The Washington Post
Election 2020

Discontent with McCarthy rises as GOP considers post-Trump world

A small group of House Republicans has started discussing whether someone should challenge Kevin McCarthy, a top Trump ally, for minority leader.

As he attacks mail-in votes, Trump and the first lady requested absentee ballots in Florida

Demonstrators in Detroit march against police brutality at the beginning of August. (Salwan Georges/The Post)
Demonstrators in Detroit march against police brutality at the beginning of August. (Salwan Georges/The Post)

For Black activists, Harris’s new role brings pride but also compromise

The choice of a Black running mate was welcomed warily by activists, who dislike Kamala Harris’s record as a prosecutor.

The pandemic has reshaped Trump’s prospects for reelection

No election in history has played out against the backdrop of a pandemic, a major recession and a racial reckoning. Even more than ever, it is largely about the incumbent.
CORONAVIRUS
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U.S. engineering new virus strain for ‘Plan D’ vaccine experiment

CDC asks 4 states and a city to draft coronavirus vaccine distribution plans

Researchers found a way to clean N95 masks — in a common electric cooker

Tourists sit on beach in Coti-Chiavari on Friday. (AFP/Getty Images)
Tourists sit on beach in Coti-Chiavari on Friday. (AFP/Getty Images)

British vacationers in France told to immediately return home or face 14-day quarantine

The sudden announcement of emergency isolation measures, sparked by a rising number of coronavirus cases in France, took most by surprise.
RACE & RECKONING
LIVE UPDATES
State police to leave downtown Portland
Perspective

Structural racism helps schemers attract Blacks to fake ‘sou-sou’ scams

Video
(JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s history on race
Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s history on race
Play Video 14:47
USPS veteran responds to Trump's attacks on the Post Office
Play Video 3:34
In the Senate, Kamala Harris grilled Trump officials and appointees
Play Video 1:56
Back to school, through a movie and a book | Critics at Home
Play Video 4:01
Opinions
Trump’s racist attacks against Kamala Harris have already begun
Americans have no more illusions about the stakes of this election
Washington fiddles while America burns
Trump refuses to learn the lessons of World War II
It didn’t take long for the Kamala birthers to arrive
Kamala Harris’s foreign policy unites the ticket, if not the party
Stories You’ll Want to Hear

What’s up with the Postal Service?

How delays and a partisan battle over funding the U.S. Postal Service may affect the election. Latino voters in Arizona may hold the key for a Democratic win there. And, a climate solution for America’s hottest cities.
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More Top Stories

Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty of falsifying email in Trump campaign probe

Kevin Clinesmith was accused of doctoring a document to help justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser as part of the 2016 investigation of Russian interference in the election.

Top DHS officials aren’t legally eligible for their roles, GAO finds

Homeland Security acting secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, are serving under an "invalid order of succession," the Government Accountability Office found.
An aerial view shows a wildfire in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Region last month. (Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace/Handout via Reuters)
An aerial view shows a wildfire in Russia's Krasnoyarsk Region last month. (Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace/Handout via Reuters)

Record Arctic blazes may herald new ‘fire regime’ decades sooner than anticipated

Scientists' models predicted that extreme fire years would begin to emerge in the Arctic mid-century. But two years' worth of record-setting fires have raised the unsettling possibility that this is the new normal.
Don’t Miss
Critic’s Notebook

Kayleigh McEnany is the camera-perfect embodiment of Trump’s message: Everything is fine

The poetic reunion that brought Ocasio-Cortez’s second-grade teacher to tears

Power Up
Analysis

Trump’s words on mail voting could complicate GOP efforts to curtail it

The president's admission on why he's holding up Postal Service funding could also come to haunt Republicans if they seek to challenge results not in Trump's favor.

Trump to visit younger brother, Robert Trump, who is very ill in hospital

Robert Trump unsuccessfully sought to block publication this summer of niece Mary Trump’s best-selling tell-all book, “Too Much and Never Enough,” about their family.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), on Aug. 13. (Reuters)
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), on Aug. 13. (Reuters)

The Democratic National Convention convenes Monday — mostly virtually. Here’s what you need to know.

The Obamas and the Clintons will speak, along with other party luminaries. But because of health concerns around the coronavirus pandemic, Joe Biden will accept the nomination from his home in Delaware.
  • By Washington Post Staff
  • 2 hours ago

Pompeo calls it ‘just nuts’ to allow Iran to trade in arms as U.N. vote nears

The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote Friday on a proposal to extend an arms embargo that is set to expire in October.

From self-exile, Belarus opposition leader calls for protests to reach ‘every city’

The video from Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Latvia, came amid E.U. talks on possible steps against Belarus’s authoritarian ruler, who was recently reelected in a contest widely criticized as rigged.
A photographer captured the moment a couple's wedding photos were interrupted by the massive Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4. The couple was not injured. (Reuters)

Two couples’ wedding photos captured Beirut’s devastation. Both brides wondered if the other survived.

One bride, a doctor, rushed to tend to the wounded in her white wedding dress.

Suspected ISIS cleric accused of inspiring American terrorists to stand trial in New York

Abdullah al-Faisal was extradited from Jamaica and is to be arraigned in Manhattan.
Perspective

Decline of SAT and ACT sparks dubious fears of high school grade inflation

Test scores don’t reveal as much as grades do.
Three women cross the Rio Grande toward Eagle Pass from Piedras Negras, Mexico in April 2019. (Sergio Flores for The Post)
Three women cross the Rio Grande toward Eagle Pass from Piedras Negras, Mexico in April 2019. (Sergio Flores for The Post)

Trump administration now wants floating wall to seal off waterways along Mexico border

As the United States builds a $15 billion border wall, it is exploring adding a “Buoy Barrier System” to block river and sea crossings.

