Don McLean performing during the Stars and Stripes Spectacular 4th of July celebration on Portland’s Eastern Promenade in 2013. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Singer-songwriter Don McLean has withdrawn from performing at a National Rifle Association annual meeting in Houston this weekend after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school Tuesday.
“In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week,” he said in a statement. “I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans. I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation.”
A representative of McLean sent the statement to the Press Herald Wednesday afternoon in response to questions sent earlier in the day about the Camden resident’s participation in the event.
McLean is listed alongside several other musicians for the NRA’s Grand Ole Night of Freedom concert on Saturday at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Also included in the lineup are country artists Danielle Peck, T. Graham Brown, Larry Gatlin, Larry Stewart, Jacob Bryant and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the U.S.A” has become a conservative anthem and is played regularly at Republican events, including rallies hosted by former President Donald Trump.
Like Greenwood, McLean is best known for one song, the iconic and lengthy 1971 hit “American Pie.” Unlike Greenwood, McLean has not been linked to conservative causes.
However, several people on social media Wednesday called on the singer to drop out of the performance given Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Thomas Countryman, a former State Department official, posted on Twitter: “@donmclean has been one of my very favorite artists for 50 years, and I was planning to attend his next concert. But if, as reported, he plays at the NRA convention this weekend, after 20 people were murdered in Texas, I will burn my CDs and music books.”
@donmclean has been one of my very favorite artists for 50 years, and I was planning to attend his next concert. But if, as reported, he plays at the NRA convention this weekend, after 20 people were murdered in Texas, I will burn my CDs and music books.
— Thomas M. Countryman (@TMCountryman) May 25, 2022
Chris Willman, senior music writer and chief music critic at Variety, posted a flyer with concert lineup and wrote, sarcastically, “Perfectly in fitting with Don McLean’s reputation as the nicest guy in rock and roll.”
Perfectly in fitting with Don McLean’s reputation as the nicest guy in rock and roll pic.twitter.com/B7ZcFlP2gK
McLean was arrested in 2016 for domestic violence against his then-wife, Patrisha McLean, at their home in Camden. McLean eventually pleaded guilty to some charges, while others were dropped.
Their daughter, Jackie McLean, who performs as part of the indie-pop duo Roan Yellowthorn, told Rolling Stone last year that her father emotionally abused her for years. She said she was terrified of her father while growing up in the family’s secluded home in Camden.
Don McLean has denied those allegations and said he has disinherited her.
The public accusations have not upended McLean’s career. He has continued to tour and make appearances, particularly last year when his best-known song reached the 50-year milestone. More recently, McLean partnered with the World Boxing Council and heavyweight champion Tyson Fury on a new version of “American Pie.”
Patrisha McLean has expressed disappointment that her ex-husband’s criminal record has not hurt his career. She has spoken out about his treatment of her publicly and has been an advocate for domestic violence victims in general. She declined to comment Wednesday on her ex-husband’s original decision to perform at the NRA meeting or his decision to withdraw.
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Family members of one of the victims killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School embrace each other after a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.
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Family members of one of the victims killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School embrace each other after a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.
Jae C. Hong/AP
UVALDE, Texas — It seems like everybody in this small town of about 15,000 has a personal connection to those who perished in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history – and the man accused of carrying it out.
Around the corner from the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School, Sarah Zapata, who works for the local court system, is playing with her granddaughters.
“It’s sad for all the families, because we all do know each other. Everybody knows everybody,” she told NPR as the kids run around the front yard of her home. “It’s unimaginable.”
While one side loudly calls for gun control and the other drowns it out with equal vigor on the national stage, the overwhelming emotion in this small, tight-knit community is grief.
“We all went to Robb. My kids all went to Robb,” Zapata said.
Counselors from nearby areas arrive in Uvalde, Texas to help the local community in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting.
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Counselors from nearby areas arrive in Uvalde, Texas to help the local community in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting.
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The town sits about 80 miles outside San Antonio and about 70 miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s a place where Friday night football rules, and its claim to fame is being the hometown of actor Matthew McConaughey.
More than 80% of its population identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The slow process of managing the trauma begins
A day after a lone gunman killed 21 people, most of them children, the neighborhood around the school is quiet. On a nearby street, two horses amble on the blacktop as a man in a car slowly leads them.
ATF agents go door to door to talk to neighbors about what they may have seen the previous day. Law enforcement officers patrol the area, some wearing large cowboy hats.
Robb Elementary School is the site of a shooting that killed 19 students and two adults in Uvalde, Texas.
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Robb Elementary School is the site of a shooting that killed 19 students and two adults in Uvalde, Texas.
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Zapata’s children range in age from 17 to 24, and one of them knows the suspect from elementary school.
“He just said he was always a different kid, just one of those kids that you know is different. Not with the crowd, I guess,” she said.
Nearby, at Uvalde High School, Ariana Diaz and Jaime Cruz were expecting to graduate this week but now the ceremony is up in the air and they say it’s far from their minds.
“We’re just trying to make sure our community is all together and well,” Cruz said.
They said they’ve known the gunman their whole lives. Salvador Ramos reportedly dropped out of this high school.
“We weren’t friends with him but we knew of him,” Diaz told NPR. “It’s crazy, whenever he dropped out we didn’t know where he went. I know he was in a dark place, but I’m not sure what happened.”
Two family members of one of the victims killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School comfort each other during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.
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Two family members of one of the victims killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School comfort each other during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.
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She said the tragedy has touched almost everyone she knows.
“Many of our classmates and friends lost siblings, cousins, their mother,” Diaz said. “It hurts so bad to watch them. It hurts for our community and it hurts for those families especially, that they’re having to go through this type of pain.”
The high school students came down to see a news conference from Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, and they want to see stricter gun laws imposed.
“We really need to start spreading awareness and getting better gun control in place,” Diaz added.
Counselors from other nearby communities are arriving to help, such as Iveth Pacheco, who works at a high school and drove about 85 miles from San Antonio to the small town surrounded by cow pastures and crop fields.
“We’re here to be a presence for every family that is grieving this tragic loss,” she tells NPR. “We listen. I don’t think there’s anything we could tell them other than listen, and be ready for any thought and emotion they are bringing.”
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden sought to reform federal and local policing with a broad executive order on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd, while goading a seemingly immovable Congress to act on police and gun reform.
The order directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and will use grants to encourage state and local police to restrict the use of chokeholds and neck restraints. read more
“It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation, to address the profound fear trauma, exhaustion particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations,” Biden said.
He had not signed it earlier, he said, because he was hoping Congress would pass a police reform law named after Floyd. The bill collapsed in the U.S. Senate last September under Republican opposition.
