First Thing: Biden visits Uvalde after mass shooting

Good morning.

Joe Biden has visited Uvalde in Texas searching for to consolation a neighborhood devastated by the newest American mass taking pictures, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary schoolchildren and two lecturers.

The go to yesterday marked the second presidential go to associated to a bloodbath inside two weeks after a racist assault in Buffalo, New York, as Democrats in Washington supplied tentative hope of bipartisan gun reform laws in Congress.

Onlookers cheered Biden but additionally referred to as out to the Democratic president and the visiting Texas Republican governor, Greg Abbott, about taking motion to make America safer for his or her kids.

Joe and Jill Biden, each carrying black, paid their respects at a makeshift memorial web site outdoors Robb elementary faculty, laying a bouquet of white flowers amongst a mass of candles, flowers, and images of the victims.

  • Will any gun management measures be introduced in? Senators in Washington DC supplied cautious optimism over a legislative deal on a package deal of small-scale gun security measures. In the meantime, Democrats in some blue states are making efforts to reinvigorate gun management proposals.

  • What else is going on? The US authorities yesterday introduced a federal investigation into the police response as anger mounted over why armed officers waited greater than an hour within the corridor outdoors the classroom.

Trump calls Capitol assault an ‘riot hoax’ as public hearings set to start

Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday in support of Harriet Hageman.
Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday in assist of Harriet Hageman. Photograph: Chet Unusual/Getty Photographs

Because the Home committee investigating the assault on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start out public hearings subsequent week, the former president referred to as the riot on January 6 2021 a hoax.

Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday evening in assist of the Republican main challenger within the midterm elections to the congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the riot.

Addressing the sub-capacity crowd at a rally in Casper for Republican candidate Harriet Hageman, Trump criticized Cheney, saying: “As one of many nation’s main proponents of the riot hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical partisan narrative.

“Have a look at the so-called phrase riot, January 6 – what plenty of crap.”

  • When will the committee maintain public hearings? It is because of maintain a sequence of public hearings starting 9 June and expects to current a report earlier than the midterm elections in November.

  • What else is going on? Individually, the Division of Justice can also be investigating occasions on and surrounding the Capitol assault, led by the US legal professional common, Merrick Garland.

Sievierodonetsk bombing so intense, casualties can't be assessed, officers say

A howitzer of pro-Russian troops fires in the direction of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine.
A howitzer of pro-Russian troops fires within the path of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Officers in japanese Ukraine say Russian shelling of Sievierodonetsk has been so intense that it has not been doable to evaluate casualties and injury, as Moscow closes in on the most important metropolis nonetheless held by Ukraine within the Donbas.

“The state of affairs has extraordinarily escalated,” stated Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk area, on Sunday. Witnesses stated town was being bombed “200 instances an hour” as Russian forces tried to chop off reinforcement strains and encompass its remaining defenders.

Ukrainian authorities have described situations in Sievierodonetsk as harking back to Mariupol, the southern port metropolis that fell on 20 Might after virtually three months of relentless assault.

“Some 90% of buildings are broken. Greater than two-thirds of town’s housing inventory has been utterly destroyed. There isn't any telecommunication,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, stated in a televised speech.

In different information …

Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey has denied the entire allegations made towards him. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

  • British authorities are pursuing the return of Kevin Spacey from the US to face sexual assault expenses. An official aware of the method stated the UK would search the actor’s formal extradition until he determined to return again voluntarily.

  • Ronnie Hawkins, the Arkansas-born rock’n’roll legend who mentored the younger Canadian and American musicians later often called the Band, has died. Hawkins, described in tributes as an important rock’n’curler in Canadian historical past, died at 87 after an sickness.

  • For the primary time in 33 years, church companies to commemorate the Tiananmen Sq. crackdown won't be held in Hong Kong, erasing one of many final reminders of China’s bloody suppression of the 1989 protests. They've been cancelled over fears of falling foul of Hong Kong authorities.

