US Politics

Highland shooting sparks outrage over gun law loopholes that let suspect slip throughIllinois’s ‘red flag’ law could have disqualified shooter from legally obtaining guns but he was still able to purchase five firearms Legislators and activists have derided the weakness of US gun control laws following the Fourth of July mass shooting in which the alleged gunman was allowed to legally purchase weapons despite multiple alarming prior encounters with law enforcement.On Monday, seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in Highland Park, an affluent, mostly white Chicago suburb, after the suspect allegedly fired on an Independence Day parade from a rooftop.Robert Crimo, 21, was subsequently arrested after his gun was tracked with the help of a firearms dealer, and was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder.He appeared in court on Wednesday in a bond hearing via a video link from jail. Ben Dillon, a county prosecutor, told the court Crimo had confessed to the attack after being apprehended.Crimo, wearing black, spoke to confirm he did not have a lawyer; he is being represented by a public defender. No plea was entered and the judge ruled he be held without bail. “He does pose, in fact, a specific and present threat to the community,” said the judge, Theodore Potkonjak.The words echoed those of local authorities in September 2019 when they declared Crimo a “clear and present danger” to the Illinois state police after he threatened to kill his family. Police briefly confiscated a trove of weapons from his house – yet three months later he successfully applied for a gun license, at the age of 19.According to police statements, on the Fourth of July the gunman climbed to the rooftop and fired on the parade, then drove his mother’s car to the Madison, Wisconsin, area, where he considered attacking another event.He changed his mind and returned to Illinois, where he was stopped by police at the wheel of the car, said the Lake county major crime task force spokesman, Christopher Covelli.Police found 83 bullet shells and three magazines of ammunition on the rooftop, Dillon told the court, and a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifle, similar to an AR-15, used in the shooting was found at the scene. The suspect had a similar weapon in his mother’s car when arrested, according to county prosecutors.Before the massacre, Highland Park already had relatively strict gun laws by US standards. In 2013, city officials banned semi-automatic assault riffles and large capacity magazines. Illinois also boasts some of the strongest gun control laws of any state, with mandated background checks for gun purchases, laws limiting gun access to domestic abusers, and a “red flag” law that allows people who pose a danger to themselves and others to be temporarily blocked from purchasing firearms.Monday’s mass shootings proves that those laws still fall well short of what is needed to curb the spree of mass shootings that has plagued the country, gun control advocates said.At a Tuesday press conference, the US senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said: “Last month, Congress proved that bipartisan compromises on gun safety are possible. Today proved that we can’t stop there.”Kathleen Sances of the Gun Violence Prevention Pac called on politicians to “act quickly to regulate weapons of war” that make mass shootings increasingly deadly.Many have also decried the Highland Park shooting as an example of how loopholes within local gun control policies allow offenders to slip through the cracks.The suspected gunman had two prior brushes with law enforcement that were not flagged in the multiple background checks needed for him to legally purchase multiple guns, Reuters reported.In April 2019, an emergency call was made after the gunman had attempted suicide, said Covelli.In September of the same year, police were dispatched to the gunman’s home after he allegedly threatened to “kill everyone” in his family. During that visit officers collected multiple weapons from the gunman’s home: more than a dozen knives, a sword and a dagger.According to Illinois’s “red flag” law, both instances could have disqualified him from legally obtaining the five firearms he allegedly used during Monday’s mass shooting.The Illinois state police said, however, that despite the gunman being flagged as a “clear and present danger” following the September 2019 incident and his history of threatening violence, state police closed the case because the gunman did not have a gun owner ID or a pending application to own a gun.An additional barrier under Illinois law is that police, relatives, roommates or friends must also first ask a judge to seize a person’s guns.In December 2019, the gunman successfully applied for a gun license when he was 19 years old, with his father sponsoring his application.State police, who process gun license applications in Illinois, said that “there was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger” at the time of his application, reported the Associated Press.Police said they had no immediate evidence of any antisemitic or racist basis for the attack. The area has a large Jewish community. Investigators were reviewing videos Crimo had posted on social media containing violent imagery.Authorities have said they plan on seeking additional charges against him, with the Lake county attorney general, Eric Rinehart, promising that the charges would be the “first of many”. If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is next due to appear in court on 28 July.TopicsHighland Park shootingUS gun controlUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Biden planned to nominate anti-abortion lawyer to federal judgeship, emails showWhite House planned to submit Chad Meredith’s nomination as part of deal with Mitch McConnell to avoid holding up Biden’s other nominations The office of Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, has shared emails