AFP

America’s powerful National Rifle Association kicked off a major convention in Houston Friday, days after the horrific massacre of children at a Texas elementary school, but a string of high-profile no-shows underscored deep unease at the timing of the gun lobby event.

Former president Donald Trump was among the scheduled speakers at the annual convention, held around four hours drive from the small town of Uvalde, where a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers on Tuesday with an AR-15 assault rifle.

Thousands of gun enthusiasts descended on the meeting, filling a vast convention hall packed with booths of gun and gear manufacturers, walls of semi-automatic rifles and hunting products.

“This is it, this is the mega,” said a man in his 60s, as he handled a new Hellion rifle he was considering purchasing — as loud music blared from speakers nearby.

But with millions of Americans grieving and angry following the worst school shooting in a decade, “American Pie” singer Don McLean led a wave of country music dropouts from the three-day event, while the Republican state governor, Greg Abbott, said he would no longer appear in person.

McLean said it would be “disrespectful and hurtful” to perform at the “Grand Ole Night of Freedom” concert scheduled during the convention on Saturday. At least five other country music stars, including Lee Greenwood and Larry Gatlin, have also reportedly pulled out.

Abbott — who has brushed aside increasingly emotional calls for tougher gun laws in Texas, where attachment to the right to bear arms runs deep — is expected to make a pre-recorded video address instead. The governor’s lieutenant Dan Patrick also canceled plans to speak at the event.

Facing mounting scrutiny, the gun manufacturer Daniel Defense — which made the assault rifle purchased by the Uvalde shooter Salvador Ramos shortly after his 18th birthday — also decided not to attend in light of the “horrifying tragedy.”

The cancellations came as Texas police faced angry questioning over why it took an hour to neutralize the gunman, while video emerged of desperate parents begging officers to storm the school.

Daniel Myers and his wife Matilda — both local pastors — told AFP they saw parents growing frantic at the scene.

“One family member, he says: ‘I was in the military, just give me a gun, I’ll go in,'” said Daniel Myers, 72. 

– ‘Don’t forget them, please’ –

Facing rapid-fire questioning on the police response to the tragedy, Victor Escalon of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Thursday that investigators were still piecing together the timeline of events.

According to the accounts provided so far, Ramos first shot his grandmother, then drove and crashed her vehicle near the school, firing on bystanders before entering.

Officers went in minutes later, but were held back by gunfire and called for backup. About an hour later, a tactical team entered and killed the gunman.

In the interim, officers evacuated students and teachers and unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with Ramos, who kept firing while barricaded in a classroom.

The gunman’s victims included 10-year-old Amerie Garza — a little girl who loved her classes, drawing, and playing with clay.

“She was an innocent little girl, loving school and looking forward to summer,” her 63-year-old grandmother, Dora Mendoza, told reporters after paying respects at a makeshift memorial outside the school.

Mendoza pleaded for urgent action by authorities to prevent future shootings — as the country plunges again into the deeply divisive debate over guns.

“They need to do something about it. They need to not forget us, the babies… Don’t forget them, please,” she said through tears.

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest since 20 children and six staff were killed at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

Despite the scourge of mass shootings, efforts at nationwide gun control — from banning assault rifles to mandating mental health and criminal background checks on buyers — have repeatedly failed, although polls show support from a majority of Americans.

President Joe Biden will visit Uvalde on Sunday to once again make the case for gun control, as activists set about galvanizing voters on the issue in the run-up to November’s midterm election.

And the March for Our Lives advocacy group — founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida — has called for nationwide protests on June 11 to press the cause.

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The United States spends twice as much on cancer care as the average high-income country, but gets only middle-of-the-table survival results, a study said Friday.

The results were published in the Journal of the American Health Association (JAMA) Health Forum.

“There is a common perception that the US offers the most advanced cancer care in the world,” said lead author Ryan Chow, who is pursuing a medical degree and PhD at Yale University, in a statement.

America is touted for developing advanced new treatments and approving them faster than other countries, and the team were curious about whether this translated into better outcomes.

Out of 22 high-income countries, the United States was found to have by far the highest spending rate: it spends $200 billion per year on cancer care, or roughly $600 per capita, compared to the average of $300 per capita in high-income countries.

