Mayors Urge Senate To Return To Washington For Gun Bill Vote

President Donald Trump is greeted by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, after arriving at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to meet with people affected by the mass shooting in Dayton, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BY MATHEW DALY, LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 200 mayors, including two anguished by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, are urging the Senate to return to the Capitol to act on gun safety legislation amid criticism that Congress is failing to respond to back-to-back shootings that left 31 peopledead.

In a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, the mayors wrote, “Our nation can no longer wait for our federal government to take the actions necessary to prevent people who should not have access to firearms from being able to purchase them.”

The mayors urged the Senate to vote on two House-passed bills expanding background checks for gun sales that passed that chamber earlier this year. It was signed by El Paso, Texas, Mayor Dee Margo, Dayton, Ohio, Mayor Nan Whaley and others where mass shootings have occurred, including Orlando and Parkland, Florida, Pittsburgh and Annapolis, Maryland.

“There is no worse thing that can happen to a city,” Whaley said of the weekend shooting that killed nine people in Dayton. “We cannot allow this tragic event to fade from our memories without taking action. Politics has stood in the way of action for too long, and I can tell you politics seems very petty when it is your friends and neighbors who are injured or dead.”

The push comes as McConnell, the Republican leader, resists pressure to recall senators from the congressional recess, despite wrenching calls to “do something” in the aftermath of the shootings.

Instead, McConnell is taking a more measured approach, as GOP senators talk frequently among themselves and with the White House in the face of mounting criticism that Congress is failing to act.

President Donald Trump is privately calling up senators while publicly pushing for an expansion of background checks for firearms purchases, but McConnell knows those ideas have little Republican support. In fact, the White House threatened to veto a House-passed background checks bill earlier this year. Yet, as the nation reels from the frequency of shootings and their grave toll, McConnell’s unwillingness to confront the gun lobby or move more swiftly is coming under scrutiny.

“I can only do what I can do,” the president told reporters Wednesday as he departed Washington for visits to El Paso and Dayton to comfort victims and families and to praise first responders.

Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown made a personal plea to Trump during his visit to “call on Sen. McConnell to bring the Senate back in session this week, to tell the Senate he wants the background checks bill that has already passed the House.”

The politics of gun violence are difficult for Republicans, including McConnell, who would risk losing support as he seeks reelection in Kentucky if he backed restricting access to firearms and ammunition. Other Republicans, including those in Colorado, Maine and swing states, also would face difficult votes, despite the clamor for some changes to gun laws.

“In Congress, we’re trying to come up with some answers,” Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who is also up for reelection, said after donating blood in El Paso.

In Kentucky, where McConnell is recuperating from a shoulder fracture sustained in a weekend fall, activists have been demonstrating at his home and protesting at his downtown Louisville office.

In the meantime, Trump continues to say there’s “great appetite” for background checks legislation.

But that is not the case, for now.

Instead, Republicans are trying to build support for more modest measures, including so-called red-flag bills from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that would allow friends and family members to petition authorities to keep guns away from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. But those efforts are also running into trouble from conservatives, who worry about due process and infringing on gun owners’ rights.

GOP senators are also considering changes to the existing federal background checks system, modeled on the so-called “fix-NICS” law signed last year that improved the National Instant Criminal Background Check system, as well as strengthening penalties for hate crimes.

While many of those proposals have bipartisan support, Democrats are unlikely to agree to them without consideration of the more substantive background checks bill.

“We Democrats are not going to settle for half-measures so Republicans can feel better and try to push the issue of gun violence off to the side,” Schumer said Wednesday.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who, along with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is pushing a bill to expand background checks, said Trump’s support will be the determining factor in whatever gets done.

“At this point in time leadership comes from President Trump,” Manchin said.

Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

Zimbabweans Are ‘Marching Towards Starvation’

Scraping by: Emilda Chingarambe prepares a meal in the Chinamhora district northeast of Harare. She says there is no bread in the shops and she can’t afford groceries. (Jekesai Njikizana/AFP)

AFP AUGUST 8, 2019

 HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AFP) -- The United Nations food agency on Tuesday launched a $331-million appeal for aid donations to feed millions of people in crisis-hit Zimbabwe, which is reeling from a drought and the high cost of food.

About five million people, or a third of the country’s 16 million-strong population, are in need of aid and at least half of them are on the cusp of “starvation”, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Speaking at the launch of the appeal, WFP executive director David Beasley said 2.5-million Zimbabweans were “in crisis emergency mode … marching towards starvation”.


He added that by early next year a total of 5.5-million people would be in a similar position.

Zimbabwe was previously the breadbasket of Southern Africa, but its economy has been on a downturn for more than a decade with perennial food shortages, a foreign currency crunch, scarcity of basic commodities and high unemployment.

The government blames the food shortages on the effects of climate change, although critics say the shortages are a result of a slump in agricultural production following the government’s land reforms.

The last agricultural period was particularly bad as the country was hit by an El Niño-induced drought.

In addition to food shortages, the appeal also targeted the humanitarian needs of victims of cyclone Idai, which swept through parts of eastern Zimbabwe earlier this year.

The cyclone, which also hit parts of Malawi and Mozambique, affected 570 000 Zimbabweans and displaced about 50 000 people in the country.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube last week said the government was feeding hundreds of thousands of people affected by drought in both rural and urban areas, and had provided grain to 757 000 households since January.

The country’s inflation rate spiked to 176% in June up from 97.85% in May, according to official figures, and the government has decided to stop publishing inflation statistics for the next six months, raising fears of that the hyperinflation of 2008 may return.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over from veteran autocrat Robert Mugabe after a military coup in November 2017. In July last year Mnangagwa won disputed elections. During campaigning he pledged to revive the moribund economy, attract foreign investment, create jobs and turn the country into a middle-income economy by 2030.