confirming that Joe Biden intended to nominate Chad Meredith, a conservative lawyer who has previously defended anti-abortion legislation, to a federal judgeship.Reports of Meredith’s potential nomination have sparked outrage among progressives and abortion rights advocates, even as the White House has dodged questions about the matter. Biden is already seen by some as not taking a strong enough lead on defending abortion rights.Beshear, a Democrat, shared the emails with the Louisville Courier-Journal, which broke the news of Meredith’s expected nomination last week.In a 23 June email to one of Beshear’s advisers in DC, the White House aide Kathleen M Marshall said, “To be nominated tomorrow: … Stephen Chad Meredith: candidate for the United States district court for the eastern district of Kentucky.”But Meredith’s nomination was not announced the following day, 24 June, when the supreme court released its decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending the federal right to abortion access.Instead, Marshall sent a follow-up email on 29 June, telling Beshear’s aide, “Sorry for not including this in the original e-mail, but I wanted to clarify that the e-mail I sent was pre-decisional and privileged information.”Asked about Meredith on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, emphasized that no formal nomination had yet been submitted.“We make it a point here to not comment on any vacancy, whether it is on the executive branch or the judicial branch, especially those that the nomination has not been made yet,” Jean-Pierre said.But the emails released by Beshear’s office confirm that the White House had planned to soon submit Meredith’s nomination. According to reports, the nomination was part of a deal with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, to avoid holding up Biden’s other judicial nominations.That explanation failed to appease Meredith’s critics, who warned that he would use his post as a federal judge to further attack abortion rights. They noted that, as the chief deputy general counsel for former governor Matt Bevin, Meredith defended a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound and describe the image to patients before performing abortions.Meredith also served as an adviser to Bevin as the then governor issued hundreds of pardons, many of them for violent crimes, during his final days in office.“My understanding right now is it has not been submitted, which I hope means at the very least means it’s on pause,” Beshear said of Meredith’s nomination on Thursday. “If the president makes that nomination, it is indefensible.”Charles Booker, a progressive running against the Republican senator Rand Paul in Kentucky, said on Twitter, “The president is making a deal with the devil and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process. At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face. This is some bullshit.”The President is making a deal with the devil and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process. At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face.This is some bullshit. https://t.co/A4LV6PxSeK— Charles Booker (@Booker4KY) June 29, 2022
For some progressives, Biden’s willingness to nominate Meredith exemplified his failure thus far to meet the moment and use every tool at his disposal to protect abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court’s decision.Brian Fallon, the executive director of the progressive group Demand Justice, said on Thursday: “To recap last 48 hours, Biden: 1. Wont yet support gutting the filibuster to codify Roe 2. Is skeptical about using federal land in red states for abortion services 3. Has ruled out Court reform 4. Is reportedly set to nominate an anti-abortion GOP lawyer for a federal judgeship.”As of now, Meredith has not been nominated to the federal bench. If he is, Biden will probably set off a brutal battle between his administration and members of his own party.TopicsKentuckyJoe BidenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Trump White House counsel to cooperate with January 6 committeeSource says testimony from Pat Cipollone is expected to be a transcribed interview and recorded on camera The former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone is expected to testify to the House January 6 select committee on Friday after reaching an agreement over the scope of his cooperation with a subpoena compelling his testimony, according to a source familiar with the matter.The testimony from Cipollone is expected to be a transcribed interview and recorded on camera, the source said, and the former top White House lawyer is expected to only answer questions on a narrow subset of topics and conversations with the former president.Among the topics Cipollone could discuss include how he told Donald Trump that pressuring Mike Pence, the vice-president, to refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election win was unlawful, and Trump’s plot to coerce the justice department into falsely saying the 2020 election was corrupt.Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cipollone reportedly agrees to testify to January 6 panel – liveRead moreThe closed-door deposition, to that end, could amount to a chance for the panel to corroborate testimony by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified that Cipollone repeatedly warned that Trump’s ideas to overturn the 2020 election violated the law.Hutchinson, according to her public testimony at a special hearing last week, was told by Cipollone that “we’re going to be charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump went to the Capitol that day as he pressured Congress to not certify Biden’s win.It was not immediately clear on Wednesday why the scope of his testimony had to be limited, given Biden and the current White House counsel has previously waived privilege concerns for other former administration witnesses.Cipollone’s agreement comes days after the select committee finally issued a subpoena following weeks of unsuccessful negotiations, with the order compelling his testimony about at least three parts of Trump’s efforts to reverse his election defeat to Biden.The subpoena marked a dramatic escalation for the panel and showed its resolve in seeking to obtain inside information about how the former president sought to return himself to office from the unique perspective of the White House counsel’s office.