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Gunman remained barricaded inside a classroom for up to an hour before his rampage was brought to an endTexas law enforcement agencies are facing escalating criticism over their response to the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, after it emerged that the gunman remained locked inside a classroom for up to an hour while large numbers of police officers were amassed outside the room without taking any action.At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Texas authorities confirmed that the shooter had been locked inside a classroom for an hour before he was confronted and killed. He committed all his 21 murders inside that room – including 19 children and two teachers. Continue reading...

Ex-president, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump must testify under oath, says New York attorney general Letitia JamesDonald Trump and his children Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump have been ordered to testify in a New York state civil investigation of their business affairs.The state attorney general, Letitia James, said: “A court has once again ruled in our favor and ordered Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump to appear before my office to testify under oath.” Continue reading...

The girl told CNN that the shooter said he had bought bullets and appeared to spend his time aloneThe gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday allegedly sent a series of text messages to a 15-year-old girl in Germany moments before he carried out his deadly attack, CNN and German media reported.The girl, who was not identified, had been in contact with 18-year-old Salvador Ramos for weeks. Continue reading...

US secretary of state vigorously defends existing global order but admits Washington sees Beijing a ‘long-term challenge’The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for a vigorous defence of the existing global order, but stressed that Joe Biden’s administration did not seek a “cold war” with China.“President Biden believes this decade will be decisive,” Blinken said in a China policy speech on Thursday. “The actions we take at home and with countries worldwide will determine whether our shared vision of the future will be realised.” Continue reading...

Panicked, Rishi Sunak reverses course and unveils a windfall tax. He is right to panic: the tide is turning against the ToriesLet’s have barrel loads more outrageous behaviour inside No 10, if that’s what it takes to panic the government into finally unlocking Treasury coffers for those in most need. Now the chancellor relents, but it was as recently as 26 April that Rishi Sunak called it “silly” to provide more help for families sinking under soaring inflation.He stripped people with the least of that vital £20 a week in universal credit, those already stricken with one of the meanest benefit systems among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It would be “silly” to give them the money back, he said, and he hasn’t. He has at least compensated them for the rise in their energy bills since then, but that was a one-off. Unemployment pay has had its greatest fall in real terms in 50 years, tumbling since 2013, while child benefit has fallen by 30% since 2010, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

As late as a few weeks ago, it was widely believed he would face an uphill battle against Trump-backed Jody HiceHello, and Happy Thursday,You’ve probably heard by now – on Tuesday night Brad Raffensperger won a surprise victory against Jody Hice in the Republican primary for secretary of state.Democrats are headed for a runoff in their nominating contest for secretary of state.A Republican who was part of a fake set of electors for Donald Trump in Wisconsin wants to be the chair of the agency that oversees elections in the state.Five Republicans running for governor in Michigan face potential disqualification from the ballot after submitting fraudulent signatures. Continue reading...

Texas senator says ‘I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful’ in response to questions about Uvalde massacreThe Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz confronted a British reporter and angrily left an interview after he was asked why school shootings like that in Uvalde, where 19 children and two adults were killed, happen so often in the US.“I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful,” Cruz said. “You’ve got your political agenda. God love you.” Continue reading...

Police reportedly found military-style weapons in student’s car and charged him with carrying gun in weapons-free zonePolice have arrested a Texas high school student after semi-automatic weapons were found in his car, a day after 21 people were murdered by another high school student in the state.The police department in Richardson, a municipality in the greater Dallas area, said it received a call at about 11am on Tuesday regarding a male individual walking towards Berkner high school with what appeared to be a rifle. Continue reading...

Portland jury finds Nancy Crampton Brophy guilty of killing chef Daniel Brophy in June 2018A jury in the US city of Portland, Oregon, has convicted a self-published romance novelist who wrote an essay titled How to Murder Your Husband of fatally shooting her husband.The 12-person jury found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday after deliberating for two days over Daniel Brophy’s death, according to reports. Continue reading...