Biden spoke the day after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas, and he heaped blame on Congress in his opening remarks for their failure to write stronger gun laws.
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U.S. President Joe Biden, is flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), U.S. Rep Karen Bass (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as Biden signs an executive order to reform federal and local policing on the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., May 25, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
“Where’s the backbone? Where’s the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby,” he said, apparently referring to the gun lobby and Republican opposition to tighter gun restrictions.
The White House police order restricts the use of no-knock entries to a limited set of circumstances, such as when an announced entry would pose an imminent threat of physical violence.
“I don’t know any good cop who likes a bad cop,” Biden said.
Floyd, a Black man suspected of passing a counterfeit bill, was killed when Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck on May 25, 2020, as three other officers looked on. The incident triggered a wave of protests over racial injustice months before Biden was elected.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22-1/2 years in prison last year after his conviction on murder charges.
Biden was joined by members of Floyd’s family, civil rights advocates and law enforcement officials, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who assailing Republicans for the failure to pass the policing bill.
It was not known how many were killed in the first minutes of the massacre, which was the deadliest in an American school since 20 children and six educators were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. But officials said that the officers had successfully contained the gunman, identified as Salvador Ramos, until more specially trained officers could arrive.
Praying outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.Credit…Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times
Yet even as the details of the attack became more clear, the motivation behind the eruption of violence remained frustratingly opaque. In the absence of an explanation, there was only deep grief in a community unaccustomed to outside attention, and a raw renewal of the national debate over firearms legislation and the stupefying tally of gun violence in America.
By Wednesday, all of the victims had been identified by the officials, who had yet to release their names, but the toll of the tragedy was only beginning to take shape.
All 21 fatalities occurred in a single area of the school, the authorities said. They included Eva Mireles, a teacher who ran marathons in her free time, and Jailah Silguero, 10, the youngest of four children. “I can’t believe this happened to my daughter,” said her father, Jacob Silguero, crying during an interview. “It’s always been a fear of mine to lose a kid.”
President Biden said he would travel to Uvalde in the coming days to try to comfort the residents. He did not call on Congress to take up gun safety legislation but in remarks on Wednesday said that the “Second Amendment is not absolute” and that previous gun safety laws did not violate its constitutional protections. “These actions we’ve taken before, they save lives,” he said. “They can do it again.”
Still, with little apparent opening at the federal level, states controlled by Democrats moved to introduce their own changes. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would work to raise to 21 — “at a minimum” — the age for buying AR-15-style weapons like the one the Texas gunman used. In California, the State Senate advanced a bill along party lines, proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and modeled on Texas’ restrictive abortion law, that would let private citizens sue those who make or sell outlawed ghost guns, ghost gun kits and assault-style weapons.
“This state is leaning in,” Mr. Newsom said. “We’re leaning forward.”
A state trooper accepted a mourner’s flowers as the shooting investigation continued.Credit…Callaghan O’Hare for The New York Times
In Uvalde, top Texas officials gathered for an emotional news conference that began with calls for unity in the aftermath of the killing. “It is intolerable and unacceptable to have in this state anybody who would kill little kids in our schools,” said Mr. Abbott, who has celebrated the loosening of gun regulations in Texas and pushed for a new law last year that allows most Texans to carry a gun without a permit.
But the somber tone that Mr. Abbott sought to strike was upended by Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging Mr. Abbott’s re-election, who blamed the governor for the repeated carnage in the state. “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing,” Mr. O’Rourke said.
“Sit down, you’re out of line and an embarrassment,” the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, responded.
The interruption and resulting vitriol from the stage, filled almost entirely with Republican officials, revealed in an instant the entrenched battle lines over gun ownership and mass killing in the United States.
“I hate to say this but there are more people who are shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas,” Mr. Abbott said later. He criticized “people who think that, well, ‘Maybe we just implement tougher gun laws — it’s going to solve it,’” saying that “Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois responded later by pointing to evidence that “the majority of guns used in Chicago shootings come from states with lax gun laws.”
Mr. Patrick said limiting entrances to just one at smaller schools could be a solution to keeping students safe. He also suggested arming teachers. Mr. Abbott stressed the need for better mental health care, though he did not propose how to improve access to it in the state.
Bobby Kramer, left, and Charlie Galvan donated blood the morning after the shooting.Credit…Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Yet in the case of Mr. Ramos, there was little to raise official alarm ahead of the shooting, officials said. No history of mental illness. No apparent criminal record. “We don’t see a motive or catalyst right now,” said Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
But those who knew the gunman said he had been slipping away: He appeared to have dropped out of high school and often frightened co-workers at a fast-food restaurant where he worked. When picked on, he would lash out in response. Acquaintances said he frequently missed class and had few friends.
“He would curse at the customers, at the managers, even at me,” said Jocelyn Rodriguez, 19, an employee at the Wendy’s restaurant. She recalled that he once told her, “I’m going to shoot up the Wendy’s,” but she never took his threats seriously. “I thought he was joking.”
Two weeks ago, she said, he stopped showing up to work.
He purchased an AR-style rifle at a local retailer on May 17, a day after his 18th birthday. Then he bought another one on May 20, officials said. In between, he bought 375 rounds of ammunition.
He had been messaging obliquely about his plans with a 15-year-old girl in Germany who he had recently met online. The girl, who asked to be identified only by her nickname, Cece, said he had video-called her in the days around his birthday from a gun store, where he told her he was buying a rifle. Mr. Ramos also showed her, on the video call, a black bag that appeared to hold many magazines of ammunition and at least one gun.
On Tuesday morning, parents dropped their children off at Robb Elementary, a cheerful brick schoolhouse near the edge of Uvalde where everyone was preparing for summer break.
Orelia Barker with Sister Clarice Suchy after a Mass on Wednesday for the shooting victims. Credit…Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times
Narcedalia Luna and her 8-year-old grandson, a third grader, attended an end-of-the-year awards program in the school’s cafeteria. But her grandson told her that he wanted to go home early. So they did. “I gave in and I’m glad I did,” she said.
They returned to their home on Diaz Street.
Along that same short street, less than half a mile from the school, Mr. Ramos lived in a modest home with his grandmother. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Ramos texted the girl in Germany just after 11 a.m., apparently annoyed that his grandmother was calling AT&T about his cellphone. “Ima do something to her rn,” he wrote. The screenshots do not show Cece replying, but at 11:21 a.m., Mr. Ramos sent another text: “I just shot my grandma in her head,” followed immediately by another: “Ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.”
Mr. Ramos, officials said, had picked up one of the weapons he had bought, and shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face.