“Mr Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6 and in the days that preceded,” the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement accompanying the subpoena.“The committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations. Concerns Mr Cipollone has about the prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony.”Cipollone was a key witness to some of Trump’s most brazen schemes to overturn the 2020 election results, which, the select committee has said in its hearings, was part of a sprawling and probably illegal multi-pronged strategy that culminated in the Capitol attack.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

DoJ sues Arizona over voting law that requires proof of citizenshipMeasure signed by Republican governor in March a ‘textbook violation’ of law designed to protect voters, department says The Department of Justice is challenging a new Arizona law that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship for presidential elections, among other new restrictions, saying the measure was a “textbook violation” of a federal law meant to protect voters.The challenged Arizona measure, HB 2492, was signed into law by the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, in March, requires anyone who wants to vote in a presidential election, or vote by mail in any election, to provide proof of citizenship.Next up: voting rights, as US supreme court set to tear up more protectionsRead moreThe law was among several pushed by the Arizona legislature following the 2020 election in a state where Donald Trump and his allies have spread baseless claims of fraud. Voting by mail is widely used in Arizona, a key battleground state, and Republicans in the state have made numerous attempts to make it harder to cast a ballot that way.In 2013, the supreme court ruled 7-2 in a case called Arizona v Inter Tribal Council of Arizona that the state could not require anyone who used the federal government’s voter registration application to provide proof of citizenship when they registered.As a result of that decision, there are tens of thousands of voters in Arizona who are only allowed to vote in federal elections, not state contests, because they have not provided proof of citizenship. As of March, there were roughly 31,500 federal-only voters in the state.Arizona lawmakers said that the decision only applied to congressional elections, not presidential ones, even though a lawyer for the legislature advised them the measure was probably illegal. A 1993 law, the National Voter Registration Act, requires all states to accept a federal form for voter registration – the form does not require proof of citizenship, but asks voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.“House Bill 2492’s onerous documentary proof of citizenship requirement for certain federal elections constitutes a textbook violation of the National Voter Registration Act,” Kristen Clarke, who leads the justice department’s civil rights division said on Tuesday. “Arizona is a repeat offender when it comes to attempts to make it harder to register to vote. HB 2492 is in direct with the 2013 US supreme court decision.”Some see the law as a blatant effort to get the US supreme court to reconsider its 2013 decision. The court has become significantly more conservative since then; three of the justices who were in the majority in that case – Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg – have been replaced with more conservative justices. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented in 2013, saying they believed Arizona could require proof of citizenship for those who use the federal form.The court’s new conservative majority has shown a blunt hostility to voting access, siding with state lawmakers and upholding nearly every voting restriction that has come before it in recent years.Arizona’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, vowed on Friday that he would continue to defend the law. “Please be assured I will defend this law to the US supreme court if necessary and defeat the federal government’s efforts to interfere with our state’s election safeguards,” Brnovich, a Republican running for US Senate, wrote in a letter to Clarke.The justice department is also challenging other provisions of the Arizona law. The measure also required Arizona to add a section to its own state registration form asking voters to provide their place of birth. It also instructs election officials not to accept a voter registration form if the voter forgets to check the box indicating they are a US citizen. Those requirements violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal to reject someone’s voter registration if they fail to provide information that is immaterial to their eligibility to vote, Clarke said.