hax: Friends say to break other plans to avoid offending new man

Miss Manners: Gag gift falls flat

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

Kyle Finnegan’s rare hiccup helps Phillies to a 4-3 win in 10 innings

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Walter Johnson’s jersey from 1920 showdown with Babe Ruth sold at auction

Would you eat this weird sandwich? Barry Enderwick would. 

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Trump

Michael Hanson

As demonstrations continue in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in May, the situation in Portland, Ore., remains fraught, with demonstrators again facing off with federal agents overnight.

The Trump administration plans to send Customs and Border Protection tactical officers, who are trained to control riots, to Seattle.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration and the Portland police over alleged attacks on street medics at protests.

The Justice Department inspector general announced that the actions of federal law enforcement at protests in Portland and Washington, D.C. — including the incident in which officers cleared demonstrators from Lafayette Square in June to make way for the president — will be investigated. The Department of Homeland Security inspector general also will investigate the conduct of Customs and Border Protection agents in Portland.

An ice cream shop dispute over a Black Lives Matter pin has sparked three days of protests in Gastonia, N.C., after a woman said the staff at the shop treated her poorly because she was wearing the button.

Gastonia, about 25 miles west of Charlotte, has experienced contentious demonstrations in the days since the dispute at Tony’s Ice Cream, resulting in several arrests. Groups of black protesters have faced off against groups of mostly white counterprotesters. Demonstrators clad in black and bearing guns, who said they were members of the Black Panther Party, marched Wednesday night, according to <a href="https://twitter.com/kenlemonWSOC9/status/1286074090323935232">WSOC reporter Ken Lemon</a>.

The woman, Lydia Sturgues-Robinson, a 31-year-old law school student, told reporters at a news conference Thursday that the incident began when a cashier “failed to look me in my eyes and address me as a person. It was the way she failed to speak to me. It was the way she interacted with the customers prior to me,” Sturgues-Robinson said, according to the <a href="https://www.gastongazette.com/news/20200723/woman-who-sparked-tonyrsquos-protests-speaks-out">Gaston Gazette</a>.

She said another employee told her to leave and patrons in the parking lot jeered at her. “I took the opportunity to have an impromptu protest,” she said, after which she said the police were called and she was arrested.

Since her arrest, demonstrators have assembled daily at the ice cream shop and other locations in Gastonia.

The police responded to “multiple events” at Tony’s Ice Cream and at the county courthouse on Wednesday, according to a statement, though no one was injured and no property was harmed.

The Gastonia police department and the ice cream shop did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. The store managers told local media the situation was a misunderstanding.

Ben Guarino

FILES-US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-RIGHTS-JOHNLEWIS

Fairfax County Public Schools is renaming Robert E. Lee High School in Northern Virginia for the late Georgia congressman John Lewis, a historic switch that follows a wave of similar rechristenings throughout the South.

The school board voted unanimously to change the name to John R. Lewis High School at a virtual meeting Thursday evening. The change comes after several years of efforts to rename the school, a push that stalled last year but gained new momentum after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Some who advocated for the name change were jubilant at the news.

“I LOVE ITTTT,” texted Kadija Ismail, a 17-year-old senior at the high school who launched <a href="https://www.change.org/p/fairfax-county-school-board-change-the-name-of-robert-e-lee-high-school?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_22648775_en-US%3A6&recruiter=328150911&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=tap_basic_share">an online petition</a> in June to change the name. That petition earned more than 1,000 signatures in a day.

Schools in Virginia are swiftly dropping the lingering ties to the Confederacy: In Prince William County, the school board voted to rename Stonewall Middle School as Unity Braxton Middle School, honoring a local black couple. Loudoun County High School agreed to remove its mascot, the Raiders, named for Confederate Col. John S. Mosby’s troops. Although many are still deciding on replacement names, the options being advanced often include figures such as Lewis, Cesar Chavez and President Barack Obama.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-county-renames-robert-e-lee-high-for-late-congressman-john-lewis/2020/07/23/0f0380ac-cd34-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_23" target=_blank>Read the full story here</a>.

