The Sunday Subject – April 16, 2023

A bank employee killed five of his colleagues in a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky.

He also wounded nine others. He live-streamed the massacre on Instagram before being shot dead by police. There have been 146 mass shootings in America in 2023 so far. 

Jack Teixeira, an employee of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, uploaded hundreds of classified intelligence documents to a conservative server on Discord.

The documents show, among other things, the extent of America’s involvement in Ukraine, Ukrainian counter-offensive capabilities and strategies, intelligence on infighting among Russian elites, and the secretly-monitored private conversations of UN secretary-general António Guterres (which were surveilled due to his suspected pro-Russian sympathies). It was the biggest leak of top-secret information since Edward Snowden’s leak of military papers in 2013.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which bans abortions in Florida after six weeks.

While there are exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies, victims must show proof. Meanwhile, the Fifth Court of Appeals blocked part of an earlier ruling made by a judge in Texas that would have prevented sales of mifepristone, an abortion pill.