deaths

Donald Trump has called himself a “wartime president” for leading the fight against COVID-19. He has called Americans “warriors” for showing up at their jobs, shopping in stores and generally getting the economy back on track despite knowing that these activities increase the risk of a coronavirus infection.

The metaphor is apt, in that our war on COVID-19 has resulted in substantial casualties — more than 229,000 dead and counting. That’s more double the 90,220 deaths Americans suffered throughout the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam years, there was a clear correlation between the number of combat deaths suffered by a county and the degree to which residents backed the conflict — when deaths went up, support for the president’s war policies fell, researchers have found.

Likewise, voters in areas that suffered more casualties during the Iraq War were less likely to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the 2006 midterm elections, while voters in areas that took more casualties in Afghanistan were more likely to support Trump for president in 2016 instead of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Now political scientists are seeing the pattern again — except this time the war is happening on U.S. soil and the foe is COVID-19.

“Increasing fatalities from the disease leads to losses for Republicans,” a team from George Washington University and UCLA reported Friday in the journal Science Advances.

The researchers used data collected by the New York Times to tally COVID-19 deaths in every state up through May 31. They also looked at responses gathered by the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project, a public opinion survey that reaches about 6,400 people each week.

They found that people in the states with high COVID-19 fatalities were 3% less likely to support Trump’s reelection than were people in states where the coronavirus had made little impact. They were also nearly 13% less likely to favor GOP candidates for Senate seats and 5% less likely to back GOP candidates for the House of Representatives.

That was just their starting point. To look more carefully at the relationship between deaths and political preferences, the political scientists compared COVID-19 deaths in the previous 30 days with changes in support for Republican candidates in a state or even county. This allowed them to account for the influence of factors like voters’ race, ethnicity, gender, education and who they voted for in the 2016 presidential election. It also helped them see whether COVID-19 deaths were actually causing voters to turn away from the party controlling America’s response to the pandemic.

The results were clear.

“Overall, areas with higher COVID-19 fatalities are significantly less likely to support President Trump and other Republican candidates,” they reported. This pattern was seen “at every level of geography and for every office.”

The degree of lost support was small, but it may be enough to swing an election in a close race, the researchers wrote.

For instance, if COVID-19 deaths in a county had doubled over the previous 30 days, voters in that county became 0.14% less likely to support Trump’s reelection, 0.28% less likely to support Republican Senate candidates and 0.22% less likely to support Republicans running for seats in the House.

Additionally, if COVID-19 deaths in a state doubled over the previous 30 days, people in that state became 0.37% less likely to say they’d vote for Trump, 0.79% less likely to say they’d vote for a GOP Senate candidate and 0.58% less likely to say they’d vote for a Republican House candidate.

The political scientists noted that in 2016, Trump carried Michigan by a margin of just 0.2%, and he lost New Hampshire by a mere 0.4%. In Florida, Republican Rick Scott unseated Democrat Bill Nelson in a 2018 Senate race with an advantage of less than 0.2%.

Indeed, COVID-19 casualties could be even more influential than the health of the economy, the study authors wrote.

“Just as the public penalizes the president for casualties during wars, the public is penalizing the president and other members of his party for local fatalities during the pandemic,” they concluded. “This could swing the presidential election and the U.S. Senate toward Democrats, with particularly high effects in swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Florida.”

Authorities say 79 people remain missing and thousands of families have been displaced from their homes across Sumatra.

The death toll from floods and landslides on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra this week has risen to 174, a disaster official said, with about 80 more people still missing, as a punishing tropical storm system and heavy monsoon rains have battered the region.

“As of this afternoon, we have recorded that for the entire North Sumatra province, there have been 116 deaths and 42 people are still being searched for,” National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) chief Suharyanto announced on Friday.

He said another 35 were killed in the island’s Aceh province and another 23 in West Sumatra.

While the rain had stopped, 79 people were still missing and thousands of families were displaced, he added.

Residents in Sumatra’s Padang Pariaman region, where a total of 22 people died, had to cope with water levels at least 1 metre (3.3ft) high, and had still not been reached by search and rescue personnel on Friday.

