A gunman killed eight people and wounded seven others – three critically – in a shooting at a Dallas-area mall before being fatally shot by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said Saturday. Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground. The shooting was the latest episode of gun violence to strike the country. It sent hundreds of shoppers fleeing in panic. Allen Police said in a Facebook post that nine victims had been taken to hospitals. Medical City Healthcare, a Dallas-area hospital system, said in a written statement it was treating eight between the ages of 5 and 61. Dashcam video that circulated online showed a gunman step out of a vehicle outside the mall and immediately start shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off. An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook. “The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel. Nine victims were transported to local hospitals by Allen Fire Department,” the agency wrote in the Facebook post. “There is no longer an active threat.” Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data. The White House said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting and that the administration had offered support to local officials. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.” A crowd of hundreds of people who had been shopping stood outside, across the street from the mall, Saturday evening. Officers circulated among them asking if anyone had seen what happened. Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard the sound of gunshots through the headphones he was wearing. “It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said. Read more: Police: 5 people killed in shooting at home north of Houston People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes were laying nearby. Once outside, Payton saw bodies. “I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground, he said. “It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said. Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered up. Tarakram Nunna, 25, and Ramakrishna Mullapudi, 26, said they saw what appeared to be three people lying motionless on the ground, including one who appeared to be a police officer and another who appeared to be a mall security guard. Another shopper, Sharkie Mouli, 24, said he hid in a Banana Republic store during the shooting. As he left, he saw what appeared to be an unconscious police officer lying next to another unconscious person outside the outlet store. “I have seen his gun lying right next to him and a guy who is like passing out right next to him,” Mouli said. Stan and Mary Ann Greene were browsing in the Columbia sportswear store when the shooting started. “We had just gotten in, just a couple minutes earlier, and we just heard a lot of loud popping,” Mary Ann Greene told The Associated Press. Employees immediately rolled down the security gate and brought everyone to the rear of the store until police arrived and escorted them out, the Greenes said. Read more: Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade Eber Romero was at the Under Armour store when a cashier mentioned that there was a shooting. As he left the store, Romero said, the mall appeared empty, and all the shops had their security gates down. That is when he started seeing broken glass and people who had been shot on the floor. Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot while gunfire could be heard. More than 30 police cruisers with lights flashing were blocking an entrance to the mall, with multiple ambulances on the scene. A live aerial broadcast from the news station showed armored trucks and other law enforcement vehicles stationed outside the sprawling outdoor mall. Ambulances from several neighboring cities responded to the scene. The Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded. Allen, a suburb about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, has roughly 105,000 residents.

Universal Parks & Resorts is bringing a theme park to Texas that will focus on entertaining young children, officials announced Wednesday. The “one-of-a-kind” park in the Dallas suburb of Frisco will include attractions, interactive shows and opportunities for meet-and-greets with characters, the company said in a news release. It is expected to be about a quarter of the size of the company's large Orlando theme parks, according to Page Thompson, the company’s president of new ventures. “Even though it may be smaller in terms of acreage than our other parks, the quality of it, the level, worthy of the Universal name," Thompson said during a news conference in Frisco. Universal Parks & Resorts recently purchased 97 acres (39 hectares), where the park and a 300-room hotel will be located, officials said. Read more:  Also on Wednesday, the company announced a new permanent entertainment experience in Las Vegas that will “bring to life Universal’s vast library of classic horror films and today’s most terrifying tales,” according to a news release from the company. The company said this is the first time it has created “a permanent horror experience beyond its theme parks.” The experience will occupy a 110,000-square foot (10,219-square meter) space. It will be the anchor tenant in a new 20-acre (8-hectare) expansion of the city's AREA15 entertainment district, which opened to the public in 2020. The company didn't give a timetable for when the projects will be completed. Universal Parks & Resorts, part of Comcast NBCUniversal, has theme parks around the world, including Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort in the U.S. In 2021, the company opened a theme park in Beijing, becoming the company's fifth park worldwide. There are also parks in Japan and Singapore.