“Checking this box is not material to establishing the voting qualifications of applicants who have already proven that they are US citizens,” she said. “That information is not material to establishing whether a voter is a US citizen because of naturalization an expatriation patterns among other reasons.”TopicsUS newsThe fight to voteArizonaUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tattersBiden’s election was billed as heralding a ‘climate presidency’ but congressional and judicial roadblocks mean he has little to show Joe Biden’s election triggered a global surge in optimism that the climate crisis would, finally, be decisively confronted. But the US supreme court’s decision last week to curtail America’s ability to cut planet-heating emissions has proved the latest blow to a faltering effort by Biden on climate that is now in danger of becoming largely moribund.The supreme court’s ruling that the US government could not use its existing powers to phase out coal-fired power generation without “clear congressional authorization” quickly ricocheted around the world among those now accustomed to looking on in dismay at America’s seemingly endless stumbles in addressing global heating.The US supreme court has declared war on the Earth’s future | Kate AronoffRead moreThe decision “flies in the face of established science and will set back the US’s commitment to keep global temperature below 1.5C”, said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, in reference to the internationally agreed goal to limit global heating before it becomes truly catastrophic, manifesting in more severe heatwaves, floods, droughts and societal unrest.“The people who will pay the price for this will be the most vulnerable communities in the most vulnerable developing countries in the world,” Huq added.The “incredibly undemocratic Scotus ruling” indicates that “backsliding is now the dominant trend in the climate space,” said Yamide Dagnet, director of climate justice at Open Society Foundations and former climate negotiator for the UK and European Union. António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations who has called new fossil fuel infrastructure “moral and economic madness”, said via a spokesman that the ruling was a “setback” at a time when countries were badly off track in averting looming climate breakdown.In the 6-3 ruling, backed by the rightwing majority of justices, the supreme court did not completely negate the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to regulate emissions from coal plants. But it did side with Republican-led states in stating that the government could not set broad plans to shift electricity generation away from coal because of the nebulous “major questions doctrine” that demands Congress explicitly decide on significant changes to the US economy.“The court appoints itself, instead of Congress or the expert agency, the decision-maker on climate policy,” wrote justice Elena Kagan in an unusually blunt dissenting opinion. “I cannot think of many things more frightening.”Al Gore, the former US vice-president said the ruling was the “result of decades of influence and coordination by the fossil fuel lobby and its allies to delay, obstruct, and dismantle progress toward climate solutions”.For Biden, who called the ruling “devastating”, the court’s decision is just the latest crushing jolt to what was billed as a “climate presidency” when he was elevated to the White House.Landmark legislation to bolster clean energy has stalled in Congress, largely due to the opposition of Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who has a coal-trading firm, and is perilously close to not being resurrected in time before midterm elections later this year in which Democrats are expected to lose their tenuous hold on Congress. The US, almost uniquely among major democracies, still has no national climate or energy policy in place.Biden’s promise to end oil and gas drilling on public land has been unfulfilled, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused gasoline prices to leap, prompting the president to urge oil companies to ramp up production, to the horror of climate campaigners.The president has vowed that the US will cut its emissions in half by 2030 but this goal, and America’s waning international credibility on climate change, will be lost without both legislation from Congress and strong executive actions. Both of these factors remain highly uncertain, with the supreme court’s ruling sharply restricting the latter option. Gina McCarthy, the White House’s top climate adviser, has admitted the administration will have to get “creative” in forcing down emissions.“Congress acting on climate was important before this decision, now it’s even more important,” said John Larsen, partner at Rhodium group, a climate and energy analysis organization. According to Rhodium, the supreme court ruling is not fatal to US climate targets but there are still 1.7bn to 2.3bn tons of greenhouse gases that will need to be prevented on top of current policy if the 2030 goal is to be met.“The EPA still has authority, although it is more narrow than it was, so they need to get moving and crank out some rules because there’s not a lot of time left,” Larsen said.“It’s entirely possible the US will meet its emissions target but we have just eight years until 2030. The ball needs to start rolling very fast, very soon, if we are to get there. Everyone needs to really step up and start delivering.”TopicsClimate crisisUS supreme courtUS Environmental Protection AgencyUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

After the long wait, US parents seeking under-5s’ vaccine face yet more hurdlesSome local officials are unsure of how to order Covid vaccines or when they will arrive, while others are aiming to ignore federal guidelines completely Ashley Comegys, a parent of two young children in Florida, was ecstatic when the Covid vaccines were authorized for children above the age of six months in the US. “We’ve been waiting for this for so long,” she said. “We can finally start to spread our wings again.”But then she learned that Florida had missed two deadlines to preorder vaccines and would not make them available through state and local health departments, delaying the rollout by several weeks and significantly limiting access.“Rage does not adequately describe how I felt that they were basically inhibiting me from being able to make a choice to protect my children,” Comegys said.Families with young kids encountered months of delays after the pediatric trials were expanded and regulators pushed back meetings in order to evaluate the data closely. Vaccines for adults were rolled out a year and a half ago.Now new challenges to vaccinating some of America’s youngest are cropping up.