Hannah Natanson

US President Donald Trump holds news conference on COVID-19 at the White House, Washington Dc, Usa - 23 Jul 2020

President Trump moved Thursday to repeal a fair housing rule that he claimed would lead to the destruction of America’s suburbs, continuing an aggressive push that coincides with his campaign’s attempt to paint Democrats as angry mobs on the brink of upturning peaceful, predominantly white neighborhoods.

Trump had telegraphed the <a href="https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_20_109">Housing and Urban Development Department’s move</a> against the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/08/obama-administration-to-unveil-major-new-rules-targeting-segregation-across-u-s/?arc404=true&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_27">Obama administration’s rule</a> in recent tweets and comments that made thinly veiled appeals to a key electoral constituency that has drifted away from him over the past four years: suburban white voters.

“The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article,” Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1286372175117791236?s=20">wrote </a>Thursday on Twitter, linking to <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/21/joe-bidens-disastrous-plans-for-americas-suburbs/">a New York Post op-ed</a> by former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey that argued that Biden would ruin the country’s bedroom communities. Trump’s tweet continued: “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!”

Political strategists say the overt appeals to racial fear and grievance are politically precarious at a time when much of the country is trying to reckon with issues such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/23/protests-portland-updates/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8&itid=lk_inline_manual_29">systemic racism and discrimination</a>. That strategy has recently shifted to a focus on housing, the latest issue on which Trump has seized as he tries to define Biden as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/from-sleepy-joe-to-the-dystopian-candidate-how-trump-has-recast-his-attacks-on-biden/2020/07/18/5a6a3e36-c830-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_14&itid=lk_inline_manual_29">a threat to “the American way of life.</a>”

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule Trump moved to eliminate Thursday was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/08/obama-administration-to-unveil-major-new-rules-targeting-segregation-across-u-s/?arc404=true&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_20&itid=lk_inline_manual_30">proposed by President Barack Obama in 2015</a> in a bid to combat housing discrimination and segregation by requiring cities and towns to scrutinize their housing patterns for racial bias, publicly report the results and set goals for reducing segregation.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-suburbs-biden-housing-suburban-housewives/2020/07/23/2f269980-ccf5-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_31" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.

Toluse Olorunnipa

Colby Itkowitz

Racial Injustice Black Strike Day

Massachusetts legislators may approve substantial changes to policing, but only if its House of Representatives can vote before July 31 brings a close to the state’s formal legislative session.

The state Senate passed a policing bill, 30-7, last week after a 17-hour session that concluded with a vote in the early-morning hours of July 14. Among other things, that bill would ban officers from chokeholds or other neck restraints, restrict the use of tear gas and establish an independent committee to certify police.

The proposal before the House also would limit no-knock warrants to situations in which police are confident children or people over 65 are not inside, an amendment proposed by state Rep. Liz Miranda (D). She has called for an end to such warrants while <a href="https://twitter.com/RepLizMiranda/status/1273975243271536642">referring to the death</a> of Breonna Taylor, who was killed during a police raid on her home in Louisville.

“We have this opportunity and the moment is now, right now, to prevent the murder of any more black and brown sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and partners,” Miranda said Wednesday, <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/warrant-amendment-highlights-mass-house-police-bill-tensions/2164418/">NBC 10 Boston reported</a>. That was one of six amendments adopted in Wednesday’s long session, with more than 170 to be considered. The deliberations continued Thursday.

Law enforcement officers in the state have loudly opposed the recent attempt to retool policing. The Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, which represents hundreds of police chiefs, attacked the bills this week, arguing they do not reflect policing in the state.

“The legislation in the House and the Senate are nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the events happening hundreds of miles away from here,” Jeff Farnsworth, a Massachusetts police chief and president of the association, told reporters at an outdoor news conference in Framingham on Tuesday, with dozens of officers assembled behind him.