With the ornate spires of the Karya Siddhi Hanuman Temple anchoring the skyline behind them, a cricket batsman and bowler eyed each other across a brown grass field. Amid gusty winds, players waiting to bat watched intently from nearby bleachers. No, this is not a scene in India, where cricket became a national obsession after arriving on the wings of British colonialism. Try North Texas, where Friday Night Lights have made way for weekend afternoons on the pitch. Welcome to the new Lone Star State, where cricket matches, a Hindu temple and Indian grocery stores co-exist with Christian churches, cattle ranches and Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys empire. More than a decade of expansion has given the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex the largest Asian growth rate of any major U.S. metro area, in the nation’s fastest growing state. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, Indians account for more than half the region’s Asian population boom, with the Dallas suburb of Frisco alone experiencing growth to rival Seattle and Chicago. While some Texans still bleed football, these days a growing number bleed cricket. “In ’98, I came to the U.S. Then I stopped playing cricket because I didn’t have any availability here. Down the road four or five years later, I saw somebody playing cricket in Plano,” said Kalyan “K.J.” Jarajapu, a temple volunteer watching the Frisco-sponsored cricket league match. “I never imagined that there would be cricket for sure or there would be a cricket world like I saw back home in India here in (metro) Dallas.” Read more: Four Bangladeshi Cricketers to Compete in IPL 2023 Auction The share of Asians among the foreign-born in the U.S. has risen recently, from 30.1% during the 2012-to-2016 period to 31.2% in the 2017-to-2021 period, as the share of immigrants from Latin America and Europe has fallen, according to the American Community Survey. Immigrants from South Asia believe they’ve found the best of East meets West in Frisco and other Dallas suburbs. They’re living a new and improved American dream, with access to their preferred houses of worship, authentic food and a community radio station. But the dream also comes with painful realities about racism, pressure to balance two cultures and the mental health challenges of finding your way in an unfamiliar world. Named in 1904 after the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, Frisco, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, started as a train stop and an agricultural hub. Today, it’s a global technology force. Companies including Toyota, FedEx and Goldman Sachs have drawn job seekers from afar, including a pipeline of IT workers from the tech hub of Hyderabad, India. Combine good jobs with reputable schools, affordable housing and warm weather, and the formula for growth is set. Texas-based disciples of Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji came together in 2008 to purchase a 10-acre (4-hectare) plot in Frisco and build a modest Hindu temple. Within three years, it was hosting hundreds of worshippers. Jayesh Thakker, a temple trustee and joint treasurer for the India Association of North Texas, said they raised enough money to build a 33,000-square-foot (3,065-square-meter) temple in 2015. Nearly 30 artisan workers came on special visas to ensure every detail honored Indian Hindu architecture. “They built it first as an American structure and then they ‘Indianized’ it,” Thakker said. New housing and schools soon followed. Laxmi Tummala, trustee and temple secretary, is also a realtor. Many of her clients settle for less just to live nearby. ″‘All that other stuff I wanted, it doesn’t matter if it’s going to put me 25 minutes or 30 minutes away. I want my kids to have this exposure,’” Tummala said. Immigrants aren’t the only newcomers. Between 2015 and 2019, more than 17,000 people flocked to Frisco and surrounding Collin County from Dallas County and more than 8,000 from nearby Denton County, according to the Census Bureau. Outside Texas, the biggest sources of new Collin County residents were Los Angeles and Orange counties in California, with 1,600 residents and 1,000 residents respectively. But almost 6,000 new residents in the area came from Asia. The Islamic Center of Frisco has benefited, too. Its board is planning to more than double the size of the 18,000-square-foot (1,672-square-meter) mosque by 2024. With more than 3,500 people attending prayers and 460 children attending Sunday School, the board moved to acquire more space in 2019. Read more: Players who excelled in the T20 World Cup 2022 Azfar Saeed, the center’s president, remembers that nearly two decades ago only 15 people came to pray in a 400-square-foot (37-square-meter) shopping center suite on any given day. “At that time, nobody knew Frisco. People were like, ‘Where are you going?’” said Saeed, who was born in Pakistan. By 2010, “people just started moving right and left here.” The pandemic brought another shift. Suddenly, people from California or Chicago were able to work remotely but live elsewhere. Houston saw a tremendous influx of Asians in the last decade, with the second-highest growth rate after Dallas among major U.S. metros. “The moment people went remote it felt like people were like, ’OK, I have a tiny house in California for $800,000 and I can buy a mansion here in Texas. Let’s go,’” Saeed said, chuckling. Where there is a large Asian population in the U.S., anti-Asian hate seems inevitable. In August, a woman’s racist rant against four Indian American women in Plano was caught on video. The unprovoked attack escalated as she hit and threatened to shoot them. She was later arrested. The incident caught the attention of people in India thanks to social media. South Asian groups here attended meetings with local law enforcement. “It was very sad and it was surprising,” said Tummala, the temple’s secretary. “But we definitely don’t take that and say ‘OK, everybody in Texas is like that.’” Some have found outlets for talking about their struggles, including on the region’s only South Asian radio station. The app-based Radio Azad, in Irving, was started by Azad Khan in 2011, five years after he immigrated from Pakistan. The station broadcasts music and current affairs. Multiple languages are represented, including Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi and Telugu. As the area population has grown, so has Radio Azad’s listenership, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands. The