In the town of Batang Toru, in northern Sumatra, residents on Friday buried seven unclaimed victims in a mass grave. The decomposing bodies, wrapped in black plastic, were lifted from the back of a truck onto a wide plot of land as onlookers covered their noses.

Communications remained down in some parts of the island, and authorities were working to restore power and clear roads blocked by landslide debris, said Abdul Muhari, spokesman for Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency.

Indonesia would continue to airlift aid and rescue personnel into stricken areas on Friday, he added.

In Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, 53-year-old Misniati described a terrifying battle against rising floodwaters to reach her husband at home.

She said that, returning from early morning prayers at a mosque, “I noticed the street was flooded.

“I tried to run back to my house to tell my husband, and the water was already reaching my waist,” she told the AFP news agency, adding that it was up to her chest by the time she reached home.

Flooding disasters elsewhere in Asia

Meanwhile, in Thailand, the government said 145 people had been killed by floods across eight southern provinces. It said a total of more than 3.5 million people had been affected.

In the southern city of Hat Yai, the hardest-hit part of Thailand, the rain had finally stopped on Friday, but residents were still ankle-deep in floodwaters, and many remained without electricity as they assessed the damage to their property over the last week.

Some residents said they were spared the worst of the floods but were still suffering from their effects.

In neighbouring Malaysia, where two people have been confirmed dead, tropical storm Senyar made landfall at about midnight and has since weakened.

Meteorological authorities are still bracing themselves for heavy rain and wind, and warned that rough seas could pose risks for small boats.

A total of 30,000 evacuees remain in shelters, down from more than 34,000 on Thursday.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that it had already evacuated 1,459 Malaysian nationals stranded in more than 25 flood-hit hotels in Thailand, adding that it would work to rescue the remaining 300 still caught up in flood zones.

Separately, at least 56 people were killed by a cyclone in the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka, authorities said.

Up to 8,000 people across North Sumatra have been evacuated and roads remain blocked by landslide debris.

Floods and landslides brought about by torrential rain in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province have killed at least 34 people, authorities said, with rescue efforts hampered by what an official described as a “total cutoff” of roads and communications.

North Sumatra regional police spokesman Ferry Walintukan told Detik news website that aside from the confirmed deaths, at least 52 people remain missing as of Thursday.

A rare tropical cyclone blew across Indonesia’s Sumatra island, inundating the nearby Malacca Strait and causing floods and landslides, the country’s meteorological agency said on Wednesday, as large swaths of Southeast Asia grappled with deadly flooding.

Up to 8,000 people across North Sumatra have been evacuated, and roads remain blocked by landslide debris, with aid now being distributed via helicopters, Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for the country’s disaster mitigation agency, said on Thursday.

The regions of Sibolga and Central Tapanuli were among the hardest hit, Yuyun Karseno, an official at the agency’s North Sumatra division, told the Reuters news agency, adding that communications and power had been cut off.

“There is no more access, due to a total cutoff,” Yuyun said when asked about the rescue efforts. “Until now, we can’t communicate with folks in Sibolga and Central Tapanuli.”

Among the dead were one family in Central Tapanuli, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said.

A video shared by radio channel Elshinta on its social media account showed a person carrying a baby in a plastic container on a roof in Central Tapanuli.

Footage and photos shared by the agency show rapid currents of water overflowing across the region, leaving buildings destroyed in their wake, with rescuers using orange rafts to visit the flooded homes of residents.

Flooding and landslides also affected the provinces of West Sumatra and Aceh, authorities said. Indonesia’s official news agency Antara reported that 10 of the 23 cities and districts in Aceh have been submerged.

More flooding is expected in several other Sumatran provinces, including Aceh and Riau, over the next two days, the meteorological agency said, citing extreme weather.

Flooding elsewhere in Asia

The Indonesian flooding is one of a series of disasters to hit Southeast Asia this week.

