First Run News

“God bless America,” our president said, dutifully, after the bloody Sunday in Las Vegas. It’s a wish worth repeating. It’s an intervention sorely needed in a country seriously lost. God bless America, where shock over a torrent of bullets that sends dozens more to the morgue doesn’t last, if indeed there’s shock at all. This kind of violence is no longer exceptional. But we are. No other affluent country can match our massacres or, in the face of them, our paralysis. We stand out boldly in this regard. We lead. God bless America, awash in self-delusion.

After mass shootings like the nightmare in Las Vegas, there are always complaints that we don’t talk enough about gun control in America, that we need to actually have the debate about guns and mass murder that the National Rifle Association and the Republicans supposedly keep shutting down. I don’t think this is right.

After mass shootings like the nightmare in Las Vegas, there are always complaints that we don’t talk enough about gun control in America, that we need to actually have the debate about guns and mass murder that the National Rifle Association and the Republicans supposedly keep shutting down. I don’t think this is right.

The weekend was perfect for an escape. It was Las Vegas, the poster city for getting away, and a dazzling lineup of entertainment beckoned, a three-day country music festival known as Route 91. For the devoted, there was no other place to be last weekend, and they came from all over. They flew in from Toronto and Tennessee. They drove from New Mexico and California.

LAS VEGAS — Marilou Danley, the girlfriend of the gunman in the Las Vegas mass shooting, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday night and was met by the authorities, according to a law enforcement official.

LAS VEGAS — Before he mowed down concertgoers from a perch high in a hotel tower, Stephen C. Paddock created a ring of surveillance around him, with video cameras in his suite and in the hallway, law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.

Since Florida is a hotly contested swing state that has changed the course of presidential elections, it’s no exaggeration to say that Maria may end up changing the American political landscape permanently. Politico quotes San Juan Municipal Assembly President Marco Rigau bluntly predicting that the post-Maria exodus of up to one million Puerto Ricans will mean “a lot more people voting Democrat in Florida.” “Puerto Ri

Since Florida is a hotly contested swing state that has changed the course of presidential elections, it’s no exaggeration to say that Maria may end up changing the American political landscape permanently. Politico quotes San Juan Municipal Assembly President Marco Rigau bluntly predicting that the post-Maria exodus of up to one million Puerto Ricans will mean “a lot more people voting Democrat in Florida.” “Puerto Ri

Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, former first lady Michelle Obama said when she attended the State of the Union address she would notice the Republican side was “all men, all white,” and that was why she argued many people of color “don’t trust politics.” Speaking about diversity, Obama said, “We should be working actively to mix it up, so we’re getting a real broad range of perspectives on every issue. Shoot, I would see that in Congress.” She explained, “At the State of the Union address … when you are in the room what you can see is this real dichotomy.

Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, former first lady Michelle Obama said when she attended the State of the Union address she would notice the Republican side was “all men, all white,” and that was why she argued many people of color “don’t trust politics.” Speaking about diversity, Obama said, “We should be working actively to mix it up, so we’re getting a real broad range of perspectives on every issue. Shoot, I would see that in Congress.” She explained, “At the State of the Union address … when you are in the room what you can see is this real dichotomy.