Retail sales inched up in July as Americans loaded up on electronics

Families preparing for a virtual school year powered sales of laptops, webcams, headphones and other electronics by 23 percent.

Google ends direct cooperation with Hong Kong on data requests

The move comes in the wake of Beijing’s imposition of a broad national security law that targets vaguely defined crimes including subversion of state power, collusion with foreign powers, secession and terrorism.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Reuters)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Reuters)

Pompeo presses his campaign against Chinese telecom companies during trip to Eastern Europe

During a stop in Slovenia, the secretary of state signed a joint statement with Foreign Minister Anze Logar to “exclude untrusted vendors” from high-speed wireless networks.
Analysis

The NBA’s playoff picture was clear entering the bubble. Now it’s complicated.

LeBron James’s Lakers, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks and Kawhi Leonard's Clippers entered the NBA bubble as strong favorites, but new vulnerabilities have complicated the championship chase.
Perspective

Can you win a legitimate sports title during a pandemic? We're about to find out.

If we have learned anything about trying to contest sports right now, it’s that if you’re upset about the way things stand at a single point in time, wait a couple of hours, because they’ll change.
Bob Ryland
1920–2020

First Black tennis player to go pro dies at 100

He also coached players including Leslie Allen and Bruce Foxworth, and celebrities such as Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman.
Sam Freeman left his latest appearance this past Wednesday after suffering a mass flexor strain in his left elbow. He's now on the 10-day injured list. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
Sam Freeman left his latest appearance this past Wednesday after suffering a mass flexor strain in his left elbow. He's now on the 10-day injured list. (Frank Franklin II/AP)

Pitcher injuries are piling up, raising a new concern for teams early in MLB’s delayed season

The Nationals are just one team dealing with a rash of injured pitchers this season.

NCAA pulls plug on all Division I fall championships except for top-tier football

The announcement was essentially a formality given the number of conferences that have already postponed fall sports and the board of governors’ requirement that at least 50 percent of schools participate in a season for a championship to be held.

Virginia House Democrats roll out plans for budget, criminal justice overhaul

The General Assembly will return to Richmond on Tuesday just months after newly empowered Democrats pulled off a raft of legislative wins in the regular session.
CORONAVIRUS

Montgomery County pauses testing at county sites pending review of private lab

County officials have decided to close all county-run testing sites over potential issues with testing by Rockville-based AdvaGenix.
Known deaths and cases
The Bullis School occupies a lush 102-acre campus in Potomac, Md. (Bill O'Leary/The Post)
The Bullis School occupies a lush 102-acre campus in Potomac, Md. (Bill O'Leary/The Post)

The head of Potomac’s Bullis School was celebrated. But his exit was messier than it appeared.

Amid by claims of misspending and conflicts of interest, the board of the elite private school voted it had cause to terminate head of school Gerald Boarman, but let him finish his term.

D.C. marks construction milestone on new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge

D.C. police detain protesters in Adams Morgan area

The group of protesters had been marching for about two hours through Northwest Washington.
From left, Courtney B. Vance as George, Jonathan Majors as Tic and Jurnee Smollett as Leti in “Lovecraft Country.” (Eli Joshua Ade/HBO)
From left, Courtney B. Vance as George, Jonathan Majors as Tic and Jurnee Smollett as Leti in “Lovecraft Country.” (Eli Joshua Ade/HBO)
TV Review

‘Lovecraft Country’ is on the hunt for beasts of bigotry, but its aim isn’t always precise

The HBO horror drama turns classic phantasmagoria into a Jim Crow-era metaphor.
Perspective

The best-kept secret in documentaries? It’s all in the casting.

Book Review

More than a century later, the wonderful work of Andrew Lang holds up remarkably well

Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post)
Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post)

Black lentils add drama to this stunning summer salad

Matchsticks of kohlrabi or broccoli stems add pale, crisp contrast to tender, caviar-like black lentils and juicy grape tomatoes.

Spicy, crisp, buttery or tender, radishes offer something for every season

5 no-cook salads to keep you and your kitchen cool and happy

(iStock/Washington Post illustration)
(iStock/Washington Post illustration)

Money can buy social distance. But where does that leave budget travelers?

From isolated villas to private jets, the wealthy have found ways to travel during a pandemic. But for backpackers and hostel enthusiasts, it’s not as simple.

Masks on, shoes off: People are still going barefoot on planes

He set out to show his son the D.C. area’s 68 Civil War forts. Protests made it more than a diversion.

  • By Graham H. Cornwell
  • 2 hours ago
Visual Stories
(Michael O. Snyder)In Sight
(Michael O. Snyder)
‘I guess they saw potential’: For 20 years, this program has helped Baltimore youths find center, one breath at a time
(The Washington Post)Graphic
(The Washington Post)
Harris is the pick, but women of color remain underrepresented in government
(Brittany Renee Mayes and Kate Rabinowitz/The Post)Graphic
(Brittany Renee Mayes and Kate Rabinowitz/The Post)
Since 2016, 11 states and D.C. have expanded voting rights for the currently and formerly incarcerated
Visual Story
Surviving on, and maybe losing, a contested land
(Maria Magdalena Arréllaga for The Post)Story
(Maria Magdalena Arréllaga for The Post)
These neighbors were hospitalized with coronavirus. Their vastly different journeys show the depths of Brazil’s rich-poor divide.
(Jonathan Newton/The Post)Photos
(Jonathan Newton/The Post)
Here are 16 of the week’s best photos
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