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The initial police response to protests in Ferguson involved heavily militarized weapons and excessive use of force. (Photo: Michael B. Thomas/Getty)
In the direct aftermath of Michael Brown's death in August 2014, police in Ferguson, Missouri displayed inconsistent leadership, used ineffective strategies to respond to protests, and failed to understand endemic problems within the community--among other shortcomings--according to a new report published Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department.
The report, After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri (pdf), conducted by a research team from the Florida-based nonprofit Institute for Intergovernmental Research for the DOJ's Community Oriented Policing Services office, analyzed the 17 days immediately following Brown's death.
During that time, law enforcement officers erred in 113 individual ways--from excessive use of force to the controversial "Keep Moving" orders later deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge.
A look at six overarching "themes" shows that those problems "permeated all aspects of the police response," the report states. "Ferguson is a vivid reminder that law enforcement agencies must continually analyze their policing practices in relation to the communities they serve."
Researchers identified 10 "most critical" issues among their findings. Those include:
"Ferguson became a defining moment in policing history," the report continues.
The outburst of actions and the police response that followed--now preserved through images of soaring tear gas canisters, rolling military tanks, and crowds of protesters marching with raised arms--exposed "complex interaction of forces including poverty, poor race relations, social inequity, and education."
"The need for significant change remains in the political, economic, and social culture of Ferguson, as it does in other cities and towns in the United States," the researchers concluded. "Police reform, responsiveness, and renewed commitment to understanding the essence of the communities that law enforcement agencies serve are important elements required to rebuild community trust, restore confidence in the criminal justice system, and move forward to a better future."
It's the latest analysis of such institutional failures in Ferguson. In March, the DOJ published a separate study which found widespread racism in the city's police department, from its officers to its policies. Just a few months later, Amnesty International released a report on the systemic human rights abuses carried out by those same law enforcement agencies and outlined a series of recommendations for policing of protests, in Ferguson and nationwide.
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In the direct aftermath of Michael Brown's death in August 2014, police in Ferguson, Missouri displayed inconsistent leadership, used ineffective strategies to respond to protests, and failed to understand endemic problems within the community--among other shortcomings--according to a new report published Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department.
The report, After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri (pdf), conducted by a research team from the Florida-based nonprofit Institute for Intergovernmental Research for the DOJ's Community Oriented Policing Services office, analyzed the 17 days immediately following Brown's death.
During that time, law enforcement officers erred in 113 individual ways--from excessive use of force to the controversial "Keep Moving" orders later deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge.
A look at six overarching "themes" shows that those problems "permeated all aspects of the police response," the report states. "Ferguson is a vivid reminder that law enforcement agencies must continually analyze their policing practices in relation to the communities they serve."
Researchers identified 10 "most critical" issues among their findings. Those include:
"Ferguson became a defining moment in policing history," the report continues.
The outburst of actions and the police response that followed--now preserved through images of soaring tear gas canisters, rolling military tanks, and crowds of protesters marching with raised arms--exposed "complex interaction of forces including poverty, poor race relations, social inequity, and education."
"The need for significant change remains in the political, economic, and social culture of Ferguson, as it does in other cities and towns in the United States," the researchers concluded. "Police reform, responsiveness, and renewed commitment to understanding the essence of the communities that law enforcement agencies serve are important elements required to rebuild community trust, restore confidence in the criminal justice system, and move forward to a better future."
It's the latest analysis of such institutional failures in Ferguson. In March, the DOJ published a separate study which found widespread racism in the city's police department, from its officers to its policies. Just a few months later, Amnesty International released a report on the systemic human rights abuses carried out by those same law enforcement agencies and outlined a series of recommendations for policing of protests, in Ferguson and nationwide.
In the direct aftermath of Michael Brown's death in August 2014, police in Ferguson, Missouri displayed inconsistent leadership, used ineffective strategies to respond to protests, and failed to understand endemic problems within the community--among other shortcomings--according to a new report published Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department.
The report, After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri (pdf), conducted by a research team from the Florida-based nonprofit Institute for Intergovernmental Research for the DOJ's Community Oriented Policing Services office, analyzed the 17 days immediately following Brown's death.
During that time, law enforcement officers erred in 113 individual ways--from excessive use of force to the controversial "Keep Moving" orders later deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge.
A look at six overarching "themes" shows that those problems "permeated all aspects of the police response," the report states. "Ferguson is a vivid reminder that law enforcement agencies must continually analyze their policing practices in relation to the communities they serve."
Researchers identified 10 "most critical" issues among their findings. Those include:
"Ferguson became a defining moment in policing history," the report continues.
The outburst of actions and the police response that followed--now preserved through images of soaring tear gas canisters, rolling military tanks, and crowds of protesters marching with raised arms--exposed "complex interaction of forces including poverty, poor race relations, social inequity, and education."
