Wednesday, April 12, 2023

With additional reporting from Tanya Snyder

Manetta Lemkheitir writes on a cross at the memorial outside of the Old National Bank in Louisville, Ky. On the morning of April 10, a gunman opened fire inside the Old National Bank building killing four people. A fifth victim later died in the hospital. | Michael Swensen/Getty Images

ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE — As gun violence continues its grim march across America, the scale of the crisis is becoming ever clearer. A new survey reports this astonishing figure: one-in-five American adults have had a family member killed by a gun.

And that’s not all. One-in-six Americans have witnessed a shooting; among Black adults, it’s one-in-three.

Those are some of the findings from Kaiser Family Foundation polling released this week amid the newest and most recent acts of gun violence. On Monday, a gunman killed five people at a Kentucky bank. Two weeks earlier, Nashville, Tennessee, was the scene of a horrific school shooting that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children.

The vast majority of American adults surveyed reported that they worry, at least sometimes, that they or a loved one will be a victim of gun violence. Among Black and Hispanic people, one-in-three worry every single day, or close to it. Parents of kids under 18 worry more than other adults.

In an era of such frequent mass shootings, it’s easy to overlook that gun violence is a far broader problem than those high profile events that draw our attention. Other crimes, including domestic violence, accidents, and yes, suicides are also part of the American gun story. In fact, suicides account for about half of gun deaths; more than half of suicides involve a gun, according to Centers for Disease Control data analyzed by the Pew Research Center l ast year.

Despite the overall high concern and awareness of gun violence in America, the survey also found some knowledge gaps. Just shy of half (49 percent) knew that guns are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers ages 1-19 in the U.S . — no other similarly wealthy country comes close. A slightly smaller share (46 percent) knew about the share of gun deaths that were suicides.

The Kaiser Family Foundation focuses on health policy and its survey asked several questions about gun violence from a health or public health perspective. The answers were laced with red flags.

Fully 44 percent of parents with kids under age 18 said there’s a gun in their house — and a third of that group said the guns were stored loaded, or stored in an unlocked location. Close to two-thirds — 61 percent — said the guns are stored together with ammunition.

It’s been several years since the American Medical Association recognized gun violence as a public health problem — but almost all the adults surveyed say no doctor or other health provider has ever talked to them about guns and gun safety. One-in-four parents reported that a pediatrician had asked them about guns in the home — but hadn’t talked about safety.

And the prevalence of gun violence in our society means that Americans don’t feel safe. Fully 51 percent of the adults surveyed said gun-related crimes, injuries, and deaths, are either a “constant threat” or a “major concern” in their community. It’s far higher (62 percent) for Black and Hispanic respondents.

Those fears are beginning to seep into how we live.

Almost everyone surveyed — 84 percent — reported taking some kind of precaution to protect themselves and their families. That ranges from buying a gun for self defense to practicing shooting to avoiding crowded places — like music festivals or clubs — avoiding public transport, changing (or at least thinking about changing) what school their kids go to, or avoiding religious services, celebrations, or cultural events.

Some move to different neighborhoods or cities. Of course, some neighborhoods are riskier than others — but as we learn over and over again, gun violence can happen anywhere and everywhere. And, as this week once again showed, it does.

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Baldwin announces reelection bid: Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced today that she is running for a third term . Baldwin, 61, became Wisconsin’s first woman senator and the country’s first openly gay senator with her election in 2012. Baldwin won reelection in 2018. Last year, she gained national attention for helping spearhead a bill protecting the rights of same-sex marriage, which passed last November. The announcement will give Democrats a leg-up in a swing-state that will be essential to maintaining their slim Senate majority in a difficult 2024 map.

— NPR leaves Twitter after ‘government-funded media’ label: NPR announced today it will cease posting to Twitter altogether after the social media company labeled the news outlet “state-affiliated media” last week. The move makes NPR the first major media outlet to exit the platform. NPR paused tweeting from its main account on Friday because of the label but continued to tweet from other accounts that didn’t have the designation. Twitter then revised its label on NPR’s account to “government-funded media,” which remains on NPR’s main account.

— How the inflation report is playing with Biden, Powell and Jamie Dimon: President Joe Biden isn’t used to a lot of good news on inflation, but he got some today . The March consumer price index dropped to a 5 percent annual increase — the slowest pace since May 2021. That could take some heat off the White House, which has been blamed for fueling the most brutal price spike in 40 years with massive government spending. But perhaps not for long. Beneath the headline number there’s trouble. So-called core inflation — which strips out volatile energy and food prices — actually rose in March on an annual basis. That will probably do nothing to deter Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in his war on inflation.

NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has ramped up attacks on Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell (pictured) in recent weeks. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

TARGET SHOOTING — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is going after the Federal Reserve , bashing Chair Jerome Powell and suggesting that the Biden administration plans to introduce a digital currency from the central bank that would surveil Americans, reports The New York Times. He has no stated evidence for those claims. The Federal Reserve has been an attractive target for populist politicians in the past; former President Donald Trump went after the Fed with similar verve during the 2016 campaign.

SHOW UP — Republican lawmakers in Iowa have introduced a bill that would require voters to caucus in person during the 2024 cycle , reports the Des Moines Register. The move is aimed at maintaining Iowa’s first in the nation caucus status on the Republican side (Iowa is all but assured to lose that among Democrats) and curbing Democrats’ plans to expand mail-in balloting. The bill would also require that voters register with their chosen party at least 70 days before caucus dates.

BIG STEPS — Sen. Tim Scott has officially launched his presidential exploratory committee , the clearest sign yet of his intentions to run for the GOP ticket in 2024. In a video that stretched just over three minutes, Scott repeatedly took aim at President Joe Biden and Democrats, vowing to stand up to China and secure the borders, give parents a choice in their childrens’ education and protect religious liberty.

AROUND THE WORLD

CLAP BACK — Officials in Kyiv are pounding their fists over leaked U.S. intelligence that downplays Ukraine’s ability to recapture seized territory from Russia this spring, writes Alex Ward .

Senior Ukrainian officials are particularly incensed by a “top secret” assessment from February suggesting Ukraine would make only “modest territorial gains” from its planned operation. The Washington Post, which reported the document on Monday, said it was part of the growing leak of classified U.S. intelligence on the war in Ukraine, China, Israel and other global hotspots.

Kyiv says the document shows the U.S. is once again underestimating its military’s capabilities.

“The same people who said Kyiv would fall in three days are now leaking harmful and equally ridiculous information ahead of an offensive critically important for the entire free world,” said a person in regular contact with senior officials in Kyiv.

“There are some people who continue to be hesitant” about Ukraine’s military chances in the counteroffensive, a Ukrainian defense official said, “but we’ve proved everybody wrong.”

GO INSIDE THE 2023 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO is proud to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider" newsletter featuring exclusive coverage, insider nuggets and unparalleled insights from the 2023 Global Conference, which will convene leaders in health, finance, politics, philanthropy and entertainment from April 30-May 3. This year’s theme, Advancing a Thriving World , will challenge and inspire attendees to lean into building an optimistic coalition capable of tackling the issues and inequities we collectively face. Don’t miss a thing — subscribe today for a front row seat .

NIGHTLY NUMBER

More than $500 million

The amount of money that Trump is suing his lawyer and former fixer Michael Cohen for, alleging that Cohen violated his attorney-client relationship with Trump by “spreading falsehoods” and revealing confidential information, according to the court filing. The filing attacks Cohen’s credibility as he is expected to be a key witness in Trump’s impending criminal trial in New York.

RADAR SWEEP

DUMB DOWN — As artificial intelligence technology speeds ahead, there’s increasing appreciation for an AI that’s… kind of stupid . The AI bot known as Martin on chess.com, the world’s most popular chess website, is programmed to be terrible at chess. Anyone who barely understands how to play can beat Martin. And the bot sends various encouraging messages throughout the game. Jacob Sweet reports for The Atlantic about why people love this bot — and how despite using AI technology, it takes us back to an early internet era when people managed to find joy in simple inventions.

PARTING WORDS

An electric vehicle sits parked at a charging station in Corte Madera, Calif. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Tanya Snyder writes for Nightly about her experience trying to use an electric vehicle charging station in Walmart — and why we’ve still got a long way to go to full integrate EVs into our daily routines.

STUCK IN PLACE — It’s a good thing we all love hanging out in Walmart parking lots these days, because some of us are going to be doing a lot more of it — Walmart announced last week that it’s building a nationwide network of fast EV chargers.

But my recent experience trying to charge up at Walmart showcased just how far Walmart — and the nation’s charging infrastructure in general — has to go before it’s as seamless and reliable as stopping for gas is now.

My co-worker David Ferris recently drove nearly 3,000 miles in an EV and can attest that the national EV charging network is “sparse and glitchy.” He took a deep dive on the subject last month.

It literally takes days to charge an EV by plugging a vehicle into a regular wall charger. A “Level 2” charger will take that down to a matter of hours — somewhere between four and 10 — and the fastest chargers will have you on your way in less than an hour in most cases.

Even if most EV owners do most of their charging at home, not everybody has a dedicated parking spot with a charger. And people need to know that they can recharge away from home, too.