But the dire financial problems of the Mugabe era returned to haunt the new leader, when a new 2% tax on electronic transactions in October spawned shortages of fuel and basic commodities.
The tax pushed the prices of food beyond the reach of many people.

Mnangagwa then announced a 150% fuel price increase in January, triggering countrywide protests that left at least 17 people dead and scores injured when soldiers opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. This fuel price hike — and five subsequent increases — were meant to ease shortages that have seen queues, in some cases more than a kilometre long, become a regular sight at petrol stations. Despite the price increases, the shortages persist.

Largest US Immigration Raids In A Decade Net 680 Arrests

Two people are taken into custody at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in Morton, Miss., on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019. U.S. immigration officials raided several Mississippi food processing plants on Wednesday and signaled that the early-morning strikes were part of a large-scale operation targeting owners as well as employees. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

BY ROGELIX SOLLIS, JEFF AMY

MORTON, MISS. (AP) — U.S. immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 mostly Latino workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in at least a decade.

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latino city where a man linked to an online screed about a “Hispanic invasion” was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead in the border city.

Workers filled three buses — two for men and one for women — at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in tiny Morton, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Jackson. They were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations. About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!” Later, two more buses arrived.

A tearful 13-year-old boy whose parents are from Guatemala waved goodbye to his mother, a Koch worker, as he stood beside his father. Some employees tried to flee on foot but were captured in the parking lot.

Workers who were confirmed to have legal status were allowed to leave the plant after having their trunks searched.

“It was a sad situation inside,” said Domingo Candelaria, a legal resident and Koch worker who said authorities checked employees’ identification documents.

The company did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

About 600 agents fanned out across the plants involving several companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing. They occurred in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Latino immigrants, including Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol.

Matthew Albence, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting director, told The Associated Press that the raids could be the largest such operation thus far in any single state.

Asked to comment on the fact that the raid was happening on the same day as Trump’s El Paso visit, Albence responded, “This is a long-term operation that’s been going on. Our enforcement operations are being done on a racially neutral basis. Investigations are based on evidence.”

The sting was another demonstration of Trump’s signature domestic priority to crack down on illegal immigration. While planned months ago, it coincided with the day that Trump was to visit El Paso to offer his condolences to the majority-Latino city after a gunman linked with an anti-Hispanic post online fatally shot 22 people on Saturday.

Such large shows of force were common under President George W. Bush, most notably at a kosher meatpacking plant in tiny Postville, Iowa, in 2008. President Barack Obama avoided them, limiting his workplace immigration efforts to low-profile audits that were done outside of public view.

Trump resumed workplace raids, but the months of preparation and hefty resources they require make them rare. Last year, the administration hit a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. The former owner of the Tennessee plant was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month.

A hangar at the Mississippi National Guard in Flowood, near Jackson, was set up with 2,000 meals to process employees for immigration violations on Wednesday. There were seven lines, one for each location that was hit. Buses had been lined up since early in the day to be dispatched to the plants.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” Chris Heck, resident agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in Jackson, told The Associated Press inside the hangar. “This is a very large worksite operation.”

Koch Foods, based in Park Ridge, Illinois, is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. and employs about 13,000 people, with operations in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee.

Forbes ranks it as the 135th largest privately held company in the U.S., with an estimated $3.2 billion in annual revenue. The Morton plant produces more than 700,000 tons of poultry feed a year, company officials said in February. The company has no relation to prominent conservative political donors and activists Charles and David Koch.

Agents arrived at the Morton plant, passing a chain-link fence with barbed wire on top, with a sign that said the company was hiring. Mike Hurst, the U.S. attorney for Mississippi, was at the scene.

Workers had their wrists tied with plastic bands and were told to deposit personal belongings in clear plastic bags. Agents collected the bags before they boarded buses.

“This will affect the economy,” Maria Isabel Ayala, a child care worker for plant employees, said as the buses left. “Without them here, how will you get your chicken?”

Immigration agents also hit a Peco Foods Inc. plant in Canton, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Jackson. The company, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, says it is the eighth-largest poultry producer in the U.S. A company representative did not immediately respond to a telephone call or email seeking comment.

___

Amy reported from Pearl, Mississippi. Associated Press reporter Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

A Seismic Shift? Registered Democrats Outnumber Republicans In OC

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CBS LOS ANGELES

SANTA ANA (CBSLA) – In what could be a sign of a major demographic shift in the region, Orange County now has slightly more registered Democrats than Republicans, according to new numbers released Wednesday.

O.C. has 547,458 registered Democrats, compared to 547,369 registered Republicans in data provided by the O.C. Registrar of Voters, a margin of 89 voters.

A whopping 440,711 voters had no political affiliation, making up about 27 percent of the electorate. While 43,884 voters registered with the American Independent Party.

“We have more immigrants, it’s much more ethnically, racially-diverse, and we do have more college-educated voters,” Sarah A. Hill, associate professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton, told CBS2 Wednesday. “And all of those demographic groups are going to trend Democratic.”

Last November, Democrats swept all four congressional seats in O.C., a longtime Republican stronghold. In the 45th congressional district, Rep. Katie Porter, pulled off a surprising win over two-term incumbent Republican Rep. Mimi Walters. In the 48th District, 15-time incumbent Rep. Dana Rohrabacher lost to real estate executive Harley Rouda. In the 49th District, Democrat Mike Levin captured the U.S. House seat held for years by retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.

Hillary Clinton won the county by eight points in the 2016 election, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won the district since Franklin D. Roosevelt did it 1936, according to the L.A. Times.

The 'Amazon Of Africa' Faces A Big Challenge: No Addresses

Viviane Lakpa, a 39-year-old “co-pilot” at Jumia, is responsible for staying on the phone with customers and figuring out where they live in a city with very few addresses. Anzoumana Gbane, 37, is the driver. (Danielle Paquette/The Washington Post)

BY DANIELLE PAQUETTE

ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (WASHINGTON POST) -- She had eight hours, 32 packages to deliver and no addresses.

