Chicago police return fire as looters hit Mag Mile, smashing windows and confronting officers  —  Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers, authorities said.

How Trump Killed Tens of Thousands of Americans  —  On July 17, President Donald Trump sat for a Fox News interview at the White House.  At the time, nearly 140,000 Americans were dead from the novel coronavirus.  The interviewer, Chris Wallace, showed Trump a video clip in which Robert Redfield …

Winter is coming: Why America's window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 is closing  —  The good news: The United States has a window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 before things get much, much worse.  —  The bad news: That window is rapidly closing.  And the country seems unwilling or unable to seize the moment.

Mnuchin is open to restarting virus relief talks: 'We're prepared to put more money on the table'  — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the White House is open to resuming coronavirus aid talks with Democrats and putting more relief money on the table to reach a compromise.

Hong Kong Publisher Jimmy Lai Is Arrested Under National Security Law  —  The pro-democracy figure is the most high-profile figure detained under the sweeping law imposed by Beijing on the semiautonomous territory.  —  HONG KONG — The Hong Kong police on Monday arrested seven people …

Trump tries to set a tax trap for Biden  —  President Trump is trying to lure Joe Biden into a Walter Mondale trap — attempting to force the Democratic nominee to embrace middle-class tax increases as part of his election strategy.  —  Why it matters: With his Saturday evening executive action …

Facing bleak November, Republicans look to stoke BLM backlash  —  For a brief moment after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis policeman in late May, some members of the GOP joined calls for change as protests exploded onto streets across the country.  That moment is over.

How Pro-Trump Forces Work the Refs in Silicon Valley  —  The new referees in American politics are Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they would be wise to pay attention to lessons the old media tried to learn.  —  One of the oddest moments during last month's tech hearings on Capitol Hill came …

Ron Johnson subpoenas documents from FBI director  —  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has issued the first subpoena of his Senate probe into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation: to FBI Director Christopher Wray.  —  The subpoena, which POLITICO reviewed, demands documents but not testimony.

Arizona Focus Group Sees Trump's Crime Attack On Biden As ‘Far From Reality’  —  Audio will be available later today.  —  The ad is stark.  —  An elderly white woman is watching the news.  An anchor reports that cities want to “defund” the police, as she hears a noise coming from elsewhere in the house.

There Will Be No October Surprise This Year  —  And even if Trump unveils one, it won't make a difference.  —  Barr has been a naked partisan in using the Department of Justice as a tool to advance Trump's political interests.  —  Cast your mind ahead a couple of months, to the beginning of October.

Big Ten reportedly voted 12-2 to cancel football season; Michigan, MSU voted not to play  —  Longtime sports personality Dan Patrick reported during his radio show Monday morning that the Big Ten has voted.  —  There won't be a college football season this fall.

UW-Madison: Battleground state poll shows Biden leading Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  —  CONTACT: Veronica Rueckert, rueckert@wisc.edu , 608-262-7288  —  New surveys in three key battleground states show former Vice President Joe Biden with solid leads over President Donald Trump …

Big Tech Makes Inroads With the Biden Campaign  —  While Joe Biden has criticized the largest tech companies, his campaign and transition teams have welcomed allies of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple onto its staff and policy groups.  —  WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been critical of Big Tech …

Who Opposes Defunding the N.Y.P.D.?  These Black Lawmakers  —  Several Black City Council members have lashed out at progressives, comparing calls to defund the police to “colonization” and “political gentrification.”  —  With New York City on the cusp of cutting $1 billion from the Police Department …

Performative masculinity is making American men sick  —  American men are failing the pandemic.  —  Fellas, is it gay to not die of a virus that turns your lungs into soggy shells of their former selves, drowning you from the inside out?  Is wearing a mask to avoid death part of the feminization of America?

The Senate Is America's Most Structurally Racist Institution  —  In a time when institutions across the country have undergone a searching self-examination, the reckoning has only begun for the most powerful source of institutional racism in American life: the United States Senate.

TikTok Is Inane.  China's Imperial Ambition Is Not.  —  The U.S. won the Cold War by exporting its values, and China has a similar plan for Cold War II.  —  It's hard to get past the initial sheer inanity of TikTok.  —  I spent half an hour trying to make sense of the endless feed …

Ilhan Omar faces a fierce primary challenge in her first reelection bid  —  Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a “Strike for Black Lives” demonstration to advocate for the passage of the HEROES Act in the Senate outside of the U.S. Capitol on July 20, 2020 in Washington, DC.  Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

As decision day nears, VP hopefuls rake in big money for Biden  —  The Democrats vying to be Joe Biden's running mate have made the rounds of the Sunday shows.  They've enlisted surrogates to talk them up to the vetting committee and have been preparing for their one-on-one interviews with Biden himself.