anonymity of call-in radio shows on Azad — which means freedom in Hindi and Urdu — has allowed for difficult questions. Nearly three years ago, CEO Ayesha Shafi started monthly mental health segments, and listeners embraced them. They’ve tackled assimilation, bipolar disorder and domestic abuse. “You can talk about issues that you’re facing and actually hear somebody who’s like you, who understands where you’re coming from and will actually listen,” Shafi said. Depression rose to the forefront after the murder-suicide of a Bangladeshi family in April 2021 in Allen, roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of Frisco. Two adult brothers fatally shot their parents, sister and grandmother before taking their own lives. One brother had written on Instagram of dealing with depression since 2016. “As parents, we find that anxiety has become so common and it’s not happening to just anybody’s kids,” Shafi said. “As we created awareness, as we shared our shows ... they would realize, ‘Omigod, this is happening to our kids.’” Reena Yalamanchili dealt with the feeling of not belonging as a child, despite being born in the U.S. The 17-year-old, whose family lives in nearby Coppell and attends the Frisco temple, remembers kids making fun of the lunch her mother made. “It kind of made me feel embarrassed about my mom’s cooking, or like Indian food or my culture in general,” Yalamanchili said. “Obviously, I don’t feel like that anymore.” She thinks most children grow out of those attitudes, and there is strength in numbers. “There’s a lot of people in the same boat as me,” she said. “There’s a lot of shared traditions.” Everywhere you look, South Asian cultures are merging into the Texas zeitgeist. The movie theater in Frisco shows films in Telegu, Tamil and Hindi, while at Tikka Taco in Irving, diners can get tacos stuffed with tandoori chicken, lamb or paneer tikka. Sometimes Indian politics spill into the Dallas suburbs. Scores of people joined protests this week outside Frisco’s City Hall on behalf of Christians in India who claim a Frisco-based group supports Hindu nationalists threatening their churches. On a more festive front, Hanuman Temple now collaborates with the City of Frisco for Holi, an annual Hindu festival also known as the Festival of Colors. Celebrants daub each other with vividly colored powders. The temple also organizes food donations, health fairs and other community services. “We don’t want to just be here and be isolated,” Tummala said. You can find a Diwali celebration in several Dallas suburbs around October or November. The biggest holiday of the year in India, the commemoration of light over darkness was celebrated by more than 15,000 people in Southlake’s town square. Police even wrote a script for officers doing security to explain its significance if anyone asked. “Five years ago, they wouldn’t have known what it was at all,” Shafi said. Southlake Mayor John Huffman, who spoke at the event dressed in traditional Indian clothing, believes close to a fifth of the crowd were non-Asians. He credits its success to the Southlake Foundation, a nonprofit started in 2019 by Kush Rao, who immigrated from India. The organization oversees cultural events and community service activities such as trash clean-up and free lunches for city staff. “I feel like they’re setting the bar in a lot of ways and saying, ‘We’re going to give back to the Public Works Department not because we’re getting anything in return but because we appreciate what they do for the city,’” Huffman said. “They have been very intentional about telling their fellow South Asians to get out and engage in the community.” Back in Frisco during Diwali, blocks of homes near Hanuman Temple twinkled with lights through the pouring rain. Hanuman Temple’s majestic pyramidal gateway glowed red. And dozens of families didn’t let the wet weather stop them from worshipping and chanting mantras to deities. Cricket fan Jarajapu, directing cars in the water-logged parking lot, wasn’t surprised so many came. “I have seen the transformation of Frisco city,” Jarajapu said. “It has become very vibrant with diversity, culture and especially a lot of Asians. I’m very proud to be living in Frisco.”

At least eight migrants were found dead in the Rio Grande after dozens attempted a hazardous crossing near Eagle Pass, Texas, officials said Friday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials made the discovery Thursday while responding to a large group of people crossing the river following days of heavy rains that had resulted in particularly swift currents. U.S. officials recovered six bodies, while Mexican teams recovered two others, according to a CBP statement. The agency said U.S. crews rescued 37 others from the river and detained 16 more, while Mexican officials took 39 migrants into custody. Officials on both sides of the border continue searching for any possible victims, the CBP said. CPD did not say what country or countries the migrants were from and did not provide any additional information on the rescue or search. Local agencies in Texas that were involved did not immediately respond to requests for additional information. Also read: Gunman fatally shoots 2, wounds 3 Texas cops, takes own life The Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, is fast becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Agents stopped migrants nearly 50,000 times in the sector in July, with Rio Grande Valley a distant second at about 35,000. The area draws migrants from dozens of countries, many of them in families with young children. About 6 of 10 stops in the Del Rio sector in July were migrants from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. The sector, which extends 245 miles (395 kilometers) along the Río Grande, has been especially dangerous because river currents can be deceptively fast and change quickly. Crossing the river can be challenging even for strong swimmers. In a news release last month, CPD said it had discovered bodies of more than 200 dead migrants in the sector from October through July. Surveys by the U.N. International Organization for Migration and others point to rising fatalities as the number of crossing attempts have soared. In the last three decades, thousands have died attempting to enter the United States from Mexico, often from dehydration or drowning. In June, 53 migrants were found dead or dying in a tractor-trailer on a back road in San Antonio in the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.    