So, the woman on the front lines of Africa's burgeoning e-commerce industry in the Ivory Coast city Abidjan stayed on the phone, listening to directions: Look for the ice cream cart.

Viviane Lakpa's job was to find the customers - even if they were nowhere near the ice cream cart - and stay polite, even when they demanded to open an order before handing her money.

Few people in her West African city of 4.4 million have numbers on their houses. Credit cards are rare. So is trust in online shopping.

"You have to have patience," Lakpa said in her blue Mazda van crammed with microwaves, printers, shoe racks and soap. "Lots of patience."

Internet users in Africa now outnumber America's population by some estimates, but reaching that exploding market is among the continent's most pressing business challenges. Hopes of leaping into the world of same-day delivery are colliding with the lack of street signs, dominance of cash, threat of robbery and fear of knockoffs.

Labyrinths of red tape, meanwhile, stall packages at the borders, making it easier for someone in Ivory Coast to buy something from Germany than neighbouring Ghana.

Today only 1 per cent of goods sold in Africa are purchased on a screen, but if that share swells to 10 per cent - closer to US and European levels - McKinsey analysts forecast annual sales will hit $US75 billion ($110 billion), unleashing an economic boom and a new age of convenience on the continent.

Lakpa, 39, wants to make convenience her career.

She's one of thousands in the region who deliver goods by car, truck and motorcycle for Jumia, Africa's biggest web retailer with about 4 million users.

The fleet fluctuates with demand. Jumia enlists local firms to manage delivery staffers on contract in 14 countries. Pay, benefits and schedules vary.

Lakpa was on a two-week run that would net her 60,000 West African CFA francs (about $150), a step up from selling ginger juice out of her home.

She likes the revolving door of problems to solve. The go, go, go. Being a mum of four, she said, gave her the necessary skills.

"You have to communicate and be creative," she said on a recent route.

She'd never considered buying stuff online when two French entrepreneurs founded Jumia seven years ago in Nigeria. She'd walk to markets in her neighbourhood - or, on special occasions, ask someone to bring her something from somewhere.

"This is the future," she said.

Jumia became the first start-up from the continent to list on Wall Street this year, prompting pundits to dub it "the Amazon of Africa". Reporters deemed the event "historic". The firm's stock shot up. Critics noted that a digital marketplace steered by Europeans shouldn't be called African.

Both potential and struggle manifested in Jumia's first earnings report as a public company. Sales jumped by 58 per cent over the last quarter to $US268 million, executives reported in May, but losses deepened to nearly $US51 million from $US38 million.

Lakpa lives some of those losses.

She works in a team of two with a former taxi driver, 37-year-old Anzoumana Gbane. He sits behind the wheel while she talks to customers, trying to figure out where they are and what time they can meet.

"Hello," she says again and again on a recent summer morning. "This is Jumia."

One customer no longer wants her soap. ("Are you sure?")

One man doesn't recall placing an order. ("I have that you wanted this for Tuesday.")

Another woman won't answer her phone.

All in the span of 10 minutes.

Service cuts in and out. "Hello?" Lakpa says as they bump from a paved road to a dirt path. "Hello? I can't understand you."

People normally tell her to meet near a landmark - pharmacies, hotels, banks, schools.

They start the day at a college campus and wait six minutes for a student who bought a printer to meet them.

They park next in front of a hair salon and wait seven minutes to sell a phone.

They park next on a patch of gravel to drop off a lighter. No one comes. The phone rings. The customer is actually a half-mile down the street. They pull up. There he is.

Cash is king in Ivory Coast and most other African nations. No sale is complete until money changes hands.

Sometimes, this leads Lakpa inside a customer's house or workplace. She follows a lawyer into his grey office and watches him open a cardboard box.

No one speaks as he pulls out an electric kettle. His assistant rushes over, fills it up with water and plugs it into the wall.

"I want to confirm that it works," the lawyer says.

Lakpa keeps an eye on the clock.

Jumia's warehouse in the industrial Koumassi suburb has steel gates, concrete walls and a line of workers waiting outside just after sunrise.

They've come to sort packages, load cars, grab a new list of phone numbers and zip into the city, where they complete as many as 30,000 daily orders.

Half of Jumia's packages in Africa go to pickup centres. It's easier for rural folks, who sometimes lack reliable phones, to grab their goods from a physical location.

The other half is carried off by the contract workers. Many grew up in these neighbourhoods.

"You can never replace the local knowledge, the local interaction," chief executive Sacha Poignonnec said. "It's about the details."

The details separate good staffers from lousy ones, said Martial Ohoukou, who supervises the Ivory Coast delivery team. Some days, that's 100 people. Some days, 250. (Jumia won't disclose the exact number.)

Yes, they start as contractors, agents of the global gig economy. There are upsides (flexibility, good pay in a country where the average person annually makes $US1692) and downsides (irregular work, fear of messing up and never hearing from your boss again).

America's Amazon Flex and China's Alibaba follow similar labour models for what analysts call the last mile. But the work is much harder here. No one can rely on GPS.

"You have to be more than a common driver to advance at this company," Ohoukou said. "You have to know the products. You shouldn't be calling your supervisor all the time and asking, 'What should I do?'"

Those with tenacity can move up, he said. Salaried employees tend to work in management, marketing and human resources.

"My night manager started as a simple delivery agent," he said. "You can double your pay after two years or so."

The pressure stays on for Lakpa.

It's midday. Traffic clogs seemingly every road. She hasn't taken a bathroom break.

The delivery partners must finish by 4pm for security reasons. A Jumia driver was robbed and killed two years ago in Nigeria while toting iPhones.

