First Edition: June 22, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Fractured Skulls, Lost Eyes: Police Often Break Own Rules Using ‘Rubber Bullets’
Megan Matthews thought she was dying. “I thought my head was blown off,” said Matthews, 22, who was hit in the eye with a sponge-tipped projectile fired by law enforcement at a May 29 protest in Denver. “Everything was dark. I couldn’t see.” Matthews, a soft-spoken art major who lives with her mother, had gone to the demonstration against police brutality carrying bandages, water bottles and milk so she could provide first aid to protesters. (Szabo, Hancock, McCoy, Slack and Wagner, 6/19)

Kaiser Health News: Injured And Uninsured, Protesters Get Medical Aid From LA Doctor
It wasn’t Deon Jones’ fractured cheekbone or even his concussion that most worried Dr. Amir Moarefi. He was most concerned that Jones could go blind. “He sustained a rubber bullet direct injury to the cheek, which broke his zygomatic bone, which is your cheekbone, literally about an inch and a half from his eye and about another inch and a half from his temple,” Moarefi said. The death of George Floyd led to a national wave of protests against police brutality and racism. Law enforcement’s attempts to control impassioned, mostly peaceful crowds has included tactics often deemed “less than lethal,” such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. (Fortier, 6/19)

Kaiser Health News: Easy To Say ‘Get Tested.’ Harder To Do. Here’s How.
Will Bondurant decided to get tested for COVID-19 after attending three racial justice demonstrations over a five-day period in San Francisco, where he lives. The first, on June 3, “was the scariest and most risky from the point of view of COVID infection,” said Bondurant, 31. Although most wore masks, participants were jammed in, unable at times to maintain the recommended 6-foot distance, he said. Bondurant did not have any COVID symptoms but went for the test because he had a meeting scheduled the following weekend with a friend in his late 70s. (Wolfson and Galewitz, 6/22)

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline
A mason who helped repair hospital ceilings, floors, soap dispensers and sharps collectors. An unflappable nurse who loved playing tour guide. These are the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who died of COVID-19. (6/19)

Kaiser Health News: How Those With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Cope With Added Angst Of COVID
Before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States, Chris Trondsen felt his life was finally under control. As someone who has battled obsessive-compulsive disorder and other mental health issues since early childhood, it’s been a long journey. “I’ve been doing really, really well,” Trondsen said. “I felt like most of it was pretty much — I wouldn’t say ‘cured’ ― but I definitely felt in remission or under control. But this pandemic has been really difficult for me.” (Lawrence, 6/22)

Kaiser Health News: As Problems Grow With Abbott’s Fast COVID Test, FDA Standards Are Under Fire
In mid-May, the Food and Drug Administration issued a rare public warning about an Abbott Laboratories COVID-19 test that for weeks had received high praise from the White House because of its speed: Test results could be wrong. The agency at that point had received 15 “adverse event reports” about Abbott’s ID NOW rapid COVID test suggesting that infected patients were wrongly told they did not have the coronavirus, which had led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. The warning followed multiple academic studies showing higher “false negative” rates from the Abbott device, including one from New York University researchers who found it missed close to half of the positive samples detected by a rival company’s test. (Pradhan, 6/22)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: SCOTUS, Trump Collide Over Transgender Rights
Transgender people have had a head-spinning week. First, the Trump administration issued long-promised rules rolling back the Obama administration’s protections against discrimination in health care. But just three days later, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, said that gay and transgender people are protected by the nation’s core employment anti-discrimination law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. (6/18)

Reuters: WHO Reports Record Daily Increase In Coronavirus Cases
The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period. The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to a daily report here Total global cases are over 8.7 million with more than 461,000 deaths, according to the WHO. (6/21)

The Associated Press: WHO Reports Largest Single-Day Increase In Coronavirus Cases
More than two-thirds of those new deaths were reported in the Americas. In Spain, officials ended a national state of emergency after three months of lockdown, allowing its 47 million residents to freely travel around the country for the first time since March 14. The country also dropped a 14-day quarantine for visitors from Britain and the 26 European countries that allow visa-free travel. But there was only a trickle of travelers at Madrid-Barajas Airport, which on a normal June day would be bustling. (Wilson and Keaten, 6/21)