“I called probably 20 pharmacies and pediatricians in our area” – including across the state line, said Sheryl Peters, a parent of an 18-month-old and a four-year-old in Tennessee.Even after the vaccines were authorized for this age group, her local health officials didn’t know when they would arrive, and they directed her to the state health department, who told her it would be a few weeks, she said. She was crying on the phone, begging for help, but “nobody knew anything,” she said. “It was so, so disorganized.”-While Tennessee did pre-order vaccines, the rollout has been slow and complicated. And the confusion could deepen.Four Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are petitioning the governor, Bill Lee, to ignore the federal recommendations on vaccinating children under five and to ban state health departments from “distributing, promoting or recommending” the vaccines, creating uncertainty in the state’s approach to vaccinating some of its youngest residents.Tennessee stopped all vaccination outreach to teens – not just around the Covid vaccines – in 2021.The actions by leaders in states like Florida and Tennessee may contribute to existing hesitancy some families feel toward the vaccines, as well as hampering efforts to vaccinate children across the states – particularly those who have been marginalized in the health system, who are also at higher risk of getting sick.“Departments of health, by and large, assist people who don’t have insurance or are on Medicaid or don’t have access to healthcare or live in rural areas where there are no providers,” said Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and Tennessee’s former top vaccines official who was fired in July 2021 after promoting vaccines. She was “absolutely furious” to read the lawmakers’ request for a ban.“For an elected body and a governor in a state who has continued to beat the drum of everybody can make their own choice, whether it’s about wearing a mask or gathering in a church or getting a vaccine, to decide for these parents that they are no longer going to have access to these vaccines is really antithetical to everything that they have been preaching,” Fiscus said.“Everything has always been, ‘It’s your choice. You don’t have to quarantine or isolate – it’s your choice. You don’t have to wear a mask – it’s your choice. You don’t have to stay away – it’s your choice.’ But when it comes to getting a vaccine that can actually save lives and prevent hospitalization, then they’re going to make the decision to take that choice away from you.”That’s been one of the hardest parts about this process for Comegys.“If you don’t want to get vaccinated, if you don’t want to mask, OK,” she said. “You can choose that. But why do you then get to make that choice for my family and the way that we want to protect our kids? It doesn’t feel fair.”Some officials continue to spread the narrative that kids aren’t affected by Covid, Fiscus said, even after more than 440 deaths and thousands of hospitalizations among children under five.In March, Florida’s department of health recommended against Covid vaccines for all healthy children. Florida is “affirmatively against the Covid vaccine for young kids”, DeSantis said at a press conference on 16 June, despite ample evidence of the vaccines’ safety and efficacy.The Biden administration soon announced that Florida “reversed course” and would allow doctors to order vaccines directly. State officials disputed the idea of a pivot, saying doctors were already allowed to order the vaccines on their own, but doctors pointed out that the portal to do so was not in place until after the initial shipments had already gone out to every other state.“The state of Florida intentionally missed multiple deadlines to order vaccines to protect its youngest kids,” said Dr Ashish K Jha, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator.With the delays and the confusion, many doctors and health systems haven’t received doses yet.Only federally qualified health centers and pharmacies participating in the national pharmacy program could order vaccines directly in Florida. But most pharmacies can only vaccinate kids three and older, leaving significant access gaps for younger children. (CVS can administer the vaccine to kids as young as 18 months through its Minute Clinic.) And some opted out entirely, with the grocery chain Publix announcing it will not offer the vaccine to children under five through its pharmacies.In Tennessee, Lee has not yet signaled whether he is considering limiting the vaccines. And even if vaccinations and information isn’t limited in Tennessee, the lawmakers’ request could add to hesitancy around the vaccines.“That seems to be their goal, to continue to spread vaccine misinformation and disinformation and to continue to erode confidence around these vaccines,” Fiscus said.In Florida, vaccinations will probably stall amid the message that Covid vaccines for kids aren’t recommended and the confusion around how to find them, especially because Florida isn’t offering the pediatric vaccines at state and local health departments and because pharmacies usually only vaccinate kids above the age of three.“I genuinely don’t know, if you have a child under three, where you will go for that here if your pediatrician’s not getting it,” Comegys said. “Unless you’re on top of it, it’s going to be really hard to find.”Many pediatricians in her area are short-staffed and aren’t able to reach out to families to let them know the vaccines have been authorized and how to get them.Her pediatrician was able to place an order for the under-five vaccines a week ago, but it’s going to take several weeks before they arrive. Her two children were placed on the waitlist.It’s been difficult to know the vaccines are rolling out in other states while her family still can’t access them, Comegys said. “The fact that it is available, and I can’t access it – that’s where I get really angry and really upset.”Families that want to vaccinate their kids are eager to get the shots as soon as possible, as the US faces another potential wave from the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, and with the return to school rapidly approaching.But many families feel like they put their lives on hold while much of the rest of the world moved on. Peters had a family cruise planned for May that they canceled because the shots weren’t available yet, while Comegys is canceling a vacation planned for July.