They roll down the windows on the way to the next destination, a downtown marketing firm, and breathe the usual smog.

The place is called Zen Communications. Relief: It's just off the highway. Easy to find.

They slide into a parking spot. Gbane stays in the van. Lakpa grabs an orange bag with the Jumia logo. Up the stairs she goes to an office with no windows.

An IT manager in a Hawaiian shirt greets her. He's not smiling.

Before they can discuss today's order, he wants to raise a grievance.

"I've been waiting for a receipt for a printer since April," he said. "I can't do my expenses without it."

Lakpa nods. She understands. She'll tell someone.

The man doesn't seem to believe her. He repeats himself. He really needs to do his expenses.

Then he reaches for her bag and pulls out printer cartridges.

His eyes widen.

"Magenta?!"

He'd ordered black ink.

Lakpa stays calm. She's sorry about that. She'll get him the right colour.

"This ride has been harder than usual," she says, walking outside. Three hours have passed, and she has delivered only three packages.

Gbane starts the engine without a word.

They'd go on to deliver 16 of the 32 orders. Worry would grip Lakpa's gut. She was scheduled to work the rest of the week.

Washington Post

Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison Dead At 88

In this Feb. 27, 2013 file photo, author Toni Morrison signs copies of her latest book "Home," during Google's online program series, Authors At Google, in New York. The Nobel Prize-winning author has died. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf says Morrison died Monday, Aug. 5, 2019 at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. She was 88. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

BY HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) — Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in “Beloved,” ″Sula” and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York after a brief illness.

“Toni Morrison passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends,” Morrison’s family said in a statement through the publisher. “She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends. The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing.”

Few authors rose in such rapid, spectacular style. She was nearly 40 when her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” was published. By her early 60s, after just six novels, she had become the first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, praised in 1993 by the Swedish academy for her “visionary force” and for delving into “language itself, a language she wants to liberate” from categories of black and white.

Morrison helped educate her country and the world about the private lives of the unknown and unwanted. In her novels, history — black history — was a hidden trove of poetry, tragedy and good old gossip, whether in small-town Ohio in “Sula” or big-city Harlem in “Jazz.” She regarded race as a social construct, and through language founded the better world her characters suffered to attain, weaving in everything from African literature and slave folklore to the Bible and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

“Narrative has never been merely entertainment for me,” she said in her Nobel lecture. “It is, I believe, one of the principal ways in which we absorb knowledge.”

Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved,” she was one of the book world’s most regal presences, with her expanse of graying braids; her dark, discerning eyes; and her warm, theatrical voice, which could lower to a mysterious growl or rise to a humorous falsetto. “That handsome and perceptive lady,” James Baldwin called her.

Her admirers ranged from college students and housewives to Barack Obama, who awarded her a Presidential Medal of Honor; Bill Clinton, whom the author called “our first black president”; and Oprah Winfrey, who helped expand Morrison’s readership. Morrison shared those high opinions, repeatedly labeling one of her novels, “Love,” as “perfect” and rejecting the idea that artistic achievement called for quiet modesty.

“Maya Angelou helped me without her knowing it,” Morrison told The Associated Press during a 1998 interview. “When she was writing her first book, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ I was an editor at Random House. She was having such a good time, and she never said, ‘Who me? My little book?’

“I decided that ... winning the (Nobel) prize was fabulous,” Morrison added. “Nobody was going to take that and make it into something else. I felt representational. I felt American. I felt Ohioan. I felt blacker than ever. I felt more woman than ever. I felt all of that, and put all of that together and went out and had a good time.”

Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, a steel town outside of Cleveland. She attended Howard University, where she spent much of her free time in the theater, and met and married a Jamaican architect, Harold Morrison, whom she divorced in 1964. They had two children, Harold and Slade.

Even when she was growing up, she believed she was smarter than the white kids and took it for granted she was wiser. She was an honors student and attended Howard because she dreamed of life spent among black intellectuals.

But although she went on to teach there, Howard disappointed her. Campus life seemed closer to a finishing school than to an institution of learning.

Protesters, among them her former student Stokely Carmichael, were demanding equality. Morrison wanted that, too, but wondered what kind.

“I thought they wanted to integrate for nefarious purposes,” she said. “I thought they should demand money in those black schools. That was the problem — the resources, the better equipment, the better teachers, the buildings that were falling apart — not being in some high school next to some white kids.”

In 1964, she became an editor at Random House and one of the few black women in publishing. Over the next 20 years, she would work with emerging fiction authors such as Gayl Jones and Toni Cade Bambara, on a memoir by Muhammad Ali and books by such activists as Angela Davis and Black Panther Huey Newton. A special project was editing “The Black Book,” a collection of everything from newspaper advertisements to song lyrics that anticipated her immersion in the everyday lives of the past.

By the late ’60s, she was a single mother and determined writer who had been pushed by her future editor, Robert Gottlieb, into deciding whether she’d write or edit. Seated at her kitchen table, she fleshed out a story based on a childhood memory of a black girl in Lorain who desired blue eyes. She called the novel “The Bluest Eye.” She had no agent and was rejected by several publishers before reaching a deal with Holt, which released the novel in 1969. Sales were modest, but critics liked it and Morrison soon signed up with Gottlieb and Knopf, which became her longtime publisher.

In his Own Words: Ex-Cardinal's Letters To Abuse Victims

James Grein, 61, at his house in Sterling, Va., Friday, July 26, 2019, holds a Florida postcard sent to him when he was 15 years old by now-defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Letters and postcards from McCarrick wrote to three men he allegedly sexually abused and harassed show how he groomed his victims, experts say. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — At first glance, the handwritten postcards and letters look innocuous, even warm, sometimes signed off by “Uncle T.” or “Your uncle, Father Ted.”
Special report: The Reckoning

But taken in context, the correspondence penned by disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to the young men he is accused of sexually abusing or harassing is a window into the way a predator grooms his prey, according to two abuse prevention experts who reviewed it for The Associated Press.

