Tuesday morning news - July 19, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Uvalde report » A scathing new report on the police response to the Uvalde school shooting has sparked a fresh investigation into the actions of state police.

The Texas Department of Public Safety will review its officers’ response following a new 80-page report by Texas lawmakers and new video footage of the chaotic scene.

AUDIO: Shots fired! Get inside! Go, go, go!

The report by a Texas House committee called the police response “egregiously poor.”

Recordings showed that even as children placed 911 calls from a classroom, officers waited more than an hour to approach the shooter.

The new report states that a faster response might have saved lives. It blames “systemic failures,” rather than individuals. But Uvalde school district police chief Pete Arredondo has faced strong community pressure to resign.

Cruz sentencing / Gendron arraigned » And in Florida, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the gunman who massacred 17 people at a Parkland High School. Broward County Judge Elizabeth Scherer told jurors …

SCHERER: Your role will be to determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed for the crime of murder in the first degree.

Prosecutor Mike Satz faced the jury as he detailed the brutality of gunman Nikolas Cruz’s attack.

SATZ: I’m going to speak to you about the unspeakable, about this defendent’s planned, systematic mass murder.

Some families of the victims looked on stoically. Others could not contain their emotion. One mother fled the courtroom, sobbing and holding tissue to her face.

Cruz, now 23, murdered 17 people in 2018.

The jury will decide whether he will be executed or spend life in prison without parole.

Indiana mall shooting » Meantime in suburban Indianapolis, a gunman killed several people in a shopping mall in what could have been a far worse tragedy.

Police Chief Jim Ison explained …

ISON: The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began.

The suspect did manage to shoot five people, three of them fatally, before he was shot and killed.

Police on Monday said 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman began firing at the Greenwood Park Mall shortly before it closed.

One witness described the terror when the shots rang out.

AUDIO: I just looked at my kids and told them come on, let’s go! And we started running, and in the midst of us running, I fell.

Police said the man who shot the attacker was 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken. They called his quick action “nothing short of heroic.”

Although Dicken was legally armed, the mall prohibits people from carrying guns on its property. The mall issued a statement praising Dicken's actions. It did not mention its no-weapons policy.

Zelenskyy fires top officials amid treason probes » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired two top officials citing hundreds of criminal proceedings into treason and collaboration with Moscow. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Zelenskyy fired his state security chief and prosecutor general. He said “more than 60 people under their charge may have committed treason, working with the Kremlin.

The president said the wide array of alleged crimes raises “very serious questions about their respective leaders.”

Ivan Bakanov led the SBU, that’s the state security service. He is a childhood friend and former business partner of Zelenskyy. Bakanov had come under growing criticism over security breaches since the war began.

Zelenskyy also dismissed Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Russian missiles strike Mykolaiv » Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck industrial facilities in Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding center in southern Ukraine.

Moscow’s forces have unleashed a steady barrage on the city in recent days to soften Ukrainian defenses.

Russia could deal a crushing blow to Ukraine’s economy by cutting off its Black Sea coast all the way to the Romanian border.

It would also give Russian forces a land bridge to a Russian military base in Moldova's separatist region of Transnistria.

Iran claims ability to make nukes » A top official in Iran says the country now has what it needs to build a nuclear weapon. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Kamal Kharrazi, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei made the claim to Al Jazeera.

He said Iran has enriched uranium up to 60 percent and could easily enrich it to 90 percent. That blows well past the less than 4 percent cap world leaders have tried to impose on Tehran.

Khazzari claims that while his country can make a nuclear weapon, it has not yet decided whether it will do so.

Israel has threatened to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to deter it from developing the weapons.

The Biden administration is still working to reforge the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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