The injured woman rushed to a neighbor’s house for help while Mr. Ramos sped off in her pickup truck, bringing with him a bag of ammunition and the two weapons. Ms. Luna said another neighbor spotted the grandmother with “blood on her face running across the street.”
The truck Mr. Ramos was driving, officials said, crashed at high speed next to the school at roughly 11:30 a.m.
As he approached the school, officials said, he encountered an Uvalde school district officer. There were conflicting reports, state police officials said, as to whether there was an exchange of gunfire at that point.
As the gunman approached, Juan Paulo Ybarra Jr. said, his little sister, a 10-year-old student at Robb Elementary, had been inside her fourth-grade class, watching a movie. He said she looked out of the classroom window and saw a man outside with a gun, then alerted her teacher. Soon the classroom could hear gunfire aimed toward nearby windows, she told him.
By Wednesday, all of the victims had been identified by the officials, who had yet to release their names, but the toll of the tragedy was only beginning to take shape. Credit…Callaghan O’Hare for The New York Times
Mr. Ybarra said his sister described how she and her fellow classmates jumped out of the window, one by one, and ran to a funeral home across the street, seeking refuge.
The gunman entered the school. After he was inside, two officers from the Uvalde Police Department arrived, engaged the gunman and were immediately met with gunfire, officials said. Both were shot.
Soon, scores of police officers responded to the scene, but the gunman had barricaded himself inside what Mr. Abbott described as internally connected classrooms. It would take a tactical team, including specialized Border Patrol agents, to finally breach the room.
As they entered, one of the agents held up a shield so the other agents could file in behind, an official briefed on the investigation said. Three of the agents fired their weapons once they were in the room, striking the gunman several times and killing him shortly after 1 p.m.
In Uvalde, which lies in a rural area near the Mexican border dotted with desert willows and bigtooth maples, there are so few places to host large events that the governor’s news conference took place in the same high school the gunman had attended.
Classes were supposed to let out on Thursday for the summer. Instead the year ended early as parents were faced with the unthinkable, waiting for hours on Tuesday for the dreaded confirmation about the fate of their children, some having provided DNA swabs to prove their relationship.
“They were beautiful, innocent children,” said George Rodriguez, who had ties to two children killed in a shooting: a niece and a 10-year-old boy, Jose Flores, who he said had been like a grandson. Mr. Rodriguez said a counseling session at the local civic center had offered little relief from the pain of losing the boy whose photo he kept in his wallet, “my little Josécito.”
Reporting was contributed by James Dobbins, Jesus Jiménez, Michael Levenson, David Montgomery, Josh Peck, Frances Robles, Edgar Sandoval, Michael D. Shear, Eileen Sullivan and Glenn Thrush. Susan C. Beachy, Jack Begg and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., speaks on a phone with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Wednesday morning, May 25, 2022 on Capitol Hill. Murphy, on the Senate floor on Tuesday demanded that lawmakers accomplish what they failed to do after 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut died in 2012.
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Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., speaks on a phone with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Wednesday morning, May 25, 2022 on Capitol Hill. Murphy, on the Senate floor on Tuesday demanded that lawmakers accomplish what they failed to do after 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut died in 2012.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Congress has spent decades trying, and failing, to agree on any major gun reforms but some lawmakers say this is a moment when they must try again.
The odds of success are vanishingly slim, despite the horrifying killing on Tuesday of at least 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. There is little agreement between Democrats and Republicans over basic changes to background check laws, let alone more extensive measures to curb access to firearms in the country.
Still, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told NPR’s All Things Considered that he is working with both parties to try to find common ground.
“Maybe I’m a fool for being the eternal optimist, but I’m just gonna stay at it for these next few days, the next week,” Murphy said.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., are among the Republicans who say they are talking with Murphy about taking potential action. Murphy says that’s a start but he’s far from confident that he can find enough Republicans to join Democrats to get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
“As we’re talking, we’re trying to figure out a process by which over the next week, Republicans and Democrats — a group of us — can sit down and try to hammer out a compromise,” Murphy told NPR. “The chances are, well, less than 50-50 that we will find that compromise because there are probably four or five Republicans who would fairly easily support some commonsense measures. It’s tougher to find the next five.”
Murphy said one option could be a federal law allowing police or family members to petition to temporarily remove firearms from a gun owner who could pose a threat. Some states have enacted varying versions of those so-called “red flag” laws but no nationwide options exist.
Limited changes to background check laws are another possible target for bipartisan talks.
“Perhaps a smaller expansion of a background check system that would get more sales, but not all sales, checked for people’s criminal and mental health history,” Murphy said. “You know, those are the places where we might be able to get some compromise and I get it that that’s not enough.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., speaks during a morning television interview, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Murphy took to the Senate floor Tuesday and demanded that lawmakers accomplish what they failed to do after the fatal shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary 10 years ago.
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Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Ct., speaks during a morning television interview, Wednesday, May 25, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Murphy took to the Senate floor Tuesday and demanded that lawmakers accomplish what they failed to do after the fatal shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary 10 years ago.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
A history of failure, despite repeated tragedy
Murphy has been working for a decade, since the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, to advance gun control measures in Congress. He was elected to the Senate one month before 26 people, including 20 children under seven, were shot and killed at the school in the district he had represented in the House.
Murphy said he has “no idea what to tell these parents.”
“Unfortunately, there’s a community of victims from Sandy Hook to Parkland to Charleston, who can help you understand how they manage this grief,” Murphy said. “But I also want them to know that there are people here in Washington who are not going to give up, who are going to try to honor the memory of these kids with action.”
Erica Lafferty, whose mother Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was killed during the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, points out some of the names of friends and family at the playground honoring her mother in Watertown, Conn., Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
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Erica Lafferty, whose mother Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was killed during the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, points out some of the names of friends and family at the playground honoring her mother in Watertown, Conn., Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
Gun laws in the country have gone virtually unchanged since that time.
Frustrated Senators struggle to find any common ground on guns
Many Senators, Democrats in particular, were enraged that gun control still has virtually no chance of success.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., fumed to reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday at the prospect of more inaction from Congress.
“How many parents yesterday had to find out that their child was murdered in their classroom and to think the federal government would do absolutely nothing about it is just crazy,” Kelly said. “It’s f****** nuts to do nothing about this.”
Kelly has a deeply personal connection to gun violence and gun control advocacy. His wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head at a “Congress on Your Corner” event in her home state of Arizona.
Giffords survived but is permanently impaired. Six others died in the shooting. Giffords and Kelly launched the gun control advocacy group Americans for Responsible Solutions in 2013, seven years before Kelly ran for Senate.
