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Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.


1. Questions continue to mount about why the gunman at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., was allowed to buy guns despite alarming police encounters.


The police said Robert Crimo III, 21, legally purchased a gun after the authorities had received two troubling reports about him. Months later, Crimo was approved for a permit and soon bought several weapons, including at least two rifles. The sequence of events called into question the application and potency of Illinois’s firearm laws, which are among the country’s strictest and which include a “red flag” provision that allows law enforcement to seize weapons from people deemed dangerous.


Investigators believe Crimo fled to Madison, Wis., after the attack on Monday and considered carrying out another shooting there, but returned to Illinois, where he was arrested.
Crimo, who is charged in the killing of seven people at the parade, was ordered held in jail without bond. Among the victims were the parents of a 2-year-old.


2. Donald Trump’s White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, has agreed to be interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee.


Cipollone pushed back on the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and was in the West Wing to witness his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. The upcoming interview is a breakthrough for the panel, which pressed Cipollone to cooperate for weeks. He is not expected to testify publicly.
Numerous federal agencies agree that widely promoted falsehoods can threaten national security. But addressing them has become a deeply partisan issue, and nearly impossible. A disinformation board at the Department of Homeland Security was dismantled within weeks of its formation.


Johnson has vowed to fight on, trying to deflect the focus to new tax cuts. But in back rooms across Westminster, lawmakers have held meetings about ways to force him out, possibly within days. Here’s what happens if he resigns.


4. The Russian invasion has forced more than 10 million Ukrainians — roughly a third of the population — from their homes.
That number includes more than six million people who have been displaced within the country — mostly women and children, many of whom face shortages of basic necessities. Now, Ukraine faces the herculean challenge of helping them while trying to fend off a formidable aggressor.
Separately, President Biden told Cherelle Griner, the wife of the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner, that he would pursue “every avenue” to bring the basketball player home from Russia, where she has been detained since February. The conversation came as Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Griner could appeal her sentence or ask for clemency once the court delivered its verdict.


5. State supreme courts are the next front line in the fight over access to abortion.
Court challenges to sweeping rollbacks of abortion rights must go through state supreme courts, many of which have been shaped by years of conservative activism. The increasing political pressure on justices suggests that options may be limited for abortion rights advocates hoping to soften the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In other political news, the Trump age has given rise to a new brand of Texas Republicans, one of whom is already walking the halls of Congress: the far-right Latina.


6. A jury found Eric R. Holder Jr. guilty of first-degree murder in the 2019 killing of the Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle.


During the murder trial, witnesses described a killing that reverberated far beyond the world of West Coast hip-hop and prompted a nationwide outpouring of grief. Hussle, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, was shot and killed at the age of 33 outside a clothing store he owned in South Los Angeles. Prosecutors described Holder as an embittered acquaintance who had belonged to the same street gang as Hussle.

Hussle was a workmanlike rapper with underground credentials and an A-list network of supporters. His music career seemed to be reaching new heights when he was killed. Hussle won two posthumous Grammy Awards in 2020.


7. An art collector paid $90,000 for a Marc Chagall painting. But an expert panel in France called it a fake and wants to destroy it.
Stephanie Clegg bought the painting at a Sotheby’s auction in 1994, just nine years after the artist’s death. It was later appraised for $100,000. Two years ago, when she was looking to sell works from her collection, Sotheby’s suggested auctioning her Chagall. First, she had to send the work to France for authentication by a panel of Chagall experts — which Sotheby’s described as a formality, she said.


But the expert panel in Paris declared her Chagall to be fake and held on to it, and now wants to destroy it. Sotheby’s has offered Clegg an $18,500 credit toward its fee on any future sales of artworks she owns, but Clegg says the figure is inadequate. She has asked Sotheby’s for $175,000 instead, a request the auction house says has no legal basis.


8. Nick Kyrgios has taken over Wimbledon with his antics and psychological warfare. It’s working.
Kyrgios, the outspoken and powerful Australian tennis player, advanced to the semifinals on Wednesday after defeating Christian Garin in straight sets. His trick shots and temper have forced opponents to take on not just Kyrgios, but the thousands of spectators looking for another episode of the most unpredictable show in tennis. But back in Australia, Kyrgios has been charged with one count of common assault related to an incident with an ex-girlfriend.
On Friday, Kyrgios will play Rafael Nadal, who defeated Taylor Fritz in a thriller of a quarterfinal. Nadal won in a tiebreaker after a five-set, four-hour match.
Also at Wimbledon: Simona Halep and Elena Rybakina advanced to the semifinals. Tomorrow, Tatjana Maria and Ons Jabeur, who are close friends, will compete with each other for a place in the final. They’re hoping it won’t make family barbecues awkward.


10. And finally, a group of unlikely roommates.
When you can’t find an adequate place to live, you might end up sharing a space with others. That’s what happened to a gecko and a family of pygmy possums in Australia. A land conservation manager at the Monjebup Nature Reserve discovered the arrangement when he opened the lid of a small nest box, which replicates the kind of natural hollows many native Australian mammals and birds depend on for shelter.
The arrangement came about because the roommates were compatible (they won’t eat each other) and because there aren’t yet any tree hollows in the former farmland. “Animals that wouldn’t normally cohabit are actually forced together because there is so little habitat,” one ecologist said.


Have an amicable night.
Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.

Source: New York Times

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