As we endure shooting after shooting, the US starts to seem like a body being attacked from within by some strange and debilitating illnessA nation is a body. For the whole body to function smoothly, each part must do its job. You’ll know from your own body that each part does not need to be perfect to get you through the day. You’ll know that a disabled body can be perfect once you understand what it needs and adjust accordingly. A nation, too, can have some body parts that break down and need help from other, stronger parts. The problems in a body start when some parts break, but instead of compensating for those parts and allowing them time to heal, the rest of the body ignores them.The body, this nation, insists that it must keep moving. The problems grow as the body becomes more and more stressed. Finally, in the worst cases, the body starts attacking itself. America today is a body being attacked from within; living here feels like living inside a huge autoimmune response. The system we once used to protect ourselves has gone haywire, and now it attacks us.Maeve Higgins is a Guardian US columnist and the author of the book Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them Continue reading...

This week’s primaries showed that voters value delivering on priorities above endorsementsThe most eye-catching result of Tuesday’s suite of midterm primaries is Georgia’s incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, demolishing former senator David Perdue in his re-election primary. Former president Donald Trump has spent the better part of the last two years publicly savaging Kemp for the latter’s refusal to unilaterally overturn President Joe Biden’s Georgia win in the 2020 election. Despite Trump’s public support and universal name recognition, Perdue is losing by landslide margins in every corner of the state. Trump also targeted the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and attorney general, Chris Carr, who are both up over Trump’s endorsees by large margins.This is a continuation of a trend we have seen in Republican primaries thus far this cycle. Many Trump-endorsed candidates have lost, including Representative Madison Cawthorn, or been held to fairly low percentages, such as the Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and JD Vance. It’s clear that the 2020 election and personal loyalty to Trump have diminishing returns with Republican primary voters. Continue reading...

Constant bombardment threatens to produce a stalemate that would cost Kyiv dear economically and politicallyRussia’s offensive in the Donbas region is making slow progress. Having rushed to launch the operation to avoid giving Ukraine time to bring up new weapons from the west, Russia has found that its depleted and exhausted units are unwilling and unable to assault Ukrainian positions without incurring unacceptable losses. The Russian army has, therefore, fallen back on the mass application of artillery, destroying village after village, which they occupy after Ukrainian units withdraw.For the Ukrainian military, the current Russian tactics may be unsophisticated and nihilistic, but they are also dangerous. To stop the Russians from advancing, the Ukrainian armed forces must occupy the ground. This subjects their units to heavy bombardment, and is producing a steady accumulation of Ukrainian casualties. The Ukrainians are trying to limit the weight of Russian fire by raiding and striking the logistics supporting the Russian artillery.Jack Watling is senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services InstituteDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

Kevin Stitt approves legislation in effect outlawing all terminations with exceptions for rape and incestThe Republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, on Wednesday night signed into law the strictest abortion ban in the US, making his state the first to in effect end all access to the procedure.The law prohibits abortions with exceptions to save the life of a woman or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest reported to law enforcement. Continue reading...

More information has emerged on the deadly school shooting, including a timeline. Plus, Walmart apologizes for selling Juneteenth-themed ice-cream• Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up hereGood morning.A Texas gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers this week was inside the school for about 40 minutes before being killed by border patrol agents. Conflicting reports have emerged about the law enforcement response in the crucial moments after the 18-year-old shooter entered the building.Border patrol agents had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press.Witnesses described a scene of desperation, with officers gathering outside the school but not entering the building. “Go in there! Go in there!” a nearby woman reportedly shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, but they did not.The father of a fourth grader who was killed raised the idea of running inside himself when he thought law enforcement was not going to act. Continue reading...

The country experiences a mass shooting nearly every day while federal gun control legislation remains a distant dreamOn Tuesday, an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It was the second deadliest school shooting in American history, behind the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting when 20 children and six adults were killed.Mass shootings are so common in America that most of these tragedies barely make a blip in the gun control debate. Continue reading...

There is a clear correlation between level of gun ownership and the number of deaths. What will it take for the US to learn this?

We all want better officiating. But it’s tough for referees to develop when abuse from players and spectators hound them out of the game“My three-year-old could’ve made that call!” exclaimed commentator Kaylyn Kyle after an apparent handball wasn’t called at the end of an NWSL Challenge Cup game between OL Reign and the Washington Spirit.Unfortunately, most three-year-olds who grow up to be soccer fans will be armchair referees rather than being on the field where they’re actually needed.The Professional Referee Organization (PRO) assigns NWSL games to Tier B and Tier C referees in their development ladder, multiple tiers below MLS.The league lacks VAR, which might have shed some light on the incident Kyle decried as well as a horror tackle, committed by Washington’s Sam Staab, of which the referee didn’t have a clear view – screened, as is so often the case even with top-notch referees, by the defender trailing back to catch the attacker.MLS has some transparency via a weekly YouTube review, while PRO offers a weekly behind-the-scenes look at VAR in MLS.Refs assigned to the league also have a curious aversion to red cards – in 2018, Carli Lloyd and Marta were the only players to be sent off. Continue reading...