"The need for significant change remains in the political, economic, and social culture of Ferguson, as it does in other cities and towns in the United States," the researchers concluded. "Police reform, responsiveness, and renewed commitment to understanding the essence of the communities that law enforcement agencies serve are important elements required to rebuild community trust, restore confidence in the criminal justice system, and move forward to a better future."
It's the latest analysis of such institutional failures in Ferguson. In March, the DOJ published a separate study which found widespread racism in the city's police department, from its officers to its policies. Just a few months later, Amnesty International released a report on the systemic human rights abuses carried out by those same law enforcement agencies and outlined a series of recommendations for policing of protests, in Ferguson and nationwide.
"There will be an additional 6 million newly infected persons in the world," said the United Nations' top AIDS prevention official recently. "That has started already."
The U.S. program credited with saving an estimated 26 million lives and preventing millions of new HIV infections has not sufficiently provided a direct benefit to the United States, suggests Trump State Department planning documents for the George W. Bush-era initiative.
Congress rejected cuts to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) last week, even as Republicans pushed through nearly $8 billion in foreign aid cuts; the program has long had robust bipartisan support as it has enabled 5.5 million babies to be born without HIV to HIV-positive mothers, provided support to 7 million orphans, and driven a decline in new HIV infections in young women in every geographic area that implements its prevention program.
But as The New York Times reported Thursday, a draft plan at the State Department details proposals for "transitioning" low-income countries away from PEPFAR, with the Trump administration imposing what it calls "bilateral relationships" with the aim of ostensibly prioritizing public health in the United States.
Countries in the Global South would be asked to focus efforts on "the detection of outbreaks that could threaten the United States and the creation of new markets for American drugs and technologies," reported the Times.
The administration appears to be approaching PEPFAR with the logic, said journalist Ben Krauss, that the program "needs to be remade to exclusively serve American interests."
"Saving 25 million lives over the past two decades and pulling off one of the greatest humanitarian feats of the century was already serving American interests," said Krauss. "This is just evil."
The State Department documents also say the Trump administration believes "that the transition of PEPFAR can become the premier example of the U.S. commitment to prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance."
PEPFAR-funded programs in low-income countries have already struggled to stay afloat this year following President Donald Trump's foreign aid funding freeze soon after he took office in January. A stop-work order forced some programs to halt services like the provision of antiretroviral therapy and to lay off thousands of staffers.
A waiver issued in February allowed PEPFAR to continue certain programs, but the administration's cuts to and elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has implemented PEPFAR since its inception in 2003, has also impacted the initiative.
Under the plan outlined in the documents—which a spokesperson denied were "reflective of the State Department's policy on PEPFAR"—countries would be required to spend far more of their own funds on fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS. Countries that are close to controlling the epidemic, such as Vietnam and Botswana, would see an end to PEPFAR within two years, while countries that still have high rates of infection and receive significant amounts of U.S. funding, including Kenya and Zimbabwe, would have up to four years.
"There will be some countries that can manage where the PEPFAR investment is not as heavy or as large a proportion of their total effort," Robert Black, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Times. "But some of the African countries with enormous HIV problems and national financial problems, debt, and other development issues—I cannot see that they are going to be able to pick up all or even a large proportion of the costs in that kind of time frame."
Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS prevention agency, said earlier this month that the threats Trump has already made to AIDS relief programs across the globe have begun a "deadly funding crisis."
"Personally I am devastated," she said of the U.S. funding cuts at a U.N. summit in Seville, Spain. "Appalled. Shaken and disgusted. I don't have the English words to use."
Byanyima emphasized that HIV/AIDS prevention funding through PEPFAR and similar programs represents "a drop of money that is nothing in one of these rich G7 countries."
PEPFAR is funded through discretionary spending in the federal budget and accounts for less than .08% of U.S. spending.
"To create such crisis, such pain, and such anger on the ground," said Byanyima. "This cut, that's dedicated people losing jobs, loyal support gone, research ended, vulnerable people abandoned. And it is deaths. What went away immediately was prevention services, so we are very worried about the new infections and about deaths... There will be an additional 6 million newly infected persons in the world. That has started already."
“American workers are once again being left behind,” said the United Auto Workers.
President Donald Trump this week announced that he had cut a deal with Japan that would lower tariffs on Japanese cars to 15%, which was a cut from the 25% tariffs that he'd originally placed on them.
However, many of the parties whom Trump claimed he was trying to help are not happy with the deal, including major automakers and unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers.
Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council that represents America's "Big Three" automakers, told The Associated Press this week that the deal Trump struck with Japan leaves U.S. automakers "at a disadvantage" compared to their Japanese competitors given that "this is a deal that will charge lower tariffs on Japanese autos with no U.S. content."
The United Autoworkers (UAW) similarly blasted the deal, saying it makes clear that "American workers are once again being left behind."
