Bipartisan US lawmakers ramp up gun control talks amid crisis of violence – live

The founder of the People of Praise, a secretive charismatic Christian group that counts supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member, was described in a sworn affidavit filed in the 1990s as exerting almost total control over one of the group’s female members, including making all decisions about her finances and dating relationships.

The court documents also described alleged instances of a sexualized atmosphere in the home of the founder, Kevin Ranaghan, and his wife, Dorothy Ranaghan.

The description of the Ranaghans and accusations involving their intimate behavior were contained in a 1993 proceeding in which a woman, Cynthia Carnick, said that she did not want her five minor children to have visitations with their father, John Roger Carnick, who was then a member of the People of Praise, in the Ranaghan household or in their presence, because she believed it was not in her children’s “best interest”.

Cynthia Carnick also described inappropriate incidents involving the couple and the Ranaghan children. The matter was eventually settled between the parties.

Read the Guardian’s full report:

No more opinions are due today from the US Supreme Court, with all the biggest decisions still awaited.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the court’s calendar and on the indispensable Scotusblog for upcoming dates and the rulings issued on those dates.

For anyone curious to know a bit more about how this works, the Scotusblog FAQ page is handy, here. The court doesn’t give lots of notice about which will be opinion days in June and, likely, edging into July with such a big caseload.

And the public isn’t told what opinions are coming down until they land. However, of course there was the early May bombshell leak of the draft opinion in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case out of Mississippi, which explicitly includes a request from the state authorities to the court to overturn the pivotal 1973 Roe v Wade decision that afforded the constitutional right to an abortion in the US.

The final opinion is awaited…

This blog is now handing over to the Guardian’s new US politics blogger Chris Stein, based in Washington, and our colleague there Joanie Greve, who was at the helm of the blog but in recent months took on her new role as one of our senior politics reporters.

They’ll take you through the rest of today’s politics news. For all the breaking news on UK politics today involving a no-confidence vote in prime minister Boris Johnson, please follow our London team here as they bring you the events as they happen there, in the UK politics live blog.

Here’s Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas again, this time putting his name to a decision in the case of Southwest Airlines v Saxon.

In an eight to zero opinion (Amy Coney Barrett was recused from this case), Thomas issued the decision that the court essentially said an airline worker is not required to go to arbitration over her pay dispute with Southwest and can fight her case in the courts.

The Bloomberg Law site notes that the case could have a wide impact on worker arbitration rights. It explained that Latrice Saxon:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Sued the airline in 2019, alleging it failed to pay her and hundreds of current and former ramp supervisors time-and-a-half earned for their overtime work. The Dallas-based carrier countered that its employee was contractually bound to bring the claim in arbitration, rather than in court. While a federal district judge agreed with the airline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit did not. The supreme court took up the case.

The US supreme court has issued three opinions today, moments ago, although they are not the cases the nation is on the edge of its proverbial seat about – abortion and gun rights.

The court just ruled that the Florida authorities can recoup $300,000 in medical expenses out of a settlement paid in the case of Gianinna Gallardo, who suffered appalling injuries at 13, in 2008, when she was hit by a truck after getting off a school bus. A 7-2 majority, with the opinion written by Clarence Thomas and joined by liberal-leaning Elena Kagan, opined for the state over the Gallardo family.

A few minutes prior, the court ruled in a case, Siegel v Fitzgerald, about the constitutionality of increased US Trustee’s fees charged to companies in chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Details on the third ruling in a tick.

The US supreme court is about to issue ruling(s) on cases decided in the current term.

We’ll keep you up to date on what happens, when the opinion(s) are handed down at 10am ET.

As Scotusblog notes, there’s a lot for the bench to get to:

The four big cases we at the Guardian are watching most closely are an environmental case out of West Virginia, a gun rights case stemming from New York, an immigration case via Texas involving the US-Mexico border and the pivotal Mississippi abortion case that also includes the state authorities asking Scotus to overturn Roe v Wade.

The US Senate is back in session today after its latest recess and there will be close attention on a bipartisan group of senators that is exuding increased confidence that a package of gun control measures can advance and make it into law.

Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy is fond of the word significant. Just days ago, less than a week after the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 young children and two teachers, he talked of “an opportunity right now to pass something significant”.

Murphy yesterday added: “The possibility of success is better than ever before. But I think the consequences of failure for our entire democracy are more significant than ever.”

Murphy believes measures passed in Florida following the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland could attract Republican support and provide a workable template for action in Congress.

Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, said he was optimistic that recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, could finally prompt enough bipartisan support for legislation that has previously proven elusive.

Florida, a Republican-controlled state, acted swiftly after the murders of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in February 2018, passing red flag laws and raising the age requirement for buying, but not owning, firearms from 18 to 21, among other steps. The Parkland gunman was 19.

In his address to the nation last week, Joe Biden called for a federal ban on semi-automatic weapons, and raising the age requirement if that couldn’t be done.

Murphy acknowledged the Florida actions and said “there is interest in taking a look at that age range, 18 to 21” during bipartisan discussions about possible legislation, led on the Republican side by Texas senator John Cornyn.

Read more here.

Good morning, US politics blog readers, it’s going to be an exceptionally busy, high-stakes week in Washington with Americans’ constitutional rights and democracy itself under the spotlight.

Here’s what’s on the agenda.

• The US Senate is back in session on the Hill today after its latest recess and a bipartisan group of senators is exuding confidence that a package of gun control measures can make progress, while the leading lawmaker in talks warns of “significant” consequences of failure.
• Talks continue amid another series of deadly shootings at the weekend, following grotesquely on the heels of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas and the racist killing of Black Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo.
• New measures under discussion do not include the demands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for a ban on assault weapons, following the recent carnage, but there is more progress being made right now on legislative talks than there has been for years.
• The US Supreme Court is due to issue opinions today and Thursday, June being the crunch month for decisions arising in cases from the current term and with more than 30 decision to be declared. The public (and press) are not party to which cases will be announced until the bench speaks up.
• Last but not least for this briefing note: the special House committee investigating events on and around the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by extremist supporters of then-president Donald Trump is in final preparations for its first public hearing, this Thursday in prime time – and the right is already revving up its riposte.