Democrats often blame Republicans, saying they need GOP votes to overcome a filibuster. The only other option for legislative action is for all 50 senators who vote with Democrats to unite to end or change the filibuster.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., questions Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan as he testifies before a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to examine the president’s proposed budget request for fiscal year 2023 for the EPA on Capitol Hill on April 6, 2022.
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Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., questions Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan as he testifies before a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing to examine the president’s proposed budget request for fiscal year 2023 for the EPA on Capitol Hill on April 6, 2022.
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But gun control is another issue — like abortion rights, climate change, police reform and voting reform — where Democrats lack unanimity.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., remains opposed to voting to end the filibuster, for any reason. He told reporters Wednesday that he wants to pass consensus gun measures. Manchin said eliminating the filibuster for controversial legislation gives Republicans incentive to use that same, lower vote requirement to overturn the policy if and when they take control of the Senate in the future.
“Everyone wants to go to ‘filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, just get rid of it, that’s the easy way out,'” Manchin said. “What makes you say they won’t reverse it immediately if they don’t like what we do?”
Manchin isn’t the only Democrat who has been reluctant to support more aggressive changes to gun laws, like banning assault weapons or limiting the capacity of high-volume cartridges.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said lawmakers need to start with modest changes, like background checks because those are the bills that have a chance of passing.
“We’re talking about background checks,” Tester told a group of reporters. “We talk about anything more than that I think we’re just silly, because it ain’t going to pass if you can’t get background checks done.”
When pressed about why it would be silly to try for more aggressive legislation, Tester grew visibly frustrated.
“Kids got killed yesterday for Christ’s sakes,” Tester shouted. “Let’s talk about what can be done. Let’s talk about what can be done.”
People walk with flowers to honor the victims in Tuesday’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
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People walk with flowers to honor the victims in Tuesday’s shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
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A distant hope for consensus
Some Republicans agree with Murphy that red flag laws and background checks are the most likely targets for compromise.
But not all Republicans agree on which elements of those bills should be handled at the federal level. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters that states should be consider limits like red flag laws and leave other issues to congress.
“The federal government should take responsibility for improving our background check capacity,” Romney said. “The gun laws and processes for enforcing them should be handled at the state levels.”
For Collins, red flag laws and other interventions to get guns out of the hands of people who are mentally ill, would help lower the number of shootings.
“That’s the kind of law that could have made a difference in this case,” Collins said. “I really think our focus should be on looking at what some states have done on red flag or yellow flag laws.”
Others, like Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., were unable to identify any federal interventions they thought would help.
“Congress has tried for years to do different things but in each particular case if someone wants to violate a law they’re going to violate a law,” Rounds said. “So if you make a law and they violate the law then you say that Congress didn’t do anything.”
That lack of agreement led to familiar despair for some. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., was blunt.
“This is a bad day for anything even vaguely looking like hope or optimism around legislative process or progress,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “Usually I want to be more optimistic. But I don’t think it’ll change.”
At least 21 people including 19 kids were killed in the latest mass shooting at a Texas elementary.
Former Rep. Steve Israel says GOP lawmakers won’t vote on tough gun control so they can be elected.
Israel said people quickly forget shootings and re-elect lawmakers who vote against these policies.
Former Democratic Rep. Steve Israel said Republicans won’t vote on tougher gun control measures because they’re too afraid of losing elections.
In an op-ed in The Hill, Israel recalled a conversation in the Capitol Hill elevators for lawmakers where there was “no press, no staff, no constituents,” where a GOP representative said that while they wanted to vote in favor of gun control, they’d lose their election in swing districts if they did.
“In the elevator, a friend – a pleasant, reasonable, moderate Republican – complained that the votes were politically motivated — forcing members in swing districts to choose between their pro-gun bases and more moderate constituents,” Israel wrote.
He was referencing the aftermath of “a series of votes in an Appropriations Committee markup of funding for the Department of Justice,” where amendments to gun control legislation were shot down along party lines.
Israel said the unnamed politician said he had “no choice but to vote against” the measures.
“In a heavily polarized House, where districts were increasingly ruby red versus bright blue, any vote for any gun safety would invite a primary opponent and ignite his likely defeat. No issue, he told me, motivated his base more intensely than guns. Moderates would forgive and forget that he voted against background checks; but his base would never forgive him for voting for them,” Israel wrote.
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott also said he still plans to address the NRA on Friday in Houston, just three days following the elementary school shooting. A number of other Republican lawmakers are also expected to speak at the event.
Israel said in the aftermath of that elevator conversation he wrote a book that turned into a political parody of the power of the gun lobby called “Big Guns.” The book he said was not only ciritical of lawmakers but of the general public, highlighting how quick people are to “forget” a shooting, as soon as new news breaks but will eventually have their hearts broken again with the next shooting.
“The cycle repeats: shock, greave, forget, shock, greave, forget,” Israel wrote.
He added: “That congressman in the elevator had you all figured out. You forgive and forget too easily. And by doing so, you keep electing people who care more about surviving the next primary than they do about the survival of your kids in their classrooms.”
November’s midterm elections are likely toshift the political landscape and impact what President Biden can accomplish during the remainder of his first term. Here’s what to know.
Why are the midterms important? The midterm elections determine control of Congress: The party that has the House or Senate majority gets to organize the chamber and decide what legislation Congress considers.Thirty six governors and thousands of state legislators are also on the ballot. Here’s a complete guide to the midterms.
The rise of “socially responsible” investing has also put a spotlight on the gun industry. Major money managers like BlackRock and Vanguard hold gun stocks in many of their funds, mostly index funds that track the entire market or focus on smaller companies — such as gun makers like Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger. Sellers of guns and ammunition, like Walmart, Big 5 and other retailers, are even more common holdings in many broad-based mutual funds, index funds and pension funds.
After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, Jon Hale, the director of sustainability research for the Americas at Sustainalytics, a unit of the investment research firm Morningstar, said that he heard from financial advisers who were “getting all kinds of calls from clients concerned about whether they have guns in their portfolios.” That interest, part of a general rise in attention for investing in funds with environmental, social and governance, or E.S.G., principles, has continued to grow, he said.
There are now many E.S.G.-based alternatives to popular index funds that screen out gun-related stocks with minimal effects on performance or costs, Mr. Hale said. Online tools like Gun Free Funds, run by the nonprofit foundation As You Sow, give information about gun stocks in funds that appear in many investors’ portfolios and retirement accounts.