As a child growing up in San Francisco, Albert Broussard, now a 69-year-old professor specializing in Afro-American history, never would have called himself “black.” The few black figures who were mentioned in his schoolbooks were referred to as “Negroes.” The term “black “was embraced during the civil rights movement, when activists sought to shed a term so closely tied with colonialism.

Now Broussard, who works in the history department at Texas A&amp;M University, may be on the forefront of another change. He is working on revisions for history textbooks for publishing giant McGraw-Hill and has advocated that the company start capitalizing the “b” in black when referring to people of the African diaspora.

He believes it’s a necessary change to reflect that black people have a collective identity, a shared history and a culture. For black students, this could be especially important.

“Being able to name yourself gives you a certain power and a certain affirmation,” Broussard said.

Why hundreds of American newsrooms have started capitalizing the ‘b’ in ‘Black

The professor’s push comes amid a racial reckoning in news media, as black journalists have successfully advocated to capitalize the “b” at hundreds of newspapers across the nation, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and its 230 affiliate papers.

Broussard has been fighting this battle for at least a decade — and not just with the textbook publisher. When he published his own books on black history and sought to capitalize the “b,” he was told he couldn’t.

As protests over racial injustice, fueled by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, continue to roil the country, Broussard hopes McGraw-Hill sees the writing on the wall. “We’re strongly considering it,” said McGraw-Hill spokesman Tyler Reed.

Moriah Balingit

The Trump administration is sending a team of Customs and Border Protection tactical officers to Seattle in anticipation of potential clashes with protesters in the city, two Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the plans said Thursday.

The officers are members of CBP’s Office of Field Operations Special Response Team who are trained in riot control response and typically deploy when protesters gather at international border crossings.

The officials said they did not have information about how many officers were being sent to the city, but the deployment is not in response to new demonstrations in Seattle, according to an official from the Federal Protective Service, which is tasked with guarding federal buildings and requested the assistance.

“I think this is just proactive, to make sure we have capability available,” said the FPS official, who was not authorized to publicly describe the deployment. “The [CBP] teams will be in a standby posture in case we need them.”

DHS agents and officers have played a central role in the federal response to protests in Portland, and the Trump administration this week announced plans to deploy officers to Chicago, Albuquerque and other cities where crime is rising.

The Seattle deployment is not part of that deployment. Homeland Security officials dispatched a team of agents this month in anticipation of protests around the July 4 holiday, but those forces were withdrawn, officials said.

Nick Miroff

A concrete base is all that is left of a Confederate statue that once stood outside Arizona’s Capitol in Phoenix.

The statue, erected in the 1960s to commemorate Arizonans who fought for the South during the Civil War, is one of two statues removed from Arizona state property overnight by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The other was a statue of Jefferson Davis — the first and only president of the Confederate States of America — that marked a portion of Route 60 near Gold Canyon. Both have been moved to private land, according to Megan Rose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Administration. The relocation comes amid mounting public pressure to remove symbols of the Confederacy in the wake of George Floyd’s death on May 25.

“At least 63 other Confederate statues, monuments or markers have been removed from public land across the country” since Floyd’s death, the <a href="https://apnews.com/4def48f634b6d33fe9de7d49d7ef72ab">Associated Press reported</a>.

“These monuments were gifted to the State and are now in need of repair but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located,” <a href="https://twitter.com/MikePeltonABC15/status/1286085441481928704/photo/1">read a portion of a letter</a> written by the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s Arizona chapter.

The statue that stood outside the Capitol in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza was vandalized with red paint last month.

“It is the wish of the Arizona members of the UDC and the Monument Restoration Committee that the State facilitate this regifting as swiftly as possible to avoid any further damage, vandalization or complete destruction,” said the letter.

