Vice President Kamala Harris visits Highland Park shooting scene
CNN
Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said Americans need to understand that gun violence "can happen anywhere," during a visit to the Illinois city where a gunman killed at least seven people in a mass shooting at a July Fourth parade.
"There's a lot of healing that's going to have to happen that is both physical and emotional. There's no question that this experience is something that is going to linger in terms of the trauma," Harris told members of the media gathered at the scene of the shooting in Highland Park. "I'd like to urge all the families and all the individuals to do seek the support you so rightly deserve."
Addressing gun safety in the United States, the vice president continued: "We've got to be smarter as a country in terms of who has access to what -- and in particular assault weapons. We have to take this stuff seriously. As seriously as you are because you have been forced to take it seriously. The whole nation should understand and have a level of empathy to understand that this can happen anywhere, in any peace loving community."
At least 30 people were detained by New York Police Department officers, CNN witnessed, as police entered Columbia University on Thursday to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest that began a day earlier as the university’s president testified before a House committee about the school’s response to antisemitism.
President Joe Biden is tapping a senior White House official to serve as US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a key body amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and at a time when the US is seeking to project confidence about its support for Ukraine, according to an announcement from the White House.
Speaker Mike Johnson is being lobbied by his members to raise the threshold required to trigger the procedure to oust the speaker, according to multiple GOP sources – a move that would help ensure the Louisiana Republican can pass foreign aid bills and still keep his job without needing to rely on Democrats to bail him out.