“The finish line has been so close,” Comegys said. “And then to hear, ‘Oh no, it’s going to be another couple of weeks or a couple of months.’ I’m so angry. We’re so close, and now you’re not going to let me get there.”TopicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationFloridaParents and parentingUS politicsHealthFamilynewsReuse this content More

Worried about abortion and demonic possession? You’d make a great Republican politicianArwa MahdawiJust when you think you’ve plumbed the depths of delusion and bigotry, another stalwart of the GOP proves you wrong. Astounding work, Kristina Karamo, Scott Neely and Karianne Lisonbee Have you mislaid a few brain cells? Do you have increasingly bizarre delusions? Are you completely befuddled about how the female body works? Well, congratulations! You have what it takes to forge a successful career as a Republican politician. Anyone watching recent events unfold would be forgiven for thinking the main skills required for a job in Republican politics appear to be extreme bigotry combined with a knack for saying whatever outlandish thing comes into your head first.Even so, there are still times when Republican politicians can surprise you with the depths of their inanity. Let me introduce you, for example, to Scott Neely, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor of Arizona. During a televised debate last week Neely discussed an Arizona abortion ban by invoking aliens. “If we found life on Mars, wouldn’t we do everything in our power to protect that life?” Neely asked. “Why can’t we treat human life the same way we would treat alien life?”Neely would probably have quite a lot to talk about with Kristina Karamo, who is vying to become Michigan’s next secretary of state, and has the endorsement of Donald Trump. Karamo has publicly said (in a 2020 podcast that was publicised this week) that she thinks “demonic possession is real” and can be sexually transmitted. Unfortunately for those of us not wanting to catch a bad case of demonic possession, she didn’t go into the details of how this works. Do contraceptives stop sexually transmitted demons? Inquiring minds want to know.Karamo isn’t the only Republican to have made headlines in recent weeks for her unorthodox views on biology. Utah Republican Karianne Lisonbee recently apologised for saying she trusts women to “control [their] intake of semen” in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies. And, last month, Yesli Vega, who just won a Republican primary in Virginia, told an interviewer that she had heard it was “harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped … maybe because there’s so much going on in the body”. Clearly, there’s not much going on in the brain, or she might have realised what she had just said.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
TopicsRepublicansOpinionAbortionUS politicscommentReuse this content More

Americans grappled with another wave of gun violence that left seven people dead after a shooting in a Chicago suburb while two new polls paint a grim picture of Americans’ views of President Joe Biden, his handling of the economy, and the country’s institutions in general.Here’s a rundown of what’s happened today:
A Chicago Sun-Times journalist wrote a harrowing account of the mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that killed seven during an Independence Day parade.
Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to four army veterans who fought in Vietnam.
The head of Planned Parenthood talked to the Guardian about how the group will continue working to help women get abortions.
Inflation and the overall cost of living remains Americans’ top concern, according to a poll released today that casts doubt on Democrats’ hopes that concerns about abortion and gun access will reverse Biden’s poor approval ratings.
But if Biden is unpopular, he’s not alone. Americans’ confidence in almost all of their institutions has declined compared with last year, according to a different poll.
Local authorities also announced the names of three more victims which had not been known yet. The identity of the seventh – and so far last – victim has not been released. The three new names are: Katherine Goldstein, 88 Irina McCarthy, 35 Kevin McCarthy, 37At a press conference police have detailed two previous incidents involving the alleged shooter Robert Crimo. The first happened in April, 2019 when police got a report from Crimo’s family that he had attempted suicide. The second occurred in September, 2019 when there was a report that Crimo had been making threats that he wanted to “kill everyone” and had a collection of knives.Police visited where Crimo was living and confiscated a collection of 16 knives, a dagger and a sword. The New York Times has some heartbreaking details on the third victim to be identified. The paper reports: Steve Straus, 88.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A father of two, grandfather of four and a financial adviser who, at 88, still took the train every day from his Highland Park home to his office at a brokerage firm in Chicago, Steve Straus “should not have had to die this way,” his niece, Cynthia Straus, said in a phone interview.
“He was an honorable man who worked his whole life and looked out for his family and gave everyone the best he had,” Ms Straus said. “He was kind and gentle and had huge intelligence and humor and wit.”