Jessica Wolfrom

“Dear Dept of Homeland Security,” reads a truck-mounted billboard that hit the streets of Portland. “Great job protecting buildings instead of the Constitution. Enjoy your new life in Argentina.”

That message and others, drawing a comparison between DHS officers and Nazis on the lam in South America, are part of a campaign launched Thursday to taunt and criticize the federal response in Portland, the Oregonian <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2020/07/billboards-to-homeland-security-you-arent-welcome-in-portland.html">reported</a>.

Portland local Owen Lingley paid for the ads after receiving help from friends in the advertising business. The ads have several variants critical of President Trump, acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which has provided cars to federal officers, the newspaper reported.

“Dear Chad Wolf,” reads another billboard message. “Is trading citizen’s constitutional rights worth the belly rubs you get from your racist boss?”

The ads will appear on a truck in Washington on Monday, Lingley told the Oregonian.

Alex Horton

Two federal inspectors general announced Thursday that they will investigate how Justice Department and Homeland Security agents used force, detained people and conducted themselves at high-profile clashes with protesters in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will investigate how U.S. Marshals have used force in Portland, and how other parts of the Justice Department, such as the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were used to quell unrest in the nation’s capital.

The DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, said in a letter to lawmakers that he opened an investigation into allegations that Customs and Border Protection agents “improperly detained and transported protesters” in Portland and that he would review the deployment there of DHS personnel in recent weeks.

The inspector general investigations add to a growing list of inquiries into events in Portland and Washington, where local officials have criticized federal agencies for what they have called heavy-handed aggression toward peaceful protesters.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/inspector-general-investigates-portland-protests-lafayette-square/2020/07/23/4ed70812-cd15-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_77" target=_blank>Read more here</a>.

Devlin Barrett

The “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/22/portland-moms-protests/?itid=lk_inline_manual_79" target=_blank>Wall of Moms</a>” continues to grow as organizers in Chicago created a group inspired by the one in Portland, Ore., to help protesters by forming a human barrier between them and the police during demonstrations.

Chicago resident Katje Sabin has participated in local protests over the years and formed the fledgling Wall of Moms Chicago with modest ambitions: to act as a placeholder in case Wall of Moms was needed in her city.

“I thought it would be a few friends and me,” Sabin told The Post on Thursday. “Turns out I have 5,110 friends.” 

Organized through Facebook this week, the group ballooned quickly. It already has its first planned action scheduled for Saturday, when it will “provide our Mom Wall Services” for a downtown protest organized by Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef, who is black and who leads the interfaith justice coalition Tikkun Chai Inter-National.

Sabin said that Wall of Moms Chicago does not mobilize on its own, but rather “serves at the invitation and leadership of the BIPOC groups who have been targeted by police.” 

Each individual participant (they need not be mothers or women, she said) ultimately decides what action they’ll take. Group members have discussed protective gear, safety risks and the reality that they could be injured or arrested.

Such warnings are well-known among longtime organizers, who have urged the newly formed group of overwhelmingly white women — many of whom live outside communities struggling with violence and who are new to protests — to listen to those who have been doing the work for years, and often with less media attention.

“The practice of calling white folks to the front at protests to insulate black protesters and other marginalized people is not new,” said Kelly Hayes, a longtime indigenous Chicago-based organizer with the Lifted Voices collective. “So if people are fired up to be available for that, the best thing to do is learn about what black-led groups are involved in the struggle and how they can show up for those people when asked.” 

Kim Bellware

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) <a href="https://apnews.com/fe3032309ae3275cfcdf64e530df0ba9">signed a police accountability law</a> on Thursday, nearly two months after George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The law bans neck restraints, suspends “warrior style” training, requires officers to intercede when colleagues use excessive force and includes measures to track officers with poor conduct records.

But Democrats <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-reform-bill-passed-by-minnesota-legislature-doesnt-go-far-enough-critics-say/2020/07/21/3d23b602-cba7-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_90">said that some measures</a> they had pursued, such as a requirement that officers live in the communities they police and a measure that put the state attorney’s office in charge of probing police killings, did not make it into the bill.

