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Election 2020

Trump’s assault on USPS gives Democrats a new campaign message

Democrats say the president’s move to undermine the U.S. Postal Service offers them a chance to scoop up rural voters, veterans and seniors.
Perspective

The media must keep up red-alert coverage of Trump’s attacks on Postal Service

It’s a hard story to cover effectively, but journalists have to find a way because democracy depends on it this fall, a media columnist writes.
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(Rebecca Hendin for The Post)
(Rebecca Hendin for The Post)
Outlook
Perspective

Trump has weaponized wasting his opponents’ time

His adversaries spend hundreds of thousands of hours resisting his throwaway ideas.
  • By Paul Musgrave
  • 1 day ago
Analysis: The media was far less likely to let birtherism attacks slide this time
Book Review

Kamala Harris’s memoir shows she doesn’t like to be forced into political absolutes

CORONAVIRUS

‘No way to spin that,’ Romney says of virus deaths

"We really have not distinguished ourselves" in handling the pandemic, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said, offering rare Republican criticism of the Trump administration's coronavirus response.

A Fla. district wanted to wait to reopen schools. The governor threatened to cut $200 million in funds.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) forced one of the largest U.S. school districts to reopen buildings by the end of August.
“I am not going to wait for a rescue. … I’m prepared to just make this my new normal.”
— Cara Briggs Farmer, 45, a sculpture artist in Marion, Iowa
“I have been in tears from the support that I’ve been getting from my clients. There’s no better gratitude.”
— Alanea Manuel, 38, owner of a hair salon in Alexandria, Va.
“If something happens to me, who’s going to take care of my grandkids?”
— Sonya Roper, 51, a home health aide in High Point, N.C.
“I was one of the naysayers about covid. … Then I saw the mortality numbers and I thought, ‘This is bad, this is really bad.’”
— Mick Stewart, 53, a personal trainer in Houston
(Kathryn Gamble for The Post)
(Kathryn Gamble for The Post)
(Salwan Georges/The Post)
(Salwan Georges/The Post)
(Eamon Queeney for The Post)
(Eamon Queeney for The Post)
(Callaghan O'Hare for The Post)
(Callaghan O'Hare for The Post)

Their lives were upended by the pandemic. After months of struggle, 10 Americans find ways to adapt.

Video
(Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
Once called 'delusional' for running, female politicians say a woman VP is overdue
Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s history on race
Play Video 14:47
How Anthony Fauci stays healthy and sane during a pandemic
Play Video 2:04
Visit to Beirut’s port shows devastation from explosion
Play Video 7:43
How coronavirus affects children and what that means for schools
Play Video 2:11
Opinions
The election is a choice between Donald Trump — and Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris exposes the GOP’s radicalism
The South won’t give up on college football. Even if it kills us.
  • By Diane Roberts
Despite the UAE-Israel deal, Trump will leave the Mideast a bigger mess than he found it
The Israel-UAE agreement is Trump’s Nobel moment
How Jennifer O’Malley Dillon transformed Joe Biden’s campaign
Stories You’ll Want to Hear

How the pandemic is straining the unemployment system

What it’s like to be at the mercy of America’s unemployment system, stretched to the brink by the pandemic. And portraits of health-care workers.
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Live Discussions
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  • Monday, Aug 17 at 2PM EDT
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  • Tuesday, Aug 18 at 11AM EDT
Chatological Humor with Gene Weingarten
  • Tuesday, Aug 18 at 12PM EDT
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More Top Stories
Corn sits near damaged grain bins at the Heartland Co-Op grain elevator in Luther, Iowa. (Getty Images)
Corn sits near damaged grain bins at the Heartland Co-Op grain elevator in Luther, Iowa. (Getty Images)

Iowans struggle to find help, strength after powerful storm devastates homes, farms

The violent thunderstorm lasted 14 hours and devastated scores of communities in the Hawkeye State, especially Cedar Rapids.

Before the accord, Israel and UAE developed a long and quiet courtship

According to U.S. administration officials, other Persian Gulf states are poised to follow the UAE’s lead and establish ties with Israel.

A small bird sheds its Confederate past with a new name

  • By Zachary Lewis
  • 3 days ago
Don’t Miss

In rare find, fossil shows how Cretaceous-era ‘hell ant’ ate its prey with weird jaws

  • By Erin Blakemore
  • 4 hours ago

Selfies and sunsets be gone: The latest Instagram trend is PowerPoint-style presentations

Two sites that amplify hoaxes given special treatment at Trump’s briefings despite restrictions

Analysis

Trump continually misreads the politics of the pandemic

Americans support stronger efforts to control the outbreak — and see Joe Biden as better able to handle it.

Trump visits younger brother, Robert Trump, who is very ill in hospital

The DNC starts Monday. Here’s what you need to know.