The Washington Post: In The Nation’s Biggest States, A Spike In Coronavirus Comes With The Economic Reopening
California and some other large states are experiencing a sharp climb in new coronavirus cases just weeks into a gradual economic reopening, filling hospital beds and intensive care units in an uneven surge that many public health officers predicted months ago. Last week, Texas, Florida, Arizona and at least seven other states reported their highest weekly infection-rate averages. But there is little sign that states are reconsidering politically popular decisions to open the economy. In parts of California, where more than 5,000 have died of the virus, people will be allowed to see movies in theaters this weekend for the first time since the stay-at-home orders began in early March. (Wilson, 6/21)

CNN: US Coronavirus: Nearly Half Of States Are Reporting A Rise In New Coronavirus Cases 
The first wave of coronavirus in the US isn't over. Nearly half of states are reporting a rise in new cases and some continue to break records in their daily reported cases. In the South, officials say more young people are testing positive. And across the US, experts continue to repeat warnings highlighting the need for social distancing and face covers. (Maxouris, 6/22)

The Associated Press: Decline In New US Virus Deaths May Be Temporary Reprieve
The number of deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. has fallen in recent weeks to the lowest level since late March, even as states increasingly reopen for business. But scientists are deeply afraid the trend may be about to reverse itself. “For now, it’s too soon to be reassured that deaths are going down and everything’s OK,” said Dr. Cyrus Shahpar of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent epidemics. (Johnson and Forster, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Trump Suggests US Slow Virus Testing To Avoid Bad Statistics
President Donald Trump said Saturday he’s asked his administration to slow down coronavirus testing because robust testing turns up too many cases of COVID-19. Trump told supporters at his campaign rally that the U.S. has tested 25 million people, far more than any other country. The “bad part,” Trump said, is that widespread testing leads to logging more cases of the virus. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’ They test and they test.” (Freking, 6/21)

CNN: Trump's 'Kidding' On Coronavirus Testing Exposes His Negligence As Cases Spike 
As the coronavirus pandemic surges in states that embraced his calls for aggressive early openings, President Donald Trump is mocking the very measures that might mitigate a crisis about which he is constantly in denial. Trump said at his weekend rally that he had told his staff to slow down testing for the disease, which has now killed nearly 120,000 Americans, to hide the discovery of more cases. Claims by his advisers that he was joking hardly lessen the questionable motives behind the remark. (Collinson, 6/22)

CNN: White House Officials On The Defensive After Trump Says He Wanted Testing Slowed Down 
"You know testing is a double-edged sword," Trump said while complaining about press coverage of his handling of the virus. Claiming the US has now tested some 25 million people, he added: "Here's the bad part ... when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people; you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please." It was a stunning revelation given that nearly 120,000 people have died in the United States from the coronavirus and medical experts have long said that testing is critical to identifying cases, tracing them and stopping the spread of the virus. (Reston, 6/21)

Reuters: Trump Urges Slowdown In COVID-19 Testing, Calling It A 'Double-Edge Sword'
Trump said his actions in blocking travelers from China and Europe had helped save “hundreds of thousands of lives.” But he said the “radical fake news” media had not given him credit for doing what he called “a phenomenal job” responding to the outbreak. (6/21)

The Washington Post: With ‘Kung Flu,’ ‘Thugs,’ And ‘Our Heritage,’ Trump Leans On Racial Grievance As He Reaches For A Campaign Reset 
He referred to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus as the “kung flu.” He called racial justice demonstrators “thugs.” He attacked efforts to take down Confederate statues as an assault on “our heritage.” And in an ominous hypothetical, he described a “very tough hombre” breaking into a young woman’s home while her husband is away. President Trump has long used his raucous rallies to road test potential campaign themes and attack lines. And while much attention on his Saturday night appearance in Tulsa focused on the sparse turnout for his first rally since the pandemic ended mass gatherings, Trump’s litany of racially offensive stereotypes sent a clear signal about how he plans to try to revive his flagging reelection effort. (Del Real, 6/21)

The New York Times: The President’s Shock At The Rows Of Empty Seats In Tulsa
The president, who had been warned aboard Air Force One that the crowds at the arena were smaller than expected, was stunned, and he yelled at aides backstage while looking at the endless rows of empty blue seats in the upper bowl of the stadium, according to four people familiar with what took place. ... Exactly what went wrong was still being dissected on Sunday. But a broad group of advisers and associates acknowledged to one another that Mr. Trump had not been able to will public opinion away from fears about the spread of the coronavirus in an indoor space. (Haberman and Karni, 6/21)