An estimated 5.3 million to 14.2 million could lose Medicaid coverage when the public health emergency ends in JulyWhen the US federal government’s pandemic health emergency declaration expires, millions of Americans are at risk of losing healthcare coverage through Medicaid with potentially devastating consequences.According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an estimated 5.3 million to 14.2 million could lose their Medicaid coverage when the Covid-19 public health emergency ends on 15 July if it is not extended. Continue reading...

The NBA coach has won three championships in the Bay Area. But his most important contributions go beyond basketballBasketball was the furthest thing from Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr’s mind before his team’s playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night.Hours earlier 21 people, including 19 children, had been killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. It followed shortly after a self-described white supremacist terrorist was charged with killing 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo. Kerr, his hands and voice shaking, wavered between anger and devastation as he refused to speak about basketball and instead highlighted the political dysfunction that has helped such slaughter become all too common in the United States. Continue reading...

Greenwashing ploys cannot mask the pollution wreaked both by cigarettes and new nicotine productsThe most common source of plastic pollution in our environment is not bottles, plastic bags or food wrappers, but cigarette butts. Smokers stub out nearly 800,000 metric tonnes of cigarettes every year, enough butts to cover New York’s Central Park. They are in every country on the planet, from city streets to rubbish tips, rivers and beaches.Cigarettes contain single-use plastics because they are engineered and manufactured that way. Butts take a decade to degrade, releasing more than 7,000 toxic chemicals into the environment. Wildlife is also at risk: researchers found partly-digested cigarette butts in 70% of seabirds and 30% of sea turtles sampled for one study. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Click here for full coverage of the shooting at the Robb elementary school in Uvalde

Counter-protests expected as about 55,000 NRA members to attend event, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Greg AbbottJust days after the deadliest mass school shooting in Texas history, the National Rifle Association (NRA) – America’s leading gun lobbyist group – will meet a few hours away in Houston on Friday.Ashton P Woods says they are not welcome in his hometown. Continue reading...

Timeline of events leading up to attack emerges, amid claims police had trouble opening door of classroom where attacker had barricaded himself inThe Texas gunman who shot and killed 19 children and two teachers was inside the school for about 40 minutes before being killed by Border Control agents, officials have said, as onlookers spoke of their frustration at what they viewed as delays by law enforcement.The first reports of an armed man approaching the school began to surface at about 11:30am on Tuesday. Just after 1pm, the 18-year-old was confirmed dead after he was shot inside the Robb Elementary School classroom in the small city of Uvalde. Continue reading...

Town comes together to try to come to terms with horrific attack in which 19 young children and two teachers were killedThe tears started before anyone even spoke. Inside a Uvalde county building that usually hosts the rodeo in this part of south-west Texas, young children and parents cried and held each other. Together, they waited for a group of pastors to offer some words of comfort for their unfathomable loss.This week in Uvalde began with a mood of celebration. The high school graduation was to be held on Friday – giant senior portraits lined the lawn outside city hall. Younger children were wrapping up the school year as well, attending classroom parties and awards ceremonies. But on Tuesday, life in this largely Latino town was upended when a gunman barricaded himself in an elementary school classroom and slaughtered 19 children and two teachers. Continue reading...

As with attacks from Sandy Hook to Buffalo, false claims emerge – about the gunman, his motives and the shooting itselfBy now it’s as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: as America reels from another mass shooting, wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage swirl online.It happened after the 2012 school shooting in Sandy Hook, the 2018 shooting in Parkland, the violence at an Orlando nightclub and after the deadly rampage at a Buffalo grocery store this month. Continue reading...

The draft communique reveals the ambitious scope of Beijing’s intent in the Pacific and a coherent desire from China to seek to shape the regional orderTen years ago, Pacific security thinkers would debate whether Chinese engagement in the Pacific was by default or by design.The leaked draft of the regional and economic agreement China is hoping will be signed by 10 Pacific nations next week answers that question.Dr Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand Continue reading...