He was devoted to his wife, she said, and intensely close with his brother, and extremely health conscious: “He exercised as if he were 50.”Biden has no plans yet to visit Highland Park, Illinois, site of Monday’s mass shooting that killed seven people, his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.“We don’t have any plans right now to go to Chicago”, the city of which Highland Park is a suburb, Jean-Pierre said. However vice-president Kamala Harris is scheduled to be in the city later today to to address the National Education Association, “and she will speak to the devastation that we that we all saw with our own eyes yesterday in Highland Park”, according to Jean-Pierre.Biden will travel to Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday for a speech regarding the economy.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding the daily press briefing, and reiterated the Biden administration’s efforts to get WNBA star Brittney Griner released from prison in Russia.“We believe she was wrongfully detained. We believe she needs to come home, she should be home,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that Griner’s wife spoke with national security advisor Jake Sullivan over the weekend, their second phone call in the past 10 days.Griner wrote a letter to Biden asking him to push for her release, which Jean-Pierre said the president had read. “He takes this to heart, he takes this job very seriously, especially when it comes to bringing home US nationals who are wrongfully detained,” Jean-Pierre said.This post has been updated to clarify that Griner’s wife, not Griner herself, spoke to Jake Sullivan.’I’m terrified I might be here forever’: Brittney Griner appeals to Biden in letterRead morePresident Biden has ordered flags flown at half-staff across the United States and its embassies abroad until the end of the day on July 9 in memory of the people killed at the mass shooting in Highland Park.Biden had previously ordered flags flown at half-staff in May after the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers.A seventh person has died following the July 4 shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, NBC Chicago reports.The death brings the toll of wounded in the shooting to 46, according to the broadcaster. Police have said the man suspected of carrying out the attack planned it for weeks and dressed as a woman in order to conceal his identity.Mississippi’s restrictions on abortion were at the center of the supreme court’s ruling last month overturning Roe v. Wade, but the litigation isn’t finished in the state.The Associated Press reports that Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the plaintiff in the supreme court case, is suing to stop a law that would ban almost all abortions in the state:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The law — which state lawmakers passed before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling that allowed abortions nationwide — is set to take effect Thursday.
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization sought a temporary restraining order that would allow it to remain open, at least while the lawsuit remains in court.
The closely watched lawsuit is part of a flurry of activity that has occurred nationwide since the Supreme Court ruled. Conservative states have moved to halt or limit abortions while others have sought to ensure abortion rights, all as some women try to obtain the medical procedure against the changing legal landscape.
If Chancery Judge Debbra K. Halford grants the clinic’s request to block the new Mississippi law from taking effect, the decision could be quickly appealed to the state Supreme Court.Twenty-six states are expected to outlaw abortion entirely following the supreme court’s decision, and according to the Guttmacher Institute, six states have already done so.Maryland’s governor announced today that his state will change its requirements for licensing concealed weapons in response to last month’s ruling by the supreme court expanding Americans’ ability to possess a gun outside their homes.In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling and to ensure compliance with the Constitution, I am directing the Maryland State Police to suspend utilization of the ‘good and substantial reason’ standard when reviewing applications for Wear and Carry Permits.My full statement: pic.twitter.com/0wi1dzD8Aw— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) July 5, 2022
As its term came to a close in June, the court’s conservative majority overturned a New York law that had placed strict limits on carrying a firearm outside the home, which affected states with similar laws on their books, including Maryland.New York’s governor Kathy Hochul last week signed legislation designed to counter the supreme court’s ruling by prohibiting the carrying of weapons in certain locations such as bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, schools, government buildings and airports, as well as requiring owners to consent to people carrying guns on their property.US supreme court overturns New York handgun law in bitter blow to gun-control pushRead moreIn other January 6 news, Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans sitting on the House committee investigating the insurrection, has released a compilation of threatening and profane phone calls his office has received.Threats of violence over politics has increased heavily in the last few years. But the darkness has reached new lows. My new interns made this compilation of recent calls they’ve received while serving in my DC office.WARNING: this video contains foul & graphic language. pic.twitter.com/yQJvvAHBVV— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) July 5, 2022
Last year, Kinzinger announced he would retire from Congress, where he’s served since 2011.A Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election result in the state has issued subpoenas to a number of the former president’s attorneys and allies, including senator Lindsey Graham.The special grand jury empaneled in Fulton county, where the capital and largest city Atlanta lies, issued the subpoenas today, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} In addition to Giuliani, among those being summoned are John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis, all of whom advised Trump on strategies for overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia and other swing states.