  • The sharp polarization between primarily western liberal democracies and the remainder of the world in perceptions of Russia has been laid naked in an annual international ballot. Inside Europe, 55% of these surveyed stated they had been in favour of reducing financial ties, whereas in Asia there was a majority towards.

Stat of the day: After 14 years of labor and about $5bn spent,can California’s high-speed rail undertaking ever get again on observe?

An elevated section of the high-speed rail under construction in Fresno, California, in 2017.
An elevated part of the high-speed rail below development in Fresno, California, in 2017. Photograph: Wealthy Pedroncelli/AP

Within the depths of the 2008 recession, Californians had been bought on a gorgeous dream: a bullet prepare that will whisk them between Los Angeles and San Francisco in lower than three hours, writes Andrew Gumbel. Quick-forward to the current, and the dream is all however useless. The California undertaking continues to be technically up and operating, however it's so far delayed that it has but to put a single mile of observe, regardless of 14 years of labor and about $5bn spent. Can it ever get again on observe?

Don’t miss this: Six ladies on being abused by vogue agent Jean-Luc Brunel

Jean-Luc Brunel at the Karin agency in Paris in 2001.
Jean-Luc Brunel on the Karin company in Paris in 2001. Composite: Guardian

Jean-Luc Brunel killed himself in jail in February. The 75-year-old had spent 14 months in custody, awaiting trial on expenses of rape of minors and sexual harassment, which he denied, together with any participation in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking. Right here, six former fashions converse out about him, his pal Epstein – and an trade that appeared to show ignore their plight. All say their careers had been affected by what they allege came about in Paris. They are saying Brunel was on the coronary heart of a community of sexual abuse within the trade that also must be uncovered.

… or this: how the aspect hustle ate the interest

My side hustle ate my hobby illustration
‘Monetized hobbies can develop into an extension of your current work life,’ stated Tamara Cavenett. Illustration: Guardian Design

“My mum began crocheting a number of years in the past. Retirement, coupled with the arrival of her first grandchildren, compelled her to choose up the hooks, and shortly she was churning out extra blankets than she knew what to do with,” writes Victoria Pearson. “My siblings and I urged her to promote them on-line. ‘We’ll set you up on Instagram! We are able to name the account Sewn by Sue.” Our mom, folding her most up-to-date creation, scoffed on the thought. “Why would I destroy a wonderfully good exercise by turning it right into a enterprise?’”

Local weather test: Deaths of three Chicago ladies immediate pressing warmth warnings

Veldarin Jackson Sr talks about receiving the call that his mother, Janice Reed, had died, with his wife, Adjoa Jackson, left, in Chicago.
Veldarin Jackson Sr talks about receiving the decision that his mom, Janice Reed, had died, together with his spouse, Adjoa Jackson, left, in Chicago. Photograph: Jose M Osorio/AP

Temperatures barely climbed into the 90s and just for a few days. However the discovery of the our bodies of three ladies inside a Chicago senior housing facility this month left town searching for solutions to questions that had been imagined to be addressed a long time in the past and are inflicting alarm because the planet heats. “Hotter and extra harmful heatwaves are coming earlier, in Might … and the opposite factor is we're getting older and extra persons are dwelling alone,“ stated Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist.

Final Factor: Alexa, why have you ever charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

Patricia Collinson
Patricia Collinson found she had signed up with out the usual phrases and situations for paying for issues on-line. Photograph: Patrick Collinson

Each morning for per week religious Catholic 87-year-old Patricia Collinson requested her Alexa speaker to recite the Hail Mary, which she was delighted about. What she was much less delighted to be taught was that she had unwittingly ordered a premium subscription payable via Amazon to a personal firm referred to as Catholic Prayers. The Alexa was arrange by my sister, Catherine, and is hooked up to her Amazon account. “Thank goodness she didn’t ask Alexa to say the Rosary,” my sister joked, referring to the set of prayers that features 53 Hail Marys.

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