Full of flattery, familiarity and boasts about his own power, the letters provide visceral evidence of how a globe-trotting bishop made young, vulnerable men feel special — and then allegedly took advantage of them.

The AP is exclusively publishing correspondence McCarrick wrote to three men ahead of the promised release of the Vatican’s own report into who knew what and when about his efforts to bed would-be priests. Access to an archbishop for young men seeking to become priests “is a key piece of the grooming process here,” said one of the experts, Monica Applewhite.

Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick, 89, in February after a church investigation determined he sexually abused minors as well as adult seminarians. The case has created a credibility crisis for the Catholic hierarchy , since McCarrick’s misconduct was reported to some U.S. and Vatican higher-ups, but he nevertheless remained an influential cardinal until his downfall last year.

McCarrick has declined to comment on his case, except to say in an initial statement last year that he was innocent but accepted the Holy See’s decision to remove him from ministry. McCarrick lawyer J. Michael Ritty declined to comment on the correspondence.

The testimony of James Grein, 61, the first child McCarrick baptized, was key to the Vatican case. The son of close family friends, Grein told church investigators that McCarrick began sexually abusing him when he was 11, including during confession and at family weddings and holiday celebrations.

In an interview with AP, Grein said McCarrick’s exalted place in the family over three generations created pressure on him to visit with McCarrick during weekends away from boarding school and visits when he would be molested.

“If I didn’t go to see Theodore I was always going to be asked by my brothers and sisters or my dad, ‘Why didn’t you go see him?’”

That family dynamic is present in the postcards McCarrick sent to Grein — notes without postmarks that were included in letters McCarrick sent to his father.

“Time is getting close for your visit back east,” McCarrick wrote to Grein while he was at boarding school at the Woodside Priory School in California in the 1970s. “I’ll be calling home one of these days to check on arrangements.” He signed the note “Love to all, Your uncle, Fr. Ted.”

Applewhite said the text betrays McCarrick’s clear expectations that Grein would come visit, as well as the involvement of his family in arranging the rendezvous. A postcard visible to the family, she added, is the most open form of communication, and was likely meant to show Grein that what McCarrick was doing wasn’t wrong.

“To send it in a postcard says ‘I have nothing to hide,’” said Applewhite, who has counseled U.S. dioceses and religious orders about child protection programs and training.

In 1981, McCarrick was named the first bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey. Last year, his seminarian victims began speaking out about how their former bishop would refer to them as his “nephews” and insist that they call him “Uncle Ted” — creating an informal family relationship that would make it very difficult for any of them to ever report misconduct, Applewhite said.

Former seminarians recounted how McCarrick would invite groups of young men for weekends fishing or at his beach house, always inviting one extra to force someone to share his bed. McCarrick later denied having ever had sexual relations with anyone but acknowledged an “unfortunate lack of judgment” in sharing a bed with the men, according to a 2008 email to the Vatican.

In correspondence to one Metuchen seminarian after he was named archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, McCarrick detailed his jet-setting ministry in the summer of 1987, when he travelled to Russia and Poland at the height of St. John Paul II’s efforts to bring down communism in Eastern Europe. Later that year, he told the young man how he accompanied John Paul on his U.S. pilgrimage.

“It’s reminding him of his position of power, that he has all this access to special privileges,” said Elizabeth Jeglic, professor of psychology and expert in sexual violence prevention at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She said the message to the seminarian was: ”‘You stay with me, you get access to that.’”

The seminarian later wrote to another bishop that he had witnessed McCarrick and other would-be priests engaging in sexual activity during a fishing trip and that McCarrick had groped him during an overnight stay at McCarrick’s Manhattan apartment later that summer. He said he vomited in the bathroom that Friday night because of the trauma.

In a letter soon after , McCarrick wrote: “I just want to say thanks for coming on Friday evening. I really enjoyed our visit.”

In eight letters to the seminarian, McCarrick repeatedly urged the young man to call him collect at his offices in Newark, providing his direct line and the dates of his comings and goings. He also urged him repeatedly to come visit — a frequency of demanding contact that Jeglic said constituted harassment and an attempt to “keep him in the web.”

“We have an almost full house, and by tomorrow the couches and maybe the floor will be taken — but we would have made room even for a big guy like you,” McCarrick wrote him.

In a sign of possible desperation, he added: “P.S. Do you even get my letters?”

McCarrick also referred to an incident where the two met a Mafia-associated businessman who was gunned down shortly after in a mob hit.

“Thank God we didn’t go to dinner on Saturday night!” McCarrick wrote. “We’d have been in the middle of a gangland rub-out.”

In a subsequent letter Aug. 28, 1987, written on Admirals Club letterhead during a flight in Poland, McCarrick referred again to the murder in his trademark small script: “You stick with your uncle and you’ll really meet exciting people.”

Jeglic said the reference to the mob hit was a shared, illicit experience that “bonds you in secrecy.”

Another seminarian, the Rev. Desmond Rossi, was studying for the priesthood at Immaculate Conception seminary in Newark, New Jersey when McCarrick was named archbishop. He said McCarrick had made it a point to greet Rossi’s father at Mass, and wrote to Rossi when the young man took a sabbatical in 1987.

In the letter, McCarrick wrote that he had just been with John Paul during his trip to Miami, and was praying for Rossi to come back.

“You’re still very much part of the family,” McCarrick wrote.

Rossi said he now sees McCarrick was grooming him with the letter, particularly his reference to John Paul and being part of “the family.”

“Here’s an archbishop of the church telling a 25-year-old kid who is interested in priesthood that he just left a meeting with the pope,” Rossi said. “This is a major deal!”