The grand jury also subpoenaed South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s top allies in the U.S. Senate, and attorney and podcast host Jacki Pick Deason.
The subpoenas, were filed July 5 and signed off by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury. Unlike subpoenas issued to Georgians, the summons were required to receive McBurney’s blessing since they are for people who reside outside the state.Viewers of the January 6 committee’s hearings will remember Eastman, the lawyer who, according to testimony from witnesses before the lawmakers, worked with Trump on his plot to undermine the results of the 2020 election. Eastman is among those who asked Trump for a pardon before he left office.At the press conference, investigators said the suspect Robert E Crimo III, 21, had legally bought the rifle allegedly used in the shootings and recovered at the scene – a high-powered rifle styled after an AR-15 – along with at least one more, as well as some pistols.The attack had evidently been planned for weeks, said Covelli, though investigators had not been tipped off to the social media videos posted by the suspect before the shooting.Authorities have still not said what charges Crimo faces, though another press conference is scheduled for later today.All six people killed were adults, Covelli said, and more than 30 others went to hospitals with bullet wounds.Covelli said there is no indication targets were picked out based on race, religion or any other federally protected status.The suspect in the 4 July shootings in Highland Park pre-planned the attack for several weeks, according to officials, and wore “women’s clothing” in what investigators said they believed was an effort to conceal his identity.According to Chris Covelli, the leader of a police taskforce investigating major crimes in the Illinois county that includes Highland Park, local officers recognized the suspect in surveillance footage they reviewed after the shooting, which helped them track him down. The suspect has prominent facial tattoos. Details continue to emerge about the mass shooting in a Chicago suburb yesterday, while two new polls paint a grim picture of Americans’ views of President Joe Biden, his handling of the economy, and the country’s institutions in general.Here’s a rundown of what’s happened so far today:
A Chicago Sun-Times journalist wrote a harrowing account of the mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that killed six during an Independence Day parade.
Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to four army veterans who fought in Vietnam.
The head of Planned Parenthood talked to the Guardian about how the group will continue working to help women get abortions.
Inflation and the overall cost of living remains Americans’ top concern, according to a poll released today that casts doubt on Democrats’ hopes that concerns about abortion and gun access will reverse Biden’s poor approval ratings.
But if Biden is unpopular, he’s not alone. Americans’ confidence in almost all of their institutions has declined compared with last year, according to a different poll.
High inflation is just one reason why economists are worrying that the United States is poised to enter a recession.But if the economy does contract, The Wall Street Journal reports that it may not look like more recent downturns such as at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic or the global financial crisis. One key difference is that waves of layoffs that accompanied those downturns may not occur.From their article exploring the “very strange” situation the world’s largest economy finds itself in:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Today, something highly unusual is happening. Economic output fell in the first quarter and signs suggest it did so again in the second. Yet the job market showed little sign of faltering during the first half of the year. The jobless rate fell from 4% last December to 3.6% in May.
It is the latest strange twist in the odd trajectory of the pandemic economy, and a riddle for those contemplating a recession. If the U.S. is in or near one, it doesn’t yet look like any other on record.
Analysts sometimes talked about “jobless recoveries” after past recessions, in which economic output rose but employers kept shedding workers. The first half of 2022 was the mirror image—a “jobful” downturn, in which output fell and companies kept hiring. Whether it will spiral into a fuller and deeper recession isn’t known, though a growing number of economists believe it will.
Some companies, especially in the tech sector, have given indications that they’re pulling back on hiring, though across the broad economy the job market has rarely looked stronger.Also unpopular with Americans: the country’s institutions.Gallup has today released a poll showing a decline in confidence for most of the 16 institutions they track, in particular the supreme court and the presidency.Americans’ confidence in major U.S. institutions has dropped to the lowest point in Gallup’s more than 40-year trend. https://t.co/G2frb7HXxk pic.twitter.com/OyWfUwXmjp— GallupNews (@GallupNews) July 5, 2022
In the yearly survey, confidence in the supreme court dropped 11 percentage points from 2021 to 25 percent, while the presidency suffered a 15 point decline to 23 percent. The least popular institution was Congress, in which only seven percent of respondent had confidence, down five points from last year. Just above them was television news, in which only 11 percent of Americans had confidence. Small businesses were the most popular institution of those surveyed, with 68 percent confidence, a decline of only two percentage points from last year. The military was up next with 64 percent confidence, followed by the police, with 45 percent confidence. More