The New York Times Fact Check: Trump’s Tulsa Rally: Covid-19, Protesters And Biden
In his first mass rally in months, President Trump touched on everything from the coronavirus pandemic to military spending to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee. Here’s a fact-check. (Qiu and Epstein, 6/20)

The Washington Post: Democrats, Public Health Experts Decry Trump For Saying He Asked Officials To Slow Down Coronavirus Testing
President Trump’s Saturday night remark that he asked officials to “slow the [coronavirus] testing down" sparked harsh rebukes from experts and frustration from his own staffers, who say it undercuts their efforts to reassure Americans as the disease surges around the country. The president’s comment, which came on the same day that eight states reported their highest-ever single-day case counts, drew a chorus of criticism from congressional Democrats and public health officials, who worry the president is more concerned with saving face than combating the pandemic. (Abutaleb, Telford and Dawsey, 6/21)

Politico: Trump Trade Adviser: Rally Comment On Reducing Covid Testing Was Just A Joke
Trump has made similar remarks in the past, but never as explicitly and from as large a platform as on Saturday night. The White House has since said multiple times that the president was joking. "Come on. It was a light moment," Navarro said. There have been more than 2 million cases of coronavirus diagnosed in the United States, causing more than 120,000 deaths. (Choi, 6/21)

Politico: Acting Homeland Security Leader Defends White House Response To Coronavirus
Despite rising numbers of coronavirus infections, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said Sunday that states are reopening in “a safe and reasonable way. ”Wolf said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the White House task force worked day and night to issue guidance for a careful economic reopening: “And I think that’s what we’re seeing.” (Dugyala, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Gears Up For Second Wave As Half The Country Reports Infection Increases 
A White House adviser said Sunday that the Trump administration is preparing for a possible second wave in the coronavirus pandemic this fall, as 29 states and U.S. territories logged an increase in their seven-day average of new reported case numbers after many lifted restrictions in recent weeks. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that the Trump administration is preparing for a possible second wave, but he rejected the suggestion that a second wave has already taken hold. (Shepherd, 6/22)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Preparing For Second Wave Of Coronavirus, Trade Adviser Says
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that the Trump administration is preparing for a second wave of coronavirus infections. “We are filling the stockpile in anticipation of a possible problem in the fall. We are doing everything we can beneath the surface, working as hard as we possibly can,’’ Mr. Navarro told CNN. “You prepare—you prepare for what can possibly happen. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but of course you prepare.’’ (Leary and Gershman, 6/21)

CNN: White House Adviser: Trump Administration Preparing For Second Wave Of Coronavirus In The Fall 
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that the Trump administration is preparing for the possibility that a second wave of Covid-19 could hit the United States in the fall. "We are filling the stockpile in anticipation of a possible problem in the fall. We are doing everything we can beneath the surface, working as hard as we possibly can," Navarro told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." Asked by Tapper if the administration is preparing for a second wave in the fall, Navarro replied, "Of course." (Stracqualursi, 6/21)

The Associated Press: 2nd Wave Of Virus Cases? Experts Say We're Still In The 1st
What’s all this talk about a “second wave” of U.S. coronavirus cases? In The Wall Street Journal last week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a piece headlined “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’” that the nation is winning the fight against the virus. Many public health experts, however, suggest it’s no time to celebrate. About 120,000 Americans have died from the new virus and daily counts of new cases in the U.S. are the highest they’ve been in more than a month, driven by alarming recent increases in the South and West. (Stobbe, 6/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Pence Overstates Coronavirus Supplies Delivered By Administration’s ‘Airbridge’ Program
Vice President Mike Pence has overstated the amount of coronavirus-related medical equipment distributed by a Trump administration program on multiple occasions, according to public data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an Opinion article published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Mr. Pence praised the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, and singled out Project Airbridge, a public-private partnership championed by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. (Ballhaus, 6/19)

