SHERO on Sunday

Welcome to a lightning-fast comprehensive recap of the week's biggest events for June 17th - 23rd, 2024.

Evidence markers indicate the position of spent shell casings following a mass shooting at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad in Rochester Hills, Michigan, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Eric Seals/via Getty Images)

Welcome to the Sunday Recap, where you can quickly check in to review the week with a minimal time commitment, and make sure you did not miss anything. There are also several links within each snippet to give you more detail from credible and free sources if you want to dive deeper on any issue.

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Gun Violence This Week

There were 14 separate mass shooting incidents in the United States this past week, where 11 people were killed and 81 were injured. Here at SHERO, we document all mass shooting incidents for the week every Sunday, so please take a moment to review them and remember to keep up the fight for sensible gun reform. 

1. Sunday, June 16: 2024: South Bend, Indiana

2. Sunday, June 16: 2024: Methuen, Massachusetts

3. Sunday, June 16: 2024: Pine Bluff, Arkansas

4. Monday, June 17, 2024: Chicago, Illinois

5. Monday, June 17, 2024: Chicago, Illinois

6. Monday, June 17, 2024: Macon, Georgia

7. Tuesday, June 18, 2024: Richmond, California

8. Wednesday, June 19, 2024: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

9. Wednesday, June 19, 2024: Oakland, California

10. Friday, June 21, 2024: Fordyce, Arkansas

11. Friday, June 21, 2024: Washington, DC

12. Friday, June 21, 2024: Meridian, Mississippi

13. Saturday, June 22, 2024: Louisville, Kentucky

14. Saturday, June 22, 2024: Canton, Mississippi

• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who prosecuted Donald Trump in his recent criminal trial, asked a judge this week to extend a gag order against the ex-president after an onslaught of threats and harassment against Bragg and other officials since the guilty verdict.

• After ethical records of prominent men at the Washington Post came under withering scrutiny in recent days, Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis’s pick for lead editor, Robert Winnett, withdrew his name for consideration for the job, as Lewis seeks to salvage his own tenure at the newspaper.

  

• A day after his criminal conviction, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign received a single donation of $50 million from conservative billionaire Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Mellon banking family from Pittsburgh. This donation is believed to be one of the largest donations to a campaign in American history.

• The governor Maryland made a mass pardon on Monday morning of 175,000 low-level marijuana convictions, and says the timing is meant to coincide with this week’s Juneteenth holiday, which marks the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

• More than 70 million people in the US were under extreme heat alerts on Monday as a heat wave moved eastward, and New England and the mid-Atlantic saw highs in the 90s as the week progressed, with excessive humidity making it feel even hotter.

• On Monday, it was confirmed that Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the Israeli war cabinet that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza, moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

• A fleet of Russian warships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, left Havana’s port on Monday after a five-day visit to Cuba following planned military drills in the Atlantic Ocean.

• The IRS announced on Monday new plans to end a major tax loophole for wealthy taxpayers that could raise more than $50 billion in revenue over the next decade, the US Treasury Department says.

• The House Ethics Committee publicly confirmed on Tuesday morning that they are launching a new investigation into Republican Matt Gaetz that revolves around allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. You can read more about this here:

• The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that there would be new executive action to protect undocumented spouses of American citizens — a move that would shield about 500,000 immigrants from deportation.

• After determining there was "no substantial constitutional question directly involved" with the case on Wednesday, Donald Trump's appeal for his gag order was dismissed in a brief statement by the New York Court of Appeals.

• Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday.

• Federal filings released on Thursday showed that Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republic National Committee (RNC) raised a massive $141 million in May, following Trump’s criminal conviction. The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised $85 million for the same timeline, with $212 million available in the campaign’s bank account at the end of the month.

• On Thursday night, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected Steve Bannon’s emergency bid to stay out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. Bannon has now appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, which will likely decline to hear the case. The Trump ally is due to report to prison on July 1 to serve his four-month sentence.

• US District Judge Aileen Cannon conducted a hearing on Friday on former President Donald Trump's Motion to Dismiss the classified documents indictment against him, on the argument that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional.

  

• The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns, handing an overwhelming victory to President Joe Biden's administration. The justices opted not to further widen firearms rights after a major expansion in 2022.

• Former President Donald Trump gave the keynote speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "2024 Road to Majority" conference in Washington on Saturday, speaking to an evangelical group whose advocacy for a national abortion ban conflicts with Trump's policy statements on the issue. Earlier this year, Trump declined to endorse a national abortion ban, saying the issue should be left to the states to decide, even though he has advocated for a ban in the past.

  

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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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