Good morning.
The suspect in a deadly mass shooting at a southern California dance studio on Saturday night died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Sunday morning. Ten people were killed and at least 10 others were taken to hospital after a gunman opened fire in a ballroom dance studio in a city close to Los Angeles.
The mass shooting, one of California’s worst in recent memory, happened hours after a lunar new year festival that attracted tens of thousands of revellers in Monterey Park, a majority-Asian American city. The motive for the attack is still under investigation, law enforcement officials said at a press briefing last night.
Officials have identified the shooter as Huu Can Tran, a 72-year-old man. After a manhunt, Huu was found dead in a white van that police had identified as a suspicious vehicle.
Authorities said that after opening fire at one dance studio, the shooter appeared to have targeted a second dance venue in nearby Alhambra, another majority-Asian American town, where he fled after two people were able to take his gun away from him.
Who were the victims? The coroner’s office is “still in the process of identifying” the victims who were killed, the Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna, said on Sunday. The ages of the victims appear to be in their 50s, 60s and “maybe even some beyond there”, Luna said.
Do we know anything about the gun used? Two weapons have been identified so far, including a handgun with a high capacity magazine. The weapon recovered from the Alhambra location where the shooter was disarmed was described as a semiautomatic assault pistol with a high-capacity magazine attached, Luna said. He said it initially appeared that weapon would be illegal under California law.
Germany criticised for failing to supply tanks to Ukraine
Heavy diplomatic pressure has been building on Berlin to send its tanks to Ukraine, or at least allow countries that bought them from Germany to re-export them. As the producer of the Leopard tanks, Berlin has a veto on their transfer.
At a special international summit on Friday at the US military base in Ramstein, south-west Germany, Berlin declined to take a decision on whether to give Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, leading to growing frustration from Kyiv and its allies.
On Sunday, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, criticised Germany’s failure to supply the hardware to Ukraine: “Germany’s attitude is unacceptable. It has been almost a year since the war began. Innocent people are dying every day. Russian bombs are wreaking havoc in Ukrainian cities. Civilian targets are being attacked, women and children are being murdered.”
He went on: “I try to weigh my words but I’ll say it bluntly: Ukraine and Europe will win this war – with or without Germany.”
It had been hoped in Kyiv and the US that Germany would allow Leopards owned by countries such as Poland and Finland to be re-exported. However, Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said despite heightened expectations, “we still cannot say when a decision will be taken, and what the decision will be, when it comes to the Leopard tank”.
Why is Germany hesitating? There are many reasons, each individually understandable but which cumulatively underestimate the larger reality of Russian aggression. The worries include American caution, German history, reluctance to be Europe’s military leader, divisions in German public opinion, coalition government unity, a new defence minister and, above all, future relations with Russia.
What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 334 of the invasion.
Women’s March draws thousands across US after Roe v Wade overturned
Thousands of protesters gathered across the US on Sunday to protest the end of the federal right to abortion – marching on the 50th anniversary of the Roe v Wade supreme court decision that made abortion a constitutional right in 1973, but which was struck down last year, writes Poppy Noor.
At more than 200 Women’s March events in 46 states, demonstrators condemned the court’s decision, which leaves it up to individual states to decide whether to protect, ban or restrict abortion rights. Since last year’s startling decision from the conservative-dominated bench, abortion has been banned or severely restricted in 14 states, after the ruling on 24 June.
“Fifty years after the anniversary of Roe v Wade, a radical rightwing movement hijacked our courts and eliminated federal protections for abortions,” said Rachel Carmona, the executive director of the Women’s March organization, who orchestrated the nationwide events.
Carmona added: “But as the fight turns to the states, they are going to learn that the overwhelming majority of Americans in all states support abortion rights – and women will fight to protect our rights and our lives.”
Why was the main event for the protest in Madison, Wisconsin? Women’s March organizers chose Wisconsin to highlight the state’s forthcoming state supreme court election, which could be pivotal, and mobilize protesters and activists.
In other news …
Joe Biden will name as his new chief of staff Jeff Zients, a former top official for coordinating the US response to the coronavirus pandemic, after it had emerged on Saturday that the US president’s current chief, Ron Klain, plans to step down, according to US media reports.