The Texas Supreme Court blocked a lower court order late Friday night that said clinics could continue performing abortions, just days after some doctors had resumed seeing patients after the fall of Roe v. Wade. It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that had resumed seeing patients this week would halt services again. A hearing is scheduled for later this month. The whiplash of Texas clinics turning away patients, rescheduling them, and now potentially canceling appointments again — all in the span of a week — illustrated the confusion and scrambling taking place across the country since Roe was overturned. An order by a Houston judge earlier this week had reassured some clinics they could temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. That was quickly followed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asking the state’s highest court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, to temporarily put the order on hold. “These laws are confusing, unnecessary, and cruel,” said Marc Hearron, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, after the order was issued Friday night. READ: Post-Roe, states struggle with conflicting abortion bans Clinics in Texas had stopped performing abortions in the state of nearly 30 million people after the U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion. Texas had technically left an abortion ban on the books for the past 50 years while Roe was in place. A copy of Friday's order was provided by attorneys for Texas clinics. It could not immediately be found on the court’s website. Abortion providers and patients across the country have been struggling to navigate the evolving legal landscape around abortion laws and access. In Florida, a law banning abortions after 15 weeks went into effect Friday, the day after a judge called it a violation of the state constitution and said he would sign an order temporarily blocking the law next week. The ban could have broader implications in the South, where Florida has wider access to the procedure than its neighbors. Abortion rights have been lost and regained in the span of a few days in Kentucky. A so-called trigger law imposing a near-total ban on the procedure took effect last Friday, but a judge blocked the law Thursday, meaning the state’s only two abortion providers can resume seeing patients — for now. The legal wrangling is almost certain to continue to cause chaos for Americans seeking abortions in the near future, with court rulings able to upend access at a moment's notice and an influx of new patients from out of state overwhelming providers. Even when women travel outside states with abortion bans in place, they may have fewer options to end their pregnancies as the prospect of prosecution follows them. Planned Parenthood of Montana this week stopped providing medication abortions to patients who live in states with bans “to minimize potential risk for providers, health center staff, and patients in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.” Planned Parenthood North Central States, which offers the procedure in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, is telling its patients that they must take both pills in the regimen in a state that allows abortions. The use of abortion pills has been the most common method to end a pregnancy since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone — the main drug used in medication abortions. Taken with misoprostol, a drug that causes cramping that empties the womb, it constitutes the abortion pill. “There’s a lot of confusion and concern that the providers may be at risk, and they are trying to limit their liability so they can provide care to people who need it," said Dr. Daniel Grossman, who directs the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California San Francisco. Emily Bisek, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said that in an “unknown and murky” legal environment, they decided to tell patients they must be in a state where it is legal to complete the medication abortion -- which requires taking two drugs 24 to 48 hours apart. She said most patients from states with bans are expected to opt for surgical abortions. Access to the pills has become a key battle in abortion rights, with the Biden administration preparing to argue states can’t ban a medication that has received FDA approval. Kim Floren, who operates an abortion fund in South Dakota called Justice Empowerment Network, said the development would further limit women's choices. “The purpose of these laws anyways is to scare people,” Floren said of states’ bans on abortions and telemedicine consultations for medication abortions. “The logistics to actually enforcing these is a nightmare, but they rely on the fact that people are going to be scared.” A South Dakota law took effect Friday that threatens a felony punishment for anyone who prescribes medication for an abortion without a license from the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners. In Alabama, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said it is reviewing whether people or groups could face prosecution for helping women fund and travel to out-of-state abortion appointments. Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based group that helps low-income women cover abortion and travel costs, said it is pausing operation for two weeks because of the lack of clarity under state law. “This is a temporary pause, and we’re going to figure out how we can legally get you money and resources and what that looks like,” said Kelsea McLain, Yellowhammer’s health care access director. Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said staff members at its clinics have seen women driving from as far as Texas without stopping or making an appointment. Women who are past 15 weeks are being asked to leave their information and promised a call back when a judge signs the order temporarily blocking the restriction, she said. Still, there is concern that the order may be only temporary and the law may again go into effect later, creating additional confusion. “It’s terrible for patients,” she said. “We are really nervous about what is going to happen.”

