Newsletter: Trump and the mass shootings

A look at President Trump’s response to a grieving nation.

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Trump and the Mass Shootings

As the death toll rose to 31 from the weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump condemned the gunmen who carried out the attacks and the racism that motivated one of them. He blamed the internet, video games and mental health problems. Not on his list: guns — even after having suggested in a tweet that background checks could be paired with “desperately needed immigration reform.” The president also vowed to give federal law enforcement “whatever they need” to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism, though the reality is his administration has sought to redirect resources away from countering anti-government, far-right and white supremacist groups. Trump is expected to visit El Paso and Dayton later this week, though many in the Texas border town said he should stay away. Meanwhile, a number of nations are warning their citizens that traveling in the United States could place them at risk. As the Japanese Consul in Detroit put it: The U.S. is “a gun society.”

‘I Knew That She Was Up Above Us’

Keyla Salazar loved animals, drawing and telling stories through animation. The 13-year-old was one of three people shot to death last week at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Her mother saw Keyla fall to the ground. “She looked at me, and she could no longer speak,” she said. “She took my hand and looked up at the sky.” This is Keyla’s story.

In Danger of Being Counted Out

After a legal fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump administration abandoned its efforts last month to add a citizenship question to next year’s census. But some activists fear that immigrants still may be undercounted and are seeking to reassure them it is safe to participate in the once-a-decade tally that determines how federal money and power is apportioned. Among the groups most at risk of not being fully tallied: Latino children younger than 5.

Trade Wars Are Easy, Yes?

The U.S.-China trade war has taken a turn for the worse, with Beijing allowing its currency to weaken and having announced that it is stopping new American farm purchases. That sent U.S. stocks into a tailspin Monday and has increased the risks of a global economic downturn. The Trump administration’s response: It formally labeled China a “currency manipulator” — a major escalation of the economic battle.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

On this date in 1911, in a suburb of Jamestown, N.Y., Lucille Ball was born to an electrician father and pianist mother. Ball had set her sights on stardom almost from the first. By 5, the brown-haired little girl was taking music lessons. The rest would be history.

CALIFORNIA

-- Nine months after the Woolsey fire torched Malibu, an “anti-mansionization” ordinance is dead, and the houses just might get bigger. Says one man whose neighborhood was decimated: “The fear is that these poor unfortunates who cannot rebuild sell the dirt, and developers max out the lot.”

-- Three years after the state Legislature banned taxpayer-financed travel to states it saw as discriminating against LGBTQ people, lawmakers and university athletic teams are still visiting the boycotted states.

-- The 5 is California’s deadliest highway, according to one new measure.

-- A Riverside high school student could face felony charges after authorities say he tricked his teachers into revealing their computer login information to polish his own grades and worsen those of others.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- “Beverly Hills, 90210” is back. Well, not exactly, but as a six-episode, mockumentary-style show called “BH90210” with a meta twist.

-- The trial of rapper ASAP Rocky on assault charges has thrust him into Sweden’s volatile debates around crime and immigration.

-- At a time of transformation and tumult, the film academy will meet to elect a new president tonight. Who might they choose?

-- James Murdoch has taken a controlling stake in the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by actor Robert De Niro.

NATION-WORLD

-- The Trump administration has frozen all Venezuelan government assets in a dramatic ratcheting up of tensions with President Nicolas Maduro.

-- An amateur body builder in Florida was sentenced to 20 years in prison for mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and others days before last year’s midterm elections.

-- Nevada‘s first recorded earthquake death probably was the result of the Ridgecrest temblors in California.

-- Hiroshima marked the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city with its mayor renewing calls for eliminating such weapons and demanding Japan’s government do more.

-- India has revoked the limited autonomy that Kashmir — its only Muslim-majority territory — had held for decades with a historic but controversial constitutional change, fulfilling a longtime goal of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

BUSINESS

-- The Hollywood & Highland shopping and entertainment center has been acquired by a real estate partnership that plans to renovate the property, which opened in 2001 and helped lure investment back to the neighborhood.

-- A year after a Victoria’s Secret executive vowed to exclude “transsexuals” from fashion shows, the underwear brand has officially hired its first openly transgender model.

SPORTS

-- America’s top basketball prospect is USC-bound. Evan Mobley, the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2020 class, chose the Trojans today — unsurprisingly, since his dad’s joined the team’s staff and his brother Isaiah is already a forward. Evan will be the highest-rated recruit ever to join the program.

-- MLS star Alejandro Bedoya’s timely goal celebration during a game on Sunday: a plea to lawmakers yelled into a field mic. “Congress, do something now. End gun violence!” The kicker: He was named the MLS player of the week.

OPINION

-- Trump’s cynical response to mass shootings falls far short of the gun reform needed, The Times Editorial Board writes. By tying a background-check bill to immigration reform, he “would reward the Texas gunman by using his despicable act of anti-Latino violence as a lever to achieve his goal.”

-- More from the editorial board: Los Angeles’ move to ban people from sleeping in their cars in residential areas isn’t tenable if it doesn’t offer them other places to park. The city must make that happen.

-- Directors of top cancer centers shouldn’t take money from drug companies, doctors H. Gilbert Welch and David Carr write. It’s vital to separate the conflicting interests of product promotion and unbiased evaluation.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- In El Paso, some gun stores were doing a brisk business after the weekend’s massacre. (The Guardian)

-- The rise of digital textbooks and their effect on learning. (Wired)

-- How the semicolon was born; was lambasted; and then proliferated. (Paris Review)

ONLY IN L.A.

What do you do if you want to help give the Los Angeles River a makeover? You buy a piece of it. The owner of a Frogtown kayak rental business has bought a 4.5-acre chunk of the river, the better to shape the city’s $1.4-billion plans for a park along it. (His current gripe: a pedestrian bridge being built just above his parcel.) The unlikely series of events that led to the real-estate deal began with an old Times article about the complicated picture of just who owns all those slivers of river.

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