The New York Times: Public Health Experts Reject President’s View Of Fading Pandemic
Public health experts warned on Sunday that the coronavirus pandemic is not going away anytime soon. They directly contradicted President Trump’s promise that the disease that has infected more than two million Americans would “fade away” and his remarks that disparaged the value of evidence from coronavirus tests. A day after Mr. Trump told a largely maskless audience at an indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla., that he had asked to “slow down the testing” because it inevitably increased the number of confirmed coronavirus cases, infectious disease experts countered that the latest rise of infections in the United States is real, the country’s response to the pandemic is not working and rallies like the president’s risk becoming major spreading events. (Gorman, 6/21)

The Associated Press: What Supreme Court? Trump's HHS Pushes LGBT Health Rollback
The Trump administration Friday moved forward with a rule that rolls back health care protections for transgender people, even as the Supreme Court barred sex discrimination against LGBT individuals on the job. The rule from the Department of Health and Human Services was published in the Federal Register, the official record of the executive branch, with an effective date of Aug. 18. That will set off a barrage of lawsuits from gay rights and women’s groups. It also signals to religious and social conservatives in President Donald Trump’s political base that the administration remains committed to their causes as the president pursues his reelection. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/19)

The New York Times: Behind Joe Biden’s Evolution On L.G.B.T.Q. Rights
Joseph R. Biden Jr. voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Two years earlier, he voted to cut off federal funds to schools that teach the acceptance of homosexuality. In 1973, Mr. Biden, in an off-handed response to a question, wondered if homosexuals in the military or government were potential security risks. But today, Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has so completely identified himself with positions embraced by L.G.B.T.Q. leaders that his history on gay rights has faded into the mist. If he is elected president, said Chad Griffin, a political consultant and longtime gay rights leader, Mr. Biden, the former vice president, will be the “most pro-equality president we have ever had.” (Nagourney and Kaplan, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Democratic Senators Say Trump Administration Has Been Slow To Use Coronavirus Testing Funds 
The Trump administration has yet to distribute nearly one-third of the funds provided by Congress for coronavirus testing and contact tracing, leading Senate Democrats say. The Department of Health and Human Services has neither spent nor detailed how it plans to spend $8 billion out of a $25 billion pot to be used for stemming the virus’s spread through diagnostic and antibody testing and contact tracing, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) charge. The funds were provided as part of the fourth pandemic relief bill passed by Congress at the end of April. (Winfield Cunningham, 6/21)

The Associated Press: Access To Ballot, Seal Of Democracy's Covenant, Under Attack
The ballot is deployed to replace the bullet, to decide peacefully who will lead, to resolve divisive issues and to empower individual citizens. Whether by voice or shards of pottery in ancient Greece, by ball, by corn and beans, lever and gear machines or touch screens, ballots were often cast in public until the United States and many other nations adopted the Australian model and allowed people to vote in private. (Tackett, 6/21)

Politico: ‘My Biggest Risk’: Trump Says Mail-In Voting Could Cost Him Reelection
President Donald Trump called mail-in voting the biggest threat to his reelection and said his campaign's multimillion-dollar legal effort to block expanded ballot access could determine whether he wins a second term. In an Oval Office interview Thursday focusing on the 2020 election, the president also warned his party in blunt terms not to abandon him and cast Hillary Clinton as a more formidable opponent than Joe Biden, despite Biden's commanding lead in polls. (Isenstadt, 6/19)

ProPublica: Inside The Trump Administration’s Decision To Leave The World Health Organization
Right before President Donald Trump unveiled punitive measures against China on May 29, he inserted a surprise into his prepared text. “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization,” he announced during a press conference in the Rose Garden. Most of the president’s top aides — and even some of his Cabinet secretaries — were blindsided. Just 11 days earlier, Trump had sent an ultimatum threatening to withdraw from the WHO if reforms were not enacted in 30 days. (Rotella, Bandler and Callahan, 6/20)

The New York Times: Vast Federal Aid Has Capped Rise In Poverty, Studies Find
An unprecedented expansion of federal aid has prevented the rise in poverty that experts predicted this year when the coronavirus sent unemployment to the highest level since the Great Depression, two new studies suggest. The assistance could even cause official measures of poverty to fall. The studies carry important caveats. Many Americans have suffered hunger or other hardships amid long delays in receiving the assistance, and much of the aid is scheduled to expire next month. Millions of people have been excluded from receiving any help, especially undocumented migrants, who often have American children. (DeParle, 6/21)