  • By Washington Post Staff
  • 1 day ago
President Trump pauses while speaking during a news conference Friday. (Bloomberg)
President Trump pauses while speaking during a news conference Friday. (Bloomberg)
Analysis

Asked about QAnon, Trump declines to denounce the conspiracy theory

QAnon is based on falsehoods but loves President Trump and works to attack his opponents. What’s Trump going to object to there?

U.N. rejects extension of arms embargo against Iran

The U.S. suffered an embarrassing defeat Friday when the Security Council refused to go along with a U.S. proposal to extend the embargo, which is set to expire in two months.

British vacationers in France told to 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.
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.

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

The video from Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled to Lithuania, came amid E.U. talks on possible steps against Belarus’s authoritarian ruler, who was recently reelected in a contest widely criticized as rigged.
Lehua Gray has volunteered to test a coronavirus vaccine through a website called 1Day Sooner, which aims to reduce the time until FDA approval by crowdsourcing volunteers. (Julia Robinson for The Post)
Lehua Gray has volunteered to test a coronavirus vaccine through a website called 1Day Sooner, which aims to reduce the time until FDA approval by crowdsourcing volunteers. (Julia Robinson for The Post)

U.S. will prepare virus strain for potential human challenge trials

Getting ready for human challenge trials — ethically fraught experiments in which people are vaccinated and intentionally exposed to the virus — will take months.
CDC asks 4 states and a city to draft coronavirus vaccine distribution plans

What we know about the killing of 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant

Betsy DeVos’s controversial new rule on campus sexual assault goes into effect

The rule expands the rights of the accused, prompting critics to say women will be reluctant to report attacks.
(Paige Stampatori for The Washington Post)
(Paige Stampatori for The Washington Post)
Perspective

College football’s con has been laid bare by the pandemic

The sport's leaders want absolution, not progress, which is why the entire system may not survive this current emergency.

Indians demote pitchers who broke coronavirus protocols

Both Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac, who on Thursday posted an Instagram video blaming the media for the situation, will spend at least 10 days away from the team.

Vlade Divac steps down as Kings GM as 14-year playoff drought continues

Divac's resignation comes after a five-year tenure marked by losing seasons, coaching changes and questionable draft decisions.
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.
Nats split doubleheader with O’s as Strasburg, Castro exit with injuries

Capitals fall to Islanders, 5-2, and trail 2-0 in series

The Capitals had another early lead and, for the second straight game, offered little in the third period. Game 3 is Sunday.

Northam unveils bills to address pandemic, economic crisis and calls for racial justice

The Virginia governor staked out priorities he wants to protect amid cuts to the state budget.
CORONAVIRUS

Dining while infectious is on the rise. Meet D.C.’s restaurant safety enforcers.

The mayor is resisting calls to close indoor dining as more people eat out, pointing instead to an enforcement blitz.
Known deaths and cases
Luray Mayor Barry Presgraves is shown in a 2013 file photo. (Courtesy of Charlie Archambault)
Luray Mayor Barry Presgraves is shown in a 2013 file photo. (Courtesy of Charlie Archambault)
Perspective

An enslaved person’s words provide painful context for an official’s post about Biden picking ‘Aunt Jemima as his VP’

In “Aunt Betty’s Story,” a 19th-century woman from a small town in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley offers an intimate account of using tricks to avoid being sold at an auction and the fears that came with motherhood. Her words still resonate today.

National Zoo announces that giant panda may be pregnant

Top aide to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser abruptly departs

(Global Food and Water Safety/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
(Global Food and Water Safety/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

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

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that an appliance such as a rice cooker or Instant Pot can thoroughly disinfect an N95 without degrading it.
Perspective

‘Tony Hawk’ warehouse demo delivers a ‘nuclear bomb of nostalgia’ in 2 minutes

Inspired Life

A homeless man hadn’t seen his family in 20 years. This couple reunited them.

  • By Sydney Page
  • 1 day ago
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

The lack of ingredient transparency on bottle labels leaves wines vulnerable to assertions of health claims and marketing of “clean” wines. (Getty Images)
The lack of ingredient transparency on bottle labels leaves wines vulnerable to assertions of health claims and marketing of “clean” wines. (Getty Images)
Perspective

Wine labels can be vague, and drinkers are thirsty for clarity

A lack of ingredient transparency makes wines open to criticism from labels that purport to offer better-for-you wines.
Perspective

It’s hot, we’re stuck and everything is terrible. These cocktails can swizzle your worries away.

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.

How covid-19-related travel restrictions are complicating the once-simple road trip

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
  • 1 day 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.
(Taipei Zoo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)Photos
(Taipei Zoo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Here are 12 of the week’s best photos
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