"This deal hands a win to transnational automakers that rely on low-road labor practices: Substandard wages, excessive temps, and union-busting," said UAW in a press statement. "Now, those same companies stand to benefit from lower tariffs, while unionized automakers—who could quickly create tens of thousands of good jobs using existing capacity—are left with fewer incentives to do so. Once again, American workers are being forced to suffer the consequences."
As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman explained on his Substack page on Friday, these stakeholders have good reason to feel burned by what he calls Trump's "art of the stupid deal."
In the first place, the current arrangement leaves in place 25% tariffs on car components produced in Canada and Mexico, both of which are vital parts of the American manufacturing chain. Trump has also left in place 50% tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, which will further drive up U.S. automakers' input costs and leave them at a disadvantage with Japanese competitors who can still access foreign steel and aluminum at much cheaper prices.
"Overall, the interaction between this Japan deal and Trump's other tariffs probably tilts the playing field between U.S. and Japanese producers of cars, and perhaps other products, in Japan's favor," Krugman explained. "If this sounds incredibly stupid, that's because it is."
Krugman then speculated that "Trump's negotiators probably had no idea what they were doing, and didn't realize that in their frantic rush to conclude a deal they were agreeing to tariffs that would be highly unfavorable to U.S. manufacturing." He added that negotiators were under so much pressure due to the ridicule he's faced for "having made big promises about his ability to negotiate trade deals, then coming up empty month after month."
University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers appeared on MSNBC earlier this week and outlined why Trump's Japan deal was still a net loss for American consumers even though Trump was lowering the earlier tariffs he had set on Japanese cars.
"If you began by saying that [the] tariff on Japan has gone from 25% to 15%, it would feel like he'd negotiated a great deal," Wolfers said. "That's not what happened here."
He then explained that tariffs on Japanese goods before Trump took office were just 2%, which means that "the biggest thing Trump has done is he's raised taxes on Americans who import goods from Japan from 2% to 15%."
"Looks like there was just an attempted coup at the antitrust division, led by Pam Bondi's chief of staff and a set of corporate lobbyists."
An antitrust advocacy organization on Thursday urged Congress to investigate U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's role in a merger settlement deal that the Justice Department struck with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks last month.
"Congress must immediately open an investigation into Attorney General Pam Bondi's involvement in what appears to be a corrupt and politically rigged merger settlement," Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement Thursday.
The deal in question allowed the two companies' $14 billion merger to proceed, capping off a legal fight that the Justice Department launched in late January. At the time, the Justice Department argued HPE's acquisition of Juniper would unlawfully stifle competition, raise prices for consumers, and harm innovation.
The Capitol Forum on Thursday described the terms of the settlement as strange and reported that the deal divided the Justice Department internally, pitting the head of the antitrust division against top DOJ officials including Bondi chief of staff Chad Mizelle, who ultimately "overruled" the antitrust chief.
"Mizelle's close involvement in the matter is highly unusual—as is the fact that no DOJ trial attorneys signed the resulting consent decree papers," the outlet noted. "It also raises questions that won't be quieted by HPE's July 7 disclosure that it retained MAGA-aligned antitrust thought leader Mike Davis to advocate for the deal."
"In addition to Davis, HPE, in working to short-circuit the antitrust division's case, hired multiple lobbyists close to the White House, including Arthur Schwartz, a close confidante of Vice President JD Vance," the outlet added.
The settlement still must undergo a Tunney Act review by the federal judge in the case, Casey Pitts of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. While that process is "typically a rubber stamp," The Capitol Forum reported, "there's a meaningful chance that this time will be different" given the "substantive and procedural smoke around the HPE/Juniper matter."
As part of the deal with the Justice Department, HPE agreed to divest its Instant On business. But, citing an industry analyst and other unnamed sources, The Capitol Forum reported that "Instant On is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses and isn't an option for the large, 'enterprise-grade WLAN solutions' customers DOJ's complaint alleged the merger would harm."
The Capitol Forum's story drew fresh scrutiny to the settlement and raised alarm about the potential involvement of Bondi, herself a former corporate lobbyist.
Looks like there was just an attempted coup at the Antitrust Division, led by Pam Bondi's chief of staff and a set of corporate lobbyists, over what looks like a corrupt merger settlement. https://t.co/J7Tul7wd9t
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 24, 2025
Hegde of the American Economic Liberties Project said Thursday that "when DOJ leadership overrules its own antitrust staff and forces a weak settlement that clearly favors corporate interests, both congressional oversight and judicial review under the Tunney Act become essential safeguards."
"Every member of Congress, along with the judge in the case, should be alarmed by signs that DOJ leadership is auctioning off merger enforcement rather than enforcing the law. The integrity of our antitrust system cannot be compromised by backroom deals or political interference," said Hegde. "Given the clear signs of improper influence, along with the mismatch between the alleged harms and the remedy, Judge Pitts must also use his authority under the Tunney Act to scrutinize this settlement in the best interest of the public."