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Welcome to The Logoff: As President Donald Trump’s takeover of Washington, DC, continues, his Justice Division is launching an investigation into whether or not DC police falsified crime knowledge.
What’s Trump alleging? In a Monday night Reality Social submit, Trump wrote that “D.C. gave Faux Crime numbers with a purpose to create a false phantasm of security,” referring to a decline in violent crime that runs counter to his makes an attempt to color town as “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.”
What do DC crime numbers truly say? Current knowledge suggests violent crime in DC is considerably down after a spike in 2023. Final yr, violent crime reached its lowest level in additional than 30 years, and DC officers say it has continued to fall this yr.
Are there truly points with DC crime statistics? Trump shouldn’t be the primary one to allege points with crime knowledge — however there’s comparatively little proof of a systemic downside. In Might, town positioned a police commander on depart to research whether or not he was manipulating crime knowledge, and the top of DC’s police union has forged doubt on official numbers.
Each of these must be taken with a grain of salt — DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has since said that “we don’t imagine [the investigation] implicates many circumstances,” and the decline in violent crime in DC tracks with a nationwide development. Violent crime within the US has fallen dramatically since a spike through the Covid-19 pandemic, and 2025 is on observe to have the bottom homicide price for the reason that FBI started conserving dependable data in 1960.
Is Trump’s DC takeover impacting crime? Probably not — regardless of Trump’s claims of false knowledge and widespread lawlessness, the Nationwide Guard troops and federal legislation enforcement he has deployed to DC are largely staying close to vacationer and nightlife areas of town, and lots of of their arrests have been immigration-related, moderately than addressing violent crime.
And with that, it’s time to log out…
This piece from my colleague Kyndall Cunningham about matcha, and what’s driving its present reputation, is a superb learn that will get at a much bigger query — how can we get influenced right into a development within the first place, and the way do these traits work together with our precise tastes? Perhaps, she concludes, “being a matcha particular person in 2025 is nearly eager to be an individual.” You may learn her full story right here — have an incredible night, and we’ll see you again right here tomorrow!