President Donald Trump is to send “a surge” of federal security forces to US cities in a crackdown on crime. Chicago and two other Democratic-run cities are being targeted in the Republican president’s move, amid a spike in violence.

But federal deployments in Portland, Oregon, amid ongoing unrest have been controversial. The city’s mayor was among those tear-gassed at a protest. Law and order has become a key plank of Mr Trump’s re-election bid in November. Since the death on 25 May of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, there have been protests – sometimes descending into civil disorder – in scores of US cities.

In Portland, which has seen more than 50 days of demonstrations, Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed by federal agents while attending the city’s protest on Wednesday night. Speaking to a New York Times reporter, the Democrat said the tear-gassing was “an egregious overreaction” by ral officers, and that he had seen “nothing that provoked this response”.(BBC)…[+]