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People react after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

REUTERS/Marco Bello

Will Texas school shooting move the needle on US guns debate?

Another mass shooting has rocked America, leaving 21 dead (19 of them children) at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday — the second-worst school massacre in US history after Sandy Hook almost a decade ago. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” President Joe Biden said in a nationwide address. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” For one thing, stricter gun laws are vehemently opposed by most Republicans: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz controversially responded to the tragedy by calling for more armed law enforcement at schools. For another, 2nd Amendment die-hards like the National Rifle Association have deep pockets to fight legislation and fund campaigns (Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and former President Donald Trump are all slated to speak Friday at the NRA's annual conference in Houston). If a bipartisan gun bill failed to pass in 2013 in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, the odds are even longer now because US politics is even more polarized and we're less than six months out from the November midterms.

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A family of refugees steps off a boat or arrives at a border. Should they be allowed to enter? This question provokes passionate responses in countries around the world these days.

But there's a second set of questions: if they are admitted, where will they live? How will they learn a new language? How will their children be educated? Will they have access to the training needed to get jobs to help them support themselves?

In short, how can they be integrated into society?

These questions are at the heart of a new report from the EU, which warns of a potential "lost generation" of migrants, people who enter Europe to build better lives but then find little chance of integrating into society.

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This week, the process of impeaching President Trump entered the critical phase as the House of Representatives held its first public hearings. The battle lines are now drawn.

The Democrats say that there is compelling evidence that Trump withheld badly needed military to aid to an ally at war to pressure that country's government to provide him with personal political benefit by helping him discredit a political rival.

The Republicans say that the evidence comes mainly from witnesses with little or no direct contact with the president, and that the military aid was delivered to Ukraine without the Ukrainian president taking the actions Trump is alleged to have demanded.

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After months of machinations by elected leaders and parliamentary strategists, the decisive vote on the future of Brexit may finally fall to the people of the UK.

How did we finally get here? The British parliament has forced Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask the European Union for a delay in the Brexit deadline from October 31 to January 31. If the EU agrees, a decision that could come later today, Johnson says he'll push for national elections on December 12.

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Want to hear some bad news? No, we don't either. But if you're leading a government, you need accurate information about what's happening inside your country and what people think of you—especiallyif it's not what you want to hear. You also need good advice about how to respond to what you hear.

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On Friday, we detailed the main arguments for and against President Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from a pocket of northern Syria where their presence had protected Washington's Kurdish allies against an attack from Turkey. We then asked Signal readers to let us know what they thought.

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Turkey's ongoing military incursion into Syria began when President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of US forces from land in northern Syria held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The US has long considered the SDF an important ally in the drive to destroy ISIS. Turkey, by contrast, accuses the SDF of support for Kurdish separatists inside Turkey.

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Not so long ago, you were Volodymyr Zelensky, beloved comedian and star of "Servant of the People," one of Ukraine's most popular TV shows. Then you decided you wanted a new project, a big challenge. Why play Ukraine's president when you could be Ukraine's president?

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