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First thing: Trump's current and former defense secretaries oppose his threats of force

<span>Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Good morning.

The last two US secretaries of defense have both voiced stiff opposition to Donald Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests. Mark Esper, the current Pentagon chief, said categorically on Tuesday that he did not support invoking the Insurrection Act to allow active duty troops to be deployed in American cities, as the president has threatened. And in an extraordinary broadside, published by the Atlantic, Esper’s predecessor James Mattis said he was “angry and appalled” by the behaviour of his former boss:

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.

As the largely peaceful demonstrations continued across the country on Wednesday night, it emerged that more than 3,000 people had been arrested in Los Angeles county during the unrest – the vast majority for non-violent offences such as failure to disperse. Amid the protests, the NYPD has restored its historic reputation for brutality, while the New York Times is under fire – including from members of its own staff – after it published an op-ed by GOP Senator Tom Cotton, calling on Trump to “send in the troops”.

If this harsh response to protests occurred in another country, writes Michael H Fuchs, the US would rightly condemn it:

In the same week that America is trying to pressure China over its repression in Hong Kong and commemorating the anniversary of China’s violent crackdown against citizens in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the American government is threatening violence against peaceful protesters at home.

Could Joe Biden really be a ‘transformational’ president?

‘It is not enough to just be better than Trump.’ Biden meets black leaders at Bethel AME church in Wilmington this week.
‘It is not enough to just be better than Trump.’ Biden meets black leaders at Bethel AME church in Wilmington this week. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Barack Obama said on Wednesday that despite the division on display across the US, he remains “optimistic” about the future, and about the capacity of young people of colour to change the country for the better. During a Zoom event organised by the Obama Foundation, America’s first black president said young protesters had “communicated a sense of urgency that is as powerful and as transformative as anything that I’ve seen in recent years”.

Obama’s former vice-president, Joe Biden, now faces the challenge of convincing those protesters he has ambitions beyond just being “better than Trump”, reports Lauren Gambino. According to Akunna Cook, the former president of the Black Economic Alliance: “Biden has the latitude to be a transformational president.”

Minnesota charges all four officers over George Floyd’s death

Mourners gather at the makeshift memorial to George Floyd near the site of his death in Minneapolis.
Mourners gather at the makeshift memorial to George Floyd near the site of his death in Minneapolis. Photograph: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

The attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, said on Wednesday that he had increased the charge against Derek Chauvin – the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes – from third- to second-degree murder. The other three officers involved in the incident that led to Floyd’s death now face charges of aiding and abetting murder.

The WHO is restarting its hydroxychloroquine trials

Confusion reigns over hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial touted by Trump as a Covid-19 treatment.
Confusion reigns over hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial touted by Trump as a Covid-19 treatment. Photograph: George Frey/Reuters

Last month, the World Health Organization halted its global clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug touted by Trump and others as a possible Covid-19 treatment, after a study published by the Lancet raised concerns about the risks of the drug. But scientists have since questioned that study, while a Guardian investigation found it was based on flawed data from the small and little-known US firm Surgisphere.

And so, on Wednesday, the WHO announced it would resume the trial after all. And yet, a separate study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the drug is no more effective in protecting people exposed to the virus than a placebo.

More coronavirus updates:

In other news…

More than 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel have spilled into the Ambarnaya River.
More than 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel have spilled into the Ambarnaya River. Photograph: Denis Kozhevnikov/Tass

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Brian McBride scoring the USA’s opener against Mexico in the second round of the 2002 World Cup Finals in Chonju, South Korea.
Brian McBride scoring the USA’s opening goal against Mexico in the second round of the 2002 World Cup Finals in Chonju, South Korea. Photograph: Oleg Popov/Reuters

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Black lives didn’t matter to them then, so their shallow presentations of coalition don’t matter to protesters now.

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