On Thursday morning, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit the island of Simeulue off the coast of Sumatra in western Indonesia, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The quake, which struck Simeulue Island at 11:56am (04:56 GMT) at a depth of 25km (15.5 miles), prompted rain-soaked residents to rush outside. There were no immediate reports on casualties or a possible tsunami.

Meanwhile, more than 30 people were killed by floods in Thailand and Malaysia in recent days, with water levels high enough to submerge hospitals.

In Sri Lanka, floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains killed at least 31 people this week, with 14 others missing, authorities said on Thursday.

Southern California lawmakers are demanding answers from U.S. Homeland Security officials following the deaths of two Orange County residents and nearly two dozen others while in federal immigration custody.

In a letter Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S. Reps. Dave Min (D-Irvine) and Judy Chu (D-Pasadena) pointed to the deaths of 25 people so far this year while being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The number of in-custody deaths has reached an annual record since the agency began keeping track in 2018.

Two Mexican immigrants — who had long made their homes in Orange County and were sent to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center north of Hesperia — were among the deaths.

“These are not just numbers on a website, but real people — with families, jobs, and hopes and dreams — each of whom died in ICE custody,” the lawmakers wrote. “The following cases illustrate systemic patterns of delayed treatment, neglect, and failure to properly notify families.”

Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, died Sept. 22 about a month after being apprehended while working at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for 15 years, according to a GoFundMe post by his family.

He had lived in Westminster since he was 4 years old, and had previously been protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. The Times previously reported that his application for continued protection was not renewed in 2016.

Ayala-Uribe’s relatives and members of Congress have alleged that he was denied proper medical care after being taken into ICE custody in August. Adelanto detention staff members were aware of his medical crisis, according to internal emails obtained by The Times. But Ayala-Uribe initially was taken back to his Adelanto dorm room, where he waited for another three days before being moved to Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville.

ICE officials acknowledged that Ayala-Uribe died at the Victorville hospital while waiting for surgery for an abscess on his buttock. The suspected cause of the sore was not disclosed.

Ayala-Uribe’s cause of death is under investigation, ICE has previously said.

A second man — Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, 56, who lived near Costa Mesa — died Oct. 23, about a week after being detained.

ICE said Garcia-Aviles was arrested Oct. 14 in Santa Ana by the U.S. Border Patrol for an outstanding warrant, and eventually sent to the Adelanto center. ICE said in a previous statement that he was only at the Adelanto facility for a few hours before he was taken to the Victorville hospital for “suspected alcohol withdrawal symptoms.”

His condition rapidly worsened.

The deaths have focused attention on the treatment of detained immigrants as well as long-standing concerns about medical care inside Adelanto, one of the largest federal immigration detention centers in California. The situation raises broader concerns about whether immigration detention centers throughout the country are equipped to care for the deluge of people rounded up since President Trump prioritized mass deportations as part of his second-term agenda.

“These deaths raise serious questions about ICE’s ability to comply with basic detention standards, medical care protocols, and notification requirements, and underscore a pattern of gross negligence that demands immediate accountability,” Min and Chu wrote in the letter to Noem and Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of ICE.

The letter was signed by 43 other lawmakers, including Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), J. Luis Correa (D-Santa Ana), John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) and Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

An ICE representative did not immediately respond to an email Saturday seeking comment.

The lawmakers stressed the need to treat the immigrants with humanity.

The lawmakers said Garcia-Aviles had lived in the U.S. for three decades. His family did not learn of his dire medical condition until “he was on his deathbed.” Family members drove to the hospital to find him “unconscious, intubated, and . . . [with] dried blood on his forehead” as well as “a cut on his tongue … broken teeth and bruising on his body.”

“We never got the chance to speak to him anymore and [the family] never was called to let us know why he had been transferred to the hospital,” his daugher wrote on a GoFundMe page, seeking help to pay for his funeral costs. “His absence has left a hole in our hearts.”

The “toxic and chaotic” culture at the centre of the United Kingdom’s government led to a delayed response to the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in about 23,000 more deaths across the nation, a damning report from an inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic has found.