Abortion bans that were put on the books in some states in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned started automatically taking effect Friday, while clinics elsewhere — including Alabama, Texas and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions for fear of prosecution, sending women away in tears. “Some patients broke down and could not speak through their sobbing,” said Katie Quinonez, executive director of West Virginia’s lone abortion clinic, whose staff spent the day calling dozens of patients to cancel their appointments. “Some patients were stunned and didn’t know what to say. Some patients did not understand what was happening.” America was convulsed with anger, joy, fear and confusion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The canyon-like divide across the U.S. over the right to terminate a pregnancy was on full display, with abortion rights supporters calling it a dark day in history, while abortion foes welcomed the ruling as the answer to their prayers. Women who traveled across state lines to end a pregnancy found themselves immediately thwarted in some places as abortions were halted as a result of state laws that were triggered by the court decision or confusion over when those laws would take effect.  In eliminating the constitutional right to abortion that has stood for a half-century, the high court left the politically charged issue up to the states, about half of which are now likely to ban the procedure. Also read: Fighting Texas abortion law could be tough for federal gov’t Abortions were immediately halted in nine states. Providers in two other states, Oklahoma and South Dakota, had already stopped performing the procedure in the past month. About 73 million people live in the 11 states where the procedure was not available — more than a fifth of the U.S. population. The reaction across the country largely fell along predictable political lines. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat in a state where abortions are available with few restrictions, called the ruling a “war on women” and vowed to stand as a “brick wall” to help preserve the right. Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vowed to seek a ban on abortions after 15 weeks. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a conservative Republican widely considered a potential candidate for president in 2024, tweeted: “The Supreme Court has answered the prayers of millions upon millions of Americans.” The issue is certain to intensify the fall election season. Both sides intend to use the issue to energize supporters and get them to vote. “This country is lurching to the right, taking away rights. The voters are going to have to intervene,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the U.S. House majority whip. Some states, including Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri, had “trigger law” bans on the books that went into effect as soon as Roe fell. In Alabama, the state’s three abortion clinics stopped performing the procedure for fear providers would now be prosecuted under a law dating to 1951. At the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville, the staff had to tell women in the waiting room Friday morning that they could not perform any more abortions that day. Some had come from as far away as Texas for an appointment. “A lot of them just started breaking down crying. Can you imagine if you had driven 12 hours to receive this care in this state and you are not able to?” clinic owner Dalton Johnson said. Patients were given a list of out-of-state places still doing abortions. Abortion providers across Arizona likewise stopped doing procedures while they try to determine if a law dating to pre-statehood days — before 1912 — means doctors and nurses will face prison time now. In Texas, providers wondered which law they had to follow: a 1925 ban, a 2021 law that limits abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy, or a trigger law that bans the procedure outright, but wouldn’t take effect for a month or more. The confusion led them to suspend abortions while they seek legal advice. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton warned they could face immediate prosecution for performing abortions under the Prohibition-era ban, which carries two to five years in prison. It was the risk of prosecution under a 19th-century abortion ban punishable by prison that led the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to stop performing the procedure. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, said he will not hesitate to call the Legislature into special session if the ban needs to be clarified. In Ohio, a federal judge dissolved an injunction, allowing a 2019 state law to take effect banning most abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat. The high court ruling drew strong reactions around the country. Carol E. Tracy, the executive director of the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, was “absolutely furious.” “They want women to be barefoot and pregnant once again,” she said. “But I have no doubt that women and like-minded men, and people in the LGBTQ community, who are also at great risk, ... we’re going to fight back. I think it’s going to be a long, hard fight.” Garrett Bess, who works with a lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said his group will continue to press states to restrict abortion. “We’ll be working with grassroots Americans to ensure the protection of pregnant mothers and babies,” Bess said outside the Supreme Court. “This has been a long time coming, and it’s a welcome decision.” Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans favor preserving Roe. They include Alison Dreith, 41, an abortion activist in southern Illinois, where the governor has vowed to keep the procedure accessible. She said she fears for the safety of abortion workers, especially those who help people from states where the procedure is banned. Dreith works with the Midwest Action Coalition, which offers gas money, child care and other practical support to women seeking abortions. “I absolutely believe that they will try to come after me. I’m not built for prison, but I’m ready,” she said, “and I say, ‘Let’s do this.’ You want to pick that fight with me? I’m fighting back.” People on both sides of the emotional issue took to the streets to protest or rejoice, gathering in parks, on steps of state Capitols, on sidewalks outside courthouses and at abortion clinics. In Omaha, Nebraska, about 50 abortion opponents rallied at a federal courthouse, vowing to pressure lawmakers to outlaw the procedure. A few miles away, more than 1,000 abortion-rights supporters lined a busy street and a bridge overlooking traffic at rush hour, saying they would try to keep abortion legal in the state despite its heavy conservative leanings. They held up signs and shouted as passing motorists honked. In Little Rock, Arkansas, a man in a crowd of more than 100 people held up a sign that said “Abort the Supreme Court.” Outside Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, Missouri, abortion foes held a victory celebration. “I never thought I would live to see this day,” said Mary McMahan, 64, who has been active in the movement since childhood and has spent many hours on the sidewalk outside the clinic praying. “But here it is. Thank God it is here.” Emma Garland, 18, of Freeburg, Illinois, showed up to support Planned Parenthood, saying she was scared her rights were being “stripped away.” “I thought we had more faith in our country as a whole not to overturn it, but we lost that faith today,” Garland said.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Washington, DC recently held a mobile consular camp in Texas' Dallas with the support of the Bangladesh Association of North Texas and the Bangladeshi Expatriate Society of Texas. During June 10-12, around 897 people received services and the government earned $47,932.50 as revenue. The consular team was led by Counsellor Arifa Rahman Ruma and First Secretary Muhammad Abdul Hye Milton. It was the highest turnout and revenue earning in any mobile consular camp organised this year, according to a media statement. At the mobile consular camps, services like the issuance of no visa required (NVR) for travel to Bangladesh, the execution of the power of attorney and attestation are delivered instantly. Also, the applications for dual nationality certificate (DNC) and birth registration certificate (BRC) are received for further processing.