“School shootings really grab people’s attention” in a way that perhaps other mass shootings don’t, Mr. Hale said. And with the Texas attack coming so soon after the Buffalo shooting, he expects that financial advisers will face another uptick in calls about gun stocks from clients. “Maybe they thought about it before,” he said, “and something like this happens and it reminds them again: I should check my investments.”
McBath’s17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was killed in 2012 after he was confronted by Michael Dunn, a White man, for playing loud music in his parked car at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station. Dunn, who said he felt threatened, fired several shots into the car, killing Davis. He was convicted of first-degree murder two years later and sentenced to life without parole.
Lansing — Michigan Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Wednesday to bring a set of bills to impose new storage standards for firearms up for votes in the state Senate, a day after a gunman killed 21 people at a Texas elementary school.
Democrats successfully made a procedural move, discharging the proposals from committee in order to set up action before the full Senate. However, Republicans who control the chamber quickly voted to send the bills back to the Government Operations Committee.
“This is an urgent situation we are facing,” Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, said in a speech on the Senate floor. “We have been talking to you about this for years, over and over again. This is urgent now because again we did nothing after the Oxford shootings. We did nothing after the Buffalo shootings. Now, we don’t want to do anything today.
“I object to not wanting to do anything any longer. This is urgent. Every day we don’t take action we are choosing guns over children. Enough is enough. No more prayers. No more thoughts. No more inaction.”
Bayer was the sponsor of one of the bills in the spotlight Wednesday. It would have placed new safe storage requirements on firearm owners if their guns potentially could be accessed by a minor.
The gun owners would have to keep the weapons in a locked box, store them in a secure location or use a locking device.
Under the proposal, a gun owner who failed to properly secure their weapon would be guilty of a crime. If a minor used the gun in a threatening manner, the crime would be a misdemeanor for the gun owner. If a minor used the weapon to harm others, it would be a felony for the gun owner.
The Senate voted 22-14, along party lines, to refer the storage bills back to the Government Operations Committee.
Sen. Ken Horn, R-Frankenmuth, said families were grieving, and it was “way too early” to assign bill numbers to their grief.
“There are political solutions,” Horn said during his own speech on the Senate floor. “But there are just as many spiritual solutions.
“We don’t know what is really happening in this world, what is happening in this country, what is happening to young men.”
Rosie Jones, a spokeswoman for Senate Democrats, said the caucus’s goal was to have “commonsense safety bills passed into law.”
“They have been languishing in committee for nearly a year, since before Oxford, and we moved to discharge them and get the bills headed in the direction of the governor’s desk,” Jones said.
Any such proposal would have to pass both the Republican-controlled House and Senate before reaching Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her signature.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, told his colleagues the “time for action was a long time ago.”
“We cannot have one more child in this state and in this country wondering if it’s their last day in this state and in this country as they go to school,” Moss said. “This is ridiculous.”
Multiple Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said on social media that majority Republicans also ended session Wednesday without allowing them to give statements at the end of the meeting.
“If they want to be silent about children dying at school, that’s their choice,” Ananich tweeted. “But they will not win at silencing us.”
KYIV/KRAMATORSK, Ukraine, May 25 (Reuters) – Russian forces on Wednesday pounded the easternmost Ukrainian-held city in the Donbas region that is now the focus of the three-month war, threatening to shut off the last main escape route for civilians trapped in the path of their advance.
After failing to seize Ukraine’s capital Kyiv or its second city Kharkiv, Russia is trying to take full control of the Donbas, comprised of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
Russia has poured thousands of troops into the region, attacking from three sides in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces holding out in the city of Sievierodonetsk and its twin Lysychansk. Their fall would leave the whole of Luhansk region under Russian control, a key Kremlin war aim.
“All the remaining strength of the Russian army is now concentrated on this region,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late night address.
His office said the Russians had launched their assault on Sievierodonetsk early on Wednesday and the town was under constant mortar fire.
Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said six civilians had been killed and at least eight wounded, most near bomb shelters, in Sievierodonetsk. The main road out was still being shelled, he said, but humanitarian aid was still getting in.
Ukraine’s military said fighting for the road was ongoing, and that on Tuesday it had repelled nine Russian attacks in the Donbas. It reported at least 14 civilians killed in strikes by aircraft, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles.
‘I HAVE NOTHING’
In Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held Donbas city that has become a major hub for supplies and evacuations, a missile had blasted a crater in a railway track and damaged nearby buildings, including Lydiia Oleksiivna’s house.
She was clearing dust and ash that covered her kitchen. The windows had been blown out and external walls destroyed. “I don’t know if we can save the house,” she said.
In Kramatorsk, nearer the front line, streets were largely deserted, while in Sloviansk further west, many residents took advantage of what Ukraine said was a break in the Russian assault to leave.
“My house was bombed, I have nothing,” said Vera Safronova, seated in a train carriage among the evacuees.
Russia is also targeting southern Ukraine, where officials said shelling had killed a civilian and damaged scores of houses in Zaporozhzhia and missiles had destroyed an industrial facility in Kryviy Rih.
Moscow has blockaded ships from southern Ukraine that would normally export Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil through the Black Sea, pushing up prices globally and threatening lives. read more
Russia has blamed Western sanctions for the food crisis. It said on Wednesday it was ready to provide a humanitarian corridor for vessels carrying food to leave Ukraine but sanctions would need to be lifted in return.
1/17
A self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika of pro-Russian troops fires a leaflet shell in the direction of Sievierodonetsk to disperse information materials from their combat positions in the Luhansk region, Ukraine May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Moscow was in touch with the United Nations and did not rule out “the possibility of global talks to unblock Ukraine’s ports”. read more
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Moscow of using “blackmail” tactics to secure a relaxation of sanctions.
Britain’s Defence Minister Ben Wallace also rejected the Russian suggestion of such a trade-off, saying: “That grain is for starving countries.”
In the latest sign of Moscow’s plans to solidify its grip on territory it has seized, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the process for residents of newly captured districts to acquire Russian citizenship and passports.
ECONOMIC SQUEEZE
With its invasion now into its fourth month, Russia still has only limited gains to show for its worst military losses in decades, while much of Ukraine has suffered devastation as Moscow steps up artillery strikes to offset its slow progress.
The Russian parliament scrapped the upper age limit for contractual service in the military on Wednesday, highlighting the need to replace lost troops. read more
Western nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia.
