Good morning.
The largely peaceful protests prompted by the police killing of George Floyd went on across the US and around the world over the weekend, as it emerged that more than 10,000 US protesters have been arrested during the weeks of unrest – many for non-violent offences. In Minneapolis, where Floyd died, the city council has taken a dramatic step towards reform, by declaring their intent to disband the city’s police force and replace it with an alternative system of “public safety”.
The Obama administration introduced or stepped up measures to impose accountability on police forces after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. But, as Ed Pilkington explains, Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has allowed those incremental efforts to wither on the vine – which may partially explain the growing support for a more radical solution: “defund the police”.
‘The police are still killing during a pandemic.’ The families of Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant and other black Americans killed by police tell Lois Beckett their anger has been tempered by glimmers of hope in the response to Floyd’s death.
American police act like occupying armies because their founders studied tactics used to quell foreign uprisings, says Stuart Schrader:
Every overseas war has reshaped policing in the United States, including by filling the ranks of police departments with veterans and pushing surplus materials into their hands.
British protesters pulled down a slave trader’s statue
In the English port city of Bristol, Black Lives Matter protesters pulled down a statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and tipped it into the harbour during a demonstration on Sunday, amid a heated debate about Britain’s legacy of racism, inspired by the protests in the US.
Demonstrations have spread to cities as far afield as Nigeria and Australia. The novelist Ben Okri suggests Floyd’s case has caused worldwide reverberations because his words “I can’t breathe” speak eloquently both to our fears of the coronavirus pandemic and to the implacable nature of institutional racism:
Maybe it should be the phrase that people who are oppressed should use. It should become the mantra of oppression. Maybe every time the police stop you in your car for no other reason than that you are a black man or woman, you should say: ‘I can’t breathe.’
Has Trump’s denigration inspired a crackdown on the media?
Reporters covering the protests have been assaulted and arrested – sometimes live on air – in a crackdown on journalists that seems worthy of a developing world dictatorship, writes David Smith. And campaigners argue that it is difficult to separate the situation from Trump’s consistent denigration of the news media: “It’s as if a switch had been turned off in terms of respecting the role of a free press in a democracy,” says the chief executive of PEN America.
Two editors quit following backlash. The New York Times oped editor with ultimate responsibility for publishing a controversial comment piece by Senator Tom Cotton has resigned. So has the executive editor at the Philadelphia Enquirer, after facing a backlash to the headline “Buildings matter, too”.
How the world sees the protests – and the president’s response
The Guardian’s correspondents around the world report on how others see the unrest in the US, from those in South America who hear echoes of their continent’s authoritarian dictatorships, to countries criticised by the US for their human rights records, now revelling in news of Trump’s harsh response. British diplomats say they fear Trump’s re-election would imperil the so-called special relationship between the two countries.
The president is reaching for Nixon’s playbook – and relaxing into his own comfort zone – by making “law and order” central to his campaign strategy, writes David Smith. But he has already alienated major Republican figures including Colin Powell, who on Sunday told CNN he intended to vote for Joe Biden in November.
Are the protests energising young voters? People running for local office say they are seeing a spike in enthusiasm among young people, as Adam Gabbatt reports.
In other news …
Brazil’s government has stopped releasing its numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths, and wiped an official website clean of information, reportedly on the orders of the president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday afternoon, but also generated extreme weather in other nearby states, including a tornado in Florida.
A $1m treasure chest hidden in the Rockies has been found, 10 years after it was put there by the eccentric New Mexico antiquities dealer Forrest Fenn. At least four people died looking for it. “I feel halfway kind of glad, halfway kind of sad because the chase is over,” Fenn said.
Great reads
Our long love affair with living underwater
In the 1960s, the world was gripped by the space race. But a craze for another kind of exploration also took hold. Chris Michael explores how humanity’s fascination with life underwater, sparked by pioneers such as Jacques Cousteau, has altered our relationship with the planet.
The designer who introduced streetwear to the catwalk
Willi Smith was the most high-profile black fashion designer of the 1980s: the man who invented streetwear, and whose own label was grossing $25m a year before his death with Aids in 1987. So why, asks Priya Elan, has he been all but forgotten?
Does South Africa hold the key to an assassination mystery?
On Wednesday, Swedish officials are due to unveil the findings of an investigation into one of the world’s most infamous cold cases, the 1986 assassination of the then prime minister, Olof Palme. Göran Björkdahl explains how an unexpected tipoff led him to look into apartheid-era South Africa’s alleged links to the killing.
Opinion: the left changed the pandemic narrative overnight
Less than two weeks ago, the enlightened position was to exercise nothing less than extreme caution in the face of the coronavirus. Now, writes Thomas Chatterton Williams, we are told social distancing is of secondary importance to mass protest.
Even as the coronavirus lockdown threw 40 million Americans out of work – including Floyd himself – many progressives accepted this calamity, sometimes with stunning blitheness, as the necessary cost of guarding against Covid-19.
Last Thing: TikTok’s teenage tadpole talent
Hannah McSorley, an Irish teenager who came across a patch of frogspawn in a shallow puddle in the first week of lockdown, has become a TikTok sensation after nursing 37,928 tadpoles (her own estimate) towards frogdom in her backyard paddling pool. “I’m really hoping my dad will build me a pond,” she told Elle Hunt.
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