The Washington Post: SBA, Treasury Department Reverse Course On Loan Data After Pressure From Congress 
The U.S. Small Business Administration and Treasury Department announced Friday that they would release a data set showing which businesses received many taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program loans, walking back an earlier stance that all of the business names would remain hidden because the Trump administration considered them proprietary. The disclosures will include the names of recipients who received loans of more than $150,000 and it will also reveal a dollar range for each loan, such as whether it was between $1 million and $2 million. Precise dollar amounts will not be disclosed, the Trump administration said. (Gregg and Stein, 6/19)

The Associated Press: Watchdogs: Treasury Too Secretive On Small Business Loans
The Trump administration has relented to public pressure and pledged to provide more details about which small businesses received loans from a $600 billion-plus coronavirus aid program. But government watchdogs say even more transparency is needed to get an accurate picture of who was helped, and who was left out. Under pressure from Democratic lawmakers and government watchdogs, the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration said Friday they would disclose the names of small business owners who received $150,000 or more in forgivable loans. (D'Innocenzio, 6/21)

Reuters: Coronavirus Doing Almost Double The Debt Damage As Financial Crash: Moody's
The coronavirus will push debt levels in the world’s richest nations up by almost 20 percentage points on average this year, credit rating agency Moody’s said on Monday, almost double the damage seen during the financial crash. A new report by Moody’s looked at 14 countries from the United States and Japan to Italy and Britain and assessed how coronavirus-induced economic slowdowns would scar their finances. (6/22)

The New York Times: 8 Hospitals In 15 Hours: A Pregnant Woman’s Crisis In The Pandemic
Neelam Kumari Gautam woke up at 5 a.m. with shooting labor pains. Her husband put her gently in the back of a rickshaw and motored with her to a hospital. Then another. Then another. Her pain was so intense she could barely breathe, but none would take her. “Why are the doctors not taking me in?” she asked her husband, Bijendra Singh, over and over again. “What’s the matter? I will die.” Mr. Singh began to panic. He knew what he was up against. As India’s coronavirus crisis has accelerated — India is now reporting more infections a day than any other nation except the United States or Brazil — the country’s already strained and underfunded health care system has begun to buckle. (Gettleman and Raj, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Postpartum Stress Worsens Because Of Coronavirus 
On March 31, Andrea Root of Whittier, Calif., gave birth to her first child surrounded by doctors and nurses equipped with thick plastic face shields and multiple face masks who kept their distance, fearful that the 38-year-old was carrying covid-19. Within moments of her son’s birth, doctors whisked him away into the nearby neonatal intensive care unit — a precautionary measure taken to protect the infant from potentially contracting the novel coronavirus from his mother. Dazed, Root began to sob. (Leffler, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Why Eyes Need Good Care During Pandemic 
What is it about the eyes that have prompted the repeated coronavirus warnings? Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned again and again. You want to protect your eyes from respiratory viruses for two main reasons. There is a direct connection between the eyes and the nasal passages, which can lead to respiratory infection. And viruses can infect the eyes themselves, which is called conjunctivitis — or pinkeye. (Adama, 6/21)

CNN: Covid-19 Or Migraine? Here's How To Tell And What To Do About It 
Does it seem that your migraines are more frequent or worse and more difficult to bear since the pandemic began? That's not just in your head. Doctors say they are now seeing many more complaints from migraine sufferers — often called "migrainers" — and for good reason. "The current setting we're in is certainly quite triggering for people who have migraines. People are worried and they're getting more migraine headaches," said Dr. Rachel Colman, director of the Low-Pressure Headache Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. (LaMotte, 6/22)

The New York Times: Tsunami Or Ripple? The Pandemic’s Mental Toll Is An Open Question
The psychological fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has yet to fully show itself, but some experts have forecast a tsunami of new disorders, and news accounts have amplified that message. The World Health Organization warned in May of “a massive increase in mental health conditions in the coming months,” wrought by anxiety and isolation. Digital platforms such as Crisis Text Line and Talkspace regularly reported spikes in activity through the spring. And more than half of American adults said the pandemic had worsened their mental health, according to a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Carey, 6/21)