The inquiry, which former Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered in May 2021, delivered a blistering assessment (PDF) on Thursday of his government’s response to COVID-19, criticising his indecisive leadership, lambasting his Downing Street office for breaking their own rules and castigating his top adviser Dominic Cummings. The inquiry was chaired by former judge Heather Hallett.

“The failure to appreciate the scale of the threat, or the urgency of response it demanded, meant that by the time the possibility of a mandatory lockdown was first considered it was already too late and a lockdown had become unavoidable,” the inquiry found. “At the centre of the UK government there was a toxic and chaotic culture.”

The global pandemic, which began in 2020, killed millions of people worldwide, with countries enforcing lockdowns in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus.

The UK went into lockdown on March 23, 2020, at which time it was “too little, too late,” the inquiry found, revealing that if the nation had gone into lockdown just a week earlier, on March 16, the number of deaths in the first wave of the pandemic up to July would have been reduced by about 23,000, or 48 percent.

“Had the UK been better prepared, lives would have been saved, suffering reduced and the economic cost of the pandemic far lower,” the inquiry found.

A failure to act sooner again, as cases rose later in the year, also led to further national lockdowns, Hallett’s inquiry found.

A campaign group for bereaved families said “it is devastating to think of the lives that could have been saved under a different Prime Minister”.

There was no immediate comment from Johnson on the inquiry’s findings.

The UK recorded more than 230,000 deaths from COVID, a similar death rate to the United States and Italy, but higher than elsewhere in western Europe, and it is still recovering from the economic consequences.

“Mr. Johnson should have appreciated sooner that this was an emergency that required prime ministerial leadership to inject urgency into the response,” the inquiry found.

Following the release of the inquiry’s findings, Sir Ed Davey called on Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, to apologise on behalf of the Conservatives.

“As this report is published, my thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic, and everyone who suffered,” Davey said. “This report confirms the abject failure of the last Conservative government.”

Ellie Chowns, a Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, said the British people were “let down” by their government.

“Families and communities – especially children – are still living with the consequences. It’s vital to learn from this report, and invest far more seriously in pandemic preparedness, so that Britain can be secure and resilient if – or when – we are again faced with such a challenge.”

The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and information from the country is seen as key to preventing future pandemics. As late as June 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was working to uncover the origin of the pandemic, with its work still incomplete, as critical information has “not been provided”.

“We continue to appeal to China and any other country that has information about the origins of COVID-19 to share that information openly, in the interests of protecting the world from future pandemics,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in June.

In 2021, Tedros launched the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a panel of 27 independent international experts.

Marietjie Venter, the group’s chair, said earlier this year that most scientific data supports the hypothesis that the new coronavirus jumped to humans from animals.

But she added that after more than three years of work, SAGO was unable to get the necessary data to evaluate whether or not COVID was the result of a lab accident, despite repeated requests for detailed information made to the Chinese government.

Health authorities isolate more than 100 contacts as deadly hemorrhagic virus detected near South Sudan border.

Ethiopia has confirmed three deaths linked to Marburg virus in the country’s south, as health authorities race to contain an outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic disease that has put neighbouring nations on high alert.

Health Minister Mekdes Daba announced the deaths on Monday, three days after the government officially declared an outbreak in the Omo region bordering South Sudan.

Laboratory tests confirmed three deaths from the Ebola-like pathogen, while another three deaths showing symptoms of the disease are under investigation, the minister said in a statement reported by state broadcaster EBC.

The rapid spread of cases has triggered urgent containment measures across the region.

Ethiopia has isolated 129 people who came into contact with confirmed patients and is monitoring them closely, while South Sudan issued health advisories urging residents in border counties to avoid contact with bodily fluids.

Initial symptoms include severe fever, intense headaches and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea. In serious cases, patients develop haemorrhaging from the nose, gums and internal organs.

Ethiopian authorities first detected the virus on Wednesday in the Jinka area after receiving alerts about a suspected hemorrhagic illness. Officials tested 17 individuals, identifying at least nine infections before confirming the initial deaths.

