A Southern California seaside community is in an uproar after a home was given a new paint job featuring two huge emoji on a bright pink background. Manhattan Beach residents railed against the makeover during a City Council meeting Tuesday night, citing problems with spectators and asserting that it was done with bad intent.

Calling Chicago’s most violent weekend so far this year “despicable,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson stuck to the department’s usual explanation for what went wrong, blaming the flow of illegal guns and a too lenient court system. “Unfortunately, over the past 72 hours in Chicago, we saw a despicable level of violence,” Johnson said at a news conference Monday at police headquarters. “Weekends like this remind us all of the challenges that we face and that they are complex and profound.”

A report compiled by private researchers and released by the Senate intelligence committee Monday says that "active and ongoing" Russian interference operations still exist on social media platforms, and that the Russian operation discovered after the 2016 presidential election was much broader than once thought.

To Democratic supporters, the Green New Deal is a touchstone, a call to arms to combat climate change. To Republican opponents, it’s zealous environmentalism, a roadmap to national bankruptcy. Lost in the clamor is the reality that, if passed, the much-hyped Green New Deal would require the government to do absolutely nothing.

A visit from friend and fellow former president, Bill Clinton, inspired him to wear a pair emblazoned with Clinton's face. He wore Houston Texans' socks when meeting with the head coach. At the funeral for his wife, Barbara Bush, former President George H.W. Bush wore socks featuring books as a tribute to her work promoting literacy. Bush, who was a naval aviator in World War II, will be buried this week wearing socks featuring jets flying in formation — a tribute, his spokesman says, to the former president's lifetime of service.

Embattled Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax compared himself to Jim Crow-era lynching victims in a surprise speech Sunday, as he resists widespread calls to resign prompted by allegations of sexual assault. "I've heard much about anti-lynching on the floor of this very Senate, where people were not given any due process whatsoever, and we rue that," Fairfax said, referencing legislation the General Assembly passed expressing "profound regret" for lynchings in Virginia between 1877 and 1950. "And we talk about hundreds, at least 100 terror lynchings that have happened in the Commonwealth of Virginia under those very same auspices. And yet we stand here in a rush to judgment with nothing but accusations and no facts and we decide that we are willing to do the same thing," Fairfax said.

President Donald Trump has picked budget director Mick Mulvaney to be his acting chief of staff, ending a chaotic search in which several top contenders took themselves out of the running for the job. It was not immediately clear why the president decided to make Mulvaney's appointment temporary. One senior White House official said there was no time limit on the appointment and Mulvaney would fill the role of chief of staff indefinitely, regardless of the "acting" title.

Lawmakers in at least 22 states are considering legislation to legalize sports gambling this year. Seven states joined Nevada and legalized it last year after the Supreme Court's decision. An Associated Press review of all sports gambling bills introduced this year — more than 100 so far — found high interest among lawmakers, primarily as a source of revenue, but also many questions about how legalized sports betting would be handled. Casino companies, sports leagues, fantasy sports companies and others are lobbying lawmakers in the hopes of getting the legislation tailored to their liking.

George H.W. Bush was celebrated with high praise and loving humor Wednesday as the nation bade farewell to the man who was America's 41st president and the last to fight for the U.S. in wartime. Three former presidents looked on at Washington National Cathedral as a fourth — George W. Bush — eulogized his dad. "Hail to the Chief" was played for Bush for a final time in the capital and the plane with his casket and Bush family members aboard took off for Houston. He died Friday at age 94.

The reputed boss of New York's Gambino crime family was shot to death in front of his home by a gunman who may have staged a car accident to lure him outside, dying a virtual unknown compared with his swaggering 1980s-era predecessor, John Gotti. Police said Thursday they were reviewing surveillance-camera video of the attack on Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 53, who was gunned down Wednesday night at his red-brick colonial-style house in a quiet Staten Island neighborhood. The assailant sped off in a pickup truck, police said. No immediate arrests were made.