NPR: Drinking Too Much? Know The Signs And How To Get Help
Despite the lack of dine-in customers for nearly two and half long months during the shutdown, Darrell Loo of Waldo Thai stayed busy. Loo is the bar manager for the popular restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., and he credits increased drinking and looser liquor laws during the pandemic for his brisk business. Alcohol also seemed to help his customers deal with all the uncertainty and fear. "Drinking definitely was a way of coping with it," says Loo. "People did drink a lot more when it happened. I, myself, did drink a lot more." (Smith, 6/21)

Politico: Men Should Cut Back On Booze, Federal Panel Says
Men should cut back their alcohol intake to one drink per day rather than two, according to an influential panel that is advising the government on new dietary guidelines due out this year. And Americans should also further cut back on added sugars, said the panel of outside experts convened once every five years called the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. (Bottemiller Evich, 6/18)

The Wall Street Journal: The Virus Is Still Winning. Sports May Have To Wait.
Hundreds of college football players have tested positive since returning to campus for practice. Major League Baseball and NHL teams closed their facilities after detecting outbreaks. And the entire NBA is relocating to a part of Florida that is rapidly emerging as a hot spot. Sports are trying to stage a comeback. The virus is still winning. (Cohen, Robinson and Higgins, 6/21)

NPR: Face Mask Debates: Here's What We Know About The Science
Mask wearing has become a topic of fierce debate in the United States. People opposed to mask mandates have staged protests, and one local health official in Orange County, Calif., quit her job after receiving a death threat for a mask order. Not long after, California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered Californians to wear face coverings in public. Meanwhile in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott recently allowed some counties to impose mask mandates on businesses, despite an earlier order forbidding penalties on individuals for not wearing masks. (Godoy, 6/21)

The Washington Post: On Father’s Day, Families Gather In D.C. To Celebrate Black Fatherhood And Challenge Stereotypes
Determined to challenge racial stereotypes, scores of fathers gathered Sunday morning with their children, other relatives and friends at the National Museum of African American History and Culture for a walk to celebrate black fatherhood and commemorate those who were killed by police. On a cloudy and muggy Father’s Day in the nation’s capital, hundreds convened at the site on the Mall to deliver a myth-busting message. They wanted the world to know that they have pride in their families and work hard to nurture them. They shouted the names of their male ancestors, and they showed off their own children .Then they marched through the streets of Washington, as so many have in recent weeks, to demonstrate against racism and police brutality. “Black lives matter! Black dads matter! My dad matters!” the crowd chanted. (Boorstein and Anderson, 6/21)

Politico: 'Defund The Police’ Faces Skepticism — Even In Deeply Liberal Cities
The liberal push to "defund the police" has drawn predictable scorn from conservatives and resistance from more moderate Democrats, including the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden. But there’s a more significant obstacle to the growing movement on the left: Democratic politicians in the country’s deep-blue cities. Many of the cities with the highest number of law enforcement per capita on the payroll are urban areas with progressive mayors — including many women and people of color — and Democratic majorities on the city council. That means local leaders in cities like Washington, New York and Atlanta have the power to limit funding for some of the nation’s largest police forces and reallocate that money for programs to shrink the wealth gap and provide stable housing, access to jobs and health care. (McCaskill, 6/19)

The New York Times: From Policing To Climate Change, A Sweeping Call For A ‘Moral Revolution’
A national coalition to address the challenges of the working poor released a sweeping legislative platform in a three-hour virtual rally on Saturday, including proposals to address mass incarceration, health care and wealth inequality. The policy agenda by the coalition, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, seeks to offer a concrete road map for tackling the systemic injustices that have captured the nation’s attention in recent weeks after the police killing of George Floyd. (Eligon, 6/20)

The New York Times: After Video Shows Apparent Chokehold, N.Y.P.D. Suspends Officer
The New York Police Department on Sunday suspended a police officer who was involved in the arrest of a black man in Queens, after cellphone video of the encounter showed the officer appearing to use an illegal chokehold. The encounter on the Rockaway boardwalk Sunday morning took place only days after the City Council passed a law making the use of a chokehold by the police a criminal offense. It also comes as protesters have marched against police brutality for weeks in New York City and across the nation. (Southall and Zaveri, 6/21)

