Gunman kills at least 19 children at Texas elementary school
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said, in the latest gruesome moment for a country scarred by a string of massacres. The attacker was killed by law enforcement.
The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Gov. Greg Abbott said one of the two was a teacher.
The assault at Robb Elementary School in the heavily Latino town of Uvalde was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago.
“My heart is broken today,” said Hal Harrell, the school district superintendent, announcing that all school activities were canceled until further notice. “We’re a small community, and we’re going to need your prayers to get through this.”
The attack also came just 10 days after a deadly, racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that added to a yearslong series of mass killings at churches, schools and stores. And the prospects for any reform of the nation’s gun regulations seemed as dim as in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook deaths.
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Biden says 'we have to act' after Texas school shooting
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lamenting a uniquely American tragedy, an anguished and angry President Joe Biden delivered an urgent call for new restrictions on firearms Tuesday night after a gunman shot and killed 19 children at a Texas elementary school.
Biden spoke from the White House barely an hour after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that was bracketed by mass shootings in the U.S. He pleaded for action to address gun violence after years of failure — and bitterly blamed firearm manufacturers and their supporters for blocking legislation in Washington.
'“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?" Biden said with emotion. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?"
With first lady Jill Biden standing by his side in the Roosevelt Room, the president, who has suffered the loss of two of his own children, though not to gun violence, spoke in visceral terms about the grief of the loved ones of the victims and the pain that will endure for the students who survived.
“To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” Biden said. “There’s a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.”
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Kemp wins Georgia GOP gov's race in stinging rebuke of Trump
ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia easily dispatched Donald Trump's hand-picked challenger on Tuesday in a Republican primary that demonstrated the limits of the former president and his conspiracy-fueled politics in a critical swing state.
Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams this fall in what will be one of the nation’s most consequential governor’s races.
The results served as a stinging rebuke of Trump in a race that he prioritized above almost all others. Angered by Kemp's refusal to go along with his extraordinary effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Trump personally recruited former Sen. David Perdue to launch a primary. Trump even encouraged another Republican to drop out of the race to clear a path for a Perdue victory.
But Kemp ultimately emerged as a powerful candidate able to draw prolific fundraising totals that helped him flood Georgia with television and other ads. He tapped into the power of his office to show voters what he could do for them, unveiling a $5.5 billion, 8,100-job Hyundai Motor plant near Savannah in the final days of the campaign.
“Even in the middle of a tough primary, conservatives across our state didn't listen to the noise. They didn't get distracted," Kemp told cheering supporters, before calling on his party to rally behind his campaign.
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Live updates | Russia-Ukraine War
The Russian parliament gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a bill that would allow the government to appoint new management of foreign companies that pulled out of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
According to the state news agency Tass, the new law would transfer control over companies that left Russia not for economic reasons but because of “anti-Russian sentiment in Europe and the U.S. Tass said foreign owners would still be able to resume operations in Russia or sell their shares.
Many foreign companies have suspended operations in Russia. Others have walked away entirely, despite their huge investments.
McDonald’s announced this month that it is selling its 850 restaurants in Russia.
The State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, approved the bill in the first of three readings on Tuesday. After final approval, it would go to the upper house and then to President Vladimir Putin for his signature.
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After Texas shooting, Conn. senator begs for gun compromise
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A U.S. senator who came to Congress representing the Connecticut community where 26 elementary school students and educators were killed nearly a decade ago begged his colleagues Tuesday, as the latest school shooting unfolded, to pass legislation addressing the nation's gun violence problem.
The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away from Newtown, Connecticut, felt all too familiar to residents and officials who saw many similarities to the attack by a lone gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
A gutted Sen. Chris Murphy took to the Senate floor Tuesday and demanded that lawmakers accomplish what they failed to do after 20 children, mostly 6 or 7 years old, and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut died on Dec. 14, 2012. Congress has been unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation since the collapse of a bipartisan Senate effort in the aftermath of that massacre.
“What are we doing?” Murphy asked. The Democrat, who represented Newtown during his time as a U.S. congressman, urged his colleagues to find a compromise.
"I’m here on this floor to beg — to literally get down on my hands and knees — to beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely," he said.
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Takeaways: Trump's big primary defeat; scandals for the win
Former President Donald Trump's crusade for vengeance suffered a devastating blow on Tuesday after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp won his primary despite rejecting Trump's entreaties to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.
Voters also demonstrated an openness to embracing scandal-plagued candidates — depending on the candidate, and the scandal.
