Closing summary
Once again, America is dealing with the aftermath of mass shootings, both those that occurred over the just-concluded Independence Day holiday weekend, and others less recent. A man accused of killing five people in Philadelphia has been arraigned on charges that include murder, one of more than a dozen mass shootings that happened as Americans gathered to celebrate the country’s independence. But there were few festivities in Highland Park, Illinois, where a ceremony was held to memorialize the deaths of seven people and wounding of dozens more by a shooter last year. And in Texas, a gunman who killed 19 people at a Walmart in El Paso is expected to receive multiple life sentences today after pleading guilty to federal charges.
Here’s a rundown of what happened today:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the violent weekend is proof Republicans must support tighter restrictions on firearms.
A gun violence researcher told the Guardian’s US politics live blog that widespread gun violence represents a “new normal” for the annual Independence Day celebrations.
That was indeed cocaine discovered at the White House, testing confirms. The powder was reportedly found in an area where visitors lock up their cellphones, and the Secret Service is investigating.
More details of the government’s reasoning for searching Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort could become public, after a judge ruled that portions of the search warrant affidavit should be unsealed.
Global average temperatures on Monday and Tuesday broke records, data indicates.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also responded to a federal court ruling from Tuesday that curbed the ability of Biden administration officials to meet with social media firms over the content they allowed on their platforms.
Here’s what Jean-Pierre had to say:
Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre says DoJ is reviewing injunction limiting administration's communications with social media companies:
— The Recount (@therecount) July 5, 2023
“Our view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take action or to take account of the effects of their platforms.” pic.twitter.com/zrXS1cXZXP
The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington spoke to a top disinformation expert, who warned the ruling could undermine efforts to fight lies spread over social media ahead of next year’s presidential elections:
Nina Jankowicz, a specialist in disinformation campaigns, told the Guardian that an injunction imposed by a federal judge on Tuesday against key federal agencies and officials blocking their communication with tech platforms could unleash false information in critical areas of public life. She said that election denialism and anti-vaccine propaganda could be the beneficiaries.
“This is a weaponisation of the court system. It is an intentional and purposeful move to disrupt the work that needs to be done ahead of the 2024 election, and it’s really chilling,” she said.
In Tuesday’s ruling, a federal judge from a US district in Louisiana imposed tough restrictions on federal agencies and officials liaising with social media companies over online content. The injunction comes amid mounting pressure from Republican leaders and rightwing groups claiming collusion between the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor conservative speech.
The judge, Terry Doughty, sided with Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri who sued the Biden administration, claiming it violated the first amendment right to free speech. He ruled that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits in showing that the government “has used its power to silence the opposition”.
He added that the Biden administration’s handling of social media content during the Covid pandemic resembled the “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’”.
If the allegations raised by the Republican officials were true, Doughty wrote, they would involve “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history”.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t have much to say about the cocaine found in the White House over the weekend.
The Secret Service is investigating, she said, and noted that the substance was found in a “heavily traveled area”:
Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre says the Secret Service is still investigating the source of the cocaine found in the West Wing of the White House on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/FytxtxadHd
— The Recount (@therecount) July 5, 2023
Joe Biden, who was not at the White House this weekend, did not respond to a question from a reporter about the cocaine during his meeting with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson.
Updated
Violent July 4 weekend 'the new normal', gun violence researcher warns
The wave of mass shootings that occurred over the Fourth of July weekend was fueled by factors including the easy access to firearms in America and higher temperatures, and shows no sign of stopping, a gun violence researcher warns.
“Unfortunately, I think this is our new normal when you factor in numbers of guns on the street, a holiday weekend and soaring temperatures. Given the way the country is right now with our lax gun policies and rising rates of shootings, I believe this is the way things are and tragically not an aberration from the norm,” the Vanderbilt University sociology professor Jonathan Metzl told the Guardian’s US politics live blog.
When it comes to stopping these tragedies, Metzl, who is also research director at The Safe Tennessee Project focused injuries from firearms, says local police and law enforcement agencies can only do so much.
“I believe they are as prepared as they can possibly be given the frequency of these tragedies. However, it’s not simply a matter of training or preparedness, and there are quite simply many more guns and many more shootings than any safety department can manage by themselves. The key is prevention,” he said.
“We need to rebuild community infrastructure and trust in communal governance – but that this is a much broader issue than a single gun policy or even a series of gun policies can address by themselves. Mass shootings are a symptom of much larger issues.”