“This bipartisan piece of legislation moves us toward a critical step towards criminal justice reform,” Walz said at a Thursday news conference. “These critical reforms are long overdue — they are meant to strengthen transparency and community oversight.”

Michelle Gross, president of local advocacy group Communities United Against Police Brutality, <a href="https://apnews.com/fe3032309ae3275cfcdf64e530df0ba9">told the Associated Press</a> that the bill’s measures were “low-hanging fruit” and that the legislation is not nearly as comprehensive as the group had hoped.

Training on how to deal with people who have mental health issues and autism was important, Gross said, as were bans on fear-based training. “But so much of what we wanted was not even given a second glance,” she said.

State Sen. Jeff Hayden (D), whose district includes the neighborhood where Floyd was killed, said this week that he was disappointed that the bill took so long to arrive, given earlier high-profile killings in the state. Philando Castile, a black man, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/16/minn-officer-acquitted-of-manslaughter-for-shooting-philando-castile-during-traffic-stop/?itid=lk_inline_manual_94">was killed by a St. Paul officer</a> during a traffic stop in 2016 after he explained he had a weapon in the car.

“There’s a lot of work to protect black bodies,” Hayden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-reform-bill-passed-by-minnesota-legislature-doesnt-go-far-enough-critics-say/2020/07/21/3d23b602-cba7-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_95">said</a>.

Keywords are an important tool for online advertisers to market their products. But Google’s Keyword Planner — a tool within Google Ads that provides data about what people search for — turns up different results based on race.

<a href="https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/07/23/google-advertising-keywords-black-girls">New research by the Markup</a>, a nonprofit newsroom focused on big tech, shows that keyword searches for terms such as “Black girls,” “Latina girls” and “Asian girls” returned mostly pornographic results while searching for “White girls” did not yield any suggestive terms.

<a href="https://ads.google.com/intl/en_sg/home/tools/keyword-planner/">Google Keyword Planner</a> searches for “Black boys,” “Latino boys” or “Asian boys” returned similarly sexual terms, while searches for “White boys,” returned no such results.

The tech giant’s ad platform “equated people of color with objectified sexualization while exempting White people from any associations whatsoever,” the <a href="https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-google-keyword-planner">report states</a>.

This makes it more difficult for advertisers to reach Black, Latinx and Asian audiences, the researchers found.

The Markup brought this to Google’s attention, and the tech giant says it has fixed the problem. “The language that surfaced in the keyword planning tool is offensive, and while we use filters to block these kinds of terms from appearing, it did not work as intended in this instance,” Google spokeswoman Suzanne Blackburn told the Markup.

Washington’s NFL franchise will go by the name “Washington Football Team” this season as a placeholder until a new name can be chosen, the club announced Thursday.

The generic name replaces “Redskins,” the organization’s 87-year-old name that had become a target for many who believed it was offensive and a slur toward Native Americans. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/13/redskins-change-name-announcement/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_105">The team said July 13 it would “retire” the name Redskins</a> at the end of a “thorough review” of the name that the club started July 3 in response to increased criticism and pressure from sponsors.

“For updated brand clarity and consistency purposes, we will call ourselves the ‘Washington Football Team’ pending adoption of a new name,” the team said in a release. “We encourage fans, media and all other parties to use ‘Washington Football Team’ immediately. The Redskins name and logo will officially be retired by the start of the 2020 season.”

Images on the team’s website <a href="http://redskins.com/washingtonfootball">showed players in uniforms</a> with the team’s traditional burgundy and gold color scheme, with burgundy helmets featuring each player’s number and no logo. The uniforms do not contain Native American imagery. People familiar with the team’s plans previously said the organization would not use such imagery once it dropped the Redskins name.

