At White House, Uvalde’s Matthew McConaughey makes impassioned plea on guns
WASHINGTON – In the spotlight of the White House briefing room, movie star Matthew McConaughey described in graphic detail the mutilation inflicted on 19 children and two teachers gunned down in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
His voice choking, the Oscar winner pleaded with politicians to make such massacres less likely, even if that means tighter regulations on guns.
“Many children were left not only dead but hollow,” he said, describing the “exceptionally large exit wounds of an AR-15 rifle.”
“Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals,” he insisted, moments after meeting with President Joe Biden.
McConaughey spoke for 22 minutes, holding rapt the journalists and presidential aides crowded into the room has he recounted the lives and deaths of the Uvalde victims.
—The Dallas Morning News
Why top Georgia Democrats are pushing Biden to forgive student debt
ATLANTA — After the ground-thumping music died down, Stacey Abrams took the stage in west Atlanta to congratulate dozens of teens on graduating from high school — and pledge she'll find new ways to relieve their student debt if she's elected governor.
"We know that affordability is an increasing issue in the state but it's a solvable problem," Abrams said Monday. "And we don't have to raise taxes to raise the quality of life in Georgia. All we have to do is spend our money right."
While student loan debt has become an emerging flashpoint among Democrats, the party's top contenders in Georgia have unequivocally chosen sides.
Both Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock want the White House to forgive some of the estimated $1.7 trillion in student debt in hopes that it would allow more students of color to attend college, boost the economy and narrow the racial wealth gap.
With a tight election looming, Democrats also predict it could give young, liberal Georgians disenchanted with President Joe Biden a reason to vote in November.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Missouri judge throws out $4 million verdict in transgender graduate’s discrimination case
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Jackson County judge has thrown out a verdict that ordered the Blue Springs School District to pay more than $4 million for denying a transgender student access to the male-designated bathrooms and locker rooms.
In a late May ruling, Judge Cory L. Atkins found that attorneys for the student failed to prove his male sex was a contributing factor to the district denying use of the male restroom and locker room, according to court documents.
“The sole, uncontradicted evidence at trial was that Plaintiff was excluded from the male facilities because of his female genitalia,” Atkins wrote in his opinion.
Atkins conditionally granted a new trial after finding the verdict was against the weight of the evidence.
The ruling brings a new twist to long-running litigation over allowing transgender youth to use the restroom or locker room that matches their gender identity.
—The Kansas City Star
UN: Looming 'explosion of child deaths' from hunger in Horn of Africa
GENEVA — Tens of thousands of children are at immediate risk of starvation in the Horn of Africa as the war in Ukraine increases food insecurity in a region already suffering from drought, a top official with the U.N. children's agency said Tuesday.
"I am here today to tell you plainly that, if the world does not widen its gaze from the war in Ukraine, and act immediately, an explosion of child deaths is about to happen in the Horn of Africa," UNICEF's deputy regional director for eastern and southern Africa, Rania Dagash, said Tuesday in Geneva.
More than 1.7 million children in the region are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF. That is 15% higher than five months ago.
The Horn of Africa countries include Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
Russia is blockading Ukrainian ports as part of its invasion, now in its third month. Ukraine was among the world's largest exporters of wheat before the war erupted, with Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia major buyers.
—dpa
