The DC: 🏛 Trump orders ‘National Garden of American Heroes’ to counter statue destruction, and... Do local governments spend too much on law enforcement?

Welcome to Monday, July 6th, inks and papers...

President Trump has ordered the creation of a "National Garden of American Heroes" to defend "our great national story" against those who vandalize statues.

“For the sake of our union, we must protect and preserve our history, our heritage and our great heroes,” Trump told the crowd at a Fourth of July rally at South Dakota’s Mt. Rushmore.

"Today, under the authority vested in me as the president of the United States, I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes."

Demonstrators have toppled a number of statues - most notably those of Confederate soldiers and slaveholders - during protests following the killing of George Floyd.

The executive order listed 31 Americans who will be memorialized, including Billy Graham, Jackie Robinson, Antonin Scalia, and Ronald Reagan.

Do you support Trump's National Heroes Garden?

For a politics-free guide to how to protect you and your loved ones from corona, click on over to our Coronavirus Info Center.

On the Radar

Police Spending

The nationwide debate over “defunding the police” ― which can mean either abolishing the police entirely or reducing law enforcement spending & reallocating it to social services ― is continuing into the summer. To help inform the debate, Countable and USAFacts took a look at spending on law enforcement by the largest American counties.

This chart from USAFacts compares law enforcement spending to other significant categories of local government spending, such as education (48.6%), transportation (7.7%), and debt and pensions (7.6%):

Local government spending by category in 2017 (Percent of spending)

Check out more graphs here, then tell your reps:

Do local governments spend too much on law enforcement?

Under the Radar

Gilead Announces $3,120 Price Tag for Its COVID-19 Treatment

Gilead Sciences has announced pricing for remdesivir, the first medicine shown to have an impact on COVID-19. The four-digit price tag for a five-day course has raised some eyebrows.

Pricing for five-day remdesivir courses will be tiered as follows:

• Governments in the developed world - including the U.S. Indian Health Services (IHS) and Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) - will be charged $2,340.
• U.S. insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid will pay $3,120 or 33% more than governments.
• Countries in the developing world will receive remdesivir at greatly reduced prices through generic manufacturers to which Gilead has licensed production.

In an interview, Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day argued that the proposed pricing for remdesivir is below market value:

"We spent a lot of time and considerable care and discussion about how to approach the pricing of this medicine. At this price it’s significantly below the value it brings to patients and to society. There is no doubt of that in my mind."

Should governments impose a cap on COVID-19 treatment costs?

Also Worth a Click

• Should the State Dept. Report to Congress About Whether Russia Qualifies as a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’?

And, in the End…

On this date in 1957, Althea Gibson won the women’s singles at Wimbledon, becoming the first black athlete to win the event:

In 2019, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) honored Gibson with a statue outside the Arthur Ashe Stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.

Hope you've also been a credit to your country,

—Josh Herman

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