Daba said that work is progressing to bring the outbreak under control quickly through a coordinated national response. The government has activated emergency response centres at multiple levels and deployed rapid response teams to affected areas, she said.

The Ethiopian minister added that no active symptomatic cases are currently being treated.

Here’s everything you need to know about #Marburg, its symptoms, and how it spreads. 👇🏿#ViralFacts@viralfacts pic.twitter.com/dg6VdniaNH

— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) November 16, 2025

Ethiopia has established its own laboratory testing capacity for Marburg at the national public health institute, allowing authorities to conduct diagnostics independently rather than relying solely on external support.

The minister urged anyone experiencing symptoms to seek immediate medical testing at health facilities.

International health teams from the World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have arrived to support containment efforts.

The ministry has also launched a public awareness campaign, distributing infographics in Amharic detailing symptoms and prevention measures, and establishing a hotline for reporting suspected cases.

Marburg spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated materials.

The virus kills roughly half of those infected on average, though mortality rates have climbed as high as 88 percent in previous outbreaks, according to WHO data.

The UN health agency warns that health workers are especially vulnerable to being infected by the virus “through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practised”.

The Ethiopian outbreak extends a troubling pattern of haemorrhagic fever emergencies across East Africa.

A Marburg outbreak in Tanzania claimed 10 lives between January and March this year, while Rwanda ended its first recorded Marburg outbreak last December, with 15 people killed by the virus.

Rwanda tested an experimental vaccine during its outbreak response.

Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya expressed particular concern about potential spillover into South Sudan, citing the country’s weak healthcare infrastructure as a major vulnerability in containing cross-border transmission.

Israeli authorities have been systematically abusing Palestinian prisoners with impunity, according to PHRI.

The number of Palestinians that have died in Israeli detention facilities has surged amid the war in Gaza, according to a report issued by a human rights group.

At least 94 Palestinian deaths have been documented since October 2023, the report published on Monday by Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said.

The report is just the latest accusation regarding Israel’s jails, in which critics say thousands of Palestinians taken from Gaza and the occupied West Bank are routinely abused.

The nonprofit organisation expressed “grave concerns that the actual number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody is significantly higher, particularly among those detained from Gaza”.

It said Israeli authorities have consistently failed to hold those responsible for the deaths to account.

Of the 94 deaths that the report documents, 68 were from the Gaza Strip, while 26 were from the West Bank or held Israeli citizenship.

Israeli military prisons were responsible for at least 52 of the deaths. The remaining 42 were documented in facilities run by the Israel Prison Service (IPS).

Amid the war, Israeli soldiers have detained thousands of people from across Gaza. PHRI’s report asserts that they are now effectively “disappeared”.

The Israeli authorities have stopped sharing detainee information with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and barred all access to detention sites.

PHRI called those moves a “direct breach of both international and domestic law”.

Israel also refuses to acknowledge that it is holding many Palestinian prisoners, or that some have died in custody, leaving families in the dark for prolonged periods.

Some families found out about the death of their loved ones from Israeli media reports.

PHRI pointed at the case of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the renowned director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, for whom Israeli authorities claimed for days that they had “no indication of the individual’s arrest or detention”.

Israel continues to hold the doctor, who was taken from the hospital in December, despite an international outcry. His lawyer asserts that he has been subjected to torture and humiliation.

Deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody have been recorded in almost all major IPS facilities, including Ktzi’ot Prison, Megiddo, Nitzan and Ofer, as well as military camps and bases, including the notorious Sde Teiman, the report says.

Physical violence, including bruising, rib fractures, internal organ damage and intracranial haemorrhage, has been a leading cause of death, followed by chronic medical neglect or denial and severe malnutrition.

“Given the grave conditions faced by Palestinians in Israeli incarceration facilities, and in light of Israel’s policies of enforced disappearance, systematic killing, and institutionalized cover-ups, PHRI calls for an independent international investigation into the deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody,” the NGO said.

WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.

This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.

“The most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said to MSNBC a few hours after a shooter killed at least 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. “Inevitably, when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work.”