Ghislaine Maxwell has questioned the authenticity of a photograph that came to symbolise Virginia Giuffre’s sexual abuse allegations against Prince Andrew, amid reports the Duke of York is considering overturning his settlement. In a video interview from prison, Maxwell said: “I don’t believe it’s real for a second.”
More than a thousand mourners gathered in Graceland on a chilly, grey Sunday morning to pay their respects to singer Lisa Marie Presley at the Memphis, Tennessee, mansion she inherited from her father, the rock legend Elvis Presley. Lisa Marie Presley died on 12 January at the age of 54.
A senior aide to Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has apologised for putting his hands in his pockets during an official trip to the US, admitting that his mother had scolded him. Seiji Kihara, 52, received an angry phone call from his mother, who told him she was “ashamed” and suggested he “sew up his pockets”.
Stat of the day: 100,000 people took to streets in Israel over rightwing government’s judicial changes
An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in what protesters described as a “fight for Israel’s destiny” over sweeping judicial changes proposed by the new far-right government. Israel’s longtime prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned to office last month at the helm of a coalition of conservative and religious parties that make up the most right-wing government in the country’s history. The new administration has accused Israel’s supreme court of leftwing bias and overstepping its authority. The Tel Aviv protest, along with smaller demonstrations in Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheba, were sparked by fears that the far-reaching proposals undermine democratic norms.
Don’t miss this: ‘My education was in a bar’ – Shania Twain on childhood, stardom, divorce and survival
Usually, when music tells you to cheer up, or love yourself, or feel empowered, it’s shallow or simplistic. But Shania Twain comes at it with the deadly seriousness of lived adversity. Even in the 90s, behind her showgirl, pop-crossover persona, all midriff and hats, there was gritty resilience. Queen of Me is only her sixth studio album, which is surprising, considering the length of her career (if you count from when she started singing in bars as a child, it covers five decades) and her profile (she is the bestselling female artist in country music history). There is a nice line in last year’s Netflix documentary Not Just a Girl, when her manager, Jon Landau, says she “left a lot of money on the table”. Here she discusses deprivation, domestic violence and feeling triumphant after stage fright and surgery.
… Or this: Lost photos from Warsaw ghetto uprising reveal horror of Jews’ last stand
The photographs are blurry, composed hastily and taken surreptitiously, sometimes with heads or objects in the foreground obscuring part of the view, writes Shaun Walker. But Holocaust historians say the imperfect pictures, discovered last month in a Polish attic decades after their creator died, are nonetheless priceless. They are the only known photographs from inside the Warsaw ghetto uprising not to be taken by Germans. The photographs will form part of an exhibition devoted to the 80th anniversary of the uprising, to be held in April at Warsaw’s POLIN museum of Jewish history.
Climate check: Oilwells guzzle precious California water. Next door, residents can’t use the tap
In Kern county, California, oilwells sit in the middle of fields of grapevines and almond trees, writes Hilary Beaumont. The air is heavy with dust and the scent of petroleum. The energy fields here are some of the most productive in the US, generating billions of barrels of oil annually and more than two-thirds of the state’s natural gas. And in a drought-stricken state, they’re also some of the thirstiest, consuming vast quantities of fresh water to extract stubborn oil. But in the industry’s shadow, nearby communities can’t drink from the tap. One of those communities is Fuller Acres, a largely Latino town in Kern county where residents must drive to the nearest town to buy safe water.
Last Thing: I tried lab-grown meat – food made from animals without killing them
It was a confronting moment for a vegetarian, writes Oliver Milman. First, a pork meatball and then slices of bacon, balanced in a sort of mini BLT, were served to eat by beaming, expectant hosts. The meat even came from a named pig, an affable-looking swine called Dawn. With some trepidation, I sliced into the meatball and ate it. I then took a nibble of the bacon. It was my first taste of meat in 11 years, a confounding experience made possible by the fact that Dawn, gamboling in a field in upstate New York, did not die for this meal. Instead a clump of her cells were grown in a lab to create “cultivated meat”. Set for takeoff in the US, a “harmless” sample from one pig can produce millions of tons of “cultivated meat” and is touted as far better for the climate.
Sign up
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