An 11-year-old girl who survived the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, recounted in video testimony to Congress on Wednesday how she covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to avoid being shot and “just stayed quiet.” Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at Robb Elementary School, told lawmakers in a prerecorded video that she watched a teacher get shot in the head before looking for a place to hide. “I thought he would come back so I covered myself with blood,” Miah told the House panel. “I put it all over me and I just stayed quiet.” She called 911 using the deceased teacher’s phone and pleaded for help. Nineteen children and two teachers died when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle inside Robb Elementary School on May 24. It was the second day lawmakers heard wrenching testimony on the nation’s gun violence. On Tuesday, a Senate panel heard from the son of an 86-year-old woman killed when a gunman opened fire in a racist attack on Black shoppers in Buffalo, New York, on May 14. Ten people died. In the video Wednesday, Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, asked his daughter if she feels safe at school anymore. She shook her head no. “Why?” he asks. “I don’t want it to happen again,” she responds. The testimony at the House Oversight Committee came as lawmakers work to strike a bipartisan agreement on gun safety measures in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings. Read: Texas elementary school shooting: What do we know so far? Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the panel’s chairwoman, called the hearing to focus on the human impact of gun violence and the urgency for gun control legislation. “I am asking every member of this committee to listen with an open heart to the brave witnesses who have come forward to tell their stories about how gun violence has impacted their lives,” Maloney said. “Our witnesses today have endured pain and loss. Yet they are displaying incredible courage by coming here to ask us to do our jobs.” But even as some lawmakers shed tears alongside the witnesses, the hearing displayed the contentious debate over gun control Congress has faced repeatedly after mass shootings. Several Republicans turned the conversation to the individuals who abuse guns and how “hardening schools” could help protect students. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who owns a gun store, said that one of the things he learned in his military service was that “the harder the target you are, the less likely you will be engaged by the enemy.” He called on schools to keep doors locked, provide a single point of entry and “a volunteer force of well-trained and armed staff, in addition to a school resource officer.” The parents of victims and survivors implored lawmakers not to let their children’s deaths and pain be in vain. After Miah spoke, her father told lawmakers that he testified because “I could have lost my baby girl.” “But she is not the same little girl that I use to play with,” Cerrillo said. “Schools are not safe anymore. Something needs to really change.” Also testifying was Zeneta Everhart, whose 20-year-old son Zaire was wounded in the Buffalo mass shooting. Everhart told lawmakers it was their duty to draft legislation that protects Zaire and other Americans. She said that if they did not find the testimony moving enough to act on gun laws, they had an invitation to go to her home to help her clean her son’s wounds. “My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back, and another on his left leg,” she said, then paused to compose herself. “As I clean his wounds, I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back. Shrapnel will be left inside of his body for the rest of his life. Now I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children.” The parents of Lexi Rubio, who died in her classroom in Uvalde, also testified. Felix and Kimberly Rubio recounted finding out about their daughter’s death hours after leaving Lexi’s school awards ceremony where she had been recognized as an A-student. To celebrate, they had promised to get her ice cream. To get to the elementary school after the shooting, Kimberly Rubio said she ran barefoot for a mile with her sandals in her hand and with her husband by her side. A firefighter eventually gave them a ride back to the civic center. “Soon after we received the news that our daughter was among the 19 students and two teachers that died as a result of gun violence,” she said, fighting through tears. She said that Lexi would have made a positive change in the world if she had been given the chance. “Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony, thinking I can’t even imagine their pain, not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now,” Kimberly Rubio said. Dr. Roy Guerrero described in stark terms the carnage he witnessed at the local hospital as he tried to treat the injured. He went to the area of the hospital where two dead children had been taken. The bodies were so pulverized, he said, “that the only clue to their identities was the blood-splattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them, clinging for life and finding none.” Read: Texas police: School door shut but didn’t lock before attack After the hearing was over, the Democratic-led House passed legislation that would raise the age limit for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. But the legislation has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programs, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks. The House bill does allow Democratic lawmakers a chance to frame for voters in November where they stand on policies that polls show appeal to a majority. Majorities of U.S. adults think mass shootings would occur less often if guns were harder to get, and that schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago. Chairwoman Maloney ended the lengthy hearing Wednesday telling the loved ones of the victims and survivors that the committee’s work on this topic will continue. Days after the Uvalde shooting the committee launched an investigation into five leading manufacturers of the semi-automatic weapons used in both the recent shootings. “Over the last few days, the committee has received information from these companies that is very troubling,” Maloney said. “I also intend to hold a second hearing to hear directly from the gun industry, so they can explain to the American people why they continue to sell the weapons of choice for mass murderers.”