The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.

Broad agreement on some steps

And yet, significant agreement does exist.

Poll after poll has shown for years that large majorities of the public agree on at least some, limited steps to further regulate firearms.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”

The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.

So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?

One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.

Asked in that same Pew survey if mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.

The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.

Esmeralda Bravo, 63, holds a photo of her granddaughter, Nevaeh, one of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims, during a prayer vigil in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.

Go back roughly 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Since then, California repeatedly has tightened its gun laws, while Florida and Texas have moved in the opposite direction.

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.

California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods earlier this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.

The overall pattern is clear, nonetheless, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.

Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.

Hardcore opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.

Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.

Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.

Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.

Finally, in an era defined by “negative partisanship” — suspicion and fear of the other side — it’s easy to convince voters that a modest gun control proposal is just an opening wedge designed to lead to something more dramatic.

That leads to a common pattern when gun measures appear on ballots: They do less well than polling would suggest.

The same thing happens to measures in Congress. Nine years ago, for example, supporters of gun control made their last big push for legislation, after the slayings of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Then, as now, polls showed strong support for requiring background checks for sales that currently evade them. But support for the legislation was sharply lower than support for the general idea, Pew found.

Almost 8 in 10 Republican gun owners favored background checks in general, they found, but when asked about the specific bill, only slightly more than 4 in 10 wanted it to pass. When asked why they backed the general idea but opposed the specific one, most of those polled cited concerns that the bill would set up a “slippery slope” to more regulation or contained provisions that would go further than advertised.

Faced with that sort of skepticism from voters, Republican senators who had flirted with supporting the bill mostly walked away, and it failed.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden led the unsuccessful effort to pass that bill. Nearly a decade later, the political factors impeding action have only grown more powerful.

Texas school shooting

The recent string of devastating shootings has renewed calls for tighter gun restrictions. But as Kevin Rector reported, a loosening of gun laws is almost certainly coming instead, largely because of an expected decision from the Supreme Court, which is likely to strike down a broad law in New York that doesn’t allow individuals to carry guns in public without first demonstrating a “special need” for self-defense.

For all the impassioned speeches and angry tweets, for all the memes and viral videos of gun control proponents quaking with rage, most of the energy and political intensity has been on the side of those who favor greater gun laxity, Mark Barabak wrote.

The shooting has generated a lot of questions from parents about what their own schools are doing for safety. Howard Blume looked at what California officials say about school security.

The latest from Washington

Biden marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer by signing an executive order aimed at reforming policing at the federal level. As Eli Stokols reported, Wednesday’s order falls short of what Biden had hoped to achieve through legislation. It directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and provides grants to incentivize state and local police departments to strengthen restrictions on chokeholds and no-knock warrants.

Sluggish response and questionable decisions by the Food and Drug Administration worsened the nation’s infant formula shortage, agency officials told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. “You’re right to be concerned, and the public should be concerned,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf. The agency’s response “was too slow and there were decisions that were suboptimal along the way,” Anumita Kaur reported.

Only a couple of months ago, U.S. and European officials said a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal was “imminent.” But with little progress since then, and a shifting global geopolitical scene, the top U.S. envoy for the Iran negotiations testified Wednesday that prospects for reviving the Iran deal are “at best, tenuous,” Tracy Wilkinson reported. “We do not have a deal,” the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Cuba will not attend next month’s Summit of the Americas, a major conference to take place in Los Angeles, after the U.S. refused to extend a proper invitation, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced Wednesday. As Wilkinson reported, the decision throws the summit, which is crucial to the U.S.’ ability to demonstrate its influence in the Western Hemisphere, into further disarray.

