In Washington, D.C., thousands of demonstrators held a youth-led protest at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Thursday, kneeling on the hot pavement for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee pressed to George Floyd’s neck.

Across the Mall, federal workers fortified a security perimeter around the White House complex, erecting a tall black metal fence and adding new concrete barriers. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Mark Esper has ordered several hundred active-duty troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to leave D.C. He first made the order on Wednesday but then reversed himself, facing White House pressure.