Roughly 60% of U.S. mayors acknowledge police violence is a "problem in their communities," but 80% believe their police departments "do a good job" attracting "well-suited" officers, according to results of the 2020 Menino Survey of Mayors published Wednesday.

Why it matters: Protests against police brutality have swept the nation since last May, when white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, after kneeling on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. The Black Lives Matter movement has since escalated calls to defund the police.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed executive orders on housing and ending the Justice Department's use of private prisons as part of what the White House is calling his “racial equity agenda.”

The big picture: Biden needs the support of Congress to push through police reform or new voting rights legislation. The executive orders serve as his down payment to immediately address systemic racism while he focuses on the pandemic.

Former CNN executive S. Mitra Kalita and Philadelphia radio executive Sara Lomax-Reese have launched a newsletter seeking to expand local news on Black and brown communities to national audiences.

Why it matters: Some ethnic newspapers and local news sites focusing on people of color have suffered in recent years. The URL Media newsletter wants to bring their unique content together to attract big advertisers and facilitate underreported news.

President-elect Biden will on Wednesday launch a "whole-of-government" initiative aimed at advancing racial equity in federal policymaking and rooting out systemic racism from programs and institutions.

Why it matters: Biden’s win relied heavily on voters of color — especially Black Americans.

Firearms background checks in the U.S. hit a record high in 2020.

The big picture: This past year took our collective arsenal to new heights, with millions of Americans buying guns for the first time. That trend coincides with a moment of peak political and social tension.

School segregation between Black and white students has returned to 1968 levels, even as the nation grows more diverse.

Why it matters: Black and white school segregation has deepened toward pre-Civil Rights Movement-era numbers despite decades of strides.

The Rev. Rob Lee, a descendant of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, says the presence of the Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol this week was an "attack on democracy."

Why it matters: Historians say the flag — a symbol of white supremacy and racial segregation — never entered the Capitol with such fanfare during the Civil War. It was seen many times Wednesday in possession of white rioters who waved it without interference from police.

President-elect Joe Biden joined Black Lives Matter activists and others in decrying what they said was a double standard in law enforcement's response to the mostly white mob that violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, compared to peaceful protesters calling for racial justice.

What he's saying: "If it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday ... they would have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable."

Police officers involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake will not face criminal charges, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Gravely announced Tuesday.

The big picture: Kenosha was the center of protests, some violent, after officer Rusten Sheskey shot and wounded Blake, a Black man, on Aug. 23. The U.S. saw mass protests over police brutality and racism throughout the summer, set off by George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis.

The leader of the far-right Proud Boys was arrested in Washington, D.C., on Monday and charged with destruction of property, police said, ahead of planned protests against the congressional certification of the 2020 election results, scheduled for Wednesday.

Driving the news: Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, told the Washington Post in December that he participated in the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner that had been taken from a historic Black church during protests last month in the nation's capital.