The car’s touchscreen showed us a helpful map of all the nearby charging stations. It showed plenty of options, until we filtered for fast charging and the charging companies we had accounts for — they each have a maze of subscriptions and payment plans. Then the options shrank dramatically.

The Walmart nearby had four chargers, but the map said they were all occupied.

We decided to go check it out for ourselves. The mapping software led us through an alley behind the Walmart, not clocking that there was a fence we wouldn’t be able to drive through. Chargers are often behind office buildings or somewhere in a sprawling parking lot, so it can be a challenge for GPS to locate them precisely.

It turned out there were three fast chargers and one slow one, and the slow one was unoccupied, so we tried that one. I didn’t have the charging companies’ app, and the credit card wasn’t processing — maybe that’s why the charger was available.

Charger maintenance is a problem. A recent study in California found that more than a quarter of EV chargers are nonfunctional at any given time. President Joe Biden wants to build 500,000 new charging stations by 2030, by which time he wants somewhere between half and two-thirds of new-car sales to be EVs.

Someone vacated another fast charger and we moved over there, but it was a CHAdeMO charger, an outdated technology that is being abandoned by the one car brand that still uses it.

So… more waiting. By the time another charger opened up, there was someone else waiting who probably wasn’t just there for the learning experience. So we let them take the charger and drove off, no more juiced than when we came in.

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FOCUS: UN to Start Taking Deep-Sea Mining Applications This July

12 April 23

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FOCUS: UN to Start Taking Deep-Sea Mining Applications This July
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Excerpt: "The International Seabed Authority will start accepting applications in July from companies that want to mine the ocean's floor, a decision that came after the U.N. body spent the past two weeks debating standards for the new and controversial practice."

The International Seabed Authority will start accepting applications in July from companies that want to mine the ocean's floor, a decision that came after the U.N. body spent the past two weeks debating standards for the new and controversial practice.

Deep-sea mining would extract cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese - key battery materials - from potato-sized rocks called "polymetallic nodules" on the ocean's floor at depths of 4 to 6 km (2.5 to 4 miles). They are abundant in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico.

The ISA's governing council formulated a draft decision on Thursday after meeting in Jamaica that allows companies to file permit applications starting on July 9, a deadline set in motion by actions the island nation of Nauru took in 2021, according to a copy seen by Reuters.

The ISA's staff would then have three business days to inform the council. The council plans to meet virtually before July to debate further whether approval of such applications could be delayed once received, according to the document.

"This deeply irresponsible outcome is a wasted opportunity to send a clear signal ... that the era of ocean destruction is over", said Louisa Casson of Greenpeace, which opposes the practice due in part to concerns it could harm whales and other wildlife.

The Metals Co (TMC.O), which has a deal to supply metals to Glencore Plc (GLEN.L), is one of the most prominent voices advocating for the practice. Its executives have repeatedly said they believe deep-sea mining would have less impact than traditional mining for battery metals on land.

China is a leader in deep-sea mining exploration, but Chile, France, Palau and Fiji, among other nations, have called for a global moratorium on the practice, citing environmental concerns and a lack of sufficient scientific data.

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America has more guns than people

On Monday, a man killed five people and wounded eight others at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky.

As has become tragically common in America, the killer used an AR-15 style rifle.

These and other military-grade weapons exist for exactly one reason — to mow down human beings as rapidly and ferociously as possible.

Yet they can be purchased with almost no restrictions. (And Republican politicians in some states are actively making it even easier to obtain them.)

On Tuesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation — a nonprofit that researches health issues — reported the stunning results of a recent survey:

One in five adult Americans has a family member who has been killed by a gun.

Kaiser also found that over half of U.S. adults have been directly affected by an incident involving a gun — such as themselves or family members witnessing a shooting, being threatened with a gun, or being injured or killed by a gun.

And we already knew that guns have become the leading cause of death among American children. Not disease. Not malnutrition. Not accidents. (Auto accidents had been the leading cause of death among children for decades until being overtaken by guns in 2020.)

This is what happens in a country — the only one on Earth — that has more guns than people.

It is — quite literally — insane.

It is American exceptionalism at its most degenerate.

It is a national disgrace.

We must continue to demand — louder than ever — that our government do something about it.

Tell every member of Congress:

Ban assault weapons once and for all. Listen to your actual constituents — Americans of all political persuasions overwhelmingly support regulating military-grade weapons — not the gun manufacturers, their shills at the NRA, or the gun-cult fringe. Ban assault weapons before even more blood is spilled. Ban them. Ban them. BAN THEM!

Click now to add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

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