Updated
White House calls on Republicans to act on gun control after holiday weekend killings
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Republicans to support tighter gun restrictions after the Independence Day holiday weekend was marred by mass shootings across the United States.
“As we have seen over the last few days, there’s a lot more … work to do to address the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing up our communities,” Jean-Pierre said, pointing to Joe Biden’s support for legislation approved by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress last year that included modest steps to prevent mass shootings.
“He also knows that that is not enough. Which is why, on the heels of the tragedies we saw unfold across the last few days, the president continues to call on Republican lawmakers in Congress to come to the table and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to require safe storage of guns, to end gun manufacturers, immunity from liability and to enact universal background checks.”
Jean-Pierre continued:
Lives are at stake here, folks, lives are at stake … these are meaningful, common-sense reforms that the American people support, the majority of the American people support these reforms. And we need Congress to do something, we need Republicans in Congress to do something to protect our communities.
The Philadelphia shooting is the 29th mass killing in the US of 2023. It means the country has witnessed the highest number on record of mass killings and deaths to this point in a single year.
Here are some of the other mass killings that occurred this year, from the Associated Press, which maintains a database of these tragedies together with USA Today and Northeastern University:
Here’s what happened in each US mass killing this year.
KELLOGG, IDAHO: 18 June
A 31-year-old man is accused of fatally shooting four members of a neighboring family in their apartment on Father’s Day. The man was upset that the neighbor’s 18-year-old son had reportedly exposed himself to the man’s children, a police document alleges.
SEQUATCHIE, TENNESSEE: 15 June
A 48-year-old man is thought to be responsible for killing himself and five others – including three children and his estranged wife – in a home where police responded to a shooting and arrived to find the residence ablaze, authorities said. A seventh person suffered gunshot wounds and was found alive at the home after firefighters extinguished the flames.
MESA, ARIZONA: 26 May
A 20-year-old man shot four men to death and wounded a woman in a 12-hour crime spree in metro Phoenix, authorities said. He told police that he met the victims at random that day at a range of places, including a park and a convenience store, and became angry when the subject of drugs came up.
NASH, TEXAS: 23 May
Authorities jailed an 18-year-old man in connection with the shootings of his parents, sister and brother inside a home. A victim’s co-worker who went to the home after one of the victims failed to show up for work told police that the man said “he had killed his family because they were cannibals, and they were going to eat him.”
Updated
Away from the gun violence of the weekend, my colleague Ed Pilkington has spoken to a leading disinformation expert after a judge limited the Biden administration’s ability to work with social media companies on moderating content.
Nina Jankowicz, who used to lead a government unit aimed at combatting online conspiracy theories, said the decision represented a “weaponisation of the court system” aimed at disrupting efforts to minimise disinformation ahead of the 2024 US elections.
Jankowicz was initially named as a defendant in the Missouri case but removed from the suit on grounds that she no longer has a governmental role. In April 2022, she was appointed to lead a new Department of Homeland Security unit devoted to combating online conspiracy theories and false information.
The board was shut down days later, after it came under a massive storm of rightwing criticism accusing it of censoring conservative speech.
Speaking to the Guardian, Jankowicz said Tuesday’s injunction was the culmination of an ultra-rightwing campaign to crush efforts to constrain disinformation that started with the attack on her board.
“They got a win in shutting us down, so why would they stop there? This is why the lawsuit continues – because they’ve won – and nobody knows how to deal with it.”
“It’s a weaponisation of the court system that is purposeful in disrupting work that needs to be done ahead of the 2024 election,” she said.
The day so far
Once again, America is dealing with the aftermath of mass shootings, both those that occurred over the just-concluded Independence Day holiday weekend, and others less recent. A man accused of killing five people in Philadelphia has been arraigned on charges that include murder, one of more than a dozen mass shootings that happened as Americans gathered to celebrate the country’s independence. But there were few festivities in Highland Park, Illinois, where a ceremony was held to memorialize the deaths of seven people and wounding of dozens more by a shooter last year. And in Texas, a gunman who killed 19 people at a Walmart in El Paso is expected to receive multiple life sentences today after pleading guilty to federal charges.
Here’s a rundown of the day’s events thus far:
That was indeed cocaine discovered at the White House, testing confirms. The powder was reportedly found in an area where visitors lock up their cellphones.
More details of the government’s reasoning for searching Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort could become public, after a judge ruled that portions of the search warrant affidavit should be unsealed.
Global average temperatures on Monday and Tuesday broke records, data indicates.
The Washington Post reports that the cocaine discovered at the White House was found on the ground floor in an area where visitors leave their cellphones.