The Associated Press: Injuries At Protests Draw Scrutiny To Use Of Police Weaponry
In law enforcement, they’re referred to as “nonlethal” tools for dealing with demonstrations that turn unruly: rubber bullets, pepper spray, batons, flash-bangs. But the now-familiar scenes of U.S. police officers in riot gear clashing with protesters at Lafayette Park across from the White House and in other cities have police critics charging that the weaponry too often escalates tensions and hurts innocent people. (Neumeister and Hays, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Asians And Latinos Embrace George Floyd Protests Over Parents' Objections 
The argument began as soon as Charlie Mai and his brother, Henry, announced their plans to attend a Black Lives Matter protest that evening in D.C. Their father was not having it. Glenn Mai, a retired FBI agent, had been raised in Dallas by Chinese immigrants who had taught him that he would succeed if he just worked hard. “Chinese culture is very much about working within the system,” Glenn, 54, said, and during decades in law enforcement, he’d come to believe the system worked. (Trent, 6/21)

NPR: Sandy Hook Victim's Parents Encourage Protesters To Persevere
The protests since the death of George Floyd are being hailed by many as a watershed moment that might ultimately bring about an end to police brutality and systemic racism. But the high hopes are also tangled up in dark fears that the current uprising will eventually die down and will end up being just one more missed opportunity. Nelba Marquez-Greene, 45, has seen it before. After her 6-year-old daughter, Ana Grace, was killed, along with 25 others, in the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, she'd hoped that tragedy would mark a turning point. She poured herself into protesting and lobbying for meaningful change. (Smith, 6/21)

Stat: Amid Covid-19, Federal Minority Health Experts Are Conspicuously Silent
Four months into a pandemic that has disproportionately devastated Black, Latino, and Native American communities, leading minority health experts within the Trump administration remain conspicuously quiet and have conducted minimal outreach to communities of color. The directors of two federal minority health offices, as well as the government’s $336 million health disparities research institute, have not conducted TV or radio interviews since the pandemic began in early 2020. None has testified before Congress, or appeared at a White House coronavirus task force meeting or public press briefing. (Facher, 6/22)

The Associated Press: COVID-19 Is Ravaging America's Vulnerable Latino Communities
A Hispanic immigrant working at a fast-food restaurant in North Carolina is rushed to the hospital after she contracts COVID-19. A sickened Honduran woman in Baltimore with no health insurance or immigration status avoids the doctor for two weeks and finally takes a cab to the hospital and ends up on oxygen. As the coronavirus spreads deeper across America, it’s ravaging Latino communities from the suburbs of the nation’s capital to the farm fields of Florida to the sprawling suburbs of Phoenix and countless areas in between. (Cano, Snow and Anderson, 6/19)

Politico: 'So Much Worse Than I Ever Thought It Would Be': Virus Cases Skyrocketing Among Latinos
Coronavirus infections have rapidly increased among Latinos in the past two months, outpacing other racial and ethnic minorities. Latinos make up a disproportionate share of the cases in nearly every state, and are more than four times higher than their share of the population in some states. That’s raising alarms for doctors and public health officials as they see hospitalizations on the rise. The doctors "had never seen such a large number of people who speak Spanish in the intensive care unit,” said Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, a Duke professor and physician who has tracked hospitalizations of Latino patients in Durham County, N.C. Although they were young to middle-aged — a group that is not usually at high risk for serious illness, many patients were very ill and had delayed seeking help, she said. (Barron-Lopez, 6/18)

NPR: If You Get A Coronavirus Test, Will Insurance Pay? It Depends
In the wake of the massive turnout at anti-racism demonstrations around the country, public health officials are encouraging protesters to get tested for the coronavirus. As purely precautionary testing has become more common, some insurance companies are arguing they can't just pay for everyone who's concerned about their risk to get tested. Lynne Cushing of Nashville, Tenn., says she had been pretty strict about social distancing until the recent protests, which she felt compelled to attend. (Farmer, 6/19)

The New York Times: Big Tech Zeros In On The Virus-Testing Market 
Verily Life Sciences, a sister company of Google, scrambled to introduce a free coronavirus-screening site for the public and set up testing locations in March after President Trump made an off-the-cuff announcement about the program. It had a rocky start, but has since helped more than 220,000 people get tested in 13 states. Now, the company has its sights set on employers. It is introducing a health screening and analytics service for businesses trying to safely reopen during the pandemic. (Singer, 6/18)

ProPublica: The Trump Administration Paid Millions For Test Tubes — And Got Unusable Mini Soda Bottles 
Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable. The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. (McSwane and Gabrielson, 6/18)