The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS^7
Southaven, Miss.
Store shooting: A disgruntled Walmart
employee fatally shot two co-workers
and wounded a police officer before he
was shot and arrested this week. Martez
Tarrell Abram, 39, had been suspended
from work days earlier after showing
a knife to a colleague, leading another
co-worker to report him to the police.
Abram returned to the Walmart in the
early morning and appears to have set
a fire in the store before taking aim at
a supervisor. He then chased a store
manager into the parking lot and killed
him. A shoot-out with police followed,
with one officer suffering minor inju-
ries after being shot in his bulletproof
vest; Southaven police had undergone
active-shooter training two weeks earlier.
Customer Carlos Odom ran to his car
after hearing more than a dozen shots.
“The world is crazy nowadays,” he said.Lake County, Ill.
Gaming the system: Dozens of wealthy
parents in the Chicago suburbs appear
to have given up legal guardianship of
their high school–age children to qualify
them for college scholarships and finan-
cial aid, The Wall Street Journal reported
this week. The Department of Education
is investigating this legal stratagem, in
which parents transfer guardianship to a
friend, business partner, or relative while
continuing to live with their child. After
a court hearing, the children are able to
declare themselves financially indepen-
dent. The Journal found 38 apparent
cases of this in the Chicago area last year,
mostly involving families living in homes
valued around $500,000. One couple
with a household income of $250,
transferred guardianship of their 17-year-
old daughter. She subsequently got
$20,000 annually in need-based aid to
attend a private college, in addition to
$27,000 in merit scholarships.Gilroy, Calif.
Festival shooting: A 19-year-old who’d
promoted white supremacy fatally shot
three people and injured 12 others at
the annual
Gilroy Garlic
Festival this
week. Police
responded
within one
minute of
Santino
William
Legan opening fire and killed the shooter
as festivalgoers at the 100,000-visitor
event sought escape routes. A motive
wasn’t initially clear, although Legan
had urged Instagram followers to read
Might Is Right, a novel admired by white
supremacists. Legan appears to have got-
ten into the festival with an AK-47–style
rifle by cutting through a fence. He had
legally purchased the gun in Nevada
less than three weeks earlier, but
likely broke California law by
bringing it home to the state.
The dead include a 6-year-old
boy, a 13-year-old girl, and
a 2017 college grad. During
the attack, someone asked,
“Why are you doing this?”
Legan replied, “Because I am
really angry!”Washington, D.C.
Slurs on tape: Ronald
Reagan phoned President
Nixon in 1971 to vent
about African
“monkeys” in the
United Nations,
as heard
on tapes
recorded by
Nixon and
revealed this week. Reagan, then the
Republican governor of California, was
responding to the Tanzanian delega-
tion dancing after the U.N. voted to
recognize the People’s Republic of China
instead of the U.S.-backed Taiwan. “To
see those, those monkeys from those
African countries—damn them, they’re
still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”
Reagan said, drawing a big laugh from
Nixon. Nixon then called Secretary of
State William Rogers to recap Reagan’s
complaint, saying the governor had a
“strong feeling” after watching
“these cannibals on televi-
sion.” Nixon’s presidential
library acquired his infamous
Oval Office tapes, but Reagan’s
slurs were withheld, apparently
to protect the 40th president’s pri-
vacy. Former Nixon library director
Tim Naftali persuaded the National
Archives to release them. “It was
San Diego worse than I expected,” he said.
Children taken: The Trump administra-
tion separated 911 migrant children from
their parents over the past year, lawyers
for the
American
Civil
Liberties
Union told
a federal
judge this
week,
argu-
ing that
the actions violate a court order halting
Trump’s “zero tolerance” separation
policy. Although a judge said in June
2018 that children could still be separated
at the U.S.-Mexico border if their par-
ents posed a danger to them, the ACLU
claims border officials are exploiting this
“loophole” for “unjustified reasons.”
In one example, a father was deemed
“neglectful” and separated from his sick
infant daughter because agents said he
did not change the sleeping girl’s wet dia-
per. Another child was removed because
a parent had a 20-year-old misdemeanor
conviction. Roughly 20 percent of the
new separations affected kids under 5,
compared with about 4 percent last year.Washington, D.C.
Nuclear conflict: Trump
fundraiser Thomas Barrack
sought business financing
from Saudi Arabia even as he
championed a controversial
sale of nuclear technology
to the Saudis, the House
Oversight Committee
reported this week. The administration
approved the sale in December 2017,
despite fears the technology could be
used to build nuclear weapons. Barrack
had arranged the deal during Trump’s
campaign. Meanwhile, House Democrats
say Barrack and a group of former mili-
tary officers were seeking funding from
the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates
to purchase the only U.S. manufacturer
of large-scale nuclear reactors—a deal
potentially worth tens of billions that
failed to materialize. Barrack had
received a draft of a Trump energy speech
during the campaign and sent it to Saudi
and Emirati officials. He then wrote to
campaign chairman Paul Manafort to
push for changes they requested, saying,
“This is probably as close as I can get
Reu without crossing a lot of lines.”
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Comforting a survivorRecorded by NixonMigrant children in custodyBarrack