First Thing: US to require background checks for gun sales online and at shows

Historic action closes loophole and bolsters Biden administration’s fight against gun violence. Plus: the true price of Indonesia’s booming nickel industry

Good morning.

The US will now require mandatory background checks on the sale of firearms on the internet and at gun shows, the US justice department announced on Thursday, closing a loophole that previously exempted private transactions from restrictions that apply to licensed dealers.

“Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or at a brick-and-mortar store: if you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed, and you must conduct background checks,” the attorney general Merrick Garland told reporters on a press call announcing the measure.

The White House estimated that this measure will affect about 23,000 more individuals, who will be required to be licensed as a dealer after the rule’s implementation.

How often did people take advantage of this loophole? The White House estimates that about 22% of guns owned by Americans were acquired without a background check.

How have conservatives responded to the announcement? Republicans were lukewarm to near-identical proposals by Barack Obama in 2016 and, with a current House majority, have been resistant to calls for meaningful gun control measures since. However, Republican support is not actually necessary for this new rule to go through.

Arizona’s Republicans block attempt to repeal abortion ban

Arizona’s state Republican leadership halted an effort by Democrats on Wednesday to repeal an 1864 law banning almost all abortions – despite some Republican lawmakers having denounced the court’s decision.

The Arizona supreme court ruled on Tuesday that an abortion law that predates Arizona’s statehood – under which there are no exceptions for rape or incest, and abortions are permitted only if the mother’s life is at risk – can go into effect. Though Democrats and one Republican lawmaker sought to repeal the law, GOP leaders, who command the majority, cut it off twice and quickly adjourned for the week.

“Radical legislators protected a civil war-era total abortion ban that jails doctors, strips women of our bodily autonomy and puts our lives at risk,” Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic governor, said.

Amid fears of Iran attack, Biden vows ‘ironclad’ US commitment to Israel

As concerns rose in Washington that a significant Iranian strike could happen within days in retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Joe Biden pledged support for Israel, vowing that the US’s commitment to defend Israel against Iran was “ironclad”.

Following the 7 October attack by Hamas that sparked the continuing conflict in Gaza, the US Senate passed a bill to provide $14.1bn in Israel-related supplemental spending. But the recent Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza has spurred calls on Israel’s allies to halt arms supplies. The US provides an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons, and about $3.8bn annually in military help.

“As I told prime minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” Biden said. “Let me say it again, ironclad. We’re gonna do all we can to protect Israel’s security.”

In other news …

Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he was considering dropping the decade-long push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing a trove of American classified documents.

Transgender children in England have been left in a “far worse position” than they were four years ago, said a psychologist who has set up a private gender service.

One person was killed and multiple people injured, including two children, in a shooting in Washington DC on Wednesday. While details in the shooting remain sparse, no arrests have been made and there are possibly two shooters at large.

Stat of the day: global coal power capacity grew by 2% last year

An increase in new coal plants across China paved the way for about 69.5 gigawatts (GW) of coal plant capacity to come online last year. A slowdown in coal plant shutdowns in the US and Europe led to more than 21GW retiring last year, but Global Energy Monitor said coal plants need to shut at a faster pace, and that China needed to adopt stricter controls on its expansion of capacity. “Otherwise we can forget about meeting our goals in the Paris agreement and reaping the benefits that a swift transition to clean energy will bring,” said Flora Champenois, a Global Energy Monitor analyst.

Don’t miss this: a former inmate’s fight for justice against the prison guard who sexually abused her

Nilda Palacios was sexually abused and harassed for months by the prison guard who ran her yard inside the Central California Women’s Facility, the state’s largest women’s prison. Even after her release, the sergeant – Tony Ormonde – kept calling her, making sexual comments on the phone and sending explicit photos.

Palacios reported the abuse after being released, but a prison investigator dismissed her claims and the prison took no action. It took four years – and recordings of Ormonde’s calls and a state investigation – before prison officials concluded her allegations “sustained”. But by then Ormonde had resigned. He has not faced sexual abuse charges. And in the years since, at least one other woman has come forward to say he had abused her too.

… or this: the true price of Indonesia’s booming nickel industry

Nickel has upended life on the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Halmahera and Obi, as demand soars for nickel to power batteries and electric vehicles. With the global demand for nickel increasing, the region has grown from modest ore exporter to the world’s foremost refiner of the metal; a rural backwater catapulted into modernity. Although Jakarta banks on the industry being its ticket to becoming a developed nation by 2045, there has been a steep price to pay for locals, the environment and laborers.

“Calling the nickel industry a part of the green transition is a joke,” said Muhammad Taufik, a coordinator at Jatam, an organization advocating for a more just mining industry in Indonesia. “It is good that it creates jobs. But it also destroys ecosystems and people’s lives.”

Climate check: Biden’s race to commit billions to climate action

With the US presidential election just months away – in which Biden will face an opponent who has indicated he will gut US climate policies – the president’s administration is shovelling billions of dollars into efforts it hopes will spur enduring cuts to planet-heating emissions, no matter the occupant of the White House.

In recent weeks, the administration has announced funding in everything from the advent of zero-emissions concrete to low-pollution food production to driving the uptake of solar panels and electric stoves in low-income households.

“We are seeing billions of dollars going into really tricky parts of the energy transition and if there’s momentum behind this we will be measuring the impacts many years in the future,” said Melissa Lott, a professor at Columbia University’s climate school. “I would expect these investments to have knock-on impacts well outside the US’s borders.”

Last Thing: from prison to law school

In a historic achievement, Benard McKinley, 39, is the first person from Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program (NPEP) to be accepted into any law school. He left prison in December 2023 after 22 and a half years and is now preparing for his first year of study at the prestigious Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago.

“Just months ago, I was still behind prison bars, and not knowing exactly how the future of going to law school would turn out. So to be home and know I’m going to law school … is an amazing feeling,” McKinley said.

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