But the researchers found this additional spending did not translate into better population-level cancer mortality rates. 

“In other words, countries that spend more on cancer care do not necessarily have better cancer outcomes,” said Chow.

The US was only slightly better than average, while six countries — Australia, Finland, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland — had both better outcomes and lower spending.

Of the countries examined, South Korea and Japan had the lowest cancer mortality rates, while Denmark had the highest, followed by France.

Smoking is the biggest driver of cancer deaths, a factor expected to make cancer outcomes appear more favorable in countries with traditionally low smoking rates such as the US.

After controlling for smoking rates, they found the US was exactly in the middle. Nine countries —  Australia, Finland, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland — had lower smoking-adjusted cancer mortality.

There are a constellation of factors behind surging costs in the US, the team wrote.

Cancer drug expenditures account for 37 percent of privately insured US cancer expenditure, and these drugs cost far more in the US than other countries.

Unlike countries with public health systems, US state-run insurance called Medicaid cannot negotiate drug prices.

Additionally, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not consider pricing when evaluating drug approvals, unlike other countries such as Britain where cost-effectiveness must be factored. 

Much of the growth in drug spending has been attributed to newer types of drugs such as monoclonal antibodies, kinase inhibitors, and immune checkpoint inhibitors, even though the evidence in their favor is often marginal.

Finally, medical care is also more aggressive in the US: “Within the last six months of life, US patients with cancer are admitted to the intensive care unit at twice the rate of other countries and are more likely to receive chemotherapy,” the team wrote.

Specialty societies advocate for more screening than guidelines suggest, further increasing costs, and low-risk tumors, such as early-stage prostate cancers, are more often subject to intervention despite evidence they would unlikely cause harm if untreated.

“Other countries and systems have much to teach the US if we could be open to change,” said co-author Elizabeth Bradley, president of Vassar College.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, published a 205-page list on Thursday of ministers and other church workers who have been accused of sexual abuse.

The public release of the list comes days after an independent investigation said the church had for years suppressed reports of sexual abuse against priests and church staff. 

“This list is being made public for the first time as an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention,” the SBC said in a statement on its website. 

Investigative firm Guidepost’s probe, published Sunday, found that for nearly two decades, survivors and advocates who sounded the alarm over sexual misconduct faced “resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” from members of the church’s executive committee. 

On Thursday, the SBC said that it hoped “that churches will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us.”

The newly released list contains hundreds of entries — some of them partially or fully redacted — detailing allegations, convictions and some cases that were not reported to the police. 

Some of the allegations in the list relate to the sexual abuse of children as young as five years old. 

In 2019, a bombshell investigation by two Texas newspapers revealed hundreds of predators and more than 700 victims of sexual abuse within the SBC since 1998.

The SBC has thousands of churches and 15 million members, mostly in the southern United States.

China’s foreign ministry on Friday accused US Secretary of State Antony Blinken of “smearing” the country, after America’s top diplomat delivered a landmark policy speech calling for action to counterbalance Beijing’s influence.

In the most comprehensive statement to date on China by US President Joe Biden’s administration, Blinken said on Thursday the Asian power posed “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order”.

China has faced a chorus of warnings from the United States and Western allies in recent days over its growing influence and global ambitions.

Blinken warned on Thursday of China’s “intent to reshape the international order” and called on countries to defend the status quo.

He also accused Beijing of raising tensions over Taiwan — a self-ruled island China claims as its territory — and said Beijing has “cut off Taiwan’s relations with countries around the world and (is) blocking it from participating in international organisations”.

Beijing hit out angrily at the speech on Friday, saying it “spreads false information, exaggerates the China threat, interferes in China’s internal affairs and smears China’s domestic and foreign policies”.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that China “firmly opposed” the speech and it showed Washington sought to “contain and suppress China’s development and maintain US hegemony and power”.

The United State recently launched a loose new trade framework across Asia and has set up a forum with the European Union to set technological standards.

The efforts are aimed at uniting like-minded nations as China dominates new fields, such as artificial intelligence.

Blinken acknowledged a growing consensus that other nations cannot change the trajectory of China, saying that under President Xi Jinping it has become “more repressive at home, more aggressive abroad”.

“There is growing convergence about the need to approach relations with Beijing with more realism,” he said.