A person familiar with conversations between the NFL and the team said last week that a name change would need to come before the start of training camp July 28, simply because the team needed to have uniforms to wear.

In Thursday’s announcement, the team said it will be removing references to Redskins ahead of the start of the 2020 season. Washington’s season opener against Philadelphia is scheduled for Sept. 13.

Read the full story <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/23/washington-redskins-new-team-name-washington-football-team/?itid=lk_inline_manual_110">here</a>.

Les Carpenter

Mark Maske

Former president Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden defended their administration’s handling of police treatment of black Americans, while promising that if elected Biden would tackle that issue far differently than has the Trump administration.

In a roughly 15-minute taped conversation between the two men, Obama and Biden appeared intent on deflecting criticism Biden has received from liberal groups about his long record championing tough-on-crime legislation that is out of favor with the ascendant Democratic base.

“Our response was not to ignore those problems,” Obama said, referring to the increasing national awareness and anger about police brutality.

He cast as a positive sign of growth, and not political flexibility, Biden’s moves over the years and particularly in the spring to be more critical of police treatment of Americans. “Something that I’ve always admired about you, Joe, is your willingness to listen and learn,” said Obama to Biden. “It is a sign of leadership when you are willing to hear other people’s experiences.”

The two referred to an Obama administration task force that came up with ideas to stem police abuse and seemed to imply that some of those ideas could still be employed.

“We arrived at a series of recommendations that are still pertinent to this day,” Obama said of the task force. Neither man offered details.

Read more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-obama-defend-their-handling-of-police-issues-and-criticize-trump-administration/2020/07/23/973d8138-ccef-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html?hpid=hp_politics1-8-12_biden-obama-1245pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=lk_inline_manual_118">here</a>.

Annie Linskey

President Donald J. Trump

Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf told CBS News on Thursday that his agency is not sending more federal agents to other cities to secure federal courthouses.

“We are not sending any other DHS law enforcement officers to guard federal courthouses like we are in Portland. Why? Because every other city in America knows if you work with the federal government, you can secure your city,” Wolf said, defending his agency’s use of Customs and Border Protection agents <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/portland-officials-decry-aggressive-tactics-of-federal-agents-in-their-city/2020/07/17/ae5dbf18-c871-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_122" target=_blank>riding in unmarked vehicles</a> to grab those suspected of engaging in violence or vandalism outside the courthouse.

Wolf also accused Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler (D), of aligning himself with violent criminals. Wheeler went to speak to protesters outside the Portland federal courthouse Wednesday night, where he was alternately jeered by those who have long criticized his handling of police issues and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/23/ted-wheeler-portland-tear-gas/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_m-mayor-340am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=lk_inline_manual_123" target=_blank>tear-gassed by federal agents</a> trying to disperse the crowd.

Wolf said the mayor should have gone to speak to peaceful protesters, not what the secretary said were the more violent elements in the crowd.

“The mayor chose to go to that violent activity. He has legitimized criminal behavior by doing that,” Wolf said.

Wolf previously tweeted out a photo of a homemade shield confiscated outside the courthouse, saying it shows a group of the activists are engaged in violence.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which bills itself as the largest police union in the world, Thursday voiced its support for Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-announces-increase-in-federal-law-enforcement-in-more-us-cities/2020/07/22/ad69d886-cc44-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_protestes-813pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=lk_inline_manual_129" target=_blank>plans to send more law enforcement agents</a> into Chicago and Albuquerque.

Trump’s plans to push federal law enforcement <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/defending-portland-crackdown-trump-pledges-to-deploys-feds-to-chicago-and-other-us-cities-led-by-democrats/2020/07/20/fda42b8a-caaa-11ea-89ce-ac7d5e4a5a38_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_20&itid=lk_inline_manual_130" target="_blank">into more cities run by Democrats</a> have prompted criticism and pushback from local leaders and activists, particularly as Customs and Border Protection agents have been recorded pulling demonstrators into vehicles in Portland, Ore.