The latest from California

GOP Rep. Young Kim would seem to have a relatively easy path to reelection in November — the national mood favors her party, she has a lot of money and the newly drawn boundaries for her Orange County district give her more Republican constituents. But Kim is suddenly campaigning with a sense of urgency, Melanie Mason and Seema Mehta report. She’s unleashed $1.3 million in advertising, and outside allies are coming to her aid with more spending. Most of it is aimed at fending off Greg Raths, an underfunded GOP opponent who has been a staple on the political scene in Mission Viejo, the district’s largest city.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and top legislative Democrats pledged Wednesday to expedite gun legislation. Among the bills are measures that would require school officials to investigate credible threats of a mass shooting, allow private citizens to sue firearm manufacturers and distributors, and enact more than a dozen other policies intended to reduce gun violence in California, Taryn Luna and Hannah Wiley reported. “We’re going to control the controllable, the things we have control of,” Newsom said during an event at the state Capitol. “California leads this national conversation. When California moves, other states move in the same direction.”

The Los Angeles mayor’s race has seemingly devolved in recent days into a rhetorical brawl between two of the city’s richest men, Benjamin Oreskes wrote. Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, who supports Rep. Karen Bass, says Rick Caruso’s history of supporting Republican candidates and being registered as a Republican a decade ago disqualifies him from being mayor. That came after Variety published an interview with Caruso in which he attacked the former Walt Disney Studios chairman for “lying” about him in ads by a pro-Bass independent expenditure committee predominantly funded by Katzenberg.

The growing corruption scandal in Anaheim has cost the city’s mayor his job, endangered the city’s planned $320-million sale of Angel Stadium to the team and provided a rare, unvarnished look at how business is done behind closed doors in the city of 350,000. Read our full coverage of the FBI probe into how the city does business.

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Ukraine is calling for more sanctions and asset freezes on Russia as it fends off intensified attacks, with another harsh winter of war looming.

At least 10 people have been killed, and more parts of Ukraine have been plunged into darkness, after another night of intense Russian attacks across the country, local authorities said, as diplomatic momentum to end the nearly four-year war falters.

Ukraine’s military announced on Saturday morning that hundreds of Russian drones, as well as missiles launched from the air, ground and sea, targeted critical infrastructure, a frequent Kremlin target as another harsh winter of war looms.

Ukraine said its air force detected 503 air attacks, including 45 missiles and 458 drones, launched by Russian forces overnight. Most of the missiles went through defences, with only nine successfully shot down, but 406 of the drones were intercepted.

The Russian attacks concentrated mostly on gas and power infrastructure, leading to power cuts in several regions.

In the front-line Zaporizhzhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said three people were killed and six wounded in overnight Russian attacks on several districts, which hit a residential building, among other targets.

Two more people were reported killed in two districts of Donetsk, according to local authorities. Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of Kherson, reported another two people killed and 10 wounded after several multistorey buildings, private homes and vehicles were hit.

Kyiv Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said an attack in the Vyshhorod district injured a woman and hit civilian areas and energy infrastructure.

At least two people were killed and 11 others, including children, wounded after a Russian strike hit a building in the eastern region of Dnipro, local authorities said.

A “massive” strike was reported by Governor Volodymyr Kohut in the Poltava region, where another person was injured and rolling blackouts are in place to compensate for damaged power infrastructure.

‘More pressure is needed’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed a call for further sanctions on Russia and freezing its assets in the European Union before winter, saying “Russian strikes show that the pressure must be stronger.

“Russian nuclear energy is still not under sanctions, Russian military-industrial complex still receives Western microelectronics, more pressure is needed on oil and gas trade as well,” he said in a statement.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed in its latest combat report overnight that it launched a “massive strike with high-precision long-range weapons from air, land and sea platforms”, including hypersonic ballistic missiles.

It said Russian air defences brought down two guided aerial bombs and 178 unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Ukrainian forces. Another eight drones were reportedly shot down before noon on Saturday.

Fierce house-to-house fighting also continues to rage in Pokrovsk, the city in Donetsk where tens of thousands of Russian troops have converged to push for control of more territory and to “liberate” buildings held for more than a year by Ukrainian soldiers, in intense close-range clashes.

Ukraine’s top general Oleksandr Syrskii said Kyiv’s troops were stepping up assaults on Russian forces around the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia to ease pressure on Pokrovsk.