– ‘Coexist and cooperate’ –

The speech by the US secretary of state contrasted with the approach under former president Donald Trump, whose administration spoke in stark terms of an all-out global conflict with China.

On trips to Africa and Latin America, where China has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure, Blinken has downplayed US-China competition and has not asked nations to take sides.

“We are not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both,” he said in his speech.

“We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power, nor to stop China — or any other country for that matter — from growing their economy or advancing the interests of their people.”

But he said that defending the current global order, including international law and agreements, would “make it possible for all countries — including the United States and China — to coexist and cooperate”.

Biden on Monday made waves by offering the most explicit pledge in decades that the United States would militarily defend Taiwan from any invasion by Beijing.

The pledge angered Beijing, which warned Washington not to “underestimate” China’s resolve and capabilities.

On Thursday, Biden insisted that Washington was not deviating from its longstanding stance on Taiwan and said it was Beijing that had raised tensions, including with near-daily military flights close to the island.

“While our policy has not changed, what has changed is Beijing’s growing coercion,” Blinken said.

Governments including Australia and New Zealand have also sounded alarm this week over leaked documents that appeared to show a plan to build broad security cooperation between China and the Pacific Islands.

China, which insists its cooperation with Pacific Island countries “does not target any country,” has sent its Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a trip across the region this week to discuss dramatic expansion of Beijing’s security and economic engagement.

US gun lobby group the National Rifle Association (NRA) will hold its annual convention in Texas on Friday, days after a horrific school shooting in the state killed 19 children and two teachers. 

The meeting will be held in Houston, a few hours drive east of the elementary school in the small town of Uvalde where an 18-year-old gunman used an assault rifle to carry out the massacre on Tuesday.

Former US president Donald Trump on Wednesday confirmed that he will attend the NRA meeting, saying that the United States “needs real solutions and real leadership in this time, not politicians and partisan considerations.” 

In a statement on its website, the NRA — which has been instrumental in preventing the passage of stricter firearms regulations — said the mass murder in Uvalde was “the act of a lone, deranged criminal.”

On Thursday, Texas police faced angry questions over why it took an hour to neutralize the gunman, as video emerged of desperate parents begging officers to storm the school.

In one jolty, nearly seven-minute clip posted on YouTube, parents are seen screaming expletives at police trying to keep them away from Robb Elementary School.

“It’s my daughter!” one woman bellows in chaotic scenes of crying and shoving.

Angeli Rose Gomez, whose children were inside, told The Wall Street Journal she was handcuffed by federal marshals after she and others pushed police to intervene.

In another video, parents at what is apparently the rear of the building complain angrily that police are doing nothing as the country’s worst school shooting in a decade unfolds.

One woman, frantic about her son, yells to police: “If they’ve got a shot, shoot him or something. Go on.”

Jacinto Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn died on Tuesday, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting.

“There was at least 40 lawmen armed to the teeth but didn’t do a darn thing (until) it was far too late,” Cazares told ABC News Wednesday.

Daniel Myers and his wife Matilda — both local pastors — told AFP they saw parents at the scene growing frantic as police seemed to wait on reinforcements before entering the school.

“Parents were desperate,” said Daniel Myers, 72. “One family member, he says: ‘I was in the military, just give me a gun, I’ll go in. I’m not going to hesitate. I’ll go in.'”

– ‘Approximately an hour’ –

The tight-knit Latino community was changed forever when Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old with a history of being bullied, entered the school and gunned down students and teachers with an assault rifle.

Relatives said the husband of one of the teachers killed in the attack died Thursday from a medical emergency — caused by grief over the loss of his wife. The couple had four children.

Facing rapid-fire questioning by journalists on the police response, Victor Escalon of the Texas Department of Public Safety said investigators were still working to piece together exactly what happened.

After shooting his own grandmother, Ramos crashed her vehicle near the school, Escalon said, then fired on bystanders before entering the school through a door that was apparently unlocked.

Officers went in minutes later, but were held back by gunfire and called for backup. A tactical team including US Border Patrol agents entered and killed the gunman “approximately an hour later.”

In the interim, officers evacuated students and teachers and unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the gunman, who held them back with rifle fire, Escalon said.

