The Shooting Gallery: Six people were killed and at least two dozen wounded yesterday morning when a gunman opened fire from a rooftop on a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

  Members of the crowd said they thought when they heard a “popping” sound that it was fireworks.

  Police after a search detained a 22-year-old man they described as a “person of interest.” They had earlier found a rifle and investigators say they were looking to find out where the gun came from and who bought it.

  The suspect has been identified as Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who performs as “Awake the Rapper.” He was taken into custody by FBI agents at his family’s home in Highwood, about a mile from the shooting in Highland Park. Over a period of time he had posted online hand-drawn cartoonish images of people shot dead. 

   The rest of the day’s Fourth of July celebrations in town were cancelled. Mayor Nancy Rotering of Highland Park said, “On a day that we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we’re instead mourning the loss, the tragic loss, of life, and struggling with the terror that was brought upon us.”

The War Zone: Russia’s control of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine gives the invaders some time to rest and rebuild their forces, opening the question, “what’s next?” For now the Russians are too played out to invade deeper into Ukraine, and Ukraine doesn’t have the strength to kick them out.

  Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, told a group of international leaders assembled in Lugano, Switzerland, that the cost of rebuilding Ukraine is an estimated $750 billion.

  President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the conference that the task of rebuilding the country would be “colossal.” He said, “This is Russia’s attack on everything that is of value to you and me. Therefore, the reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local project, not a project of one nation, but a joint task of the entire democratic world.”

It’s Political: In a sign that he’s considering a run for president, California Gov. Gavin  Newsom ran a television commercial in Florida over the holiday weekend urging smart Floridians to move to California “where we still believe in freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love.”

  Without naming him, Newsom’s ad was a direct attack on Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, an anti-abortion and immigration, pro-Trump politician who’s a likely candidate for president himself.

  “Freedom,” Newsom goes on in his ad, “It’s under attack in your state. Your Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors.”

  Newsom is a vetted politician. He served two terms as Mayor of San Francisco, two terms at Lieutenant Governor, and he’s in his third year as governor. The one strike on his record is that he was once married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, who’s now the rabid right wing girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.

The Spin Rack: Britney Griner, the WNBA star held in Russia on charges that she smuggled a small amount of cannabis, wrote a letter to President Biden asking for help, saying, “I’m terrified I might be here forever.” — Searchers using drones and helicopters are still looking for at least 13 hikers missing following a glacier collapse in northern Italy that killed at least seven climbers. — Weeding out dissenters to the war in Ukraine, Russian authorities have been arresting academics, politicians, and even a hockey star, The NY Times reports. “Every day feels like it could be the last,” Leonid Gozman, 71, a commentator who continues to speak out against Putin and the war, told the Times. — Utah’s Republican Sen. Mitt Romney writes in The Atlantic that, “President Joe Biden is a genuinely good man, but he has yet been unable to break through our national malady of denial, deceit, and distrust. A return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable.” 

Tradition Bound: Professional eater Joey Chestnut yesterday won his 15th title in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest in Coney Island. He ate 63 hot dogs to clinch the Mustard Belt for the 7^th year in a row. 

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