Republican congressman sent a six-page letter to the panel asking for materials that put him under scrutiny for his cooperationRepublican congressman Jim Jordan told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that he would consider complying with the panel’s subpoena only if they shared the material that put him under scrutiny, according to a letter he sent Wednesday.The response by Jordan – the top Republican on the House judiciary committee who spoke to Donald Trump on January 6 – stopped short of a refusal to comply with his subpoena, though it was not clear how he would proceed if the panel refused his request. Continue reading...

Measure addresses use of force and other policies after broader legislation stalled in CongressJoe Biden signed an executive order he promised would usher in the “most significant police reform in decades” on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.With Congress deadlocked, Biden said he was using the powers of the presidency to advance his campaign promises and deliver police accountability and reform “that is real and lasting”. Continue reading...

Democrat O’Rourke publicly confronted Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, during a press conference on Wednesday about the mass school shooting in the town of Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed.At the press conference, Abbott revealed the gunman, 18, had posted his plans on Facebook

From congressmen to TV show hosts, rightwingers are blaming everything but guns for the loss of lives in Tuesday’s massacreIt’s just impossible. Impossible to adequately describe the horror of 19 little children and two of their teachers being murdered in their classroom by an 18-year-old with military-grade weapons. Impossible to adequately articulate the fury and frustration that this just keeps on happening; that what happened in Uvalde, Texas, was not a horrific one-off, but just another day in the USA. And it’s impossible to imagine a scenario in which America’s depraved and dysfunctional relationship with firearms is going to change anytime soon.If you want to see just how dysfunctional the US obsession with guns is, just take a look at how the right is responding to the horrific shooting. You’d think that 19 dead children might weigh on their conscience a little bit; make them reconsider commonsense gun laws. But, no, they are busy regurgitating all the usual talking points and arguing that guns aren’t actually the problem, everything else is. Continue reading...

Several candidates who supported the ex-president’s big lie of election fraud were defeated but the Maga wing also had successes

I was a firearms exec for years. The industry used to adhere to self-imposed rules and norms – until gun makers and lobby groups like the NRA realized fear and extremism sold more gunsAfter the horrific mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde, Americans are hearing a familiar chorus emanating from the cable networks. Every host and guest seems shocked. They search for the right words.Eventually, their message becomes almost universal: Something is horribly broken in a country that allows troubled young men to arm themselves to the teeth and kill innocent people – especially young children. Social media explodes, expressing a version of the shock that the first lady, Jill Biden, expressed after the murders in Uvalde – “Stunned. Angry. Heartbroken.”Ryan Busse is a former executive in the firearms industry who is now a senior policy advisor for Giffords. He is the author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America Continue reading...

New York Times reports witnesses told Capitol attack committee about ex-president’s comment, made on day of January 6 riotDonald Trump reportedly reacted to chants about hanging his vice-president, Mike Pence, during the US Capitol attack by saying maybe the mob was right.The New York Times reported the bombshell White House comment on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke told the state's governor, Greg Abbott, his inaction over gun violence caused the tragic shooting in a primary school.O'Rourke, who is running to be the next governor, told Abbott in a news conference on Wednesday: 'This is on you, until you do something about it,' citing the 2019 El Paso shooting and the 2018 Santa Fe high school shooting

Some of the Trump-endorsed candidates won. But for the most part it seems like his sway in 2022 may have peakedOn Tuesday, Georgia’s Republicans delivered a beat-down to Donald Trump. Across the board, they rejected his picks for state office. Governor Brian Kemp and attorney general Chris Carr, both incumbents, each grabbed more than 73% of the primary vote. Meanwhile, Brad Raffensperger, Trump’s bete noire and Georgia’s secretary of state, escaped a runoff as he cleared the crucial 50% mark.In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the trio collectively refused to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump. Instead, they defended the verdict of Georgia’s voters, accepted Joe Biden’s win and earned Trump’s wrath. Now, less than two years later, they reminded Trump that he was merely an influential bystander to comings and goings in the Peach state.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

The international press responds scathingly to the tolerance for gun violence in the US: ‘nothing fundamentally changes’Politicians and media around the world have reacted with horror, incomprehension and weary resignation to news that an 18-year-old gunman had murdered 19 children and two teachers in America’s 27th school shooting so far this year.The politicians mostly observed formalities; commentators, not so much. Continue reading...

