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‘Nothing works if public space is unsafe,’ says the respected urban sociologist Patrick Sharkey. The ‘Defund the Police’ initiative demands deep structural changes. But are incremental reforms more likely to deliver safe and lawful policing to those who need it most?Reflecting on the prevalence of gun violence in many black communities, Sharkey writes:‘An expanding body of research has shown just how damaging violence is to community life, children’s academic trajectories and healthy child development. We have rigorous, causal evidence that every shooting in a neighborhood affects children’s sleep and their ability to focus and learn.

After the horrible death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, I started to grow increasingly uncomfortable by what I saw. I saw the legitimate grievances of African Americans who for too long have failed to see their lives improve. I saw virtue-signaling whites lecture the rest of us to do something. My heart grew heavy. I was told again and again that I had 'white privilege’; that America suffered from 'institutional racism’; that the original sin of slavery made the country I love so deeply flawed. I reached my boiling point as I drove my kids to meet up with friends where I shared my discomfort with the narrative being told about America. In the car, we talked about what's been happening.

It’s starting to look as though the question isn’t who Donald Trump asked to assist him in his 2020 bid but who he didn’t. Former national security adviser John Bolton reports in his forthcoming 592-page memoir, The Room Where It Happened, that Trump seems to have asked Chinese President Xi Xinping to lend him a hand during a summit dinner last year. Add that to the 'favor' he asked for from Ukraine and you have a portrait of a President who was desperate for help wherever and whenever he could find it. Maybe Trump had it right: if his current prospects are anything to go by he could definitely use a lift from abroad. Was this his personal version of what international law calls 'anticipatory self-defense?

Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County was massively significant for two reasons. As a legal matter, the ruling determined that the prohibition on ‘sex discrimination’ in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to fire an employee on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. As a political matter, the ruling flipped the entire legislative strategy of the GOP political class — which relied exclusively on judges to enact and protect all of their priorities — on its head.The majority opinion was authored by none other than Justice Neil Gorsuch, nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Republican Senate in 2017.

Are you ready for the second blame wave? As the country braces itself for an inevitable repeat surge in COVID-19 infections, we’re told red-state governors 'opened too soon'. The next outbreak, we can be sure, will be something to do with the fact the President decided to resume his political rallies, approximately two weeks from now. What nobody says is that individual or social behavior is the cause. It can’t possibly be the thousands of people closely together marching down city streets yelling and chanting, some with masks, some not. The guidelines fell completely by the wayside for the Democrats and much of network cable news. In the middle of May, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser extended her lockdown order through to the June 8.

Crime-ridden Baltimore finally dodged a bullet this week. The bullet, in this case, was former mayor Sheila Dixon, who nearly became mayor again, despite resigning from office a decade ago when a jury found her guilty of misdemeanor embezzlement. Perhaps this loss can undo the curse of the Baltimore mayor’s office.Considering the string of scandals plaguing recent mayors, curse may not be a strong enough word. Decide for yourself: 2010: Mayor Dixon, who assumed office in 2007 after Mayor Martin O’Malley was elected Maryland governor, resigns after soliciting gift cards from a wealthy developer that were intended for poor children but were used on shopping sprees while she was city council president. City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake assumes the office.

SeattleAh, Seattle, that environmentally obsessed city where all is decorous, the sidewalks immaculately swept, the parks rigorously trimmed, proverbial for its snow-capped mountains and sparkling lakes, and now, too, for its riotous Capitol Hill residential neighborhood where free spirits roam with their feral dogs and semi-automatic weapons. Their little community survives — even flourishes — by handing out free stuff like gas masks from the back of trucks, eating lentils cooked over an open fire, and sustaining each other’s morale by peak-decibel showings of the racially-themed movie 13th. Apparently they’re in it for the long haul.

I was in my hotel room in London when the second wave of riots in Ferguson broke out. The clashes began on November 24, 2014 after a grand jury decided, rightly, not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown, a black man who, according to black eyewitnesses, was shot to death by Wilson after charging at him. As a filmmaker who often travels to hotspots around the world to document the absurdity of the human condition, I wrestled with whether I should cut short my London trip, fly directly to the St Louis suburb and risk myself and my crew by documenting the chaos breaking out there. Arriving in Ferguson, I witnessed heart-wrenching scenes of an American city in flames.

One of the largest obstacles standing in the way of Donald Trump’s re-election is his weakness in every big city in America. Some cities produce such large vote advantages for the Democrats that a Republican simply can’t make up those votes across the rest of the state. That disadvantage is a write off in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago because Trump is guaranteed to lose the deep blue states those cities are in. It will matter, however, in nine battleground states that will decide who wins the 2020 election. Specifically, in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the vote totals in the big cities and counties could make it nearly impossible to win those states in the suburban and rural areas.

Thanks to the nature of digital media, the last 10 days can be seen in entirely different ways. On one feed rioters turn urban centers into scenes from a Purge movie, indiscriminately attacking people and property, advancing the cause of racial justice by burning down immigrant-run businesses and murdering a retired black police captain. On another feed, it is the cops who are running amok. Festooned with tactical gear and high-tech weaponry (or old-fashioned clubs), the police appear to attack people indiscriminately — from old men to young women out buying groceries to homeless guys in wheelchairs — apparently for the crime of being in their way.