White House employees can give tours of the building, usually on evenings and weekends, and part of the security protocol involves having visitors leave their cellphones in a locked box. As the for the cocaine, the Post adds that “Authorities are trying to find the person who left it at the White House.”
There’s a correlation between heat and homicides, and the Guardian’s Damien Gayle reports that across the world, average temperature records indicate Tuesday was the hottest day ever:
World temperature records have been broken for a second day in a row, data suggests, as experts issued a warning that this year’s warmest days are still to come – and with them the warmest days ever recorded.
The average global air temperature was 17.18C (62.9F) on Tuesday, according to data collated by the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), surpassing the record 17.01C reached on Monday.
Until the start of this week, the hottest day on record was in 2016, during the last El Niño global weather event, when the global average temperature reached 16.92C.
On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather body, confirmed El Niño had returned. Experts predicted that, combined with the increased heat from anthropogenic global heating, it would lead to more record-breaking temperatures.
Philadelphia shooting suspect faces murder charges
The suspect in a mass shooting in Philadelphia on Monday evening that killed five people and wounded four has been arraigned, the Associated Press reports.
Kimbrady Carriker, 40, will face charges of murder, among many others. Here’s more on the killings, which took place seemingly at random in a Philadelphia neighborhood, from the AP:
A 40-year-old accused of killing a man in a house and then gunning down four others on the streets of a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood before surrendering to police officers has been arraigned on murder and other charges.
Kimbrady Carriker was arraigned Wednesday on five counts of murder as well as charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons counts of possession without a license and carrying firearms in public, prosecutors said.
A 2-year-old boy and a 13-year-old youth were also wounded by gunfire and another 2-year-old boy and a woman were hit by shattered glass in the Monday night rampage that made the working-class area of Kingsessing the site of the nation’s worst violence around the July Fourth holiday.
Police called to the scene found gunshot victims and started to help them before hearing more shots. Some officers rushed victims to hospitals while others ran toward the gunfire and chased the firing suspect.
Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, the homicide unit commander, said witness interviews and video indicated that the suspect went to several locations in a ski mask and body armor, carrying an AR-15-style rifle.
“The suspect then began shooting aimlessly at occupied vehicles and individuals on the street as they walked,” he said. The vehicles included a mother driving her 2-year-old twins home — one of whom was wounded in the legs and the other who was hit in the eyes by shattered glass.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said the “armed and armored individual” was firing “seemingly at random.”
Cornered in an alley, the suspect surrendered and was found to have not only the rifle but also a pistol, extra magazines, a police scanner and a bulletproof vest, police said.
Updated
Another community is today continuing to grapple with the aftermath of a mass shooting that occurred almost four years ago.
Patrick Crusius killed 23 people at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in a 2019 attack targeting Hispanic shoppers, and will be sentenced today after pleading guilty to federal charges. He is expected to receive multiple life sentences, but has also been charged with murder in state court, and could face the death penalty.
Here’s more on his case, from the Associated Press:
A white Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 returns to court Wednesday for sentencing in a mass shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers in the border city of El Paso.
Patrick Crusius, 24, is set to receive multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to federal hate crime and weapons charges in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Although the federal government did not seek the death penalty, Texas prosecutors have not taken lethal injection off the table under a separate case in state court.
Investigators say the shooting was preceded by Crusius posting a racist screed online.
The sentencing phase could last several days. It is the first time that relatives of the victims, who included citizens of Mexico, will have an opportunity to address Crusius face-to-face in court.
Updated
Judge's ruling could reveal more details of Mar-a-Lago search
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that a federal magistrate judge has ordered additional portions of the affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year be made public:
New in Trump classified docs case: US magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart rules that more parts of the search warrant affidavit for Mar-a-Lago can be unsealed — though the order is stayed depending on whether DOJ appeals before July 13 at 5pm ET. https://t.co/SS6lR2WI8y
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 5, 2023
The former president was indicted last month over the government secrets federal agents found during their search of the south Florida property. Media organizations last year argued successfully to unseal portions of the affidavit submitted by investigators to justify the search, but parts of it remained secret.
