Good morning.
A teenage gunman has killed at least 19 children and two adults after storming into an elementary school in Texas, officials said, the latest bout of gun-fueled mass killings in the United States and the nation’s worst school shooting since Sandy Hook a decade ago.
The carnage began when the 18-year-old suspect, identified as Salvador Ramos, shot his grandmother, who is in a critical condition, authorities said.
Police said he fled that scene and crashed his car near the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, a town about 80 miles (130km) west of San Antonio. There he launched a rampage that ended when he was killed, apparently shot by police. The motive was not immediately clear and it is believed he acted alone.
Speaking from the White House hours later, the US president, Joe Biden, urged Americans to stand up to the politically powerful American gun lobby, which he blamed for blocking enactment of tougher firearms safety laws.
What did Biden say? “As a nation, we have to ask, ‘When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?’” Biden said on national television, calling for “common sense gun laws”.
Who are the victims? Fourth-grade teacher Eva Mireles has been confirmed as one of the adults killed. Irma Garcia has been named as the second adult victim by several media outlets. Uziyah Garcia, eight, and Xavier Javier Lopez, 10, were confirmed by the Associated Press. Amerie Jo Garza, 10, was identified by family and Jose Flores, 10, has also been named as a victim by his uncle.
What else do we know? Here’s what we know so far.
Rage over US gun violence after second mass shooting in 10 days
The second US mass shooting in 10 days has led to an outpouring of disbelief and potent rage at America’s persistent failure to tackle its epidemic of gun violence.
Tuesday’s horrifying attack in Uvalde, a small, largely Hispanic community, came after the events in Buffalo, New York. There 10 grocery shoppers, most of them African American, were gunned down in a supermarket.
The horror of two large-scale gun tragedies collided just a few months before the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. That assault in December 2012 took the lives of 20 six- and seven-year-olds as well as six school employees.
Sandy Hook Promise, the advocacy group to end gun violence that was set up by families of the school victims, said yesterday that they were “devastated about reports that multiple people are dead, including children [in Texas]. Our hearts are with the families and community as this tragic story unfolds.”
Why has a speech made by Chris Murphy gone viral? The congressman who formerly represented the town of Sandy Hook made an impassioned speech begging for action on gun control. He said: “I am here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees to beg my colleagues: find a path forward here.”
What has poet Amanda Gordon said? “It takes a monster to kill children. But to watch monsters kill children again and again and do nothing isn’t just insanity – it’s inhumanity,” she wrote.
Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election official
Brad Raffensperger defeated congressman Jody Hice on Tuesday in a closely watched Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state, a significant victory for a politician who has been scorned by his own party for refusing Donald Trump’s request to overturn the 2020 election.
In a surprise, Raffensperger avoided a runoff and won an outright victory over Hice, getting more than 50% of the vote, according to the election monitoring website Decision Desk HQ. The race was called by the Associated Press and other outlets late on Tuesday night.
Raffensperger’s victory is the biggest rebuke so far to Trump in this election season. There have been few other Republicans who have attracted the former president’s wrath for refusing to overturn the election result.
It was seen as perhaps the most important test of Donald Trump’s efforts to install allies who have questioned the election results in roles in which they would wield considerable power over election rules.
Is Trump’s grip on GOP slipping? It could be. Georgia governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary for governor yesterday, in another resounding setback for Trump. Meanwhile, Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.
In other news …
Russian troops are advancing in eastern Ukraine and attacking key cities, particularly the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk. Sergiy Gaidai, governor of the eastern region of Lugansk, said: “They are simply erasing Sievierodonetsk from the face of the earth.” Here’s what we know on day 91 of the invasion.
In her new memoir, Kellyanne Conway lavishes abuse on Steve Bannon, calling the former White House strategist a “leaking dirigible” and an “unpaternal, paternalistic bore of a boor” more concerned with his own image than serving Donald Trump. But in doing so she criticises Trump himself.
The FBI claims an Islamic State sympathizer living in Ohio plotted to assassinate George W Bush, but confidential informants helped federal agents foil the plan, according to court records. Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab planned killing out of revenge for Iraq war, according to a bureau warrant.
A trove of hacked Chinese police photographs and documents shedding light on the human toll of Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in Xinjiang has been published as the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, visits cities in the region.
Jury selection in a civil trial against Bill Cosby began in Los Angeles this week, nearly a year after the actor was freed from prison when his conviction on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting another woman were overturned. The LA trial concerns allegations by Judy Huth, who has accused Cosby of sexually abusing her at the Playboy mansion in 1975 when she was 16.
Stat of the day: Walmart to begin drone delivery service to 4m households
As many as 4m American households will be able to get food, groceries and supplies from Walmart delivered by flying, remote-controlled drones by the end of the year. Walmart announced that its delivery service with the operator DroneUp will be rolled out in six states, making it the country’s first large-scale drone delivery program. Parts of Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia could be on the receiving end of more than 1m packages by drone annually, the firm predicted.
Don’t miss this: It’s not beige, it’s not grey. It’s greige – and it’s why all our houses look the same
Elephant’s Breath – described as an “uplifting” mid-grey, with a hint of magenta – has been called a paint color of the decade in the UK. In the US, Revere Pewter, an “iconic neutral”, has likewise been a consistent bestseller for Benjamin Moore since the mid-2010s. Across houses and offices, in bedrooms and living areas, grey has emerged as the go-to neutral paint shade, and often – as real estate listings reveal – an entire aesthetic, with wall-to-wall grey surfaces and furnishings. Maybe now it’s time for some colour, writes Elle Hunt.
Climate check: Egypt says climate finance must be top of agenda at Cop27 talks
Financial assistance for developing countries must be at the top of the agenda for UN climate talks this year, the host country, Egypt, has made clear, as governments will be required to follow through on promises made at the Cop26 summit last year. Egypt will host Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in November. Most of the world’s biggest economies, and biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have yet to fulfil the pledges they made at Glasgow last November to strengthen their targets on emissions cuts.
Last Thing: Auction of long-lost Wizard of Oz dress blocked by judge amid ownership row
The dramatic story of a costume from The Wizard of Oz thought lost for decades and set to sell for up to $1.2m went through another plot twist, when a judge blocked its planned sale at auction. One of the blue-and-white checked gingham dresses that Judy Garland wore in 1939 for her role as Dorothy was scheduled to be part of an auction in Los Angeles yesterday, put up for sale by Catholic University of America but a relative of priest who was given dress in 1973 claims it belongs to her.
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