Nightly News 5.31.2022
By Dan Donahue, NBC Nightly News
Good Tuesday afternoon. The first funerals are being held today in Uvalde for victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting, we’re tracking the threat from Hurricane Agatha’s remnants, and gas prices have hit a new record as the EU moves to ban most Russian oil.
Here is what’s in our Nightly Rundown.
First funerals for Uvalde school shooting victims
The first funerals for victims of the Uvalde elementary school shooting are set to take place today, as questions grow over the police response to the massacre one week ago that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Services are scheduled for Amerie Jo Garza and Maite Rodríguez, both 10 years old, after visitations were held on Monday, Memorial Day.
This week, funerals are planned for nine of the other children and for teacher Irma Garcia.
As grief and outrage mount in the small Texas town, the Justice Department has announced it will conduct a review of the much-criticized police response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
It took authorities 78 minutes to confront and kill the shooter, according to the timeline released by the Texas DPS, as children called 911 from inside the school pleading for help, and distraught parents urged police outside to storm the building.
The incident commander, Uvalde School Police Chief Peter Arredondo, has come under heavy scrutiny after the DPS said he ordered officers not to breach the classroom where the gunman was holed up.
Arredondo was set to be sworn-in to a city council seat he won earlier this month, but the ceremony has been postponed to keep the focus on the victims, the mayor said.
Arredondo has not responded to NBC News requests for comment.
In an NBC News Exclusive, an off-duty Border Protection agent who rushed to the scene in the hopes of saving his wife and daughter is speaking out for the first time. [Link: https://nbcnews.to/38Amwgd]
Hurricane Agatha strikes Mexico, could reform in Atlantic
The remnants of Hurricane Agatha, the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in May during the eastern Pacific hurricane season, could reform as the first named storm of the Atlantic season later this week, forecasts show.
Agatha made landfall in Mexico on Monday as a strong Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.
The storm has dissipated in southern Mexico, but forecasts suggest the remnants will emerge over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and southeastern Gulf of Mexico later this week, and could form a new tropical depression. If that happens, the system will be given a new name, Alex.
We’re also tracking severe thunderstorms on the move, on the heels of a tornado that destroyed as many as 100 homes in Minnesota on Memorial Day.
22 million people today are at risk for severe thunderstorms as well as damaging wind gusts, large hail and tornadoes, stretching from Texas to the Great Lakes.
Gas prices hit new record high as EU partially bans Russian oil
The national average for a gallon of regular gas has hit a new record of $4.62, after the European Union announced on Monday it would ban most Russian oil imports by the end of the year in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
The move will immediately impact 75 percent of Russian oil imported to Europe, rising to 90 percent by year’s end, European Council President Charles Michel said in a tweet.
Russia has vowed to “find other importers” in response to the ban.
Inside Ukraine today, Russian forces have taken half of Sievierodonetsk, a key city in the eastern Donbas region, local officials said.
Sievierodonetsk is the last major city in the Luhansk province that remains under Ukrainian control, as Russia focuses its attack on the eastern part of the country.
Biden meets with Fed chair as economic worries grow
President Joe Biden welcomed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to the White House today as the administration launches a monthlong campaign focused on the economy and combating inflation.
"My plan to address inflation starts with the simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed's independence, which I have done and will continue to do,” Biden told reporters during the meeting with Powell.
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Biden acknowledge the anxiety many Americans are feeling, but maintained that “the U.S. is in a better economic position than almost any other country.”
Today’s White House meeting comes as the president faces mounting crises and sinking approval ratings.
Earlier this month, the Fed announced its largest rate increase since 2000, as it seeks to rein in near-record inflation.
What else we’re watching:
Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign lawyer, was found not guilty of lying to the FBI, in a blow to special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the Trump-Russia probe.
A shooting on the Xavier University campus in New Orleans during a high school graduation ceremony left one person dead, and two others injured, police said.
Shanghai, China’s largest city with a population of 25 million people, is ending its strict Covid lockdown after two months.
Authorities in Colorado say they are searching for an escaped juvenile who fled after stabbing a guard at a dental office near Denver.
The CDC has now confirmed 15 cases of monkeypox in eight states, according to the latest update.
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