Police struggling
The week's news at a glance.
Cleveland
Local governments are having to lay off large numbers of police officers due to budget shortfalls and deep cuts in federal aid, The New York Times reported this week. Cleveland, for example, has sent home 250 officers, 15 percent of its force, and Pittsburgh has lost a quarter of its police. The Bush administration said it was shifting money once destined for community policing and other local programs into the hands of the Homeland Security Department to focus on terrorism. But Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said dwindling budgets would end up pushing crime rates back up after a decade of improvement. “The money is drying up,” Kerlikowske said, “and I’m worried that a lot of our good work is going to disappear.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Citizenship: Trump order blocked again
Feature After the Supreme Court restricted nationwide injunctions, a federal judge turned to a class action suit to block Trump's order to end birthright citizenship
-
Loyalty tests: The purge at the FBI
Feature Kash Patel is conducting polygraph tests on FBI agents to weed out anyone speaking badly about him
-
The all-seeing tech giant
Feature Palantir's data-mining tools are used by spies and the military. Are they now being turned on Americans?