Yes, that white substance found at the White House was actually cocaine
NBC News confirms that the white substance discovered at the White House on Monday was indeed cocaine:
UPDATE: An official with knowledge of the investigation says the lab test has CONFIRMED cocaine in the small bag found Sunday night in a common space in the White House. https://t.co/ISRtt2crxn
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) July 5, 2023
Now for the question of who brought it in there, and how did they get it past the building’s strict security. There are no firm answers to that yet, but since the area where it was found is accessible to tour groups, one can assume that the list of suspects is long. Here’s more from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore on the initial discovery:
A preliminary field test on a white substance found in the White House has reportedly come up positive for cocaine, law enforcement authorities said, and the US Secret Service was investigating on Tuesday how it came to be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The presence of the substance – which has been sent out for further testing – came to light late on Monday when a firefighter with the Washington DC fire department’s hazardous materials team radioed: “We have a yellow bar saying cocaine hydrochloride,” the Washington Post first reported.
A Secret Service spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, told the Post that the discovery led to an elevated security alert and a brief evacuation of the executive mansion after it was found during a routine inspection.
Updated
Highland Park marks one year since Independence Day mass shooting
On 4 July last year, a gunman opened fire at the annual Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, killing seven people and wounding more than 30. One year later, the Chicago suburb commemorated the massacre with a ceremony, as well as some Fourth of July celebration events free of fireworks, the New York Times reports:
There were no marching bands this year. No floats. No church groups tossing snacks to spectators. No American flags lining the sidewalks.
Instead, there were prayers. There were tears. And there was a somber stroll down Central Avenue, a collective effort to take back a parade route that was stolen in a storm of bullets.
Over generations in Highland Park, Ill., a quaint parade through downtown became synonymous with the Fourth of July.
But in less than a minute last Independence Day, a gunman firing from a rooftop killed seven people, wounded dozens and sent families scrambling for cover, leaving water bottles and red-white-and-blue lawn chairs scattered on the ground.
As the first anniversary of the massacre approached, city leaders faced a seemingly impossible set of demands: Honor the people who died. Reclaim the parade’s path through downtown. Give people space to celebrate the country’s birthday. And support residents of the Chicago suburb still carrying devastating wounds, mental and physical, from last year.
“When there are mass shootings in this country, a day or two later, people move on,” Mayor Nancy Rotering said. “But those communities that are directly impacted are carrying this pain and this trauma forevermore.”
That this past Independence Day weekend was a violent one is not a surprise. As the Guardian reporter who is also writing this blog reports, the Fourth of July is the most mass-shooting prone day over the last four years, research indicates, with the day after it coming in as a close second:
Gun violence is a daily reality across the US, but an emerging body of research indicates the most risky day for mass shootings in the nation is the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate their independence from Britain.
Using data from the Gun Violence Archive, James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, found that there have been 52 mass shootings on the Fourth of July over the past decade, averaging just over five a year, and more than on any other given day.
His analysis, which he implemented for USA Today, underscores how, in a country where Republicans in many states have acted to loosen gun laws, it is routine that the barbecues, block parties and parades held to commemorate the US’s birthday become scenes of bloodshed.
Long fourth of July weekend leaves 15 dead, 94 injured in dozen-plus mass shootings
The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington crunched the numbers from the long Independence Day holiday weekend to report just how bad the period was for gun violence across the United States:
From the nation’s capital to Fort Worth, Texas, from Florin, California, in the west to the Bronx, New York, in the east, the Fourth of July long weekend in the US was overshadowed by 16 mass shootings in which 15 people were killed and 94 injured.
The Gun Violence Archive, an authoritative database on gun violence in America, calculated the grim tally using its definition of a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people excluding the shooter are killed or injured by firearms.
The tragic bloodletting was recorded from 5pm on Friday until 5am on Wednesday across 13 states as well as Washington DC. Texas and Maryland both entered the register twice.
US Independence Day celebrations marred by shootings
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday was the Independence Day public holiday in the United States, and Americans gathered for their customary barbecues and fireworks displays – several of which were marred by gunfire. In Washington DC, nine people were shot and wounded on the evening of 4 July, two of which were minors, while in Tampa, Florida, a seven-year-old was shot and killed. Those shootings came a day after a gunman, firing seemingly at random, killed five people and wounded two in Philadelphia, while another shooting left three people dead and eight wounded in a parking lot in Fort Worth, Texas. The tragedies put Joe Biden in the familiar role of once again decrying gun violence across the United States, a phenomenon he has little control over.
Here’s what else we are watching today:
Biden will host Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House at 2pm eastern time.
Senators and members of Congress are dispersed across the United States, because both the Senate and House of Representatives are still on recess.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will take questions from reporters at 2.15 pm.
Was cocaine discovered at the White House? The secret service investigation continues.
The White House is digesting a federal court ruling prohibiting some Biden administration from asking social media companies to moderate their content.
Updated
