First Thing: Bipartisan bill clears way for bolstering US gun laws

Good morning.

The US Senate has passed a bipartisan gun violence bill by 65 votes to 33 after the mass shootings in Texas and New York, in a development that would have been inconceivable just a month ago.

The bill, which was backed by 15 Republicans including the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, follows years of the GOP thwarting attempts at gun reform. It aims to make it harder for dangerous people to obtain guns, though it falls short of Democrats’ calls to ban the most dangerous weapons.

But tempering this measure of progress, the bill came as the right-leaning supreme court issued a ruling expanding the right of Americans to carry arms in public. The justices invalidated a New York law that has required individuals to prove a need for carrying a weapon before they get a licene to do so.

The Senate’s legislation – which, significantly, comes in an election year – does not include bans on the assault-type weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines used in the recent massacres. While Democrats have long sought to outlaw these weapons, the legislation is a compromise, allowing each side to appeal to its core base.

“This is not a cure-all for all the ways gun violence affects our nation,” said the majority leader, Chuck Schumer. “But it is a long overdue step in the right direction.”

What would the $13bn package do?

• Toughen background checks for the youngest gun buyers.

• Prevent more domestic violence offenders from accessing firearms.

• Help states put in place red-flag laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people deemed dangerous.

• Fund local programs for school safety, mental health and violence prevention.

Barr feared Trump might not have left office if DoJ had not debunked fraud claims

Donald Trump may not have left office had the Department of Justice not immediately investigated and disproved his lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden, the ex-president’s attorney general William Barr has said.

The shocking statement, played by the January 6 committee on Thursday, came as part of a hearing that focused on Trump’s efforts to put pressure on senior justice officials to facilitate his attempt to overturn the election result. “I am not sure we would’ve had a transition at all,” said Barr, who resigned in December 2021 after publicly rejecting Trump’s false claims about fraud.

The House select committee also revealed that the Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks sought presidential pardons for other members of Congress involved in aiding the attempted coup.

• Who did they seek pardons for? For “every congressman and senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania” – a total of 147 Republicans.

Ukrainian forces will have to leave Sievierodonetsk, says governor

Ukraine will have to pull out its troops from the mostly Russian-occupied city of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor has said, after a month of brutal fighting in the battleground eastern city.

“Remaining in positions smashed to pieces over many months just for the sake of staying there does not make sense,” Serhiy Haidai said on television. He did not say where the soldiers would go.

If Sievierodonetsk falls to Russia, Lysychansk will be the only city in the Luhansk region left in Ukrainian control. Underlining Sievierodonetsk’s strategic significance, Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently said: “In many respects the fate of the Donbas is being decided there.”

• It comes as Ukrainian troops repelled an attack on the southern outskirts of Lysychansk, according to the region’s governor.

In other news …

• Dozens inmates died of malnutrition in Haiti’s overcrowded prisons between January and April, according to a UN report. A further eight were reported this week to have starved to death at a prison that ran out of food two months ago.

• The UK’s Conservative party has suffered two bruising byelection defeats, with one seat going to Labour and another to the Liberal Democrats. The results – a blow to Boris Johnson’s authority – led a party co-chair to resign.

• Scores of protesters have gathered outside the offices of Brazil’s Indigenous protection agency Funai in Atalaia do Norte demanding justice for the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira. There are fears that the investigation is slowing.

• Netflix has cut 300 jobs in a second round of layoffs after losing subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. The job losses are on top of 150 jobs cut last month.

Stat of the day: 135 out of 148 nations in the global south are classed as ‘critically indebted’

External debt in countries in the global south has been rising in the last three decades: between 1990 and 2019 it rose on average from roughly 90% of their GDP to 170%. The pandemic has exacerbated this trend: 135 out of 148 poorer nations are now categorized as “critically indebted”.

Don’t miss this: Herbie Hancock: ‘Miles Davis told me: I don’t pay you to get applause’

At 82, the jazz legend Herbie Hancock will be one of the oldest musicians to perform on Glastonbury festival’s Pyramid stage. Hancock tells the Guardian about musical experimentation, the future of jazz, and working with Miles Davis, who, encouraging his band to improvise on stage, once told him: “I don’t pay you to just play to get applause.”

Climate check: excessive heat adds to Arizona opioid epidemic’s toll

Opioid deaths in Arizona were up 80% last year compared with 2018, and soaring temperatures are making conditions even more dangerous. Nearly two-thirds of Arizona’s drug fatalities take place in Maricopa county, where extreme heat is playing a big role, with the homeless population particularly at risk.

Last Thing: Doop Snogg – how a fake Snoop Dogg fooled an NFT conference

He was walking around with a name-tag reading “Doop Snogg”, a detail that the crypto fans who rushed up to the impersonator for a selfie failed to notice. In a surreal, extremely 2022 story, a crypto startup hired a doppelganger of the rapper to grab attention at an NFT conference in New York (and ultimately succeeded).

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