A gunman stormed into an elementary school Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers in the United States’ deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Law enforcement officers killed the shooter, identified as a local 18-year-old who had shot and wounded his grandmother and spelled out his violent plans in online messages shortly before the massacre at Robb Elementary. Investigators say they don’t yet know a motive for the shootings. A look at what we know so far: WHAT HAPPENED IN UVALDE? The attacker, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face at their Uvalde home, then fled in her truck as she summoned help, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and other officials. A short distance away, Ramos crashed the truck outside the school, got out with a rifle and approached a back door, officials said. They said an officer assigned to the school “engaged” Ramos, but the gunman got into the building and down a hallway to a fourth-grade classroom. After locking the classroom door, he opened fire around 11:30 a.m. with an AR-15-style rifle, carrying multiple magazines. A team including local officers and Border Patrol agents ultimately forced the door open and shot Ramos to death after he fired at them, police said. Other officers and responders shattered some of the school’s windows so teachers and students could escape. Ramos was wearing a tactical vest, though not body armor, according to state senators who said they were briefed on the shooting. There was another AR-15-style rifle in his truck, and a backpack with several magazines full of ammunition was found near the school entrance. WHO WERE THE VICTIMS? Authorities haven’t yet released the victims’ names, but some information about them has emerged from their families. Eliahna Garcia was an outgoing 10-year-old who loved to sing, dance, play sports and be with her family, according to aunt Siria Arizmendi. Uziyah Garcia was only 8 and “the sweetest little boy that I’ve ever known,” said grandfather Manny Renfro, recalling how the youngster was already able to master football pass patterns. Xavier Javier Lopez, 10, had been looking forward to a summer of swimming. Ebullient and loving, he was “just enjoying life, not knowing that this tragedy was going to happen today,” cousin Lisa Garza said. Swift-footed Layla Salazar, 10, had won six races at the school’s field day. “She was just a whole lot of fun,” said her father, Vincent Salazar, remembering how she danced to TikTok videos and sang along with him to the Guns N’ Roses song “Sweet Child O’ Mine” every morning on the way to school. Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10, hadn’t wanted to go to school Tuesday, appearing to think that something bad would happen, her mom, Veronica Luevanos, told Univision. A cousin of Jailah’s also was killed. Eva Mireles, 44, had been teaching for 17 years, according to a welcome letter to students she wrote last fall. She and her husband, a school police officer, had a grown daughter. Mireles wrote that she loved running and hiking, and relative Amber Ybarra said she had an adventurous spirit. WHO WAS THE GUNMAN? Ramos lived in Uvalde itself, a predominantly Latino city of about 16,000 people in a farming area roughly 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the Mexican border and 85 miles (135 kilometers) from San Antonio. A high school dropout, Ramos had no known criminal record or history of mental health problems, Abbott said. Also Read: 'Horrifying' conspiracy theories swirl around Texas shooting In the half-hour before the school killings, Ramos used Facebook to say that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had done so, and then that he was going to shoot up an unspecified elementary school, officials said. Facebook said Ramos’ posts were private messages that came to light after the killings. Investigators also have been scrutinizing an Instagram account that apparently belonged to Ramos. In the days before the shooting, posts featured a photo of a hand holding an ammunition magazine and another photo of two AR-15-style rifles. The account asked another Instagram user to share the latter photo with her 10,000 followers; she declined, saying it was “scary” and she barely knew him. On the morning of the massacre, the account linked to Ramos sent her an ominous message: “I’m about to.” WHERE DID THE GUN COME FROM? The gunman legally bought his weapons soon after his 18th birthday and days before the attack, law enforcement officials told state lawmakers. He purchased one rifle from a federally licensed gun dealer in the Uvalde area May 17, according to a state police briefing to state Sen. John Whitmire. On May 18, the gunman bought 375 rounds of ammunition. Then, two days later, he bought a second rifle.  WHAT DON’T WE KNOW? Authorities haven’t disclosed a full list of the victims. Nor have many important details about the attack been made public.   Among them: what transpired between Ramos and the school officer who first encountered him; who saw the online posts attributed to him; what, if any, history he had with Robb Elementary; and why he went on the rampage. “We don’t see a motive or catalyst right now,” McCraw said Wednesday afternoon. HOW MANY MASS SHOOTINGS HAVE THERE BEEN IN U.S. SCHOOLS? There have been 14 shootings that have claimed four or more victims’ lives at U.S. schools and colleges since 1999, when two students killed 12 of their peers and a teacher at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999. That’s according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University, and to other AP reporting. These mass attacks have killed 169 people in all. The massacre in Uvalde was the deadliest since December 2012, when 20 first graders and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut by a gunman who had just killed his mother. In 2007, a Virginia Tech student fatally shot 32 people.    