Despite hundreds of mass shootings in the US every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislationJoe Biden’s condolences to the community of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb elementary school on Tuesday, also came with a demand for action.“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act.” Continue reading...

Response in Congress to Texas school shooting that left 21 people dead comes from all-too-familiar Republican playbookAs the cycle of American gun violence took its latest turn on Tuesday, with at least 19 children and two teachers brutally murdered at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, the response from the Republican right came from an all too familiar playbook.Thoughts and prayers, obfuscation and inaction. Continue reading...

Supermodel, 48, says in three-minute appearance that she and Depp had been in romantic relationship between 1994 and 1998Kate Moss testified by video for just three minutes on Wednesday in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial, dispelling a rumor that Depp had pushed her down a flight of steps when he was her boyfriend in the 1990s.The 48-year-old supermodel, speaking from her English home in Gloucestershire, told the court in Virginia that she and Depp had been in a romantic relationship from 1994 to 1998.

America tries to absorb attack on elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook a decade agoAmerica is absorbing the shock of another bloody mass shooting, a day after an 18-year-old man wearing body armour and carrying assault rifles entered an elementary school in Texas and gunned to death at least 19 children and two adults.The attack on Robb elementary school in Uvalde, 85 miles west of San Antonio, was the deadliest gun rampage in an American school in almost a decade. It prompted passionate calls for tougher gun controls led by Joe Biden but matched by equally stringent demands for more armed guards in schools from the gun lobby and Republicans. Continue reading...

Last year Governor Greg Abbott signed into law several measures making it easier to own and carry guns in the stateSoon after learning of yet another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school, Texas’s conservative leaders quickly provided their latest, oft-repeated rhetoric of “thoughts and prayers”, while doubling down on the need for more – not fewer – guns in schools.An 18-year-old shooter killed 19 children and two adults on Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, about an hour and a half’s drive west of San Antonio. And while such horrors happen across the US, Texas has a political culture of easing access to guns and fiercely opposing any efforts to limit the rights of its citizens to arm themselves with powerful weaponsintended for use on battlefields. Continue reading...

Kate Moss has said Johnny Depp never pushed her down a flight of stairs when he was her boyfriend in the 1990s, as she testified by video for just three minutes on Wednesday in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial in the US.The 48-year-old English model, speaking from her home in Gloucestershire, told the court she had slipped down some steps while on holiday at the GoldenEye Resort in Jamaica with Depp, dispelling the rumour she had been pushed by him.Depp is suing Heard for $50m for libel in Fairfax county, Virginia, over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post, describing herself as 'a public figure representing domestic abuse'.

President said US would ‘get involved ’ if China attacked Taiwan, which some saw as policy shiftComments by Joe Biden suggesting major US policy changes in regard to defending Taiwan before Washington quickly rowed back have sparked concern that the confusion could escalate tensions.On Monday, in answer to a reporter’s question at a meeting of the informal Quad alliance, the US president said the US would “get involved militarily” to defend Taiwan if it came under attack from China. The answer was interpreted by some as an indication of a major policy shift. However, within minutes the state department began walking back the comments, and Biden himself clarified on Tuesday that there was no change to US policy. Continue reading...

Company launches ‘healthier world’ accord in Davos and speaks to other pharma firms about similar stepsPfizer has announced it is to supply all its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries and is talking to other big drugmakers about similar steps.Announcing an “accord for a healthier world” at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, the New York-based pharma firm pledged to provide all its products that are available in the US and Europe on a cost basis to 1.2 billion people in all 27 low-income countries such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, plus 18 lower-middle-income countries including Ghana. Continue reading...

Pharma companies were accused of downplaying risks of addiction associated with opioid use while overstating the benefitsAttorneys for the state of West Virginia and two remaining pharmaceutical manufacturers have reached a tentative $161.5m settlement just as closing arguments were set to begin in a seven-week trial over the opioid epidemic, the state attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, said on Wednesday.Morrisey announced the development in court in the state’s lawsuit against Teva Pharmaceuticals, AbbVie’s Allergan and their family of companies. Continue reading...