Back Story Newsletter
Good morning,
Fourth Of July, Illinois
Another mass shooting and another…and another…and...America’s gun problems are a plague driven by mental illness.
Gunshots rained down on a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park Illinois as children and parents lined a parade route. 6 dead and dozens injured.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) pointed to the “uniquely American” problem of gun violence saying “It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,”
The governor said he is “furious” that more lives have been lost to gun violence and loved ones are “forever broken” and traumatized from the shooting.
Illinois has universal background checks, red flag warnings and safe storage requirements, though no assault weapons ban. And a high powered rifle was used in the shooting by the 21 year old who was arrested by police.
The shooting will be on the news for two days, with political division blocking attempts to restrict assault rifles and we will be reporting on another mass shooting soon.
It’s a horrible depressing cycle of violence in the U.S. which prevents action from taking place to change the gun culture.
Russia Move Forward Ukraine
Russian forces are creeping ahead in Ukraine despite the statements from the Ukraine President his forcers may one day reclaim lost territory in the Luhansk area.
Ukrainian forces have taken up new defensive lines in Donetsk, where they still control major cities, and plan to launch counter offensives in the south of the country.
Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine was hoping to launch counter offensives saying “Taking the cities in the east meant that 60% of Russian forces are now concentrated in the east and it is difficult for them to be redirected to the south,” he said.
“And there are no more forces that can be brought in from Russia. They paid a big price for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.”
But it’s important to point out that Ukrainian leaders don’t want the international community to begin to believe the Russian war machine can’t be stopped, and to begin pushing Ukraine towards some kind of ceasefire settlement.
So always colouring resistance as bold and that Ukraine is about to turn the battle is in their interest to get more weapons and financial support.
So in weighing Ukraines ability to stop Putin’s advance, we rely to some extent on assessments by American and other NATO commanders that indicate Ukraine is becoming better armed by the day and more able to challenge a largely spent Russian army.
But in the short term Russia is proving some of those assessments wrong and the Russians may be ground down, and tired, and taking big losses, but Putin’s invasion is making progress.
The thinking by NATO is July and August will show Ukraine can win back territory and we will soon see if that holds true.
Russia will quickly move to annex eastern Ukraine and very soon, if Ukrainian forces don’t reclaim some of the occupied territory. The window for Ukraine to take back the east is narrowing.
The latest intelligence briefing from the UK’s Ministry of Defence said Russian forces would “almost certainly” switch to trying to capture Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas had been “grinding and attritional” and this was unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
Other News…
-About 50,000 people have been urged to evacuate their homes as floods hit Australia's largest city for the third time this year. Parts of Sydney have received about eight months of rain in four days.
-As new waves of Covid sweep `across the World Canadians will be required to get a booster shot every nine months for the foreseeable future, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters. Duclos said that the previous definitions of “fully vaccinated” makes no sense, explaining that it’s more important that shots are “up to date” and whether or not a person has “received a vaccination in the last nine months.”
-U.S. officials have concluded that gunfire from Israeli positions likely killed Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh but that there was “no reason to believe” her May 11 shooting was intentional, the State Department said Monday. Palestinians reacted with anger at the finding claiming Israel intentionally shot the reporter.
Have a good day everyone.
Dana Lewis