JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: Chicago police are beefing up their presence downtown
after widespread looting there overnight.
The unrest broke out after police shot a 20-year-old man who fired at them on the city's South
Side. Hundreds of people descended on the Magnificent Mile shopping district. They smashed
windows and stole merchandise. More than 100 people were arrested.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot called it an assault on the city.
LORI LIGHTFOOT, Mayor of Chicago, Illinois: What occurred in our downtown and surrounding
communities was abject criminal behavior, pure and simple.
And there cannot be any excuse for it, period. This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected
speech. These were not poor people engaged in petty theft to feed themselves and their
families. This was straight-up felony criminal conduct.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The melee lasted for several hours and left 13 police officers injured.
Sixteen people have been arrested in Portland, Oregon, after protesters rioted at a police
union building last night. Demonstrators lit a fire inside the building, before police
pushed hundreds of people away. Two officers were injured in the clashes. It was the 70th
night of protests there since George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis.
In Lebanon, Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned today, along with his entire ruling cabinet.
The move follows a week of protests demanding a government overhaul since the devastating
Beirut port explosion. Diab said the unsafe storage of ammonium nitrate thought to have
caused last Tuesday's blast highlighted longstanding negligence.
HASSAN DIAB, Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister (through translator): Today, we follow the
will of the people to hold accountable those responsible for this disaster that has been
in hiding for seven years, and their desire for real change.
We take a step back to stand with the people, to undergo this battle of change with them.
We want to open the door towards national salvation that the Lebanese people are taking
part in. And, thus, I am announcing today the resignation of this government.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, riot police clashed with anti-government demonstrators again in
Beirut tonight. The protesters continue to denounce the government's mishandling of the
explosion that killed at least 160 people and injured thousands more.
A political crisis is also flaring in Belarus, after Sunday's election that was widely denounced
as rigged in favor of longtime President Alexander Lukashenko.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the election was not free and fair. Protesters
also insisted it was a fraud, after government-sponsored polls showed Lukashenko took 80 percent of
the votes.
Alex Thomson of Independent Television News filed this report.
ALEX THOMSON: This is Belarus, the police ordered to tear-gas, stun grenade and beat
peaceful protesters off the streets across the country.
Several thousand arrests, at least one reported killed, run over by a police vehicle, which
the authorities deny. After 26 years in power, this so-called election duly delivered President
Alexander Lukashenko yet another reality-defying victory, 80 percent of the vote.
The man who says, you have to be born to be president, not elected, who praised Hitler,
who denied the COVID pandemic existed, says, opposition protests will be crushed.
ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, President of Belarus (through translator): If you fight against
the country, if you try to plunge the country into chaos and destabilize it, even with minor
incidents, you will receive an instant response from me. This is my constitutional authority.
So, why blame me?
ALEX THOMSON: The protesters are sheep, says the president, manipulated by foreigners.
But he offered no evidence.
Quick to congratulate him, two more presidents whose commitment to democracy is, at best,
questionable, Russia's Putin and China's Xi.
Quick to condemn him, European democracies. Belarus' opposition candidate has read the
message from the streets.
SVIATLANA TSIKHANOUSKAYA, Belarusian Presidential Candidate (through translator): I think we
have already won, because we overcame our fear. We overcame our indifference to politics.
We overcame our apathy and indifference.
ALEX THOMSON: Western observers say the last free election here was way back in 1995. This
time, the numbers on the streets, not just in the capital, the numbers at opposition
rallies, the numbers now arrested, well, it all adds up, some say, to a genuine turning
point.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That was Alex Thomson of Independent Television News.
Since filing that report, one protester died in Minsk after an explosive device detonated
in his hands as he was trying to throw it at police.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani signed a decree today to release the final batch
of 400 Taliban prisoners. The Taliban demanded they be freed as a condition for long-awaited
peace negotiations with the Afghan government. The militant group said that it's ready to
restart those talks in Qatar within a week from the prisoners' release.
And stocks were mixed on Wall Street today. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 358
points to close at 27791. The Nasdaq fell 42 points and the S&P 500 added nine.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the crackdown continues, as Hong Kong police arrest the
leader of a pro-democracy newspaper; Alaska faces challenges on multiple fronts in its
fight against the coronavirus; our Politics Monday team breaks down the federal response
to COVID-19 and the upcoming conventions; plus, much more.