The Morning Dispatch: What Does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean?

Happy Monday. We hope your weekend was great (as possible). Lots to get to today. Let’s do the news.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • As of Sunday night, 1,941,978 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States (an increase of 22,548 from yesterday) and 110,503 deaths have been attributed to the virus (an increase of 712 from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 5.7 percent (the true mortality rate is likely much lower, between 0.4 percent and 1.4 percent, but it’s impossible to determine precisely due to incomplete testing regimens). Of 20,235,678 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States (456,805 conducted since yesterday), 9.6 percent have come back positive.

  • Friday’s jobs report beat expectations. Rather than increase to near 20 percent, as many economists worried, the unemployment rate actually declined in May, settling in at 13.3 percent as economic activity gradually picks up.

  • Nine members of Minneapolis’s City Council—a veto-proof majority—announced their intention to “disband” the city’s police department, vowing to replace it with a “new model of public safety.” Details of the proposal remain fuzzy, however. “The idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term,” City Council President Lisa Bender said.

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Already a paid member? Sign In
Comments (0)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.

There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.