The United States pushed Russia closer to the brink of a historic debt default on Wednesday by not extending its licence to pay bondholders. That waiver has allowed Moscow to keep up government debt payments till now. read more
The European Commission proposed on Wednesday to make breaking EU sanctions against Russia a crime. read more The EU also said it hoped to reach agreement on sanctions on Russian oil before the next meeting of EU leaders. read more
But Russia, for now at least, is not short of money. Oil and gas revenues stood at $28 billion in April alone thanks to high energy prices. read more
Putin on Wednesday ordered the government to hike old-age pensions and the minimum wage by 10%, while stating that not all economic problems were linked to what he calls Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
In a speech by video link to dignitaries at a global forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskiy said the conflict could only be ended with direct talks between him and Putin.
As a “first step towards talks”, Russia should withdraw to lines in place before its Feb. 24 invasion, he said. Prior to the invasion, Russia held Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, while its separatist proxies occupied parts of the Donbas.
Ukraine’s closest allies say they fear some Western nations might push Kyiv to give up land for peace. Estonia’s prime minister said Ukraine should not be forced into compromises.
“It is much more dangerous giving in to Putin than provoking him. All these seemingly small concessions to the aggressor lead to big wars. We have done this mistake already three times: Georgia, Crimea and Donbas.”
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Distraught families gathered at a local civic center and turned to social media to mourn and to make desperate pleas for help finding missing children as the death toll in a gruesome school shooting at a Texas elementary school rose to at least 19 students. Authorities said the gunman also killed two adults.
By nightfall, names of those killed during Tuesday’s attack at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde began to emerge. One man at the civic center walked away sobbing into his phone “she is gone.” On the backside of the building, a woman stood by herself, alternately crying and yelling into her phone, shaking her fist and stamping her feet.
Manny Renfro said he got word Tuesday that his grandson, 8-year-old Uziyah Garcia, was among those killed.
“The sweetest little boy that I’ve ever known,” Renfro said. “I’m not just saying that because he was my grandkid.”
Renfro said Uziyah last visited him in San Angelo during spring break.
“We started throwing the football together and I was teaching him pass patterns. Such a fast little boy and he could catch a ball so good,” Renfro said. “There were certain plays that I would call that he would remember and he would do it exactly like we practiced.”
Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles, 44, was remembered as a loving mother and wife.
“She was adventurous. I would definitely say those wonderful things about her. She is definitely going to be very missed,” said 34-year-old relative Amber Ybarra, of San Antonio.
Ybarra prepared to give blood for the wounded and pondered how no one noticed trouble with the shooter in time to stop him.
“To me, it’s more about raising mental health awareness,” said Ybarra, a wellness coach who attended the elementary school where the shooting happened. “Someone could possibly have seen a dramatic change before something like this happened.”
Lisa Garza, 54, of Arlington, Texas, mourned the death of her cousin, Xavier Javier Lopez, who had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming.
“He was just a loving 10-year-old little boy, just enjoying life, not knowing that this tragedy was going to happen today,” she said. “He was very bubbly, loved to dance with his brothers, his mom. This has just taken a toll on all of us.”
She also lamented what she described as lax gun laws.
“We should have more restrictions, especially if these kids are not in their right state of mind and all they want to do is just hurt people, especially innocent children going to the schools,” Garza said.
On social media, pictures of smiling children were posted, their families begging for information. Classes had been winding down for the year and each school day had a theme. Tuesday’s was Footloose and Fancy. Students were supposed to wear a nice outfit with fun or fancy shoes.
Adolfo Cruz, a 69-year-old air conditioning repairman, remained outside the school Tuesday night, waiting for word about his 10-year-old great-granddaughter, Eliajha Cruz Torres, whose whereabouts remained unknown to family.
Cruz drove to the scene after receiving a tearful and terrifying call from his daughter shortly after the first reports that an 18-year-old gunman had opened fire at the school. While he waited outside the school Tuesday night, his family was at the hospital and civic center waiting for any potential word on her condition.
Çruz called the waiting the heaviest moment of his life.
“I hope she is alive,” Cruz said. “They are waiting for an update.”
Federico Torres waited for news about his 10-year-old son Rogelio. He told KHOU-TV that he was at work when he learned about the shooting and rushed to the school.
“They sent us to the hospital, to the civic center, to the hospital and here again, nothing, not even in San Antonio,” Torres said. “They don’t tell us anything, only a photo, wait, hope that everything is well.”
Torres said he was praying that “my son is found safe … Please if you know anything, let us know.”
Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home, which is located across the street from Robb Elementary School, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday evening that it would be assisting families of the shooting victims with no cost for funerals.
___
Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Jamie Stengle contributed from Dallas.
Donald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe.
The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.
Trump handpicked former senator David Perdue and congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primaries. Both parroted the big lie and both were soundly beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now weary of “stop the steal” and eager to look forward. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season where his scattergun endorsements have come up with a decidedly mixed win-loss record.
But studying Trump’s recent record as kingmaker misses the point. In fact, it actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Make America great again” (Maga) even as they continue to push its radical rightwing agenda.
It all began with Glenn Youngkin, who last year won election as governor of Virginia as a Trump-lite Republican. He never campaigned alongside the ex-president but also took pains to avoid criticizing him and alienating his base. “Don’t insult Donald Trump but do everything to keep him away,” was how columnist Peggy Noonan put it in the Wall Street Journal.
Youngkin projected the image of a safe, sane, old school Republican who could win back suburban and independent voters. But he went Maga by pushing hot button issues such as coronavirus mask mandates, transgender bathrooms and “critical race theory” and portraying his opponent as a “woke” liberal. He flirted with, but did not embrace, Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
Former senator David Perdue salutes Donald Trump during a rally in Georgia in March 2022. Photograph: Alyssa Pointer/Reuters
The formula has been emulated in various ways by candidates facing extreme Trump-backed challengers. It worked for Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, and now for Kemp in Georgia. Neither should be mistaken for “NeverTrumpers” in the mould of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Larry Hogan.
Kemp has recently nodded to the Trump base by signing bills that would ban abortions six weeks after conception and allow Georgians to carry guns in public without a license or background check. While he, unlike Perdue, has steered clear of the big lie, he was content to sign a voter suppression law in the name of “election integrity”.
And on Monday he campaigned alongside Mike Pence, who as vice-president was one of Trump’s principal enablers for four years. Neither man uttered a word of criticism of the Maga patriarch. Kemp told reporters: “I had a great relationship with President Trump. I’ve never said anything bad about him. I don’t plan on doing that. I’m not mad at him. I think he’s just mad at me and that’s something that I can’t control.”
Even Raffensperger, while more outspoken in denouncing Trump’s election lies, has campaigned on preventing non-citizen voting, which is virtually non-existent in Georgia or anywhere in the US, as well as putting an end to no-excuse mail-in voting,
The Trump-without-the-tweets approach is a good fit for governors, who can build rightwing legislative achievements in their own states. In the 2024 presidential election, it might prove a useful blueprint for Pence, offering a promise of Maga past, or Florida governor Ron DeSantis, offering a promise of Maga future.
