Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, Hanks announced on social media Wednesday night.

Hanks and Wilson are in Australia for pre-production on Baz Luhrmann's untitled Elvis Presley film, which will star Hanks as Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Hanks said they both "felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches," and were tested for coronavirus. The results came back positive, and as such, Hanks and Wilson will be "observed and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires," Hanks said. "Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?"

Warner Bros. told The Hollywood Reporter production on the Presley film has been halted. Hanks' co-stars include Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rufus Sewell, but Warner Bros. did not say who Hanks has worked with on set. On Sunday, Wilson performed songs from her new album at the Sydney Opera House. Catherine Garcia

In a stinging rebuke, Former Defense Secretary James Mattis criticized President Trump's response to peaceful protests, saying he is "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."

Mattis, a retired Marine general, resigned in 2018 in response to Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from eastern Syria. He broke his silence on Trump's behavior Wednesday, telling The Atlantic in a statement that watching protesters get tear gassed in Lafayette Square and hearing Trump threaten to use the military to crush demonstrations left him "angry and appalled."

The protests are "defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation," he said. The forceful removal of demonstrators in Lafayette Square for Trump's "bizarre" photo op in front of St. John's Church was an "abuse of executive authority," he said, and "we must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution."

The country can still come together without Trump, "drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society," Mattis said. It won't be easy, "but we owe it to our fellow citizens, to past generations that bled to defend our promise, and to our children." Read more at The Atlantic. Catherine Garcia

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) will announce on Thursday plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Monument Avenue in Richmond, an administration official told The Washington Post.

The statue, erected in 1890, will be put into storage. There are several monuments to the Confederacy along the avenue, and all have been spray painted during this week's demonstrations against racism and police brutality. Only the Lee statue is under state control, but Virginia's General Assembly passed a bill earlier this year that gives localities the authority to choose what happens to Confederate monuments on their property, and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney on Wednesday said his administration will introduce an ordinance on July 1 to remove all such statues on Monument Avenue.

"Richmond is no longer the capital of the Confederacy," Stoney said in a statement. "It is filled with diversity and love for all — and we need to demonstrate that." Other Confederate statues have already been removed in Alexandria, Virginia, and Birmingham, Alabama. Catherine Garcia

Defense Secretary Mark Esper had a topsy-turvy Wednesday.

Early in the day, he said he didn't didn't think nationwide protests against police brutality warranted invoking the Insurrection Act, which contrasted with President Trump's apparent willingness to deploy active-duty military to aid city police forces. The Pentagon was also prepared to send about 200 troops deployed to, and on standby in, the Washington, D.C., area back to their home bases Wednesday, with the remaining forces ready to head home in the next few days if things remained calm. But it seems like the secretary's comments and the department's decision to send even a portion of the troops home apparently angered the White House.

After a meeting at the White House, Esper reversed the decision, so the troops will stick around the capital. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said it remains "our intent at this point not to bring in active forces, we don't think we need them at this point," but he added that it's "prudent to have the reserve capability in the queue, on a short string."

It's unclear if Esper met directly with Trump before he reversed the decision, The Associated Press reports. Tim O'Donnell

The White House just tried and failed to pin violence on its enemy of choice.

In its latest attempt to build a case against anti-fascist protesters, or antifa, the White House alleged they and "professional anarchists" were "staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence" in a Wednesday tweet. It paired that allegation with a video of what looked like a cage of bricks on the side of a street — an example that was proven days ago to be purely misinformation.

What the White House tweeted was actually video of a security measure outside the Chabad of Sherman Oaks in California. The cages are filled with bricks to prevent anti-Semitic car ramming attacks, but the bricks have since been removed "to alleviate people's concern that they may be vandalized and used by rioters," the Chabad house said in a Monday Facebook post. The White House quickly deleted its tweet.

A similar story happened Wednesday morning in New York City. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea tweeted a video of an officer clearing up some plastic bins of rocks that were left on a street corner. Then New York City councilmember Mark Treyger chimed in: He represents the far-flung area of Brooklyn where the bricks were left, a solid 7 miles from the center of the ongoing protests, and reported "no evidence of organized looting" in the area. Kathryn Krawczyk

Despite reports and footage suggesting otherwise, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday that police "peaceably" cleared protesters Monday from Lafayette Square before President Trump passed through the area so he could pose for photos in front of nearby St. John's Church.

In response to a question from CNN's Jim Acosta about whether the White House would take a do-over on the methods of crowd dispersement, McEnany said officers acted appropriately, noting that there were no fatalities or serious injuries. She also claimed officers had a right to defend themselves because they were under threat from demonstrators hurling bricks and frozen water bottles at them, alongside reports of caches of various potential weapons like baseball bats and glass bottles "hidden along the streets."

But video from Monday shows officers forcibly moving both protesters — most of whom reporters described as peaceful — and media out of the way, indicating that McEnany may have set a pretty low bar for what she considers peaceable. Tim O'Donnell

President Trump's Bible photo op may go down in the history books — but probably not for the reason his press secretary thinks.

On Monday, police and secret service agents used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters from the streets surrounding the White House, all so Trump walk across the street and take a photo at St. John's Episcopal Church. Religious leaders have decried Trump's "tone-deaf" stunt, but to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, it was a "message of resilience" akin to Winston Churchill's World War II leadership.

"The president wanted to send a very powerful message that we will not be overcome by looting, by burning, by rioting," McEnany said in a Wednesday press conference. Trump's awkward Bible hold-up will be remembered as a historic "leadership moment," not unlike when "we saw" former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill "inspecting the bombing damage" in World War II, former President George W. Bush "throwing out the ceremonial first pitch after 9/11," and former President Jimmy Carter "putting on a sweater to encourage energy savings," McEnany continued.

So far, to religious leaders and even Trump's own defense secretary, that's not how the moment has gone down. Kathryn Krawczyk