Rossi ultimately moved to another diocese in 1989, after a meeting where he said McCarrick rolled his chair “inappropriately close” and touched Rossi’s leg as he spoke.

“At that moment, pretty much in my mind I thought ‘I’m leaving this diocese,’ because it was that uncomfortable,” Rossi said.

As much as he considers himself a survivor, Rossi acknowledges that McCarrick was a gifted, charismatic pastor. Applewhite said abusers aren’t just monsters — as evidenced by McCarrick’s own correspondence looking out for his seminarians.

“If we’re only looking for demons, we’re not ever going to catch anyone,” she said.

The U.S. victims’ advocacy group SNAP said McCarrick’s correspondence provides “textbook examples of grooming behavior” that should serve as a wakeup call about the subtle ways predators build relationship with their victims and ingratiate themselves into families.

“We hope that the publication of these letters will lead to both healing for the survivors and new opportunities for parents and the public to become educated about grooming,” SNAP said in a statement after the AP report.

Links to the letters:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6238060-c-aug87-letter.html

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6238062-c-tuesday-letter.html

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6238061-c-saturday-letter.html

Gun Reform Urged In Ohio As Texas Democrats Shun Trump Visit

Gloria Garces kneels in front of crosses at a makeshift memorial near the scene of a mass shooting at a shopping complex Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. The border city jolted by a weekend massacre at a Walmart absorbed more grief Monday as the death toll climbed and prepared for a visit from President Donald Trump over anger from El Paso residents and local Democratic leaders who say he isn't welcome and should stay away. (AP Photo/John Locher)


BY JOHN SEEWER, CEDAR ATTANASIO

DAYTON, OHIO (AP) — Ohio’s Republican governor bucked his party to call for expanded gun laws Tuesday and some Democrats in Texas told President Donald Trump to stay away as both states reeled from a pair of shootings that killed 31 people.

A racist screed remained the focus of police investigating the massacre at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, while the FBI opened an investigation into the mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, citing the gunman’s interest in violent ideology.

PUSH FOR LEGISLATION IN OHIO

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged the GOP-led state Legislature to pass laws requiring background checks for nearly all gun sales and allowing courts to restrict firearms access for people perceived as threats.

Persuading the Legislature to pass such proposals could be an uphill battle. It has given little consideration this session to those and other gun-safety measures already introduced by Democrats and DeWine’s Republican predecessor, John Kasich, also unsuccessfully pushed for a so-called red flag law on restricting firearms for people considered threats.

“We can come together to do these things to save lives,” DeWine said.

FBI INVESTIGATING DAYTON SHOOTING

On Tuesday, the FBI opened an investigation into the mass shooting at a popular Dayton nightlife district to try to determine what ideologies influenced 24-year-old gunman Connor Betts.

Special Agent Todd Wickerham, head of the FBI’s Cincinnati field office, said the agency is looking into who might have helped Betts and why he chose his specific target.

Wickerham didn’t say whether the FBI is looking at treating the case as domestic terrorism, as it did in the Texas mass shooting earlier in the weekend.

EL PASO DEMOCRATS BALK AT TRUMP VISIT

President Donald Trump was planning visits to both cities Wednesday, an announcement that stirred some resistance in El Paso.

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso made clear that the president was not welcome in her hometown as it mourned. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who was an El Paso congressman for six years, also said Trump should stay away.

Escobar tweeted that the White House had invited her to join Trump during his visit but she’ll instead attend a rally that organizers say will confront the president and white supremacy while calling for gun control.

Escobar said Tuesday that victims’ families were already using the city’s newly opened resource center where various government and mental health services have set up booths.

“There’s going to be a lot of trauma in our community; a lot of children saw things that no human being should see,” Escobar said.

EL PASO DEMOCRATS BALK AT TRUMP VISIT

President Donald Trump was planning visits to both cities Wednesday, an announcement that stirred some resistance in El Paso.

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso made clear that the president was not welcome in her hometown as it mourned. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who was an El Paso congressman for six years, also said Trump should stay away.

Escobar tweeted that the White House had invited her to join Trump during his visit but she’ll instead attend a rally that organizers say will confront the president and white supremacy while calling for gun control.

Escobar said Tuesday that victims’ families were already using the city’s newly opened resource center where various government and mental health services have set up booths.

“There’s going to be a lot of trauma in our community; a lot of children saw things that no human being should see,” Escobar said.

EX: OHIO SHOOTER SHARED DARK THOUGHTS

A woman who briefly dated the Ohio gunman said he suffered from bipolar disorder, joked about his dark thoughts and exhibited a fascination with mass shootings.

Adelia Johnson wrote in an online essay that Betts showed her a video of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on their first date.

She said Betts expressed “uncontrollable urges” that she called “red flags,” which eventually led her to call things off in May.

GUN CONTROL AND IMMIGRATION

On Monday, Trump made a vague expression of openness to new gun laws , suggesting a bill to expand gun background checks could be combined with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system but gave no rationale for the pairing.

Studies have repeatedly shown that immigrants have a lower level of criminality than those born in the U.S., both shooting suspects were citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive in the Texas massacre.

In both El Paso and Dayton, a young white male was identified as the lone suspect. The suspect in the Texas shooting, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, was booked on murder charges. Betts was killed as police quickly swooped in to end his ambush.

Attanasio reported from El Paso. Contributing to this report were Julie Carr Smyth and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; Astrid Galvan and Morgan Lee in El Paso; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; and Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.

China Vows Countermeasures If US Deploys Missiles In Asia

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper

BY CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

BEIJING (AP) — China said Tuesday it “will not stand idly by” and will take countermeasures if the U.S. deploys intermediate-range missiles in the Indo-Pacific region, which it plans to do within months.

