�������ýҕ�l

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was hit with tear gas fired by federal officers late on Wednesday as he stood alongside protesters massed again outside a courthouse. The Democratic mayor strapped on goggles and coughed heavily as the noxious fumes wafted past. “It’s hard to breathe, it’s a lot harder to breathe than I thought,” Wheeler told The Washington Post. “This is abhorrent. This is beneath us.” Wheeler’s brush with chemical irritants came after he made a contentious, and at times tense, attempt to talk with protesters. (Lang, 7/23)

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez signed an executive order Wednesday to keep parts of the tribal government closed through mid-August, citing surges of coronavirus cases off the reservation. Executive branch divisions, departments and offices that were set to reopen July 27 will stay closed until Aug. 16. (7/23)

A leading doctor on the White House coronavirus task force reportedly warned state and local officials Wednesday that Las Vegas, among other U.S. cities, should take “aggressive” steps to address a rising number of cases. Dr. Deborah Birx cautioned officials during a private phone call, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit newsroom. Birx named 10 other major U.S. cities whose increases in percentage of tests returning positive should compel them to act, including Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans. (Johnson, 7/22)

Nebraska has seen a surge of people testing positive for coronavirus this week, according to state health officials. The state health department’s online virus tracker on Wednesday showed more than 600 new cases of the virus since the beginning of the week, including 264 cases on Monday and 343 on Tuesday. The state’s total stood at 23,190 by Wednesday. The site also shows nine COVID-19 deaths so far this week, bringing the state’s total to 310 since the outbreak began. (7/22)

Condemned inmate John Beames died on Tuesday from a suspected case of COVID-19, marking the latest death in a coronavirus outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, officials said. Beames is the eighth Death Row inmate to die from a suspected case of COVID-19. Fourteen inmates at San Quentin have died and more than 2,000 were infected as of Wednesday. (Bauman, 7/22)

Ninety-six people in connection with the Lexington Correctional Center have tested positive for COVID-19, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections reported Wednesday. Two inmates from the same unit at the correctional center went to the hospital on July 13 and 15, and both tested positive for COVID-19. After receiving the inmates’ test results, the correctional center tested 180 other inmates from that same unit, along with several staff members. The test results for 87 additional inmates and seven staff members came back positive. All of the non-hospitalized inmates are asymptomatic. (Melero, 7/23)

Idaho hospitals are seeing the highest number of patients since the pandemic began, but Gov. Brad Little’s weekly AARP town halls — during which Idahoans have the opportunity to call in and ask questions — are becoming less frequent. The one-hour phone calls, which have been one of the few ways the governor has had regularly-scheduled question and answer sessions with the public, will now occur every two weeks, Lupe Wissel, Idaho AARP director, announced on Tuesday’s call. (Frankel, 7/23)

Jessica Ortiz said she and her twin brother, Jubal, were inseparable. Even when Jubal lay dead in an open casket with plexiglass over his body -- out of fear he could still be contagious with coronavirus -- she couldn't help but lean down and touch him at his viewing earlier this month. Now, weeks later, she wears a necklace with his ashes. "He meant the world," Jessica, who is from Hidalgo County in South Texas, said, remembering her 27-year-old brother. "I just wish it wasn't him." (Killough, Lavandera and Jones, 7/22)

Nearly two-thirds of Texas voters say the spread of the coronavirus in their state is “out of control,” according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. Sixty-five percent of respondents said the virus is running wild in the Lonestar State, which has emerged as a new hot spot in recent weeks. Slightly less than a third, 31 percent, said the coronavirus is largely under control in the state. (Greenwood, 7/22)

The starkly divergent ways in which the coronavirus has affected neighboring communities in the Houston area — one rich and one poor — underscore how it is a magnifier of inequities. To see how the virus can largely spare one neighborhood but upend one next door, look at Bellaire, with its tidy yards and spacious homes, and Gulfton, where apartment blocks pack residents in tight. (Goodman, 7/21)