The world at a glance
Washington DC
Biden says “enough”: President Biden made an impassioned plea for new federal gun-control laws last week, in a rare primetime televised address to the nation. “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” he asked, as he called on congress to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, to strengthen background checks for gun buyers, and to withdraw legal immunity for gun manufacturers. In the weeks leading up to Biden’s speech, the US had been rocked by a series of gun massacres, including the attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May that left ten people dead; the attack on a school in Uvalde, Texas, two weeks ago, in which 21 people were killed; and the killing of two doctors, and two others, at a clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last Wednesday.
In the days after his speech, there were more shootings – in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Michigan – each of which killed three people. Measures such as those Biden proposed have been blocked by Republicans in the past, but he said the public mood was shifting. “I believe the majority of you will act to turn your outrage into making this issue central to your vote,” he said. “Enough, enough, enough!”
Los Angeles
Bill Cosby trial: A woman who claims Bill Cosby molested her when she was 16 years old took the stand in a Los Angeles court this week. Judy Huth’s civil suit is one of the last outstanding claims against the former comedian, who has been accused of sexual assaults by multiple women. Now 84, he was jailed in 2018 for an attack on Andrea Constand in 2004, but was released last year when his conviction was overturned on a technicality. Several other civil cases against him were settled. Huth says that she met Cosby in a park in 1975, and that he then invited her to the Playboy Mansion where he forced her to perform a sex act on him. She reported it to the police in 2014, but the statute of limitations had passed. Cosby denies the charge.
Washington DC
Capital riot hearings: The US congress’s investigation of the assault on the Capitol of 6 January 2021 was due to enter a new phase this week, with the start of a series of televised hearings. The select committee has spent the past year gathering evidence on the events leading up to that day, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent the formal certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The panel of six Democratic and two Republican senators will use the hearings to set out their findings, with the aim of convincing the US public that Trump bears responsibility for the attempted insurrection. Explosive revelations about his alleged law-breaking have been promised, but observers say a public already exhausted by 6 January-related news might not care about them as much as the committee members hope.
Tapachula, Mexico
Migrant caravan: Roughly 6,000 people set off on foot north from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula on Monday, forming the largest migrant caravan seen in the region for some years. Organisers said that nearly 70% of the migrants heading to the US border were women and children. The largest contingents came from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, but there were also Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans and citizens of India, Bangladesh and some African countries. Others joined the caravan en route, and according to some reports, it was 32 miles long by Tuesday. The caravan’s departure coincided with the Summit of the Americas in LA, where regional leaders were expected to discuss migration.
New York City
Plane sanctions: A US court has issued warrants for the seizure of two private planes, worth $400m, from the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. According to the court, the planes – a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and a Gulfstream G650 ER – both made recent flights that violated US export controls. These were imposed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in an effort to put pressure on oligarchs with links to the Kremlin. The US government says that the planes flew from third countries to Moscow in March – at a time when owners of US-made planes needed a licence to take them to Russia. With one of the planes believed to be in Dubai, and the other in Russia, it’s not clear that the US will be able to seize them, but it could impose fines and other charges; and by making the warrants public, it hopes to make it hard to move the planes again. Abramovich, who owns the planes through shell companies, denies having close ties to the Kremlin.
Atalaia do Norte, Brazil
Missing in the Amazon: Fears were growing this week for the safety of a British journalist and his Brazilian colleague, who went missing in a remote part of the Brazilian Amazon on Sunday. Dom Phillips, who has written about the Amazon for various newspapers, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, an expert on indigenous tribes, were travelling through the Javari Valley, gathering information about conservation efforts in the area, which is under threat from illegal loggers, miners and hunters. Pereira had recently received death threats owing to his campaigns against illegal fishing. However, this week, President Bolsonaro appeared to blame the men for whatever has befallen them, saying their journey had been an inadvisable “adventure”.