The statement from the director of the foreign ministry’s Arms Control Department, Fu Cong, follows the U.S.’s withdrawal last week from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a move Fu said would have a “direct negative impact on the global strategic stability” as well as security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Fu said China was particularly concerned about announced plans to develop and test a land-based intermediate-range missile in the Asia-Pacific “sooner rather than later,” in the words of one U.S. official.

“China will not stand idly by and be forced to take countermeasures should the U.S. deploy intermediate-range ground-based missiles this part of the world,” Fu told reporters at a specially called briefing.

He also advised other nations, particularly South Korea, Japan and Australia, to “exercise prudence” and not allow the U.S. to deploy such weapons on their territory, saying that would “not serve the national security interests of these countries.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in Asia over the weekend that he wanted to deploy midrange conventional missiles in the Asia-Pacific within months. Australia previously said the locations for the bases were not yet known but it would not be one of them.

Fu also said China had no intention of joining nuclear weapons reduction talks with the U.S. and Russia, pointing to the huge gap in the size of China’s arsenal compared to those of the other two. China has an estimated 290 nuclear warheads deployed, compared to 1,600 for Russia and 1,750 for the U.S., according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for urgent arms control talks to prevent a chaotic arms race following the treaty’s demise. He also said Monday that Russia would only deploy new intermediate-range missiles if the United States does.

China has already shown “maximum restraint” in developing its arsenal and stuck to its policy that it would not be the first to use a nuclear weapon in a conflict, Fu said.

“I don’t think it is reasonable or even fair to expect China to participate in an arms reduction negotiation at this stage,” Fu said, but added that China remained committed to multilateral efforts to reduce nuclear stockpiles such as the U.N.’s Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, although it has yet to ratify that agreement.

Fu wouldn’t elaborate on what countermeasures China was considering taking against the U.S., saying only that “everything is on the table,” although he did say China has never and would never take part in a nuclear arms race.

Nor would he say how China might retaliate against countries that hosted U.S. land-based intermediate-range missiles, although China has in past used economic means to retaliate against South Korea over its deployment of a U.S. anti-missile defense system known as THAAD.

Fu dismissed U.S. arguments for leaving the INF as “pure pretext,” saying Washington was merely looking for an excuse to develop new weapons. If it truly believes Russia is cheating on the treaty, as it says, than the way forward is to negotiate rather than withdraw, Fu said.

Meanwhile, Washington’s argument that it is threatened by China because 80 percent or more of Chinese missiles fall into the intermediate-range category doesn’t hold up, since those missiles would be unable to reach the continental U.S.

“So the U.S. would be the least to worry if that is the case,” Fu said. “That shows that all of this is nothing but a pretext.”

They would have been banned under the INF Treaty signed by Russia and the U.S. in 1987. It expired Friday, with Washington saying it withdrew because of Russia’s alleged violations of the pact. Russia denies breaching the terms.

The end of the INF Treaty comes amid rising doubts about whether the two countries will extend an agreement on long-range nuclear weapons scheduled to expire in 2021 known as New START. President Donald Trump said he has been discussing a new agreement to reduce nuclear weapons with China and Russia.

“And I will tell you China was very, very excited about talking about it and so was Russia,” Trump told reporters. “So I think we’ll have a deal at some point.”

Asked about Trump’s comments, Fu said he didn’t wish to contradict Trump, but repeated that China “has no interest and, frankly, we don’t think we are even in a position to participate in a trilateral negotiation aimed at a nuclear arms reduction.”

Judge Sentences Man Who Sent Pipe Bombs To Dems To 20 years

This Aug. 30, 2015, file photo released by the Broward County Sheriff's Office shows Cesar Sayoc in Miami. Sayoc, who created a two-week crisis by mailing 16 packages of inoperative pipe bombs packed with fireworks powder and shards of glass to 13 famous Democrats and CNN is scheduled to learn his punishment Monday, Aug. 5, 2019. (Broward County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

BY TOM HAYS, LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida amateur body builder who admitted sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and CNN was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday by a judge who concluded the bombs purposely were not designed to explode.

Cesar Sayoc, 57, wept and crossed himself, appearing relieved, when U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence.

Prosecutors had urged a life prison term for Sayoc, who pleaded guilty earlier this year after mailing 16 pipe bombs days before the midterm elections last fall.

“He hated his victims, he wished them no good, but he was not so lost as to wish them dead, at least not by his own hand,” the judge said.

The one-time stripper and pizza delivery man from Aventura, Florida, apologized to his victims, saying he was “so very sorry for what I did.”

His targets included Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, several members of Congress, former President Barack Obama and actor Robert De Niro. Devices were also mailed to CNN offices in New York and Atlanta.

Assistant Federal Defender Marcus Amelkin said Sayoc was obsessed with President Donald Trump and grew to believe Democrats were to blame for damage to his van, which was plastered with Trump stickers and images of crosshairs superimposed over the faces of Trump opponents. Sayoc “looked up to the president as a father figure,” the lawyer said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim said Sayoc “set out to terrorize people” and had not sufficiently shown remorse.

“Politics cannot justify a terrorist attack,” she said, while the judge dismissed talk of Trump as a “side show.”

Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said in a statement that “time and again, we have seen individuals attempt to express political views and resolve political disagreements through violence.

“Cesar Sayoc has now been sentenced for acts of domestic terrorism that are repulsive to all Americans who cherish a society built on respectful and non-violent political discourse,” Demers said. “Our democracy depends on our debating our strongly held views peacefully and respectfully, and when someone does not, on our prosecuting and punishing those who do not abide by these values.”

Sayoc read from a hand-written statement shortly before he was sentenced, saying he blamed a life of mental illness, a childhood sexual assault he suffered from a boarding school teacher, excessive use of steroids and his failure to listen to his mother, “the love of my life.”