– ‘I have no words’ –

Speaking out for the first time, Ramos’ mother Adriana Reyes told ABC News her son could be aggressive when angry but was “not a monster” — and that she was not aware he had been buying weapons.

“I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?'” she told ABC Wednesday evening. “We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others.”

“Those kids… I have no words,” Reyes said through tears. “I don’t know what to say about those poor kids.”

Students who went to high school with Ramos said he bullied others as well as being on the receiving end of abuse.

“I do vividly remember him being a bully in school. It wasn’t just that he was getting bullied, he was also the bully,” 18-year-old Jaime Cruz told AFP.

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest since 20 elementary-age children and six staff were killed at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

– ‘Common sense’ –

Gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, which made the assault rifle used in Uvalde, told AFP it will not attend the NRA’s convention in Houston in light of the “horrifying tragedy.”

“We believe this week is not the appropriate time to be promoting our products in Texas at the NRA meeting,” said the company, which stated its gun had been “criminally misused” in the attack. 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has brushed aside calls for tougher gun laws in his state — where attachment to the right to bear arms runs deep.

US President Joe Biden — who will head to Uvalde on Sunday — has called on lawmakers to take on the gun lobby and enact “common sense gun reforms.”

Gun control activists and lawmakers gathered outside the US Capitol Thursday, vowing no letup in their efforts in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.

“Gun violence prevention is going to be on the ballot,” said the Democratic senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal.

The March for Our Lives advocacy group — founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida — has called for nationwide protests on June 11 to press for gun control.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– Pro-Russian forces claim capture of key town – 

Moscow-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine say they have captured Lyman, a strategic town connecting key cities in the east.

The pro-Russian rebels in the Donetsk region said they had “liberated and taken full control of 220 settlements, including Krasny Liman”, using an old name for Lyman.

After failing to take Kyiv and being driven back from the outskirts of the second city of Kharkiv, Russia is waging all-out war for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which together make up Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

In a sign that Kharkiv is not yet out of harm’s way, nine people were killed in shelling of the northeastern city on Thursday.

– Zelensky warns of ‘genocide’ in Donbas –

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accuses Moscow of carrying out a “genocide” in Donbas, where Russian forces are also closing in on the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

In his daily televised address, Zelensky warns that Russia’s offensive could empty Donbas of its population.

“All this, including the deportation of our people and the mass killings of civilians, is an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia,” he says.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accuses allies of dragging their feet on arms deliveries, telling his German counterpart that Ukraine needs heavy weapons “as soon as possible.”

– Russian to boost grain exports –

Russia says it plans to ramp up grain exports against the backdrop of a looming global food crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. 

Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev says Russia will increase its grain exports from over 37 million tonnes in the 2021-2022 season ending June 30 to 50 million tonnes in the new season starting July 1.

Kyiv and the West blames Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports for stalling grain exports from Europe’s breadbasket.

President Vladimir Putin told Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi in a telephone call he was ready to make a “significant contribution” to averting a global food crisis if the West lifts sanctions imposed on Russia.

– German ‘train lift’ –

A top US defence official says Germany is working on a plan to get up to 22 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain, currently blocked in ports, out of the country by rail.

General Christopher Cavoli tells US lawmakers that Germany’s railway company has dedicated a special train service to get the exports out.

“They are doing what they call a Berlin train lift, an analogy to the Berlin Airlift (an Allied plan to overcome a Soviet blockade of west Berlin in 1949) to dedicate trains to pulling wheat right out of Ukraine into western Europe,” he says.

– Russian guards sacked for refusing to fight –

A Russian court confirms the dismissal of 115 national guardsmen who were sacked after refusing to take part in the war in Ukraine.

The case heard by a military court in Russia’s southern Kabardino-Balkaria republic appears to be the first involving troops refusing to be part of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

The case was heard behind closed doors.

– Mariupol ‘to get Russian curriculum’ –

A Ukrainian official says Russian troops occupying Mariupol have cancelled school summer holidays in the southeastern port city to prepare pupils for switching to a Russian curriculum.

“The occupiers have announced the extension of the school year until September 1,” city official Petro Andryushchenko wrote on social media.

“Throughout the summer, children will have to study Russian language, literature and history as well as maths classes in Russian,” Andryushchenko said. 

There was no confirmation of the announcement from the Russian side.

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