Once again, one of America’s deadliest mass shootings happened in Texas. Past shootings targeted worshippers during a Sunday sermon, shoppers at a Walmart, students on a high school campus and drivers on a highway. Among the latest victims were 19 children in the small town of Uvalde, west of San Antonio, where on Tuesday a gunman opened fire inside an elementary school in the nation’s deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Each of those tragedies in Texas — which resulted in more than 85 dead in all — occurred in the last five years. But as the horror in Uvalde plunges the U.S. into another debate over gun violence, Texas and the state’s Republican-controlled government have by now demonstrated what is likely to happen next: virtually nothing that would restrict gun access. Also read: Biden says ‘we have to act’ after Texas school shooting Lawmakers are unlikely to adopt any significant new limits on guns. Last year, gun laws were actually loosened after a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist 2019 attack that targeted Hispanics. “I can’t wrap my head around it,” said state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde. “It’s disturbing to me as a policymaker that we have been able to do little other than create greater access to these militarized weapons to just about anyone who would want them.” Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott identified the gunman as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. Two other adults also died in the attack. The gunman was killed by authorities. The cycle in Texas — a mass shooting followed by few if any new restrictions on guns — mirrors GOP efforts to block stricter laws in Congress and the ensuring outrage from Democrats and supporters of tougher gun control. President Joe Biden angrily made a renewed push Tuesday evening after the tragedy in Uvalde. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” he asked in an address from the White House. The shooting in Texas happened days before the National Rifle Association is set to hold its annual meeting in Houston, where Abbott and other Republican leaders are scheduled to speak. Even as Biden’s party has slim control of Congress, gun violence bills have stalled in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate. Last year, the House passed two bills to expand background checks on firearms purchases, but both languished in the 50-50 Senate where Democrats need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome objections from a filibuster. “It sort of centers around the issue of mental health. It seems like there’s consensus in that area,” No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune said about how Congress should respond to the Uvalde shooting. He did not specify what that would be. In Texas, any changes to gun access would not come until lawmakers return to the Capitol in 2023. In the past, calls for action have faded. Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, said the shooting in Uvalde was carried out “horrifically, incomprehensibly” on children. He did not immediately say how or whether Texas would respond to this latest mass shooting on a policy level, but since he became governor in 2015, the state has only gotten more relaxed when it comes to gun laws. Also read: Gunman kills at least 18 children at Texas elementary school Exactly one year before the Uvalde shooting, the GOP-controlled Legislature voted to remove one of the last major gun restrictions in Texas: required licenses, background checks and training for the nearly 1.6 million registered handgun owners in the state at the time. Abbott signed the measure, which came at the end of what was the Texas Legislature’s first chance to act after the Walmart attack. A year later, a man went on a highway shooting rampage in the West Texas oil patch that left seven people dead, spraying bullets into passing cars and shopping plazas and killing a U.S. Postal Service employee while hijacking her mail truck. Following a shooting at Santa Fe High School in 2018 that killed 10 people near Houston, Abbott signaled support for so-called red flag laws, which restrict gun access for people deemed dangerous to themselves or others. But he later retreated amid pushback from gun-rights supporters. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won the GOP nomination for a third term Tuesday, told Fox News after the Uvalde shooting that the best response would be training teachers and “hardening” schools. Democrat state Rep. Joe Moody recalled the hope he felt that the Walmart shooting in his border city might finally lead to reforms. “And the only answer you get when we go to the Capitol is, ‘More guns, less restrictions,‘” Moody said. “That’s it.’”