“I was in deep denial. I understand now that I have committed a very serious crime,” Sayoc said.

“I wish more than anything I could turn back time and take back what I did,” he added. “With all my heart and soul, I feel the pain and suffering of these victims and I will be apologizing to them for the rest of my life.”

Prior to hearing from lawyers, Rakoff questioned two bomb experts and two doctors who examined Sayoc.

The bomb experts, one an FBI agent, and one hired by the defense, agreed Sayoc’s packages were not configured to explode. As the judge noted, the clocks were not set and wires were not attached.

The psychiatric experts who examined Sayoc at the request of the defense agreed that steroids influenced his behavior, particularly his delusions and obsessions.

In all, 16 rudimentary pipe bombs were mailed to addresses in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia. None exploded.

In letters to the judge, Sayoc has said he abused steroids for more than four decades and was using 274 different supplements and vitamins along with “heavy amounts of steroids” before his arrest.

He wrote that before he mailed explosives, his idea “first was how to tone down the liberal left violence platform.” He wrote that he believed prominent Democrats were encouraging violence, saying he had been attacked personally — including as he returned to his hotel after attending Trump’s inauguration.

He was living in his van when arrested in late October.

Explaining his crimes, he said he was never political until he was looking at Facebook on his phone one day when “Donald J. Trump popped up ...” He likened attending a Trump rally to taking drugs.

In one letter he wrote: “I was getting so wrapped up in this new-found fun drug.”

As Death Count Rises In 2 US Shootings, A Familiar Aftermath

Greg Zanis prepares crosses to place at a makeshift memorial for victims of a mass shooting at a shopping complex Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

BY MATT SEDENSKY, ASTRID GALVAN

EL PASO, TEXAS (AP) — Anguished families planned funerals in two U.S. cities, politicians pointed fingers and a nation numbed by gun violence wondered what might come next Monday as the death toll from two weekend mass shootings rose to 31.

The attacks 1,300 miles apart — at a packed shopping center in El Paso, Texas , and a popular nightlife stretch in Dayton, Ohio — also injured dozens more. They became the newest entries on an ever-growing list of mass shooting sites and spurred discussion on where to lay the blame. President Donald Trump cited mental illness and video games but steered away from talk of curbing gun sales.

For all the back-to-back horror of innocent people slain amid everyday life, decades of an unmistakably American problem of gun violence ensured it wasn’t entirely shocking. Even as the familiar post-shooting rituals played out in both cities, others clung to life in hospitals, with two new fatalities recorded among those injured at the shooting at the Walmart in El Paso.

As in a litany of other shooting sites before, the public juggled stories of the goodness seen in lives cut short with inklings of the demented motives of the shooters, and on-scene heroics with troubling ideologies that may have sparked the bloodshed.

Equally familiar, Washington reacted along party lines, with Trump’s vague suggestion of openness to new gun laws met with skepticism by an opposition that has heard similar talk before.

“Hate has no place in America,” the president declared in a 10-minute speech from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, condemning racism and rehashing national conversations on treatment for mental health, depiction of violence in the media, and discourse on the internet.

A racist screed authorities were working to confirm was left by the alleged perpetrator in the Texas shooting, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, mirrored some of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Some, like Ernesto Carrillo, whose brother-in-law Ivan Manzano was killed in the Walmart attack, said the president shares blame for inflammatory language Carrillo called a “campaign of terror.”

“His work as a generator of hate ended in this,” said Carrillo, who crossed the border from Ciudad Juárez on Monday for a meeting in El Paso with Mexico’s foreign minister. “Thanks to him, this is all happening.”

Trump, in turn, tweeted that the media “contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up.”

Trump suggested a bill to expand gun background checks could be combined with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system, but gave no rationale for the pairing. Studies have repeatedly shown immigrants have a lower level of criminality than those born in the U.S., both shooting suspects were citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive in the Texas massacre.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a leading voice on gun reform since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his state rattled the country with the slaughter of 20 children, immediately dismissed the president’s proposal as meaningless. “Tying background checks to immigration reform is a transparent play to do nothing,” he wrote on Twitter.

Whatever the political back-and-forth, or the re-energized presence of gun control talk on the presidential campaign trail, the very real consequences of gun violence were still being bared by victims badly injured in the two states.

In both incidents, a young white male was identified as the lone suspect. Though authorities were eyeing racism as a possible factor in Texas, where the alleged shooter has been booked on murder charges, in Ohio police said there was no indication of a similar motivation. Police in Dayton said they responded in about 30 seconds early Sunday and fatally shot 24-year-old Connor Betts. While the gunman was white and six of the nine killed were black, police said the quickness of the rampage made any discrimination in the shooting seem unlikely.

Betts’ sister was also among the dead.

“It seems to just defy believability he would shoot his own sister, but it’s also hard to believe that he didn’t recognize it was his sister, so we just don’t know,” said Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine visited the scene Sunday and said policymakers must consider: “Is there anything we can do in the future to make sure something like this does not happen?”

Hours later, hundreds of people stood at a vigil and vented their frustration at the Republican governor, interrupting him with chants of “Make a change!” and “Do something!” as he talked about the victims.

“People are angry, and they’re upset. They should be,” said Jennifer Alfrey, 24, of Middletown, who added that she didn’t agree with interrupting the vigil but understood why so many did.

In Texas, where 22 were killed, authorities said the accused shooter hailed from a Dallas suburb a 10-hour drive away. Authorities seemed to take some solace in knowing the shooter wasn’t one of their own.

“It’s not what we’re about,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said.

Sedensky reported from New York and can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://twitter.com/sedensky

Contributing to this report were John Seewer in Dayton, Ohio; Julie Carr Smyth and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; Cedar Attanasio and Morgan Lee in El Paso, Texas; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; and Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.

This story has been amended to correct that the combined death toll from the shootings is 31.