The Trump administration bills the surge of federal law enforcement in Chicago and Albuquerque as necessary to fight violent crime and distinct from the efforts in Portland. Local leaders have denounced Trump’s repeated comments focusing on political opponents, with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) calling his Wednesday speech a “political stunt.”

On Thursday, Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, backed Trump’s plans and echoed remarks by the president and Attorney General William P. Barr linking <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/america-spike-gun-violence/2020/07/06/15508ac8-bfa0-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_132" target=_blank>the increase in violent crime in some major cities</a> to the recent protests over police brutality.

“Our men and women in uniform in these jurisdictions are demoralized by anti-police rhetoric and they are exhausted from lengthy shifts in response to the pandemic,” Yoes said in a statement, referring to the coronavirus outbreak still raging across the country. “They desperately need the help that the President is going to provide.”

Yoes similarly echoed what Trump and Barr called “a perfect storm in too many of our cities,” describing it as “a crisis of confidence in our law enforcement agencies and a significant lack of morale in our police departments.”

Local officials have offered other explanations. In Chicago, where the number of homicides and shootings is significantly up this year over the same point in 2019, Police Superintendent David Brown blamed the violence on a cycle of shootings and retaliation “fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs.”

Mark Berman

A woman reportedly pointed a gun at a crowd of demonstrators in Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday during what police called a largely peaceful gathering of some opposing groups.

The woman was not named and it was unclear whether she was arrested, but her weapon was seized, police said.

“The investigation will be routed to the prosecutor’s office for review of charges,” the department said.

A <a href="https://www.cityofboise.org/news/police/2020/july/update-on-arrests-from-the-evening-of-july-21-2020/" target="_blank">Wednesday news release included a photo of the gun</a>, a small-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The prosecutor’s office in Ada County did not immediately return a request for comment.

It was unclear how the event unfolded Tuesday. Black Lives Matter demonstrators <a href="https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/live-at-330-pm-boise-police-chief-lee-to-brief-the-public-about-tonights-protests/277-6b85a246-f71c-4c06-9a40-d4603023d295" target=_blank>gathered in downtown Boise</a> to protest police violence and were met with counterprotesters who defended President Trump and the police.

Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee said it was “disheartening” that someone in the local community would brandish a gun during a demonstration, the local CBS affiliate <a href="https://idahonews.com/news/local/arrests-made-at-boise-protests-included-woman-reportedly-pointing-gun-at-crowd" target="_blank">reported</a>.

A couple in St. Louis was recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/st-louis-couple-who-aimed-guns-protesters-charged-with-felony-weapons-count/?itid=lk_inline_manual_143" target=_blank>charged with weapons felonies</a> this week after they pointed firearms at protesters near their home.

On Eddy Binford-Ross’s second night reporting on the protests in Portland, Ore., federal officers let off enough tear gas to fill the street in front of the federal courthouse and an entire city park across the street. The smokelike plumes sent her scattering along with the protesters.

“I couldn’t see because my eyes were burning,” she told The Washington Post. “I couldn’t breathe because my throat was burning. I almost threw up because I was coughing so hard.” 

Like many journalists covering the tense demonstrations, Eddy has faced serious threats: She has been tear-gassed every night, had three stun grenades lobbed in her direction, been shoved against a wall by police and had a federal officer repeatedly point a gun at her.

But Eddy may be the only front-line reporter regularly risking her safety to write for a high school newspaper.

Read more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/23/portland-protests-teenage-reporter/?itid=lk_inline_manual_149" target=_blank>here</a>.

Katie Shepherd

A California police chief will retire months after the arrest of a black man for dancing in the street triggered heavy criticism of his officers.

Mali Watkins was arrested May 23 in the Almeda neighborhood where he lives after officers confronted him in the street, according to <a href="https://whdh.com/news/video-shows-police-arrested-a-black-man-after-he-was-seen-dancing-in-the-street/">police body camera footage</a> later released.