Democrats are alive to the threat of the Republican party selling itself as post-Trump to swing state voters. On Tuesday the Democratic National Committee said in a statement: “From Mike Pence refusing to criticize Trump, to Republican candidates across the country running on his ultra-Maga agenda, the Republican party is Trump’s party, and there’s no turning back now.”
To underline the point, although Perdue’s defeat showed the electoral limitations of the big lie, Trump-endorsed candidates showed that Frankenstein still exercises at least some control over the Maga monster.
In Georgia, Herschel Walker, the former American football star, won a Senate primary and will now face Democrat Raphael Warnock in November. Congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene easily defeated a cluster of primary challengers to become the 14th district’s nominee.
In Texas, attorney general Ken Paxton defeated George P Bush, nephew of George W Bush, a former president and stalwart of the anti-Trump Republican establishment. Sarah Sanders, Trump’s former White House press secretary, is now the Republican nominee for governor of Arkansas.
In some cases, Trump jumps in late to back a candidate already assured of victory; in others, his endorsement lifts candidates, sometimes to victory. It is not always clear whether the chicken or egg came first. But it is evident that Maga can be a bottom-up phenomenon: last August there were boos when Trump urged supporters to get vaccinated.
Similarly, some voters have been comfortable with a paradox of pledging loyalty to Trump while rejecting some of his endorsements. Thousands, for example, voted for both Raffensperger and Taylor Greene on Tuesday. They sense, presumably, that even those whose faith wavers in Trump the man, will still remain apostles of Trumpism the movement.
KYIV/KRAMATORSK, Ukraine, May 25 (Reuters) – Russia launched a fresh assault before dawn on Wednesday on the easternmost Ukrainian-held city in the battlefield Donbas region, threatening to close off the last main escape route for civilians trapped in the path of the advance.
After failing to seize Kyiv or Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, Russia is trying to take full control of the Donbas, comprised of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
Russia has poured thousands of troops into the region, attacking from three sides in the hope of encircling Ukrainian forces holding out in the city of Sievierodonetsk on the east bank of the Siverskiy Donets River and its twin Lysychansk on the west bank. Their fall would leave the whole of Luhansk region under Russian control, a key Kremlin war aim.
“All the remaining strength of the Russian army is now concentrated on this region,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late night address.
His office said the Russians had launched an offensive on Sievierodonetsk early on Wednesday and the town was under constant fire from mortars.
Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said six civilians had been killed and at least eight wounded, most near bomb shelters, in Sievierodonetsk. The main road out was still being shelled, he said, but humanitarian aid was still getting in.
Ukraine’s military said fighting for the road was ongoing, and that on Tuesday it had repelled nine Russian attacks in the Donbas. It reported at least 14 civilians killed in strikes by aircraft, rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, mortars and missiles.
In Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held Donbas city that has become a major hub for supplies and evacuations, a missile had blasted a crater in a railway track and damaged nearby buildings, including Lydiia Oleksiivna’s house.
She was clearing dust and ash that covered her kitchen. The windows had been blown out and external walls destroyed. “I don’t know if we can save the house,” she said.
In Kramatorsk, nearer the front line, streets were largely deserted, while in Sloviansk further west, many residents took advantage of what Ukraine said was a break in the Russian assault to leave.
“My house was bombed, I have nothing,” said Vera Safronova, seated in a train carriage among the evacuees.
FOOD BLOCKADE
Russia is also targeting southern Ukraine, where officials said shelling had killed a civilian and damaged scores of houses in Zaporozhzhia and missiles had destroyed an industrial facility in Kryviy Rih.
Moscow has blockaded ships from southern Ukraine that would normally export Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil through the Black Sea, pushing up prices globally and threatening lives. read more
1/15
A self-propelled howitzer 2S1 Gvozdika of pro-Russian troops fires a leaflet shell in the direction of Sievierodonetsk to disperse information materials from their combat positions in the Luhansk region, Ukraine May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
Russia has blamed Western sanctions for the food crisis. It said on Wednesday it was ready to provide a humanitarian corridor for vessels carrying food to leave Ukraine but sanctions would need to be lifted in return.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Moscow was in touch with the United Nations, and “does not rule out the possibility of global talks to unblock Ukraine’s ports”, he said. read more
Britain’s Defence Minister Ben Wallace reiterated the West’s rejection of the idea it might lift sanctions to free up the grain. “That grain is for starving countries,” he said.
In the latest sign of Moscow’s plans to solidify its grip on territory it has seized, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the process for residents of newly captured districts to acquire Russian citizenship and passports.
Three months into the invasion, Russia still has only limited gains to show for its worst military losses in decades, while much of Ukraine has suffered devastation as Moscow stepped up artillery strikes to compensate for its slow progress.
The Russian parliament scrapped the upper age limit for contractual service in the military on Wednesday, highlighting the need to replace lost troops. read more
ECONOMIC SQUEEZE
Western nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia. The Biden administration said on Tuesday it would not extend a waiver set to expire on Wednesday that enabled Russia to continue to pay U.S. bondholders. read more
The decision could push Moscow closer to the brink of default, although Moscow is not short of money. Oil and gas revenues stood at $28 billion in April alone, thanks to high energy prices. read more
British retailer Marks & Spencer MKS.L on Wednesday became the latest company to announce it would pull out of Russia completely, taking a charge of 31 million pounds ($39 million). read more
In a speech by video link to dignitaries at a global forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskiy said the conflict could only be ended with direct talks between him and Putin.
As a “first step towards talks”, Russia should withdraw to lines in place before its Feb. 24 invasion, he said. Prior to the invasion, Russia held Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, while its separatist proxies occupied parts of the Donbas.
Ukraine’s closest allies say they fear other Western countries might push Kyiv to give up land. The prime minister of Estonia said Ukraine should not be forced into compromises.
“It is much more dangerous giving in to Putin than provoking him. All these seemingly small concessions to the aggressor lead to big wars. We have done this mistake already three times: Georgia, Crimea and Donbas.”
The toll of the violence, especially on children, has only grown. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the rate of gun deaths of children 14 and younger rose by roughly 50 percent from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020.
Last year, more than 1,500 children and teenagers younger than 18 were killed in homicides and accidental shootings, compared with about 1,380 in 2020, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a database tracking gun deaths.
Many details about the Uvalde shooting have yet to be made public, including the weapons used by the gunman — an 18-year-old man who died at the scene, the authorities said — and how he obtained them. But the emotional turmoil of the killings was sadly familiar.
“Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” President Biden said on Tuesday night after returning from a trip to Asia. “Why do we keep letting this happen?”
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a young legislator when the children were killed in Sandy Hook, exhorted his fellow senators to action on Tuesday. “What are we doing? What are we doing?” he said on the Senate floor.
These were questions with typical answers: not much of anything on the federal level. Republicans, often appealing to the Second Amendment, have blocked efforts to add stiffer background checks for gun purchasers every time another major mass shooting jostles the nation’s conscience. Still, within hours of the shooting in Uvalde, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, moved to clear the way to force votes in the coming days on legislation that would strengthen background checks.
The fate of state Sen. Burt Jones, whom Trump endorsed in the open race for lieutenant governor, remains unclear. While he was leading his nearest challenger by close to 20 percentage points, with 96 percent of the expected vote in, it wasn’t clear if Jones would avoid a runoff: He was at 50.1 percent, a hair above the threshold.
Trump’s House picks in Georgia weren’t much more successful. While all 5 of the Republican incumbents he endorsed won, none of them really faced a competitive race — three of them, in fact, were unopposed. Trump also backed two candidates in open seat House primaries: Jake Evans in the 6th District and Vernon Jones in the 10th. Both finished in second place and moved on to June 21 runoffs.
The lone bright spot in Trump’s Georgia record? His recruited candidate for Senate, Herschel Walker. The former football star maintained a steady lead in the polls since the early days of his campaign and easily sailed to his GOP nomination.
In Alabama, Trump ditched his original pick for the Senate, Rep. Mo Brooks, after the congressman’s campaign appeared to be flailing. But Brooks — one of Trump’s strongest supporters in Congress — launched a late comeback and made it to the June 21 runoff, where he’ll face first-place finisher, Katie Britt.
Alabama wins
AL01
Rep. Jerry Carl
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 electoral votes.
AL02
Rep. Barry Moore
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 electoral votes.
AL03
Rep. Mike Rogers
Won with 82 percent of the vote.
He voted to overturn 2020 electoral votes.
AL04
Rep. Robert Aderholt
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 electoral votes.
AL06
Rep. Gary Palmer
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 electoral votes.
Arkansas wins
GOVERNOR
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Won with 83 percent of the vote.
Sanders, Trump’s former White House press secretary, said she ran for governor to be part of the “last line of defense” against a Democratic-helmed federal government. In his endorsement, Trump said Sanders would “always fight for the people of Arkansas and do what is right, not what is politically correct” as governor.
Sanders, who’s favored to win in November, would be the second in her family to serve as governor — her father, Mike Huckabee, served two terms starting in the 1990s and later ran for president twice.
SENATOR
Sen. John Boozman
Won with 58 percent of the vote.
Boozman voted to acquit the former president in Trump’s second impeachment trial, though the senator said Trump did bear some responsibility for the events of Jan. 6. Trump endorsed Boozman anyway, providing key cover in a tough primary against former Arkansas Razorbacks star and Army ranger Jake Bequette.
AR01
Rep. Rick Crawford
Won with 75 percent of the vote.
He voted to overturn 2020 election results.
AR04
Rep. Bruce Westerman
Unopposed.
Georgia wins
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
Burt Jones
With 96 percent of the expected vote in, Jones was in first place with 50.1 percent of the vote.
SENATOR
Herschel Walker
Won with 68 percent of the vote.
Walker, who will face Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in November, has had a relationship with Trump for decades, dating back to when Trump owned the short-lived New Jersey Generals football team in the USFL. “He was a great football player and will be an even better U.S. Senator — if that is even possible,” Trump said in September.
GA01
Rep. Buddy Carter
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 election results.
GA09
Rep. Andrew Clyde
Won with 76 percent of the vote.
Clyde, who voted to overturn 2020 election results, drew national attention for his cavalier downplaying of the events of Jan. 6 during a House Oversight Committee hearing. Not only was there not an insurrection, Clyde said, but “if you didn’t know that TV footage was a video from January 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
GA11
Rep. Barry Loudermilk
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 election results.
GA12
Rep. Rick Allen
Unopposed.
He voted to overturn 2020 election results.
GA14
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
Won with 70 percent of the vote.
Greene, who voted to overturn the 2020 election results, is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters. In his endorsement, Trump said the lightning-rod freshman lawmaker has always been on his side, and is someone who “loves our country and MAGA, its greatest ever political movement.”
Texas runoff wins
Attorney General
Ken Paxton
Won with 68 percent of the vote.
Paxton, who has been mired in scandal and faced abuse of office allegations for much of the past seven years, is a staunch Trump ally. As Texas AG, he challenged the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states but the case was thrown out by the Supreme Court.
He won his Trump endorsement at the expense of George P. Bush, the Bush family scion Paxton defeated in Tuesday’s runoff.
LONDON — A highly anticipated investigation into numerous Covid-19 lockdown-breaking parties at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office and residence has been released, intensifying pressure on the embattled Conservative Party leader.
The comprehensive report from senior civil servant Sue Gray found that many of the gatherings held at Downing Street and Whitehall during Covid lockdowns over the last two years should not have been allowed to happen.
It lays out in embarrassing detail how several events unfolded, including one leaving party on June 18 when a gathering of two or more persons indoors in England was prohibited. On this occasion, the event lasted for several hours and there was excessive alcohol consumption by some. “One individual was sick” and a “minor altercation” occurred between two others, the report said.
In a damning verdict, Gray said senior leadership “must bear responsibility for this culture.”
“At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time.”
Gray had launched an inquiry following media reports of gatherings and alleged parties in government buildings during Covid lockdowns over a 20-month period.
A full version of the report had been delayed due to a separate police inquiry. The Metropolitan Police’s investigation resulted in 126 fines to 83 people.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon, Johnson thanked Gray for her work and said he takes “full responsibility” for everything that happened on his watch.
The prime minister said he was “appalled” by behavior at lockdown parties but defended attending some leaving dos. “I hope very much that now that she has reported, we will be able to move on and focus on the priorities of the British people,” Johnson said.
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said the report is a “monument to the hubris and the arrogance of a government that believed it was one rule for them, and another rule for everyone else.”
“Members opposite must finally do their bit. They must tell the current inhabitant, their leader that this has gone on too long. The game is up. You cannot be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker,” Starmer said.
“It is time to pack his bags. Only then can the government function again, only then can the rot be carved out, only then can we restore the dignity of that great office and the democracy that it represents.”
Sterling fell to a session low against the U.S. dollar shortly after the report was published. The U.K. currency was last seen down 0.2% at $1.2501 during afternoon deals.
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