Here are some takeaways from Tuesday's primary elections in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota:
TRUMP'S BIGGEST PRIMARY DEFEAT
Trump had hoped to turn Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp into an example of the danger in defying him. Instead, Kemp on Tuesday became an example of how Republican incumbents might not have as much to fear from Trump as the former president would like.
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Georgia primary running smoothly despite new election law
ATLANTA (AP) — In the first statewide test of new voting restrictions, Georgia's high-stakes primary election appeared to be running smoothly Tuesday with no reports of major problems in one of the nation's most important battleground states.
A record number of ballots cast during the early voting period in the three weeks before Election Day helped ease the strain at polling places. There were no reports of long lines or widespread equipment problems despite hotly contested GOP primary races for governor and U.S. Senate.
“It’s all quiet, and quiet is good,” said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who also was facing a GOP primary challenger in his re-election bid.
He said overall turnout was on track to set a record for a midterm election in the state.
Tuesday's primary was the first major election since the GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican governor adopted tighter rules following the 2020 presidential election and amid a concerted effort by former President Donald Trump to cast doubt on his loss with unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
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Seoul: N Korea fires suspected ICBM and 2 other missiles
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-launched a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile and two shorter-range weapons into the sea Wednesday, South Korea said, hours after President Joe Biden ended a trip to Asia where he reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend its allies in the face of the North’s nuclear threat.
If confirmed, it would be North Korea’s first ICBM launch in about two months. Breaking its 2018 moratorium on long-distance launches, North Korea in March claimed to have test-launched its longest-range missile as part of its development of functioning nuclear-armed missiles that can reach the American homeland.
The launches took place as North Korea made a much-disputed claim that its first domestic COVID-19 outbreak was weakening.
After an emergency national security council meeting, the South Korean government said the three weapons fired by North Korea included a suspected ICBM and two short-range ballistic missiles.
“North Korea’s sustained provocations can only result in stronger and faster South Korea-U.S. combined deterrence and can only deepen North Korea’s international isolation,” the South Korean government statement said. “(Our) government is maintaining constant readiness to strongly and effectively respond to any kind of North Korean provocation.”
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Cannes Film Festival, born out of war, grapples with Ukraine
CANNES, France (AP) — The war in Ukraine took a starring role on the opening night of the 75th Cannes Film Festival and it has rarely been far out of frame since.
The parties have continued nonstop, as has the red-carpet frenzy. But throughout the French Riviera spectacular has run a discourse about the role of cinema in wartime. Movie screens have lit up with footage from the front lines and films with trenchant meaning in relationship to the conflict.
Sergei Loznitsa, one of Ukraine's most acclaimed filmmakers, was putting the finishing touches on his documentary “The Natural History of Destruction” when Russian invaded Ukraine in February. The film, which premiered Monday in Cannes, uses extensive archival footage to depict the Allied bombing campaign of Germany during World War II. The question at the heart of the film, inspired by W.G. Sebald's 1999 book of the same name, is about the morality of targeting civilian populations in times of war.
With Russian bombs falling on maternity hospitals, theaters and other places crowded with sheltering civilians, “The Natural History of Destruction” transformed into a film less about the past than the present.
“It became clear that the lessons of 80 years ago haven’t been learned," said Loznitsa in an interview. “It seems possible for us as humans to be thrown back 80 years to the stage where all these atrocities and terrible things were possible.”
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Osaka's mental health discussion resonates at French Open
PARIS (AP) — Naomi Osaka’s 2022 French Open is over following a first-round loss. The players remaining in the tournament see and hear products of her frank discussion about anxiety and depression a year ago — from new “quiet rooms” and three on-call psychiatrists at Roland Garros to a broader sense that mental health is a far-less-taboo topic than it once was.
“I remember after I got back from France last year and having photographers follow me even at random places like the grocery store. It felt really odd and a bit overwhelming, until one day a woman came up to me and told me that by speaking up, I helped her son,” Osaka wrote in a recent email to The Associated Press. “In that moment, it did all feel worthwhile.”
In conversations with The AP shortly before or during the French Open, which began Sunday, several professional tennis players credited Osaka with helping bring the subject out of the shadows for their sport and, in concert with the voices of other athletes such as Olympic champion gymnast Simone Biles, helping foster more awareness and concern.
“I definitely think it’s something that is paid attention to way more than it was, at least when I was coming up as a teenager. I don’t even think I knew what it was when back then. And we’re seeing people speak out and normalize it a bit in a way where it’s OK if you’re struggling with something — it doesn’t matter if it’s on the court, off court, whatever,” said Jessica Pegula, a 28-year-old from New York who reached the French Open’s second round Tuesday.
“In tennis, the life we kind of live is not so normal,” she said. “It can lead to a lot of unhealthy habits.”
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