Defense chief breaks with Trump on response to protests  —  Washington (CNN)Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Wednesday that he does not support using active duty troops to quell the large-scale protests across the United States triggered by the death of George Floyd and those forces …

Attorney General Keith Ellison to elevate charges against officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck; also charging other 3 involved  —  Ellison took over case on Sunday.  —  TEXT SIZE  —  Attorney General Keith Ellison plans to elevate charges against the former Minneapolis police officer …

President Trump tried to register to vote in Florida using an out-of-state address  —  President Trump originally tried to register to vote in Florida while claiming his “legal residence” was in another part of the country — Washington, D.C. — according to Florida elections records.

More Voters Trust Biden on Race Relations  —  Increase in views that outbreak is hurting Trump  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Joe Biden currently holds an 11-point lead over Donald Trump in the presidential race as more voters say they trust the challenger to handle race relations in the country.

'This can't be happening': An oral history of 48 surreal, violent, biblical minutes in Washington  —  On Monday evening, over the course of 48 minutes, Donald Trump put on a show that may have changed America, yet again.  It involved an overture to the nation, a physical attack on Americans and a Bible.

Police shove, make AP journalists stop covering protest  —  NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police officers surrounded, shoved and yelled expletives at two Associated Press journalists covering protests Tuesday in the latest aggression against members of the media during a week of unrest around the country.

Hydroxychloroquine, a drug promoted by Trump, failed to prevent healthy people from getting covid-19 in trial  —  The University of Minnesota enrolled health-care workers and others exposed to the disease in the first randomized prevention study of the drug  —  Hydroxychloroquine …

Snapchat to stop promoting Trump's content  —  Snapchat said Wednesday it would no longer promote President Donald Trump's content in its Discover section, a move that brings the messaging company closer to Twitter's approach in the ongoing debate over political speech.

Trump Had Kushner Push the National Enquirer to Probe Scarborough Murder Conspiracy  —  OBSESSION  —  Trump is so hellbent on smearing the MSNBC host that he had Jared push the Enquirer to publish the lies, sources told The Daily Beast.  Even the tabloid rag wouldn't sink that low.

Sen. Paul acknowledges holding up anti-lynching bill, says he fears it would be wrongly applied  —  Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) acknowledged Wednesday that he is holding up a bill with broad bipartisan support that would make lynching a federal hate crime, saying he fears it could allow enhanced penalties …

Boris Johnson says 3m people in Hong Kong will get path to British citizenship  —  PM offered to make what he says would be one of the “biggest changes” in the history of the British visa system  —  Boris Johnson is ready to open the door to nearly three million Hong Kong citizens …

Trump demands journalists correct stories on the use of tear gas.  According to the CDC, it was tear gas.  —  President Trump's reelection campaign sent a message out to news organizations Tuesday night, demanding a correction to articles that described security forces' use of tear gas …

Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company  —  Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies

Man Behind Sweden's Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes  —  Sweden's top epidemiologist has admitted his strategy to fight Covid-19 resulted in too many deaths, after persuading his country to avoid a strict lockdown.  —  “If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge …

Rod Rosenstein blames FBI while defending Russia probe  —  Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday defended his role overseeing the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, blaming senior FBI officials for withholding vital information related to the probe.

Thank You Mister Trump!  —  Our Great President is crushing it.  —  This is not the sort of article you normally see here at The Bulwark, the world's largest superspreader of Trump Derangement Syndrome.  —  And to be honest with you, I didn't want to write it.  But somebody had to.

Sean Hannity and wife divorce after more than 20 years of marriage  —  Fox News host Sean Hannity and his wife Jill Rhodes have divorced after more than 20 years of marriage, Page Six has exclusively confirmed.  —  Hannity, 58, and former journalist Rhodes, 57, were married in 1993 and have two children …

Minneapolis Police Use Force Against Black People at 7 Times the Rate of Whites  —  Black people in Minneapolis as a share of ...  Population  —  Police officers use of force Population  —  Police officers use of force  —  Video of George Floyd's last conscious moments horrified the nation …

‘HE GRABBED ME’ TV reporter screams live on air as she is attacked by ‘screwdriver-wielding man making knife threats’ in London  —  A REPORTER was left screaming in horror after a man allegedly armed with a screwdriver grabbed her live on TV.  —  Australian network Channel 9's correspondent Sophie Walsh …

South L.A. is largely untouched by unrest.  That is by design  —  In 1992, the last time Angelenos' rage over police brutality boiled into an uprising, large swaths of South Los Angeles burnt to the ground.  —  Angry mobs took to the street.  Some looted shops and torched buildings.

The Mount Vernon Police Tapes: In Secretly Recorded Phone Calls, Officers Say Innocent People Were Framed  —  In hours of secretly recorded telephone conversations, police officers in Mount Vernon, New York, reveal widespread corruption, brutality and other misconduct in the troubled Westchester County city just north of the Bronx.

The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong?  —  The technology was old, the data poor, the bureaucracy slow, the guidance confusing, the administration not in agreement.  The coronavirus shook the world's premier health agency, creating a loss of confidence and hampering the U.S. response to the crisis.

D.C. Lets Voters Submit Ballots by Email After Mail Problems  —  Some states that are preparing for voting by mail to be more popular in the November election than in past years had hiccups on Tuesday  —  The Washington, D.C., Board of Elections, inundated with complaints from voters …