Watkins was taken to the ground and arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest, the East Bay Times <a href="https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2020/07/22/alameda-police-chief-annouces-he-is-retiring/">reported</a>. Officers claimed they were concerned over his mental health. Officials declined to press charges against Watkins or the officers, but Alameda Police Chief Paul Rolleri weathered intense criticism over the arrest.

The incident occurred days before George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis, touching off massive protests against police brutality and excessive force.

Rolleri said his resignation and retirement are unconnected to the criticism, describing the move as long planned, the East Bay Times reported.

“I have been here through periods of positive change and occasional setbacks within the community, and the present time is no exception,” he wrote in his resignation letter. “The time is right for me to move on to the next chapter of my personal and professional life.” 

Rolleri’s last day on the job will be on Aug. 28. He hopes his successor will be a “woman, person of color, or both,” the East Bay Times reported. The department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Margaret Sanger

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York this week announced it would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/21/margaret-sanger-planned-parenthood-eugenics/?itid=lk_inline_manual_160" target=_blank>remove the name of Margaret Sanger</a>, the national organization’s founder, from its Manhattan clinic because of her “racist legacy.”

Sanger, who opened the nation’s first birth control clinic, was also a vocal supporter of the now-discredited eugenics movement, which believed it could improve the human race through planned breeding based on genetic traits.

The decision — along with recent public efforts to tie Planned Parenthood to anti-black racism — has reignited debates that merge two of the country’s most polarizing issues, abortion and race.

On Wednesday, a coalition of antiabortion activists wrote letters to the mayors of Washington and New York asking them to allow “BLACK PREBORN LIVES MATTER” to be painted on streets in those cities in front of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities. The letters, signed by Students for Life of America and the Frederick Douglass Foundation, asked the mayors for the opportunity to “add our voices to those concerned about how people of color are treated in America.”

“Black Lives do matter, born and preborn, as too many people are lost in America today from causes that should be addressed and prevented for their disproportionate impact on minority communities,” <a href="https://studentsforlife.org/2020/07/22/open-the-streets-to-paint-black-preborn-lives-matter-in-front-of-planned-parenthood/" target=_blank>the letters stated</a>.

Last weekend, rapper Kanye West gave a tearful repudiation of abortion <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rapper-kanye-west-draws-crowd-to-1st-event-as-candidate/2020/07/19/89968114-ca16-11ea-99b0-8426e26d203b_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_165">during a South Carolina rally</a> after announcing his campaign for U.S. president. He maintained abortion should be legal, but <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2020/07/08/kanye-west-says-planned-parenthood-was-arranged-by-white-supremacists-to-do-the-devils-work/#32a4508c1b94">in a Forbes magazine interview earlier this month</a>, West claimed, “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work,” drawing on antiabortion activists’ <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/">discredited claims</a> that Sanger’s work was rooted in black genocide.

Antiabortion activists Bevelyn Beatty and Edmee Chavannes <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-trump-black-lives-matter-20200718-4w32dwjqtvaq3d2pp7yqrveeje-story.html">were arrested</a> while defacing the “Black Lives Matter” mural in New York last weekend. “We’re black women but we do not support Black Lives Matter because they’re hand-in-hand with Planned Parenthood that kills African American babies,” Beatty told Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-protest-abortion-clinic-george-floyd-handcuffed">after she was handcuffed</a> while yelling at people outside the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood Center in May.

Planned Parenthood to remove Margaret Sanger’s name from N.Y. clinic over views on eugenics

Reproductive rights have had a troubling and complex intersection with race in the United States. In recent years, antiabortion activists and conservatives have often brought up Sanger’s views on eugenics to criticize Planned Parenthood and the abortion rights movement, even though Sanger did not advocate for abortion rights.

Department watchdogs to investigate federal law enforcement conduct at protests

Live coverage contributors 20