A grisly checklist and a sickening rampage: Inside the Uvalde massacre  —  UVALDE, Tex. — The gray Ford pickup truck veered into a ditch with such force that people who live on the block assumed it was an accident and rushed over to help the driver.  —  Instead, according to witness and police accounts …

The NRA won after Sandy Hook, but today the gun lobby is in disarray and gun safety is slowly making gains in states.  —  How the U.S. got to the point where 19 fourth-graders were slaughtered in a single classroom in Uvalde, Texas, is along a tortured path, arguably going back as far as 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified.

Texas school shooting: Senator Ted Cruz storms off over questions about gun reform  —  Among the mourners at a vigil for the 21 people killed at Tuesday's mass shooting are Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, and his ally in the senate, Ted Cruz; Republican politicians who block all Democratic Party attempts to change gun laws.

‘Goodfellas’ Star Ray Liotta Dies at 67  —  A shocker.  Ray Liotta, the terrific actor whose career breakout came in the Martin Scorsese crime classic Goodfellas, has died.  Deadline hears he died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic, where he was shooting the film Dangerous Waters.

The next U.S. abortion battle is over pills, and it's already begun  —  The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet released its decision that looks set to dramatically scale back abortion rights, but one of the next legal battles has already begun in a Mississippi court.

Actor Kevin Spacey charged with sexual assault  —  Actor Kevin Spacey charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men, Crown Prosecution Service says … You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts.

Where Senate Republicans Stand on Gun Legislation  —  The New York Times reached out on Wednesday to all 50 Republicans in the Senate to see whether they would support a pair of House-passed measures to strengthen background checks for gun buyers.  Within hours of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde …

Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams are in a rematch.  A lot has changed since 2018.  —  The political landscape in Georgia — and nationally — has shifted significantly  —  Stacey Abrams refused to concede the Georgia governor's race to Republican Brian Kemp four years ago, even after it was clear she had lost.

SFUSD drops the word ‘chief’ from job titles to avoid connotation with Native Americans  —  The word “chief” will no longer be used in reference to job titles in the San Francisco Unified School District in an effort, school officials said, to avoid the word's connotation with Native Americans.

Source: Donna ISD shuts down campuses after AK-47 found amid credible mass shooting threat  —  Donna ISD will be shutting down all campuses Thursday and Friday after a credible threat was reported to police, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Trump loses appeal, must testify in New York civil probe  —  NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state's civil investigation into his business practices, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.  —  A four-judge panel in the appellate division …

House Rating Changes: 10 More Races Move Towards Republicans  —  As the parties navigate primaries and begin polling and placing fall ad buys, Republicans' House advantage looks as robust as ever.  For independent voters, inflation has become such a dominant concern that neither …